The monthly YouGov poll for the Telegraph suggests that Labour have so far survived the recent furore over party loans unscathed, while some of the shine has begun to wear off of David Cameron. The topline figures, with changes from the YouGov/Sunday Times polls earlier in the month are CON 36%(-2), LAB 36%(+1), LDEM 18%(-1).
The period since the last YouGov poll has seen the budget, but far more media attention has been paid to the issue of party funding, and specifically the question of secret party loans which has now rumbled on for over two weeks. Perhaps surprisingly the issue does not seem to have done any damage to Labour’s support - perhaps simply because people already assumed that peerages could be bought by donations, or perhaps because people see politicans as all as bad as one another, rather than attaching blame to the Labour party alone.
In contrast the level of Conservative support has fallen - this is probably part of the wider trend picked up by other polling companies who have shown the level of Conservative support dropping in the past month, though the Conservative party’s refusal until now to reveal the names of their own donors may be a contributing factor.
David Cameron’s net approval rating has also fallen - down from +27 in the last YouGov/Telegraph poll to +14 this month. I’ve mentioned repeatedly in the past that new Conservative leaders have normally followed a pattern of having positive approval ratings to begin with, which have then fallen as the early “don’t knows” become disapproves. This is not that pattern - the proportion of people who say they don’t know (38%) has not fallen, rather the proportion of people who approve of Cameron has fallen. Again, this could be a result of his decision not to reveal the loans, or could be related to his budget response - one of the few House of Commons speeches people do watch, which consisted almost entirely of the “Punch and Judy” politics he had signified that he rejected (or, of course, it could be a rogue poll - you should always be careful not to read too much into a single poll).
Tony Blair’s approval rating is also down - his net approval is now -30 points and 49% of people think he is a liability to the Labour party. While Gordon Brown’s approval ratings are still relatively high with a net score of +19, his star also seems to be on the wane. A year ago 52% of people though that Brown was doing a better job as Chancellor than Blair was as PM, now only 37% do. While 50% of people continue to think Brown is an asset to the Labour party, this is down from 63% a year ago and over a quarter (27%) now think Brown is a liability. Most strikingly, asked which of the two men they would rather see as Prime Minister, Brown now leads Blair by only 1 point, 31% to 30%, compared to a 10 point lead a year ago.
Finally YouGov asked about the budget and NHS finance. Overall there was a slight thumbs down to the budget - 44% thought it was unfair, while 37% thought it was fair. 50% agreed there was a black hole in the public finances. On the NHS, 64% of people thought there was a financial crisis within the NHS with all hospitals being forced to cut back on patient care, 25% thought there were only isolated incidents affecting relatively few patiences.
It will probably still be a day or two before there are any polls to gauge reaction to the budget, but there was a rather surprising Populus poll commissioned for the BBC’s run-up to the budget.
The poll covered the subject of inheritance tax. While this is a highly emotive subject for a small section of society, my own assumption had always been that the tax was only really a concern for that minority of people wealthy enough to fall into the clutches of inheritance tax, but not wealthy enough to afford to dodge it. Populus’s poll reveal far wider opposition to the tax than I for one had suspected.
Only 25% of people thought that “having an inheritance tax on the value of the assets people leave when they die” was a fair way of raising government revenue. 73% thought that the very principle of inheritance tax was unfair.
Of course, if you ask people if they like paying a tax you should expect to get no as an answer, since few people enjoy paying taxes. Questions on whether a particular tax should be cut or removed are of dubious worth unless there is some sort of indication of how or if the revenue lost would be made up. Populus’s second question therefore asked if people would support abolishing inheritance tax and making up the lost revenue by putting a penny on income tax - 59% of people said they would support such a move, with only 37% opposed.
Sadly Populus didn’t publish the breakdowns by income or tenure (whether people owned a house or not), but certainly there did not seem to be any sigificant difference between the opinions of different social classes. Older people, whose assets are most likely to be subject to inheritance tax in the near future (though, of course, are presumably less likely to inherit money from more elderly relatives), were slightly more likely to support the scrapping of inheritance tax.
76% of people also agreed that, if there is to be an inheritance tax, it should affect “only affect very rich people so the starting level should be much higher than £275,000″. 22% disagreed.
