October Populus poll
A new Populus poll for the Times has topline voting intentions of CON 38%(+2), LAB 40%(+1), LDEM 12%(-3). The poll was conducted between Friday and Sunday, and the vast majority of the fieldwork was conducted before Gordon Brown announced there would not be an early election, so unfortunately it doesn't shed any light on how people have reacted to the non-election.
Labour are just ahead in this poll, but like YouGov's at the weekend it shows both the main parties up in the high 30s and low 40s, with the Lib Dems way down. We've come to expect lower levels of Liberal Democrat support in YouGov polls, figures this low in one of the phone pollsters are something new.
There is also a shift in the overwhelming advantage Labour had on economic competence in a crisis last month - at the height of the Northern Rock crisis 56% of people said they would trust Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling rather than David Cameron and George Osborne come economic troubles, against only 18% the other way round. The figures have now shifted to 43% preferring Brown/Darling and 28% prefering Cameron/Osborne. Still a big gap, but it's also a big shift. For the really interesting figures though we'll have to wait for some polls conducted after the non-election announcement.
