Why Ed Miliband can breathe a little easier

Last month Lord Ashcroft published a poll claiming that Ukip was only 12 points off Labour in Ed Miliband's own constituency.

It claimed that voters in Doncaster North only favoured the Labour leader as prime minister over David Cameron by one point, rating him as the third best party leader while also trusting Cameron and George Osborne more on the economy than Miliband and Ed Balls.

The only issue was that it wasn't true, with Ashcroft issuing a correction and apology on his polling website today.

He said an error in how the poll was weighted during the data processing stage was brought to his attention, with the poll including too many Conservative voters and not enough Labour supporters.

The revised results increase Labour's lead over Ukip to 29 points, give Miliband a lead over Cameron by 14 points, not one, and reveal voters overall trusted the Labour leader and shadow chancellor Balls more than Cameron and Osborne, not the reverse.

"I hope readers will appreciate that I always aim to conduct my research to the highest standards, that data is always checked, and that instances like this are very rare," Lord Ashcroft wrote.

"As ever, I welcome questions and observations on my research, and will always seek to correct errors that inevitably crop up from time to time.

"Meanwhile, my apologies to all readers and especially to Ed Miliband."

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