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I've been busy for the last couple of days, so here's a catch up of various poll findings from the last couple of days. Firstly since it's Prince Charles's 60th birthday, a YouGov poll in the Telegraph showed a majority of people thinking Charles is doing a very good or pretty good job as Prince of Wales, and 68% think he is right to air his views on potentially controversial subjects like the environment and GM food. In contrast to earlier polls, more people want him to succeed the Queen as monarch rather than the crown pass directly to Prince William. He will presumably be less pleased to find a drop in the proportion of people who want to see the Duchess of Cornwall become Queen upon Charles's accession. Only 17% wanted Camilla to become Queen, compared to 28% in July 2007.

Moving on, as well as their headline voting intention figures Populus also asked about views of the USA following Barack Obama's victory, reasing some questions they first asked in June 2006. Back then 44% of people thought that America was a force for good in the world, that has now risen to 54%. In 2006 58% thought that it was important for Britain's long-term security that we have a close and special relationship with the USA - that has now risen to 80%.

The same poll suggested that Gordon Brown had won the first round in the battle to cash in on being seen as close to Obama. Brown was seen as closer to Obama in terms of beliefs and policies than David Cameron by 35% to 25%; he was seen as more likely to build a strong working relationship with Obama than David Cameron is by 42% to 35%. On the other hand David Cameron was seen as better representing "the kind of change and progress in Britain that Barack Obama says he represents in America" by 34% to 30%.

Finally, generously splashing out on all of one question (the money they are saving on Jonathan Ross's salary they could afford some proper, thorough polling) an ICM poll for the BBC found that 68% of people thought that the UK should withdraw troops from Afghanistan within a year.

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