GORDON BROWN travels to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf today in his continuing search for global solutions to the economic crisis boosted by a new poll showing the Conservative lead over Labour more than halved.
Following a ComRes survey earlier this week, YouGov yesterday again put the Conservative lead in single figures - this time nine points - compared to David Cameron's 20-point advantage last month, before the escalation of the financial crisis.
The changing balance between the two main parties was underlined by the fact that YouGov had the Conservatives a full 24 points ahead of Labour last May in the aftermath of the Crewe and Nantwich byelection.
However, Prof Anthony King's expert analysis in yesterday's Daily Telegraph suggested the so-called "Brown bounce" remains "soggy" and that the relative recovery in Labour's fortunes might be explained by a residual sense among voters that the Tories remain an unknown quantity.
Shadow chancellor George Osborne set out to address that problem yesterday with a keynote speech defining an emerging choice between the Labour government and Conservative opposition on how to tackle the imminent recession. Rejecting "the Keynesian approach that Gordon Brown is taking", Mr Osborne said Labour planned to "spend their way out of a recession" - warning that "spending without restraint and borrowing without limit" would saddle this generation and the next with a burden of debt that would take a decade or more to pay off.
After a period in which the Conservatives have been criticised for seeming inconsistent in their approach to the economic crisis, Mr Osborne appeared finally to open clear blue water between the government and opposition with his insistence that "irresponsible borrowing now" could only mean "higher taxes later", so threatening and delaying the country's eventual recovery.
"By ensuring that we don't borrow without limits in a recession, we will open the way to lower interest rates now and lower taxes later, in the recovery," declared Mr Osborne.
With polls indicating that the public finds the Conservative narrative on the causes of the economic crisis more plausible than Mr Brown's, Mr Osborne described talk of a "Keynesian spending splurge" as "not just a tax bombshell" but "a cruise missile aimed at the heart of a recovery". And he accused Labour of "threatening the country's economic recovery in order to try to achieve its own political recovery".
YouGov found 75 per cent of those surveyed believing Mr Brown bears either "much of the responsibility for allowing lending and borrowing to get out of hand" (34 per cent) or else at least "some of the responsibility" (41 per cent). While 21 per cent of voters said their opinion of the prime minister had gone up in recent weeks, 27 per cent said theirs had gone down, while 48 per cent said nothing much had changed.
A real test of Mr Brown's recovery comes in next Thursday's Glenrothes byelection, where Labour is defending a 10,000 majority against a strong SNP challenge.
Mr Brown's decision to abandon convention and join the campaign there reflects some Labour confidence that the party can retain the seat.