June 30, 2008

Abstract: (Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Britain’s governing Labour party continues to trail the opposition but has gained some public backing this month, according to a poll by YouGov published in the Daily Telegraph. 28 per cent of respondents would vote for Labour in the next election to the House of Commons, up three points since mid-June.

(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Britain’s governing Labour party continues to trail the opposition but has gained some public backing this month, according to a poll by YouGov published in the Daily Telegraph. 28 per cent of respondents would vote for Labour in the next election to the House of Commons, up three points since mid-June.

The opposition Conservative party remains in first place with 46 per cent. The Liberal Democrats are third with 15 per cent. 11 per cent of respondents would vote for other parties.

In June 2007, Gordon Brown officially became Labour leader and prime minister, replacing Tony Blair. Brown had worked as chancellor of the exchequer. Blair served as Britain’s prime minister since May 1997, winning majority mandates in the 1997, 2001 and 2005 elections to the House of Commons.

Since December 2005, David Cameron has been the leader of the Conservative party. In October 2007, Cameron challenged Brown to call a snap election, but the prime minister later announced he would not hold an early ballot.

In December 2007, current parliamentarian Nick Clegg became the new leader of the Liberal Democrats, defeating environment spokesman Chris Huhne in a leadership ballot by just over 500 votes.

On Jun. 26, Brown announced a plan worth close to $200 billion U.S. to build thousands of wind turbines to produce clean energy across the country over the next decade, declaring, "Increasing our renewable energy sources in these ways, on this scale, will require national purpose and a shared national endeavour. So today I want to launch a serious national debate about how we are to achieve our targets."

The next election to the House of Commons must be held on or before Jun. 3, 2010. Sitting prime ministers can dissolve Parliament and call an early ballot at their discretion.

Polling Data

If there were a general election tomorrow, which party would you vote for?

	Jun. 25	Jun. 13	May 29
Conservative	46%	47%	47%
Labour	28%	25%	23%
Liberal Democrats	15%	18%	18%
Other	11%	10%	12%

Source: YouGov / Daily Telegraph
Methodology: Online interviews with 2,163 British voters, conducted from Jun. 23 to Jun. 25, 2008. No margin of error was provided.