What people noticed from the manifestos
Over on the YouGov website I've an article about what people recall from the Conservative and Labour manifestos. One of the reasons manifestos don't usually matter is, put simply, that most people don't read them. The reason policies don't really matter is that most people are largely unaware of them. The way to judge a manifesto is not whether people approve of the policies in them, but whether people approve of the policies that they actually noticed.
At the start of the week YouGov asked people an open ended question, asking without any prompting if they could remember any of the promises that Labour or the Conservatives had made in their election manifestos
For Labour there were clear cut throughs by positive policies: 32% of people recalled the promise to axe tuition fees, 21% remembered promises to increase NHS funding, 20% recalled promises to nationalise the railways, Royal Mail or National Grid. All of these are policies which polling has found the public generally support, and which are relatively clear and easy to understand.
For the Conservative party only one policy was recalled by more than one in five people - the changes to care funding (which was often described as dementia tax, or taking old peoples homes, or similarly negative terms). In contrast to the simple and popular policies that people recalled from Labour, the one cut-through policy from the Tory manifesto was both unpopular and complicated. The next most recalled policies were going ahead with Brexit (recalled by 12%) and means-testing the Winter Fuel Allowance (10%).
Of course even when people do recall policies, that's not really what they vote on - voting behaviour is much more about the broad perceptions of the parties, what they stand for, their leaders and their perceived competence. There are clear signs that the poor Conservative manifesto launch fed through into that.
Before the manifesto launches 35% of people thought the Conservative party's policies seemed well thought-through, 38% did not. A week later only 19% think their policies are well thought-through, 54% do not. Contrast this with the positive impact of Labour's manifesto. Before their launch only 25% of people thought they had well-thought through policies, now 31% of people do.
When a key plank of the Conservative party's offering to the country has been the claim that they are the strong and steady party of competence, the drop in the proportion of people thinking they've well thought-through policies for the country should be worrying for them.
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