Brown’s lead narrows

Today’s poll in The Guardian will be met with relief at CCHQ. Labour is still ahead, but a 5 percent advantage is far less intimidating than a double digit lead and makes a snap poll far less likely. Crucially, considering the increased political salience of the issue, the Tories have a 10 point advantage on which party is best equipped to deal with crime.

The poll also takes a detailed look at how the parties are doing in various bits of the country compared to 2005. Amazingly, Tory support in the north has actually declined since then to 26 percent from 28 percent. However, in the south it has risen from 39 to 48 percent. The party who should be really worried by this shift is the Liberal Democrats who look set to lose a whole swathe of southern seats to the Tories.