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Majority in poll say Brown unfit to lead Adrian Croft Chancellor Gordon Brown, overwhelming favourite to succeed Tony Blair as prime minister, suffered a blow on Sunday when a Sunday Times opinion poll showed more than half of Britons thought he was unfit to lead the country. (Advertisement) Blair is widely expected to quit in June or July after a decade in office. With no serious challenger yet emerging, Brown has been seen as a virtually automatic choice to succeed Blair as party leader and prime minister. But some Labour politicians doubt Brown's leadership credentials and opinion polls show he would fare badly against Conservative leader David Cameron. The Sunday Times said only 27 percent of 2,218 people questioned in a YouGov poll thought Brown was fit to be prime minister after a row last week over his handling of pensions. Fifty-seven percent thought him unfit. The poll showed Britons were losing faith in Brown's stewardship of the economy -- his strong point until now. Forty-one percent thought Brown was doing a good job as finance minister, down from 51 percent in March. Since then, Brown has delivered a budget that cut income tax but clawed back revenues elsewhere. ACCUSE Critics accuse Brown of contributing to pension fund shortfalls by removing tax breaks for funds in 1997, a charge Brown and Blair deny. But opponents have seized on newly released documents showing Brown ignored a warning on the risks. The poll showed the Conservatives stretching their lead to eight percentage points, up from six a month ago. The next national election is not likely until 2009 but Labour is expected to do badly in local council elections in May. The Sunday Telegraph said Home Secretary John Reid was pressing Environment Secretary David Miliband to challenge for the leadership to stop Brown taking over. If Miliband refused, Reid himself was prepared to challenge Brown, it said. Miliband has repeatedly said he has no plans to challenge for the leadership, while Reid has not ruled out standing. In further bad news for the government, The Observer said a poll it commissioned had delivered a "damning verdict" on Blair's decade in office. The poll of more than 2,000 Britons showed people believed the country was a more dangerous, less happy and less pleasant place to live than it was before Blair came to power. Fifty-eight percent judged Iraq to be Blair's biggest failure while almost half thought him "out of touch, untrustworthy and overly concerned with spin", the poll said. ---------------------------------------------------
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