Ipsos MORI’s monthly poll has appeared after what appears to be a lengthy delay - the fieldwork was carried out way back between the 13th and 18th March, so actually about the same time as the first ICM and YouGov polls that showed big Conservative leads back in the middle of the month. I have no idea of quite why there was such a delay.
The topline figures, with changes from MORI’s February poll, are CON 40%(+1), LAB 35%(-2), LDEM 18%(+2). It’s obviously not in the same league as the double point leads YouGov and ICM produced at the time, but the trend was in the same direction.
While there are already more recent voting intention figures than these, there are some interesting findings looking at some of MORI’s other regular trackers. The economic optimism figure continues to get worse - this month 67% of respondents told MORI they expected the economy to get worse with only 7% expecting it to get better. The net score of -60 is now worse than the poll straight after September 11th 2001, which was the lowest point in recent years, far lower than Black Wednesday and the stock market crash in 1987 - you have to go all the way back to March 1980 to find such pessimistic public expectations about the economy.
At the same time, the economy continues to sneak up the agenda as one of the most important issues facing the country - this month 23% of people named it, behind immigraion on 44%, crime on 40% and the NHS on 24%. This is the highest level of concern about the economy since 1998, though still not nearly as high as it was in the early 90s - after Black Wednesday 53% of people thought the economy was an important issue. People are far, far more likely to be pessimistic rather than optimistic about the economy and concern is definitely growing, but at the moment its still seen as a less of an issue than things like crime and immigration.
The full tables for the YouGov/Sunday Times poll are here, no tables yet for ICM, but the News of the World report is here.
As with Populus’s poll in the week, the individual measures announced in the budget were broadly positive received. 68% told YouGov they supported the increase in tax on “large environmentally unfriendly family cars”, 63% supported requiring supermarkets to charge for plastic bags, 77% supporting equiring people on incapacity benefit to attend work focused interviews. A slighlt plurality of people opposed the increase in alcohol duties - 48% to 46% - but this was hardly overwhelmingly opposition.
Despite that, opinion towards the government’s general handling of the economy looked very low - 86% though inflation was higher than the government said, 78% said the government wastes large amounts of money, 66% agreed the government spent too much in good economic times. All the measures of economic optimism were low. 47% agreed Alistair Darling was not up to the job, with only 22% disagreeing and the poll found Cameron & Osbourne had a significant lead over Brown & Darling as the team people trust more to help their standard of living - 33% to 21%. ICM’s poll also found a significant Tory lead on the economy - they were most trusted by 34% compared to 28% for the Tories. A second ICM survey in the Sunday Telegraph found 31% thouht the budget would make things worse, only 7% thought it would improve matters.
It’s an apparent contradiction - the individual measures in the budget are popular, but it looks as though it has really hit their popularity. Off the top of my head I can think of two explanations - it’s possible that people support what Alistair Darling has done given the circumstances he faces, but that the fact the government have found themselves in such circumstances has undermined their previous confidence in Brown’s handling of the economy. Alternatively it could just be that general bad economic tidings, brought home to them by the budget, have made them less positively disposed to the government regardless of whether they actually attribute any blame to them.
On other political trackers Brown’s approval ratings with YouGov slip ever lower - his net score is down to minus 26 from minus 21 last month. David Cameron’s remains unchanged on plus 14. Nick Clegg’s rating was minus 6, but that’s still with 35% don’t knows. In the ICM poll Cameron had a lead of 6 points over Brown on best Prime Minister.
As usual the Sunday Times asked a grab bag of questions of lots of other issues. On Lord Goldsmith’s proposals for Britishness 51% of people supported the idea of citizenship ceremonies, for school leavers… but only if they excluded the suggested oath of allegiance to the monarch, supported by only 15%.
Only 29% of respondents supported Heathrow expansion. 39% thought expansion should be elsewhere, either in East London or in regional airports. 18% were opposed to airport expansion entirely.
Finally YouGov asked about abortion law. 35% supported the status quo, 48% supported a reduction in the legal time limit to 20 weeks and 8% supported a total ban on abortion.
The first snapshot budget poll - done on Wednesday afternoon and evening by Populus - is up on the Times website. Only 596 respondents and no voting intention, but it is our first straw in the wind and it’s a mixed picture for the government.
The ’showroom tax’ on the most polluting new cars was indeed popular - 68% backed it - but more surprisingly there was also support for the increase in tax on alcohol; 55% backed the rise in alcohol duties. Respondents overwhelmingly (71% to 24%) supported higher child benefit and winter fuel allowances.
Despite positive reactions to the two main tax rises, overall opinion on the budget seems to be negative. 38% think they’ll pay more tax, with only 4% thinking they’ll gain. 42% of people think they’ll be worse off from the budget. 26% think it will be bad for business, with only 9% thinking it will help. 23% think it will increase the threat of recession, only 6% think it help reduce one.
So - the things the government did in the budget are popular…but people think they’ll lose out and it won’t improve things for the economy or for business. It isn’t clear from that whether this budget will improve or damage the government’s popularity or make no difference at all - there will no doubt be plenty more polling on the budget in the next few days which will give us a better idea.
