Tory lead cut two weeks before election, poll shows

UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s poll lead has fallen to five points ahead of Britain's opposition Labour Party a fortnight before the general election, according to poll

UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s poll lead has fallen to five points ahead of Britain's opposition Labour Party
UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s poll lead has fallen to five points ahead of Britain's opposition Labour Party

UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s poll lead has fallen to five points ahead of Britain's opposition Labour Party — the smallest margin over Labour since she came to power — a fortnight before the general election, according to the first poll published since a suicide bombing killed 22 people.

A  YouGov poll said on Thursday May's party was on 43%, down 1 percentage point compared to a week ago, while Labour was up 3 points on 38%. The latter marks the party’s best performance since Jeremy Corbyn became leader in September 2015.

The previous YouGov poll had given May a lead of nine points.

The Liberal Democrats are also up one point to 10% and Ukip up one to 4%.

Britain suspended political campaigning for the 8 June election after the attack on Monday night in Manchester.

Polls had put May's Conservatives on course for a big victory after she called the snap election in April but her lead slipped in the days before the attack when she was forced to backtrack on a key proposal for reforming social care.

YouGov's Anthony Wells said May and her party had been hurt by the fallout from the manifesto launch but said it was hard to determine the impact of the bombing on the election campaign.

When looking at May's personal favourability ratings, the poll showed May's ratings rising by 1 point in recent days, while support for the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn fell by 8 points.

"It has been a highly unusual few days in an election campaign, arguably unlike any other in history," Wells said.

The poll of 2,052 people, which was conducted for the Times newspaper, was conducted on 24-25 May.