Satisfaction with the performance of Tony Blair as prime minister has hit new lows over the past two months, the latest Ipsos MORI poll has found. The prime minister’s performance rating is now barely a third of what it was immediately following his landslide election in 1997.

Just five months after Blair’s massive majority on May 1 nine years ago, three people in four across the country said they were satisfied with his performance, a higher rating even than Margaret Thatcher’s peak of 59% at the end of the Falklands war in 1982, and John Major’s 63% in February 1991.

Now Blair’s satisfaction scores have plummeted. He is less popular than Thatcher was at the same point in her premiership and is only three points off her all time low of 20% — a position she reached just weeks ahead of losing office.

In July, not even a majority of Labour party supporters said they were satisfied with him, among the 36% who say they are certain to vote and vote Labour. While a third of young people, 34%, say they are satisfied with Blair, just one in four aged 55 and over are positive. They have four or five times the voting power of younger voters; there are more than twice as many of them, and they are more than twice as likely to vote.

There is no statistical difference in his satisfaction levels between the middle and working classes, showing how deeply unpopular he has become among Labour’s traditional supporters.

Given the strained relations between them, Blair will be stung by the comparison between those who say they would describe him as "trustworthy", 29%, and the 42% who would say that about Gordon Brown. The Tory leader, David Cameron, is trusted by 36%, but a large chunk of his jury is still out; over a third say they just don’t know enough about him to say.

Cameron has been becalmed these past three months with only around three people in 10 saying they’re satisfied with his performance.

And as don’t knows make up their minds, they’re swinging to dissatisfied, women more than men. Why? “Where’s the beef?”

Yet even without pronouncements on policies, most Tory policies are thought best. Crime/law & order is thought by the most people, 57%, as one of the issues that will be very important to them in helping them to decide which party to vote for, and the Tories enjoy a seven point lead.

They also have a four point lead on having the best policies on healthcare among the 54% who say that will be an important issue, a massive 26 point lead on immigration, and a narrow two point lead on education.

Ipsos MORI interviewed 1,886 adults, aged 18+, face-to-face, at 172 sampling points across Great Britain between 31 August and 6 September 2006. Data were weighted to match the profile of the adult population. Mori abides by the Code of the British Polling Council

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