Polls and votes

We've now got the first real post-"there will not be an election" poll, from Ipsos Mori:

CON 41%(+7)
LAB 38%(-3)
LIB DEM 11%(-5)

Good for the Tories, awful for the LDs, not too bad for us given the tone of this week's media coverage - 38% is exactly where we were in August (during phase one of the "Brown honeymoon") with this pollster and 7% higher than our position with them before the leadership election, as well as being better than the result we got in the 2005 election. Given this is now the mid-term and not the run in to an election, I don't think we should be over agitated.

Real votes last night in council by-elections:

Hobrook Ward, Horsham DC - Tory ward in Sussex - Lib Dem gain from Tory on a 9% swing
Chippenham Town Council - another Lib Dem gain from Con

UPDATE

The full figures are here - http://www.ipsos-mori.com/polls/2007/s071010.shtml - which reveal that Labour is actually 6% ahead of the Tories amongst all those expressing an opinion - only behind when it's filtered down to those certain to vote (i.e. the headline figure should be more accurately called a "election prediction model poll" than an "opinion poll"). Now if we could only introduce compulsory voting ...

Also interesting:

Do you think that Gordon Brown was right or wrong in his decision not to call a General Election this Autumn?

%
Right 47
Wrong 42
Don't know 11