By political editor Paul Francis

One of the country's leading pollsters says the Lib Dems are on course to hold the balance of power after the election - and the most likely outcome remains a hung Parliament.

With the election just 24-hours away, Sir Robert Worcester, who lives in Maidstone and founded the MORI research group, said there remained a chance David Cameron might still get enough seats to form the next Government but a hung Parliament - the first since 1974 - was highly likely.

He predicted the Lib Dem surge nationally would not be enough to spare Labour in the seven Kent seats it is defending.

Sir Robert maintained that the overall trend in the polls pointed to one outcome.Polls cannot tell you what is going to happen in the future, they are a snapshot of a point in time. [But] the trends are pretty clear - they are pointing to a hung Parliament."

There was an outside possibility that Cameron could form a Conservative administration.

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"If there is a difference of between 20 to 40 seats between the number won by the Conservatives and those won by Labour, then Cameron could limp along without Lib Dem support."

But if the Conservatives only managed about 20 seats more than Labour, a joint administration with the Liberal Democrats was one possible option.

"The difficulty for the Lib Dems is that their heart is with Labour," he said.

He did not rule out the possibility that Gordon Brown could play a significant role in deciding how events would unfold in the event there was no outright winner.

"He will play some kind of role because it is his seat at Number 10.

"Will he choose to resign or lose a vote of no confidence at the Queen's Speech on May 25?

"The pressure on him from the markets and the City and his own colleagues could be so great that he would have to go to the Palace and tender his resignation."

With polls in key marginal constituencies suggesting that the Conservative lead over Labour was growing, he did not hold out much hope for the party holding its seven seats.

"It is going to be hard for people like Jonathan Shaw [Chatham and Aylesford Labour candidate] to survive and the Medway Towns are all pretty close.

"Where it is a straight fight between Labour and the Conservatives, Labour seats that are going to go," he said.

For one party to have a majority, they need to win - on paper at least - 326 of the 650 seats up for grabs.

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