Labour's tax gamble has paid off, according to an opinion poll which finds that the Budget is the most popular for a quarter of a century.

The MORI poll for the FT found that Gordon Brown is now the most popular chancellor since Denis Healey in the late 1970s.

Speaking to this website, Lord Healey says the chancellor has been proven right by the public's response.

The former chancellor, who delivered 12 Budgets and mini-Budgets in his first three-and-a-half years in the office, believes Brown is now a "major asset" for the Blair government.

"He has been proved absolutely right in what he has done," the peer told ePolitix. "He is, I think, the major asset to the government".

Healey believes the government can draw a "big lesson" from Brown's tax gamble.

"A big lesson is that people don't mind paying money if they know it is going for a good cause. And so they accept the increase because they know it is going to go into health and education," he said.

A second poll, conducted by ICM for the Guardian, reveals that the NHS tax rise has halted the Tory recovery.

Conservative popularity rose to 34 per cent in March - although the party has slipped by five points since the April budget.

The news will frustrate Conservative strategists who had hoped that Iain Duncan Smith's decision to oppose the rise in national insurance contributions would reflect wider public anger at the move.

The Tories will now be looking to see whether the tax increases will prove more unpopular when it hits voters' pay-packets next spring.

They also believe that Tony Blair could ultimately end up "carrying the can" if he fails to deliver the promised improvements in the NHS.

But according to the poll, 54 per cent of Conservative voters back the chancellor's new "tax and spend" position.

The poll, however, finds that voters believe that Labour did break tax pledge promise not to raise the burden on personal income.

Fifty-nine per cent felt the budget marked a change of direction for Labour - with only 27 per cent backing the prime minister's assertion that nothing had changed since 1997.

But two in three voters believe Brown's Budget was good for the country. Forty-five per cent of voters believe the Budget is good on a personal level - the highest number to do so since Nigel Lawson's tax-cutting budget of 1987.

The perceived popularity raises the question of who should take the credit.

The chancellor's allies will point to his personal popularity rating - which is currently higher than the prime minister's.

The poll evidence has revived suggestions that Brown is the man most likely to succeed Blair.

Downing Street paid tribute to the chancellor but claimed the government was not fixated by opinion polls.

"The prime minister believes that the chancellor is a large talent. He is one of the great strengths of this government," said the official spokesman.

"The idea that the prime minister and chancellor stand and compare analysis of opinion polls in any shape or form is entirely wrong."