Brown ends years on all-time low
Gordon Brown has continued his political slide into the parliamentary recess, with the latest opinion poll putting his personal approval rating at an all-time low.
After an uncritical reception that coined the term “Brown bounce”, the prime minister ends the year with less than half the country backing him.
A YouGov poll for the Daily Telegraph found barely a quarter (24 per cent) of the country are satisfied with Mr Brown’s performance as prime minister, with 12 per cent prepared to rate his performance as “very good or good”.
Six in ten voters are now dissatisfied with the prime minister, compared to 27 per cent in July and 48 per cent in October, when Mr Brown’s fortunes began to turn on the back of an atypically solid Conservative party conference.
And with a rash of negative stories undermining confidence in the government in recent weeks, a majority of the electorate (51 per cent) now say Mr Brown’s performance is “poor or very poor”.
The recent row over police pay has been particularly damaging for the government.
Nearly six in ten voters think it is wrong not to backdate the police pay rise, while 13 per cent say Jacqui Smith is still doing a good job as home secretary.
More worryingly for Labour, a lack of confidence in Gordon Brown risks costing his party 100 seats at the next election.
David Cameron is now eyeing a “workable majority”, with the Conservatives ending the year on a 12-point lead.
However, Mr Cameron is still struggling to present himself as a prime minister-in-waiting, with less than half of the electorate (47 per cent) saying he is “proving a good leader”.
Labour supporters reportedly hope a new leader will revive the Liberal Democrats in the new year, squeezing Tory support.
The poll, conducted at the climax of the Lib Dem leadership contest, places support for the third party at 16 per cent, broadly in line with other opinion polls but up from the 11 per cent low recorded by YouGov in October.
