Angus Reid

There were some interesting non-voting question in the PB/Angus Reid pre-Christmas poll which have just been published – one of which is featured above.

Interestingly men respondents placed Iraq at number one while the women in the survey went for the July 2005 London bombings.

It’s a good question and I wonder what PBers would have answered?

I’ve got little doubt and that was the Labour government’s Tony’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003 alongside the Americans.

Mike Smithson

Latest Ipsos-MORI issues index

Is Sunny Hundal misreading the data?

There’s a fascinating debate going on amongst Labour/left bloggers over whether the party’s apparent “class war” strategy is the right way to go.

The Scottish Labour MP, Tom Harris, is very much against arguing that “.the only strategy Labour should even consider is one which aims to see us re-elected with a working overall majority in the Commons. Setting our sights anywhere lower than that would be a betrayal of our country and our party.”

Liberal Conspiracy’s Sunny Hundal takes the opposite viewpoint arguing: “..Class War remains an electorally viable strategy because: (a) a majority of voters are persuaded by the implication; (b) it highlights wedge issues Labour needs to advance to narrow their defeat; (c) extensive polling shows that most ‘class war’ positions are deeply popular.“

I suggest both of them take a close look at the regular Ipsos-MORI monthly “Issues Index” where interviewees are asked, totally unprompted, to suggest the ” the most important issues facing Britain”. They can list as many as they like and this has been asked in this way for more than thirty years. What I like about it is that we get a real sense of the importance in people’s minds of different policy areas.

If in the face-to-face interviews people put or don’t put issues forward then that is a measure, surely, of the level of importance they attach to them.

Thus if Hindal’s assertion that “most class war issues are deeply popular” was correct then they would figure higher than the 7% for inequality and the 3% for “low pay/fair wages” that were recorded in the last such poll.

Tom Harris is on the right side of the argument here.

Mike Smithson

Why I’m still not betting on the general election outcome?

Another morning and the speculation over Brown’s leadership continues in the papers. So how will those “leading cabinet ministers” who are said to want Brown out view this polling data?

For after yesterday morning’s examination of the long-term leader approval rating trends today I’m looking further at the Ipsos-MORI leader approval data but from another angle – what those who told the pollster they are voting Labour think of Mr. Brown. And as can be seen from the chart the numbers are not good for Brown Central.

For just over one in two of the Labour voters in the survey said they were satisfied with Mr. Brown – and more than a third said they were dissatisfied.

That is hardly the base to mount a general election campaign and suggests that with Mr. Brown still in post it’s going to be quite a challenge to motivate even the core vote.

Just contrast that with how declared Conservative supporters rate their leader, Mr. Cameron.

My strong view is that any change of Labour leader will have a beneficial impact on the party’s performance and it is for this reason that I am still not predicting a general election outcome or making long term bets on the spread markets. Brown going could dramatically change the whole environment.

For even more worrying for Labour is that the detailed data shows that 33% of declared Labour supporters say they are “satisfied” with Cameron’s performance.

You can get a bet at 5/1 with Ladbrokes that Brown will not lead Labour at the general election. Yesterday morning it was 8/1.

I think those odds are about right.

Mike Smithson

Leicester Mercury

Will Labour want to avoid the by election?

My apologies for immediately thinking of the political implications of the death yesterday of Leicester NW, MP, David Taylor, but that is the way politics is especially during a febrile period like that we are going through at the moment.

Fo the last thing that Labour needs just now is a by election in a marginal where the Tories are the main challengers – and this could become a consideration over the timing of the general election.

Apart from the cost (the expenses limit is £100,000) a Tory victory would add to the pre-general election momentum.

The seat was unaffected by boundary changes and in May 2005 the result was LAB: 21449 (45.5%): CON : 16972 (36%): LD:5682 (12.1%): OTH 3037 (6.4%) – a majority of just 9.5% which would go with a swing of 4.75.

This is one of the leading Tory targets for the general election which they absolutely have to win if they are to stand any chance of securing a majority. If there is a by election it’s hard to see this as anything other than an easy Tory gain.

The question is whether Labour would prefer a contest to take place, presumably in February/March and stick with the suggested May 6th election date or whether this makes the possibility of March 25th or April 8th that more likely?

My guess is the latter though they could try to leave the vacancy open.

Mike Smithson