Alice,Ealing Central & Acton would not have been among the constituencies polled by Populus.The Populus survey missed out the fifty most vulnerable Labour-held seats, and instead polled exclusively among the 2nd tier of Tory targets.Depending upon which analysis you look at, the new Ealing Central & Acton seat was a notional narrow Tory gain at the last general election, or a notional narrow Labour hold: either way, it's not in the seats polled for The Times.More generally, there does seem to be some confusion about this poll. Because it put Labour and the Tories neck-and-neck on 38%, that does not mean equality of support for the two parties nationally. Remember, the seats polled were specifically the more difficult for the Conservatives to gain of the battleground Labour-held marginals.At the 2005 General Election, the voting in these seats averaged Labour 45.3% vs. Tories 31.4% (whereas nationwide the figures were Labour 36.2% vs. Tories 33.2%). This means Labour has fallen 7.3% (from 45.3% to 38%) and the Tories have risen 6.6% (from 31.4% to 38%), a swing of 7% - which is significantly higher than among non-marginal seats.Although Ealing Central & Acton was not included in the sample, there is no reason why these figures would not be broadly reflected in EC & A (after all, like all of the other Tory targets, it's had its fair share of Ashcroft money). On the basis of the 2005 notional result in EC & A as calculated by the Electoral Calculus website, these changes would give a result of Labour 26.2%, Tories 38.8%. Although I do not have the Lib Dem figures to hand for the Populus poll, I think their newly projected share of the vote would be around 25% in EC & A. Of course, these figures can (and probably will) change somewhat during the course of the campaign, but it looks like an up-hill struggle for Labour and the Lib Dems.For neighbouring Brentford & Isleworth (which WAS one of the seats polled by Populus) the poll would suggest Labour 32.0%, Tories 38.1%, with the Lib Dems a distant 3rd; although there may be a range of factors in B & I that will produce a different pattern of voting to this. I'm a Labour voter by the way, so I don't actually like any of this, but it's clear that unless the polls close further it's going to be a struggle to stop the Tories getting close to, or achieving, an overall majority. At the moment, it really is on the edge.
Robin Taylor ● 6037d