Tories 3 points ahead in latest ICM poll
ICM's monthly poll for the Guardian has topline figures of CON 37%, LAB 34%, LDEM 21%. The changes from the last ICM poll are Labour up 2, with the other two parties unchanged. The poll was conducted between the 15th and 17th of February.
The poll continues the pattern we've seen since September last year of Labour doing comparatively better compared to the Conservatives in ICM polls done for the Guardian than in polls done for other clients. As I said when I first commented on this apparent pattern, I can find no obvious explanation for it, but as the months go past the patten seems to be consistent. The shift in voting intention from the last ICM/Guardian poll, which may be the better comparison, is Labour down 1 and the Lib Dems up 1.
The rest of the poll concentrated on attitudes towards taxataion. Forced to chose between tax cuts and reduced services or sustained spending, 51% said they would chose sustained spending with 36% backing tax cuts. What to make of this question depends largely on the wording - it is implied in the Guardian's coverage that people were presented with the choice of existing spending or tax cuts even if it meant cuts in spending for services like the NHS. In practice no party will ever go into an election promising tax cuts at the expense of the NHS: parties promising tax reductions will present them as being funded in more acceptable ways, while judging from past election campaigns their opponents will try to paint any promised cuts as being funding out of whatever public spending is most popular. How popular tax cuts actually are will depend upon which of these various claims the public actually believe.
