Brown's Labour slumps in opinion poll

Britain's Labour Party is 11 points behind opposition Conservatives and the majority of party supporters want Prime Minister …

Britain's Labour Party is 11 points behind opposition Conservatives and the majority of party supporters want Prime Minister Gordon Brown to stand down, a new  opinion poll showed today.

The poll by Populus - the first since Mr Brown suffered a heavy defeat in local elections last week  - put support for Labour at 29 per cent, down four points since last month.

David Cameron's Conservatives were on 40 per cent, up one point since last month, and  the Liberal Democrats, were up two points on 19 per cent, the poll published in the London Timesshowed.

Potentially most worrying for Mr  Brown was what the poll showed about his leadership rating, which was indicated on a 0 to 10 scale. Mr Brown's score fell to 4.08 in May from 4.5 a month earlier. The rating for Mr Cameron which rose to 5.36 in May from 4.96 in April.

And among Labour voters, 55 per cent said their party would be more likely to win the next election if Mr Brown resigned "to make way for a younger, fresher, more charismatic alternative", the poll showed.

Populus conducted the poll between May 2nd and May 4th, just after  Labour lost heavily in local elections in England and Wales and was beaten into third place in the overall vote behind the  Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats.