YouGov on the phone hacking scandal
The full tables for YouGov’s weekly poll for the Sunday Times are now up here. Natually they are mainly dealing with the phone hacking scandal.
Looking first at the regular trackers, David Cameron’s own approval rating is down to minus 13 (from minus 10 last week), which is his lowest since March. Ed Miliband’s approval rating meanwhile has moved the up other way, up to minus 28 (from minus 34 a week ago). Neither are massive changes, but it has reversed what had been a strong negative trend for Miliband, so good news for him.
Moving onto the questions about the phone hacking and views of the press, only 9% of people now think tabloid newspapers’ reporting is fair and accurate, with 71% believing it is not. 78% agree with the statement that “The tabloid press is out of control”.
While 69% agree that it is only a small minority of journalists who are tarnishing the reputation of others, the vast majority (78%) think that the same practices probably went on in other tabloid newspapers too. Only 8% think it was confined to the News of the World alone. People are more non-committal on the broadsheets – 35% think they are generally fair and accurate, 33% do not, 32% are unsure. Broadsheet readers are rather more trusting of broadsheets (59% think they are fair and accurate, 22% disagree), but even people who read tabloids don’t trust them much – 16% of tabloid readers think their reporting is fair and accurate, 60% do not.
Turning to attitudes about using underhand or illegal actions in order to uncover stories, the broad picture seems to be that the public consider such actions unacceptable whatever the story. People disagree with the statement that underhanded tactics are legitimate if they expose wrongdoing are in the public interest by 54% to 37%, and agree that it is never acceptable for journalists to break the law no matter how important the story by 73% to 19%. On the specific allegations of paying police officers for information, only 2% of people thought this was generally acceptable, 92% thought it was not. Even in scenarios such as exposing political corruption only 12% thought paying police officers would be a legitimate thing to do, with 72% thinking it unacceptable in all the circumstances YouGov asked about.
Unsurprisingly there is overwhelming support (86%) for a public inquiry into the allegations of phone hacking, with opinion broadly divided over whether it should begin as soon as possible (48%) or wait for the police investigation to finish (44%). Only 6% of people think the original police investigation was adequate.
On the future of press regulation, 61% support the establishment of a formal authority to regulate newspapers, compared to 25% who think the press should continue to regulate themselves through the PCC.
Turning to issues specific to News International, 56% thought the closure of the News of the World was the right decision, 26% think it was wrong. However, only 6% think it will draw a line under the issue. Amongst people who identified themselves as News of the World readers, 35% think it was the right decision, 53% do not.
Finally, on the BSkyB takeover only 9% of people thought it should be allowed, 70% disagreed, 21% were unsure. Only 24% agreed that it should be decided on purely competition grounds, 54% thought the issue of phone hacking should be taken into account when making the decision.
Given this is a fast moving story, timing is important – the survey went out Thursday to Friday. All responds were after the News of the World closure, but obviously before much of the wider media reaction too it, with the great majority of responses prior to David Cameron’s press conference the day afterwards or the arrest of Andy Coulson. There doesn’t seem to be any polling from other companies on the topic yet, but Populus’s monthly poll for the Times would normally have gone into the field over the weekend, so we may get that tomorrow night.
In the last few days we’ve had a gas price increase of nearly 20% and today the largest care home provider has gone bust. IMHO both of these are more damaging than hacking. for the Government
“Gordon Brown promised he had done away with boom and bust, and then led the nation into the biggest bust in most people’s memory.”
And what happened to Labour’s vote share?
Tony Blair promised that Iraq would be a short and justified war. And what happened to Labour’s vote share?
Nick Clegg promised to vote against any tuition fee rise. And what happened to the LibDems in the polls?
That was my point – if Q2/Q3 figures are both negative, i.e we enter a double-dip, then the Tory promises will not match reality and the Tories will be damaged in the long run
Labour’s long-term warnings of a double-dip will suddenly come true (whether those warnings were wildly speculative or, at the time, extremely unlikely) and they will reap the benefit.
If the Tories had been more honest – and said that there’d be a long period of hurt, with a possibility of double-dip (which is fairly normal for recessions, IIRC), but we’ll come out much better at the end of it – then reality and promise would match.
