Tories first, Labour last in 30 key marginal seats, poll reveals

Support for Labour in 30 key 'swing seats' across Britain has evaporated, an opinion poll revealed yesterday.

In another blow to Gordon Brown's premiership, the survey of crucial marginal constituencies put the Tories on 41 per cent, the LibDems on 18 and Labour on 17.

When a similar exercise was carried out a year ago, Labour held a six-point lead over David Cameron's party.

The findings will reinforce fears among Labour backbenchers that there will be a wipeout at the next General Election unless they replace Mr Brown.

However, there is a counter-argument that those defending small majorities will prefer to keep Mr Brown and hang on for a 2010 election when the economy might have begun to turn round.

If the Prime Minister is ousted, any successor would inevitably have to call an immediate poll - and face likely defeat.

The survey of the barometer election battlegrounds spolled 1,054 voters in the Tories' top 30 target seats between June 16 and 29. Twenty are Labour held, nine have sitting LibDem MPs and one is SNP.

It was an internal Labour survey of marginals showing support slipping away which forced Mr Brown to postpone a planned election last November.

Another survey, by ComRes for today's Independent, suggests that voters believe David Cameron is ready to govern the country - and even a quarter of Labour supporters believe he would make a better prime minister than Gordon Brown.

Scotland is the only part of Britain which prefers Mr Brown - although Labour lost its third-safest seat north of the border last week at Glasgow East.

The poll shows that only 36 per cent of voters agree with Mr Brown that Mr Cameron is 'just a slick salesman', although one in five Tory supporters holds this view.

Most voters reject the idea that the Tories lack the necessary experience to run the country.

But almost half think 'they don't have enough policies for me to understand what they stand for'.