The full results of YouGov’s poll in the Sunday Times are here.
Notable is the economic optimism question. When YouGov asked the same question for the Sun just before the budget on March 22nd-23rd net economic optimism was minus 10, matching it’s January peak. When YouGov asked the question straight after the budget on Wed-Thurs it had fallen to minus 19. By Thurs-Friday when the fieldwork for the Sunday Times was done it had fallen to minus 24. This is the lowest YouGov have had economic optimism since last April. If Labour’s recovery has been at least partially to do with rising economic optimism, then I’d expect this to result in the lead growing again (assuming, of course, that economic optimism doesn’t recover just as rapidly).
Looking at the rest of the poll, there is a direct Darling vs Osborne question that shows them pretty much neck and neck (33% prefer Osborne, 32% prefer Darling). In the past few days we’ve seen several versions of this question asking the comparison between Osborne, Darling and Cable (for example, see this from YouGov), and they have typically shown Cable ahead and Osborne in a poor third. This suggests people who prefer Cable split disproportionately in Osborne’s favour if they are forced to choose between Osborne and Darling.
On other subjects, rather unsurprisingly the majority of people wanted an inquiry into the former Labour ministers caught in the fake lobbyist sting, and the overwhelming majority supported some form of restriction upon ministers taking up lobbying jobs too soon after leaving office. 39% supported a complete ban on former ministers working as lobbyists. Slightly more interesting was that 38% of people believed that Stephen Byers had successfully influenced government policy, with 29% thinking he was exaggerating. The answers were largely partisan though, with Conservative supporters tending to think he had changed policy and Labour supporters thinking he was boasting.
Asked about the proposed tightening of the drink driving limit there was strong support for a reduction – 50% supported a reduction to 80mg, 21% said they would support an even tighter restriction, 23% opposed a restriction.
Finally YouGov asked about climate change. 30% of people said they had become more sceptical about climate change since the controversies around scientists studying climate change. As well as a change question YouGov re-asked a climate change question originally asked in December 2009 for Left Foot Forward – there was a slight shift towards scepticism, but not a huge one. In December 2009 83% said the planet was warming and human activity was at least partially responsible, 12% said the planet was not warming, or human activity was not responsible. In the latest poll 76% said the planet was warming and human activity was contributing, 16% said the planet wasn’t warming or mankind was not responsible.
Tonight we should have the daily YouGov poll, possibly a Opinium poll in the Express. We are also due Ipsos-MORI and ComRes polls at some point soon.
