YouGov on Europe, lobbying and energy prices
The full tabs for the YouGov/Sunday Times poll are now on their website here. On the regular trackers, David Cameron's approval rating stands at minus 7 (from minus 8 last week), Ed Miliband at minus 34 (from minus 31 a week ago, and equalling his lowest rating ever) and Nick Clegg minus 43 (from minus 46 a week ago). On the economic trackers 2% think the economy is in a good state, compared to 84% thinking it is in a bad state - the most pessimistic YouGov have shown to date.
On the regular Libya questions that YouGov have asked since the start of British involvement, 45% now think the West were right to intervene, compared to 31% who think it was wrong. 62% think the West's intervention has gone well, compared to 17% who think it has gone badly. 56% think Gaddafi's death will improve the situation in Libya, compared to 13% who think it will make things worse.
The rest of the poll asked about Europe, lobbying and energy prices. Turning to the topical issue of Europe, David Cameron is the most trusted leader on handling Britain's relations with the EU, but only by 27% to Miliband's 14%. 44% of people say they do not trust any of the main party leaders to handle the issue. On overall attitudes to Europe, 10% of people would like a more integrated Europe, 13% are happy with the status quo, 40% want a less integrated Europe, and 27% would like Britain to completely withdraw from the EU.
66% of people would support a referendum on Europe, though it has to be said that people will support a referendum on almost any issue - it's almost like asking "Should you be allowed a say on X, or are you too effing stupid to decide?". For the vote this week, 63% think it should be a free vote, 14% that it should be whipped... though one could apply a similar caveat there, the general public generally like the idea of MPs being free to vote as they wish, it's not necessarily any reflection on the issue. I've yet to see a poll where people think MPs should vote with the party line and not rebel. I'm going to try to put up a post giving a more general overview of the Europe issue today or tomorrow.
Looking at lobbying and party funding, people overwhelmingly (74%) think that party funding is not very open or honest. However, there is also very little (20%) support for state funding of political parties. 54% of people think that lobbyists have too much influence in politics and 75% would support a register of all meetings between lobbyists and ministers. 40% of people say they trust David Cameron to reform lobbying, 43% do not.
Finally on energy prices, 92% of people think energy companies are not providing good value. 88% of people say they are charging more than they should be and taking advantage of the public, only 8% think high energy costs are due to world prices or taxes (this means the energy companies have much less public sympathy than the oil companies, who are hardly popular in the first place - when YouGov asked an almost identical question about oil companies in August only 52% thought they were taking advantage of the public).
58% of people think it is very or fairly easy for people to change their energy supplier, but 56% think it is very or fairly difficult to compare the prices offered by different suppliers. 87% support tougher rules to make energy prices easier to understand.
Finally on energy, 48% think it is more important for the government to keep current energy prices low than it is to spend money on promoting renewable energy. 32% think it is more important to promote renewable energy for the future.
