British polls today:

Tight race for Party leaders

UK: Britain’s Party leaders campaigned around the clock Tuesday in a final push for votes, two days before a Parliamentary election that opinion polls suggest could redraw the political map.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown hinted that he could step aside if his Labour Party fails to win a fourth consecutive election on Thursday, as most polls suggest.

Recent surveys have indicated that David Cameron, hoping to end his centre-right Conservative Party’s 13 years in opposition, would either win a slim majority in Parliament or fall just short of it. But a new poll showed the race tightening again.

The YouGov survey for the Sun newspaper showed Labour cutting the Conservatives’ lead to five points while the Liberal Democrats, traditionally Britain’s third party, slipped back. That outcome would make Labour the largest party in parliament, though without a majority, if repeated on Thursday. “I have never known so many undecided voters as we have seen in this election,” Brown told a rally in Manchester.

Cameron planned to campaign overnight, with events scheduled in northern England early on Wednesday as he seeks support from the third of voters said to still be wavering. The rise of the Lib Dems has added to the unpredictability and turned the contest into a three-way fight.

The Lib Dems could hold the balance of power in an inconclusive election and will use that to push for a proportional voting system.

Brown, Finance Minister for a decade until 2007, indicated earlier he could step aside if Labour flops at the polls.

“I will take full responsibility if anything happens,” Brown told GMTV, a breakfast television show. LONDON, Wednesday, Reuters