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Exchange: Do voters want cuts?

This is my email exchange with Andrew Cooper, director of the pollster Populus.

To: Andrew Cooper
From: Daniel Finkelstein

Yesterday at Prime Minister's Questions, Gordon Brown seemed to me to be trying a remarkable thing. He is going to press on with the idea of Labour as the party of investment and the Tories as the party of cuts.

There is a severe practical objection to this as a strategy. This financial year, Labour is not cutting its projections, but by election time it will be. And I think this alone might sink the investment vs cuts campaign idea.

But let's leave that big practical problem to one side. I wanted to ask you about what voters think. Have we reached the point that when voters are presented - particularly by Gordon Brown - with the choice of investment or cuts, they may actually choose cuts? Not so much because they like cuts but because they can see they're necessary.

To: Daniel Finkelstein
From: Andrew Cooper

We did a poll a couple of weeks ago (for the BBC Radio 4 Westminster Hour programme) exploring attitudes to tax and spending in the context of the huge public debt & budget deficit.  The bottom line is that about 10% think that the budget should be brought back into balance only by spending cuts, with no tax rises – and about the same proportion thinks the opposite.

So the great majority of people think that both spending cuts and tax rises will be needed in order to bring the budget back into balance over time.  Within this majority, the centre of gravity is slightly towards more spending cuts than tax rises, though the largest single group (37%) think the burden should be borne by both about equally. 

In principle, then, there seems to be an acceptance of the need for (inevitability of) some spending cuts.  But three quarters of voters think that some areas of spending should be protected from cuts – with the NHS and schools most prominently mentioned.

Focus groups constantly find a deep-seated conviction that great amounts of public spending are wasted – but when pressed people don’t know what exactly these are (and they are, archetypally, other people’s areas of spending rather than one’s own).

When our poll asked – unprompted - if there were particular areas of public spending that were ripe for cuts, far and away the most common answer was ‘I don’t know’ and the area of spending mentioned much more than any other (by more than one in eight) was MP’s pay & allowances. We calculated that if we were to eliminate the debt only by abolishing MPs pay and allowances it would take 35,000 years!

To: Andrew Cooper
From: Daniel Finkelstein

There's a second point too. Even if they do choose cuts, will they choose Tory cuts? Maybe Brown is gambling that people wouldn't trust the Tories.

To: Daniel Finkelstein
From: Andrew Cooper

Polling suggests that David Cameron has successfully decontaminated the Conservative Party brand to the point where most voters no longer think that its instincts are malign and therefore that any spending cuts would be against the interests of the many.

The historically familiar huge Labour leads on public services have more or less been eliminated and in polls explicitly about which party is best on tax & spending, the Conservatives generally now have a narrow lead. 

But overall polls also suggest that the Conservative position is soft – lots of voters aren’t quite sure about them.

No doubt Gordon Brown hopes that these people can be pushed away from the Conservatives if they can be persuaded that Conservative cuts could damage ‘frontline public services’.  The Conservative Party needs constantly to reassure voters on this key point – which comes down to the voter impression of its values.

On the basis of current research evidence I think it is hard to see the Brown strategy working; but it is also hard to see any alternative arguments he could advance to try and persuade voters that they can’t risk change.

Why have the polls suddenly shifted?

Over on Political Betting Mike Smithson is giving thought to the shift in the polls since the Budget.

It's worthwhile doing so.

I am always pretty suspicious of looking at a poll or two, reflecting on the headline figure for the Tory lead and working backwards to political conclusions. Usually the movement is inside the margin of error and even if it isn't the change is temporary.

This time, even if the change disappears again quickly, I think, following ICM this morning, that probably there has been some sort of shift.

So what might have caused it?

Not the measures in the Budget. Populus's work for us immediately afterwards suggest that it is most unlikely that any individual proposal would have changed anything politically. People thought, if anything, that a Tory budget would have been worse.

Nor do I find Mike Smithson's suggestion - that it is all down to the quality of presentation - all that convincing. I wonder how much people really noticed that.

I am more inclined to the theory put to me by my colleague Tim Hames. Last week was the first time where the R word (recession) became real to people - they realised that the UK economy was in trouble and that no one official was attempting to deny it. This changed the atmosphere.

The latest menace to our children: pollsters

Ok, the silly season, as we’ve already pointed out, is filled with banal stories. But this one got me wondering:

Almost 500 primary school kids were asked how they felt about their parents having jobs, and nearly three times as many children (46%) said that they actually liked their mum or dad going to work, compared to those who didn't (16%). In fact, almost a third (31%) said that the fact that their parents worked made them feel proud.

Hmm. Isn’t it creepy that the government is polling five-year-olds now? And all to emotionally blackmail mothers to promote their all-parents-must-work agenda? Maybe it's just me though.

