Populus on leader image vs party image
There is some new Populus polling in the Times tomorrow. Populus found 28% thought that the party seemed to have changed under David Cameron and “that is why they are doing so much better”, with 68% thinking at the party hadn’t changed much and were “doing better mainly just because the Labour Government has become so unpopular”. Not, I have to say, I question I particularly like since it’s asking about two things. One could easily believe that Cameron had changed the Conservative party, but that the main reason for their poll lead was, nevertheless, that Labour were unpopular (in fact, as regulars will know from reading my big pre-conference round up, that’s pretty much my own view – Cameron has changed how his party is seen, but their position in the polls is really down to Labour’s unpopularity).
Much more interesting were some questions Populus did with a split sample question to compare how people looked at the parties and their leaders. One half were asked whether they trusted Labour or the Conservatives to make cuts that protected public services, the other half were asked whether they trusted Brown or Cameron to make cuts that protected public services. With the parties Labour lead the Conservatives by 5 points, with the leaders Cameron lead Brown by 3 points.
There was the same pattern when people were asked who would spread the cuts fairly, “so that the best-off bear their share too”. Labour lead the Conservatives by 10 points, Cameron lead Brown by 1 point. On minimising public sector job losses Labour led the Conservatives by 16 points, Brown only led Cameron by 11. Depending on your point of view, the questions emphasise how important Cameron is to the Tories… or how much of a drag Brown is to Labour.
There are no voting intentions in the poll – I understand Populus won’t be asking them till after conference.
In my view this looks very positive for Labour – if ‘cuts’ is the big idea for the next election – as Cameron has made it – these numbers surely suggest Labour would benefit? I have long held that to go so big on the cuts message is a strategic error for the Tories. I might be wrong, but this poll gives me more of a sense that I was correct.
Well after the ridiculous attempt today by Alistair Darling to take the attention away from the Conservatives I think that Labours image is even more tarnished. Do the people and spin doctors behind Labour think that we were not aware that major policy changes should be made during their conference week !!
“Chancellor Alistair Darling announces a pay freeze on senior civil servants, NHS managers and GPs. ”
Oh so Labour had a big huddle over the weekend and decided to announce this today !!
Desperate politics !!
“On minimising public sector job losses” – I think it’s a mistake to treat this as, per se, a desirable objective. Amongst many right leaning voters, shedding tens of thousands of public sector jobs is a virtue in itself, recession or no recession.
So Labour enjoying a substantial “lead” in this area wouldn’t necessarily mean people supporting them. As a Tory voter, and incidentally a public sector employee, I would certainly answer “Labour” and “Gordon Brown” to the question. In no way would that mean I would vote for them.
Andy is perpetuating the party driven comment of which I complained. The otther two need evidence, not apparent from the results, to drive their conclusions. I find AW’s coment far more convincing because his conculsions are so based.
Huh? I need evidence that for right wing voters, having less public servants is a good thing?
Anthony
Granted that you might be a little critical of a competitor!! The BBC commissioned a poll from ORB. They don’t say they are members of the British Polling Council ( I may have got that name wrong). How reliable is their track record?
I work in the public sector after 30-odd years in the private sector including 15 years running my own business.
The amount of overlap of functions, pointless meetings, and massive overstaffing in the ‘back-office’ never ceases to amaze me. All these people think that they are working hard, and in their own way they are, but there is no real pressure at all. If the Tories are more likely to make massive cut-backs in the public sector it will make me more likely to vote for them, even if my own job is potentially at risk. I should imagine that most private sector workers would also be in favour of this policy, so it could be a vote-winner.
I started writing my last post before anyone else, and got interrupted by a family visit. I now see that it helps to support what Alec and Neil A said.
Oldnat – I try to be impartial in terms of pollsters too, when I think a YouGov question isn’t very interesting I’ll pooh-pooh that too!
ORB are a very respectable polling outfit, their founder Gordon Heald was Director of Gallup in the UK all through the 1980s. They are BPC members, so release all their tables if asked.
Anthony
Thanks. it’s actually very useful to get answers on technical questions from an expert. Difficult for us punters without that.
Mind you, you still haven’t answered my questions about why pollsters include Scotland/Wales in GB political polls, or on devolved issues like the NHS!
Oldnat,
Everyone else answered that question in a previous thread.
Neil
“Everyone else answered that question in a previous thread.”
No. There were a number of comments – of which only Peter Cairns was probably accurate (but even he did not explain why the clients wanted the more inaccurate GB polling).
What I actually wanted was an answer from Anthony, who, I would reckon, is far more knowledgeable on the subject than any of the posters here.
@Howard – I dispute your comments about evidence from my last post. I said ‘Labour’, not ‘Brown’, and in each of the split sample questions Labour leads the Tories. That implies a greater underlying faith in them on this issue, and is therefore good news for Labour. What they need to do is present themselves as a party, rather than an individual, while the Tories need to ‘hide’ the party behind Cameron. The former is easier than the latter, and Labour will make fear of old style Tories an issue if they possibly can. Cameron and Osborne’s strident talk of cuts has really helped Labour in this, and is why I said it was a strategic mistake in my view. This is a poll based comment.
