Fox affair moves voters to Labour

The Labour Party has opened up its biggest lead over the Tories in this morning's populus poll in the Times.

It's probably best to be a little sceptical over the results as interviewees were grilled at the height of the Liam Fox controversy.

Its share of the vote has risen to 41 per cent, up 3 percentage points since September. This gives the party an 8 per cent lead over the Conservatives, the highest figure since May last year

Worse recession for 100 years and Labour down below 30 points

Ed Balls' comment at the weekend and now picked up by the press appear to confirm just how deep this recession is going to be.

As the Independent says the comments carry extra weight in that

he is a former chief economic adviser to the Treasury and regarded as one of the Prime Ministers's closest allies.

The Times maenwhile produces the lastest opinion poll which brings mor e bad news to the government.

Its latest Populus poll shows that Labourhas dropped by 5 points to 28 per cent since last month, its lowest level for nearly six months.The Tories are dowm a point at 42.

This is now the third poll that has shown the party below the 30 mark and may be even more worrying is that the Lib Dems are increasing their share of the vote(up 3 points) at the expense of Labour.

Latest poll has the gap down to 4 points

The latest Brown bounce opinion poll appears on the front page of this morning's Times which reports that

Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling are favoured over David Cameron and George Osborne by 40 per cent to 31 per cent — a six-point jump in their lead since the Pre-Budget Report was presented on November 24.

The populus poll has the Tories on 39 points,Labour on 35 and the Lib Dems on 17 and its the narrowest lead in a Populus poll since March

Populus Poll suggests public aren't so sure about the governemnt's tactics over recession

This morning's Times carries a one off populus poll that suggests that the public are not quite as behing the government's reflationary package as some might think.

According to the paper

Since the last Populus poll on November 7 to 9, Mr Brown has dropped sharply as the best leader “right now, to deal with Britain’s economy in recession”, from 52 to 42 per cent, with a big fall among the middle classes. But he is still ahead of David Cameron, on 36 per cent, up four points. Mr Cameron is still ahead, by 41 to 33 per cent, as the preferred leader to take Britain forward after the next election.

and Peter Riddle suggests that

the public remain unsure about why the economy has deteriorated so quickly, as well as about whether the Government’s response will work.

Brown bounces to 6 points difference

It seems that one day we have a Brown bounce and the next we don't.

This morning's Populus poll in the Times suggests that we do.Labour is shown as a mere 6 points behind the Tories and shows Gordon Brown as

comfortably beating David Cameron as the leader seen as best able to handle the recession

More than half the public thinks that Mr Brown is the right leader to deal with the economy in recession, against a third for Mr Cameron. Mr Brown’s personal rating is also at its highest since July 2007, when he became Prime Minister. However, Mr Cameron is seen as better able to lead Britain forward after the next election

This is the smallest Tory lead since the March budget but the party will take comfort in the fact that the majority still want Cameron as the next PM.

Over at Political Betting Mike Smithson puts

part of the change is down to a hardening in the certainty to vote level of Labour supporters. This both gives them a boost and adds to the overall number of “voters” in the calculation thus diluting the Tory figure.

Tuesday round up of plotting and intrigue

Lancashire seems to be the latest hotbed according to the Independent which reports

A "Lancashire plot" against the Prime Minister appeared to be gathering pace as two backbenchers from the North-west of England urged him to step down and a third questioned his survival chances.

The two back benchers are Gordon Prentice, the MP for Pendle and Graham Stringer, MP for Manchester Blackley who have both called for the Pm to step down

In the Mail it is reported that plans are afoot for a coronation of David Milband and Alan Johnson

David Miliband and Alan Johnson are being urged by senior colleagues to forge a 'dream ticket' in a Labour leadership contest.
The move comes as Gordon Brown faces open calls to step down in the interests of the party.
Ministers and MPs who want the beleaguered Prime Minister to quit appear to be coalescing around the idea of Foreign Secretary Mr Miliband as Prime Minister with Health Secretary Mr Johnson as his deputy.

The Guardian beleives all is calm

The Labour party appeared to rally round its troubled leader yesterday, as MPs sought to deny the existence of a list of names being sent to the cabinet calling on them to urge Gordon Brown to quit.

although it adds

A group of around 30 so-called "moderate" MPs were reported to be compiling a letter to send to the cabinet urging its members to persuade the prime minister to go. However, MPs reported to have signed the list denied knowledge of it when contacted by the Guardian

But all this doesn't actually matter if you see the latset poll in the Times which suggests

Ministers plotting to remove Gordon Brown receive a warning that barely half the electorate (52 per cent) believe that it would improve the party’s fortunes. This is roughly the same as when the question was asked last in May, despite increased speculation about his future.

