Sunday Polls post Davis
There are two new polls in the Sunday newspapers, our first chance to see what the public's response is to David Davis's shock resignation. A new ComRes poll in the Independent on Sunday began its fieldwork prior to Davis' resignation so contains no specific questions on the subject. The topline voting intentions, with changes from their last poll, are CON 44%(nc), LAB 26%(-4), LDEM 17%(+1). Fieldwork was conducted between the 11th and 12th June.
This suggests a further fall in Labour's support, but is actually almost identical to the last ComRes poll for the Indy on Sunday, so the difference may be just variations due to sample error or a difference produced by doing the fieldwork mid week rather than over the weekend.
Other questions in the survey asked respondents whether two potential alternate Labour leaders would make better Prime Ministers than Gordon Brown, and provide, if not a wholehearted endorsement of Brown, at least a rebuttal of the idea that absolutely anyone would be better than Brown. Asked if Alan Johnson would be a better Prime Minister than Gordon Brown, 37% agreed, but 41% disagreed - including 66% of remaining Labour voters. Asked about David Miliband, 37% thought he would be better than Brown, but 43% disagreed.
Looking at the timing of the interviews, those conducted after David Davis' resignation would appear to show a lower Conservative lead, but I would be wary of reading anything at all into this - firstly the numbers of people in each subsample are very small, so any contrast could easily be sample error, secondly you do tend to get different political skews at different times of the day when conducting a poll simply because different socio-economic groups are at home answering the telephone.
A second poll, this time by YouGov for the Sunday Times, was conducted between the 12th and 13th of June and was done post-Davis's resignation. The topline voting intention figures, with changes from YouGov's last poll, are CON 47%(nc), LAB 25%(+2), LDEM 18%(nc). Here, therefore, Davis's resignation doesn't seem to have made any obvious difference to Tory support, though Labour are up slightly.
The one single question on Davis (suggesting it was very much shoved in at the last minute as the news broke) asks if people think it was a genuine act of principle or a cynical ploy to help the Conservative party or his own career - 29% thought it was an act of principle, 41% thought it was a cynical ploy. Of course, this would have been asked people people had had time to digest the news or read the print media's reaction, so opinions may since have changed massively - given the last responses from David Cameron and media speculation of internal ructions and Conservative bewilderment, I suspect considerable fewer people would now think it a cunning party ruse! I'll be more confident judging the public's response to David Davis - both directly and in terms of voting intention - when we see polls conducted once the news had time to sink in.
As usual with the Sunday Times, there are also both trackers and questions on a wide variety of other subjects. On the performance of the party leaders, Gordon Brown recived another dire score, with a net rating of minus 62, one down from his record low last month. David Cameron's net rating was at +37 from +33 last month, so no damage to his leadershuip yet from the Davis affair (though again - it's still early).
Respondents' economic outlook is pessimistic, but not quite at panic stations. 5% think the present state of the economy is quite good, compared to 49% who think it is quite bad and 24% who think it is very bad. Around 90% of respondents think economic growth will get worse over the next 12 months, but only 31% think there will be an actual recession. 68% think house prices will drop. A majority (67%) of people blame Gordon Brown to some extent for the present economic problems.
On the 42 days law, 53% thought Gordon Brown was right to press for the new law, 37% disagreed (this is a lower level of support for 42 days than some other polls have shown, but I suspect the reason is that the question involved saying Gordon Brown was right!). Asked how the balance should be struck between civil liberties and defeating the threat from terrorism, 38% thought defeating terrorism should take precedence, 14% thought civil liberties should - 41% thought both should be equally important.
On the question of the EU referendum (the overwhelming majority (if not all) of the responses to the survey would have been collected before it was clear that Ireland had voted No) 63% of respondents saud that Britain should have had a referendum. 44% said they would vote against the treaty in a referendum, 19% would vote yes.
Finally, the poll asked about attitudes towards the Conservatives. 40% now think that the Conservatives are ready for government (you may well ask why this is less than the percentage who would vote for them - it probably isn't, remember voting intention excludes don't knows and wont votes, while this question doesn't), with 33% disagreeing. However, only 32% say they know enough about what David Cameron would do if he was in power, 37% of people say they don't.
