Polls deal blow to Tory hopes for landslide win
servatives and Labour,” he said, referring to the pre-election pledges of the main parties.
May’s poll lead started to contract sharply after she set out plans on May 18 to make some elderly people pay a greater share of their care costs, a proposal dubbed the “dementia tax” by opponents.
As her lead shrank, May was forced to backtrack on the policy at an appearance before the media at which she appeared flustered and irritated when taking questions from reporters.
The polls so far have been hard to decipher with both the unpopular social care pledge and last Tuesday’s suicide attack in Manchester influencing voter intentions.
May called the snap election in a bid to strengthen her hand in negotiations on Britain’s exit from the European Union, to win more time to deal with the impact of the divorce and to strengthen her grip on the Conservative Party.
But unless she handsomely beats the 12-seat majority her predecessor David Cameron won in 2015, her gamble will have failed, and her authority could be undermined as she enters formal Brexit negotiations.
Labour commands a big lead among young Britons, but recent votes show they are the least likely to go to the polling stations.
“We shouldn’t write off the thought that young people will turn out for this election [in large numbers] — but I think it’s unlikely,” Boon said.
Both the Survation and ICM polls were conducted in the aftermath of the suicide bombing which killed 22 people in Manchester.
It is still unclear how much Britain knew about suicide bomber Salman Abedi before he carried out the deadliest militant attack on British soil for 12 years. May was Interior Minister from 2010 to 2016.
The ICM poll showed 53 per cent of Britons thought May handled the situation well. Only 17 per cent disagreed.
The Survation poll found just over half of the 1009 respondents thought May would make the best Prime Minister, while support for Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn stood at just 30 per cent, albeit higher than in previous surveys.
Meanwhile, Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has said if the Scottish National Party wins the most seats in Scotland at the election May’s refusal to agree to a second independence referendum on independence will be unsustainable.
The SNP, which won 56 of Parliament’s 59 Scottish seats at the last election in 2015, has said Scots should get another say on independence once the terms of Britain’s EU exit are clear.