The damage inflicted on the Government by this week's admission of the loss of 25 million people's personal details is revealed in a new poll, which puts Labour at its lowest ebb since Gordon Brown became leader.
The ICM survey for a newspaper rated Labour at 31% - four points down on a similar poll last month.
But it suggested it is the leaderless Liberal Democrats, and not David Cameron's Conservatives, who are capitalising on the Government's difficulties.
Buoyed by well-received performances by acting leader Vince Cable in debates over the HM Revenue and Customs data loss and the Northern Rock credit crisis, the Lib Dems boosted their rating by three points to 21%, while the Tories slumped three points to 37%.
The poll came as Children's Secretary Ed Balls announced a review of the security of the new ContactPoint database of 11 million English children, to ensure that their personal details will be safe.
Mr Balls said an external organisation would be appointed to carry out an independent check on the £224 million computer system, set up following the inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbie to improve co-ordination of child protection services.
But Conservatives called for the suspension of the database, warning that it would not be difficult for paedophiles to gain access to information on vulnerable children when their details were kept on a system accessible by more than 300,000 people.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown set a deadline of December 10 for all Whitehall departments and their agencies to review systems for handling of personal data.
Labour MPs are dreading further revelations over the weekend about how HMRC lost two computer discs in the post, and things are unlikely to get better when data protection minister Michael Wills is due to face a grilling from the joint parliamentary committee on human rights.
