The General Election is too close to call with just 100 days to go as a new poll suggests David Cameron's Conservatives have edged ahead of Labour for the first time in nearly four years and a second snapshot has placed both parties neck and neck.

 

On the campaign trail, the Prime Minister warned local Tory supporters that the worst outcome on May 8 was not a Labour government but an Ed Miliband administration propped up by the SNP.

"If there was anyone who thought the worst possible outcome of the election was an Ed Miliband-led Labour government, actually I can now tell you something that would be even worse, and that is Ed Miliband in Downing Street, supported by the Scottish National Party, who want to break up our United Kingdom.

"The battle of this election has become even more important," he told a meeting of local Conservatives in the Tory/Lib Dem marginal seat of Eastleigh in Hampshire, warning of the "dangers and risks" of what he termed were minor parties like the SNP.

A telephone Comres poll of 1000 adults taken over the weekend placed the Conservatives on 31 per cent, up two; Labour on 30, down two; Ukip on 17 per cent, up one; the Liberal Democrats on eight, down four; the Greens on seven, up two, and others, including the SNP, also on seven, down one.

In further figures that will alarm Labour HQ, the poll showed more people trusted the Tory leader on the NHS than the Labour leader; 29 per cent to 28.

Underlining the importance of healthcare in the campaign, 59 per cent of people said the NHS meant more to them, in terms of how they would vote, than the economy; 34 per cent said the reverse.

Some 67 per cent of women said the NHS was a higher priority than the economy; half of men said it was. Meantime, 43 per cent of men said the economy was more important; 26 per cent of women said the same.

Today, Mr Miliband will use a keynote speech to warn voters that "our NHS" faces "its most perilous moment", claiming that if the Tories gained power then the service south of the border would become "unrecognisable".

The chances of a Lab-SNP alliance in a hung parliament were heightened in recent days when First Minister Nicola Sturgeon made clear Nationalist MPs would be prepared to vote on England's NHS to stop further privatisation, which could have a knock-on budgetary effect on Scotland's NHS.

In a further indication of a possible Labour-SNP tie-up, senior sources talked up the prospect of the Nationalist leadership supporting Mr Miliband in his bid to create an elected senate to replace the 700-year-old House of Lords with representatives from the nations and regions of the UK.

A key insider stressed how, at present, the SNP leadership was not contemplating a formal coalition with a minority Labour government but a so-called confidence and supply arrangement. "We could see ourselves supporting them on an issue by issue basis. We would not be keen on accepting ministerial responsibility in a Miliband government," he added.

In a second telephone poll, conducted by Lord Ashcroft, the Tory peer, again of 1000 adults and again over the weekend, the Conservatives and Labour were placed neck and neck.

The weekly Ashcroft National Poll put the Conservatives on 32 per cent, up three points, level-pegging with Labour, which was up four.

Ukip was unchanged on 15 per cent while the Greens were on nine per cent, down two, and the Lib Dems were on six, down three.

Responding to the polls, Jim Murphy, the Scottish Labour leader, said they showed clearly the election was "neck and neck" between his party and the Tories, noting: "It looks like the closest election for decades and Scotland can decide whether David Cameron stays or goes."

Stressing how only Labour was "big enough and strong enough" to get rid of the Tory leader from Downing Street, he warned: "A vote for the SNP risks five more years of the Tories, five more years of misery on our most vulnerable and five more years of wasted opportunities for our young people."

For the Nationalists, their deputy leader Stewart Hosie said that, while the polls in Scotland placed the SNP well ahead of Labour, nothing could be taken for granted.

"Our message is that people have 100 more days to make Scotland's priorities Westminster's priorities, which can only be achieved by voting SNP," he said.

Meantime, to mark 100 days to polling day, the Liberal Democrats today launch a poster that will be seen by one million voters on Facebook that warns the Conservatives want to "veer off from the sensible economic plan we have set in Coalition, towards much harsher cuts than necessary to public services, especially in education" and warns Labour wants to "take us in the direction of reckless borrowing, threatening the economic recovery".