Poll puts Labour and Tories neck-and-neck – but is it an outlier?
The Conservatives have pulled level with Labour following a massive drop in Ukip support, according to a monthly Guardian/ICM poll.
The survey put the Conservatives up seven on 36%, Labour unchanged on 36%, the Liberal Democrats up one on 13% and Ukip down five on seven per cent.
The Ukip fall comes after the party scored 18% in an ICM poll in May and 12% in June, suggesting a sustained decline in the party's support.
The findings suggest the improved Tory performance comes as a direct result of Ukip's slump.
The poll will be welcome news for the Conservatives, marking their best ICM result since they won a three-point lead in March 2012, just before the 'omnishambles' Budget triggered a wave of government errors and hammered the Tories' reputation for competence.
However the poll is not substantiated elsewhere, suggesting it could be an outlier.
Today's daily YouGov tracker poll put the Labour lead at nine, with the party on 40% to the Conservatives' 31%. The Liberal Democrats were level with Ukip on 11%.
Labour's lead in YouGov polls is typically in the double digits but the polling company tends to give Ukip lower levels of support.
Over the weekend, Survation put Ukip at 20%, Opinium at 19% and ComRes on 18%.
YouGov has Ukip on 13% and Populus has it on ten per cent.
Importantly, the ICM survey also suggests voters do not believe chancellor George Osborne's pledge to not raise taxes after the election.
Sixty-five per cent of respondents said they did not believe his promise, including 57% of Conservative voters.
