THE Conservatives’ tax and spending plans, launched in a fanfare by Michael Howard last week and attacked by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown yesterday, are not believed by voters, a poll reveals.

The YouGov poll, carried out for The Sunday Times and ITV’s Jonathan Dimbleby programme, shows that only 14% of people (overwhelmingly Tory supporters) think the party can simultaneously cut overall spending levels by reducing waste and improve services. Most, 53%, think services will not improve or will get worse. A fifth do not believe the party would be able to cut spending by clamping down on waste.

The finding, in a poll that shows Labour maintaining a three-point lead over the Tories with support of 34% to 31% and the Liberal Democrats on 25%, is not the only disappointment for Howard.

The poll suggests that with fewer than four months to go until the expected general election, the party is running out of time. In polls carried out by YouGov the Tory rating rose to 40% a year ago at the time of the Hutton report on the death of David Kelly. But since July the Tories have been stuck at just over 30%.

The Liberal Democrats appear to be the main beneficiaries of the government’s unpopularity; their rating is up by six points over the past 12 months.

On the key question of who people most trust to look after the economy, Labour is ahead by two to one; 42% to 21%. On health and education, 32% trust the government to deliver against 21% for the Tories.

The Tory leader also does badly in his personal rating, with 31% saying he is doing well, against 55% who say he is doing badly. One crumb of comfort is that he is seen as doing better than his predecessor, Iain Duncan Smith, by 34% to 11%.

Otherwise the worrying news for Howard is that the Tory message is not getting across on spending or tax.

Last week Oliver Letwin, the shadow chancellor, pledged to cut taxes by £4 billion in his first budget. But 25% think taxes would go up under the Tories and only 22% expect them to come down, with the rest expecting no change.

There is more fertile territory for the Tories in some of the poll’s other findings. More than half, 54%, think Blair should stand down within two years of the election. Only 2% believe government claims that the prime minister and the chancellor get on well, and nearly two-fifths of voters, 38%, say the running dispute between Blair and Brown is damaging the government.

Brown’s ratings remain high, with 65% of people believing that he is doing a good job, against 26% who think he is doing badly.

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