Labour pulling safely ahead of Tories, says pollster

A meeting of Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) was told the Conservatives were nine percentage points behind.

Lord Gould said that, while the Tories had scored a series of short-term hits on topical subjects, this was not translating into more votes, as it presented them as opportunistic.

At the NEC meeting, held every two months, the newly ennobled Lord Gould said Labour was doing well in the polls and improving - it was on 36 per cent of the vote, against the Tories’ 27 per cent.

This is a marked improvement on the three-point lead ICM detected in a February poll and on the seven-point lead Lord Gould found in November.

Labour were also winning the main arguments, according to the Gould presentation. It is ahead by 21 percentage points on the economy, by 18 points on health and education, by 14 points on terrorism and by six points on taxes.

Asylum and immigration was seen as Labour’s biggest problem - the Tories have established a lead of 16 points on that issue. But there was some consolation for Labour in that research indicates it exercises few voters.

Lord Gould said the top three topics were public services, public safety and the economy - an exact match with Labour’s three campaign themes. Only 3 per cent of the public put Iraq as their main concern.

His presentation will come as a relief to Labour, after a resurgent Conservative machine successfully drove the news agenda - from policing in Nottingham to abortion - in recent weeks.

But Lord Gould said this was backfiring, as voters increasingly believe Michael Howard, the Tory leader, is jumping on bandwagons rather than campaigning on his core beliefs.

The pollster’s figures still show the two parties closer than in March 2001, when Labour’s lead was 19 points, or in March 1997, when it was 25 points. An ICM poll released yesterday gave Labour an eight-point lead.