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David Cameron and the Conservatives have shrugged off the Derek Conway affair and strengthened their lead over Labour, according to the latest Populus poll for The Times, undertaken over the weekend.

The poll shows that the Tories’ rating has improved, rather than fallen, over the past month; the public regards both main parties as “sleazy”, though with Labour tarred a bit more than the Tories. Crucially, Mr Cameron and George Osborne are now rated ahead of Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling on who is most trusted to deal with economic problems.

These findings will clearly relieve Mr Cameron. But while the Tories have a clear-cut lead, it is still not on the scale of Labour in the mid-1990s. And while Mr Brown and Labour are no longer in freefall, they have not yet begun to recover.

Voting intentions have jumped around recently, though the underlying trends are more stable. The poll puts Labour on 31 per cent, down two points since a month ago; the Tories on 40 per cent, plus three points; the Liberal Democrats down two points at 17 per cent; and the others up one point at 12 per cent. This contrasts with an ICM poll in The Sunday Telegraph, done on Wednesday and Thursday, which put the Tories on 37 per cent, down three points; Labour on 32 per cent, down one point; and the Lib Dems on 21 per cent, up three points.

Labour has been at the lower end of a 31 to 34 per cent range for three months. The Tories have been at 37 per cent or above for the same period, averaging around 40 per cent. So the latest changes are within this range.

The month-to-month fluctuations are largely because of shifts between the Tories and the Lib Dems. These may reflect short-term factors such as which party has been more in the news, and what they have been doing.

The Conway affair has not altered the public’s view that both main parties are about the same on sleaze, at 73 per cent, up six points since March 2006. But, on balance, Labour is seen as more, rather than less, sleazy than the last Tory Government, by 14 to 8 per cent. When people are asked which of the main parties is tainted by financial sleaze: 69 per cent name Labour, 51 per cent the Tories, and 26 per cent the Lib Dems.

Nearly three-fifths (59 per cent) think that MPs should be allowed to employ members of their family on their staff, as long as they are qualified for the job, do the job they are paid for, and their employment is fully disclosed. This includes 70 per cent of Tory voters. Two-fifths (38 per cent) think MPs should not be allowed to employ family members.

Most significant in the longer term is the economic management question. Last autumn, when the Northern Rock affair first broke, the Brown/Darling team was rated at well over 50 per cent, enjoying a decisive edge over the Cameron/Osborne team. That was shaken by the troubles of the autumn, including the case of the lost child benefit discs. Now, the Tory team is narrowly in the lead, at 36 to 33 per cent.

But the number either party or saying that they don’t know has risen sharply since early September to 28 per cent. The biggest erosion in confidence in the Brown/Darling team has occurred among men, the middle classes and Labour voters.

Populus interviewed a random sample of 1,504 adults aged over 18 by telephone between February 1 and 3. Interviews were conducted across the country, and the results have been weighted to be representative of all adults. Populus is a member of the British Polling Council. For more details, go to www.populus.co.uk

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