The ICM Poll

The ICM poll in yesterday's Guardian has the Conservatives on 37% and Labour on 32%, with the Liberal-Democrats on 21%. This is Labour's lowest ICM rating for 20 years. To find three successive months in which Labour's rating was as low as since April one has to go back to 1987. The Guardian editorial argues that "the danger for Labour is that demoralisation and political alienation will deepen" the longer Blair remains, and his "continuation at the top of his party increasingly appears like an act of vanity". But the editorial also warns that "a change of leader would not purge all the party's problems". Jackie Ashley in Monday's Guardian reported that morale is so low that "once-ambitious ministers are heard openly discussing the upside of spending a few years out of government..." Blair seems determined to stay as long as possible, whatever the consequences (I suspect he would prefer Cameron to Brown as PM).