ANOTHER OPINION poll giving David Cameron’s Conservatives a double-digit lead over Labour seems likely to kill off lingering speculation about a possible snap election this spring.
As the Labour government finalises the details of a second bank rescue deal, the YouGov poll again suggests the so-called “Brown bounce” is fading as the recession begins to bite.
The online survey of 2,000 people conducted last Thursday and Friday showed an increase in Conservative support over the past month, with Mr Cameron’s party now on 45 per cent – 13 points ahead of Labour on 32 per cent, with the Liberal Democrats on 14 per cent. A Populus poll last week gave the Conservatives a 10 point lead after the first survey of the year showed Labour actually halving the Tory advantage since last October.
Prime minister Gordon Brown’s popularity rose in response to his early handling of the credit crunch, prompting speculation that he might be tempted to call a snap election. But Labour are again losing support as voters register increasing fear that they or members of their family will lose their jobs.
YouGov’s Peter Kellner told a Sunday newspaper the latest poll “surely rules out the last slight prospect of a spring 2009 election, for the circumstances that have given rise to this fear seem unlikely to disappear quickly”.
Treasury ministers spent the weekend hammering out a new plan to encourage banks to lend again, possibly by taking even larger stakes in some of Britain’s biggest banks with taxpayers underwriting guarantees on new consumer loans. In addition to a new bank insurance scheme, the BBC said the Treasury was also proposing a swap of preference shares it took in RBS and HBOS for ordinary shares, which would effectively release cash for the banks concerned.
The move would be designed to prevent a further loss of confidence as a result of predicted heavy losses which have already affected the share price of Britain’s largest banks.
Mr Brown said at the weekend that banks should “come clean” about the “toxic debts” on their balance sheets in order to restore public trust.
“One of the necessary elements of the next stage,” he said “is for people to have a clear understanding that bad assets have been written off”.
Mr Cameron, meanwhile, faced warnings from the Tory right against the rumoured recall of former chancellor Kenneth Clarke in a shadow cabinet reshuffle.