Male voters desert Cameron as pressure on Tory leader grows

Pressure on David Cameron will mount today with the publication of poll showing that the Tory lead over Labour has been reversed by Gordon Brown with a swing among male voters.

The former party chairman Lord Saatchi warned him that "nicey nicey" politics would not win the next election, but the Conservative leader is rejecting calls for him to shift to the right to address the Tory "wobble".

The poll by CommunicateResearch for The Independent shows Labour has a three-point lead compared with a five-point Tory lead before Mr Brown took power. The findings show Mr Brown has gained a "bounce" by winning support among male voters. But there is a crumb of comfort for Mr Cameron as Mr Brown is so far failing to win over women voters.

Overall, Labour is on 37 per cent, up five; the Tories are on 34 per cent, down three, and the Liberal Democrats are on 16 per cent, down two.

Forty-one per cent of men in the poll said they would vote Labour and 32 Conservative. That reverses the position last month when 40 per cent of men polled said they would vote Tory and 30 per cent Labour.

Among women, however, the Tories still have a two-point lead over Labour and there has been no change in their voting intentions since Mr Brown took over - 35 per cent of women would vote Tory, compared to 33 per cent Labour.

A cabinet minister shrugged off the failure to gain a "bounce" among women voters, saying: "Polling evidence we have had shows that women tend to be slower to switch than men. But they will come across."

Despite his difficulties, the Conservative leader said yesterday he would be "only too delighted" if Mr Brown wanted to call a general election in the autumn.

The poll findings are a warning for Mr Brown that if he calls an early election, he will have to work hard to get Labour's vote out. It suggests he would be safer to call an election in the spring next year, rather than the autumn this year.

The findings show 48 per cent of blue-collar workers say they will vote Labour but only 26 per cent of this group said they were certain to vote. Forty-three per cent of AB professional people say they will vote Tory and 47 per cent of this group said they were certain to vote.

The Liberal Democrats dropped two points to 16 per cent which could raise fresh questions about the leadership of Sir Menzies Campbell.

The findings were reinforced last night by a Times Populus poll showing Mr Cameron's personal ratings have slipped, particularly over his trip to Africa during the flood crisis. Mr Cameron has defended his trip to Rwanda, in spite of the flooding in his own Oxfordshire constituency. But the pressure increased for a change of direction by Mr Cameron.

Lord Saatchi, who masterminded the Tories' advertising campaigns during the Thatcher years, said all of Mr Cameron's efforts so far to rebrand the party had been "to no avail".

Calling for Mr Cameron to focus on the economy - often a code for tax cuts - he said: "Not a single poll in a single month in the past 15 years has given the Conservative Party a sufficient lead to win an election."

Voters were put off by the two main parties vying for the centre-ground, said Lord Saatchi.