Nearly a half of Brits believe Tony Blair was more than economical with truth over the “outing” of Dr David Kelly, the Ministry of Defence Iraqi weapons expert who committed suicide last year, according to the YouGov poll for The Mail on Sunday newspaper.

A total of 46 per cent of respondents said Mr Blair “lied” when he said he did not authorise the leaking of Mr Kelly’s name to the media.

Dr Kelly was the BBC “mole” alleged to have spoken out against Downing Street’s “sexed up” intelligence report on Iraq, which suggested Saddam Hussein could launch weapons of mass destruction “within 45-minutes”.

The poll comes as the prime minister gears up for the publication of the findings of Lord Hutton’s judicial inquiry into the circumstances surrounding Dr Kelly’s death on July 18th, 2003.

Mr Blair told MPs on Wednesday he would step down if Lord Hutton concluded he had “lied” over the Kelly affair.

A total of 23 per cent of those interviewed said Mr Blair told the truth, while 27 per cent remained on the fence.

YouGov interviewed 2,093 people online between January 8th and 10th.

Only seven per cent said the BBC was to blame for putting Dr Kelly under pressure by refusing to confirm he was the source of Andrew Gilligan’s Today programme report.