More from YouGov's Sun Poll
The full tables for YouGov's Sun poll are up on their website here.
The questions on the two party leaders aren't particularly flattering for either of them. 56% think Gordon Brown has no understanding or what ordinary people are going through, 54% think he is not providing the country with strong leadership, only 28% think he has sensible policies for tackling the current crisis.
These figures are a reminder that Gordon Brown is still viewed very negatively - when we talk about the improvement in his image, it is important to remember that it hasn't gone from bad to good, it's gone from atrocious to merely bad. Several of the questions in this poll were asked by YouGov back in September 2008 and illustrate this well: Brown's net score on understanding real people's problems has improved by 17 points since early September... but from minus 40 to minus 23. His net score on providing strong government has shot up by 30 points... but from minus 52 to minus 22.
David Cameron's ratings on the same question aren't particularly wonderful either, while he has a net positive rating on providing strong leadership (41% to 35%), 48% agree that he doesn't understand what ordinary people are going through and only 26% think he has sensible policies for tackling Britain's economic problems, though this is an area where one might have expected there to be a larger Labour/Brown lead - once again, the polling evidence is that the Labour charge that the Conservatives are a do nothing party doesn't appear to be resonating.
Asked about the economy itself, people say they are more worried about the economic downturn and unemployment (54%) than they are the government borrowing too much and having to raise taxes in the future (40%). However, when asked about their preferred solution, they seem to shy away from more borrowing. Only 21% of respondents said their preferred option was for the government to cut taxes and spend more now, and then pay for it later once the economy had recovered. 40% preferred the route of cutting taxes by cutting back on public spending. 23% said they would prefer the government to do neither.
This would suggest that the Conservative stance on the economy should be the electoral winner. However, asked where they would like spending cuts to fall, the results are predictably that people would like less spent on foreign people (overseas aid and subscriptions to international bodies are by far the most popular areas for cuts), on long term things (climate change) and then on things that don't affect them directly (subsidies to farmers or the post office, the armed services, welfare benefits for the poor). Very few people say they would prefer spending to be cut on schools and hospitals.
