Half of Britain wants Prime Minister Tony Blair to step down, according to a poll in today's Financial Timesnewspaper.
Mr Blair's popularity and trust ratings have nosedived in the messy aftermath of the Iraq war. On the eve of his tenth party conference as Labour leader, two separate polls suggested he was in trouble both with the public and his own party members.
The FT survey by pollsters Mori asked people whether they agreed with the statement: "It's now time for Tony Blair to resign and hand over to someone else." Fifty per cent agreed, 39 per cent disagreed and 11 per cent were unsure.
Twenty-nine per cent said they were satisfied with Mr Blair's performance, compared to a peak of 47 per cent at the end of the Iraq war.
A judicial inquiry into the suicide of an Iraq weapons scientist at the heart of a vitriolic row over the government's justification for war in the country has plunged Mr Blair into the worst political crisis of his six-year tenure.
The poll suggested strong support for Chancellor Gordon Brown, viewed by many as Mr Blair's logical replacement. Respondents gave Mr Blair's Labour party a nine point lead over the opposition Conservative party, but rose to fifteen points with Mr Brown at the helm.
A separate survey in the Guardiannewspaper said nearly a quarter of Labour parliamentarians wanted Mr Blair to go. Of labour's 409 MPs, 108 were quizzed, and of them only 29 offered unconditional support for their leader.
But 24 said he should step down now; 25 said he should go either before or after the next election, and nine said they would like to see him stay if he changed his style.