Conservatives' lead over Labour narrows

The Conservatives' poll lead over the Labour Party narrowed to five percentage points from 15 over the past month, an ICM opinion poll showed on Tuesday.

The poll, published on the Guardian newspaper website, showed that Conservative support had fallen to 38 per cent from 45 per cent in the same poll last month, while Labour support had risen to 33 per cent from 30 per cent.

Prime Minister must call an election in the next 18 months. The Guardian said if the poll results were repeated in an election, both parties would most probably get similar numbers of seats, leaving neither with a majority to form a government.

The opinion poll, which was based on a telephone survey of 1,003 adults between December 12 and 14, showed support for the centre-left Liberal Democrats at 19 per cent, up a point. Support for other parties - such as Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish regional parties - rose two percentage points to 10 per cent.

Polls by other organisations have shown a similar narrowing in the Conservative lead over Labour in recent weeks, as voters increasingly doubt the Conservatives would handle the country's economic difficulties better than Labour.