Gordon Brown aide plotted to cripple Tory poll hopes

October 14th, 2009 LONDON - Calls for British troops to leave Afghanistan have risen sharply even as Prime Minister Gordon Brown prepares to send hundreds more to southern Helmand province. More than a third of voters (36 per cent) believe that troops should be withdrawn immediately, according to the latest Populus poll for The Times - up from 29 per cent in mid-September.

September 27th, 2009 LONDON - A recent poll has suggested that British voters think Tory leader David Cameron would make a better Prime Minister than Gordon Brown. According to the ICM survey for the News of the World, some 43 per cent voters said that Cameron was the best choice, while just 20 per cent believe that Brown is the best man for the job out of the current three main party leaders.

September 15th, 2009 LONDON - Nearly half of the British population believes that anyone in the Labour Party can do a better job than Prime Minister Gordon Brown, a new poll has found. According to a Populus Poll conducted by The Times, 48 per cent of voters think that "literally anyone" from Labour's ranks could do better, while only a third say that Brown is the best leader available for the party.

September 15th, 2009 Poll: Britons prefer anyone but Brown as leaderLONDON — A new poll suggests half of British voters would prefer anyone other than Prime Minister Gordon Brown to lead the country. The Populus survey published Tuesday by The Times of London newspaper found 61 percent of respondents believe Brown is a liability.

September 5th, 2009 LONDON - Following defence aide Eric Joyce quitting over UK's war strategy in Afghanistan, Gordon Brown tried to defend his policy by saying that "we cannot walk away." Despite the growing death toll among British troops, Brown insisted the UK strategy in Afghanistan is the right one. "A safer Britain requires a safer Afghanistan," the Daily Star quoted Brown, as saying.

July 31st, 2009 LONDON - Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Government is now as unpopular as John Major's was the year before his Conservative party suffered a landslide general election defeat, according to a new poll. A Daily Telegraph YouGov poll found that 70 per cent of voters now disapprove of the Brown Government's record, with only 17 per cent approving of it.

June 20th, 2009 LONDON - Britain's embattled Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said he is not interested in power, and could walk away from Downing Street at any moment.rown, who survived a backbench plot to oust him earlier this month, said: "To be honest, you could walk away from all of this tomorrow. "I'm not interested in what accompanies being in power.

June 7th, 2009 LONDON - Cabinet ministers supposedly loyal to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, reportedly coordinated a plot to force incumbent Premier Gordon Brown to step down. Cabinet Ministers Hazel Blears, James Purnell, John Hutton and Caroline Flint all claimed that they were working alone when they handed in their resignations to Number 10, but The Sunday Telegraph discloses they were part of a group of Blairites that met secretly for months and tried to co-ordinate last week's resignations.

June 5th, 2009 Brown: No plans of stepping down as British PMLONDON — British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is defying calls from some in his own party to resign, saying he will not walk away from his responsibilities. Brown reshuffled his Cabinet Friday in hopes of hanging on to his job in the midst of a scandal over lawmakers' expenses, a string of top-level resignations and catastrophic results expected in local elections.

May 14th, 2009 LONDON - A former British minister was suspended from the parliamentary Labour party Thursday for claiming 16,000 pounds for a home loan that he had already paid off. Elliot Morley's suspension was announced by Prime Minister Gordon Brown on a day several MPs said they were paying back money that they had claimed in expenses that have been seen as dubious.

April 14th, 2009 LONDON - A humiliated British Prime Minister Gordon Brown voiced "great regret" last night over his key aide Damian McBride's sick plot to smear top Tories, but refused to apologise.ith a successful G-20 summit under his belt, Brown was hoping next week's Budget would boost his dismal showing in the polls, but instead, he was engulfed by strategy chief McBride's putrid conspiracy to smear top Tories. Brown was forced to spend yesterday sending "personal" letters to the victims of this appalling plot - David Cameron, George Osborne and MP Nadine Dorries, reports The Sun.he PM also ordered tough new rules for Labour's army of spin doctors.

April 12th, 2009 LONDON - A close and senior aide to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has resigned after being found to have sent out emails suggesting a smear campaign targetting front-ranking members of the opposition Conservative Party. Damien McBride, a long-standing adviser to the ruling Labour Party, quit after the emails, sent from the Prime Minister's official 10 Downing Street email address, suggested a campaign against Conservative leader David Cameron, the shadow chancellor (finance minister) George Osborne and three other Tory MPs.

April 11th, 2009 LONDON - A senior aide of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been forced to apologize for sending inappropriate juvenile emails from a Number 10 account. The private missives, written by special adviser Damian McBride, are said to feature ideas for potential smear stories about senior Conservatives.

April 5th, 2009 LONDON - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown a huge boost in the polls due to the success of the G20 summit and President Barack Obama's visit. In the first survey since the summit ended on Thursday, 70 per cent of people thought the Prime Minister had handled events well.

January 26th, 2009 LONDON - Support for British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is dipping amid a loss of voter-confidence in his ability to turn the economy around and reports of a resurgent opposition Tory party, according to two opinion polls published Tuesday. A Guardian-ICM poll, carried out after a second round of multi-billion pound bank bail-outs last week, showed only 31 percent of voters think that Brown's high-profile battle to turn around the economy will work.