New Harris poll, YouGov on Unite and Defence
Metro have a new poll from Harris. The topline figures with changes from their poll a week ago are CON 36%(-1), LAB 28%(-1), LDEM 18%(nc). Others are at 18%, continuing the tendency for the newer online companies to show very high figures for others. The poll was conducted between the 10th and 16th of March, making rather a mockery of Metro's conclusions that the poll shows the "row over Labour's links to the union Unite do not appear to have significantly damaged its support". That'll be because most of the fieldwork predated it.
On the subject of Unite, YouGov's poll for the Sun on Wednesday had some British Airways questions. 23% of respondents thought that the BA strike was justified, with 59% thinking it was unjustified. On the other political argument to hit Labour this week, 61% told YouGov that they though Gordon Brown had knowingly misled the Chilcot inquiry over defence spending, with only 21% thinking it was an innocent mistake. Despite this, yesterday's poll didn't show any damage to Labour.
Of course, it might be a delay, but as I said yesterday I expect it's partially because most stories don't have any impact (the public pay far less attention to politics than we tend to imagine), and partially because you'd probably get a similar negative response if you asked about any politician - just because people think Gordon Brown dissembles, it doesn't mean they don't think all other politicians aren't just as bad.
