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Election 2017: Labour cuts Conservative lead again, latest poll shows

Support grows for Jeremy Corbyn's party at faster pace than for Tories

Harriet Agerholm
Tuesday 16 May 2017 14:15 BST
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General Election polls and projections: May 16

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The Conservative's lead over Labour has been cut - despite Theresa May's party retaining a healthy lead - according to a new poll.

An ICM survey also suggests voters are increasingly turning from the smaller parties to the two main ones.

Although the Tories maintain a 20 point advantage and have improved their vote share in opinion polls in the four weeks since the election was called, support has grown for Labour at a faster pace.

In a survey conducted from Friday to Sunday, ICM found the Labour Party had 28 per cent of the vote while the Conservatives had 48 per cent.

"Theresa May can head into (the June 8 election) confident that her poll lead is largely impregnable," ICM director Martin Boon said.

Regardless, according to the pollster, Jeremy Corbyn's party won one more point than the week before, bringing their gains since the election was called to 3 per cent. ICM offers the most modest estimate of the Labour's increased vote share, with some polls finding the party had won as much as six per cent of the vote since the poll was called.

Most polls exclude undecided voters, but ICM reallocate the majority of these individuals to the party they opted for in the last election, meaning Labour's gains seemed smaller.

An average of the polls that offer a direct comparison between how the parties fared in the week after the election was called and last week – ComRes, ICM, Opinium and YouGov – found that Labour had edged up five per cent in opinion polling.

An increasing number people intending to vote Labour have said they will definitely turn up to vote, resulting in a higher weighting in some of the polls.

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