London: The ruling Labour party in Britain has slumped to its lowest poll rating in nearly a quarter century as the party slipped to 27 per cent - 16 points behind the Conservatives, a survey indicated today. The YouGov survey for The Sunday Times comes close on the heels of the presentation of the Budget last week.
If the results of the poll were repeated in a general election, Conservative leader David Cameron would storm into Downing Street with a landslide majority of 120, the report said. The Conservative lead is the largest of any survey since October 1987, shortly after Margaret Thatcher's final election victory on the eve of the Black Monday stock market crash. The main cause of the swing to the Conservatives is the collapse of faith in Brown and Darling's stewardship of the economy.
A overwhelming majority - 83 per cent - believe the economy will either grow more slowly over the next 12 months or slide into recession. Labour's claims that taxes cannot be cut without harming essential public services are no longer widely accepted, it said. Labour's percentage of vote is the lowest since June 1983. The poll, the first since Wednesday's budget statement, puts the Tories on 43 per cent and Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrats on 16 per cent.
