The latest Guardian/ICM poll shows that the Conservatives seem to be widening their lead, in the last month. The poll, conducted between Friday and Sunday, suggests that, after several months of a virtual tie between the two major parties, ahead of the general election on May 7th, the Conservative Party seems to have taken a six-point lead over Labour. David Cameron's party has gained around 3%, in the last month, and stands now at 39%, with Ed Miliband's party falling two points, currently with only 33% of the English voters' preference. According to the previous ICM polls, these results are the highest for the Tories since March 2012.
The same poll suggest that the Liberal Democrats maintain the 8% registered last month and UKIP has fallen by two points, standing now at 7%, tied with the Greens. Among the leaders, David Cameron has a net personal rating of +18 (52% of respondents said he is doing a good job - 34% said he is doing a bad job). This is the Prime-Minister's best result since August 2010 and still easily ahead of Ed Miliband's, who recovered from -42 to -30, since the last leader's poll in November. Nick Clegg is at -20, Nigel Farage ranks at -16 and the Greens' leader Natalie Bennett is currently at -6 and Nicola Sturgeon of the SNP was the only leader, besides David Cameron, to score a positive net personal rating with +12.
In the case of a hung parliament, the preferred option of 21% of the voters, according to the Guardian/ICM poll, is a reprise of the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition. 19% would prefer a pact between Labour, Greens and the SNP and 15% an alliance between the Conservatives and UKIP. An alliance between Labour and the Lib Dems only convinces 11% of the public and a Tories and Labour government, only 10%.
Martin Boon of ICM Unlimited explains that "there is inevitably random variation between polls, which generally falls within a 'margin of error' of three points. The movement we've recorded since the March survey is within that normal bound, albeit only just". In the interest of fairness ICM also revealed the Guardian/ICM's updated average of recent polls, including this one, which still gives the Tories 33.7% and Labour 33.6%, a virtual tie.
