British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's handling of the financial crisis has helped his party narrow the gap on the opposition Conservatives, according to an opinion poll.
The YouGov poll for Channel 4 News showed, however, that while many voters were happy to have Mr Brown in charge at a time of economic upheaval, they do not want to see him win the next election.
The poll of 2,123 voters was carried out this week in 60 key marginal constituencies that the Conservatives must win if they are to oust Mr Brown's Labour Party at the next general election, due by mid-2010.
The Conservative lead over Labour in the key battleground seats was slashed to five points in the latest poll, down from 13 points in a similar poll last month.
It is the latest in a series of surveys showing Mr Brown fighting back after months in which Labour lagged the Conservatives by around 20 percentage points.
Sixteen per cent of voters said they were more likely to vote for Mr Brown due to his handling of the financial crisis, compared with seven per cent who were less likely.
The rest said it had not changed how they would vote or were "not sure".
Mr Brown, finance minister for a decade, took over as Prime Minister from Tony Blair last year but his popularity was battered by policy by a darkening economic outlook, leading some in his party to challenge his leadership.
Mr Brown has taken far-reaching steps to stop the whirlwind that has shaken the world's banking system, nationalising two banks and wading in with £37 billion of taxpayers' cash to bail out another three banks. The US and some European countries copied parts of the plan.
The poll found that 41 per cent of voters felt Mr Brown made the better Prime Minister during the current crisis compared with 27 per cent who backed Conservative leader David Cameron.
But, asked who they wanted to see in charge after the next election, the position was reversed with 36 per cent favouring Mr Cameron over Mr Brown's 26 per cent.
Fifty-eight per cent of voters agreed with Conservative charges that Mr Brown bore a lot of responsibility for the banking crisis because he was finance minister during a period when Britons went on a borrowing spree.
Mr Brown, who acknowledged for the first time on Wednesday that Britain was probably heading for a recession, has portrayed the crisis as "made in America" and outside Britain's control.
The poll showed that Labour jibes that Mr Cameron is too inexperienced to govern and that the Conservatives have no ideas for tackling the crisis were hitting home.
Thirty-six per cent said Mr Cameron had shown during the crisis that he lacked the experience to be Prime Minister, whereas 24 per cent felt he looked inexperienced now, but was likely to acquire the skills needed to govern in time for the election.