Poll: Brown only 9 percent behind Cameron

LONDON, Oct. 19 (UPI) -- British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's standing with voters has surged as the country's economic crisis has deepened, a newspaper poll indicates.

Brown now trails Conservative Party leader David Cameron by 9 percentage points, a poll by IoS for The Independent reported. While Brown still has ground to make up, this was the first time since March that Cameron had a single-digit lead.

The poll also found widespread distrust of Cameron's economic policies, with 56 percent doubting his ability to handle the economy and only 25 percent saying he would have been a better leader in the crisis than Brown.

Voters appear to be somewhat unhappy with the specifics of Brown's policies as well. Almost 60 percent said that public money should not have been used to rescue banks, while 37 percent approved.

Labor's gain was at the expense of the third party, the Liberal Democrats. Forty percent of those surveyed said they prefer the Conservatives, up 1 percent from last month, 31 percent picked Labor, up 4 percent, and 16 percent want the Liberal Democrats, down 5.