Populus return to the fray with a 14 point Tory lead

Anthony Wells

— 1 min read
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There is a new Populus poll in tomorrow's Times, their first since July having given August a miss. The topline figures, with changes from July, are CON 41%(+3), LAB 27%(+1), LDEM 18%(-2).

The previous Populus poll was the last poll to show the Conservatives under 40%, back at the tail end of a period when the increased level of support for "others" had pushed the Conservatives down into the 30s and Labour into the mid or low 20s. This poll brings Populus pretty much into line with what ICM, YouGov and MORI are showing (in fact, it's only 1 point different from the YouGov poll at the weekend).

UPDATE: On other questions, 84% of people think there will need to be "significant cuts in public spending", and the Conservatives lead on being trusted to cut spending in ways that do not harm "important public services" (44% to 35%).

61% of respondents think Gordon Brown is a liability to his party (though 34% disagree, considerably more people than support Labour!). 65% of people think that another Labour politician would do better than Gordon Brown, with 48% agreeing that "literally anyone would do a better job than him" (which is silly, of course, it just encourages people to misuse the word literally. One hopes the respondents choosing it were taking the question as hyperbole, as opposed to them actually thinking that Big Brother contestants, serial killers, small children, etc would all be more capable than Gordon Brown.)

Only 17% said they could think of another leading Labour politican who could do a better job. In an unprompted follow up question to that question, David Miliband was mentioned most often on 13%, followed by Harriet Harman on 7% and Jack Straw and Alan Johnson on 6%.

UPDATE: Looking more carefully at Peter Riddell's commentary this morning, it looks like people were actually saying "literally anyone" from the ranks of Labour politicans would do a better job, rather than "literally anyone" on the planet. I still don't like it, but thought I'd better correct it!

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