General election: Labour extends lead over Conservatives in exclusive poll for Sky News
The Labour Party has extended its lead over the Conservatives, according to the first exclusive YouGov poll of the campaign for Sky News.
One week into the race for Number 10, Labour is 27 points ahead of the Tories - erasing a small drop in the lead recorded at the end of last week.
The Great Britain poll - which was conducted on Monday and Tuesday this week and surveyed 2,128 adults - puts Labour on 47%, the Tories on 20%, Reform on 12%, the Liberal Democrats on 9% and the Greens on 7%.
This suggests that the Tories have not yet had a bounce from Rishi Sunak's surprise decision to go to the country on 4 July, rather than waiting until the autumn.
The party is also still struggling to bring back together the voter coalition Boris Johnson won around in 2019.
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Of the Tory voters from that year, only 36% say they would vote Tory now, 19% would vote Reform UK, 19% don't know and 14% would switch to Labour.
This is the key group identified by Conservative headquarters, and the national service announcement on Sunday was aimed at bringing this group back into the fold.
Meanwhile, Labour leads the Tories in all parts of Great Britain and among men and women.
The only groups that have the Tories ahead are the over 65s - albeit by a far smaller margin than in 2019 - and among people who voted to leave the EU.
Mr Sunak called the general election last Wednesday after official figures showed inflation fell to 2.3% in April, which he said is "proof that the plan and priorities I set out are working".
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The campaign kicked off quickly despite the other parties, and many Conservative MPs, being caught on the hop by the announcement.
As the latest poll was released this Wednesday, the prime minister was in Cornwall where he was focusing on apprenticeships, pledging to create 100,000 a year by shutting down "rip-off degrees" - the worst-performing university courses.
Labour said the policy is "laughable" after the Tories "presided over a halving of apprenticeships for young people".
Sir Keir Starmer's party was setting its sights on tackling NHS backlogs, promising to create an additional 40,000 appointments, scans and operations each week during evenings and weekends, and doubling the number of scanners.
