Britain:British finance minister Gordon Brown, overwhelming favourite to succeed Tony Blair as prime minister, suffered a blow yesterday when an opinion poll showed more than half of Britons thought he was unfit to lead the country.
In another setback for Mr Brown, a newspaper said there was growing pressure for another member of the cabinet to challenge the chancellor for the leadership of the Labour Party when Mr Blair steps down.
Mr Blair is widely expected to quit in June or July after a decade in office. With no serious challenger yet emerging, Mr Brown has been seen as a virtually automatic choice to succeed him as party leader and prime minister.
But some Labour politicians doubt Mr Brown's leadership credentials and opinion polls show he would fare badly against David Cameron, leader of the Conservatives. The Sunday Timessaid only 27 per cent of 2,218 people questioned in a YouGov poll thought Mr Brown was fit to be prime minister after a row last week over his handling of pensions. Fifty-seven per cent thought him unfit to lead.
The poll showed Britons were losing faith in Mr Brown's stewardship of the economy - his strong point until now. Forty-one per cent thought he was doing a good job as finance minister, down from 51 per cent in March. Since then, Mr Brown has delivered a budget that cut income tax but clawed back revenues elsewhere.
Critics accuse Mr Brown of contributing to pension fund shortfalls by removing tax breaks for funds in 1997, a charge Mr Brown and Mr Blair deny. But opponents have seized on newly released documents showing Mr Brown ignored a warning on the risks.
The poll showed the Conservatives stretching their lead to eight percentage points, up from six a month ago.
The next national election is not likely until 2009 but Labour is expected to do badly in local council elections in May.
The Sunday Telegraphsaid home secretary John Reid was pressing environment secretary David Miliband to challenge for the leadership to stop Mr Brown taking over.
If Mr Miliband refused, Mr Reid himself was prepared to challenge Mr Brown, it said.
Mr Miliband has repeatedly said he has no plans to challenge for the leadership, while Mr Reid has not ruled out standing.
In further bad news for the government, the Observernewspaper said a poll it commissioned had delivered a "damning verdict" on Mr Blair's decade in office.
The poll of more than 2,000 Britons showed people believed the country was a more dangerous, less happy and less pleasant place to live than it was before Mr Blair came to power.
Fifty-eight per cent judged Iraq to be Mr Blair's biggest failure while almost half thought him "out of touch, untrustworthy and overly concerned with spin".