Has the Lib Dem bubble burst?

Is this the end of the LibDem soufflé surge? Tomorrow’s News of the World has an Ipsos-Mori poll – conducted the day after the second debate – putting things back to where they were pre-debates: Tories with a six point lead over Labour and the LibDems lagging seven points behind Labour, i.e. 36-30-23. This is broadly where Mori had them in March.

The polls are in a state of flux, to be sure. But Ipsos did a full, 1,200 weighted sample, telephone poll. Even on this basis, Cameron would be 42 seats short of a majority. But this is the best news he’s had since the first TV debate – and a sign that he might yet pull through with a majority.

Yet other polls in tomorrow’s Sundays suggest that there is still some rise in the LibDem soufflé. ComRes for Sindy has Con 34 Lab 28 LD 29. As John Rentoul puts it: “three-horse race, Labour third”

UPDATE – The peerless Anthony Wells has this to say about that striking News of the World/Ipsos-Mori poll:

‘Ben Page of MORI has has just been on Sky – and hats off to him for giving a responsible and measured account of the poll rather than claiming it shows something spectacular. Ben said they’d checked their figures very carefully, scratched their heads, but they have to publish them… but he did re-iterate that one in twenty polls are rogues. That’s about as close as pollsters come to warning that one of their own polls they’ve just released might be a rogue! Then again, it might be the start of a trend.’

A blip or a trend? So much of our country’s future depends on the answer. But the NOTW poll also shows that most (57 percent of) voters regard a hung parliament as a bad thing. If they wan to avoid it, they know what to do…