The British Labour government has widened its enormous lead in opinion polls over the Conservative opposition, the latest update of the Reuters Poll Trend shows.
Boiling down the opinion polls for the past week, a revised edition of the Reuters Poll Trend finds the Labour lead growing to 21 or 22 percentage points, with less than three weeks to go to the election on June 7th.
While the latest published polls show highly divergent results - a Labour lead anywhere from 16 to 28 percentage points, and either growing rapidly or not changing at all - the Reuters trend analysis sees Labour's position improving smoothly by about one percentage point a week since late April.
The Reuters Poll Trend consolidates MORI, ICM and Gallup surveys by first creating a simple poll of polls, weighting each according to the number of people interviewed, and then smoothing volatility out of the results with a standard formula used by government statisticians.
Revised to include a MORI poll published in The Economist, it shows Conservative support fading to 30 percent from the 31 percent that the party had held since January.
The votes that the Conservatives have lost seem to be switching straight across to Labour, whose backing is up to 51 or 52 percent, compared with the 50 to 51 two weeks earlier.
Support for the Liberal Democrats, is steady near 13 percent, while other parties are attracting about five percent of voters.