Skipper

Nottingham University's distillation of polls provides a fillip for Dave as he munches his mince pies over Yuletide. Their 'definitive assessment of party standings' put Conservatives on 37.4%, up 2.5 points on the first day of the month and Labour on 38.6%. Labour lead.

So there is a kind of even - stevens about current standings. Cameron's veto seems to have delivered a useful bounce which might well carry over into the New Year. Labour still lead but my feeling about these figures is that, given the awful state of the economy, the near inevitability of a double dip recession and Osborne's virtual admission of defeat in his Autumn Statement, the Opposition should be at least five points in the lead.

As for the Lib Dems, they are crawling along in single figures. This is additional good news for Dave as it means however incandescent his coalition partners might be at what he has done to them over the AV Referendum back in May and now the veto in Brussels, he is immune from political revenge. The Lib Dems know that if they withdraw and trigger and election it will mean their flickering political flame will be brutally extinguished.