Blair: No longer young's choice

A majority of young people believe Tony Blair has overstayed his welcome as prime minister, according to a new poll.

But the Populus survey of 18 to 30-year-olds for the Times on Friday found that the "iGeneration" are still twice as likely to vote for Labour than the Conservatives or Liberal Democrats.

The results reveal a higher proportion of youths want Blair to leave Downing Street than among the electorate as a whole.

And support for all three major parties is lower among the age group than it is among the full range of voters.

Asked whether they agreed that the prime minister had gone on too long in Number 10 and should stand aside, 54 per cent of young people said they did.

In contrast 38 per cent felt that they disagreed while a recent ICM survey found that around 40 per cent of all voters believed Blair should stand down.

But the hostility of the age group to Blair personally is not matched by an equivalent drop in support for Labour.

Neither is it mirrored by a rise in support for either Michael Howard's Tories or Charles Kennedy's Lib Dems.

Labour's score on voting intentions among youths is three points lower at 29 per cent than the 32 per cent recently recorded by Populus among all voting ages.

Opposition

However both the Conservatives and Lib Dems are on only 16 per cent support among 18 to 30-year-olds, significantly lower than polls of the whole electorate.

The gap between the figures is made up by the much higher number of "don't knows" (13 per cent) and "won't votes" (18 per cent) in the age group.

To make matters worse for the opposition parties, when asked which party they broadly support, 42 per cent young people say Labour compared to 23 per cent who support the Tories and another 23 per cent who back the Lib Dems.

The news will be disappointing for both Howard and Kennedy - with both of their parties having made significant efforts to woo young voters including policies such as the opposition to university tuition fees.

Kennedy has claimed his party is more popular than Labour among young people while the results will be blow to the Conservative Future group which was meeting for its annual conference on Friday.