POLL PUTS BRITISH ALLIANCE IN SECOND PLACE
Britain's centrist Liberal-Social
Democratic Alliance has crept ahead of the opposition Labour
party to become the country's second political force, according
to a Gallup opinion poll.
    The poll, part of a survey carried out every week by Gallup
on behalf of the ruling Conservative party, showed the
Conservatives with an eight-point lead at 38.5 pct, the
Alliance at 30.5 and Labour at 30 pct.
    It was published in the Sunday Telegraph.
    But two other surveys, the MORI poll conducted for the
Sunday Times and the Harris poll published in the Observer
newspaper, gave Labour a nine-point lead over the Alliance.
    These polls showed 33 pct supported Labour against 26 pct
for the Alliance, a grouping of the Liberal Party and the
Social Democratic Party, while 39 pct backed the Conservatives.
    The Gallup poll results are the latest in a series of
setbacks for the Labour party, in disarray over its non-nuclear
policy and plagued by internal feuding.
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