General Election 2015: Conservatives enter final week a point ahead in opinion polls

The Conservative Party will enter the final week of the election campaign a point ahead of Labour, according to a Telegraph poll of polls.

Both David Cameron and Ed Miliband will lack enough seats to form a majority government, according to the latest prediction, although the poll suggests Labour will end up with more MPs.

^{David Cameron}

The poll of polls puts the Tories up one point to 34%, with Labour unchanged on last week at 33%.

Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats are up a point at 9%, while Ukip and the Greens are unchanged on 14% and 5% respectively.

Although the Conservatives are supported by more voters than Labour, their votes are distributed more widely, meaning they are projected to get a lower number of seats than Ed Miliband’s party, with 274 to 292 for Labour.

The Telegraph’s Wisdom Index Survey suggests that the country also believes the election will end in a dead heat between Labour and the Conservatives. Asked by ICM what share of the vote they expected the parties to end up with, respondents predicted 32.2% for Labour and 31.7% for the Conservatives.

They were slightly more optimistic than the polls suggest about the prospects for the Liberal Democrats, saying, on average, that Mr Clegg's party would finish up on 13.9% of the vote, ahead of Ukip on 12.2%.

Professor John Curtice, of Strathclyde University, who produced the poll of polls for The Telegraph, said that if they were correct the both Mr Cameron and Mr Miliband would struggle to form a majority.

^{Ed Miliband}

"If either leader is to avoid the pitfalls of minority government he has to set his sights on 300 seats,” Prof Curtis said. “For only the Liberal Democrats are potential coalition partners – if an acceptable deal can be struck.

"At the moment the polls suggest neither leader is doing well enough to hit this target.

^{Who will go into coalition with Nick Clegg?}

"If he is to retain office the Prime Minister has to hope that either his party can pull further ahead or that the polls are underestimating his support, a possibility the record of the polls in previous elections suggests we cannot necessarily dismiss.

“If instead of a one-point lead he had a three point one Mr Cameron might just hit the 300 seat target that would enable him to form a majority coalition with Nick Clegg.”