December Populus Poll
Populus’s final monthly poll of 2006 in Tuesday’s Times shows a drop in the level of Conservative support. The topline voting intention figures are CON 34% (-2), LAB 33%(nc), LDEM 19%(-1). Populus tend to show the smallest Labour lead of the main pollsters, and their Tory lead was as low as this as recently as October, but the drop in the Conservative share of the vote is more notable – they have been steady on 36% for the last four Populus polls, and this is their lowest level of support since prior to the local elections. The beneficiaries seem to be the smaller parties, with the “other” parties up to 14%, the highest level recorded by Populus since the election, including 4% for the Green party and 2% for UKIP.
The polls at the moment seem to be somewhat contradictory – the last YouGov poll also seemed to show a weakening of the Tory position, but the last poll from ICM showed them widening their lead to 8 points. With the Christmas holidays approaching I expect we will get the ICM and YouGov monthly polls earlier rather than later, which may shed some light on the situation.
Populus also asked their, now standard, question of how people would vote if Gordon Brown were Labour leader. This had appeared to show a narrowing of the Conservative lead last month, but this month seems to be back to normal – when David Cameron and Gordon Brown’s names are included in the question the Conservative lead grows to 7 points, 39% to 32%.
Populus also asked about how well people thought that Brown would perform as Prime Minister. While 57% of people said that they thought that Gordon Brown had been a good Chancellor of the Exchequer, it doesn’t necessarily translate into thinking he’ll be good at the top job. The 57% was made of up 34% of people who thought that he had been a good Chancellor, and would also be a good Prime Minister…and 23% who thought that while he made a good Chancellor, he would not make a good Prime Minister (there were 6% of people who thought that he hadn’t been a good Chancellor, but would be good as Prime Minister, the rest presumably didn’t rate him in either job).
Filed under: Populus, Voting Intention
WMA now 36:32:18 – Populus seems to be 3.1pts out on the C Lead, their STD is 2.5 (exactly = the Std of the polls as a whole) so that’s not too suprising. It does look as though C has lost 2% to others over the last few months (38:32:18 was pretty stable) but I don’t think the Tories should worry too much. The Brown transition will be a bit of a turning point.
Good morning Anthony Has there been any movement recently in the Brand Index surveys on party leader approval ratings ? Another poll which only confirms my previous comments on the combined LibDem/Others figures being consistently above 30% .
Mark – can’t tell you at the moment.
Thanks Anthony for such an enigmatic answer LOL
Yougov just read my mind and sent me a new BrandIndex survey to complete .
This poll confirms my idea that before long it will be a surprise to see any single party on >33% in opinion polls or indeed in election results.
This would be terrible for the Conservatives gaining only 20 odd seats.
It will be interesting to see if ukip can create support around traditional/right wing conservative policies/voters
I am increasingly looking forward to a hung parliament next time round. For years we have been warned against such an event – a potential disaster we have been told by some: do we really believe that anymore?
Does anyone know if there has been a recent poll on the PR question? Come to that, is there a poll on whether people understand what PR is?
I am not a extremist to the extent that i would vote for any one of our nationalist party/ies but I have not seen a poll on how people think to them to run our country
I’d like to see a poll on Blair versus Brown again. Despite Iraq, there still seems to be a general acceptance that he is still a highly competent, internationallly respected and confident PM, who can touch the parts other politicians can’t. Who said he really wants to stand down anyway? (Wasn’t there someone standing behind with a knife in his ribs at the time?) Maybe that someone is now getting cold feet.
BlairSupporter ‘Wasn’t there someone standing behind with a knife in his ribs at the time?’, that reminds me of Major’s, ‘when your back’s against the wall you turn and fight’. lol
“Who said he really wants to stand down anyway?”
I think he’s lost his party’s support and confidence.There isn’t much point hanging around once matters have reached that stage. All the talk of ‘renewal’ is all well and good but that can’t happen while Blair is PM.
To Ben,
Ref this:
‘BlairSupporter ‘Wasn’t there someone standing behind with a knife in his ribs at the time?’, that reminds me of Major’s, ‘when your back’s against the wall you turn and fight’. lol’
You do realise, Ben, that your ribs, and even Blair’s, go right round, don’t you?
That “someone” never had the guts to face the PM.
http://keeptonyblairforpm.wordpress.com
BlairSupporter,
“That “someone” never had the guts to face the PM”.
Or another way to put it,
That someone never lets personal ambition lead him to tear his party apart, or to put his own views above the party or country to lead them both down a disasterous road….
Peter.
Peter,
If we are talking about the same “someone” do your research on New Labour. There have been two pairs of hands shaping most of its policies for the last 15 years. So, are you expecting change after June in, for instance Iraq, the economy, the NHS or education? Dream on.
The WHOLE Cabinet agreed to these policies. ALL responsible.
