Public support has grown sharply for Chancellor Gordon Brown in the last few months, compared with Prime Minister Tony Blair, a newspaper poll has showed. A YouGov poll in the Daily Telegraph yesterday showed 49 percent of those polled thought Brown ? viewed as Blair?s main rival and probable successor ? was doing a better job in his post than Blair in the top job, compared with 41 percent in September.

Support for Blair slipped 1 percentage point over the same period to 19 percent, according to the poll. Asked to pick one of the two as prime minister, 39 per cent of respondents chose Brown, with 30 percent favouring Blair. That marked a much wider gap than in September, when Brown and Blair polled 32 and 29 percent respectively.

The government has been rocked in recent weeks by a flare-up in long-standing tensions between Blair and Brown after fresh reports that the prime minister told Brown more than a year ago he would hand over power in 2004. True or not, Blair later declared he wanted to serve a full third term in power and rubbed salt into Brown?s wounds by giving his election planning role to old Blair ally Alan Milburn.

The prime minister?s reputation has suffered badly over intelligence from British spy services used to justify the invasion of Iraq, and then the failure to find any weapons of mass destruction Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was said to have stockpiled. YouGov interviewed a sample of 1,965 adults over the Internet between Tuesday and Thursday. Britain is expected to hold elections in May, with the Labour Party currently holding a comfortable lead over opposition parties.