Thread: "Brown on course to win election": S. Times headline, Cameron-Tories only 2% ahead

"Brown on course to win election" - the main headline on the front of today's Sunday Times.

A new Yougov opinion poll for the Sunday Times puts the Cameron-Conservatives just 2% ahead of the governing Labour Party. This is the smallest lead the Cameron-Conservatives have had over the Labour Party in a Yougov national opinion poll since May 2008 when they were 26% ahead.

In a poll carried out on and between 25th - 26th February 2010 (in which 1436 adults took part) Yougov found for the Sunday Times that electors intend to vote as follows:

Conservative 37% (down 2%)
Labour 35% (up 2%)
Liberal 'Democrats' 17% (no change)

The Sunday Times today states that if those voting intentions were repeated at the next General Election the Labour Party would have 317 seats and the Cameron-Conservatives 263.

In such a scenario, the Labour Party - nine seats short of an overall majority of one - would be able to remain in office sustained in power by the support of small parties not including the europhile Liberal 'Democrats' (not the first time that this would have happened). The strongly eurosceptic Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland has nine seats in the House of Commons and is not allied to the Conservative Party as the Ulster Unionist Party again is.

Support for the Labour Party in the latest Yougov poll for today's Sunday Times is about 1% less than the actual percentage level of support that party secured at the last General Election - and it could rise further before the next General Election (as it has done many times before now for parties in power as polling day gets closer).

The next opinion poll may put the Cameron-Conservatives further ahead, but - as I have been writing here for some time - the national electoral swing the Cameron-Conservatives need to win an overall majority at the next General Election would be the largest ever recorded in the modern era and few political analysts expect them to achieve that.

Late last year David Cameron abandoned the Conservative Party's pledge to hold a referendum on the EU Constitution Lisbon 'Treaty' - a move which will cost his party votes.

The Sunday Times report about the latest Yougov opinion poll can be read here:

Gordon Brown on course to win election - Times Online

More on the new Yougov poll for today's Sunday Times at:

Labour receives boost in latest UK poll

Columnist Ed West writes on the Daily Telegraph website that the Conservative Party would be well ahead in the opinion polls if William Hague MP were its leader:

Tories would be way ahead in polls with William Hague MP as leader writes columnist

James Macintyre, who writes a blog on the New Statesman website, has again stated that the Labour Party will win the next General Election:

Labour will win next General Election magazine blogger again states