Polling Blues for the Reds

The continuing trend on which I reported last week has today reached a landmark, in which a major polling company has reported a level-pegging result for the Conservatives and Labour.

This is YouGov in The Sun, and the four significant parties' figures are as follows...

• Conservtives – 36%
• Labour – 36%
• Lib Dem – 10%
• UKIP – 12%

It is the second time this has happened in recent months (there was exactly the same situation – 36%/36% – in an ICM poll in July of this year) though that was a one-off at the time. I suspect that this too is a blip, probably caused by a slightly higher than the current norm Lib Dem polling, which in turn no doubt stems from their conference that has just ended.

Of course, as I have mentioned on several occasions in the past, this is well within the widely-accepted margin of error of plus-or-minus 3% on any of those figures, so genuinely doesn't mean too much in isolation.

It will be a worrying time for Labour, though, as they prepare to go to their conference this coming weekend, and they must be hoping that at least one more poll will come out before their event opens that tells a better (for them) story. Remember: this is the Coalition's mid-term, and only a year ago Labour had a decent (though not all that impressive) 12 to 14 percent lead.

It could equally well go the other way, with Labour's lead not just wiped out but starting to reverse – and that really would affect the atmosphere at Brighton during those upcoming few days...