THE Tories' plight heading into the forthcoming General Election was reinforced this week with the publication of two polls suggesting they are actually making inroads into Labour's lead.

An ICM poll found that, with the election expected within months, Labour's lead had been cut back to just three percentage points - from nine in December.

This was followed by a Mori poll on Thursday putting Labour's lead at an even closer two points.

But, lest Michael Howard's supporters should get carried away with the news, the application of this data to Britain's first-past-the-post electoral system is not encouraging for the blue team.

Electoral Calculus, a favourite website of MPs which converts the latest poll findings into election results, still gives Labour a 96-seat majority even after the latest poll surge.

Such a result, eight years on from the 1997 New Labour revolution, would send the Tories into paroxyms of despair and would leave Michael Howard with little chance of hanging on to his job until the end of the year.

But, despite the appearance of a foregone conclusion on the national stage, there is all to play for on a seat-by-seat basis and Labour's Worcestershire MPs will be anxiously studying the latest polls.

Closer analysis of this week's Mori poll shows that if its findings were replicated in the election, Labour's Redditch MP Jacqui Smith, who has a slim majority of 2,484, would lose her seat to her Tory challenger.

Worcester's Mike Foster, who entered Parliament on the popular wave in 1997, is also nervously watching the tide turn back.

On the results of this week, he could expect to see his 5,766 majority more than halved to 2,224.

That could just be enough - but considering the margin of error in polls and the three months' worth of campaigning yet to go, he can't afford to leave anything to chance.