Photo: Getty

Who is going to win this general election? For the first time since early February, May2015 now predicts Labour will win more seats than the Tories on May 7.

After trailing by as many a dozen seats earlier this week, Labour have now moved ahead by two seats in our election prediction, after Lord Ashcroft’s latest batch of marginal polls.

Ashcroft today released polls of ten crucial Tory-held seats which Labour are targeting in May. He put the Tories ahead in five and Labour ahead in four, with one tie. But nine of these ten seats were forecast to be held by the Tories earlier today, with the tenth predicted to vote Labour by less than a point.

Which means today’s polls are good news for Labour. Ed Miliband’s party is now predicted to win 273 seats in May and the Tories 271. This contrasts with this time last month when five election forecasts all put the Tories ahead significantly – by around 20 seats.

*

Labour haven’t powered ahead, but their support in Tory-held seats is holding up, which many forecasts (and even more pundits) hadn’t expected. Lord Ashcroft’s ten new polls were all conducted last week, with just over one month before the election. It seems unlikely Labour’s support in these seats, and seats like them, will evaporate.

These means that Labour are on course to win 35-40 Tory seats.

These polls suggest that Labour are on course to win 35-40 Tory seats, as national polls imply they will. National polls now show a tied race, but the Tories beat Labour in the popular vote by more than 7 percentage points in 2010. Therefore a tie means a swing of nearly 4 points to Labour. The Tories won 45 seats by less than 7.5 points in 2010, which implies Labour will win around that many in May.

Ashcroft’s polls suggest fewer slightly than that, but, after today, his numbers would mean Labour dethrone nearly 40 Tory MPs.

If it wasn’t for the SNP, Labour would comfortably be on course to be the UK’s largest party next month. But Labour are set to lose 30-35 of their seats north of the border, which is why they are only predicted to win 15 more seats next month than they in 2010 (mainly thanks to nearly 10 Lib Dem pick-ups).

The race for the largest party is not over, despite what the money markets say (they give the Tories a more than 60 per cent chance of winning the most seats).

*

A key factor in these Tory-Labour marginals is Ukip. Ashcroft has polled all ten of these Tory-held seats before, throughout the second half of 2014. Back then Ukip were, on average, polling 17 per cent in these seats. Now they have fallen to just 11 per cent.

In fairness, they are not competing in these seats. Their most active campaign is in Hove, and they are only reaching a quarter of voters there. Their focus is on winning a dozen or so targets (they are hopeful of actually winning around half a dozen), and becoming the clear opposition to Labour in hundreds of northern seats.

(Note: Labour are outclassing the Tories at reaching their voters in these seats. 7 in 10 voters say they have been contacted by Labour, only 6 in 10 say they’ve heard from the Tories – a small difference, but the margins are small here.)

The problem for the Tories is that a ‘squeezed’ Ukip vote isn’t helping them. As various analysts have argued, Ukip took votes from both major parties in 2014, and the Tories aren’t now the only ones benefitting from their fall. Labour are polling better in many of today’s seats too.

The graphic below shows how Ukip’s vote has slipped (in the light purple, to the left), and how that the net Tory vote – that’s Tory gain minus Labour gain – has increased over the same time (in the light blue, to the right).

There is no clear and consistent relationship.

Labour should be buoyed by today’s polls: they are ahead in seats where we and others suggested they were trailing; they could be the largest party in May; they are not suffering as Ukip fade; and they are out-performing the Tories on the ground.