The poll by Populus shows

Labour is on 27 per cent, down one point on the last Populus poll three weeks ago, and about the level it has been for the past three months. This is the lowest since the early 1980s.
The Conservatives are on 43 per cent — up two points — with the Liberal Democrats down one point at 18 per cent. Other parties are unchanged on 12 per cent

Labour up in the polls but Brown more unpopular than his party

The latest opinion poll this morning in the Times shows a slight improvement for the Labour up three points on the last months rating.

Labour stands at 28%,the Tories are on 41%,the gap having decreased by 7 points.Normally perhaps this would be good news for Gordon Brown but as the paper points out

This was bound to happen at some stage as Labour support could not go on falling. Tory support may have been affected by recent allegations over the finances of some party spokesmen and MPs

More worrying though is the polls findings that

A big majority of voters regard Gordon Brown as weak, a loser and not up to the job of being Prime Minister,

adding

Mr Brown’s image is more negative than his own party’s. This may encourage his critics among Labour MPs to wonder whether they might be better off with another leader before the next election

Latest Populus Poll

This morning's papers keep the pressure on Gordon Brown with the Times carrying a Populus poll in which 55% of Labour voters want hime to go
These are the key findings of the poll :

— Support for Labour has fallen by four points in a month to 29 per cent. The Tories have gained one point to 40 per cent; their lead of 11 points is the largest in the five years of Populus polls. The Liberal Democrats are two points up at 19 per cent, with other parties one point ahead at 12 per cent.

— The number who trust Mr Brown and Alistair Darling most to deal with economic problems has fallen to 30 per cent, down from 43 per cent in mid-March and 61 per cent in early September.

— The poll suggested that Mr Brown could not solve his problems by bringing in fresh faces with a big Cabinet reshuffle. Only 36 per cent think a reshuffle would make Labour more likely to win the next election. Only Labour voters, by a 51 to 41 per cent margin, support a reshuffle.

— More than two thirds of all voters, and nearly four fifths of Labour supporters, think that significant policy changes in areas such as the NHS, crime and tax would make Labour more likely to win the next election.

It is according to James Forsyth,

still extremely unlikely that Brown will be forced out. But the slew of bad news for Brown is going to lead to ever more vocal dissent within the Labour party

Meanwhile John Craig reports that

Earlier, in a TV interview, Alastair Campbell was asked to name his favourite song and chose Labour's 1997 election ditty "Things Can Only Get Better".

Say no more

More bad poll news

More bad poll news on the front of the Times this morning as the latest Populus poll says

In the poll, undertaken over the weekend, the Tories have risen two points since a month ago to 39 per cent and Labour has slipped one point to 33 per cent. The Liberal Democrats are down two points at 17 per cent. These are within one point of the average ratings this year. The poll also finds that 31 per cent of voters now regard Mr Brown as worse than Tony Blair

adding that

More than two thirds of voters (70 per cent) say that Britain is heading in the wrong direction

Coming on the back of the weekend's 10p tax rebellions,this is not good news for the government

However as political betting points out

This has not quite lived up to it billing and while a six point margin should put the Tories ahead on seats it is nowhere near what is required for a majority government.

Polling report says

Looking beneath the headline voting intention figures, there is little else to comfort the government. Labour are now seen as less competent than the Conservative party (last September during the Brown boost 56% thought Labour were competent, now 37% do), 67% think Brown is all talk and no action. Only 5% think Brown has done better than they expected as PM, with 36% thinking he has done worse, a pathetic 3% think Brown has made a real difference to Britain - 62% think he has made no difference at all. 70% think the country is headed in the wrong direction and it goes on… Labour will be happy that this poll shows a comparatively small lead, one that would leave the Tories long short of a majority, but the rest of the figures remain dire.

And Iain Dale says

A six point lead is lower than the last five or six polls from other companies. But overall the poll looks pretty bleak for Gordon Brown.

Latest poll shows Tory lead cut to 3 points

The latest opinion poll in this morning's Times put the Tory lead over Laboutr to just three points,down 6 precentage points on the previous figures

Both Labour and the Lib Dems have gained at the expense of Mr Cameron,the poll also illustrating that last week's events over the EU referndum have had no effect on the voters.

According to Adam Boulton,this will lead to

Conservative activists sharpening their knives for David Cameron at the party's spring forum in Gateshead next weekend. (Give us tax cuts, they will scream, I predict!)

Mike Smithson says that

The Lib Dems will be relieved that after all their apparent problems last week over the Commons Lisbon treaty vote that they have made significant progress. This, I suggest, has little to do with the issue itself but the greater prominence that the party has had as a result of the treaty discussions in parliament

.



So why the turnaround,according to Adam

Gordon Brown appears to have got his act together since the turn of the year, after the missing data discs fiasco and other mess-ups.
He has hired new staff in No 10 to beef up the Downing Street operation, he is performing better against David Cameron in Prime Minister's Questions and he appeared more relaxed when he spoke at Labour's spring conference in Birmingham 10 days ago.

Perhaps it also illustrates the public's irritation at the EU debate.