Populus Poll puts Labour and Conservatives neck and neck

The Times reports a Populus poll conducted over the weekend which places Labour on 37% (-2) the Conservatives on 36% (+3) and the Liberal Democrats on 18% (+3). This, according to the report would give Gordon Brown a 20 seat majority. It is headlined "Voters end debate on snap election"

I can see him going for that, but then I have always thought that we would go the whole length of the Parliament and I have not seen anything to shift my view, not even the Brown bounce which I expected to end, and it almost has.

To be fair I do not expect a Conservative lead in the polls until October, and polls will fluctuate a little after that showing neck and necks and small leads for each until late November when I expect a steady but small Conservative lead, and if David Cameron and team do the job right, that lead will grow between now and the general election in May 2010.


In an effort to pad the result out there is comment on both marginal seats and the south. The problem here is that even over a number of polls the samples in these areas are small and not balanced and weighted in the way they are for the whole poll leading to all sorts of inaccuracies.