YouGov on Cameron's 100 days
Tomorrow's Sun has some YouGov polling around David Cameron's first hundred(ish) days in power. Topline voting intention is CON 41%, LAB 37%, LDEM 15%, a four percent lead for the Conservatives. Over the last week or so YouGov seem to have started to show leads of around 4 or 5 points for the Tories, compared to 5 or 6 a couple of weeks ago. Ever so slowly the polls are narrowing.
Before looking at the 100 days questions, the fortnightly tracker on the alternative vote referendum is worth noting - 37% would vote yes, 38% would vote no. This question has bounced about a bit from poll to poll, so I wouldn't be surprised if we got a plurality for yes again in a fortnight's time, but nevertheless, it's the first poll to show the NO camp in the lead and suggests there is a downwards trend underneath the noise. Labour voters, who polls initially showed supporting AV, in this poll back FPTP by 46% to 34%.
Moving on to the additional questions, looking back at the first 100 days Cameron (+20), Clegg (+5) and Osborne (+7) all enjoy good approval ratings; all significantly more positive than that of the government as a whole, today's net approval there is once again +1.
The majority of the public have confidence in the government's ability to run the economy (55%)
and there is widespread confidence in their ability to cut the deficit (62%). However, the public are generally pessimistic about their ability to deliver in other areas - less than half have confidence in their ability to improve the NHS (32%)and schools (32%), cut crime (33%) or immigration (39%) and to protect the country against terrorism (42%).
Asked about some of the specific policies the government have introduced or announced during their time in office, the most popular were aiming to withdraw troops from Afghanistan by 2015 (80%), limiting housing benefit (72%), cutting the number of MPs (77%) and protecting NHS spending (79%). The least popular were the increase in VAT (supported by only 22%) and the free schools policy (supported by 37%).
Moving onto attitudes to the coalition, 44% think that the Conservatives got the better deal, 29% that the Lib Dems did (amusingly enough, Conservatives are more likely to think that Lib Dems got the better deal, Lib Dem supporters that the Conservatives did). 34% of people think that the government would have been worse had the Conservatives been in power alone, compared to 23% who think it would have been better (including only 55% of Conservative supporters, 31% of Tories think it would have made no differece and 8% think it would have been worse).
Opinions on the Lib Dems are rather mixed. 55% think they have moderated the government and made it more centrist, and 60% think going into the coalition was the responsible thing for the Lib Dems to do given the economic crisis. However, 59% think it involved selling out their principles, and 62% agree with the statement that it is no longer clear what the Liberal Democrats stand for (including 38% of their own supporters).
Finally, the public still don't expect the coalition to last the distance. Only 14% expect it to last more than four years, 47% expect it to last less than two years. Asked what they expect the result of the next election to be, 40% expect the Conservatives to retain power (27% outright and 13% in a coalition), compared to 28% who think Labour will win (21% outright, and 7% in coalition).
