Liberal Democrats in the Torridge and Tavistock constituency have hailed the latest YouGov poll as showing the party “’in striking distance” of taking the seat from Conservative Sir Geoffrey Cox.

The MRP poll puts Lib Dem candidate Phil Hutty polling 24 per cent of the vote. Sir Geoffrey remains in front, on 30 per cent of the vote.

The same poll says that Reform UK would poll 23 per cent, reflecting its surge in popularity since Nigel Farage took over as leader.

Meanwhile, Labour’s Isabel Saxby would gain 17 per cent according to YouGov. The Green Party, represented by Judy Maciejowska would gain five per cent of the vote.

Cllr Chris West, a Lib Dem councillor for West Devon Borough Council, who is canvassing for Phil Hutty, said: "These figures are much more in line with our own canvassing returns, and the figures are only going our way. Early polls based on national projections had been very misleading as no one who knows this area thinks that Labour can win here. More and more people are telling us on the doorstep that they will vote for us because they want to see the end of the Tories and they like our policies.”

Meanwhile, there is optimism for Labour in Central Devon, which includes Okehampton, in this latest YouGov poll, with 33 per cent of the vote for the Labour Party’s Ollie Pearson and 30 per cent for Conservative Mel Stride. The Lib Dem’s Mark Wooding polled 11 per cent in the latest YouGov poll.

Nationally, the YouGov poll shows the Liberal Democrats on course to win 67 seats, including a whole swathe of the West Country, including South Devon; Torbay; North Cornwall; North Devon; Tiverton and Minehead; Taunton and Wellington; Honiton and Sidmouth; and West Dorset.

The poll shows Labour expected to gain 425 seats and the Conservatives 108, down 32 from the last YouGov poll two weeks ago.

If this comes to pass, it would be the Conservatives' worst result in 200 years.

The YouGov poll is a Multi-level Regression and Post-stratification (MRP) model – which asks a sample of voters how they will vote in the election and then adjusts the results by analysing other data on the people who live in a constituency.

YouGov says the statistical model predicted the 2019 election result to within a couple of seats of each party’s actual performance on the night.