Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling will be relieved. The public is calmer about the nationalisation of Northern Rock than some excitable opposition politicians, commentators and bloggers. The Government, and especially Mr Darling, are being given the benefit of the doubt over the affair.

There are still many questions about the takeover — how long it will last, how the bank will operate and the cost to the taxpayer — that the Lords debated yesterday. But, in political terms, the key question is how far the rescue is a turning point in the Government’s fortunes or just another episode in a troubled autumn and winter.

It is tempting, but usually mistaken, to draw parallels with the past. History never repeats itself. The Iraq war has never been another Vietnam nor, for the British, another Suez. Similarly, Northern Rock is not, and was never going to be, another Black Wednesday. However much the Brown Government can be criticised for delay and indecision, the nationalisation is not a policy failure on the scale of 1992 nor is its public impact likely to be so great.

A special Populus poll for The Times of 519 adults conducted on Wednesday suggests that voters do not take an apocalyptic view of the Northern Rock affair (for more details see www.populus.co.uk).

Among the main features are that, on balance, voters believe the Government was right to nationalise Northern Rock (by 49 per cent to 40 per cent); and do not believe that Mr Darling should resign as Chancellor (50 per cent to 38 per cent). This contrasts with more hostile findings in a YouGov poll before the takeover was announced.

For the past six months Populus has been asking voters which of Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling, or David Cameron and George Osborne, they would trust more to deal with any problems facing the British economy. Back in early September, before the bank run, the Labour team was ahead by 61 per cent to 27 per cent. The initial public response to the run and the government guaranteee was to boost the Brown-Darling edge to 56 per cent to 18 per cent, fuelling the early election debate. Then, over the autumn and into the new year, as the Treasury faced more troubles, the Tories moved into the lead, at 36 per cent to 33 per cent by the start of this month. The new poll puts Labour back in the lead at 38 per cent to 34 per cent.

These findings will disappoint those Tories who hoped that Northern Rock would shift public opinion further against Labour. This is nothing to do with the Tories’ own statements and alternatives. In these affairs, what matters is the Government’s policies and conduct. Voters do not pay much attention to what Oppositions say.

Mr Brown and Mr Darling are still struggling to regain the initiative. But Northern Rock was not a killer blow.

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