Voters are going to miss Blair when he is gone, the latest YouGov poll for the Sunday Times says the people rate him a good prime minister by a narrow 3% margin, by a bigger 45% margin they believed he did what he thought to be right.

With Blair, Labour is 4% behind the Tories, when voters are asked how they will vote when Brown becomes leader the gap widens to 10%. Brown is simply less likeable than Blair. By 50% to 31% people say they do not like him, Blair scores better.

The polling data confirms what we know intuitively, Labour have acted like lemmings, dispensing with their most successful leader of all time for a less popular, less likeable replacement. The more the voters see of Gordon, the worse it will get. It is all very well Brown getting his anti-war activist base back on side, but that doesn’t help in middle England.

Cameron has lifted his party’s poll numbers over the last year as voters have come to know and like him, Brown is well known and voters dislike him. Gordon Brown’s recent Scottish campaign confirms his electoral value.