The business world is losing confidence in Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling amid growing evidence that the recession will last much longer than the Treasury predicted only six weeks ago.

A ComRes poll of leading businessmen for The London Independent shows that trust in the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, which rose after the Government rescued Britain's banks last autumn, is now on the slide.

Only 28 per cent of respondents said they were confident in the Prime Minister's ability – down from 42 per cent last October – and only 16 per cent voiced confidence in Mr Darling, down from 25 per cent over the same period.

The poll results came on another black day for the economy yesterday as:

* The Bank of England cut interest rates to 1.5 per cent, their lowest ever;

* The Japanese car-maker Nissan cut 1,200 jobs at its Sunderland plant, the most productive in Europe;

* The Cabinet was warned that the global downturn would be worse than previously expected;

* Another high street retailer, Sofa Workshop, admitted that it was on the brink of administration;

* The chief executive of Sainsbury's, Justin King, predicted that further cuts in interest rates would not pull Britain out of recession;

* A senior Labour MP expressed "deep unease" about the Government's anti-recession strategy.

The ComRes survey will be seen as a further sign that the "Brown bounce" is coming to an end. A YouGov poll for today's Sun newspaper puts the Tories seven points ahead of Labour.

In an historic move yesterday, the Bank of England cut interest rates by half a percentage point to just 1.5 per cent, their lowest level since the central bank was founded in 1694. But experts said only half of borrowers would reap the benefits and millions of savers would see their incomes fall further. Only four mortgage lenders – HSBC, Lloyds TSB, Nationwide and the Skipton Building Society – said they would cut standard variable rates by the full 0.5 per cent.

According to the ComRes poll of 200 business leaders, they trust David Cameron and George Osborne more than Mr Brown and Mr Darling. The Tories' "confidence ratings" are 46 per cent and 29 per cent, respectively. Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, enjoys a higher confidence rating (41 per cent) than Mr Darling and Mr Osborne. But Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, trails Mr Brown and Mr Cameron on just 11 per cent. Labour MPs are increasingly jittery about whether the Government is pursuing the right strategy. Frank Field, a former welfare minister, said the temporary cut in VAT was a "fatuous move" and voiced concern that Mr Darling was already revising his forecast, made only two months ago, that the economy would start to grow again in the second half of this year. Speaking during a cabinet visit to Liverpool, Mr Brown admitted the global crisis was "increasingly challenging", citing pessimistic forecasts that the US economy would contract by more than 2 per cent this year.

Mr Darling dismissed speculation that the Government would "print money" to ease the pain of recession. "Nobody is talking about printing money," he said. "There is a debate to be had about what you do to support the economy as interest rates approach zero, as they are in the US, but for us that is an entirely hypothetical debate."