Tories back to 10 points ahead

Through December there were some somewhat contradictory polls - we saw YouGov putting the Conservatives way up at 45%, then an ICM poll showing Labour recovering. That was followed by a YouGov poll that also showed Labour recovering...but that was taken in the few days before Christmas when it's had to believe a reliable sample could have been drawn.

It looked like Labour might have been recovering. Populus's poll this month didn't show the same sort of recovery in Labour's support, but it did show the Tory lead falling thanks to them loosing support to the Liberal Democrats. Now two new weekend polls, one from Ipsos MORI for the Sun and one by YouGov for the Sunday Times suggest the Conservative lead is back up into double figures.

MORI's topline figures, with changes from last month, are CON 42%(nc), LAB 32%(-3), LD 15%(+1). YouGov's figures are CON 43%(+3), LAB 33%(-2), LDEM 14%(-1) - though that is comparing things to the poll done at Christmastime, comparing it to the previous YouGov poll the Conservatives are unchanged, Labour up 2, the Lib Dems down 2.

We can't tell exactly what happened - it could have been that ICM's poll and the Christmas YouGov polls were just blips or artefacts of the seasonal timing, and that actually the picture is pretty stable with the Tory party stable at around 40%, Labour recovering ever so slightly but still in the low thirties, Alternatively it could be that Labour had been recovering, but

have been put back in their box thanks to the Hain funding row which has been ticking over during the week - both MORI and YouGov's fieldwork was done mid-week. It's now pretty irrelevant, whether there was a recovery or not, these two polls suggest Labour are back down in the low thirties.

On the Lib Dem front, there's a contrast here between the Populus poll which showed them three points up and the MORI and YouGov polls which show no Clegg boost.

UPDATE: There is also a new ICM poll in the Sunday Telegraph. The topline figures with changes from the December ICM poll are CON 40%(+1), LAB 33%(-1), LDEM 18% (nc), so again the Tories up around 40%, Labour down in the low thirties but recovering slightly (remember the changes here are comparing the poll to the ICM figures that showed a big increase last month - 33% is still an improvement on Labour's November's figures) and no obvious boost for the Liberal Democrats.

UPDATE 2: Some more interesting stuff in the polls - the full tables of the YouGov poll are up here, I'll have a proper look tomorrow.