New YouGov Poll
Today's Telegraph has a new YouGov poll with topline figures (with changes from their poll a week ago) of CON 40%(-2), LAB 27%(-1), LDEM 18%(+1). Others are up 1 at 15%.
Changes are all very minor, but it is the lowest Conservative lead from YouGov since June (and to answer Mike Smithson's question, if it is a knock from Nigel Farage getting lots of UKIP publicity over the weekend, it hasn't registered on UKIP's support - they remain on 5%, the same as in the two YouGov polls last week).
I'll digest this poll properly and post more later.
UPDATE: I've had a look at the rest of the poll - full tables are here. Firstly YouGov asked about the Conservative description of Britain as a "broken society", and found overwhelming agreement, with 75% of people agreeing and only 15% disagreeing. Asking about their own local area, 46% of people still agree (this is a common pattern, you get the same contrast if you ask about local NHS services, local police services, etc compared to the NHS nationally and the police nationally).
Moving on YouGov explored a series of, mainly negative, comments about the Conservatives and David Cameron. The one that met with most support was "David Cameron talks a good line but it's hard to know whether there is any substance behind the words" - agreed with by 64%. 55% thought it was hard to know what the Conservatives stood for, 38% that Cameron was all spin and no substance. 38% thought that the Conservatives did NOT better reflect the values of the British people than they used to. There was less support for the statements that David Cameron lacked the necessary experience to be Prime Minister (34% thought it was true, but 44% disagred) or that David Cameron had abandoned too many of the Conservatives traditional principles (agreed with by only 17%, down from 32% when YouGov last asked in September 2007).
The Telegraph's analysis of this is written up to be part of an "obstacles Cameron still faces before getting to Downing Street" type narrative, but it's worth questioning how much of an obstacle they are. When a party trails in the polls, they need to convert supporters of other parties (or no party), so if opposition supporters think badly of them it matters, those are the people they need to convert. At present however the Conservatives have a large lead in the polls, so if Labour supporters think David Cameron is inexperienced and insubstantial it doesn't really matter. While I am sure they would like to gain even more support if they could, more essential is consolidating the support of those people who presently support them, which as it stands is enough to win.
Looking back at these statements, the response to many of them is wholly partisan. 38%, for example, think Cameron is all spin and no substance, but this is almost entirely a partisan response - Conservative supporters overwhelmingly disagree, Labour supporters overwhelmingly agree. The people who don't think the Conservatives better reflect the values and aspirations of British people are again, overwhelmingly people who are voting Labour or Liberal Democrat.
It gets more interesting with the 64% who agree with the statement that "David Cameron talks a good line but it's hard to know whether there is any substance behind the words" - this includes 48% of Conservative voters - so here we have one weakness for Cameron. On the other hand, so far this problem clearly isn't stopping people supporting him. The statement that it's hard to know what the Conservative party stands for also has some traction with Conservative supporters, 25% of whom think it is true.
The survey suggests the areas whether Conservative supporters have doubts - and hence the potential weaknesses threatening Cameron - are how the things he says now would work in practice, and a lack of clarity about what the Conservatives would do.
YouGov went on to ask what people thought the result of 4 or 5 years of Tory government would be on various measures like crime, standards of health care, taxation and so on. Mostly these answers were pretty predictable - Conservative supporters think things will get better or stay the same, Labour and Lib Dem supporters think things will get worse. There were two interesting exceptions to the pattern - in terms of tax, on balance even Conservative supporters tend to think taxes paid by people like them to rise after 4 or 5 years of Tory government. The second exception is immigration, where supporters of all parties tend to think a Conservative government would reduce the overall level of immigration.
