Sunday Polls
There are four new polls in the Sunday papers, two national polls, one of marginal seats and one London poll which has a separate thread here.
The first is a a MORI poll due in the Observer which leaked out on Friday, shows a 9 point Tory lead, and has already been covered here. The second is a new ICM poll in the Sunday Telegraph which has topline figures, with changes from the last ICM poll, of CON 39%(nc), LAB 29%(-5), LDEM 20%(+1).
This poll suggests that the last ICM poll which showed a sudden narrowing of the Tory lead to only 5 points was indeed a rogue poll - either that or Labour staged a recovery no one spotted, but then immediately collapsed by 5 points: possible, but it seems to be more likely that the last ICM poll was just one of those outlying polls that all pollsters cannot help but produce from time to time.
A third poll for the News of the World is again by ICM, but this time concentrating on marginal seats. The poll was conducted in the 145 seats where the Tories came closest to beating Labour in 2005 (implying they are using the old boundaries, though in most cases these do tend to be the same seats - though on the other hand the list of Labour marginals that would fall on the News of the World website appears to be drawn from my list here) and show a swing to the Conservatives of 9 percent in these marginal seats. The ICM poll in the Sunday Telegraph, which one assumes was done at roughly the same time, shows a swing of about 6 1/2 percent, so the Conservatives are doing significantly better in CON/LAB marginal seats. The News of the World article suggests the Tory advance is similar in northern marginals as in southern ones.