And didn’t personal ambition, thwarted somewhat, result in the failed coup?
http://keeptonyblairforpm.wordpress.com
I must say I do find it surprising that anybody should be devoting so much time and energy to retaining a war criminal as our Prime Minister!
At the Nuremberg Tribunal the defendants were faced with 4 charges – Ribbentrop was convicted on all of them, but on the charge of Planning a War of Aggression Blair and Bush as heads of government were clearly more guilty than he was! Moreover, having made several unsuccessful attempts in March/April 2003 to assassinate Saddam Hussein – in flagrant breach of International Law – they both become legitimate targets themselves.
To the Blairsupporter, yes under the doctrine of collective responsibility all the members of the cabinet are responsible for their dissembling approach to politics (and not merely Iraq) and as such I take the view that if the next leader comes from the cabinet they will, as far as the core labour vote, be tainted by this colective responsibility.
While polls are interesting they are substantially irrelevant, it is ‘events, dear bot’ that matter.
The government seems to be rooting in the late Keith Jospeh’s memoirs for policy inspiration which, if you’re trying to sell yourself as progressive social democrat to the middle calss (and wannabe midle class daily mail reading voter) and the traditional labour heartlands is a serious miscalculation.
I personally think that changes in the polls of 0 – 3% are meaningless due to cariations in the sample population and a degree of regression to the mean, in respect of reported intentions reflecting other polls.
Notwithstanding the above, I think the Lib Dems made a terrible error in electing Sir Menzies, Kennedy was more effective even when he was on the lash.
Personally I think March will be the crux (no classical reference necessary) with the psot Christmas debt blues, inflation and unemployment rising and the new labour clones in seats like Bedford beggining to think better a stalking horse than a dead one.
The rising council taxes and energy bills aren’t going to help either.
Debt, inflation and unemployment are all rising, but not fast enough that anything will trigger in the public conscious suddenly. You’re right sloper in saying that “events” are what people pay attention to and there will need to be an economic event in order for there to be a sudden jump in opinions.
With house prices at more than 6 times incomes, its a matter of time until that’s the culprit I suspect. It may not be next year or even the year after, but there will be a housing crash and and it will cause “negative equity” etc, etc – Combined with all the other unsecured debts people in this country now have and we could be in for a pretty major “event” there.
I think a number of people are seeing one of to things coming back to haunt Brown, or maybe both.
The first as Philip says, is “Debt Driven Growth” a consumer boom built not on earnings but borrowing against property and future earnings or wealth.
Sooner or later you reach a borrowing limit, and if at that stage a large number of those employed in the service sector and paying tax, are reliant on consumer spending then very quickly things can go pear shaped.
Unemployment can shoot up, confidence in the housing market fall, and social security cost jump while tax revenues fall.
The second thing is immigration fulled growth, where tax revenues rise because the economy is bigger because we have a larger population.
If there is excess capacity or growth, such as a comsumer boom then it can absorb fresh labour and we can see the economic boost long before the costs, the need for more houses doctors teachers etc, starts to be felt.
But as with debt, if the economy slows then we have to start to support a lot of people who may well be at the bottom end of the economy, and as well as the economic costs there could well be real social tensions.
Oddly enough on current figures if Scotland was to become independant and scots in London counted as foreigners, we are close to a situation where “English” would be a minority in their own capital, a situation that might be explosive in a recession.
In a way whether it be house prices or immigration Brown is in a similar position to Greenspan during the Dotcom boom.
He and the BoE probably knows it’s unsustainable and wants it to slow, but it’s only the tax reciepts from the boom that are keeping the economy afloat, so he can’t really take action, as any move to slow house prices could bring the whole thing down.
It’s a bit like skidding towards a brick wall on ice… You want to slow down but you can’t break because it will make it worse.
Greenspan tried to slow down, but the US would’nt so when they started to skid, he actually put his foot down and power out of it by cutting interest rates.
He avoided the wall but the result was the US has got faster and is still on the ice, with bushes tax cuts and low interest rates fueling a housing and consumer boom and a trade and current accounts deficet….
Peter.
i think it is very unfair to compare blair to major.he did not have old bill on his back,and did not leave the country in the biggest mess it has been in since the 1970’s.
Peter, I’m an Economics graduate and I believe (as does the Economist magazine incidentally) that higher immigration is better for the economy, not damaging for it. That a majority in London might be “foreigners” is nothing damaging or explosive, any more than its damaging for New York. London and New York are two of the most economically successful cities in the world, and have two of the highest rates of immigration in the world – and the two are both a cause and an effect of each other.
Debt-driven is different, its unsustainable. But immigration-driven is entirely sustainable, if we didn’t have the immigration then because of Britain’s fertility rate being just 1.66 children/female if we didn’t have immigration then we’d have quite simply dying demographics, which is unsustainable.