UK's Blair suffers election blows

LONDON, June 30 (Reuters) British Prime Minister Tony Blair's political woes mounted today when a poll showed he is now less popular than his main rival and his Labour Party suffered a humiliating election setback.

The reverses are likely to fuel discontent among Labour legislators, many of whom want Blair -- in power for nine years -- to set a date for handing over to his likely successor, finance minister Gordon Brown.

Labour failed to regain a Welsh parliamentary seat it had lost to an independent candidate last year while in another by-election in London it trailed in fourth, winning fewer votes than a fringe anti-European party.

To compound his woes, an opinion poll in the Daily Telegraph showed David Cameron, the youthful new leader of the opposition Conservatives, had become the first of five Conservative leaders Blair has faced to be more popular than he is.

The YouGov poll showed the Conservatives with a six-point lead over Labour, suggesting the party of Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher could emerge from years in the political wilderness at the next general election, due in 2009.

The poll also contained worrying news for Brown, who has long been chafing at Blair's heels, showing that voters would prefer a Cameron government to one led by Blair or Brown.

''The government's in deep trouble. They can't do anything right,'' said David Denver, politics professor at Lancaster University. ''The question is whether they can pull out of it.'' However, the news wasn't all good for the Conservatives.

Their majority was slashed in a vote in the Conservative stronghold of the London district of Bromley from more than 13,000 to around 600, suggesting Cameron's centrist message is not going down well with all Conservative supporters.

SCANDALS Blair, whose popularity was dented by anger over the Iraq war, led Labour to an unprecedented third successive election victory last year, but since then little has gone right for him.

His pledge not to seek a fourth term has made him a lame duck leader, say some in his own party who increasingly question his authority and rebel against his free-market policies which clash with the Labour Party's Socialist roots.

Scandals over sex, sleaze and incompetence have eroded Labour's popularity while former ally Charles Clarke, fired from the cabinet by Blair in May, accused the prime minister this week of losing his sense of purpose and direction.

Labour leaders, who put the Welsh election defeat down to special circumstances, said the party would concentrate on its policies and Blair would not be pushed into an announcing a timetable for the transfer of power.

Blair's spokesman said he was driving forward reforms of welfare, pensions, health and education. ''I don't think that goes with a description of a government or a prime minister that is running out of steam,'' he said.

Reuters SHB GC1918