I find the issue of who will spread the cuts most fairly a real potential issue. I would agree with Andy’s view of the cynical pay freeze announcement by Darling, but it provides an interesting contrast with the pension age policy. The pay freeze will affect some very high public sector earners, while the pension raise will have a disproportionate effect on the lowest paid. There are lines of attack for Labour and especially the Lib Dems on the Tories, and I would suggest the current polling appears to show they could gain traction on this.
I will be interested to see what the polls say about the Tory conference – I have to say that so far I think it has been poor for them. Apart from the Lisbon row the pension policy now appears to be in some confusion as they hadn’t considered the position of women, and the overall media coverage is much more questioning than in the past. It’s getting tougher for the Tories and so far I don’t think they have upped their game to meet it.
Neil A and others are right the public sector jobs question requires a factual assessment answer and does not give anything away about voting intention.
The cuts spread more fairly issue is more meaningful and may give Labour some traction.
It seems to be clear, though, that (baring Cameron messing up big style) Cameron v Brown has only one winner but that Labour v Tories is a lot closer and thyese figiures confirm this pattern.
Labour strategists have ro decide whether to go after Cameron to try lower his lead over Brown with all the dangers negative campainging brings or to hammer the ‘Cameron may be different but behind him the same old Tories’ line.
The Tories tried this with Blair (new labour new danger) and it did not work so Labour have a dilema.
I suspect they will do a bit of both and neither of them that effectively.
As someone who follows politics but is no expert at all It all looks rather simple to me.
The present Government is tired and worn out. Brown is there as Prime Minister purely by default and has been terrified of a General Election end of!!
The fact that Cameron may very well get to Downing street also by default in a way because Labour is just no unpopular is a pity but so be it!
Sadly I agree that Cameron is the main reson the Conservatives should will the Election and Brown is the main reason Labour may lose it – quite simple really!
These polling results have clarified what I have been thinking for some time – that Labour are suffering from the combination of an unpopular leader and weariness fo office but actually, the public still rate the party positively.
This looks in contrast to the Conservatives in 1997, when the party was perceived as inherently negative and ‘nasty’ (thank you Ms Theresa May).
Thus, in opposition, Labour should not despair of another ‘lost decade’. UInlike Labour in the 80s and Tories in the 90s, the party is actually pretty united on policy and it is only a question of refreshing the leadership.
Admittedly, it is just one poll, but I have been thinking about this for a while.
Oldnat – the simple, but rather unsatisfying, answer is that it is what clients commission.
Scotland is the only party of Great Britain where there really are divergent swings from the country as a whole (yes, there’s a fourth party in Wales, but public opinion in Wales still moves in much the same way as England), so in terms of predicting seats at elections, it would be useful to have seperate polling.
However, polls aren’t actually commissioned to predict elections (apart from immediately before them, and even then, it’s vote share they are after, not seats). Between elections they really serve as a barometer of how well the parties are doing – in the same way that in the USA the currency is Presidential Approval Ratings, here it is voting intention in a hypothetical election tomorrow.
As government of the whole country, the polls that are in practice acting to be a barometer of the government’s popularity cover the whole country, and the media are not too fussed if that conceals popularity in one area and unpopularity in another.
(Besides, the London media don’t have any meaningful coverage of Scotland and wouldn’t bother to commission polls there. In practice the alternative to having polls of GB would not be to have separate polls of England&Wales and Scotland. It would be polls of England&Wales and Scotland being largely ignored.)
The point I was tryng to make is that the issues so far raised in Manchester will help Labour to highlight the disparity between Cameron and his party. Europe is a still a real problem for them, and yesterday there was a fascinating pamphlet published by two leading Tories tearing to shreds Cameron’s idea of scrapping the Human Rights Act. I think everyone would agree that within the last few days there has been a distinct shift in media coverage, and there is increased scrutiny of the Tories. So far, I would judge the results to be mixed, but there are enough nuggets for their opponents to build fears around. This could change – if Osborne stands up today and announces things like an end to top rate pension tax relief or action to equalise NI rates across high income earners, I will start to listen much more seriously to him. If he continues to talk of spending cuts only, and worse, those that affect the less well off, it could still be a game changer.
AW – forgive me for a non poll comment, but I thought posters might be interested to read ‘Another Way to Squeeze’ – yesterdays blog by Stephanie Flanders on the BBC website. It appears that the IFS figures on the required departmental cuts to meet the government borrowing targets were somewhat misleading, as they only looked at departmental spending rather than social security and tax credits that accounts for 42% of total government spending. For example, ending £6b of tax credits and child benefits for those earning over £31K would provide half of the money required to meet the government target without any departmental costs.
The IFS has now produced some potential tax and benefit changes that could provide the required savings without savage departmental cuts. There is an arguement here for someone to make I feel.
