Tories take poll lead from the female vote
THE Conservatives are holding on to a narrow poll lead over Labour, according to an exclusive survey conducted for The Sunday Telegraph, as David Cameron prepares to visit the Queen to launch the election campaign within days.
The ICM/ Telegraph Wisdom Index, which questioned 2,000 people online, suggested that last week’s Budget had made no difference to the overall standing of the parties.
However, for only the second time in the three-year history of the Wisdom Index, Labour and the Tories are neck-andneck among women voters, who predict that both parties will receive 31 per cent on Polling Day. Labour traditionally held a lead over the Conservatives among women, while more men voted Tory.
Martin Boon, head of research at ICM Unlimited, said: “The Conservatives are slowly edging away from Labour. Women are now backing the Tories in exactly the same numbers as Labour, which is something only witnessed once before. The stars might be aligning for a moderate Tory electoral surge.”
According to results of the poll, the Conservatives are predicted to achieve 32 per cent of the vote, just ahead of Labour’s 31 per cent, as Ed Miliband’s party begins to lose its long-term advantage among women.
The poll, which asks voters to predict the outcome of the election rather than to say how they intend to vote, confirmed that the UK Independence Party is losing ground and is now forecast to receive 13 per cent of the vote, one point behind the Liberal Democrats, and three points lower than it was at Christmas.
The Prime Minister is expected to visit Buckingham Palace within the next week to ask the Queen to bring Parliamentary business to a close, heralding the end of the five-year coalition and the start of the full-time general election campaign.
The date of the election, Thursday May 7, has been set in advance because the Coalition passed laws ensuring that parliaments sit for a fixed term of five years. But Mr Cameron is still expected to visit the Queen, as early as Friday, before declaring that the campaign has begun.
Senior Tories privately fear that an outright majority is now all but impossible, and have warned that the shape of the next government could hinge on as few as 10 seats.
Backbench MPs are likely to insist that Mr Cameron seeks to govern as a minority instead of in a repeat of the coalition with the Liberal Democrats, if the Tories narrowly fail to win a majority, a senior party source said.
If the Conservatives win 315 seats, the party will try to govern alone but if the Tories win 305 or fewer, they will require another formal power-sharing deal, the source added.
Last night, the Conservatives moved to neutralise Labour’s claims that they would impose more “nasty” public spending cuts after the election. Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, released figures showing that housing benefit reforms, dubbed the “bedroom tax” by Labour, had saved taxpayers £1billion.
Opposition MPs say that disabled and elderly people have been hit hardest.