BRITAIN:David Cameron is ending his first full year as Tory leader with a sustained eight-point lead over Labour, in the Conservative Party's strongest opinion poll performance since it won the 1992 general election.
The latest ICM poll has again put the Conservatives on 40 per cent support, with Labour unchanged at 32 per cent and the Liberal Democrats falling four points to 18 per cent under their new leader Sir Menzies Campbell.
This would be enough to make Mr Cameron the leader of the largest party in the next House of Commons.
However, with Labour's support so far refusing to fall below 30 per cent and the Conservatives failing to rise above 40 per cent, the Tories still appear considerably short of an election-winning advantage.
Most commentators and many pollsters agree that voters are currently being asked to make unreal choices, and that the true picture will only emerge after prime minister Tony Blair's departure from 10 Downing Street and the expected succession of Gordon Brown.
Crucially, the latest Guardian poll appears to vindicate Mr Cameron's pitch for the "centre ground" of British politics, while enthusing his party's own supporters, 67 per cent of whom say they believe Mr Cameron is on course for an election victory.
Meanwhile, the finding that 29 per cent of Labour voters expect their party to lose next time will compound the party's apprehensive mood ahead of next year's leadership contest, and amid continuing anxieties about the outcome of the Scotland Yard inquiry into the so-called "cash for honours" affair.
The London Evening Standard last night reported a growing and bitter feud inside the Blair camp between Mr Blair's chief of staff Jonathan Powell and the prime minister's fundraiser Lord Levy.
Mr Powell was reported to be "furious" at weekend newspaper suggestions that he was being lined up alongside Lord Levy as one of the figures police would be focusing on during the final stages of their investigation.
At the same time it emerged that police have written to several people close to the prime minister requesting further information about the secret loans raised to fund Labour's 2005 election campaign and the circumstances in which four major donors were subsequently nominated for the House of Lords.
In a report to MPs some weeks ago, the man heading the inquiry, assistant commissioner John Yates, said there were "gaps" in evidence provided by the political parties, including the governing Labour Party, and that "it would, of course, be regrettable from our perspective, if we had to resort to any more formal means to gather this material".