Mr Ken Livingstone's campaign to win election as mayor of London received another boost yesterday when an opinion poll for London's Evening Standard put him 45 per cent ahead of his nearest rival, the official Labour candidate, Mr Frank Dobson. The poll put Mr Livingstone at 61 per cent support and Mr Dobson at 16 per cent.
The Conservative candidate, Mr Steven Norris, polled 13 per cent and the Liberal Democrat Ms Susan Kramer received 8 per cent support.
Meanwhile, Mr Dobson sought to turn the campaign into a test of trust in the wake of Mr Livingstone's failure to declare his outside earnings.
In a shift of tactics, Mr Dobson broke his silence on a critical House of Commons report on Mr Livingstone by saying people would be "surprised" and "disappointed" by the left-winger's behaviour.
The former Health Secretary said the May 4th poll should be an "election about trust".
Most of the 1,005 Londoners interviewed by the ICM for the Standard gave their views before the Commons Standards and Privileges Committee rebuked Mr Livingstone for failing to declare more than £158,000 earnings from journalism and public speaking.
But Labour's hopes that the affair might seriously damage the former GLC leader's campaign suffered when the 300 voters questioned after the news broke still rated Mr Livingstone highly for trustworthiness.
Pollsters said their answers were similar to those who did not know of the Commons report, with an overall honesty rating for Mr Livingstone of 62 per cent, with only 18 per cent believing him to be dishonest.
Mr Livingstone was keeping a low profile in the media yesterday following his statement on Wednesday night which suggested dirty tricks had prompted the original complaint about his earnings.
The complainant cited in the committee's report, Loughborough University researcher Mr John C. Jones, said he had nothing to do with it.