THE general election is still too close to call as Chancellor Alistair Darling prepares to deliver his crucial Budget, according to a poll.

Research by Ipsos Mori for the Daily Mirror gave David Cameron's party a five-point lead, on 35% to 30% for Labour. The Liberal Democrats were on 21%.

If repeated evenly across the country when the election is held, the figures would result in a hung Parliament.

But because of the way votes are distributed between constituencies, Gordon Brown would end up in charge of the largest party, with 289 seats.

The Tories would have 269 seats, and the Lib Dems 58, the newspaper calculated.

The poll also suggested that Mr Brown and Mr Darling were winning on the key economic battleground.

A majority of those quizzed - 56% - thought Labour was right to say public spending should not be cut immediately for fear of putting the recovery at risk.

Some 32% backed the Conservative view that the national debt was the greatest threat to the economy, and work on reducing it needed to start this year.