Iraq rows slash Labour's poll lead

LABOUR IS IN BIG TROUBLE AND IT STARTS WITH 'T'

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Iraq rows slash Labour's poll lead

Alan Travis, home affairs editor
Tuesday July 22, 2003
The Guardian

Labour's lead over the Conservatives has narrowed to only two points as Tony Blair's personal rating has taken a battering in the last month, according to the July Guardian/ICM opinion poll.
The poll shows that Mr Blair's reputations for competence, trustworthiness and being "in touch with ordinary people" have all taken severe knocks in the last three months as the political argument has continued to rage over the war in Iraq.

The fieldwork for the ICM survey was carried out mainly on Friday and Saturday after the death of Dr David Kelly but before the BBC's decision to name him as its source. It shows that Mr Blair's personal rating has fallen four points in the last month and now stands at minus 17 points, with 37% happy with the job he is doing as prime minister and 54% unhappy.

His personal rating, which has deteriorated sharply since he enjoyed a plus 7 point "Baghdad bounce" in the immediate aftermath of the military victory, is now heading back towards his prewar depths of unpopularity.

But the ICM survey also shows that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, Mr Blair is still seen as overwhelmingly popular among Labour voters, with 75% saying they are satisfied with the job he is doing. Indeed 86% of Labour voters say they see Blair as competent; 70% say he is trustworthy; 63% say he is in touch with ordinary people and only 33% say he lacks clear ideas.

Among the wider electorate, the prime minister's standing is much more mixed. In the last three months the proportion of the electorate who regard him as trustworthy has fallen 12 points to only 39% and those who see him as "in touch with ordinary people" has fallen by 8 points to 34%. Both are qualities which prime ministers notoriously find hard to regain once they have lost them.

A clear majority of all voters, including Labour, continue to believe that Blair relies too much on spin and public relations.

His reputation for competence has also slipped since April, by 9 points, but a healthy 59% of voters still think he can be seen as a competent prime minister.

The fact that a clear majority of the voters also see Mr Blair as a tough prime minister who has firm principles and clear ideas despite the lack of trust shows that the picture is more complex than some recent polls have indicated.

The ICM poll shows that the impact of the government's bitter dispute with the BBC has continued to erode the government's opinion poll lead, which has fallen from a comfortable 12 points only two months ago.

Labour is down two points on the month to 36%; the Conservatives are unchanged on 34%; the Liberal Democrats up one point on 22%; and "others", mainly the nationalist parties and the greens, up two points to 9%.

Compared with their performance at the last general election, Labour is down six points; the Tories are up one point and the Liberal Democrats up three.

But there is little comfort for Conservative central office in these figures in that the party has failed to capitalise on Labour's biggest crisis since the petrol dispute three years ago.

Only 13% of voters believe that the Tories will win an outright victory at the next general election. Indeed, they have yet to convince most of their own voters this is possible: only 30% say they will win the next election outright.

By contrast, 63% of Labour voters believe their party will form the next government, making complacency rather than credibility the main problem facing their election strategists.

· ICM interviewed a random sample of 1,001 adults aged 18 and over by telephone from July 18 to July 20, 2003. Interviews were conducted across the country and the results have been weighted to the profile of all adults...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1003341,00.html