(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - The opposition Conservative party continues to lead all rivals in Britain, according to a poll by ICM Research published in The Guardian. 44 per cent of respondents would vote for the Tories in the next election to the House of Commons, up one point since mid-July.

The governing Labour party is second with 29 per cent, followed by the Liberal Democrats with 19 per cent. Nine 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 Aug. 18, Labour lawmaker and children minister Kevin Brennan said that Cameron will come under greater scrutiny in the coming months, stating, "I think people will start to look a bit more carefully at David Cameron. There has been very little focus on him and the Conservative party in recent months. (...) David Cameron has done a very slick PR job in giving the Tory message a new spin, but the fact is that the substance of ‘Cameronism’ is no different from old Conservatism."

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 to be a general election tomorrow, which party do you think you would vote for?

Source: ICM Research / The Guardian
Methodology: Telephone interviews with 1,002 British adults, conducted from Aug. 15 to Aug. 17, 2008. No margin of error was provided.

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