Cameron and the Conservatives: Polls apart

The indispensible UK Polling Report site summarises a new Channel 4 poll:

Respondents were asked to rate politicans and parties on a scale of “very left-wing”, “fairly left-wing”, “slightly left of centre”, “centre”, “slightly right of centre”, “fairly right-wing” and “very right-wing”, but YouGov have converted into a numerical scale so we can get average results for each politician/party.

The average respondent puts themself at +1, so almost bang on centre. David Cameron is at +33 (the score YouGov gave to “slightly right of centre”), marginally more centrist than last year when he scored +35 and +34 and significantly more centrist than his predecessor Michael Howard was in 2005 (+53).

However, despite Cameron being more centrist, he has barely shifted perceptions of the Conservative party as a whole, who have an average score of +52, compared to +50 and +53 last year. Sadly YouGov didn’t ask the question about the party in April 2005, but still being seen as just as right-wing as Michael Howard was doesn’t suggest perceptions of the Conservative party beyond Cameron himself have moved to the centre!

While perceptions of Cameron and the Conservatives have remained static since last year, views of Gordon Brown and Labour have shifted... or more to the point, they have swapped places. In February 2006, the Labour party as a whole scored an average of -27 on the scale, with Gordon Brown seen as somewhat more centrist at -21.

In September 2006 perceptions of Brown and the Labour Party in general were almost identical. The latest figures show Labour on an average of -22, but Brown on -26. Strangely enough, Brown is now seen as more left-wing than the Labour Party in general are.

The Conservative Party still has a lot of work to do.

Comments

[David Moss]

"The Conservative Party still has a lot of work to do."

Agreed.

Part of that work should be to change people's perception of Labour, to bring it into line with reality. They are not a -22, moderate party.

Labour's treatment of the Constitution has been vandalistic at best and revolutionary at worst.

And their civil liberties agenda is doing the terrorists' work for them.

I don't know whether that makes them +100 or -100 but it certainly isn't the record of a centrist party*.

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* http://dematerialisedid.com/BCSL/Gauntlet.pdf