YouGov/Sunday Times - 41/39/11
Topline figures for the YouGov/Sunday Times poll are CON 41%, LAB 39%, LDEM 11%. Proper report to follow tomorrow morning once the Sunday Times report and the tables are up.
UPDATE: Voting intention is pretty typical of late, but some of the findings are more negative for the government. Both David Cameron and Nick Clegg's approval ratings are down, David Cameron's is plus 11, but Nick Clegg is minus 6, the first time he has registered a negative approval score since the general election (this does mean Ed Miliband has the highest approval rating of the three party leaders, though that will largely be the honeymoon effect - he still gets 42% don't knows to the question).
On whether the government are running the economy well or badly we also have the first negative score since the election - 42% think they are doing well, but 45% think they are doing badly. All in all, not a good set of results for the government.
Looking at the rest of the survey, YouGov concentrated upon the spending review and the tuition fees.
On tuition fees YouGov found the same negative reactions as in the polling for the Sun during the week. Only 24% said they supported removing the cap on fees (lower than the poll in the week, but this one asked only about removing the cap - the YouGov/Sun poll in the week asked about the whole package, including raising the point where respondents had to pay back their loan, and found 38% support).
On the CSR, 29% think the government have the balance between cuts and taxes right, 29% would rather have higher taxes, 15% would rather have even larger cuts. 35% think the speed of cuts is about right, 43% think it is too fast and 8% too slow. 58% think they themselves will be affected by the cuts. All-in-all, the poll suggests people are somewhat apprehensive towards the forthcoming cuts, but we'll obviously see their actual reaction within the week.
Personally I found the most interesting questions on the cuts were, first, that 53% think the cuts won't be achieved (I haven't seen a similar question asked before) and, secondly, that asked who people think will bear the biggest burden from the cuts, 48% said middle income people compared to only 35% who said people on low incomes. I shall have to have a dig around, but I think when similar questions have been asked in the past people expected people on low incomes to suffer the most. If so the switch may well be the impact of the child benefit saga.
