Populus poll of marginal seats
There is a Populus poll of marginal seats in tomorrow's Times, Peter Riddell's commentary is here. The headline figures in the poll is CON 38%, LAB 38% and this has resulted in a flurry of excitement from twitterers, but what it means depends upon which seats were polled.
Populus's poll sampled Labour held Conservative targets from 50-149, so excluding the 50 Labour-v-Conservative seats with the smallest majorities. By Peter Riddell's calculations, these seats had shares of the vote of CON 31.4%, LAB 45.3% in 2005. On that basis this poll represents a swing of about 6.7%, just short of the sort of figures the Conservatives would need for an overall majority.
Of course, we haven't had a national Populus poll for a month so we can't say for certain if this poll suggests a larger lead in the marginals than at a national level. For the record though, the swing this poll suggests in the marginals is the equivalent of a 10 point lead nationally, a larger lead than most polls from other companies have been showing in recent weeks.
