It’s 38/34/18

The first non-YouGov poll for three weeks has a boost for the LDs and is showing a share very different from the online pollster’s recent daily polls.

According to ComRes, the yellows are now on 18 per cent, up three points on the last survey from the firm. The Tories, on 38 per cent, are down one point while Labour, on 34 per cent, is up one.

There are signs that men are more opposed than women to the Liberal Democratsâ€™ decision to join forces with the Tories. ComRes found that only 15 per cent of men would vote Liberal Democrat in a general election today, compared to 21 per cent of women. Tory support is also unevenly split between the sexes; 41 per cent of men and 34 per cent of women would now vote for David Cameronâ€™s party.

The ComRes 18% share for the yellows is the same as ICM found in August. Both ICM and ComRes carry out their surveys by phone and use past vote weighting.

The 18% is well below the 23.6% that Clegg’s party got on May 6th but it is a lot better than the 11% that YouGov had in one survey last week.

UPDATE: Tonight’s YouGov/Sun Voting Intention has CON 42%: LAB 37%: LD 13% – so a very different picture from the online firm that restricts it samples to members of its polling panel and does not, like ComRes, weight by past vote.