Four-point leads for Tories give Cameron a boost

David Cameron’s hopes of a polling breakthrough have been boosted by two new voting intention surveys giving the Conservatives a four-point lead over Labour.

Intriguingly, they come as the campaign "mood music" has been swinging Ed Miliband's way, with him getting better personal ratings and several commentators coming round to the idea of a Labour-led government.

One theory is that the recent Tory warnings against Labour-SNP "mayhem" could be having an effect.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The two polls, Survation for the Mirror and ComRes for the Daily Mail/ITV, come up with contrasting figures for the Lib Dems. ComRes has them dropping four to eight per cent: Con 36 (up 2), Lab 32 (down 1), Lib Dems 8 (down 4), Ukip 10 (down 2), Greens 5 (up 1).

Survation shows the Lib Dems climbing three points to ten per cent: Con 33 (down 1), Lab 29 (down 4), Ukip 18 (up 1), Lib Dems 10 (up 3); SNP 4 (unchanged); Greens 4 (up 1).

Perhaps the most striking figure in any of the polls is that drop of four per cent on last week in the Survation survey.

The four-point leads will encourage the Tories, especially as Ashcroft showed a similar lead earlier in the week. But before they get too carried away, there are two other new polls to consider, both of which give Labour the lead.

Panelbase shows Labour with a three-point advantage: Con 31 (down 2), Lab 34 (u/c), Lib Dems 7 (down 1), Ukip 17 (up 1), Greens 4 (u/c).

However, it was Panelbase that gave Labour a heady six-point lead a fortnight ago – and then saw the gap diminish a week later to a single point. Big leads in individual polls have had a way of evaporating during this election campaign.

YouGov for The Sun shows Labour with a slightly increased lead: Con 33 (u/c), Lab 35 (up 1), Lib Dems 7 (down 1,) Ukip 13 (down 1,) Greens 5 (u/c).

Mike Smithson of Political Betting says that while the Tories will be heartened by the four-point leads from Survation and ComRes, they should be worried about recent YouGov polling which has shown ten Labour leads, three ties and only one narrow Tory lead

Smithson keeps tabs on how the pollsters’ findings compare to actual election results. He recalls that in the European election in May 2014 - the last nationwide election Britons took part in - YouGov was the top pollster with ComRes and Survation “trailing quite a way behind”.

So, where does all this leave the parties' chances on 7 May?

The latest polling average - which includes the new findings outlined above - shows Labour still ahead of the Tories by 35 to 33, with Ukip ahead of the Lib Dems by 13 to 8.

According to a YouGov 'nowcast', this would translate into 277 Labour MPs, 270 Tories, 27 Lib Dems, 46 SNP and 26 others. With 326 needed for a Commons majority, the only combination that gets there is Labour plus the SNP.