Today’s swing figure:

» 2.55% swing to the Conservatives «

Three new polls today: The Communicate/Sindie poll has Labour leading at 40/35, ICM/Sunday Torygraph has 39/33, and YouGov/Sunday Times has 37/33. Nobody has Labour’s figure increasing, but equally no-one has the Conservatives increasing either. As the Mail will no doubt be pointing out, all three polls are well within the margin, and could actually represent a dead heat. But that’s highly unlikely, considering that they’re all pretty consistent today, hovering around a five point Labour lead. The Conservatives seem to have been halted in their upward tracks, though it is difficult to say why. They’re down on last Sunday’s swing figure, but well up on midweek. They’re still miles down from the beginning of the month, and this election loks more predictably boring every day.

Unless Mr Howard pulls something out of the bag this week – and the emphasis on Blair’s trust issues might just do it – then I think they’ll pretty much have lost it. Though if they play this story right while Labour’s trying to tell us how wonderful it’s world aid programmes are, then that could score a major blow, too. But there’s clearly a big difficulty in knowing the right way to play that one, without looking opportunistic. We’ll see if they manage it: If the Conservatives haven’t built on their current swing figure by next Sunday, they’re almost certainly doomed.