ONLY A week ago, voters in England's local elections told the Tories what they thought of them as they turfed them out of hundreds of council seats across the country.

Looked at as an opinion poll verdict, the results made grim reading for party chiefs at Conservative Central Office and happy tidings for Labour's campaign team at Walworth Road.

But a week is indeed a long time in politics.

For look at the latest opinion poll.

Triumphant Labour's runaway lead has slipped suddenly and sharply - by five per cent.

True, the Tories trail still, lagging a whole 17 points behind Labour.

Yet, though they have narrowed the gap down from their 21-point deficit of a month ago, it is not as if they have become more popular.

In fact, they have slipped a further percentage point down the ratings to 28 per cent, compared with Labour's 45 per cent.

The real gainers are the Liberal Democrats whose rating has gone up four points to 21 per cent, reflecting the party's creditable performance in the local elections.

What does this - in particular, Labour's wobble - suggest? The safest conclusion, as ever, is that opinion polls are an uncertain guide to electoral trends.

But, for Labour, this latest snapshot will underline Tony Blair's oft-stated caution that victory at the general election cannot be regarded as being in the bag.

Indeed, this shift in the party's fortunes - dropping five points against the paradoxical background of its local election triumph - shows that the longer John Major can hold off from going to the country, the more vulnerable Labour's lead becomes if, as we see, it can shift by as much as five per cent in such a short time.

For although the town hall election results suggested a serious undermining of working-class "Essex Man" support for the Conservatives in their traditional southern heartlands, the climb could be less uphill for them in so-called Middle England, the battleground where the way the middle class votes decides the outcome of the general election.

That is because, with so many factors already in place that address middle-class concerns - cheap mortgages, low inflation, falling unemployment and reducing crime - the longer John Major is allowed for them to sink into the voters' perceptions, the more Labour's lead might suffer and the more points might be picked up by the struggling Tories.

That, of course, requires fewer signs of civil war and leadership conspiracy among the Conservatives.

But, given the cards John Major is holding on the economic front, the time for him to start winning some tricks could be now - when Labour's own winning streak seems to have suddenly slowed down.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.