Tory lead down to 1 point, but still 8 points under Brown
Populus's monthly poll for the Times is out. The topline figures with changes from Populus's last poll, which was conducted in early September prior to the conference season, are CON 36% (nc), LAB 35% (+3), LDEM 18% (-2).
Populus's poll is arguably our first real chance to see what effect the conference season has had on the popularity of the parties - ICM's poll at the weekend was conducted immediately after David Cameron's conference address, while his speech was still being played on the TV news, so would probably have given the Conservatives an artifical boost.
Looking at Populus's poll alone it certainly appears as if Labour are the party who have benefited from the party conferences, and at the expense of the Liberal Democrats. Of course, this is just one poll and it was conducted only a few days after the end of the conferences. We'll have to see the same sort of increase in Labour's support in a few more polls before concluding that they really have managed to improve their image.
Populus's poll does imply that any Labour boost is largely due to the presence of Tony Blair, because hypothetical voting intentions with Gordon Brown as leader do not show a similar narrowing of the gap. Asked how they would vote if the party leaders were Brown, Cameron and Campbell the figures, (with changes from Populus's last poll) were CON 42% (nc), LAB 34% (+1), LDEM 15% (-1).
More positive news for Gordon Brown is that his rivals for the Labour leadership would do the same or even worse. With Alan Johnson as leader there would again be an 8 point Conservative lead (CON 41%, LAB 33%, LDEM 16%) and with John Reid as leader the Conservative lead would grow to 10 points (CON 40%, LAB 30%, LDEM 19%). I should add, as ever, that all these questions are purely hypothetical, we don't know how people would react to Brown, Reid or Johnson if they really were Prime Minister, though they do suggest that none of them would be Labour's magic bullet.
Asked about perceptions of the party leaders and the Labour leadership rivals we see the normal pattern with Cameron and Brown. Brown is seen as strong by more people, fewer people see Brown as "all spin and no substance" and more people see him as someone who will stick to their beliefs. In no case is there a huge lead though.
In contrast Cameron has large leads in being seen as likeable and charismatic, and smaller leads in having what it takes to be Prime Minister, honesty and caring about the problems of ordinary people. Notably (and somewhat surprisingly) he also leads Brown on the issue of the NHS. 50% of respondents agreed that Cameron "believes in the principle of the NHS and wants to improve it for everybody", compared to 45% for Brown.
Looking at Brown's potential rivals, as one might expect John Reid scored highest on being seen as "strong", but at 40% fewer people saw him as strong than did Brown (or Cameron!) and while marginally more people saw him as likeable than did Brown, fewer people thought he had what it took to be PM, was unusually honest, would stick to his beliefs or cared about people. Johnson's figures were low throughout, presumably because people knew very little about him.
