THE Conservative lead over Labour has halved over the past month, according to new polls which appear to show that Gordon Brown's branding of David Cameron as "a novice" has had an impact on voters.
The UK-wide poll, revealed this morning, still puts the Tories 12 points ahead of Labour, 43% to 31%. But only last month, the lead was 23%, suggesting that voters have responded to Brown's claim that his experience makes him better placed to see the
country through the economic downturn.
Cameron will use the Conservatives' annual conference in Birmingham this week to respond to the economic storm raging across the globe with a set of short and long-term measures designed to show how a Tory government would respond to the crisis.
In the long term, the Tories will announce that the Bank of England will get sweeping new powers to stop consumers, companies and government over-borrowing. In the short term, Cameron is expected to back calls for greater protection for savers. Currently, only the first £35,000 of savings are guaranteed by banks.
Speaking last night, as he arrived in the Midlands, Cameron accused the Government of borrowing far too much to pay for their spending pledges.
"I do think that they have been very casual with taxpayers' money. We've seen an enormous explosion of debt," he said.
The new poll findings, however, will dispel any sense of complacency. The poll, conducted by BPIX, also shows that voters would narrowly prefer – by a margin of 36% to 35% – Gordon Brown and Chancellor Alistair Darling to their Tory counterparts, David Cameron and George Osborne, to lead them through the credit crunch.
Labour last night sought to increase the pressure on the Tory leader by releasing figures which, they said, showed that Cameron had failed to boost Tory membership.
They claimed local Tory constituency associations had been haemorrhaging members since Cameron became leader in 2006, with an average drop of 24 in 2006 and 93 in 2007.
Labour MP John Mann, who co-wrote the report, said that it showed the underlying fragility of the Tories' opinion poll lead. "Cameron cannot convert short-term poll leads into anything substantial," he said.
Meanwhile, shadow Scottish secretary David Mundell will today outline how a future Conservative Government would handle the devolved administration. "We will not make any unilateral changes to the Scotland Act. We will seek to work with the Scottish Government of whatever persuasion it is," he said.
