THE Conservatives are now worse placed than before their record low results in 1997 and 2001. The final day of The Times/ITV News tracker poll, produced by Populus, puts the Tories on 27 per cent, down two points on yesterday: by far their worst campaign figure.

By contrast, Labour is unchanged on 41 per cent, with the Liberal Democrats two points up at 23 per cent, their highest level of the campaign.

A tracker poll, conducted over four days, with a quarter updated every night, measures trends and momentum rather than predicting election results. Tomorrow The Times will publish an up-to-date full poll estimating the result, which is likely to differ from the figures in the four-day tracker. Tomorrow’s poll will not be affected by day-to-day fluctuations and will take account of factors such as postal voting.

The direction of the campaign is nevertheless clear, with Tory support weakening since the end of last week and the Lib Dems on the rise. The tracker takes account of each voter’s likelihood to vote, indicating a turnout of 61 per cent, up from 59 per cent in 2001. But if only those saying that they are certain to vote are included, a turnout of just 45 per cent, the Tories would still be on only 31 per cent, behind Labour on 40 per cent, with the Lib Dems on 23 per cent.

This compares with the Tories’ vote shares of 32.7 per cent in 2001 and 31.5 per cent in 1997 in Great Britain. There could be big regional variations with the Tories gaining in parts of suburban London but under pressure from the Lib Dem in parts of the South.

Populus asked voters to give their best guess of what percentage each party would get at the election. This works out at 41 per cent for Labour (up one point since early April), 31 per cent for the Tories (down two points) and the Lib Dems on 22 per cent (no change). Such estimates by the public have proved pretty accurate in American elections.

For more details see www.populuslimited.com.

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