Opinion polls aren't attracting much interest at the moment. Yesterday Ipsos Mori published figures giving the Tories a 14-point lead, and they barely register in today's papers.
Admittedly, it was a busy news day. But they're worth noting because they now provide incontrovertible evidence that Gordon Brown's autumn bounce has vanished.
Ipsos Mori, YouGov, ComRes and Populus have now all published polls for 2009. They all show the Tories ahead. More significantly, after a spell when the polls were not going in any particularly clear direction, the January figures all show that the Tory lead has increased dramatically over the last month.
Here are the figures, which you can study for yourself at UK Polling Report:
Ipsos Mori
Conservatives: 44 (up 5 on December)
Labour: 30 (down 5)
Lib Dems: 17 (up 2)
Con lead: 14 (up 10)
YouGov (in the Sunday Times)
Conservatives: 45 (up 4 on YouGov/Sunday Times in December)
Labour: 32 (down 3)
Lib Dems: 14 (down 1)
Con lead: 13 (up 7)
ComRes (in the Independent on Sunday)
Conservatives: 41 (up 4 on ComRes/IoS in December)
Labour: 32 (down 4)
Lib Dems: 15 (up 1)
Con lead: 9 (up 8)
Populus (in the Times)
Conservatives:43 (up 4 on Populus/Times in December)
Labour: 33 (down 3)
Lib Dems: 15 (down 2)
Con lead: 10 (up 6)
It is hard to work out what has happened in the last four weeks to explain such a marked swing towards the Tories. The detailed Ipsos Mori figures provide some clues. They show that 49% of workers are worried about losing their jobs (up from 43% in October) and that Gordon Brown's satisfaction rating has fallen to -26, compared with -16 in December.
But the same figures also show that public optimism about the economy is at its highest since October 2007, which is absolutely mystifying to anyone who listened to what was being said about the UK's economic prospects in the Commons yesterday afternoon.
