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Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s ruling Labour government is increasingly being blamed by voters for Britain’s “economic quagmire” even as the recession shows signs of easing, ComRes Ltd. pollster Greig Baker said.

“There is a high level of personal animosity towards Gordon Brown and regardless of the economic figures, that’s going to be very, very difficult for Labour to get past,” Baker, research director at the U.K. polling company, told Bloomberg Television today. “The voting public is increasingly blaming the government for the economic quagmire we’re in.”

Data today showed the British economy shrank 0.3 percent in the third quarter, less than previously estimated, in the nation’s longest recession on record. Brown is fighting to rebuild support in time for an election due by June. Labour narrowed Conservative Leader David Cameron’s lead to six points in an Ipsos Mori poll published Nov. 22.

“If the government can claim that they steered the economy through recession, that will become their overbearing election theme,” Baker said. “It may change the political narrative of the time but I don’t think that will be enough to overcome the personal animosity that exists towards Gordon Brown. People simply don’t like him.”

Cameron pledged to work “night and day” to win a majority in Parliament at the next U no checking account payday advance.K. election after the Ipsos Mori poll in the Observer newspaper showed the Conservatives with the narrowest lead this year. That suggests he may fail to clinch enough lawmaker seats to control the House of Commons.

‘Anybody But Gordon’

“Looking at the poll over the weekend, it was slightly out of kilter with some of the others we’ve seen recently,” Baker said. “What it does suggest is that there’s not a huge affinity amongst the voting public with David Cameron. Basically, it’s an ‘Anybody but Gordon vote.’”

ComRes’s most recent poll, finished on Nov. 12, showed the Conservatives with a 14-point lead. Cameron needs a lead of about 10 percentage points to win a clear majority, according to Anthony Wells of pollsters YouGov Plc. A minority government, known as a ‘hung parliament,’ may face greater difficulty in tackling Britain’s record budget deficit.

The U.K. economy’s contraction was revised from a 0.4 percent drop, the Office for National Statistics said today in London. The Bank of England forecasts Britain will exit the recession in the fourth quarter. The economy will expand 2.2 percent in 2010 and 4.1 percent in 2011, according to policy makers’ projections published on Nov. 11.

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