More Bad News for Gordon on Brown Monday

The Times has a new Populus poll tomorrow. Headline figures are

Conservative 39% +2
Labour 33 -1
LibDem 17 -2

On the face of it, that is underwhelming for all three parties, but it's important to remember that Populus consistently scores the Tories lowest of all the pollsters. A six point lead is lower than the last five or six polls from other companies. But overall the poll looks pretty bleak for Gordon Brown. Peter Riddell has the full poll analysis HERE. Other poll points of interest...

* 31% regard Brown as worse than Tony Blair
* The number of voters thinking that the economy as a whole will fare well over the next year has dropped by a quarter to 39 per cent since last September.
* The number thinking that the country as a whole will do badly has risen from 45 to 59 per cent in the past seven months.
* More than two thirds of voters (70 per cent) say that Britain is now heading in the wrong direction.
* Mr Brown’s leader rating (on a 0 to 10 index) is down again, to 4.50 from 4.59 a month ago. This is the lower than all but one month of Mr Blair’s leadership. Mr Brown’s rating among Labour voters has fallen sharply from 6.72 to 6.26.
* Last September 21 per cent believed that he had performed better than expected, now just 5 per cent do. Over the same period the number saying that he has done worse than expected has risen from 6 to 36 per cent.
* Two thirds (67 per cent) say that Mr Brown has been all talk and no action, up from 46 per cent last September.
* The proportion regarding Labour as competent and capable has fallen from 56 to 37 per cent since last September and the Conservative rating has risen from 39 to 45 per cent.

Beachy Head is thataway.