2200 – UPDATED following the lifting of the embargo

CON 38% (38)
LAB 31% (29)
LD 19% (19)

At 10pm the embargo on tonight’s ComRes poll for the Independent will be lifted and I’ll be able to fill in the gaps on the number panels above. But the paper’s Andrew Grice has already blogged that the margin is seven points – adding to a terrible series of polls for Cameron’s Tories.

Since Friday night we’ve three polls from the YouGov family showing leads of 7% and two at 9%, 8% from Ipsos-MORI and now 7% from ComRes. This is starting to look very tight and is bound to be increasing the concern level within Cameron Towers.

Of course none of these five polls have focussed on the real battle-ground, Tory targets number 40 – 140, where the election will be won or lost. The nature of sampling for the national polls is such that barely one sixth of those taking part would have been in the key seats.

Be that as it may – this will reinforce the hung parliament narrative and, no doubt, lead to a lot of extra pressure on David Cameron and the Tory leadership.

The big worry for the Tories is if Labour starts seriously eating into the Tory shares.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the PB Angus Reid polling, which runs contrary to all of this, and I hope to be posting within the next few days.

Betting: The best hung parliament bet seems to the the 3/1 from PaddyPower which covers all circumstances apart from a Tory majority.

Mike Smithson