Sunday polls - UPDATED

After the confusion of the ComRes poll which put the Lib Dems on 35% (it turned out to be just a poll of those who watched the debate), and the YouGov daily poll which put the Lib Dems above Labour, we now get the first news of the Sunday polls.

And they confirm the definite swing towards Nick, Vince and the Lib Dems.

ComRes for S Mirror/Independent on Sunday
Con 31 (-4),
Lab 27 (-2),
LD 29 (+8)
Oth 13 (-2)

and

Sunday Telegraph/ICM
Con 34 (-3),
Lab 29 (-2),
LD 27 (+7)

The key here is that the majority of the polling was done before Thursday's debate.

Two key trends jump straight out at me:

First, that the Lib Dems at at or above the level of Labour. So Gordon Brown will be seriously worried. Yet, as others have pointed out, these figures would still tend to leave Labour as the largest single party in the House of Commons with the Lib Dems improving to just over 100 seats. It just goes to show how unfair the voting system is and would tend to make electoral reform a key demand for any talks with other parties.

Second, the Lib Dems are taking more votes from the Tories than they are from Labour. So David Cameron will also be seriously worried. Maybe this is because, in fact, voters are not too familiar with the Tories either. Prior to the election, the Tories got all the attention and so floating voters who dislike Labour tended to favour them. Now Nick and the Lib Dems are getting the attention, those same floating voters are siding our way.

Of course, these are just a few polls and show what people are thinking now, not how they will eventually vote. But it's a great time to be a Lib Dem.

UPDATE:

Two more polls out with the Lib Dems in the lead:

The People
LibDems on 33% (Con 27, Lab 23)

The Mail on Sunday
LibDems 32% (Con 31, Lab 28).

The spivs are running the asylum

The BBC reports that the markets and pound are jittery on the news that there might be a hung Parliament after the General Election.

Leaving aside my thoughts on whether 'market confidence' is more important than democracy (and a weaker pound helps UK manufacturing), surely the BBC report is just plain wrong. For the last two weeks we have had polls which showed that a hung Parliament is likely, but the markets didn't wobble significantly.

But as soon as a poll showed that Brown could still be PM after the election....

Panic on the streets of London!

One Stop Shop Opening Hours

On their website, the Cornish and Devon Post are running a poll on whether the Council is right to look at reducing the opening hours of One Stop Shops such as Bude and Launceston.

The poll follows my report to last month's Town Council meeting where I said that the Council was conducting a review of One Stop Shop opening hours and was looking to cut some OSS from 5 day opening to 3.

Since that time we have now learned that the most likely OSS to see cutbacks are those which are least used - Fowey, Camelford and one further west (the location of which escapes me for the time being). Councillors have been told that the Council will be seeking to combine the workings of the OSS with other agencies such as housing associations or the Police and only cutting back on hours as a last resort.

That's fine as far as it goes, but I would have hoped that the Council would not be considering any such cutbacks at this time. It's less than a year since the new Council started work and people are only just getting used to it and its range of services. I think all One Stop Shops should be open at least five days per week (and ideally six days and into the evenings as was originally promised).

So it looks like Launceston OSS is safe for the time being, but please do vote in the poll and do use the One Stop Shop service. It may be that our OSS is safe for now, but you never know when the Conservatives will decide to have another round of cost cutting.