By Patrick Hennessy, Political Editor

Large numbers of British voters do not want to see either Tony Blair or David Miliband getting top European Union jobs, according to a new ICM poll for The Sunday Telegraph.

The survey shows 53 per cent of respondents think the former prime minister is the wrong person to be the EU's new president once the Lisbon Treaty becomes law in all 27 member states.

Some 48 per cent do not want Mr Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, to become the EU's first "foreign minister" - another post to be created once the Treaty is signed.

The poll also provides a boost for David Cameron, with 42 per cent of voters backing the Tories if a general election was held tomorrow. The party has a 17-point lead over Labour, on 25 per cent, with the Liberal Democrats on 21 per cent in third place.

The findings - if repeated at the next election, which must be held by next June - would be enough to give the Conservatives a majority of around 111, according to an analysis by The Sunday Telegraph.

Support for the British National Party in the poll is running at just two per cent. This is around average for the BNP and a clear signal that the party has not benefited from any "bounce" following the controversial appearance of its leader, Nick Griffin, on the BBC's Question Time last month.

Mr Blair has not given up hope of becoming EU president despite evidence at last week's Brussels summit that he had fallen victim to a stitch-up orchestrated by Nicholas Sarkozy, the French president, and Angela Merkel, the German chancellor.

Sources close to Mr Blair said he remained "relaxed" and still hoped he could win through when EU leaders stage another summit, expected later this month, with the aim of making a final decision.

Mr Blair has yet to declare publicly that he wants the job, despite having the public support of the British government.

This weekend his close political ally Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, said of Mr Blair that "he would like to do the job" but added that it was not "matter of life or death from him".

The ICM poll showed 53 per cent not wanting Mr Blair in the post - a much higher figure than recent surveys - while 36 per backed him.

Mr Miliband, whose chances of winning his post were boosted at last week's summit, was given the thumbs down by 48 per cent while 29 per cent supported him.

Mr Blair's chances were dealt a blow after Mr Sarkzoy used his closing news conference in Brussels to make it clear he would line up alongside Mrs Merkel, who has never wanted to see the former British prime minister in the presidential post.

Over dinner before the summit they thrashed out a common position - with French and German sources throughout the following days stressing that it would be very difficult for countries outside both the euro currency zone and the Schengen free travel area inside the EU - such as Britain - to provide the successful candidate.

Mr Sarkozy was once Mr Blair's loudest champion but has been persuaded away from this view, it is understood, by Jean-David Levitte, his senior foreign policy adviser and a former French ambassador to Washington.

Mr Levitte, according to diplomatic sources, kept reminding his boss that the jointly expressed view of France and Germany, the twin architects of the EU, was the key to decision making.

Mr Levitte told a meeting in Brussels that the successful candidate would have to be "un oiseau rare" - a rare bird - who could chair routine meetings of EU leaders as well as representing the union on the world stage. This combination of duties, he implied, would not suit the former British prime minister.

Diplomatic chatter at the end of the summit was that was that the big job would have to go, for arcane reasons of political "balance", to a politician of the centre-right, while the foreign minister's post should go a left-leaning figure, boosting the chances of Mr Miliband.