Sobering polling for the Tories from Lord Ashcroft today, who has a snapshot of voting intentions in ten Tory-held marginals with Labour currently in second place (plus Corby, which went Labour mid-term). Nine of the eleven are Labour gains. Ashcroft concludes “swings to Labour appear to be related to the UKIP presence”, finding:

“UKIP could hamper Labour in Tory-held target seats by diverting voters who might otherwise switch straight from blue to red – though the evidence so far is that this effect is not yet strong enough in these seats to counteract the erosion of the Tory vote.”

No doubt Conservative Party internal polling will show a Conservative overall majority #comfortpolling

— Lord Ashcroft (@LordAshcroft) October 16, 2014

28% of UKIP voters polled say they’d prefer a Labour government, 35% want a Tory win…