Tory lead down to 2% in YouGov survey

The headline numbers should be treated with caution as this is just one poll but it does confirm what has been evident for a few days; the Tory lead has narrowed considerably. The Tories have had a good 24 hours and CCHQ will be hoping that the new clarity of the Tory message and David Cameron's big speech, later today, will start to reverse the decline over the next few days.

More in The Sunday Times.

One of the big lessons of the last week is that there is no evidence that attacks on Brown's character and style of politics have any traction. The bullying and 'forces of hell' episodes excited Westminster but do not appear to have done Brown one scrap of damage. The Conservatives will defeat Labour by convicting them on its economic and social record.

Tim Montgomerie 

11.15am update: Appearing on Radio 5 Live, as reported by Reuters, David Cameron responded to this morning's poll numbers by saying:

"The British public are angry and disaffected with their politics and politicians and they take a lot of convincing before they want to put their trust in anybody and they are making us quite rightly fight for this... I've always believed this election would be close. I've always believed it would be a real contest and a real choice between Gordon Brown and me and between Labour and Conservatives and I've always thought we'd have a real fight on our hands and we have."

11.15am update: The detail in the poll shows that Cameron enjoys a big advantage over Brown on having Prime Ministerial qualities:

CAMERON +1

 BROWN -32