Tories 9% ahead in ICM/ Sunday Telegraph survey

The poll for tomorrow's Sunday Telegraph suggests the party is stuck in hung parliament territory.

I remain optimistic that a 39% to 30% lead will actually translate into a reasonably-sized Tory majority. Here are just five reasons why:

1. Anti-Tory tactical voting implicit in existing voter projection models is unwinding.
2. CCHQ believes the Labour vote is piling up in the seats where they need it least.
3. The fact that our candidates in many marginal seats were selected early, building up better challenger credentials at the same time that huge numbers of Labour incumbents have been giving up.
4. The Tory operation will have up to twice as much money as Labour and that money will be focused on the battleground seats.
5. Years of losing local elections mean Labour is desperately short of activists and will struggle to match the Tories for delivery of election-time literature.

The last few weeks haven't been the best for the Tory campaign but lessons have been learnt and I'm optimistic we'll see better weeks ahead. I'm still hopeful that Britain will finally be rid of this awful Labour government.

Tim Montgomerie