Gordon Brown is the most unpopular politician in Britain. That is the Labour Party’s problem. The party is facing a landslide defeat in the local government and Scottish Parliament elections. That is Mr Brown’s problem.

In March, YouGov conducted an important but little-noted survey of the relative popularity of 21 British politicians. Respondents were asked: “Which of the following politicians do you feel generally negative about?” Obviously, prominent politicians are likely to get a worse score than those who are not yet well known. The most unpopular seven are all well known. Mr Brown had the worst score of all: 57 per cent said they felt “generally negative” about him. Tony Blair scored 54.9 per cent; John Reid 36.9 per cent; Patricia Hewitt 36.4 per cent; Jack Straw, 34 per cent. Then came the two opposition leaders, David Cameron, 32.8 per cent, and Sir Menzies Campbell, 29.7 per cent.

These are bad figures for Mr Brown. General elections have become increasingly presidential in character, with the public perception of party leaders having a decisive influence. One does not have to share the negative view of Mr Brown to see that he will need to improve it before the next election.

There is one finding that Labour strategists must find particularly disturbing. The worst figure for any of the 21 politicians in any of eight categories by gender, age or social class, is the percentage of 55-year-olds and over who feel generally negative about Mr Brown: that is 66.2 per cent.

The 55-year-old category is particularly important because this is the age group most likely to vote. Indeed it accounts for close to half of all actual voters. It is also significant because its members are pensioners or close to pensionable age. Their resentment at the Chancellor’s stealth tax on pensions must be one of the reasons why they feel so strongly negative about him.

Almost all the polls suggest that the Labour Party does face an extremely bad result this week. Indeed that is already a certainty in many councils in the West Country. In the unitary authority of Bath and North East Somerset, the Conservatives have nominated 67 candidates and the Liberal Democrats 63, but Labour only 34. There is a similar scarcity of Labour candidates for other Somerset councils. The party’s widespread failure to find candidates suggests that Labour morale has already collapsed in the South West.

Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher, of Plymouth University, are the leading analysts of local government elections. Their analysis for The Sunday Times expects Labour to win only 24 per cent of the vote in local government elections, 6 per cent down on 2003, the last year that these seats were fought. That would probably be a worse result than 1983, when Michael Foot was leader.

In the elections for the Welsh Assembly, Labour is still expected to remain the largest party, but to lose seats to the minority parties, including Plaid Cymru, the Welsh Nationalists. In Scotland, if the polls are right, Labour faces the disaster of an outright defeat, with the Scottish National Party taking over as the largest party, and the formidable opposition skills of Alex Salmond, who is, apart from Mr Brown, the outstanding Scottish politician of his generation. For Labour to lose its heartland of Scotland, where it has been the majority party since the late 1950s, would be a shattering blow to its morale. It would be particularly damaging to Mr Brown himself.

Mr Brown is a very intelligent political strategist who should never be underrated. He has to try to turn round both his personal reputation and his party’s position. His first hundred days will be a critical period, after Mr Blair’s unforgivable delay in handing over the leadership. The last months of Mr Blair’s leadership have done great damage to Labour.

Mr Brown does have the limitations of his own legacy, however. He cannot suddenly switch domestic policy. For the past ten years he has used his position at the Treasury to control all the domestic policies of the Labour Government. He has in effect been Mr Blair’s Prime Minister. He can hardly turn to the country and say: “I’ve got everything wrong for the past ten years, so now I am going to change all Labour’s policies.” Mr Brown has taken full credit for Labour’s successes; he cannot avoid taking responsibility for Labour’s failures. In particular, he has claimed that there would never again be boom and bust under Labour. He will continue to get credit if the economy performs well, but he cannot avoid the blame if – as seems likely – inflation reemerges and interest rates have to be raised further.

In foreign affairs there are two big issues on which Mr Brown is free to change policy and will have to make decisions. One is Iraq and the other is Europe. On Iraq, he has to decide whether to stick with the Bush-Blair strategy, which is unpopular both in Britain and the United States, or move towards the Democrats’ strategy in Congress. That could involve a popular decision to accelerate the planned withdrawal of British troops from Iraq. The US presidential election is in November next year. Mr Brown may choose to align himself with the next president if he expects the Democrats to win.

Mr Blair – ridiculous as that seems – will still be attending the Berlin summit on June 21 as Prime Minister to discuss Angela Merkel’s redraft of a European constitution. However, he cannot tie his successor’s hands or those of Parliament. If Mr Brown frees himself from the European obsession, he will have nothing to do with the Merkel constitution, but will move towards the popular policy of renegotiation of Britain’s relationship with Europe.

Mr Brown’s decisions on Iraq and Europe could decide the next election.

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