Economy woes push Labour to 24-year low

Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Labour Party suffered another battering in the polls on Tuesday with data showing it falling to a 24-year low.

With turmoil sweeping financial markets, the ICM poll in the Guardian newspaper showed Labour with 29 percent support, 13 points behind Conservatives, as voters said they no longer felt they could trust Labour to protect the economy.

A similar poll by YouGov in the Sunday Times at the weekend put Labour at a 25-year low with 27 percent support, compared with 43 percent for the Conservatives.

The ICM poll will make grim reading for Brown, particularly because it shows the public losing confidence in his party's financial and economic competence.

Despite 10 years as Chancellor under former prime minister Tony Blair, where he was eager to be seen as capable and cautious, Brown now is considered less able to steer Britain through economic woes than his rival Cameron, the poll showed.

A national election does not have to be held until 2010. The next major test for Cameron and Brown comes in local council elections in May.

After riding a wave of popularity when he succeeded Blair last year, Brown's poll ratings have plummeted as he and his Chancellor Alistair Darling have struggled with the virtual collapse of a major British bank amid a global credit crunch.

Asked which party they trusted the most to handle Britain's economy in the face of market turmoil and a crisis in the banking sector, 40 percent went for the Conservative leader and his finance spokesman George Osborne, while only 32 percent opted for Brown and Darling.

The Guardian characterised the poll findings, taken from telephone interviews with random sample of 1,003 adults between March 14 and March 16, as a "dramatic backlash" against Labour.