Poll Monitor: Labour maintains lead

By BBC Political Research editor David Cowling

The past few weeks have provided something of a roller-coaster for poll watchers with Labour leads varying between 3% and 19%.

Thursday's Mori poll in The Times confirms the broad message of earlier surveys this month: Labour is still ahead of the Conservatives but Mr Blair and the government have suffered serious blows to their respective approval ratings.

Satisfaction with Mr Blair is at its lowest since he became Labour leader; and the government's ratings are at their lowest since 1997.

But disillusion with Labour is not translating into support for the Conservatives: their support is up 1% over last month and Mr Hague's personal rating has moved from -20% to -19%.

Election figures mirrored

Wednesday's ICM poll saw Labour with an increase of 4% in their lead over the previous month and the voting intention figures almost exactly mirror actual vote share in the 1997 general election: Labour 43%, Conservative 32% and Lib Dem 17%.

So, Labour's position has firmed up somewhat, albeit at a lower point than at any time since the last election.

The ICM poll in the Mirror published earlier in the week will trouble Number 10 with its focus on Tony Blair's negative approval ratings - down from +38% 12 months ago, to +9% in January and now at -4%. And to rub salt in their wounds, Tory leader William Hague registers a +2% approval rating in the same poll.

Keeping the pound

The MORI poll for the News of the World (25 June) comprised a substantial study of attitudes towards the euro and Europe.

Some 72% thought Britain should keep the pound. But when it came to the central issue of what Britain should do about the euro, only 12% said we should 'never join'.

The largest group of respondents - some 57% overall - supported the view that we should have a public debate before deciding whether or not to join. So, much is still to play for.

Only one-third of respondents thought the government 'has a sensible approach to the euro'; 78% thought it was split on the issue and half thought it was trying to hide the real facts from the public; and 60% thought the government will try to bounce the public into joining the euro.

While 66% said they supported Tony Blair's view that Britain should be "at the heart of Europe", 63% judged his European policy neither a success nor a failure.

Trust

On the issue of whom to trust to make decisions on Europe in the interests of the British public, 43% trusted Mr Blair, compared with 44% who did not. On the same measure, Mr Hague was trusted by 32% but not by 52%.

And finally, reminding us that there is more to life than Westminster and Brussels, the Channel 4 'Power House' programme probed public attitudes towards mutuality in the week that Standard Life successfully defended its mutual status.

Its NOP survey found twice as many people (26%) thought mutual organisations do a better job for their customers than shareholder companies (12%); and almost three times as many (37%) thought mutuals should retain their status rather than convert to shareholder companies (14%).