Tories take the lead in Ashcroft poll – but Labour lead in all other polls

7 weeks ago, the first Lord Ashcroft weekly poll showed a Tory lead. It looked like it’d be easy enough to write off as a rogue poll – until it was followed by other polls showing a Tory lead and/or a significant narrowing of Labour’s lead.

Ashcroft has again shown a Tory lead today (this time of 2 points), and of course it’s unclear at this point whether this is the start of a trend – or simply a rogue poll. It should be noted that Ashcroft’s polls have been jumping about quite a bit over the past few weeks. Last week Labour had a five point lead, today it’s a 2 point deficit. That seems a large shift in a single week.

Meanwhile, Labour still have a lead in the other poll published today. Populus gives Labour a 4 point lead (37 vs 33), whilst YouGov’s latest poll (published yesterday) had the same voteshares (37 vs 33).