While this does suggest that there is very wide opposition to inheritance tax, it’s worth remembering that it doesn’t indicate how deep that opposition is. People’s assets are only subject to inheritance tax only once, and they are not around to notice it, and recieving large, taxables inheritances should also be a rare occassion in most peoples’ lives. People have to pay most other forms of taxation far more often. While people say they don’t like inheritance tax, there’s nothing in this poll to suggest it is a particularly salient issue for most people.
A new YouGov poll suggests that the majority of the public think that Tony Blair is sleazy, the way honours are distributed are corrupt and that rich donors have too much influence over the Labour party.
The topline voting intention figures for the poll in the Sunday Times are CON 38% (nc) LAB 35%(-1) LDEM 19%(+1). The lead is slightly up from the last YouGov poll, conducted prior to the recent questions over party funding. While the change is far too small to be significant, it does contradict the ICM poll last week which suggested Labour had overtaken the Conservatives.
The hypothetical figures with Brown as Labour leader are CON 39% LAB 37% LDEM 17%. Unusually in recent months, this shows that Labour do better against the Conservatives under Brown than under Blair, although the difference is marginal.
Net approval ratings for the three party leaders are Blair -25, Cameron +33 and Campbell +5. Ming Campbell’s approval rating is very low by the standards of his predecessor, but this is almost certainly simply a result of a large number of people answering “don’t know” - we won’t know how he is really going down with the public until they have had time to form an opinion.
On the questions of party funding, almost two-thirds of people think Labour kept the loans secret because they were embarrassed by them and a similar amount of people though that rich donors had too much influence. 56% of people thought that the Prime Minister had indeed given peerages in exchange for loans and donations and 54% thought Downing Street acted improperly in relation to the way Jack Dromey was not informed of them. 53% of people think Tony Blair is sleazy, only 24% disagree.
UPDATE: There is also an ICM poll in the Sunday Telegraph which has voting intention at CON 33%, LAB 37%, LDEM 21%, so in line with their poll earlier in the week.
(On a personal note, I’m on holiday for the next few days, so comments in the moderation queue will not be published until my return)
The ICM poll for the Guardian also included a voting intention question with Brown as Labour leader, which showed the now normal pattern of the Conservatives doing better against Labour with Brown instead of Blair. The full figures were CON 37%, LAB 37%, LDEM 19% (as ever bear in mind that polls don’t predict, they only measure opinion at the moment, so this is a purely hypothetical question).
Net approval ratings for the party leaders are Blair -9, Cameron +20 and Campbell +19, though the interesting thing to watch on these questions is how Cameron’s rating holds up once the proportions of “don’t knows” declines - we shall see once the full figures are available.
Finally ICM also commissioned a focus group on the image of the party leaders, asking respondents what cars they associated with the party leaders (which sounds silly, but is actually a good way of looking at a brand image). Blair was seen as a defunct Rover or a Lada, David Cameron was seen as BMW 5 Series, Gordon Brown as a tank, suggesting that Cameron is seen as swish and modern, but perhaps something associated with the rich rather than normal people, while Brown as seen as strong, straight forward, but perhaps charmless and brutal. Ming Campbell was seen as an old Jag, which ironically, is what he actually drives. Or did drive, before it was banished to his garage during the leadership election.
Focus groups told ICM that they thought Cameron was dynamic and would be most at home at a Live 8 concert, talking or listening to people. While this sounds like political gold dust for a party leader, on the downside Cameron was seen as being too much like Blair, and - another recuring theme - ICM’s focus group commented on the fact that while he had offered signposts, he hadn’t put forward any policies.
A surprising ICM poll in tomorrow’s Guardian puts Labour back ahead with a good 3 point lead - a reversal of last months figures: CON 34% (-3), LAB 37%(+3), LDEM 21% (nc).
Voting intention polls tend to shift for identifiable reasons - Charlie Kennedy is ousted as party leader and the Lib Dems go down; Tories get a new leader they go up; fuel strikes bring country to a standstill Labour go down, and so on. Big shifts like this with no obvious reason are unusual, the Conservatives haven’t done anything particularly damaging in the last few weeks and most of the media coverage of Labour has been about financial “sleaze” and internal divisions over the education bill - hardly the sort of thing that is liable to improve Labour’s popularity.
