ITV / Comres Poll

The first poll after the debates is out and there is a big twist

Conservative - 36%
Lib Dem - 35%
Labour - 24%
Others - 5%

The two big questions are, how solid is this for the Lib Dems and how would a General Election affect Parliament in terms of seats?

I think it is still hung parliament territory, but with the Lib Dems and Labour much closer together with the Conservatives way out in front.  Tellingly, Labour face a massive electoral advantage, so an 11% advantage for the Lib Dems and 12% to the Conservatives may still not be enough to relegate them to third in terms of seats.

The good news, perhaps now for as many as 76% of us is that the Socialists and Gordon Brown are now on the fast train to oblivion.

Update:  Oh Dear, the above is the "unweighted polling" and Adam Boulton on Sky says it leaked via Twitter when an ITV Journalist tweeted the raw data.

Update 2:  A lesson for us all.  Comres have rushed out the "real" results.

Conservatives - 35%
Labour - 28%
Lib Dem - 24%
Others - 13%

The weighting is done to ensure that voting weight for things like age and race samples from raw data are taken to match (or massaged) national samples... all in all, weighted polls are much more reliable than raw data (which is why the media pay for professional sampling to be done)

Overall, still in hung Parliament territory, with the Conservatives in the high 200's, Labour in Mid 200's and the Lib Dems's gaining to about the 70's. 

There are more twists and turns to come, but the story could be (with more polling) that the Lib Dems are starting to take Labour voters; it is the Conservatives that need to do this for an overall win.