Support for Britain's coalition drops sharply: poll

LONDON: Support for Britain's Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government has fallen sharply since it came to power in May, a poll showed Monday.

Just 43 percent of people questioned for the survey in The Guardian newspaper thought the two parties were right to form a government, while 47 percent disagreed.

This compares to 59 percent of people who backed the formation of the coalition in a similar survey for the paper in May. In that poll, only 32 percent of people disagreed with the decision.

Monday's survey shows support for the main opposition Labour party at a three-year high of 39 percent, with the Conservatives of Prime Minister David Cameron on 37 percent.

Junior coalition partners the Lib Dems hit a five-year low on just 13 percent.

The centre-right Conservatives won the most seats in the lower house of parliament in the May general election but not enough to govern alone and were forced to turn to the third-placed Lib Dems.

Since taking office, the government has unveiled some of the harshest spending cuts seen in Britain for decades in a bid to tackle a record public deficit inherited from the previous Labour administration.

Pollster ICM interviewed a random sample of 1,003 adults aged 18 and over by telephone from December 16 to 19 for Monday's survey.