The Research Innovations poll results published in yesterday's Royal Gazette contained bad news for both major political parties.

Premier Alex Scott's approval ratings continued to fall, and are now lower than former Premier Jennifer Smith's were just before her ouster.

That must raise the possibility that MPs within the Progressive Labour Party will be sharpening their knives for another coup attempt. And while there is still plenty of time before a General Election must be called, those MPs must now be wondering if their seats are secure.

Mr. Scott's problems are varied. It's worth noting that the sky-high approval ratings he had after Hurricane Fabian in 2003 could not be sustained. But no one would have predicted that they would fall as fast and as far as they have.

In some ways, Mr. Scott has done the right thing. A social agenda was clearly needed; the problem has been that "The Social Agenda", which Mr. Scott has effectively made his own (not many other Cabinet Ministers bring it up), has been more talk than action.

And Mr. Scott's pursuit of Independence when there is little or no enthusiasm for it cannot help either. It is interesting that his approval ratings among women are much lower than among men. Declarations that he is "the man" and his failure to appoint a single woman to the Senate may have something to do with this.

There's not much joy in the polls for Opposition Leader Grant Gibbons and the United Bermuda Party either. One might normally expect that as the Government's popularity has waned, the Opposition's would rise. But that has not happened.

Some UBP insiders claim that other polls tell a different story and no doubt the PLP would say the same thing, along with those infamous Government focus groups. But Research Innovations has been extremely accurate over the years, and has not changed its polling methods.

If anything, there seems to be a general dislike of politicians and a weariness with the pettiness, carping and obsession with people over principles that characterises the Island's politics. There's no better example of that than former Government Minister David Burch's speech in today's newspaper.

This weariness is reflected in the large number of voters who are undecided. According to the Research Innovations poll, the parties would be in a statistical dead heat if an election was held tomorrow, with 32.2 percent of those polled saying they would vote for the PLP and 30.9 percent of voters opting for the UBP. But some 25 percent of the electorate say they don't know whom they would vote for while 12 percent refused to say (rather than said they would refuse to vote, as reported in yesterday's paper).

That is a large number at any time. And while one would expect the "don't know" voters to move towards both parties as a General Election neared, what is clear is that election victory is there for the taking for either party.

The question is whether either party can do it under their current leaders. Mr. Scott can take some heart from the poll finding that more people (40 percent) like him than approve of his performance (35 percent). But worryingly, some 45 percent of voters disapprove of his performance. That's a remarkably high number and means Mr. Scott will have to work hard to turn around the undecideds.

In spite of initiatives like the Social Agenda and Independence, the PLP increasingly looks like a Government that has run out of steam and is simply going through the motions of governing. It needs to fix that perception, and soon.

Dr. Gibbons' "favourability" tends to go up and down like a yo yo. The issue for him and the UBP is to build some consistency and to find the elusive balance between criticism and putting forward constructive policies.