The Tories have widened their poll lead to seven points with little more than a week to go before the General Election.

A ComRes poll put David Cameron's party on 36 per cent - up 3 per cent. Labour remained steady on 29 per cent, while there were more signs that the Lib Dem surge may be dying off as they dropped three points to 26 per cent.

If repeated on May 6, the figures would make the Conservatives the biggest party with 282 seats in the Commons, compared to 259 for Labour and 77 for the Lib Dems.

But Mr Cameron would still be 44 short of an overall majority.

A separate poll for Harris put the Tories on 32 per cent, up one point over the past week. The Lib Dems were unchanged in second on 30 per cent, and Labour were down one on 25 per cent. The findings would give a hung parliament if repeated evenly across the country on May 6.

Both surveys were carried out before the incident on Wednesday when Gordon Brown apologised after being recorded calling a voter a "bigoted woman".

A YouGov poll partly carried out on Wednesday showed the Tories up a point on 34 per cent, narrowly ahead of the Lib Dems who were up three points on 31 per cent. Labour had dropped two points to 27 per cent.