According to a recent poll, the support for Labour has slumped two points since early December to 28% – the lowest level since last September, the Conservatives have gained three points to 41%, the Daily Telegraph reports.
The Lib Dems are down one point on 19%.
However, despite claims that Prime Minister Gordon Brown was presiding over a “dysfunctional” shambles following last week’s putsch attempt, voters still believe he is the best person to lead the Labour …

Who says that Gordon Brown isn’t funny was proven wrong as the Prime Minister made quite a joke yesterday when he said that he’ll use the “hard won economic recovery” as a platform for Labour election victory.
According to the Daily Telegraph, Brown said that the looming election will be unlike the last three because the recession has “changed things”. The priorities in those elections had been about “investment in schools and hospitals” based on economic …

Prime Minister Gordon Brown suffered a blow today when two opinion polls showed an increased Tory lead, the Guardian reports.
A YouGov poll showed the Tory lead had increased by three points and they are now on 42%, while support for Labour is down 1% to 30% and the Lib Dems are also down one point, to 16%.
A separate ComRes poll suggested that 60% of voters saw Labour as the most divided of the main parties. …

Cabinet ministers backed Prime Minister Gordon Brown after two senior MPs called for a secret vote on his leadership of the Labour Party, Sky News reports.
Former ministers Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt wrote to all Labour MPs asking them to support a ballot on Brown’s leadership.
But Business Secretary, Lord Peter Mandelson, who is widely credited with saving Brown’s…

Two former Cabinet ministers, Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt, launched today a last-ditch attempted putsch against Prime Minister Gordon Brown, The Times reports.
Hoon and Hewitt wrote to all Labour MPs calling for the leadership issue to be sorted out “once and for all”.
The timing – just before the first Prime Minister’s Questions – was intended to be devastating.
The move by two senior figures who have so far avoided raising the leadership question is bound to …

An impoverished Labour Party will be unable to return fire against the Conservatives’ pre-election advertising blitz for months, amid fears that they could emerge from the campaign bankrupt, The Times reports.
David Blunkett, the former Home Secretary and chairman of Labour’s election development board, said the party was going into an election at a greater financial disadvantage than any time since 1983, when they suffered a landslide defeat.
Labour have been forced to scrap a planned manifesto …

The number of foreigners entering Britain every year under a controversial student visa scheme has trebled since Labour came to power a decade ago, the Daily Telegraph reports.
Figures uncovered by the Tories showed that the Government issued 236,470 student visas in 2008/9 a three-fold increase on the number of visas issued in 1998.
The Government’s chief immigration adviser recently gave warning that tens of thousands of foreign students were being allowed to stay in Britain and …

The Tories have called on Labour to do more to help firms through the recession after figures obtained by the party show almost 27,000 have gone bust since last year, Sky News reports.
Data from the Insolvency Service reveals 17,500 more companies have been made bankrupt in the current economic crisis than during the 1980s’ recession, and 3,000 more than in the 1990s.
“Despite Alistair Darling’s attempt to cover up the truth, this confirms what many people …

Thousands of foreign criminals are being offered credit cards pre-loaded with more than £450 of taxpayers’ cash if they agree to return home,the Daily Mail reports.
Rapists, muggers and burglars are being offered the astonishing perk as part of a package worth up to £5,000 designed to bribe them to leave the UK. The credit cards are loaded with money which the convicts can spend as soon as they leave British soil.
The remainder of the windfall …

A recent poll shows that the gap between the Conservative Party and Labour has narrowed to just nine points, epolitix.com reports.
If repeated at the General Election, Conservative leader David Cameron would be denied an overall majority by five seats.
The survey puts the Conservatives on 38 per cent, up one point on last month and nine points ahead of Labour who were up two points on 29 per cent. The Liberal Democrats were down one on …

According to the latest poll, the Conservatives lead over Labour has been cut to nine points, the Daily Telegraph reports.
The Conservatives now stand on 40 per cent, down two, Labour are on 31%, up two, while the Liberal Democrats are on 18%, down one.
It would still be enough to give David Cameron a Commons majority, but is a significant reduction from the 17 point gap recorded two months ago and is the fourth successive month …

Conservative leader David Cameron says that because of the measures unveiled by Chancellor Alistair Darling in the pre-Budget report, Labour have lost all right to govern, the Daily Telegraph reports.
Cameron accused the Government of ”irresponsibility, basic deceit and a complete lack of moral principle”. He compared Darling and Prime Minister Gordon Brown with “a couple of joy riders… not caring about anyone who might have to take over the mess they have created”.
Cameron also said …

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne said that the Labour party should never be trusted with people’s money again and that the pre-Budget report today was a catastrophe, the BBC reports.
Every family in the UK would be paying the price for Labour’s mistakes, he said, adding that anyone earning more than £20,000 would pay more tax as a result. Labour’s pledges on spending and deficit cutting were not credible, he said.
In contrast, he said that the Tories …

The Government’s controversial broadband tax has been given the green light by chancellor Alistair Darling in his pre-Budget report, the BBC reports.
The £6 a year levy will be imposed on all households with a fixed line phone. The money made will be put into a fund to ensure rural areas of the UK do not miss out on super-fast broadband services.
Darling said the Government would provide super-fast broadband to 90% of the UK by the …

Chancellor Alistair Darling will announce today that Labour will carry on trying to spend their way out of recession, postponing swingeing Whitehall cuts, despite fears over Britain’s vital top credit rating being downgraded, the Daily Telegraph reports.
Darling will attempt to reassure investors that he has a plan to pay down Britain’s record £175 billion deficit, but he will use the pre-Budget Report to say he intends to stick to spending plans for next year. Only in 2011, after next year’s election…

Manufacturing has suffered a sharper decline under Labour than it did in the 1980ies under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s leadership, the Daily Mail reports.
The revelation will be an acute embarrassment for the Government, which have sought to portray the sector’s woes as a consequence of Tory neglect.
A study of figures from the Office for National Statistics showed that manufacturing’s share of the economy declined almost three times faster under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown than …