LONDON (AFP) — Prime Minister Gordon Brown's handling of the financial crisis may have won him friends abroad but a poll published on Tuesday shows he still has his work cut out to persuade the public at home.
A new ICM opinion poll for The Guardian finds the Conservatives still 12 points ahead of Brown's ruling Labour party, on 42 points and 30 points respectively, unchanged since a survey last month.
There was general approval of Brown's response to the global crisis -- 61 percent said he has done well and just 33 percent think he has done badly.
But asked whether this response makes them more or less likely to vote Labour at the next election, due by 2010, just 13 percent say more, 27 percent say less and 60 percent say it has made little difference.
The results are bad news after a weekend poll suggested Labour had cut the Conservatives' lead to nine, on 31 percent to the Tories' 40 percent.
ICM Research interviewed 1,007 adults by telephone on October 17-19.
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