LONDON (Reuters) – Britain's housing market cooled last month but consumers splashed out for Easter and exports rebounded after snow-related disruption at the start of the year, a raft of data showed yesterday.

The health of Britain's economy has become the key political battleground ahead of a May 6 election that is shaping up to be the least predictable contest since 1992, with the opposition Conservatives only narrowly ahead in opinion polls.

Britain pulled out of recession at the end of 2009, but a looming public spending squeeze to tackle a record budget deficit has raised doubts over how buoyant the recovery will be.

Data from the Office for National Statistics showed exports surged 9.5 percent in February, the biggest monthly increase in more than seven years, helping narrow the goods trade gap to £6.2 billion ($9.5 billion) from January's 17-month high of just above £8 billion.

The figures boosted hopes that trade will have made a positive contribution to growth in the first quarter of this year, though analysts warned that distortions due to the weather meant the pace of improvement was unlikely to be sustained.

"Trade was a significant drag on growth in the Q4, but it looks like it's on course to make a positive contribution in Q1," said Ross Walker, economist at RBS. There's some underlying improvement but ... net trade is not going to plug the gap in household and government consumption."

Britain's economy grew by 0.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009 after an 18-month recession that wiped out more than 6 percent of output.

First quarter gross domestic product figures, due on April 23, are expected to show the recovery continued into this year and will be a key milestone in the election campaign.

Separate figures from the British Retail Consortium showed retail sales jumped sharply last month on a year ago, but again the figures came with a health warning, this time due to the early timing of Easter.