ELECTION SPECIAL: 18 days to go poll of marginal seats shows Blair landslide

Blown away!

By Ian Kirby, Political Editor

MICHAEL Howard's Tories are heading for a crushing defeat in the general election—with Premier Tony Blair set for a landslide victory.

An exclusive poll for the News of the Worldtoday reveals the Conservatives have failed to make ANY real impact on their chosen battleground,Britain's crucial marginal seats.

The Tories have invested millions on campaigning in 130 key seats. Yet despite this blitz, our poll shows Mr Howard has scored an own goal.

The ICM poll—the most authoritative since the election race began— discloses what is really happening in those key marginals. And it's bad news for the Tories.

Over the past week ICM quizzed people who will definitely vote in 126 seats where those votes will actually matter.

Their replies show Tony Blair is on course for a massive 152-SEAT majority when the nation votes on May 5, only slightly less than his 165-seat lead in 2001.

After three weeks of campaigning, the Tories have managed to boost their share of the votes by one per cent, which would give them a gain of just EIGHT seats.

Support

Today's results show that while many people may hate Tony Blair's performance, most still plan to vote for him again. In seats where the Tories came a close second to Labour MPs in 2001, Mr Howard's team have so far won over a few hundred voters.

Just 4 per cent of Labour supporters are planning to change their vote this time and they are turning to the Lib Dems, not the Tories.

In those seats, the Tories have actually lost 2 per cent of their support, giving them a net swing of just 1 per cent. This would gain them four seats from Labour. In seats where the fight is between Tories and Lib Dems, it's Labour who are winning over voters.

Here there is also an overall 1 per cent swing to the Conservatives at this stage of the campaign. But again, their support base has shrunk by 2 per cent. The Lib Dems have dropped 4 per cent. Labour have gained 5 per cent.

Our findings suggest too few voters are changing their minds to overturn even the slimmest of Labour majorities, but the Tories would win another four Lib Dem seats.

Last week the News of the World held the first joint interview by Blair and Chancellor Gordon Brown for a decade. Our poll suggests they have persuaded voters they will continue in tandem if they win the election.

A majority of 54 per cent say the pair will be able to work together.

ICM interviewed a random sample of 1,002 adults aged 18+ by telephone between April 12 and 14, 2005. Interviews were conducted in the 93 most marginal Labour-held constituencies where the Conservatives came second.

ICM also conducted 1,004 interviews in the 33 most marginal Conservative/Liberal marginals (held by either party). Data were weighted to the profile of all adults in each of these two constituency types. 
Focus on hot seats

FORGET every other opinion poll you read during the general election campaign.

Today's News of the World poll is the only one to tell you what is really going on.

In a close contest, the 126 marginal seats polled by ICM will decide who runs Britain from May 6.

Voters there don't know what the Labour Party policy on Iraq is. They could not give a monkey's about the Tories' tax plan.

But they care about their local schools and hospitals, asylum seekers and criminals on their streets.

And almost a quarter of voters (23 per cent) who plan to go to the polling booths on May 5 say they could still change their minds on where their cross goes.

Throw in the political body-blow caused by the collapse of MG Rover in the Midlands —where all three main parties are fighting for 15 marginal seats—and it could be a close-run thing.

The Tories need to stay disciplined and keep plugging away but they also need to pull a massive rabbit out of the hat.

Their election leader, co-chairman Dr Liam Fox, has badly miscalculated and run an amateurish campaign.

Instead of hunting down individual voters using computer programmes, they should have pulverised Labour with big, brash promises.

Forget these cautious, meticulously costed tax plans.

They need to stop pretending they are in power and understand that will never happen until people remember they used to be proud to be Tory.