New year brings bad poll news for Labour

Tuesday, 13 January 2009 5:25 PM

By Alex Stevenson

Another poll has confirmed the end of the 'Brown bounce', with the Conservatives recording a six-point swing against Labour.

The Tories were up four per cent in January to 43 per cent according to the Times/Populus poll.

Labour slipped two points to 33 per cent while the Liberal Democrats continued their mediocre polling performance of recent times with a slip to 15 per cent.

It ends a trend since the conference season of Britain's governing party recovering almost all the ground lost during Gordon Brown's first year in Downing Street.

The prime minister appears to be maintaining a marginal advantage over David Cameron in the leadership stakes, however.

On a nought to ten scale Mr Brown stands on 4.97 compared to Mr Cameron's 4.94.

And the economic team of Mr Brown and chancellor Alistair Darling is more trusted to cope with the recession, on 38 per cent, than Mr Cameron and George Osborne on 35 per cent.

Both the Conservatives and Labour are proposing similar solutions to the recession at present, leading both to accuse the other of having stolen their ideas.

Business secretary Peter Mandelson is expected to announce a loans guarantee scheme for small businesses similar to the national loans guarantee scheme announced by Mr Cameron at Policy Exchange last month.

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• party politics