The effect of the expenses row
Polls from YouGov, BPIX and ComRes have all shown the same sort of impact for the expenses row, so let's step back and look at the bigger picture.
In Westminster polls both the main parties seem to have suffered, this means that the Conservative lead has been broadly unchanged, but Labour have been pushed to unprecedented lows and are close to falling to third place. The beneficiaries have been the others, most notably UKIP. This isn't necessarily solely a result of the expenses row - in the run up and for a couple of months after the last European elections we saw a similar boost in support for "other" parties. They got the publicity of the European elections, and people who were voting for minor parties in the European elections were more likely to give them their support in Westminster voting intention polls too. However, as the publicity of the European elections faded away, so did their support in the polls.
Will the same happen this time? I would expect so, at least to some extent. The publicity of the expenses row will fade to some extent, the publicity the smaller parties receive around the European elections certainly will. Unless geographically concentrated, it is practically impossible for a fourth party to break through. The more interesting possibility is the effect of Labour falling behind the Lib Dems if that happens. If the polls were to start consistently showing Labour in third place the consquences upon an already fractious Labour party, and a volatile public, are both hard to predict.
For the European election meanwhile, there seems to have been a huge shift in support towards UKIP, who people appear to have picked out as the best vehicle for a protest vote over the expenses scandal. In this instance it is the Conservatives who are really losing out - until the scandal broke it looked as though they would be the easy victors of the European elections. Now UKIP have re-emerged, people seem to be chosing to vote UKIP rather than Conservative to register their disgust (and that's without mentioning that UKIP tend to appeal more to Conservative voters in the first place).
It's quite likely that UKIP will gain even more support than they already have, since news coverage of them increasing in the polls and them being people's vehicle of choice for a protest against expenses may encourage more people to support them.