It could be that the poll is simply a rogue or even just a change within the margin of error, but along with YouGov ICM do tend to produce the most steady and robust figures. Two potential explanations come to mind - firstly the Ming effect. While the headline level of Liberal Democrat support is unchanged, there could be underlying churn - perhaps Sir Menzies Campbell’s election has taken support from the Tories but lost support to Labour. An alternate explanation is that Cameron’s honeymoon has simply come to an aprupt end, that the Tory increase was a purely temporary phenomenon and they are now falling back to their previous level of support.
Some recent polls have shown a slight move back to Labour - Populus’s last poll showed the Tories slipping back, as did MORI’s. The exception at the moment is YouGov, who last month reported the Tories moving back ahead of Labour. The next couple of polls will confirm whether this is a genuine swing back to Labour or just normal variation.
The other contentious (and rather more high profile) Commons vote this week is on the Education Bill. YouGov have carried out a poll of Labour party members asking their opinions of the proposals in the Bill, and their opinions seem to be closer to the Labour rebels than the Government.
Only 5% agree with the original contents of the Education Bill which proposed that all new schools would be foundation schools run by independent trusts, and the government’s compromise - that local authorities should still be able to set up community schools, but with the Secretary of State having the power of veto - is supported by only 25% of party members. 60% think that local authorities should be entirely free to set up new schools. 64% also believe that local authorites should have power over whether or not schools are allowed to expand.
Asked about foundation schools there is strong opposition to sponsors having too much influence over the schools they fund - 80% disagree that “it is reasonable that [external sponsors] have some influence over what children are taught there.” There is correspondending high level of support for local elected governors and elected parent governors on school governing bodies.
Finally, on admissions, the majority (56%) of Labour party members want responsibility for admissions to remain with local authorities, with 36% thinking that schools themselves should manage admissions under a code of practice enforcing equal access, and only 4% supporting giving schools complete freedom over admissions. On the 160 or so existing grammar schools, 51% of Labour party members think they too should be prevented from selecting by ability, although of those respondents, 79% think that other reforms are more urgent. Interestingly, 14% of Labour party members would like to see the government encourage more selective grammar schools.
(For analysis of the actual backbench rebellion, and no doubt the vote on docking dogs’ tails, see www.revolts.co.uk)
The Animal Welfare Bill comes before the Commons on Tuesday. MPs are due to have free votes on two amendments - one banning all docking of dogs’ tails, the other banning docking dogs’ tails, except for working dogs such as rescue dogs, police dogs and gun dogs. As seems to be the norm with questions of animal welfare, the respective lobbying groups have entered the fray with their own commissioned polls - a MORI poll for the RSPCA, and an ORB poll by the Countryside Alliance.
Both polls show overwhelming support for a ban on docking tails for cosmetic reasons - MORI asked if respondents supported or opposed the practice, 75% opposed it with only 8% supporting it. ORB specifically asked about whether it should be banned - 70% (including those who wanted a ban on all docking) thought docking for cosmetic reasons should be banned, 30% did not (the higher figure is presumably because most of those who neither opposed nor supported cosmetic docking opposed a ban).
The more controversial question is whether docking should be banned for working dogs. The ORB survey found that only 39% of people would support banning docking for working dogs. Supporters of the ban have questioned the finding because the ORB question said that docking of working dogs was “to prevent serious tail injuries to them”, when organisations like the RSPCA (who support the ban) question the contribution docking does make to preventing injury. The question should probably have said that “supporters claimed that” docking was to reduce injury, rather that stating it as a fact. That said, it is unlikely to have had a huge effect on people’s answers.
As I write I also notice another poll on the Bill - another proposed amendment would ban all but permitted animals from travelling circuses. No sign of exactly where the government would draw the line on which animals were permitted, but Zippos Circus are clearly worried about being allowed to keep horses - they’ve comissioned a MORI poll that found 43% of people think it is acceptable to have equestrian displays in circuses, while 39% think it is unacceptable.
Ipsos-MORI have released a new poll for the Associated Press on the trial of Saddam Hussein, conducted across 9 different countries.
