Poll bounce for Labour as Tories' lead drops

[fedsron2us]

The Conservative lead over Labour has narrowed to 11 points from 14 points a month ago, according to the latest Sunday Times/YouGov poll of more than 2,000 people.

The Tory lead is the narrowest in these polls since April, suggesting Labour had the better of the party conference season. Labour is up by three points to 30%, the Tories are unchanged on 41%, the Liberal Democrats are unchanged on 17%, while other parties are down three on 12%.

Labour will take encouragement from the view that the party could be benefiting from the economy’s improvement. The Tory lead on who will be better at managing the economy has fallen from 10 to seven points, which could reflect the austerity message of George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, at the party conference.

People are more optimistic about the state of the economy and unemployment and significantly more upbeat about house prices. More than a third, 34%, think prices will rise in their area over the next 12 months, against 12% who expect them to fall.

Looks like the 'honest' austerity message given by George Osbourne at the Tory Party Conference was not what the punters wanted to hear.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

1. The prospect of a Tory government might see some disillusioned Labour voters return

in dribs and drabs. Not that I think it would push Brown for another term, but a narrower result would be good for accountability.

[non sociopath skin]

2. I think that the 2010 election campaign will be the most interesting for some time

Sadly, whatever government emerges is likely to be an anti-climax.

The Skin

[fedsron2us]

3. The raw poll figures give the Tories a 46 seat majority according to the Independent

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/camerons-conference-speech-left-voters-completely-unmoved-1804878.html

However, poll results rarely translate directly into seats once regional factors are taken into account. The Tories may still struggle to win sufficient marginals in Wales, Scotland the North and in the large cities to get an outright majority so we may end up with a hung Parliament. This means that Alex Salmond's vision of the SNP holding the balance of power might not be quite the pipe dream I initially imagined. Interesting to note that during the economic troubles of the 1970s governments also struggled to win big majorities during elections so this situation is not without precedent.

On edit - Worth pointing out that the Labour Party actually polls better than its leader which suggests that Brown is an electoral liability for them.

[T_i_B]

4. Hmm, I'm expecting a very uninteresting election myself

Both main parties are likely to target database selected "target" voters heavily and make little effort with anyone else, the main parties look set to all have similar platforms and of course there are the tedious soundbites from the whole lot of them.

IMHO, the whole thing looks set to be a real turn off.

[LeftishBrit]

5. It's still 11 points too many; but at present, even preventing the Tories from getting a huge

majority would look like an achievement.

Still hoping that the Tories will lose against all odds. Our RW media don't help, of course.