March 22, 2008

Abstract: (Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Britain’s governing Labour party has lost a significant amount of public support this month, according to a poll by YouGov. While 43 per cent of respondents would vote for the opposition Conservative party in the next election to the House of Commons, only 27 per cent would back Labour.

(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Britain’s governing Labour party has lost a significant amount of public support this month, according to a poll by YouGov. While 43 per cent of respondents would vote for the opposition Conservative party in the next election to the House of Commons, only 27 per cent would back Labour.

Support for the Tories has increased by three points since late February, while backing for Labour has dropped by six points. The Liberal Democrats are third with 16 per cent, and 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.

On Mar. 17, Clegg expressed dissatisfaction with the Iraq war, saying, "There are questions that need to be asked. What was the rationale for the decision to go to war, and how much genuine discussion took place at cabinet level? How much planning went into what we would do after the invasion? How much of this was decided between Tony Blair and George Bush in secret? What was the advice from the intelligence community, the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office? The list is endless."

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?

	Mar. 14	Feb. 27	Feb. 15
Conservative	43%	40%	41%
Labour	27%	33%	32%
Liberal Democrats	16%	16%	16%
Other	13%	11%	11%

Source: YouGov
Methodology: Online interviews with 2,311 British adults, conducted on Mar. 13 and Mar. 14, 2008. No margin of error was provided.