We are now back in hung parliament territory; what a difference a crisis makes - the public know leadership when they see it.

YouGov President Peter Kellner, in a new piece on the Fabian website, addresses the Bradley effect and fears that the polls will be proved wrong by voters who say they will vote Obama choosing not to vote for a black candidate on the day, and explains why the opposite could be true.

New YouGov poll for the Sunday Times:

Conservative 43% (-2)
Labour 33% (+2)
LibDems 14% (-1)

A ComRes poll in the Independent gives 39:27:21. We shouldn't read too much into a single poll (the Weighted Moving Average is 44:25:18) but it does suggest that opinion is more volatile than people think, and that the dreadful headlines might not have done as much harm with the electorate as we'd have thought.

A YouGov poll for today's Telegraph gives the following figures:

Conservatives 45% (-3)
Labour 26% (nc)
Lib Dems 16% (nc)

 

 

Labour Outlook

The excellent ukpollingreport.co.uk carries an item on a Harris poll for the FT that looks at attitudes to the US and to the Labour Party.  This suggests that 13% of the electorate have always voted Labour, and of these 21% won't vote Labour at the next election.

What do people make of this?

(the Poll asks essentially the same question as Harris does)

All the press focused on was the Brown v Miliband ratings. But the real story was how we dropped back as soon as the public thought there was going to be a fight within Labour

A YouGov poll in Friday's Telegraph gives the following figures:

Conservatives: 47
Labour: 23
Lib Dems: 18

 

More details on the specifics and other questions asked over at Labour Outlook 

The final three polls of 2007 showed Labour's ratings up by 3/4%:
YouGov L: 35% (+4) C: 40% (-3) LD: 15% (-1)
ComRes L: 30% (+3) C: 41% (+1) LD: 16% (-2)
ICM: L: 34% (+4) C: 39% (-2) LD: 18% (-1)

Whilst holiday season polls can't be relied on, there is no immediate boost in the final poll for the Lib Dems after Clegg's election. If nothing else, it would seem that absent of bad media headlines Labour's ratings are not staying at the sub 30% level and seem to be rising again.

Recent polls have been a disaster for our party

Brown and Cameron are also vulnerable. They have allowed the buffer institutions of democracy to atrophy. Their party members have been pushed below the salt, and blind - or at least Melbournian - loyalty has gone too.

A new ICM poll in the Sunday Telegraph shows support for the Tories at its highest level for 15 years.

Con 43% (+5)
Lab 36% (-2)
Lib Dem 14% (-2) 

'Gordon Brown hit by Tory poll surge':
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/13/npoll413.xml

John Curtice analysis: 'Poll signals a Liberal Democrats collapse'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/13/npoll513.xml

A new Ipsos MORI poll in this morning's Sun shows the Tories 3 points ahead of Labour.  To be honest I was expecting it to be a lot worse.  Thou I guess we will have to wait for more polls to see the full effects of the shambles of this last week.

Any Labour PM trying to decide when to call an election should treat the published polls with extreme caution.

Three post Tory conference polls tonight:

YouGov C 36% L 40% LD 13
Populus C 36% L 39% LD 15
ICM       C 38% L 38% LD 16

Undoubtedly boosted by policy announcements and a generally well-received speech, the Tories have not overtaken Labour, and the Lib Dems are squeezed even more. Should return to a six or seven point lead for Labour in a few days, and we have yet to see what polling on the leaders shows. Crucially Labour's private polling in the marginals will probably decide whether Gordon calls and election next week or not.

The Electoral Calculus website has just been updated with the September opinion polls, giving an immediate general election prediction of a 118 Labour majority. It is based on published national opinion polls, and the occasional Scottish poll, so is nothing like as accurate as private predictions based on swing constituency polls, but it's all we public can get to see. The website also has a nifty summary of recent opinion polls:

 

Tomorrow's Observer puts Labour on 41% (-1) the Conservatives on 34% (no change) and the Lib Dems on 16% (+2), others 9%.

Tonight's YouGov / Channel 4 poll conducted after Brown's conference speech puts Labour on 44% (up 5%), Tories on 33% (unchanged) and LibDems on a lowly 13% (down 3%).

Labour's lead has risen to 11 points after Gordon Brown's first conference speech as leader, according to Channel 4 News poll. The YouGov opinion poll, which began after Gordon Brown finished his keynote address yesterday, puts Labour on 44 points, eleven points ahead of the Conservatives on 33. The Lib Dems' support is squeezed further, to 13 points.