YouGov/Sunday Times - CON 33, LAB 43, LD 10, UKIP 8

Anthony Wells

— 1 min read
Share

YouGov's final Sunday Times poll of the year is online here. Topline figures are CON 33%, LAB 43%, LD 10%, UKIP 8%.

YouGov repeated their semi-regular trust tracker they have asked since 2003. While people in the survey said the Mitchell affair had made them trust the police less, the percentage saying they trusted local police officers was actually almost unchanged - 67% trust local police officers a great deal or a fair amount, typical of all the times YouGov have asked the question in the last few years. There was a slight drop in the proportion of people who trusted senior police officers with 47% of people saying they trusted them. While this is the lowest YouGov have recorded, it is not a significant change from the 49% who said they trusted senior police officers in November.

In contrast the Savile affair does seem to have significantly damaged trust in the BBC. Today's figures actually show a slight increase in trust in the BBC since YouGov last asked the question at the very height of the Savile affair - now 51% of people say they trust the BBC, compared to 44% a month ago - however this is still a significant fall from the BBC's 60% trust rating at the start of the year.

Looking at the more specific questions on plebgate, Andrew Mitchell is now narrowly more believed than the police - 31% think Mitchell is telling the truth, 28% the police, 41% don't know. 43% of people still think that Mitchell probably called the police officer a pleb, but this is a drastic change from September when 69% of people thought he did.

Despite the turnaround in opinion people still think Mitchell was right to resign by 49% to 26%. 29% of people think he should be offered another government job, 40% think he should not. Even if Mitchell's own version of events is proven to be true, many people think that should be a resigning matter anyway - asked about Mitchell's admitted version of events, where he said to the officer "I thought you lot were supposed to f------ help us", 38% of people still think this would be a resigning matter, 44% do not.

Read more