Latest YouGov and Opinium polls
There are two polls in today's papers, both showing a five point Labour lead. Opinium in the Observer, conducted mid-week - so both before and after David Cameron's conference speech - has voting intentions of CON 31%(+2), LAB 36%(nc), LD 7%(nc), UKIP 15%(-2), full tabs here. Meanwhile YouGov's weekly poll for the Sunday Times has topline figures of CON 33%, LAB 38%, LDEM 11%, UKIP 13%, the sort of place YouGov was before conference. Full tabs are here.
Most of the rest of the YouGov poll deals with the Conservative conference and Ed Miliband vs the Mail. David Cameron's own rating on doing a good or bad job is slightly up following his conference - 41% now think he is doing a good job as Prime Minister. This is up only 3 points since last week, not significant in itself, but it brings him to his
highest score since before the "omnishambles budget" in 2012.
There are rather mixed responses to the rest of the Conservative conference. They don't seen to be dominating their chosen territory of appealing to "hard-working" people yet - asked which party has the better policies for hard-working people 33% say Labour to the Conservatives' 24%.
There are also mixed findings on some of the policies highlighted at Conservative conference. There is very widespread (70%) support for forcing the long-term unemployed to do community work or risk losing their benefits and a narrow majority (52%) support stopping benefits for under 25s who are not in work or training (39% oppose). Attitudes to "Help to Buy" though are more uncertain, 43% support the policy, 40% are opposed. Digging a little deeper, 51% think the policy is likely to make it easier for ordinary people to buy a home and 70% think it is likely to increase house prices (which is, of course, not necessarily a good thing). However, 58% of people also think it is likely to risk creating another housing bubble.
In the row between the Mail and Ed Miliband the public come down solidly on the side of Miliband. Even on the principle of writing about and criticising Ralph Miliband's views and his potential influence on Ed Miliband only 26% of people think that this was acceptable. Asked specifically about the Mail calling Ralph Miliband the "man who hated Britain" just 17% thought the Mail's language was acceptable, 72% unacceptable. 69% of people think that the Daily Mail should apologise.
78% of people think that Ed Miliband was right to complain to the Mail, and a quarter of people say the way he has reacted to the Mail's attack has made them view Ed Miliband more positively.
While the Daily Mail's own readers are more likely than the general public to support the Mail's actions, overall they still think they were unacceptable. By 50% to 42% Mail readers think it was unacceptable for the paper to write about and criticise Ralph Miliband's views, and by 60% to 29% they think it was unacceptable to use language like the "man who hated Britain". 57% of the Mail's own readers think they should apologise.
