Pressure on May intensifies as YouGov poll points to hung parliament

The ruling Conservative party's majority in the House of Commons could be all but wiped out in next week's UK general election, according to the latest poll.

With little more than a week to go until the crucial vote, the first constituency-by-constituency survey conducted by pollsters YouGov for The Times points towards Theresa May's party losing 20 seats and Labour gaining 30 MPs.

By those projections, the Tories would fall well short of the absolute majority needed to avoid a hung parliament.

The majority of polls released in recent weeks have shown Jeremy Corbyn's party narrowing the gap substantially as the election approaches.

By those projections, the Tories would fall well short of an absolute majority

Another poll released on Tuesday from The Guardian/ICM placed the Conservatives in a 12-point lead over Labour, a bigger lead than other polls suggested but signalling a significant shift nonetheless.

The Tories were seen to be affected by a U-turn over their social care policy earlier this month, as they have increasingly moved their focus towards personal attacks on Corbyn in trying to discredit his ability to lead the country heading into Brexit negotiations.

Wednesday's poll was carried out over the course of a week, with 50,000 people being interviewed according to their constituency, age, social background and other salient factors.

Sterling took a dip on Wednesday following the publication of the poll, falling 0.44% against the dollar and 0.29% against the euro before recovering to stem the losses.

The previous day, financial traders and gamblers also saw the ground between the Conservatives and Labour narrowing, with Betfair cutting the opposition's odds to 11/1 from 13/1 after Monday night's televised questioning of May and Corbyn.

Meanwhile, spread betting firm IG said May's performance in the “debate” and the party's social care u-turn had seen clients become “more bullish” on Labour's chances in the June 8 election.

Betfair's Katie Baylis said there was “no doubt” Labour was closing the gap in the polls, “which is a sentiment that’s also being reflected in the odds”.

“In the last week alone more than 65% of bets have been on Labour, however almost 95% of money is on the Tories, who are still heavy odds-on favourites at 1/14,” she said.

IG said Labour had been languishing in the parliamentary seats market at around 150 but had now moved up to 184, which would still be a loss of 45 constituencies. The Tories are on 378, a predicted gain of 48, The Scottish National Party was eight seats lower with 46 and the Liberal Democrats on 14 for a gain of five.