The polls: Follow the money

There are two overnight polls, one giving the Tory party a 6% lead, the other showing a 9% gap.  We can safely say that Brown’s temper tantrums are having no effect.

Now we move to Angus Reed, who published a poll yesterday afternoon.  First, the national picture:

CON 38%(-2), LAB 26%(nc), LDEM 19%(+1)

Then we come to the important stuff.  Angus Reed have been busy in 150 of the most vulnerable Labour seats:

CON 42%(33), LAB 28%(43), LDEM 15%(17)

This represents a 12% swing.

Mike Smithson adds this comment:

I think that overall these are important findings and do support everything we have seen from the marginals from YouGov, ICM, and Ipsos-MORI. The key marginals - most of them seats picked up in Tony Blair’s 1997 landslide are seeing disproportionate moves to the Tories.

This underpins the arguments that Daniel Finkelstein put forward yesterday.

David Cameron has an inconsistent policy strategy, then there is his disunited party, and as we keep noting, he keeps making tactical mistakes.  But he does have Ashcroft’s money, which is working in the seats that matter.

It comes down to the old saying:

Follow the money.