New poll of battleground seats shows the Tories on course for a big majority

If David Cameron liked the YouGov poll in the Telegraph last Thursday, he will love tomorrow’s News of the World. For the first time since the bottled election it has commissioned ICM to poll the marginals. You rarely see this – it’s difficult and very expensive to do. The result? That the boy Ashcroft done well. It suggests Cameron would make net gains of 131 seats, a 64-seat majority (Brown has 65 today). The last time the NOTW did this poll, Brown called off the election – then (story, pdf), it suggested Labour would lose almost 50 seats. The damage has more than doubled since. As you would expect from such a lead, Cameron is also ahead on the issues, the biggest lead being immigration. Given immigration remains the public’s top priority (click here if you don’t believe me) this puts the Tories in very good stead indeed.
 
I have done my NOTW column on this for tomorrow’s paper.