More from YouGov's Sunday poll
As usual, the Sunday Times commissioned questions on quite a grab bag of topics. The full results are here, and here are a few of the other interesting findings therein. Firstly, asked about the pre-budget report, the majority of people supported the measures - 54% to 30% - but there was also little confidence that that they would help make the recession shorter or less severe. 28% thought they would definitely (3%) or probably (25%) make things better, 17% thought they would make things worse, 45% thought they would make little difference at all.
Borrowing still appears to be the weakness in the government's approach. 27% agreed with the statement that ‘It is right for the government to increase borrowing sharply at a time like this, in order to support the economy and stop the recession becoming too deep', but 48% agreed instead with the statement ‘It is wrong for the government to increase borrowing so sharply: any short-term benefits will be less than the longer term costs to the economy and to taxpayers'. Notably, this is the same question that YouGov asked for the Telegraph on the day of the PBR - back then the figures were 33% to 50%, so the balance of opinion has shiftly marginally against borrowing since then.
YouGov went on to give respondents a list of other statements about the economic debate. On the idea of Gordon Brown as a major global figure, taking a lead in deciding world policies was narrowing disagreed with, 44% to 40%, though given the normal public cynicism towards politicians I'd regard this as a very positive finding for Brown. Other findings were less good, 53% agreed that the government weren't actually interested in doing what was best for the economy, only what would help win the election (32% disagreed), 43% thought David Cameron was right to say that Labour's spending plans can't be afforded (32% disagreed). Finally, as with ComRes's survey, there was surprisingly little support for the accusation that the Conservative were a "do nothing" party: 38% agreed and 39% disagreed. As with the question of Brown as a world leader, I'd expect normal public cynicism about politicians to produce support for this statement, but it hasn't.
It would seem from these figures that a weak point for the government seems to be the accusation that they are borrowing too much, a strong point Gordon Brown being seen as a global figure in the forefront of the global effort to manage the economic crisis. The Government attack on the Conservatives as a "do nothing" party meanwhile, doesn't seem to have as much traction as one might have expected.
Moving on, for what I think must be the first time in several years they asked about attitudes to the Euro. 31% of people said Britain should rule out joining on principle, 22% said Britain should not join for the next four or five years at least, 27% supported joining when economic condiction were right, 11% supported joining now. Asked how they would vote in a referendum on joining the Euro, 24% would vote yes, 59% no.
Finally, YouGov asked about airport expansion. 50% of respondents agreed with the statement that "we have to expand out airport capacity or else suffer long-term economic damage", 30% that "we shouldn't expand airport capacity anymore even if it does hurt the economy" (there were 21% don't knows, which I suspect may be high because of respondents who believed you could stop airport expansion without damaging the economy"). On the specific question of the Stanstead protesters, while 48% sympathised with their motives, 81% disapproved of their methods.
