Latest YouGov polling on Libya
I didn't get chance to have a proper look at the Sunday Times YouGov poll yesterday - tables are now up here. Looking at the regular tracker first, on the Alternative Vote, using the referendum and weighted by likelihood to vote, the current figures stand at YES 40%, NO 37%, D/K 22%. David Cameron is back into negative approval ratings after his brief post-budget bounce - his net approval is minus 5 (from 0 last week), Ed Miliband is at minus 13 (from minus 15), Nick Clegg at minus 39 (from minus 35). Economic optimism trackers remain in their usual dire state.
That aside the most interesting findings were on attitudes towards the conflict in Libya. Overall people remain slightly more in support than opposed to the military intervention (by 43% to 37%), but are rapidly becoming less positive about how well it is going. In the middle of last week people thought the action was going well by a margin of 3 to 1 - peaking on March 29th with 57% thinking things were going well and 19% thinking things were going badly. By the time of the Sunday Times poll this had narrowed to 42% thinking it was going well and 30% thinking it was going badly - presumably the shift is in response to stories of rebel forces being routed in attacks.
On other Libya questions people remained opposed to arming the rebels (by 28% support to 46% opposed) and strongly opposed to the use of British ground forces (by 18% support to 64% opposed). There was comparatively little support for possible compromise solutions that would leave Gaddafi in place - only 27% of people would support giving Gaddafi the chance to go into exile in exchange for him agreeing to step down voluntarily without a fight, only 13% would think it acceptable for Libya to be partitioned with Gaddafi remaining in power in the West of the country with an independent state in the East of Libya.
Finally YouGov asked about people's response to the suggestions that Al Qaeda fighters were involved in the Libyan rebellion. I had expected a much more negative reaction in this question, but actually there was more of a streak of realpolitik in people's responses. 28% of people agreed most with a statement that the West should not help the rebellion if there were signs it included Al Qaeda, 41% agreed most with a statement that the rebellions was bound to contain some unpleasant elements but that it was more important to remove Gaddafi (11% agree with neither statement).
