The Conservatives have regained a double-figure lead over Labour as Gordon Brown’s bounce from his handling of the banking crisis has faded.

The latest Populus poll for The Times, undertaken over the weekend, will calm jitters in the Tory high command. In a surprise twist, the poll also finds that voters are much less pessimistic about their own economic prospects over the coming year than they are about the economy as a whole.

The Conservatives have risen four points since early December to 43 per cent, with Labour down two points at 33 per cent. The Liberal Democrats also down two at 15 per cent and other parties remain on 9 per cent.

The poll comes after a day when plans emerged to axe more than 4,000 jobs in the haulage, food, retail, newspaper and financial sectors, including 1,900 jobs at the investment bank Merrill Lynch. It comes as Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, prepares to announce far more ambitious proposals than expected to kick-start bank lending. A £2 billion scheme to help small firms with loans will be extended to medium-sized companies and could reach £20 billion.

The poll, the first from Populus of the year, represents a reversal of the improving trend for Labour since August and reflects growing public concern about the outlook for the economy as a whole, with four fifths expecting it to get worse and less than a fifth better. People are, however, less worried about their own prospects. These divergent trends have produced a record gap between personal optimism and public pessimism.

Mr Brown is still enjoying some benefit, albeit reduced, from his handling of the economy: 38 per cent trust him and Alistair Darling to deal with Britain’s economic problems, against 35 per cent for David Cameron and George Osborne. On a scale of 0 to 10, Mr Brown is now on 4.97, compared with 4.94 for Mr Cameron, on how well they have responded to the current economic situation. Mr Brown and Mr Cameron are also tied on 37 per cent as being the right leader to deal with the recession. The Prime Minister had a 52 to 32 per cent edge only two months ago. Mr Cameron is ahead by 43 to 31 per cent in leading Britain forward after the next election.

In the first of a series of moves to get bank lending moving again, Lord Mandelson will flesh out the details of his new loan guarantee scheme tomorrow. The State will underwrite loans of up to £1 million to individual small and medium-sized companies on flexible terms. Mr Darling promised £1 billion in total for the scheme in the PreBudget Report and a further £1 billion to help small exporters. Both schemes will now be extended.

The Chancellor is continuing to work on plans for guarantees to stimulate bank lending to medium and large companies, which are proving more difficult than expected to draw up. The indications from Whitehall are that he is moving away from the idea of a national loan scheme and towards a more targeted scheme that would allow the Government to back loans to companies running temporarily short of credit. It is likely that help for carmakers, including Jaguar Land Rover, could fall under that heading.

Populus interviewed a random sample of 1,500 adults over 18 by telephone between January 9 and 11. For more details see www.populus.co.uk

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