LONDON (MNI), April 28 – The latest batch of polls showed a pick up
in Conservative support and a dip in Liberal Democrat support, although
on uniform national swing models the polls still show the Conservatives
falling short of an overall majority.

The striking outrider is the Populus poll for The Times, which put
the Conservatives on 36%, the Liberal Democrats on 28% and Labour on
27%. The last time any poll showed the Conservatives above this level
was YouGov one on April 15.

The daily YouGov poll for the Sun newspaper had the Conservatives
on 33%, the Liberal Democrats on 28% and Labour on 29%, while ComRes for
ITV also had the Conservatives on 33%, with both the LibDems and Labour
on 29%.

The 10 poll rolling average shows Labour on 27.6%, the
Conservatives on 33.6% and the Liberal Democrats on 29%. Plug those
average numbers into a uniform national swing model and Labour comes out
with the largest number of parliamentary seats, with 268 compared to the
Conservatives 256, leaving Labour 58 seats short of an overall majority.

Another striking feature of the result of the 10 poll average is
that Conservative support is just one percentage point above its level
in the
previous general election in 2005. This raises questions over whether
the current leader, David Cameron, despite his centrist shift of
the party’s policy focus, has actually managed to extend support much
beyond the party base.

The polls show that, after hitting a high of 34% in the YouGov poll
ending April 24, the Liberal Democrat vote has drifted lower will all
recent polls showing it in a remarkably tight 28% to 30% range, while
Labour has ranged in recent polls from 25% to 29%.

There are significant doubts over how accurate uniform national
swing models will prove to be. The recent work of US statistician Nate
Silver, on his fivethirtyeight.com site, raising the possibility of
Conservatives performing better than the UNS models suggest, has
received wider media coverage here in the past couple of days.

Attention now turns to the final party leaders debate, on Thursday
evening. The upcoming Bank Holiday weekend should then dampen the focus
on politics for a couple of days.

The following table shows the most recent polls, with the right
hand column showing the Conservatives’ lead over Labour. The average is
for national polls only.

Polls: Table

End !Pollster!Media !Labour! Conservative!Liberal !Conservative!
Date of! !Outlet ! ! !Democrat!Lead Over !
Survey ! ! ! ! ! !Labour !
————————————————————————

27-Apr ComRes ITV/Indy 29 33 29 4
27-Apr Yougov The Sun 29 33 28 4
27-Apr Populus The Times 27 36 28 9
26-Apr ComRes ITV 28 32 31 4
26-Apr ICM Guardian 28 33 30 5
26-Apr YouGov Sun 28 33 29 5
26-Apr Opinium Express 25 34 28 9
25-Apr YouGov Sun 28 34 30 6
24-Apr ComRes Ind. Sunday 28 34 29 6
24-Apr BPIX Mail Sunday 26 34 30 8
24-Apr YouGov Sun. Times 27 35 28 8
————————————————————————
10 poll average 27.6 33.6 29.2 6.0
————————————————————————

–London newsroom: 4420 7862 7491 email:ukeditorial@marketnews.com

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