Labour move to 8 point lead in Lord Ashcroft poll

Often a Cabinet reshuffle will see a polling boost for the party in question – but not for David Cameron. Over the course of the last week, the Tories have dropped five points, according to the latest Lord Ashcroft poll, with Labour taking an eight point lead. The results are:

Labour 35%, Tories 27%, UKIP 17%, Lib Dems 7%, Greens 7%

Since beginning his weekly polls in May, Ashcroft’s results have been notoriously volatile, often appearing to be the most extreme outliers – his first poll, for instance, was the first in two years to show a Tory lead. And while this poll does show an extraordinarily big lead for Labour, it also has us dropping a point from last week.

Lord Ashcroft is always keen to stress that you should observe at trends, rather than individual polls, when looking for insights from polling. And, if you look at his polls over the past month, they tell a much likelier forecast: Labour have a four point lead.

Maybe the reshuffle just reminded people that Michael Gove exists.