One of the refrains made in response to the recent spate of opinion polls is that they don’t really capture what’s going on in the marginals – the real battlgrounds where the election will be fought. Well, now we have a YouGov/Channel 4 poll which specifically covers 60 key marginal sets, and it provides more evidence that Labour are closing ground on the Tories. Here are the headline figures, compared to the last marginals poll for Channel 4, a year ago:
And YouGov’s Peter Kellner provides a useful explanation of what they mean:Conservatives — 39 (down 4) Labour — 37 (up 1) Lib Dems — 35 (up 2)
“The swing is down to 6.5 per cent. That is higher than the national swing – 4.5 per cent in YouGov’s latest Britain-wide poll – but not enough to win every target seat.
If we apply this swing to each Labour marginal, the Tories would win 52 out of the 60 seats.
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