Poll shows Labour closing the gap on Conservatives

The new figures have the Conservatives on 41 per cent, down one point from the weekend, while the Labour Party rise two points to 34 per cent at the expense of the Liberal Democrats, who drop two points to 13 per cent. This is the highest Savanta ComRes Labour figure since March and the lowest Lib Dem figure since May.

Read more: Boris Johnson accused of 'running scared' over TV no-show

Following a week in which Labour had been portrayed as struggling to get its message across in the face of bad publicity, the party's leadership will be buoyed by the suggestion that fewer Labour voters appear to be switching to the Lib Dems than previous polls have shown.

According to voting analysis website Electoral Calculus, if the parties were to achieve these vote shares at a General Election, it would result in Conservatives having a narrow majority of 10.

The poll, also found people were more likely to say “I like the leader and the party” about the Conservatives and Boris Johnson (27 per cent vs 22 per cent for Lab and 13 per cent LDs), were more likely to say “I like the party but not the leader” about Labour and Corbyn (23 per cent vs 14 per cent LDs and 12 per cent Con) and were more likely to say “I like the leader but not the party” about the Conservatives and Johnson (10 per cent vs 6 per cent LDs and 3 per cent Lab).

Those figures appear to imply that Corbyn is holding Labour back somewhat, and that while Johnson is an asset to the Conservative Party campaign, this is less of a factor than supporters had hoped. Nevertheless, One in ten (11 per cent) of those intending to vote Conservative saying they like Boris Johnson, but not the Conservative Party, indicating that Mr Johnson could claim to be ‘responsible’ for one in ten of those who say they will vote Conservative.

This compares to more than a third (36 per cent) of Labour 2017 voters, and almost a third (29 per cent) of current Labour voters who say that they like the party but not the leader. A further two in five (42 per cent) Lib Dem voters say they like Labour but not Jeremy Corbyn.

The public believe Labour are more likely than the Conservatives to mislead voters over what it can achieve (41 per cent vs 35 per cent respectively) and make them fearful for the future of the UK (42 per cent vs 36 per cent). The Conservatives, on the other hand, are the party deemed more likely than Labour to leave the UK in a better state after five years in government (37 per cent vs 26 per cent).

Strikingly, one in five (18 per cent) of those intending to vote for the Labour Party say they ‘don't know’ which party will leave the UK in a better state after five years in government. This compares to one in ten (9 per cent) people intending to vote for the Conservative Party that say the same.

Read more: Labour claims Tories secretly plotting to sell off NHS in Donald Trump trade deal

Chris Hopkins, Head of Politics at Savanta ComRes said, “The latest poll in the GE2019 series from Savanta ComRes for the Telegraph does seem to indicate that the Labour Party are starting to claw back the votes they’d previously lost to the Liberal Democrats. While Boris Johnson can still squeeze limited Brexit Party support, he’d really need to convert Labour and Lib Dem voters at this stage of the campaign to boost the Conservative national vote share significantly.

"Labour, on the other hand, still have a sizable pool of Lib Dem voters - theoretically, natural allies - to convince and it appears, at least on the evidence of this, that they’ve finally started to make some headway.”

“Of course much can still change in the final two weeks but these are encouraging signs for Jeremy Corbyn’s party and, it’s worth reinforcing, the Labour leader may not require an overall majority to be given the keys to 10 Downing Street in the final weeks of 2019.”

Savanta ComRes interviewed 2,034 British adults online from the 25th to 26th November 2019. Data were weighted to be demographically representative of all GB adults.