Further proof that the actions of Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt has emerged today following the latest Populus poll which shows a Tory lead of 15 points.
Further proof that the actions of Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt have damaged the Government emerged today following the latest Populus poll for this morning’s Times, which shows the Conservatives on 42 per cent and Labour on 27 per cent – figures which, if repeated at the election, could see the Tories end up with a healthy Commons majority of 60.
The real impact of the disloyalty shown by Hoon and Hewitt, and disunity in general, however, can be gauged in the change in Labour support from the previous month, down 3 per cent – the first fall in the Populus rating since June 2009, the last time an attempt was made to topple the Prime Minister. Labour had risen 7 percentage points from June to December.
It has also been the most damaging of the three coup attempts, the other two, May/June 2009 and September/October 2008 having seen falls of only 1 percentage point. More evidence that disunity also benefits Labour’s opponents comes from the month-on-month increase in Tory support – up 4 per cent, their biggest rise in this series since a six-point rise in October 2008.
Among other headline figures from today’s poll are the respondents’ answers on how they perceive the two main party leaders and the Conservatives’ marriage tax proposals.
By 64%-26% voters believe Gordon Brown is “on the side of ordinary people”, while the ratio for David Cameron is 50%-42% believing he is “on the side of rich people”.
On the Tories’ marriage tax plans – which Left Foot Forward examined last week – 57 per cent of the public think it “would be unfair” for government to promote marriage through the tax system compared to 40 per cent who think government “should actively promote and encourage marriage”.
12 Responses to “More evidence of the public’s dislike of disunity”
Billy Blofeld
Shamik,
So a mere 73% of the population can’t stand Labour and would like the government removed.
Heady days indeed for wanna be progressives everywhere. As an evidence based blog, is it not time to think the unthinkable and wonder if tribal party politics is really the answer?
Mister Jabberwock
For what say it is an “evidence based” blog to allow a contributor to write “Further proof that the actions of Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt have damaged the Government emerged today following the latest Populus poll for this morning’s Times, which shows the Conservatives on 42 per cent and Labour on 27 per cent”.
It might be “further evidence” but is obviously not proof. Lots of other things could have contributed includingthe margin of error.
It is just sloppy and leads to the suspicion that “evidence based” just means anything that we can use to justify an existing belief.
Alun
@Red
“Just because 60% of those polled say so, it is not a logical necessity that this reflects the public at large.”
Clearly not, but opinion pollsters do try very hard to get representative polls, and they do often weight their results to reflect the public at large.
“A poll conducted by, say, The Sun or The Times for its readers, is not reflective of ‘the public’, but merely those readers who answered that particular poll. Hold the same poll in two different papers, you’ll get different answers.”
Ah, here’s your mistake. This is not a poll by the Times of it’s readers. It is a poll commissioned by the Times and performed by the opinion polsters Populus. Populus, like all good opinion polling companies wil attempt to produced as unbiased a poll as possible, after all it’s in their interests to do so. They also publish their methodology.
http://www.populus.co.uk/polling.html
Red
Yeah, fair enough, Alun.
This isn’t a major thing for me; I just felt a bit annoyed by how much these polls get thrown around when I’ve never come across one myself, nor know anybody who has. Not that I’m basing it merely on that. That would be silly. I guess capitalism/corporatisation/commercialism/imperialism/society-politics gots me jaded.
Thanks very much for your reply – gonna go have a look-see at the link.
Peace
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