Today is budget day and it is normally the excuse for lots of newspapers to commission polls, so in the next few days we can expect to get lots of data to paw over. Meanwhile, here’s a pre-budget poll for accountants BDO Stoy Hayward by YouGov.
It looks as though Alistair Darling faces his first budget with something of a reputation to mend following a pretty bad start. His reputation as a politician has hitherto been as a safe pair of hands. His repuation as Chancellor though looks poor - 31% of respondents thought that he had done a worse job than Gordon Brown so far (only 1% thought he had done better) - of course that could be a reflection of Brown’s high repuation rather than Darling’s low one; more crushingly 46% said they had “no confidence at all” in his ability to look after the economy in the current slowdown, with only 3% saying them had a lot of confidence. Asked to rate his first 9 months in the job out of ten his average score was 3.36.
The only positive sign for Darling is that there was no great swell of support for George Osborne and the Tories as an alternative - only 28% thought they would do a better job, 40% thought they would not.
YouGov asked what people thought Alistair Darling should do if he had no option but to raise taxes. The most popular (or least unpopular!) option was an increase in corporation tax, backed by 37%. Next least unpopular was capital gains tax, suggested by 20%, income tax 9% then inheritance tax 7%. Only 2% would like to see increased national insurance or stamp duty. The pattern is unsurprising, people would much rather businesses suffered than them themselves.
UPDATE: Just as I typed this I’ve been sent details of a new MORI poll. They have 28% of respondents satisifed with Alistair Darling’s performance as Chancellor, but have 44% disatisfied - a net rating of minus 16.
Monday’s Telegraph published the economic part of their monthly YouGov poll (it also had the best Prime Minister question, which gave David Cameron a 4 point lead over Brown).
Reports of economic questions in polls are always a bit lacking. They inevitably show that everyone thinks we are headed for hell in a handbasket (if they don’t, the papers don’t bother emphasising them), and findings like 56% of people think the economy are reported without much context at all. Is that really bad historically, or are we just a doom-laden bunch of miseries convinced that we’re doomed anyway. The Telegraph article does give a bit of context, it says they’re the worst figures since 1994, but since YouGov has only been polling since 2001 or so that comparison itself raises questions (presumably they are comparing to Gallup, the Telegraph’s old pollsters, which is a poor show).
Looking at YouGov’s question on whether people think the Economic will get better or worse, this month 56% of people thought it would get worse, with only 17% expecting it to improve - a net score (the so-called “feel good factor”) of minus 39. This is indeed the lowest YouGov have registered since they began the tracker in 2003. Looking at the graph below you can see the lines look pretty consistent until September 2007, the month of the Northern Rock collapse. Since then they have been trending negatively. I make no judgement about what state the economy is actually in, but since September the public have clearly been more and more convinced that it’s in trouble.
But what about some context? They may be the worst figures since YouGov began tracking in 2003, but those 5 years have been pretty benign economically. To go back further, lets look at the same question from MORI, who have trackers going all the way back to 1979. Ipsos MORI’s most recent figures showed 55% expected things to get worse, with only 9% expecting an improvement - a feel good factor of minus 46 - and here’s the graph showing the historical figures.
This doesn’t give much comfort to the government. As you can see, people do in general tend to be pretty pessimistic. There are a couple of points where there is a net positive rating (after the 1997 Labour landslide or the 1987 Tory victory, for example) but most of the time we’re comparing different extremes of pessimism.
There are recent drops to compare to current figures - the rating was worse than it is now as recently as February 2003 (the impending war in Iraq perhaps?), it hit what really was the lowest rating since 1979 after September 11th 2001. There is another dip in 1998 that I can’t think of an obvious explanation for. After Black Wednesday in 1992 the net figure was down to -46, the same as it is now and in the dog-days of the end of the Thatcher government in summer 1990 it had descended to a similar level. Before that you need to go back to 1979 - whatever economic turmoil and recessions there were in the early 80s, people were more optimistic about the economy than they are now.
For the majority of the time the figures vary between 0 and minus 30, it normally drops below that score only for brief extreme reactions to unusual events (often non-economic ones that have just shook confidence in general) - the only real exceptions are way back in 1979, the end of Thatcher, and the last year or two when it has sunk below that figure several times.
Compared to ratings in the past, economic optimism really is very low indeed - perhaps even irrationally so. Still, I’m not an economist and I don’t pretend to know what state the economy is actually in, but in terms of public perception things are very bleak indeed.
One getout clause for the government on this is that people do not necessarily blame a poor economic outlook on the government. Populus ask a semi-regular question on whether people think the economy is doing well, and whether or not that is attributable to Gordon Brown. The last time I can find it is back in December 2006, when they found 51% though the economy was doing well, and 40% thought it was doing badly. 47% thought the state of the economy was due to Brown, 44% thought it wasn’t much to do with him.
It maybe that the public with accept that harder economic times are due to the world economy, and not pin any blame on the government of the day. On one level I am sure that’s the case, but on another level I suspect it doesn’t matter. My guess is that hard times will gradually sap support for the government of the day across the board, even if people do not directly blame the government for specific economic problems.