The latest daily YouGov/Sun poll is notable for the Conservatives hitting a 2010 high of 43 per cent, while the Lib Dems continue to flatline on 15 per cent. The Tories will be relieved that, despite Labour’s best efforts, the row over Michael Gove’s botched schools list has failed to dent their popularity.
With the coalition still in its honeymoon period, perhaps it’s not surprising that the Tories are polling well, but unless the Lib Dems’ ratings improve, we can expect tensions to grow in the run-up to the conference season. Fears that Nick Clegg’s party are the convenient fall guys for George Osborne’s cuts are growing by the day.
Reporting the poll on Twitter last night, the Sun‘s politics team chose to run with the line: “what chance a snap election now to dump the Libs?” This may just be mischievous speculation, but it ignores that in recent weeks David Cameron has signalled that he views the coalition not as an alliance of convenience, but as a vehicle for realigning British politics. There is no chance of Cameron calling an early election.
New Statesman Poll of Polls
Conservative majority of 14.
Many expect the coalition to become rapidly unpopular once the cuts begin to bite, although there is some psephological evidence to suggest that this need not be case.
Tory MPs point to a recent study by Ben Broadbent and Adrian Paul of Goldman Sachs which looked at the relationship between fiscal tightening and electoral support. The results suggested that, if anything, fiscal rentrenchment increases support for the governing party.
As Broadbent and Paul write: “The three governments that have executed the most high-profile expenditure-based deficit reductions — Ireland in 1987, Sweden in 1994 and Canada in 1994 — were all re-elected.”
But I’m still confident that the rise in VAT to 20 per cent from next year will hit the government hard. As in the case of the abolition of the 10p tax rate, it’s the sort of measure people notice only once it’s implemented. For political as well as economic reasons, George Osborne would be wise to call off this regressive tax rise.
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