Populus poll DOESN'T show a 7 point Tory lead - UPDATED
UPDATE: It seems that it is not a co-incidence that these "Populus" figures for the 10th-11th March match the ICM poll conducted at the same time. I've checked with Andrew Cooper and they are one and the same poll. As regular readers will know, Populus sometimes use ICM's call centre for their fieldwork. The income questions for Resolution went on the same poll as the ICM voting intention questions, so the voting intention figures are actually from ICM.
Populus did not carry out a national voting intention poll for the Times this month, instead conducting a survey of marginal seats. However, it turns out they have conducted a voting intention poll for the Resolution Foundation, a think tank working on policies for low earners.
It was conducted between March 10th and 11th, so it is a week old now, but the topline figures with changes from Populus's February poll are CON 38%(-2), LAB 31%(+1), LDEM 21%(+1). This gives the Conservatives a 7 point lead, much in line ICM's polling at the time. As one might expect given their field of interest, Resolution have broken down voting intention by income, with not unsurprising results. Conservative support is highest amongst the better paid, lowest amongst the least well paid. Labour support is the opposite. Overall it meant that the Conservatives had a nine point lead amongst those earning more than £27,144, but Labour had a 6 point lead amongst those earning less than £11,596 (strangly enough the Lib Dems did best amongst those who refused to answer the income question, but I expect this is just random chance, the previous month the Conservatives had done best amongst refusniks).
