When ministers are in trouble they often blame the media and the Westminster rumour mill and insist that they are getting on with the real job of government. On this basis, Tony Blair’s “Black” Wednesday last week should not have registered with voters, writes David Smith.

Today’s YouGov poll for The Sunday Times tells a different story. It is about as damning as it could be. The woes of Charles Clarke, Patricia Hewitt and John Prescott are seen as symptomatic of a government on its last legs, like John Major’s in the 1990s.

No fewer than 58% of people polled by YouGov on Thursday and Friday think the government is at the end of its tenure. The revelations about Clarke’s failure to deport foreign prisoners on release, combined with lurid accounts of Prescott’s affair with his diary secretary, have combined with the recent loans-for-honours scandal to inflict real damage on the government; 57% think it is “sleazy and incompetent”.

Clarke’s difficulties go deepest, with 89% saying the failure to deport more than 1,000 foreign prisoners reflects alarming failings. More than two to one (63% to 27%) say crime is still rising, with 72% branding the government’s performance on crime and immigration as “generally incompetent”. This is one area where, despite David Cameron’s lack of emphasis, the Tories are well ahead; by 39% to 20% on crime, and by 35% to 13% on immigration.

The public is prepared to accept that officials are to blame for much of the fiasco; 52% think they caused the mess. But they also believe ministers should bear the responsibility; by 53% to 21% they think Blair should sack Clarke as home secretary.

That is also the fate voters would like to inflict on the two other beleaguered cabinet ministers. Hewitt, booed last week by representatives of the Royal College of Nursing, is condemned for claiming the National Health Service has just had its best year ever; 72% say she was wrong. By 62% to 30% people think the NHS is doing badly, and by 51% to 19% that Blair should sack her as health secretary.

Prescott, who is held in contempt — 52% say he is a buffoon — also comes off badly. Usually voters do not regard extramarital affairs as a reason to step down. In Prescott’s case they think he should go, by 49% to 31%.

The background to the latest crisis for Labour is the political funding scandal. With the police investigating cash-for-honours, 76% think Labour probably did give honours in return for loans and donations, 53% think Blair is sleazy (only 23% do not), and 70% think Labour is as sleazy as the Tories were when last in office.

Labour has slipped in the polls and at 32% is down by eight percentage points from the start of the year. But the Tories under Cameron, while ahead at 35%, have also drifted lower, offering Labour a lifeline.

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