Nick Clegg most popular party leader 'since Winston Churchill'
Nick Clegg most popular party leader 'since Winston Churchill'
Sunday, 18, Apr 2010 10:37
By Matthew Champion
Nick Clegg is the most popular party leader since Winston Churchill according to the latest polls, in another illustration of the seismic shift upon the general election campaign caused by the live televised debates.
A poll for the Sunday Times said the Liberal Democrat leader's approval rating was 72 per cent, the highest of any UK party leader since Winston Churchill (83 per cent) on the eve of the 1945 general election.
David Cameron was on 19 per cent meanwhile, with Gordon Brown on minus 18 per cent.
After a YouGov poll last night showed that the election had become a three-way tussle for the first time since the 1920s, a ComRes poll for the Independent on Sunday and Sunday Mirror put the Tories on 31 per cent, Lib Dems on 29 per cent and Labour on 27 per cent.
But it is Labour and Mr Brown prime who will likely be the biggest beneficiaries of the upsurge in support and interest for the Lib Dems since last Thursday's debate on ITV1.
If the above poll was replicated at a general election the Tories would claim 239 seats, just 46 more than they currently have, while Labour would probably be able to form a coalition government with 287 of their own MPs if they could strike a deal with the 93 Lib Dem MPs likely to be elected.
The newfound popularity of the Lib Dems - the party has received £120,000 in new donations, mostly in small amounts, since the debate, while traffic to its website has increased eight times over - has rattled senior Tories, with shadow foreign secretary and former leader William Hague saying on Sunday that a vote for the Lib Dems was a vote for the "European super-state".
Mr Cameron added that a hung parliament would struggle to make decisions.
Labour has stepped up its courting of the Lib Dems meanwhile, with Cabinet minister Peter Hain saying that the party could be willing to make concessions on tax and nuclear weapons in order to form a coalition government.
Mr Clegg, speaking yesterday at Kingston hospital in Surrey where his third son was born, said: "A growing number of people are starting to hope that real change and real fairness is finally possible in Britain."
On Sunday the Lib Dem leader is to launch a new campaign urging voters aged 18 to 25 to ensure they are registered to vote ahead of Tuesday's deadline, in a similar strategy employed by Barack Obama in the 2008 US presidential election.
"I will be saying to young people that this is their chance to make a difference," Mr Clegg told the Observer. "It will be a message of hope, but also one of urgency. They can really affect this election campaign, but to do so they have to register."
Speaking to BBC1's Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, Mr Brown said he was campaigning for a Labour victory on May 6th.
"This is not a sprint it's a long campaign," he said. "We have three debates and I think if you ask people what the main issues are it's what our economic prospects are this year and what will happen to the economy in future years."
On his performance in the first debate, the prime minister added: "I didn't try to be someone I'm not. I'm not trying to be the king of presentation or style
"You campaign in style, but you have to govern in substance."