Brown suffers new poll setback

GORDON BROWN'S political fightback stalled today as a second poll in a week showed Tory leader David Cameron pulling ahead.

The Tories increased their lead to 10 points - ending the autumn recovery in which Mr Brown closed the gap from 20 points to just five.

Research by Populus in the Times put the Conservatives up four points to 43 per cent, with Labour down two to 33. A YouGov survey last week had Mr Cameron ahead by 41 to 34.

The results of both polls will dismay Labour MPs who had hoped that Mr Brown's strong autumn performance might see them overtake the Conservatives.

Instead, worsening economic news appears to have halted the Brown campaign in its tracks.

However, Mr Cameron and shadow chancellor George Osborne are still behind Mr Brown and Alistair Darling as the leaders most trusted to deal with the downturn.

The Labour duo was backed by 38 per cent, compared with 35 per cent choosing the Conservative pair.

Eight out of 10 questioned were gloomy about the economy, expecting things to get worse over the next year.

But they were markedly more optimistic about their personal prospects. Half thought they would become worse off this year, but 46 per cent expected to be better off.