Tory voters say party cannot be trusted

Potential Tory voters think the party is divided, old-fashioned, inefficient and sleazy, according to an internal opinion poll.

The surveyshowed that even voters who were inclined to vote Tory were turned off by the party's behaviour. Three-quarters of potential supporters would not back the leader, Iain Duncan Smith, because of the divisions in the party.

Thirty-two per cent said the Conservatives were not modern enough and 22 per cent thought the party was inefficient. The Conservative Party has also failed to shrug off its tarnished image from the John Major years, with 21 per cent believing the party is still sleazy.

Twenty per cent of people who indicated a willingness to vote Conservative said they did not like Mr Duncan Smith's Eurosceptic policies.

The figures, compiled by pollsters YouGov for Conservative Central Office, were seized on yesterday by Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

Mark Oaten MP, chairman of the Liberal Democrat parliamentary party, said: "This must be gloomy reading for Iain Duncan Smith and confirms that, whatever he does, his party is seen as out of touch and likely to be out of office for some considerable time."

A Labour Party spokesman said: "Theresa May is right when she says the Tories are out of touch and seen as the 'nasty party'. Voters know the Tories are stuck in the past with no positive agenda for Britain's future."

The poll specifically targeted voters who had voted Tory in the past or had indicated they would vote Conservative in the future. YouGov refused to comment.

The findings from the survey have been sent to all Conservative MPs and have caused alarm. "It's exactly the people we need to win over," said a Tory source.

The polling also showed that three-quarters of floating Tory voters believed the Government could not be trusted to improve public services.

And only 18 per cent believed Mr Duncan Smith could make a "tax-and-spend" policy work "if they were actually in government". Eighty-two per cent thought the Conservative Party could not make the policy work or were not sure whether it could.

The Conservatives said last night that they did not comment on internal documents.