Brown poll lead deepens
Gordon Brown appears to have cemented his poll lead following the Pre-Budget Report, with a six-point jump in his lead since November 24th.
A Populus poll for the Times today puts the Brown/Alistair Darling team on 40 per cent when respondents were asked who they trusted to deal with the recession.
The Conservative’s David Cameron/George Osborne team received 31 per cent.
The Tories are still ahead generally, although their lead has dwindled to four points.
Mr Cameron’s party are down two percentage points to 39 per cent while Labour are unchanged on 35 per cent.
The Liberal Democrats – who have failed to make much traction out of the economic downturn – are up one to 17 per cent.
There was also evidence of a significant decline in the number of Labour voters prepared to switch to the Conservatives.
In September, 19 per cent of people who had voted Labour in 1995 said they would vote Tory now. That number has now dropped to nine per cent.
The poll confirms previous evidence that the Pre-Budget Report has cemented Labour’s image as the better party to manage an economic downturn, although some polls – including one for politics.co.uk gave Labour a slimmer margin of support.
The picture is more complex when voters are asked about the individual initiatives in the Report, with strong reservations about the level of borrowing the government is committed to.
