What the snap polls tell us
Now the dust has settled where are we with the polls? There were three polls last night, two of conducted in the day since David Cameron gave his conference address, one with fieldwork straddling the poll. All three showed a significant jump in Conservative support, up 4 points in Yougov's poll, 5 points in both ICM's and Populus's. Labour fell to various degrees in all the polls, but remained in a strong position in the high 30s. The Labour lead, which given most seats are a Con vs Lab battle is relevant in projecting figures onto an election result, varied between a 4 point Labour lead from YouGov and a dead heat in ICM.
These polls were all done very quickly. YouGov's poll had around 1700 responses rather than the normal 2000, ICM had 1008...eventually. Populus had only 800 people, and 40% of those would have been interviewed before Cameron's speech. These are smaller samples than usual, making them less precise, and there are some drawbacks for very swift polls - normally if people aren't in when phone pollsters ring them up they can keep on ringing them back to avoid non-contact bias. With a turnaround this fast there is limited opportunity for this. Sample size and fieldwork period are by-the-by a bit though - the real question mark is because the polls were so swiftly after the Conservative conference when they were dominating the media coverage.
The Conservatives will have got a conference boost, and this is largely what is reflected in this poll. The question is whether it lasts. It is likely some or all of the boost is just due to publicity, that it will fade away once Cameron is no longer dominating the news agenda. That is far from inevitable though, anything can happen - if a corner has been turned then the direction of travel could continue in the Conservatives' favour, if the boost is policy based it may last. The media narrative this morning seems to be one of Gordon Brown on the back foot, hesitating over an election in the face of a Tory resurgence... a tide that may continue to help the Conservatives.
Looking at the underlying figures in the three polls, there is a significant increase in David Cameron's ratings, and the first signs of a significant fall in Gordon Brown's. 38% of people told Populus David Cameron had what it took to be a good PM (up from 30% last week), YouGov found Cameron's net rating for being in touch or out of touch rose from -41 last week to -21 this week, while Brown's fell from +10 to -2. Cameron's net rating on whether he is doing a good or bad job rose from -27 last week to -3 this week. Asked about Gordon Brown's troop announcement in Iraq 42% of people said they thought it was a cynical pre-election stunt, 33% thought his trip to Iraq was motivated by more legitimate reasons.
These are snap polls and we can't really judge the big picture yet. It's important to note that, while Cameron's ratings have improved, he is still viewed far less positively than Brown. Opinions do seem to be shifting though. There should be at least 3 more polls over the weekend, plus the full results of the Populus poll whose fieldwork is still continuing, which will give us a better idea of what's going on and let us see what voting intentions are when people are asked without Cameron's speech still ringing in their ears.