So while they would probably have less support in the beginning, they’d end up with more in the end.
All parties are guilty of being over-optimistic and making promises that they cannot keep.
When there’s a mismatch between promise and reality, then the people who made the promise have their trust damaged.
Barney
Thanks.
I think you are correct about the publics narrow focus.
The Dowler hacking is that focus at present-& the factor which moved hacking from “its just another celebrity-so what ?” to “bloody hell, thats not right”
But I feel that cash to cops will overtake it in the public mind.
Meanwhile I haven’t heard anything from a government minister which sounds like trying to put it “in context”-to the contrary. Everyone seems signed up to the idea that it was the game changer.
@ Sergio.
Perhaps the Prime Minster feels…that he’s said all he has to say on the matter.
———————————————————————————
Quite.
Whether that is mature political judgement however is a moot point.
No doubt the polls over the next few days and weeks will tell a story on the efficacy of this approach by the PM.
So apparently Rebekah Brooks rang up Gordon Brown to say she’d got his son’s medical details and was going to publish tha fact that he had cystic fibrosis the next day.
How charming. How proud she must be of her “profession”.
She won’t resign. Somebody who sees nothing wrong with such things will never resign.
Cannot wait for the polls to show if all this hoo-ha has had any effect of VI. I think it will have, but only marginally so. As our door man put to me at work today “Well, its nothing really new sir, is it? We always new it was all rotten to the core at the top since the expenses scandal didn’t we? – This is just more of the same isn’t it?”
If that is a tiny reflection of the “man on the Clapham Omnibus” perhaps we will see little effect amongst the VI of the Ds and Es!
@ Colin
He must have been mortified to hear the news that his own premature call for a referal to Competition Commission turns out to be exactly the ground on which Murdoch wants to fight.
——————————————-
Pardon? You have a strange way of looking at things.
Murdoch has realised Ed would win a HoC vote. He has buckled & done exactly what Ed M wanted him to do. It means that Ed Miliband won this battle. I’m not going to say he’ll win the war but there’s no question: It’s Ed 1 & Murdoch 0.
@ Tingedfringe
“if Q2/Q3 figures are both negative, i.e we enter a double-dip”
That of course, being the dream scenario for some on the Left. But what if, as expected by many analysts, they show 0.3% growth? And then further growth after that – which is what the British Chambers of Commerce survey for Q2 seems to be pointing to, with employment intentions actually strengthening for the coming quarter. To quote: “firms seem to be more optimistic about future recruitment. The balance of both services and manufacturing firms expecting to grow their workforce in the next three months rose to historically strong levels. In manufacturing, the balance rose six points to +15% the strongest level since Q3 2007. In services it rose two points, to +12%, the strongest level since Q1 2008.
The economy (especially consumer finances) is under massive pressure and new shocks (e.g. Eurozone meltdown) can’t be ruled out. But to call a new recession at this stage is totally premature. The longer growth continues, the more threadbare the whole cuts/double dip theory is going to look.
It is truly remarkable how quickly the supposedly near-omnipotent Rupert Murdoch has been reduced to a sad, confused old man who has lost the plot. Top tip: rather than declaring Mrs Brooks to be his top priority, families like the Dowlers might have been more appropriate.
Who knows where Nemesis will next follow hubris?
@Nick
I made a ‘well OTT’ comment (forgive the estuary) about the lady the other night and should not have. However my gut feelings are what they are, I actually feel sorry for such as these people, as they just get swallowed up by their ambition, and that applies to politicians too.
However the press developed an evil practice, collectively, and I am sure we will see a reaction in the polls worth talking about by the end of this week.
I suppose my own party comes out OK because they were not considered worth either courting or castigating by NIC.
@ Nick Poole
“Blimey, that is clutching at straws. Nothing to crow about, surely. Woeful, woeful.”
Any growth that is not based purely on the expansion of debt (private or public) is good. If you take out the portion of economic growth accounted for by the increase in debt since 2000, the rest was actually negative. If you’re interested, I’ll post a link to the figures that show it.
0.3%-0.5% a quarter is probably the underlying rate of what our economy is capable of achieving at the moment without building up further debt, given that consumers have built up £1.5trn of loans/mortages and we certainly can’t let the government deficit rise any further. Pretty sobering.
