Populus March Poll

Voting intentions in Populus's monthly poll for the Times, published on Tuesday, are CON 38%(+2), LAB 30%(-3), LDEM 18%(-1). This equals the largest Conservative lead recorded by Populus since the election. The poll was conducted between the 2nd and 4th March.

Populus's hypothetical question on how people would vote with Gordon Brown as leader has fallen back in the normal pattern of showing an increased Conservative lead, with the Tory lead growing to 13 points. However, there is worse news for those hoping to encourage David Miliband to challenge Brown for the Labour succession, since Populus found a huge 20 point Conservative lead in a match up between Cameron, Campbell and Miliband.

Of course, with Miliband barely known amongst the public this is a largely meaningless question - and I suspect a fair amount of the supposed swing to the Conservatives is actually a large amount of Labour supporters saying "don't know". Despite this, the poll will certainly not do anything to create an image of David Miliband as an electorally popular alternative to Gordon Brown.

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