UK's ruling party gets poll boost

Labour could get 17 more seats than rival party if vote held today

LONDON - Britain's main opposition Conservative Party saw its once dominant lead in the opinion polls cut back further this week, suggesting Labour could remain the largest party in parliament after an upcoming election.

The ComRes poll in Tuesday's edition of the Independent had the Conservative Party's lead at 5 percent, down 2 points from last month's poll.

The Conservatives are now at 37 percent, Labour 32 percent and Britain's third-biggest political party, the Liberal Democrats, at 19 percent.

If replicated in a general election, that has to be held before early June, Labour would have 17 more seats than the Conservatives under the constituency system, 32 short of an overall majority, the paper said.

It is the second poll in a matter of days that suggests Prime Minister Gordon Brown could head a minority government.

A Sunday Times/YouGov poll put support for the Conservatives at 37 percent, Labour 35 percent and the Liberal Democrats 17 percent. Under that result, Brown would need support from smaller parties to pass legislation.

Uncertainty about the election outcome helped push sterling to a 10-month low against the dollar on Monday, as markets worried whether the next government would be able to tackle the growing debt burden effectively.

The ComRes poll, carried out between February 26-28, coincided with a rallying call by Conservative leader David Cameron to party activists in which he said a fourth successive Labour election win would spell "disaster" for Britain.

Voters' perceptions of Cameron and Brown on the economy were very similar, with 43 percent of those surveyed believing Cameron had the right skills to lead Britain back to economic health and 42 per cent saying the same of Brown.

The Conservatives want to make quicker and deeper cuts to Britain's record budget deficit of more than 12 percent GDP, but Brown claims swift spending cuts would kill off a fragile recovery from the worst recession since World World II.

The Conservative lead was in double figures late last year but has been narrowing in recent surveys which point increasingly to a hung parliament.

A recent allegation in a Sunday newspaper that suggested Brown bullied his staff does not appear to have damaged his personal ratings. Brown has denied the claims.

(China Daily 03/03/2010 page12)