- LONDON: Two new polls conducted days before a key debate among Britain's candidates for prime minister are suggesting the race may be getting tighter.
A Populus poll for the Times newspaper shows Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Labour Party is closing in on David Cameron's Conservatives ahead of Thursday's televised debate.
The poll gave the Conservatives 36 percent — a drop of 3 percentage points — to Labour's 33 percent. The Liberal Democrats had 21 percent. The margin of error was 2.5 percentage points.
A ComRes poll for the Independent newspaper and ITV television also showed a slight drop for the Conservatives. That poll put Cameron's party at 36 percent, down 1 percentage point, with Labour up 1 percentage point to 31. Its margin of error was 3 percentage points.