YouGov pre-budget poll

There is also a YouGov pre-budget poll in this morning's Sun. In MORI's poll they showed a drop in economic confidence, YouGov (who ask about the financial situation in people's own household, rather than the economy as a whole) found an even sharper drop, down to -43, the worst since last January.

Nevertheless, people on balance supported the government's economic policy, with 47% expecting cuts to be good for the economy compared to 30% bad. However, the public were evenly split on whether the cuts risks puttign the country back into recession and whether they would be carried out in a far manner or not. Blame for the impending cuts continued to be placed upon the outgoing Labour government, with 49% blaming Labour, 19% the coalition and 18% both of them.

Respondents expressed strong support for both an increase in the personal tax allowance (64% support) and a new tax on banks (76% support). Asked about other specific tax rises, the most popular were the "sin taxes" on alcohol and cigarettes, higher corporation tax and a rise in the higher rate of income tax. This is pretty much par for the course - polls normally show the most popular taxes being those on people richer than the respondent, those on businesses and the "sin taxes".

The least popular options were higher petrol duty, higher council tax, VAT on food and childrens clothes, or an increase in the basic rate of income tax.

UPDATE: Tables are here

UPDATE2: Voting intention figures from the poll are now also up on the YouGov website here (and lest it be misconstrued by me putting it up at 4pm, these are pre-budget voting intention figures from yesterday). Voting intention stands at CON 41%, LAB 33%, LDEM 18%. Note that these are also being carried out with YouGov's new post-election weighting figures, of which much more later.