Round up of latest polls
A poll in the Sunday Express asked about the comments of Sir Richard Dannatt. 74% of people said they agreed with his comments, and 71% of people said he should not be sacked. 57% of people said they agreed that Muslim extremists were exploiting a "moral and spiritual vacuum" in Britain. The Express report isn't online and I can't find the exact working of these questions, so it might be wise to wait for it to go up on ICM's website before drawing any firm conclusions, but there certainly seems to be backing for Dannatt.
Another ICM poll, this time for More 4's new talk show with David Starkey asked about Gordon Brown's nationality. 59% of people in England told ICM they would be influenced by whether there is a Scottish leader of the Labour party at the next election. Of that 59%, 93% said they would be influenced negatively, and 7% said they would be influenced positively. Previous polls have also shown that significant proportions of people would be in some way concerned if the Prime Minister came from a Scottish seat. I am somewhat wary of these questions, simply because Gordon Brown is the presumptive Prime Minister and is a Scottish MP with a Scottish accent in a Scottish seat. How many people are going to answer a question like this without viewing it through the prism of Gordon Brown?
MORI have released a new poll for the Young Foundation asking about attitudes towards political parties and found a minority of people very disillusioned with political parties. Generally speaking 45% of people thought that political parties are good in a democratic system, only 6% disagreed - but further on, 24% agreed strongly or somewhat with the statement that "political parties in Britain are a hindrance to democracy", and 25% thought that "Britain would be better off if political parties did not exist, and all politicians were independent". Given the low option of politicians in this country I personally was surprised that the figure wasn't higher. Asked what changes would make political parties more attractive to them, the most popular option was "Involving people more in local decision making", cited by 54%, suggesting that the Conservative party's current experiments with open primaries has the potential to help improve their party image.
Finally YouGov have released figures from a poll conducted for Paul Sykes' new Euro-sceptic speak-out campaign. Overall 77% of people say they would support a campaign for a referendum on the re-patriation of some powers currently exercised by the EU, with 12% opposed.
