UKIP surge in the wake of expenses expose
There is a new YouGov poll in tomorrow's Sun with Westminster and European voting intentions, both of which are striking in their own way.
The Westminster voting intentions, with changes from YouGov's last poll, are CON 41%(-2), LAB 22%(-5), LDEM 19%(+1). Populus's poll on Monday evening was taken after the Telegraph's expenses expose had begun, but this is the first poll taken when people had really had chance to digest it (and the first to come after Tory expenses exposes really began to run). Once again both main parties have suffered, but Labour have clearly come off worse. This is their lowest rating in any national opinion poll, ever. It is also the lowest gap between Labour and the Liberal Democrats for years. It is worth considering that YouGov normally give the Liberal Democrats their lowest ratings - if this poll had been carried out by ICM we might very well be looking at a poll with Labour in third place.
The maths of the poll suggest that there must also have been a significant increase in support for "other" parties, though from the Sun's report we can't tell who has been the beneificiary of that.
Moving to the European voting intentions, the topline figures with changes from before the expenses expose began are CON 28%(-9), LAB 19%(-3), UKIP 19%(+12!) - the Sun report does not provide the Liberal Democrat or Green figures, but the BNP remain at 4%, unchanged from a week ago. It appears that UKIP - despite their MEPs own problems with fraud and expenses, have been the overwhelming victors from the expenses row.
UPDATE: Uncertainty about the actual European figures. UKIP are no longer mentioned in the Sun article, and while the article itself still says Labour are at 19%, the accompanying graphic shows them at 20%, with UKIP at 15% and the Lib Dems at 19%. I'll go and find out the true figures!
