Details from YouGov's monthly poll
The YouGov poll in the Telegraph is now up here and the full tables are on the YouGov website here. The full voting intentions are CON 43%(nc), LAB 29%(+2), LDEM 17%(+1).
The other standard trackers all paint an equally bleak picture for the government, on the forced choice question (which I always tend to think of our best indicator of which way tactical voting is likely to go next time round, given that there are no regular tracker questions that ask directly about it) the Conservatives now enjoy a 12 point lead over Labour, they have an 8 point lead as the party most likely to run the economy well, David Cameron has an 8 point lead as Best Prime Minister. Gordon Brown's net satisfaction rating is at minus 40, Alistair Darling's at minus 42.
The poll is unremittingly awful news for the government on every level. I initially thought it showed that people were not blaming the government for the economic problems facing the country (consciously at least, I have no doubt that the 'feel bad factor' is damaging support anyway). Looking at the detailed tables though even that isn't true.
The figures in the Telegraph suggest only 22% of people blame Brown's past and 8% blame his present policies for the present economic problems, with 52% blaming it on the worldwide credit crunch. Looked at alone those suggest people aren't blaming Brown... except that on the detailed tables we see that YouGov then asked people what the second biggest reason was - and found and additional 16%
of people blamed Brown's past policies and 22% blamed his present ones. In a separate question only 22% said they thought the government seemed to be handling the situation properly, 59% said it wasn't.
Perhaps the only slivers of comfort Labour supporters can gather from the poll is that that there is still not huge enthusiasm for the Tories. 22% of people say they would be delighted if David Cameron formed the next government, 33% wouldn't mind and 32% would be appalling. The Tories do seem to be ahead by default, not because people are excited by them, but because they think they would do a better job than a government the large majority (64% to 21%) are disatisfied with: this poll shows 38% think David Cameron and the Conservatives would do a better job, with only 24% thinking they'd do worse.