Robert C,
Then the Tories will regain some of their recently lost VI and Labour will start thinking about a new shadow chancellor.
I’d also say the ’0.3% as many analysts are predicting’ is a little misleading.
As far as I can see, 0.3% is the top-end of predictions – from the BoE and the BCC.
0.2% from Barclays.
0.1% from NIESR and RBS.
0% from JP Morgan.
-0.2% from Citigroup and Scotia Capital.
@ Robert C
But what if, as expected by many analysts, they show 0.3% growth?
—————————————————————————-
I suspect the Tories will be grateful for the NI story to be rumbling on in that case. It’ll take folks’ minds off bigger errors.
@ Leftylampton
I don’t think the Tories will ever be grateful for the NI story, whatever else is going on in the world.
Labour, on the other hand, must be grateful that the Lib Dems are in government. Otherwise Labour too would be being hauled over the coals over their past record of complicity with Murdoch, while the Lib Dems could be shouting about how they had avoided being tarred by the NI brush.
I’m surprised that there has been no positive effect so far in terms of Lib Dem VI from the NI affair.
Libya is looking like another sticky wicket for DC. Sarkozy’s team has been caught supplying weapons in a flagrant breach of the arms embargo.
Apparently the French are now reluctantly admitting that a deal will need to be done between the Gaddafi regime & the TNC. And Gaddafi may well remain ‘in another room of the palace with a different title’ according to the French Minister of Defence.
“I’m surprised that there has been no positive effect so far in terms of Lib Dem VI”
I think the LibDem position hasn’t moved yet because of their post-election, and until very recently, silence on the matter.
Now that they’ve started to chime up, they might see some small gains.
Adrian – “It’s all a bit irrelevant (if not totally biased and against Anthony’s explicit advice) for us to give a “EM did brilliantly” “JH squashed the little pip-squeak” commentary on events in the house.”
Thank you Adrian. I hope people can see why I strongly discourage post-match analysis of PMQs here now! It’s very unelightening just to have lots of people declaring that their side definitely won, especially when people are supposed to be attempting to post from a neutral non-partisan point of view.
@ Robert C
“I’m surprised that there has been no positive effect so far in terms of Lib Dem VI from the NI affair.”
Yes, so am I. However, at the same time I am beginning to get a whiff of the LibDems wanting “out” of the coalition. I get the feeling that they have been quietly preparing the ground, but events are moving so fast it is even cocking it up for them to do so. Perhaps Cameron/Murdoch are still working together behind the scenes to create scenarios which keep the coalition afloat – like scrapping the separation of the Sky News, so that it can be sent to the Competition Commission. This scotches the LibDems from bringing down the Governement on a “point of principal”….however, I still reckon NC is quietly plotting behind the scenes!
@ TintedFringe.
I’d also say the ’0.3% as many analysts are predicting’ is a little misleading.
As far as I can see, 0.3% is the top-end of predictions – from the BoE and the BCC.
0.2% from Barclays.
0.1% from NIESR and RBS.
0% from JP Morgan.
-0.2% from Citigroup and Scotia Capital.
______________________________________
One begins to wonder whether the OBR could be replaced by a finger in the wind. It’d be cheaper and a probably more accurate.
The OBR’s growth estimates have been consistently over-optimistic to date (see Fig 2.1 on P14 of their March report http://budgetresponsibility.independent.gov.uk/wordpress/docs/economic_and_fiscal_outlook_23032011.pdf)
If Q2 growth turns out to be even as high as 0.3%, we’d still be off the bottom of their prediction fan from as recently as March (Fig 1.1 on p7).
There are always reasons why economic forecasts will be buffetted by events but their forecasts are beginning to look more like hopeful guesstimates than serious predictions.
What this means for the Coalition’s deficit reduction plans if economic growth continues to flatline is plain to see. Japan c.1993 anyone?
Woops! Point of Principle – not Principal!
@ Leftylampton
I am inclined to agree with you about the OBR, but economic forecasting is absolutely a mug’s game and totally at the whim of unforeseen events. Who could have predicted the course of commodity/food prices (one of the reasons why nominal i.e. money GDP growth is not translating into real GDP growth) a year ago. I think we are facing many years of slow output recovery because of the weight of debt built up over so many years. This is simply not reflected by the OBR estimates.
