Posted by Chris Gilson and Patrick Dunleavy.
Latest Poll Information for 9 April
| Party | Sky News Poll Tracking | LSE Poll Tracking |
|---|---|---|
| Per cent | Per cent | |
| Last Change | 8 April | 8 April |
| Labour | 31 | 32 |
| Conservatives | 38 | 39 |
| Liberal Democrats | 20 | 19 |
| Other Parties | 11 | 10 |
| Tory Lead | +7 | +7 |
At the end of Week 1 of the election campaign, the Conservative’s lead narrows very slightly today by our measure to 7 points, with Labour at 32 per cent and the Tories holding steady at 39 per cent. Over the past week, Labour has slowly returned to where it was towards the end of March. The party will certainly hope that it is over the National Insurance speed-bump. By our measure the Liberal Democrats are also down one point to 18, while the Other Parties are down to 10 per cent.
The most recent Angus Reid poll again puts Labour low on 26 per cent (and so might be discounted): but it does seem reasonably in-line with other polls on the Tories support, having them on 37 per cent. Our other tracking measure, Sky News’ “Poll of Polls”, shows little change, save for an increase of one per cent by the Tories to 38 per cent.
Turning to seat projections, Electoral Calculus has not varied their prediction a great deal since we last looked at seats in March, with the Conservatives moving from 302 seats to 300, and Labour not at all changed on 262 seats. By contrast, UK Polling Report has changed a lot from the near parity of Labour and the Tories which they were showing at the end of March. They have improved their projection for the Conservatives from 286 to 305 seats and downgraded Labour from 285 to 262. Both these views are thus in shallow hung parliament territory. Our own ready-reckoner is somewhat more pessimistic for the Tories, and sees a more deeply hung Parliament still in prospect.
Seat Projections for 9 April
| Party | LSE Poll Seat Projection* | UK Polling Report Seat Projection | Electoral Calculus Seat Projection | 2005 Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Last Checked | 9 April | 9 April | 9 April | - |
| Labour | 274 | 262 | 262 | 346 |
| Conservatives | 293 | 305 | 300 | 208 |
| Liberal Democrats | 53 | 53 | 55 | 67 |
| Other Parties | 12 | 13 | 15 | 11 |
| Northern Ireland | 18 | 18 | 18 | 18 |
| Total Seats | 650 | 651 | 650 | 650 |
| Prediction probably means | Deeply hung Parliament – Cameron government, new general election May 2011 | Cameron minority government in a shallow hung Parliament | Cameron minority government in a shallow hung Parliament | Labour Majority |
* assuming uniform national swing. We assume that Liberal Democrat support will rise by 2 per cent between now and polling day.
