10/11/2004 00:00
TW
0

by RAY FLEMING
HAS Michael Howard's disinclination to kowtow to President Bush done him some good with the British public? Yesterday the latest Populus poll conducted over last weekend showed the Conservatives almost level-pegging with Labour in answer to the standard question; Who would you vote for if there were a general election tomorrow? The Conservative's 33 per cent was a five point gain since the last comparable poll in early October while Labour's 34 per cent represented a loss of one point; the Liberals slipped back from 25 to 22 per cent. A question about the performance of the party leaders put both Mr Blair and Charles Kennedy on a 4.85 (out of ten) approval rating and Mr Howard on 4.54, his best since April of this year and a marked improvement from 4.15 of just a month ago following the party conferences.

The spat with the White House arose out of Mr Howard's criticism some months ago of Tony Blair's personal position over Iraq. Subsequently, when the Conservative leader's office made enquiries about the possibility of a meeting with Mr Bush during a visit to the United States, it was told, “You can forget about him meeting the president. Don't bother coming.” Mr Howard is, of course, the leader of Her Majesty's Opposition in America's closest ally and could just be the next prime minister that Mr Bush has to do business with. Not surprisingly, Mr Howard did not send a congratulatory message to President Bush last week and commented, “I am not going to be told by anyone how to do my job and if it displeases the White House, that's tough.” It will be interesting to see what questions Mr Howard puts at today's Question Time in advance of Mr Blair's visit to Washington later this week.