I think it highly unlikely that Nick Clegg is planning to end the coalition, much as I’d like it.
But let’s suppose he wants to. First, why?
Easy…AV he was savaged by his so called mates and now basically the Lib Dems have got nothing out of the coalition except to lose two thirds of their vote.
So…if he gets out and forces an election, won’t they be wiped out? Well, it depends. If former Labour tactical voters think they have rehabilitated enough they might do it again. Students? No, not ever.
But Clegg and co do give a strong whiff of battle fatigue. But then so does Cameron at the mo, and the economy ain’t gonna help.
They look tired already.
The Government need a win, soon. I don’t mean the usual race card or scrounger bash…but they need a big change of luck. Maybe the autumn strikes….maybe they can head them off.
But I don’t see it all ending soon anyway. More likely they’ll just limp on, waiting for the economy to perk up.
@ Tony Dean
“I am beginning to get a whiff of the LibDems wanting “out” of the coalition”
Not sure I agree with you on that one. Leaving the coalition means leaving government after just one year in power since the second world war, plus being labelled with the additional tag of unreliable partners/not sticking to the deal. However, there is a weight of disagreement building up over a wide range of matters where the Tories are determined to push their agenda e.g. the NHS and the NI affair is a symptom of the trouble that can occur when they push on regardless.
The thing about the News International scandal is that it appears to an onlooker that the Government is/was doing everything in its power to allow the bSkyb bid but were prevented by Ed Milliband and the will of Parliament. You could even argue that by the time they, at last, referred th bid to the Competition Commission in fact they should have said to Murdoch that they will do so…after Hunt gets a response to his letter from OFCOM, and depending upon what that says, perhaps after all criminal investigations are completed.
In fact in the end they STILL looked liked they were doing what Murdoch wanted.
Amber
“Pardon? You have a strange way of looking at things. ”
That was the view of financial commentators on TV-that RM withdrew his undertaking to hive off Sky News in order that this would trigger a referal to CC.
EU having cleared the bid on plurality grounds already.
eg :-
“Media commentator and former Sky executive David Elstein, who was asked to give his views on the merger during last year’s Ofcom inquiry, welcomed News Corp’s decision to allow the bid to go to the Competition Commission.
“It depoliticises the situation,” he said. “If you solve the plurality issue there is nothing else that stands in the way of the merger.”
Guardian.
I don’t quite see how he could have been reacting to avoid a vote on a motion which hasn’t been published yet.
As Hunt said-he is acting under the 2002 Enterprise Act,. How is EM proposing to overide that on Wednesday in a way which disadvantages Murdoch ?
Shouldn’t Murdoch Snr be tried for espionage for spying on our politicians and the Royal Family?
@Liz,
It’s a good point. If someone called Anatoly at the Russian embassy had been hacking into the phones of cabinet ministers, I think we’d probably get the spooks to nab him.
The Lib Dems, I think knew about Mr Coulson’s activties when they joined the Government.
I think it must put them under pressure as well as the PM
@ Robert C and Nick Poole
You are applying “main party” logic to LibDem “thinking”. (I know, as I was once a Tory HoC researcher and later a Liberal paid employee – but both a long time ago!). They could risk a GE at only 10% VI start point, as they believe they can easily put on 8 to 10% with a good campaign – this would save most of ther skins. Once AV was lost, and with the way it was lost, the “heart” went out of LibDem membership of the government. Yes, they are clinging on, but they know in their heart-of-hearts that if any recovery comes the Tories will benefit in the VI stakes with them pathetically saying “me too, me too” and not going up much. To save the day they need a “cause celebre” – if DC hadn’t given them a Judge led enquiry, or if Hunt had pressed on in the absence of a Murdoch pulling the plug on the Sky News separation this afternoon, I reckon NC might have risked bringing the whole thing down and campaigning with a tough anti-corruption narrative in a snap GE. But, events have scotched that now. But wait for any other popular/populist opportunity – I think the Tories have to pinch themselves and realise that they are “in office” but nor “in power” if they are to keep the ship afloat. Dangerous times for DC.