Brown gets poll boost after speech

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has halved the Conservatives' lead in the polls following his speech to a conference of the ruling Labour Party on Tuesday, according to a survey published on Wednesday.

The YouGov poll for the Sun newspaper put Labour on 31 points, 10 points behind the Conservatives. Last week the gap in a YouGov poll was 20 points.

A 10-point lead would still hand the Conservatives a majority in Parliament, but Mr Brown will be relieved to see the gap narrowing after a slew of surveys over the past few months suggested Labour could be wiped out.

Those dire poll ratings promoted several Labour lawmakers to call earlier this month for Mr Brown to go. But the mini-revolt petered out and Mr Brown's well-received performance at the conference at least bought him sometime within his party.

In his speech, Mr Brown defied the calls to quit and vowed to stand by his beliefs and fight on to make life better for people. He focussed on improving public services and said he wanted to make the country fairer.

Thirty-nine per cent of those polled by YouGov said they thought Mr Brown should stay on as prime minister, up from 29 per cent in the previous YouGov poll.

After 11 years in power, Labour is grappling with the fallout from the global financial crisis. Inflation and unemployment are both rising and the economy is on the brink of a recession for the first time since 1992.