By KUNA,
London : British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is facing another disastrous setback in next week’s crucial by-election battle, according to polls published here Sunday.
Despite a surprise tax cut and frantic campaigning by senior government ministers, the opposition conservatives have doubled their lead in Crewe and Nantwich over the past week before the by-election in this parliamentary constituency in northern England.
And, there was no comfort for the Prime Minister at a national level, with a separate survey giving conservative Leader David Cameron a massive 20-point advantage.
The figures will reinforce labour’s gloom after a massacre in the May Day local elections, and a series of humiliating policy climbdowns by the government.
Research by ICM for the News of the World newspaper today found that 45 percent of Crewe and Nantwich constituents are planning to vote conservative, compared with 37 percent backing labour.
If repeated this Thursday, the result would destroy labour’s 7,000 majority and deliver Cameron a new MP by a margin of more than 1,000.
The survey suggested that this week’s “mini-Budget”, which handed a 2.7 billion pounds windfall to basic rate taxpayers, had backfired.
Nearly half of voters said the package – designed to defuse anger over the abolition of the 10 pence band – was the right thing to do.
But 59 percent also viewed the move as a cynical pre-election bribe, and 24 percent claimed it would make them less likely to support labour.
Just under two-thirds were convinced that the government would have a better chance of winning a General Election without Brown in charge.
Meanwhile, a YouGov poll for the Sunday Times newspaper put the conservatives on 45 percent to labour’s 25 percent, with the lib dems on 18 percent – up two points since last month.
Around four in five people thought the PM was performing badly, with 59 percent insisting he should step down before the next General Election.
If Labour is defeated and Brown goes on to lose a crunch House of Commons vote on 42-day detention of terror suspects next month – as is expected – his position could be under serious threat, commentators said.