YouGov/Times - CON 31, LAB 34, LD 8, UKIP 17, GRN 3
This morning's Times had a new YouGov poll, full tables are here.
Topline voting intention was CON 31%, LAB 34%, LDEM 8%, UKIP 17%, GRN 3%. The poll follows a torrid few weeks for the Conservative party - a badly received budget, IDS's resignation, the Tata steelworks and the week long fuss over David Cameron's tax affairs. All of that has occured against the backdrop of the party arguing with itself over Europe and saying very little about any other issue. It's always difficult to link a drop in support in the polls to specific events, but there are plenty of plausible reasons for a fall.
YouGov's latest topline figures for the EU referendum are REMAIN 50%, LEAVE 50%. Looking at the underlying questions, there are a couple of significant movements in favour of LEAVE. Firstly on terrorism, 25% of people now think that Britain would be safer from terrorism if we left the EU (up from 16% back in February) - perhaps an impact from the Brussels terrorist attacks. Secondly trust in David Cameron on the issue of Europe has dropped sharply, from 29% to 21%. In fairness, trust in most of the leave figures (including Boris Johnson) has fallen too - the only person whose figures have increased is Jeremy Corbyn, who with 28% trust is now more trusted on Europe than Cameron.
Looking at some more general questions on the Tory leadership David Cameron's ratings have declined there too. In December his lead over Jeremy Corbyn as best Prime Minister was twenty-six points, now it is only seven points (almost all due to Cameron's rating falling, rather than Corbyn's increasing) - 32% Cameron (down 17), 25% Corbyn (up 2). As with the voting intention figures, I would be cautious about jumping to conclusions about the reasons for the drop in Cameron's ratings - while the questions were asked just after the row over his investments, in the same people people said by 45% to 35% that Cameron hadn't actually done anything wrong. It is just as likely to be the impact from the budget, from the general running of the government or from Cameron losing the support and loyalty of Conservative voters who are backing leave. It will be interesting to see to what degree the ratings of the Conservative party and David Cameron himself recover once the referendum is finally over and they can get on with something else (assuming, of course, that Cameron's leadership survives the aftermath)
On the subject of Cameron's future 31% of people now think he should step down in the next year (up from 18% in December), compared to 36% who think he should stay until 2019 or later (down from 50% in December). If Britain votes to leave the European Union 44% think that Cameron should resign. In
terms of a successor, Boris Johnson remains the clear favourite of the public and of Conservative voters. Support for George Osborne is now very low - he is the choice of only 4% of the public, of only 2% of Conservative voters (behind Michael Gove and Sajid Javid). Osborne even lags behind Jeremy Corbyn in a question on who would make the best Prime Minister - he will have some catching up to do to repair his reputation ahead of any leadership election.
