UK Labour's support drops to 19-year low in poll

LONDON, Aug 22 (Reuters) Britain's opposition Conservatives have opened a nine-point lead over the ruling Labour Party, whose support has slumped to a 19-year low, according to an opinion poll published today.

If repeated at a general election, the findings of the Guardian/ICM poll would give the centre-right Conservatives a slim 10-seat majority in Britain's 646-member lower house of parliament, the Guardian newspaper said.

The poll boosts youthful Conservative leader David Cameron who is trying to revitalise his party after three successive election defeats to Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour Party.

It is another blow for Blair, whose popularity has plunged after a series of government scandals over sex, sleaze and mismanagement.

Blair, on holiday in the Caribbean, faced sharp criticism in Britain -- some of it from Labour politicians -- for failing initially to call for an immediate ceasefire in the war between Israel and Lebanese Hizbollah guerrillas.

Blair led Labour to a 66-seat parliamentary majority in an election 15 months ago and has said he will not seek a fourth term.

Some Labour politicians want him to set a date to step down and hand over to his successor, expected to be Finance Minister Gordon Brown.

The left-leaning Guardian newspaper, which published the poll, said support for Labour had fallen heavily in the wake of an alleged Islamist plot to blow up airliners leaving Britain for the United States.

Britain charged eight British Muslims on Monday with plotting to blow up U.S.-bound planes, 11 days after a wave of arrests and a security crackdown that caused chaos at British airports.

The Guardian said an ''overwhelming majority of voters appear to pin part of the blame for the increased threat on Blair's policy of intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan.'' Support for Labour fell to 31 percent, down four points from a similar poll last month, the Guardian said. This was the lowest figure recorded by Labour in a Guardian/ICM poll since just before the 1987 election -- won by the Conservatives -- and the second lowest since the poll series began in 1984, it said.

The Conservatives climbed one point to 40 percent in the poll while the other main opposition party, the Liberal Democrats, saw their support rise five points to 22 percent.

REUTERS SK BST0533