YouGov/Sun - 41/41/9

Tonight's YouGov poll for the Sun has topline figures of CON 41%, LAB 41%, LDEM 9%. This follows on from a small Tory lead yesterday.

The pattern is amusingly neat - in November we had violent student protests in Millbank, which were almost immediately followed by Labour taking the lead in YouGov's daily polls. It lasted for three days, then the Conservatives moved ahead again. This month we've had violent student protests in Whitehall, which were almost immediately followed by Labour taking the lead in YouGov's daily polls. It lasted for three days, then the Conservatives moved ahead again.

Of course, in reality all polls have a margin of error and these movements are well within it - the neatness in the way the polling response to the two protests mirror one another is almost certainly co-incidence. What is probably true is that the protests have some short term negative impact on government support (it reminds people of an unpopular policy and gives a generally negative air to the government), but as to what the underlying position is right now, we can only really conclude that the two main parties are pretty much neck and neck.

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