Final results add to signs of last-minute move to Labour but all polls point to hung parliament as London shares slide in pre-election fears

Labour has moved into a wafer-thin one-point lead in the final pre-election Guardian/ICM poll, leaving the country on a knife-edge with the markets starting to jitter.

On Wednesday ICM released provisional numbers that showed the two main parties deadlocked on 35% each. But the telephone fieldwork continued into the evening, and the final figures – based on the full sample of 2,000 interviews – showed Labour holding steady on 35% while the Conservatives slipped to 34%.

An 11% share for Ukip, 9% for the Lib Dems and 5% for the Scottish Nationalists were all confirmed from the provisional poll, but in the final tranche of interviews the Greens picked up a point, climbing from 3% to 4%. The difference is still within the margin of error, but every poll is now indicating a hung parliament and the tightest election in decades.





London shares suffered a sharp selloff on Thursday morning, just as voting got under way. Fears that Britain is set for a second hung parliament added to a global market selloff triggered by the US Federal Reserve chairman Janet Yellen warning that share valuations could be dangerously high.

The last results from the Guardian/ICM polls before the election add to signs of a last-minute move in Labour’s direction after the Tories clawed back ground in the second half of the campaign.



In the final days and hours of the campaign, the polls – which on average had been registering a modest Tory advantage over the past fortnight – have been converging on a dead heat. The Guardian’s final poll projection, which takes the full range of recent data into account, suggests that Labour and the Tories could be perfectly balanced in the new House of Commons, with 273 seats each.

With the race to be the biggest party so finely balanced, either side could just as easily emerge in front. But with the projector also pointing to a large bloc of 52 Scottish Nationlists pledged to “lock David Cameron out of Downing Street”, then – if the final polls are right – it is becoming hard to see how the prime minister can win the numbers to govern.

Ed Miliband, Nigel Farage and Nicola Sturgeon all cast their votes within the first hour of polls opening, while Cameron made a last-minute YouTube appeal for support.

Cameron’s 48-second message continued the Conservatives’ campaign theme of raising the spectre of Miliband as prime minister propped up by the SNP.

“If you want to stop Ed Miliband and the SNP from getting into power and wrecking our economy ... and if you want me back on work on Friday working through our long-term economic plan as your prime minister, then it is vital that you vote Conservative,” Cameron said.

David Cameron (@David_Cameron) #VoteConservative today - and together, we can secure a brighter future for Britain. https://t.co/t896F6oMoM

Cameron’s message was echoed by the Daily Telegraph, which emailed its readers pleading with them to back the Conservatives.

Toby Harnden (@tobyharnden) Slightly creepy "unprecedented" email from @Telegraph editor Chris Evans telling me to vote Conservative pic.twitter.com/sM42Czi6jm

A nervous but excited-looking Miliband cast his vote in Sutton village hall, moments from his constituency home in Doncaster North.

Holding the hand of his wife, Justine, he said “morning” to other voters, but otherwise it was a silent trip.

There was similar scenes moments later in Ballieston, Glasgow East, where Sturgeon cast her vote with her husband and SNP chief executive, Peter Murrell.

As she left, the SNP leader said the decision was up to the people of Scotland, then joked with photographers as they begged for one more shot of her alone. “Yeah, get out my shot!” she told her husband, as he retreated to the side.

Libby Brooks (@libby_brooks) Nicola Sturgeon arrives to vote with husband and SNP chief executive Peter Murrell https://t.co/vStTEokbou

According to the ICM research, the voters themselves continue to think that Labour will underperform compared with the polls. ICM’s final “wisdom of crowds index” – respondents’ averaged best guess of how each party will score – continues to put the Tories ahead on 35%, compared to 32% Labour. Voters also envisage the Lib Dems on 14%, ahead of Ukip on 10%, all figures that are unchanged from the provisional data.

Martin Boon, of ICM Unlimited, who developed the “wisdom” approach, argued that it could sometimes be more informative than asking voters what they will do. He said: “Conventional polling is saying that there is nothing to choose between the parties, whereas the hunch of the crowd continues to be that the Tories will have the edge. It will be fascinating to watch out tonight for whether the public can once again outsmart the professional pundits, as it did in 2010.”

With its double-size sample, the final poll gives more scope than usual for looking for difference in voting patterns across different types of parliamentary seat. Doing so provides additional grounds for Labour optimism. In the English and Welsh battleground constituencies – defined as those with a Tory majority of up to 15 points, or a Labour advantage of no more than 10 points – the poll found the opposition running well ahead.

On average across these seats, the Conservatives start out with a 2010 score of 38% to Labour’s 36%. But the poll suggests that Labour is now well in front here, by 46% to 35%. Based on the sub-sample of 290 individuals in these marginal seats, some caution is needed, but Labour’s 11-point advantage is wide enough to give the party real hope.

ICM Unlimited interviewed a random sample of 2,023 adults aged 18+ by telephone on 3-6 May 2015. Interviews were conducted across the country and the results have been weighted to the profile of all adults. ICM is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules.

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