Lord Ashcroft’s analysis of his polling results in marginal seats described in the article below, reveals how defections to UKIP are increasing the current Labour party lead. This is not good news for the 40:40 campaign of the Conservative party, aimed at winning the 2015 election by concentrating resources on holding 40 currently marginal Conservative seats, as well as capturing 40 other marginals from Labour or the Liberal Democrats.
However, with the British economy seemingly on the mend and the Labour party at its recent conference signalling a strong movement to the socialist left, there is more room for the Conservatives to occupy the election-winning, centre-ground of the marginals, while still maintaining a clear distinction in policies compared with Labour. That said, for final success in these marginal seats the underlying critical requirements are to hang on to traditionally Conservative voters, to convince those who have currently « defected » to UKIP that this is effectively a vote for Labour and to maximise the Conservative voter turnout.