A poll conducted by the Independent shows that Tony Blair's return as Labour leader would give the party a boost that would reduce the Conservative party's advantage in the polls by nine points.

The survey conducted for the newspaper by ComRes, showed that the former prime minister was the only senior Labour leader who could rejuvenate the party's poor approval ratings and cut the Conservative's lead in the polls from 19 per cent to 10 per cent.

According to the poll, the Labour party's popularity would stay the same under justice secretary Jack Straw or foreign secretary David Miliband. The party would lose voters if health secretary Alan Johnson, deputy leader Harriet Harman or schools secretary Ed Balls took over. However, results showed that the Conservative party would win an election by at least a 20 seat majority even if Tony Blair, who is no longer an MP returned.

A total of 49 per cent of those interviewed said they liked neither the Labour party or Gordon Brown, however results hinted that Gordon Brown could be the biggest thing putting people off voting Labour as 20 per cent of people said they liked the Labour party but not Gordon Brown.

The poll comes as former home secretary Charles Clarke called for a change in prime minister, if matters did not improve soon, to boost Labour's chances at the ballot box.

Labour's poll ratings were on the up after Mr Brown's handling of the floods last summer but have been dropping ever since his decision to call off a snap Autumn election.

ComRes interviewed 1,013 British adults between September 3rd and September 4th.
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