Populus polls on the NHS and British Muslims

Populus's weekly poll for the Daily Politics is on the NHS today - full figures here.

40% of respondents thought that the NHS had improved in the last 10 years, with 54% disagreeing. A slight majority (52%) of people thought that the money Labour had invested in the NHS had been wasted, although this certainly doesn't mean that people are relaxed about any decrease in NHS spending, 64% of people disagree with the statement that "Taxes in Britain are too high, and tax rates should be cut even if that means the government having to cut back spending on public services like the NHS".

Asked about private provision within the NHS, there seemed to be little opposition in principle to private healthcare provision - 85% agreed with the statement that "I don't care whether health services like hip operations are provided by the public or private sector, so long as the service is free, fast and effective".

Today's Times also published the last couple of questions from Populus's monthly poll. Populus repeated some of the questions about attitudes to Muslims from their poll for the anniversary of the London tube bombings. Like polls about the death penalty, which only ever seem to get asked straight after particularly horrific crimes or notorious trials, polls about attitudes towards British Muslims often only seem to get asked straight after terrorist atrocities, arrests or anniversaries. It is good , therefore, to have some of the same questions at a more neutral time. The percentages of people who thought Muslims needed to do more to integrate (71%) and thought Muslim leaders should do more to root out and condemn terrorist sympathisers (79%) were not much changed from July. The proportion of people who thought that "Muslims make a valuable contribution to British society" had risen noticably - up to 69% from 59% last time.

In reference to the fuss last week about the Muslim police officer who was excused from patrolling outside the Israeli embassy (although Populus did not refer to it directly in the question), 76% of people agreed that "British Muslims serving in the police force or Armed services should not be treated differently, or allowed exemptions from certain duties, just because of their religion." Sadly the poll didn't include any question on Jack Straw's comments about wearing the veil, which I thought someone might have polled about so far - newspapers have instead been resorting to silly voodoo polls. Populus's fieldwork was conducted after Straw's comments, but presumably the questions had already been finalised before the story really got going (or, of course, the Times might just not thought it worth asking about!)

UPDATE: The Times have confirmed that it was indeed just sod's law, they finalised the questions with Populus just before the Jack Straw story broke.