It looks to me as though Cameron and the others reckon they are far enough ahead that they can put on record the things they will have to do when, as they see it, they get into Government next year. Basically, so that they can say “we warned you”.
If so, this is a dangerous tactic. The Tories could easily fall back into “No overall majority” territory, particularly if they drive voters to UKIP etc. Not least, Cameron et al.’s position not telling us if they will hold a referendum on the EU looks stupid.
In general, Conferences have little impact. But Cameron’s big speech will be important, and it hasn’t happened yet.
Alec,
When you talk about media scrutiny of Conservative policies, are you referring to the efforts of the BBC to try and open “splits” and/or drive their own agenda ?
Ad Hominem attacks on Cameron are likely to rebound – just as the ever more vituperative meanderings of Mary Drivel on the Telegraph have gone beyond being irritating or even funny to plain incomprehensible – see today’s efort – rating E-..
Watching the news last night I had two abiding impressions:
1 – Michael Crick scurrying around trying to find someone willing to confirm a Tory split on Europe – interesting how he was given the brush-off by so many – shows the party is disciplined on the subject. The opinion of UKIP demonstrators outside don’t count – any more than one could say that SWP placards outside a Labour conference reflect party policy.
2 – Newsnight – first time I have seen Paxo stuffed by one of his interviewees. Well done Boris.
As far as I can see, the debates coming out of Manchester have not revealed any schism between the leader and his party, but instead are showing a government in waiting wrestling with real and difficult problems.
I’ve moved from one to the other and back again.
When I went into the public sector I was immediately struck down by lassitude and incompetance and when I went private I was energised by the entrepreneurial spirit as if I had been struck by a thunderbolt.
Oddly enough I saw little difference in the incidence of stupidity, alcholism and inefficiency among my colleagues, especially at a senior level, though there were some outstanding people in both.
Large organisations (and that inevitably includes nearly all the public sector) are often micromanaged from the top with flavour-of-the-month magic solutions and reorganisations which are going to solve every problem.
A good example of a small scale and separate exception is the Scottish Ambulence Service which to this day retains something of the ethos of the former religious charity incorporated into the NHS in stages from 1948.
If you ever need it, you should be grateful for that.
If small public sector organisations can do well if left alone and below the politicians radar, can you think of large private sector ones which have failed badly in serving their customers and shareholders?
Of course not.
Anthony:
“In practice the alternative to having polls of GB would be ……. Scotland being largely ignored.” and
“The London media don’t have any meaningful coverage of Scotland”
If that happened with other more important things things do you think that over time Scotland might become
“the only party of Great Britain where there really are divergent swings from the country as a whole”?
You said it, not me.
Independence is not the best solution in my view but you can see why some people might think Scotland might be better off on its own and that tartan shortbread and Braveheart have as little to do with the matter as Scotland’s oil.
Absolutely – having a largely seperate media (even the London papers have Scottish editions) is probably a major factor (at least prior to devolution, now there’s also a different dynamic going on with which party is in power).
@Paul H – J – Attacking the BBC is a sign of weakness. Over the years, left and right have criticised the BBC at times, always mistakenly. Quite simply, it is the best and fairest news gathering organisation in the world, bar none. The Tories should be rampantly proud of what is probably the finest international British institution we have.
I also watched Newsnight – Theresa May was seriously caught out not being able to explain the pension plan for women, Boris v Paxman was entertaining, but Boris was unable to answer Paxo’s questions and to more independent viewers came across as both smug and confused. Of course there are splits over Europe. Boris and others want a vote, Cameron says wait and see.
I know several people who work for the BBC, and I can tell you they have no agenda. You need to get over this prejudice – it really colours your normally valuable contributions. The BBC, like many newspapers, are asking serious questions, and so far they are getting limited answers.
@Alec,
Can you honestly tell me that you believe that more than 10% of BBC employees vote Tory? I accept that on the whole the BBC TRIES to be impartial, but there’s no doubting that their political centre of gravity is well to the left of the population as a whole and that can’t help but infiltrate their choices as to what news matters and how it should be reported.
Part of the problem with the Scottish editions is that even when you’ve read the article you still may not be clear whether it is about UK or England or even Scotland. Not only that but with the NHS, Justice, Education, migration, asylum, renewable or nuclear energy, race or religion the issues themselves may be different as well as the government’s solutions.
At least with matters of the Law and courts the terminology is a clue, and in recent years the Bishop of Edinburgh has not been expected to speak for the national church, though journalists still seem surprised that the Moderator refuses to do so.
We also don’t know what is presented in the “UK” editions. From the code on the article I deduced that a large and supportive piece on the Megrahi decision printed in the Observer was only in the Scottish Edition. That left me wondering what, if anything, was in the other. Opinion on that issue was more negative the further away from the educated Scottish middle class you were. If you got your facts from FOX News it would be very negative indeed.
You may be interested to know that though The Glasgow Herald is relatively even handed, The Scotsman takes a very negative line against the SNP. Whether that is bad for the SNP is unclear. Done as unsubtly as it is, it probably helps them.