New MORI and YouGov polls

Two new polls tonight, showing contrasting pictures. I already mentioned Ipsos MORI's monthly political monitor in passing earlier on, but for the record their topline figures are CON 36%(+1), LAB 37%(-4), LDEM 11%(-1), Others 16%(+4). Like ICM's poll earlier in the week they have Labour's lead dropping, though unlike ICM (which had a boost for the Tories at the expense of others), MORI have the smaller parties increasing at the expense of Labour.

Meanwhile YouGov's daily poll for the Sun has topline figures of CON 35%, LAB 43%, LD 9%. An eight point lead for Labour is the highest YouGov have shown since the start of December, before David Cameron's veto, so there is certainly no sign of a narrowing of the Labour lead there. If anything it's the opposite, though I will add my normal caveat about not getting too excited about individual polls. Sure, it might be the start of bigger Labour leads, or we might be back to smaller Labour leads tomorrow. Watch the underlying trends, rather than getting excited about individual polls.

Nevertheless, it's interesting that we've seen ICM and MORI both showing Labour falling relative to the Conservatives (albeit, the actual shifts in the two polls were different) while the YouGov daily polls are still showing solid Labour leads. While pollsters may have different house effects, they are all polling the same population at the end of the day so normally show the same trends.

It is possible for them to diverge (for example, YouGov don't weight by likelihood to vote, so wouldn't pick up a trend that was solely turnout based) it would be unusual though. I'd still expect them to settle down into a clear trend over the next few weeks.

Tomorrow is budget day - for those who missed it earlier on, my pre-budget summary of YouGov's recent budget polling is here.