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Journalism of Courage
LONDON, Sept 28: British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s public popularity rating has reached 93 per cent, according to a private poll for the Labour Party.
The Independent on Sunday said that, asked if Blair was doing a good job, 93 per cent of people said he was, 3 per cent said he was doing a bad job, and 4 per cent said they did not know.
The paper said the findings were thought to be a record for any democratic politician, and followed Blair’s much-praised handling of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. The tracking poll was of 1,100 people.
A Labour Party spokesman said the results were not particularly to do with the Princess’s death: “People trust Tony Blair and believe that he’s doing what he said he would do, and they feel they have a Prime Minister who both knows how to govern a country and is a very decent human being.”
But he said Blair would never stop warning against complacency: “Neither Labour nor the Prime Minister will ever rest on their laurels.”
The poll comes as a boost for Blair on the eve of the Labour Party conference in Brighton.
The same Labour research found that only one third of those polled thought that William Hague, the Conservative leader, was doing a good job.
