THE Conservatives have moved into their biggest lead over Labour since September, the latest YouGov poll for The Sunday Times shows.

David Cameron’s party has a 17-point lead, up from 16 points last month and the highest since the Tories were 19 points ahead on the eve of the most intense phase of the banking crisis last autumn.

The poll has the Tories up two points at 42%, Labour up one point on 25% and the Liberal Democrats unchanged on 18%. The losers are the minor parties, including the Greens and the BNP, which enjoyed a revival as a result of the European parliament elections but have fallen back to a combined 15% of the vote.

If Gordon Brown is struggling for approval, so is his predecessor. Last week it emerged that the government intended to back Tony Blair for the presidency of the European Union.

While 28% agreed with this and said it would be good for Britain, nearly twice as many, 54%, disagreed and said appointing Blair to the post would mainly be of benefit to him.

The poll of nearly 2,000 people, days before the Norwich North by-election, suggests that economic gloom and criticisms of the government over the war in Afghanistan are taking their toll on Labour.

While the ratings for Cameron and Brown are stable, the Tory leader and George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, are significantly more trusted to run the economy than the prime minister and Alistair

Darling, the chancellor. Cameron and Osborne have a 16-point lead on economic “competence”, up from 11 points last month.

People remain worried about unemployment, with anxieties returning to the levels of last winter following the release of statistics last week showing a record rise in the jobless total in the latest three months. Nearly half of people, 48%, fear that they or a close member of their family will lose their job as a result of the financial crisis, up from 43% last month.

Public anger with the banks remains intense, following reports last week that some intend to reward their staff with huge bonuses. An overwhelming majority, 81%, said the banks were returning to their “bad old greedy ways”, against 13% who said they were right to reward their staff.

Last week’s government proposals to allow people to work beyond 65, criticised by business, are supported by the public. Most, 68%, say people should be allowed to work as long as they want to, compared with 24% who think people should retire at 65.

However, there is opposition to another government proposal, that householders pay up to £250 a year more for gas and electricity to fund “green” energy. The majority, 61%, said they were not prepared to pay more and that the energy companies should foot the bill for green energy. A further 18% said they would not pay more because the dangers of climate change were being exaggerated by the government.

YouGov also asked about the controversy over independent schools, some of which could lose charitable status if they do not offer more subsidised places for poorer pupils.

The poll finds that the public is sympathetic to the fee-paying schools’ defence that they ease the burden on the taxpayer by taking children out of state education and should therefore be encouraged.

It shows that 37% agreed with this, against 23% who said independent schools allow some parents to buy a better education for their children and should be discouraged; the remainder did not have a view.

Despite this, 55% of people thought it was right for the Charity Commission to put pressure on schools to subsidise more places for pupils from low-income homes.

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