Poll says only Tony Blair can help Labour

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Gordon Brown's popularity has slumped to a record low, but a change in leader will not help Labour Party win the next election, according to an opinion poll published on Friday.

A YouGov poll in The Daily Telegraph said only 15 percent of people questioned believed Brown was "up to the job".

It said this was the lowest approval rating for a prime minister since John Major in 1995, two years before his Conservative government suffered a crushing election defeat that has ushered in 11 years of Labour rule.

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Only nine percent of voters said Brown was "in touch with the concerns of people like me" while 52 percent said he "lacks the qualities needed to lead Britain effectively through its economic problems," The Daily Telegraph said.

Brown's poll ratings have been hit by the credit crunch, which has weakened economic growth and sent house prices sliding, and by policy mis-steps.

A loss of a once safe parliamentary seat in an election in Scotland last week sparked speculation that Brown could face a challenge to his year-old leadership of the Labour Party.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband stoked the frenzy with a newspaper article that many commentators saw as a thinly-veiled bid to establish his credentials as a future leader.

The YouGov poll, conducted between Tuesday and Thursday, found that none of the potential candidates to succeed Brown as Labour leader could save the party from defeat to the Conservatives at the next general election, which must be held by mid-2010.