Two-thirds of British voters believe Prime Minister Tony Blair's government has run out of steam, according to a new survey.
The poll, carried out for the Guardian newspaper by pollsters ICM, places the Opposition Conservatives (Tories) ahead of the Labour party for the first time since 2000.
The poll finds that the Tories are ahead of Labour by 37 percent to 36 percent, with the Liberal Democrats on 21 percent, compared with Labour's five-point lead a month ago. Minor parties have also been squeezed from 10 percent to 7 percent by the Tories' revival under their newly-elected leader David Cameron.
It is the first time in five years the Tories have been ahead -- the last was during the fuel crisis -- and the second time since 1993, after the pound crashed out of the European exchange rate mechanism. It suggests that a solid majority of voters, 55 percent, is now dissatisfied with the job Tony Blair is doing as prime minister, though he remains overwhelmingly popular (82 percent) among Labour voters.
But the chances of Tony Blair's heir apparent as Labour leader, the UK's present finance minister Gordon Brown, in a 2009-2010 election against Cameron and the Liberal Democrats' Charles Kennedy are rated even more pessimistically. With Brown in charge of Labour, the Tory lead widens to 41 percent to 36 percent with the Liberal Democrats on 18 percent as they lose votes back to Tory candidates.
Even 46 percent of Labour supporters agree with the proposition that the government has run out of steam. Among all voters the figure is 66 percent, rising to 78 percent among Liberal Democrats, 86 percent among Tories and 71 percent among supporters of other parties.
Labour will write off the findings as part of a temporary Cameron bounce. But they will set alarm bells ringing among party strategists. ICM confirms that, so far, Cameron's leadership is satisfactory to 51 percent of voters overall, with Labour and Liberal Democrats supporters almost as impressed. One in five disagrees.
As well as firing a warning to Blair, it may unsettle the Labour leader-in-waiting. Under Brown's leadership Labour would do worse than it would do under Blair. ICM's findings put Labour on 36 percent under both men -- roughly what Labour got in the May 5 general election.
But the Conservatives do much better because they take votes back that were "loaned" to Kennedy and the Liberal Democrats in the years of rightwing Tory flatlining just above 30 percent. ICM finds that a majority (63 percent) of Liberal Democrats voters see Cameron as a potential prime minister who could change the way they feel about the Tories -- and almost half (46 percent) might consider voting for him.
ICM's findings are broadly in line with a clutch of post-Cameron newspaper polls which have given the 39-year-old Tory leader a lift of two to four points. ICM puts the Tories 4 percent up since the election under Blair's Labour leadership, 8 percent up under Brown's, with the Liberal Democrats taking a hit of 2 percent and 5 percent respectively.
ICM interviewed a random sample of 1,004 adults aged 18 plus.
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