Ipsos February 2010 Political Monitor
Among those who are "absolutely certain to vote", 37% say they would vote Conservative, 32% Labour and 19% Liberal Democrat. Assuming a national uniform swing, these shares of the votes would make Labour the largest party in a hung Parliament (with about 294 seats to the Tories' 275).
CON 37(-3); LAB 32 (0); LIB DEM 19 (+3)
The Conservatives remain ahead of Labour in voting intention support, Ipsos's February Political Monitor survey finds.
Among those who are "absolutely certain to vote", 37% say they would vote Conservative, 32% Labour and 19% Liberal Democrat, our February Political Monitor shows. Assuming a national uniform swing, these shares of the votes would make Labour the largest party in a hung Parliament (with about 294 seats to the Tories' 275). Of course, in practice there may not be a uniform swing and the actual number of seats will be influenced greatly by performance in marginal constituencies, and other recent polling has shown the Conservatives doing better in these.
Also, the numbers of seats are very sensitive to tiny changes in votes. If the Conservative share were one point higher and Labour one point lower (well within the margin of error of a single poll), the Conservatives would be the largest party by 30 seats.
Nevertheless, the recent trend of a shrinking Conservative share of the vote and lead over the other parties continues (the average lead across 2009 was 16 percentage points, now down to 5 points in this latest poll).
Looking ahead to the TV election debates between the leaders, these could have a significant effect on the outcome of the general election, since three in five British adults (60%) say the debates will be very or fairly important in helping them decide who to vote for.
Liberal Democrats are especially likely to think the debates will be important to them (69% say they will), perhaps pointing to the influence the debates may have among supporters of the smaller parties who decide to vote tactically.
David Cameron is the overwhelming favourite among the public to perform best in the debates: 53% say they think Mr Cameron will gain most public support as a result of the debates, compared to 20% for Gordon Brown and 12% for Nick Clegg. 160Even Labour voters are just as likely to say Mr Cameron will gain most as Mr Brown, 42% for Cameron, 41% for Brown. Three quarters (74%) of Tory voters and half (51%) of Liberal Democrats also opt for Cameron.
So while this may seem like good news for Mr Cameron - the debates will be important, and he's widely expected to do best - it could also be seen as a risk; expectations of his success are so high that he has little to gain and potentially much to lose if the other leaders perform well.160
Technical details
Ipsos interviewed a representative sample of 1,533 adults aged 18+ across Great Britain. Interviews were conducted by telephone 19-22 February 2010.160 Data are weighted to match the profile of the population.
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