More from YouGov's Sunday poll
YouGov's tables in the Sunday Times are now online here. As usual the Sunday Times asked about an interesting range of topics. Looking at the trackers and the economic figures first, Gordon Brown's approval rating has jumped significantly - up to minus 21, its highest since April. David Cameron stands at plus 12, his lowest since February 2009. Asked how much they trusted each party to reduce government borrowing without endangering country's recovery from recession, the two main parties were neck and neck: Brown and Darling were trusted by 31%, not trusted by 64%. Cameron and Osborne were trusted by 30%, not trusted by 63%. People's impression of the current state of the economy had improved very slightly - 74% thought the economy at the moment was bad, down from 77% in January and the lowest since way back in June 2008. However, people were not particularly optimistic looking forward, with 51% saying it was likely that the country would slip back into recession this year.
YouGov also asked about Conservative and (rumored) Labour plans on social care, and found they had exactly the same levels of public support. 34% said they would support a 10% inheritance tax to pay for long term care, 34% supported the Conserivatives' voluntary "insurance" scheme.
Asked about Gordon Brown's interview with Piers Morgan, respondents were pretty evenly divided over whether this sort of interview was a good thing or not - 44% viewed politicians talking about their private lives positively, 48% negatively. Very few people however said Brown's interview would make any difference to their vote. 10% said it made them more likely to vote Labour, 8% less likely. Regular readers will know my concerns over questions like this, and in this case I expect if the interview does have an effect on votes it would be an indirect effect of people generally being more open minded towards Gordon Brown, rather than a direct "He seems okay, maybe I'll vote for him after all" effect.
Finally YouGov asked people what they thought the Liberal Democrats should do in the case of a hung Parliament where they could support either Labour or the Conservatives - should they form a coalition with Labour, the Conservatives, or remain in opposition (the question said form a coalition with, which isn't really perfect since they are probably more likely to support a minority government, but there goes). The public as a whole split pretty evenly three ways, but the responses of party supporters are quite interesting - a large majority (72%) of Labour supporters would want the Lib Dems to form a coalition with Labour. Conservative supporters were slightly less enthusiastic, only 59% said the Lib Dems should back the Tories, with 29% preferring them to stay in oppostion. Amongst the Liberal Democrats own supporters 34% would like the party to back Labour, 33% to remain in opposition, and 22% to back the Conservatives.
Asked if there should be a second election in the event of a hung Parliament, 34% said yes, 53% said there should be a full length Parliament with the parties working together. Once again, there were interesting (if not wholly surprising) party splits. A majority (51%) of Tory supporters thought there should be a second election to try for a clear decision, a majority of Labour supporters (54%) thought there should be no further election, and an overwhelming majority (78%) of Liberal Democrat supporters thought there should be no second election.
This evening/tonight we will be getting the YouGov figures for today's polling and ICM in the Guardian.
