More from the Sunday Times YouGov poll
The full tables from YouGov's Sunday Times poll are now up on the Sunday Times website. It leaves us in no doubt why Gordon Brown chose not to go to the country, the headline figures showing a Conservative lead of 3 points would resulted in Brown losing his majority, but YouGov do not factor in likelihood to vote which it's generally thought you have been a big factor in a November poll. The detailled tables have breaks of only those certain to vote, which would have produced shares of CON 45%, LAB 36%, LDEM 9%. These are not realistic figures, the turnout filter too tight, but it does show how a low winter turnout could have made the situation even worse for Brown.
Gordon Brown's net rating on whether he is doing a good job as Prime Minister has dropped to
plus 30 from plus 39 last time it was asked. David Cameron's is transformed, up to plus 20 from minus 15.
Showed a list of words and asked which ones applied to David Cameron and Gordon Brown, Brown still has a more positive all round image. 40% think he is strong, 37% decisive, 40% think he sticks to what he believes in. The only measures where Cameron outscores Brown are Charismatic (34% compared to Brown's 7%) and 'in touch with the concerns of ordinary people' (23% compared to Brown's 20%).
It remains to be seen how perceptions of Brown change in the light of his decision not to call an election and the vicious reception it has recieved in the press. 43% of respondents told YouGov that they thought it would be a sign of weakness if Brown didn't call an election but, as we've seen before, people are not necessarily very good at predicting how they'll react to events in the future.
THe other questions give a picture of the parties as pretty evenly matched - Brown is seen as more trustworthy than Cameron, Cameron has a more optmistic and forward-looking vision for Britain, the Conservatives are seen as both likely to do more to support the family and more to raise peoples quality of life by marginally more people than Labour.
66% of respondens thought the Conservative's plans to raise the threshhold for inheritance tax was a good policy, 79% approved of their plans to take most first time buyers out of stamp duty. Combined they have once again put the Conservatives as the preferred party on taxation - along with the traditional Tory issues of crime and immigration they also again lead on Europe, with Labour remaining ahead elsewhere.
The tax pledges are not an unadulterated success for the Tories though, 32% of people think their sums don't add up, with only 22% confident that they all square. Despite the fact that the Conservatives have not pledged to reduce the overall tax burden - the pledges were based on extra taxes elsewhere - 27% of people think that a Conservative government would mean lower taxes than a Labour government. 13% think a Conservative government would mean higher taxes.