While other polls have consistently shown support for the war in Iraq declining in the UK, people continue to believe that Iraq is better off that it would have been under Saddam - 52% think the people of Iraq are now better off, while only 29% think they are worse off. These views seems to be somewhat unusual in the rest of Europe though. While opinion in Canada is almost identical to the UK, and in the USA 68% of people think Iraq is better off without Saddam, across the rest of Europe people tend to think that Iraq was better off with Saddam: in France 32% think Iraq is now better off, 41% worse off; in Germany 38% think Iraq is better off, 42% worse off; in Spain only 18% think Iraq is better off, with 47% thinking it is worse off. Italy is the is other exception, where 43% think Iraq is better off and 25% think it is worse off.
Britons, Americans, Canadians and Italians are also the most confident that Saddam Hussein is receiving a fair trial - 62% of British people think Saddam is being fairly tried, compared to 24% who think he is not. People are less confident in France and Germany (44% and 51% respectively think the trial is fair) and the Spanish are the least confident of the European countries - only 27% think Saddam is receiving a fair trial compared to 36% who think he is receiving an unfair trial. Respondents in South Korea and Mexico, the other two countries polled, were also more likely to think that Saddam was receiving an unfair trial.
Finally Ipsos asked whether Saddam should receive the death penalty or life imprisonment if found guilty. America was the only country where a majority (57%) supported the death penalty, in Britain, Canada and France 38% supported the death penalty for Saddam, 34% in Germany, 26% in Mexico, 25% in South Korea, 20% in Italy and 14% in Spain.
The full details of Populus’s monthly poll are now available on their website here. The poll also included some questions on people’s perceptions of the party leaders.
As in previous polls, David Cameron comes out ahead of Gordon Brown on questions of likeability and charisma - 44% think Cameron is charismatic compared to 29% for Brown, 52% think Cameron is likeable, compared to 46% for Brown - but Brown comes out ahead of Cameron when asked which leaders are strong, straight-talking and “has the qualities needed to be a good Prime Minister”. The two politicians are almost identical in terms of the number of people who think they care about the problems of ordinary people (as indeed is Tony Blair).
Ming Campbell trails Cameron and Brown on every measure - 41% think he is likeable, 23% think him charismatic, 33% strong, 37% straight-talking, 25% think he has the qualities of a good Prime Minister and 40% think he cares about the problems of ordinary people. it is likely though that the structure of the question puts Campbell at rather a disadvantage since people couldn’t answer don’t know - we know that 37% think he is straight-talking, but that doesn’t mean that 63% think he isn’t, as a brand new party leader the chances are most of them simply didn’t know. The same is probably true of David Cameron, who is still recording high “don’t know” scores on approval questions. We won’t know what people really think of Ming Campbell and David Cameron until people have had time to make their minds up about them.
A new ICM poll for the BBC, conducted as part of BBC Scotland’s Energy Week, suggests there is wide - but perhaps shallow - opposition to nuclear energy in Scotland. Asked what their perferred method of meeting Scotland’s energy demands is, the majority (52%) of Scots prefer renewable sources such as tidal, solar or wind power, followed by gas on 21%, nuclear on 15% and coal on only 6%. When asked to rank the four potential energy sources, 39% of Scots put nuclear last, behind coal.
33% of Scots say they would support building more nuclear power stations in Scotland with 51% opposed, and those opposed tend to have stronger feelings - only 14% “strongly support” building nuclear power stations while 35% “strongly oppose” it. Opinion doesn’t seem to be firmly entrenched though, when asked if they “support or oppose building new nuclear power stations in Scotland if they helped to avoid us being dependent on energy imported from overseas?”, support increases to 54% and opposition falls to only 34%. People’s gut instincts may oppose nuclear energy but they do seem to be open to argument.
Opinions are far more one-sided when it comes to nuclear waste - only 14% of Scots supported nuclear waste being stored or disposed of in Scotland, with 80% of people opposed.
A report in the Herald tries to wheedle some figures on party political support out of the poll - this is a mistake. As the Herald says ICM’s figures are for party allegiance, not voting intention and while there is an obvious relation between the two figures, they are actually very different things. Specifically the proportion of people who identify with a political party who say they idenfity as Labour party supporters is a far higher figure than the proportion of people who actually vote Labour, as many Labour supporters don’t actually vote or, at the last election, voted Lib Dem. Once you add in those people who do not identify with a political party, but do vote, it becomes impossible to extrapolate voting intentions from questions on party ID.