The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, London

A majority of supporters of the governing Labour Party want Prime Minister Gordon Brown-in the job for barely a year-to step down, according to a poll for The Times newspaper out Wednesday.

The Populus poll suggested 55 percent of Labour voters think they would be more likely to beat the main opposition Conservatives at the next general election if Brown made way for a "younger, fresher, more charismatic alternative". Fewer than two-fifths (38 percent) disagreed. Voters in southeast and southwest England and Wales were the keenest for Brown to go (60 percent each) in what The Times called a "collapse of confidence" in the prime minister.

Brown, in office since last June, last week saw Labour slump to its worst local election results in 40 years, including the ouster of London mayor Ken Livingstone, as the Tories surged back in to town halls in England and Wales. He went into the elections suffering severe criticisms over his botched tax reforms, the government's recent economic record, a wave of industrial unrest and increasing doubts about his personality and ability to lead.