Populus/Times - 39/32/21

Populus's poll for the Times is out here. The topline figures are CON 39%(-1), LAB 32%(+2), LDEM 21%(+1). Changes are from way back in February, since Populus did a marginal poll instead in March.

Populus found economic optimism continuing to rise, the net economic optimism figure was minus 10, compared to minus 21 in February. Straight after the budget YouGov picked up a sharp drop in economic optimism, perhaps due to the budget reminding how bad the economic situation was. These latest Populus figures showing economic optimism continuing to rise suggest that was a short term effect.

I've repeatedly come back to questions on "time for a change" over the last few years, and they have tended to be pretty consistent in showing about 70% or so of people saying it it time for a change. In today's Populus poll they ask a question breaking it down a bit further - 75% of people said it was time for a change, but that was made up of only 34% who said it was time for a change to the Conservatives, and 41% who thought it was time for a change from Labour... but weren't sure whether it was time for a change to the Tories. Only 18% did not think it was time for a change.

This question probably sums up the situation as good as any single question can. The overwhelming majority of people want a change from the current Labour government, but a large proportion of them are not sold on the Conservatives (to use the rather annoying cliche - Cameron has not "sealed the deal"). Populus appear to have given those people who would like a change, but aren't sold on the Tories, a list of potential reasons why - the most agreed with statement was that the Conservatives were too negative on 80% (though people invariably agree with this sort of statement about all politicians), followed by doubting whether the Conservatives would put ordinary people first (72%) which I expect is more of the problem. Next came 68% of the doubters who agreed that the Conservatives had not put forward a strong enough case for change and 67% who feared they would cut spending too quickly and deeply. Less widespread amongst the doubters were fears that the Tories would cut the NHS (53%), or that Cameron was inexperienced (49%).

Funnily enough the Times article quotes the party shares to one decimal place, something that pollsters generally avoid. When party levels of support have a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, quoting them to one decimal place does risk making them look more precise than it is possible for polls to be (UPDATE - the Times article has now got the numbers rounded to whole numbers. Good!)