ComRes poll for The Independent on Sunday
Con 40% (+2)
Lab 28% (+5)
LD 19% (-4)
Others 13% (-3)
(Change since ComRes for The Independent published 28 September - previous Independent on Sunday, 23 Aug, Con 41%, Lab 24%, LD 18%, Others 16%)
Additional questions:
On the economic questions, the overall sense is that a lot of people are ready to give Gordon Brown the credit for rescuing Britain from recession, but they’re unconvinced that David Cameron would have made such a worse job of it – as Labour claims.
Gordon Brown took the right decisions to prevent the recession turning into a slump
Agree 50%
Disagree 44%
Ø 37% of Tory voters agree as do 60% of Lib Dems.
The recession would have been worse if David Cameron had been prime minister
Agree 32%
Disagree 55%
Ø Importantly for the Tories, a majority of all types of voter except Labour supporters disagree with this (65% of Labour voters agree) – while a substantial proportion of people who are undecided or refuse to say how they would vote don’t know
I don’t really know what David Cameron stands for
Now July 2009 July 2008
Agree 49% 53% 49%
Disagree 47% 42% 42%
Ø David Cameron has made precisely no headway on this measure in the past 15 months
Ø C2s and DEs are the groups most likely to agree, as are (unsurprisingly) Labour voters
Ø Worryingly for the Tories, most of those who refuse to say how they would vote, or don’t know, agree with this statement (54%) – although we should probably add to these the 11% who answered ‘don’t know’!
Ø The figure which ought to be most worrying of all for the Tories is that 32% of their own voters don’t know what their party leader stands for: which confirms the claim that the Tories have not ‘sealed the deal’ with voters.
Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary, would be a better prime minister than Gordon Brown
Now May
Agree 26% 32%
Disagree 58% 49%
Ø Alan Johnson’s currency is clearly on the wane: the net disagreement figure in May was -17%, whereas now it is almost twice that at -32%.
Ø Encouragingly for Gordon Brown (I’ve not been able to say that for a long time!), fewer than one in ten Labour voters (8%) agree
Ø However, more than twice this proportion of 2005’s Labour supporters (19%) agree, suggesting that Labour could recoup some of their core voters if they switched leader (of course they may lose some too)
Andrew Hawkins's analysis of voting intention:
Ø Part of Labour’s problem is that ABs are a lot more likely to vote than social groups that ought to be core Labour supporters. 56% of ABs are ‘absolutely certain’ to vote compared to 38% of C2s and 44% of DEs. A whopping 28% of C2s are ‘certain not to vote’. Labour’s strategy of targeting the middle classes is plain wrong – they need to regain their own core supporters first.
Ø The Tories are struggling regionally and are marginally behind Labour in northern England
Ø 12% of 2005 Labour voters and 13% of 2005 Lib Dem voters have switched to the Tories
Methodology note:
ComRes telephoned 1022 GB adults between 30th September and 1st October 2009. Data were weighted by past vote recall.
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