YouGov/Sunday Times - CON 30, LAB 40, LD 9, UKIP 14
This week's YouGov/Sunday Times results are now up online here. Topline voting intention figures are CON 30%, LAB 40%, LDEM 9%, UKIP 14%. The ten point lead is now on the upper side of YouGov's recent polling (the Labour lead has started to settle at around 8 or 9 points) but within the normal margin of error.
Attitudes towards the economy remain pessimistic, but less so than the last two years. A majority of people now regard David Cameron and George Osborne being at least a fair amount to blame for the state of the economy. 25% think Osborne should take a lot of the blame, 28% a fair amount; 21% think Cameron should take a lot of the blame, 30% a fair amount. However Gordon Brown is still much more widely blamed for the state of the economy, with 37% blaming him a lot, 32% a fair amount.
Of the people asked about (Cameron, Osborne, Brown, Darling and Balls) Ed Balls is the least blamed, but even then 44% think he should carry a lot or a fair amount of blame, only 35% little or no blame. I'm intrigued by this finding, for the political anoraks amongst us Ed Balls is a man who was extremely close to Gordon Brown and was his political ally, confidant and one time advisor. However, I can't believe the public, 36% of whom can't even recognise a photo of Ed Balls are particular aware of that. It does raise the question of why people are so ready to put at least some blame on someone who didn't even hold an economic portfolio at the last election. Some of it will be a purely partisan answer of course, but even 23% of current Labour voters think Balls should carry some blame for the current state of the economy. Perhaps it's just some people putting some collective blame on all the last government, or blaming the whole of the current political class.
Moving on to Ed Miliband's welfare announcements, we knew from previous polling that people supported the idea of stopping Winter Fuel Payments for richer pensioners and supported the ending of child benefit for higher earners - they still do. 62% of people also think that Miliband’s proposal to cap the total cost of benefits is a good idea.
There is less confidence whether Miliband really believes in what he is saying - only 23% think he is capping the cost of benefit because he thinks it is right, 60% think he doesn’t believe it but is only doing it for political reasons. This may well just reflect general cynicism towards politics though, rather than anything about Miliband in particular – YouGov found almost identical figures in the past when we asked about David Cameron and gay marriage.
Finally YouGov asked a chunk of questions about social mobility. People are broadly divided over levels of social mobility in Britain today. 38% think that anyone with talent who is willing to work hard can rise to the top, 43% think that success is mostly reserved for those from privileged backgrounds. 37% think that social mobility has improved, 40% that is has got worse. There is a very obvious difference between supporters of different political parties, the vast majority (71%) of Tory voters think that talent and hard work will bring success, wherever you start from, most Labour supporters (59%) think success is mostly reserved for those from privileged backgrounds.
The perception seems to be that social class is much more of a barrier in the professions than age or gender. Only 21% think that senior professional positions are unfairly dominated by white people, 63% think they are open to people from all racial backgrounds. 39% think they are unfairly dominated by men, but 49% think men and women have equal opportunities. When it comes to social class 56% think the professions are unfairly dominated by the affluent middle class, while only 31% think they are open to people of all class backgrounds. This may, of course, just be an "I'm alright Jack" distinction - most respondents are white, so won't be personally disadvantaged by race. Almost half of respondents will be male, so shouldn't lose out through gender. However, for almost all respondents there will be someone higher up the class scale who they can worry they are losing out to.
On nepotism people overwhelmingly think it is acceptable for parents to help their children to get jobs (by 78% to 12%), and would overwhelmingly arrange for a child to get work experience at their own place of work, or call in favours to arrange work experience elsewhere. A majority (55%) do, however, think that it is wrong and unfair for companies to offer UNPAID internships.
