Conference catch up
Want to get some nice publicity around conference season? Commission a poll! Quite a few little bits and pieces over the last couple of days, so I thought I'd catch up with some.
Firstly YouGov for Left Foot Forward asked about replacing Trident. 23% thought it should be replaced by an equivalent system, 40% thought a cheaper, less powerful system would suffice. 23% wanted to give up nuclear weapons completely. 32% of people still think that nuclear weapons make Britain safer, 21% think they make us less safe.
Secondly, Newsnight have a poll by ORB for the Conference season. They've got Barack Obama's pollster Cornell Belcher (or at least, he's one of several pollsters who worked on the campaign. Joel Benenson looks like he was actually the Chief pollster for Obama, but I guess Newsnight want to make the most of their chap) talking about polls during the conference season, so there's some rather Obama themed quesions.
Asked which British politician is most like Obama, David Cameron leads with 18%, Gordon Brown on 11%, Tony Blair 7%, Vince Cable 6% and Clegg 3%. Being seen as similar to Barack Obama is, I should point out, still a good thing in the UK, if slightly less so across the Atlantic. Here 87% of respondents had a positive impression of him, only 9% a negative one (4% of people had never heard of Barack Obama...)
They also asked the classic US pollster question of "generally speaking, do you think things in Britain are moving in the right direction or are they pretty seriously off on the wrong track?" You'd expect the options to be right track/wrong track, or right direction/wrong direction wouldn't you? But nope, they are mismatched. I think it's just part of US polling culture now, so it doesn't change. For the record, 30% thought things were on the right track, 67% pretty seriously off on the wrong direction.
Finally for now, ComRes have carried out a poll of 346 Lib Dem councillors for the Daily Politics. Asked what the party should do in the event of a hung Parliament where the party held the balance of power, 31% of Lib Dem councillors said they should back Labour, with only 16% saying they should back the Conservatives.
The assumption - probably not a bad one given they are largely the same people - is that this is probably roughly in line with the opinion of Lib Dem activists and members. It contrasts with the opinion of Lib Dem voters - on YouGov's regular forced choice questions asking whether voters, if they had to choose, would prefer a Conservative or Labour government, the Conservatives are now normally their choice.
While it's a interesting contrast, in terms of actual coalition or pact deals it probably doesn't matter that much. Any form of hung Parliament looks unlikely with the present polls, and in the majority of hung Parliament situations only one party will realistically be able to form a government. The Lib Dems are not likely to actually end up in a situation where they are forced to choose.