Murad Ahmed

Pounce, Bounce, Trounce

What is the most remarkable thing about the Brown bounce?

One unreliable poll in Sunday's Observer from Mori, who don't past vote weight, has added to the media sense that Brown is enjoying a golden period, his initiatives leaving "Dave" in the dust.

In support of this view  there have been real changes in the underlying ratings of both Cameron and Brown. And one mustn't forget the fact that Brown hasn't become PM yet.

But can I offer an alternative view to the exuberant "Brown gets clunking" coverage? The headline poll ratings don't seem to be shifting, after weeks of sunny coverage for his "Pounce, Bounce, Trounce" strategy and a bit of a Tory fiasco over grammar schools.

What is the most remarkable thing about the Brown bounce? That there doesn't seem to be one.

A huge strategic blunder?

This morning the Observer has a MORI poll putting Labour ahead and both Iain Dale and Conservativehome tell Tories not to panic.

Why are they right?

Not just because MORI don't past vote weight, making their poll irrelevant. Not just because (as Conservativehome argues) a bounce for Brown was always to be expected.

But because Brown has made a huge strategic blunder.

Failing to put the new EU treaty to a referendum having promised to do so does two things. First, it underlines the idea that Brown is untrustworty, reneging on a big, easily understood, promise. Second, it  provides Tories and non-Tories on the right (eg tabloid commentators) with a simple, popular issue that makes them want to stick with Caemron despite other compromises.

Lord Owen puts the case for a referendum excellently in this morning's paper.

I've discovered in the past that issues are like films. William Goldman, the screenwriter once said of whether a movie would be a hit that "no one knows anything". So I suppose it is possible that the referendum issue won't go anywhere. It's also possible that Conservatives will look obsessive, chasing the issue again.

It's far more likely, I think, that it will be a big negative for Labour.

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.

What a poll

If you follow opinion polls, then I've got a post you really must read. Over on UK Polling Report, Anthony Wells provides a superb and comprehensible survey of past vote weighting.

To win, Tories need to be nice not angry

In yesterday's Telegraph Janet Daley argued that Thursday's results were no breakthrough. She pointed out that:

As yesterday's Sunday Telegraph reported, in 750 key wards, the average Conservative share of the vote increased by just 0.4 of a percentage point.

Well, yes. They did increase by just that percentage since last year. But they increased by vastly more than since the last General Election, which is surely the point.

I think Janet is right to argue that these results do not guarantee a Tory election victory. The opinion polls tell us exactly what the position is, and it is obvious that the Conservatives are not quite there yet.

But she goes further and uses the results to argue for an angry strategy rather than a nice one. And I think this is quite wrong.

The Conservative party used an angry strategy for eight years. And it failed. It has been using a nice strategy for two years and it is working much better.

I am at a loss to understand how the strategy being urged on Mr Cameron by Janet would improve the Tory showing. How does it differ from that adopted by William Hague before 2001?

Sarkozy on course to win

Meanwhile, over in France, Sarkozy is sitting pretty. The TV debate was really Ségolène Royal's last chance to stop him. The result? If anything the gap has widened. This morning TNS-Sofres in Le Figaro has Sarko on 54.5 per cent and Ségo on 45.5 per cent, while Ipsos has 54 per cent playing 46 per cent.

For national opinion - look at the polls, not the local elections

Want to know what the local elections will tell you about the state of national opinion? Please don't wait up all night. I can tell you now.

The local elections will inform you that national opinion is roughly where the national opinion polls say that it is. Of course. If anyone suggests different tomorrow then you will know that they are misinterpreting the results.

How can I be so confident? It's simple.

Local election results are important in themselves, shifting power in many localities. But while they are touted as a proper test of national opinion they are in fact nothing of the sort.

The one advantage that local voting has over opinion polls is sample size. But a sample of 1,000 is plenty big enough. And opinion poll samples are:

• Properly balanced by area. Local elections only take place in some parts of the country and projecting the results to other areas inevitably involves the use of hunch
• Given a choice between all the parties. A major distortion in tonight's results is that many voters will not be choosing between full slates of candidates. In 40 per cent of seats there will be no Labour candidate. It is not easy to work out what voters in these seats really meant by their votes. Did they mean to vote Lib Dem, say? Or did they only do that because the party of their choice wasn't standing. Analysts may easily overestimate the Lib Dem showing.
• Being asked about the General Election. A straightforward point, this, but local votes are, to some extent at least, cast on local issues.
• A better reflection of who will and won't vote. One of the most difficult elements in opinion polling is adjusting for the likelihood that an individual will actually vote. But difficult though it is, the problem is vast when it comes to local elections. A combination of lack of interest and core vote protest leads to an uneven low turnout - in other words to a lower turnout among the voters of some parties than among others.

The analysts will try and unravel all of this, but why bother? Opinion polls have already done the unravelling. That's what they are there for.