Will immigration help the Tories?

The immigration issue may be helping the Tories in Britain:

For weeks staff at the Conservative campaign headquarters in London's Victoria Street have been counting the days since the party attacked over asylum and immigration. At first the opinion polls did not shift.

But the shadow cabinet was given clear guidance by Lynton Crosby, the campaign director who steered Australia's conservative government to unlikely election victories and who is now the indisputable master of the Tory campaign.

It would take seven days, he said, for an idea to travel from a Westminster policy announcement to the media and then the public. Then it would take at least another seven days for the issue to shift public opinion, then reach the pollsters and finally the newspapers in a published poll.

So this week's ICM/Guardian poll was bang on cue, coming after Mr Howard set out his warning that Britain was "full" and immigration quotas were the answer.

The poll, published on Tuesday, showed the Labour lead had been cut from nine points to three points - too big a change to put down to the polling margin of error.

When the news reached the Conservative headquarters campaign early on Monday evening, there was a mild outpouring of relief.

Further good poll news for the Tories came yesterday from Mori in the Financial Times, which reported the Labour lead was down to two points.

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