(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Britain’s official opposition continues to lead by a large margin, according to a poll by YouGov published in the Daily Telegraph. 45 per cent of respondents would vote for the Conservative party in the next election to the House of Commons, unchanged since mid-August.

The governing Labour is second with 26 per cent, followed by the Liberal Democrats with 16 per cent. 13 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.

Earlier this month, while delivering a speech in Islamabad, Pakistan, Cameron said he would not pursue a "neo-conservative" foreign policy if elected to government, declaring, "We should accept that we cannot impose democracy at the barrel of a gun; that we cannot drop democracy from 10,000 feet—and we shouldn’t try. (...) Put crudely, that was what was wrong with the ‘neo-con’ approach, and why I am a liberal conservative, not a neo-conservative."

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?

Source: YouGov / Daily Telegraph
Methodology: Online interviews with 2,267 British voters, conducted on Aug. 26 and Aug. 27, 2008. No margin of error was provided.

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