Poll puts Labour on track to grab key Tory seats

Labour’s lead has increased in marginal seats they are aiming to take off the Conservatives, a new poll by Lord Ashcroft shows.

Of the 10 Tory marginal seats examined by the peer, Harrow East is now on course to fall to Labour after the incumbent’s three-point lead in October turned into a four-point deficit at the start of this month.

A further three – Hove, Morecambe and Lunesdale and Stockton South – were already on course to change hands and the lead has increased.

In five seats being defended by the Tories, their lead rose. The Ukip share fell significantly – by up to 10 points in nine of the 10 seats that were polled.

The polls, conducted at the start of the month, also suggest that Labour’s ground war is significantly outperforming Tory efforts to mobilise activists and send literature.

Voters said they had heard more from Labour than the Tories in all 10 seats.

In Pudsey, which the Ashcroft poll suggests is neck and neck, 77 per cent of voters have heard from Labour against 60 per cent from the Conservatives.

Lib Dem switchers to Labour account for the improving fortunes of Ed Miliband’s party. In the four seats with a Labour advantage, the proportion preferring Miliband to David Cameron as prime minister was as low as 27 per cent in Harrow East; it was highest in Hove, where it was 38 per cent.

Meanwhile, the Tories are facing a mixed reception in the southwest. However, the local Tory ground campaign, which comprises about five activists on weekdays and 12 on weekends, cannot match Labour’s, which estimates that it reaches up to 4000 people a week during 50 canvassing sessions. Britain’s opposition Labour Party leader Ed Miliband walks through a crowd gathered at a campaign event in Warwick, central England.