The final full week of this parliamentary term kicked off with the now familiar lineup. Populus/FT showed another three-point Labour lead:
Populus/FT: CON 33 (+1) LAB 36 (+1) LIB 8 (=) UKIP 14 (=) GRN 5 (=) Fieldwork 24th-26th N=2,072 Tabs http://t.co/IuqXSE6X5K #GE2015 #bbcdp
— NumbrCrunchrPolitics (@NCPoliticsUK) April 27, 2015
ICM has now shown five consecutive Conservative leads, longest Tory streak from a single pollster since December 2010. Their latest poll for the Guardian showed a three-point advantage:
ICM/Guardian: CON 35 (+1) LAB 32 (=) LIB 9 (-1) UKIP 13 (+2) GRN 5 (=) Dates 24th-26th N=1,004 Writeup http://t.co/10WPxeBjMn #GE2015
— NumbrCrunchrPolitics (@NCPoliticsUK) April 27, 2015
Lord Ashcroft showed an even bigger Conservative lead of 6 points, his biggest since 11th January:
Ashcroft National: CON 36 (+2) LAB 30 (=) LIB 9 (-1) UKIP 11 (-2) GRN 7 (+3) Fieldwork 24th-26th N=1k Tabs http://t.co/wMii9hdAQZ #GE2015
— NumbrCrunchrPolitics (@NCPoliticsUK) April 27, 2015
#Ashcroft Scots (Glasgow, Paisley, Edinburgh) focus groups' thoughts on who would play each leader in a movie #GE2015 pic.twitter.com/W880AxW52f
— NumbrCrunchrPolitics (@NCPoliticsUK) April 27, 2015
He also published some polling of UKIP target seats, which backs up last week's ComRes/ITV battleground poll – UKIP is trailing in all four of them, and in three cases, down at least 7 points since Ashcroft's last survey there. In Castle Point their share is unchanged at 36%, but they now trail Tory incumbent Rebecca Harris by five points.
#Ashcroft marginals – #UKIP seem to be slipping back in some of their targets. Stand by for national poll… pic.twitter.com/NyRjzzq351 #GE2015
— NumbrCrunchrPolitics (@NCPoliticsUK) April 27, 2015
Dreadful set of results for #ukip in latest @LordAshcroft constituency polls. Suggests 3-4 seats may be the ceiling for them this time
— Rob Ford (Britain) (@robfordmancs) April 27, 2015
YouGov/Sun showed a one-point Conservative lead, its first for six days. Earlier I'd suggested that the divergence between online and phone polling, if anything, seemed to be increasing. YouGov’s shift may be a sign that online polls are starting to move in the same direction, but it’s far, far too soon to conclude that, particularly as the picture among other online pollsters remains fairly ambiguous. So it seems that either there’s a been widening of the phone-online gap and tonight’s YouGov is just noise, or that there’s been a broader improvement for the Conservatives. We just don’t yet know which.
YouGov/Sun: CON 35 (+2) LAB 34 (=) LIB 9 (+1) UKIP 12 (-2) GRN 5 (=) Fieldwork 26th-27th Daily roundup to follow #GE2015 #newsnight
— NumbrCrunchrPolitics (@NCPoliticsUK) April 27, 2015
We also got two Scottish polls. TNS showed relatively little change, though note the fieldwork window:
TNS (Scotland): SNP 54 (+2) CON 13 (=) LAB 22 (-2) LIB 6 (=) UKIP 2 (+1) GRN 2 (-1) D 1st-19th N=1,003 Tabs http://t.co/Md4HAa0kst #GE2015
— Matt Singh (@MattSingh_) April 27, 2015
Survation’s more up-to-date poll for the Daily Record found the SNP’s advantage increasing further. This is now the fourth poll to show the nationalists on more than half of the Scottish vote:
Survation/Record (Scotland): SNP 51 (+4) CON 14 (-2) LAB 26 (=) LIB 5 (+1) 22nd-26th N=1,015 http://t.co/4GQT3kTvjc #GE2015 #scotnight
— NumbrCrunchrPolitics (@NCPoliticsUK) April 27, 2015
Worth a watch: BBC’s Panorama took a look at the election with FiveThirtyEight‘s Nate Silver and Election Forecast‘s Chris Hanretty.
And finally:
Many candidates have been photographed with animals, but @MaryWimbury in Aberconwy just upped the stakes! pic.twitter.com/Xx2bbdhzqD #GE2015
— NumbrCrunchrPolitics (@NCPoliticsUK) April 27, 2015
Tomorrow we should get GB polls from TNS and YouGov/Sun. I’ve also heard that Ipsos-MORI has been in the field – if it’s a public poll, it’s presumably for Thursday’s Evening Standard, but this close to polling day, everything is subject to change.
