CALUM Higgins, Welsh Labour's Parliamentary candidate for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, has been boosted by a poll suggesting that the outcome of his fight with Plaid Cymru's Jonathan Edwards at the General Election in May 2015 could be on a knife edge.

The poll, for ITV Wales, found that if a Westminster election was held now, Labour would win 46 per cent of the vote – 10 per cent more than at the last election in 2010, while Plaid Cymru would be one per cent up at 12 per cent.

On the swings predicted by the YouGov poll, Mr Edwards would retain Carmarthen East and Dinefwr by a margin of only 0.1 per cent – a mere 38 votes.

"I think this poll shows that the core vote that we lost is coming back to Labour," Mr Higgins, 24, told the Guardian. "This contest is going to be too close to call which is why I'm concentrating on going out and talking to people.

"The austerity policies of the Con-Dem government are being rejected in places like Carmarthen East and Dinefwr and Labour are the only party that can oppose them on a national level.

"The importance of the next election cannot be understated; following the Autumn statement we know that George Osborne believes his policies are working and if the Tories are re-elected there will be more austerity to come."

But the poll's finding were derided by a Plaid Cymru spokesman who said it was "a fool's game" to apply national swing data at a single constituency level. "Doing this shows the naivety of the Labour campaign," he added.

“A YouGov poll stated the recent Ynys Mon byelection was a marginal fight between Plaid Cymru and Labour. Plaid Cymru went on to win almost 60 per cent of the vote with a majority of over 9,000.

“Plaid Cymru treats every election as a marginal and takes not a single vote for granted. The 2015 election is about who is the best person to represent this special constituency in Westminster and which party you can trust to put Carmarthenshire first.

"Jonathan Edwards is a formidable politician who commands respect across the political divide. With over 1,000 contributions, he is one of the most hard-working Members of Parliament and is without doubt Carmarthenshire’s voice in Westminster.”