February 21, 2008

Abstract: (Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Britain’s governing Labour party continues to trail the opposition Conservative party, according to a poll by YouGov. 41 per cent of respondents would vote for the Tories in the next election to the House of Commons, down two points since early January.

(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Britain’s governing Labour party continues to trail the opposition Conservative party, according to a poll by YouGov. 41 per cent of respondents would vote for the Tories in the next election to the House of Commons, down two points since early January.

Labour is second with 32 per cent, followed by the Liberal Democrats with 16 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.

The British economy has been hit by a global financial crisis attached to high risk loans. Last year, the British Northern Rock bank—a prominent mortgage lender—was forced to seek emergency funding from the government.

On Feb. 18, the government decided to put Northern Rock into "temporary public ownership." Brown explained that current chancellor of the exchequer Alistair Darling concluded, after looking into several options, that "the right decision is to run (Northern Rock) at arms’ length from the government under professional management until market conditions change."

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?

	Feb. 15	Jan. 11	Dec. 27
Conservative	41%	43%	40%
Labour	32%	33%	35%
Liberal Democrats	16%	14%	15%
Other	11%	10%	10%

Source: YouGov
Methodology: Online interviews with 2,469 British adults, conducted on Feb. 14 and Feb. 15, 2008. No margin of error was provided.