BRITAIN:British prime minister Gordon Brown's woes piled up yesterday as a new poll showed him facing a "meltdown" at the next election and the opposition accused him of breaking a pledge to deport foreign criminals.
As Mr Brown prepared to take a rare holiday over Christmas, a YouGov poll for the Daily Telegraph found his personal approval rating had slumped to an all-time low and the Labour Party was lagging the Conservatives by 12 points.
If replicated at a national election, the result would give the Conservatives a parliamentary majority, while 100 of the 352 Labour members of parliament would lose their seats, the Daily Telegraph said, saying Mr Brown was "staring at meltdown".
Mr Brown, who took over from Tony Blair in June, does not have to call an election until 2010.
The poll found 60 per cent of people were now dissatisfied with Mr Brown as prime minister compared with 27 per cent in July.
Mr Brown's popularity has been eroded by gathering economic clouds, the first run on a British bank in more than a century and the government's loss of half the population's personal data.
Another row flared yesterday when the Conservatives said a leaked Prison Service memo showed immigration officials had "no interest" in deporting foreign prisoners who had spent less than a year behind bars.
They said the memo was at odds with Mr Brown's tough pledge in September to throw out "any newcomer to Britain who is caught selling drugs or using guns.
"The result will be that foreign thieves, fraudsters, burglars and drug dealers will be released back into the community," Conservative justice spokesman Nick Herbert said in a statement.
Both Labour and the Conservatives have taken a tough line in response to public concern about crime by foreign nationals in Britain.
Lin Homer, chief executive of the government's border and immigration agency, said the government was committed to removing foreign national prisoners who commit serious crimes.
"Nothing in this document changes that and in fact this year we have removed more foreign nationals than ever before," Ms Homer said. "We have repeatedly said we would target the most dangerous first."