Budget And Fuel Woes See Tories Slip In Polls

Labour has built up a commanding lead over the Tories in two opinion polls following George Osborne's deeply unpopular Budget.

A poll in The Sun gives Labour an 11-point lead and has the Lib Dems pushed into fourth place behind Ukip.

Another poll in The Times gives Ed Miliband's party a nine-point lead.

The YouGov survey for The Sun put on Labour on 43% to the Tories' 32%, with Ukip on 9% and the Lib Dems on 8%.

The findings follow a terrible month for the Tory-Lib Dem Coalition, which has faced heavy criticism over the Budget and its handling of the threat of strikes by fuel tanker drivers.

In the Populus poll in The Times, support for Labour is up 4% to 42% over the past month, while that for the Tories is down one point to 33% and the LibDems unchanged on 11%.

Populus also found that 61% of voters felt the coalition was doing "badly", up from 51% in September. Some 24% said the coalition was doing "very badly", up from 15%.

The polls reflect furious opposition to the Budget and the Government's mishandling of the fuel tankers' dispute, with 61% now saying the coalition is going "badly".

Interestingly, The Sun itself tried to spin this as an increase in support for UKIP over the Lib-Dems!

Actually, 11% isn't that big a lead in mid-term over an unpopular government and I still don't believe Labour can ever win with Milliband as leader.

That depends on which Milliband, methinks! I'd actually like to have Ed Balls as leader. He has the wit and fire to do it, and he was a Kennedy scholar at Harvard Business School - a pretty good qualification! (Plus - he comes from near where I live, so he must be good! )

But how many statesmen do we have nowadays? That, I think was the worst part of Thatcher's legacy; she changed parliament for ever, kicking out traditional Conservatives and bringing in "me first" politicians, and it's infected the other parties too. I would truly love to see her burn in Hell!

That depends on which Milliband, methinks!

I seriously considered changing my original post to read to Ed Milliband but for the reason explained below I left it.

I'd actually like to have Ed Balls as leader. He has the wit and fire to do it, and he was a Kennedy scholar at Harvard Business School - a pretty good qualification! (Plus - he comes from near where I live, so he must be good! )

It's true that Balls has more personal charisma, is a better public speaker and is more photogenic than Ed Milliband but along with Dave Milliband he is still tarred with the same brush as anyone else who served the Blair/Brown regime.