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Poll analysis: Tuesday April 26
MORI chairman Sir Robert Worcester analyses the latest opinion poll data.
The bad news for Tony Blair before the election was called (January data) was that only 32 per cent of the public said they trusted him to tell the truth. The good news was that only 28 per cent said they trusted Michael Howard.
But worse news for Tony was that 50 per cent said they trusted Gordon Brown.
More good news for Tony was that Labour led the Tories; bad news was that if Gordon was leader of the Labour Party, Labour would be three points further ahead.
In 1997 Tony Blair walked on water. He could have had the moon. The euro was in his grasp. Banning fox hunting would have been a breeze. Abolish the hereditary peers? Whatever you say Tony. But he didn't have the courage of his convictions, focusing on winning that next election.
The politicians and the media wrung their hands after the 59 per cent turnout at the last election. They all said they'd have to do better. Studies were commissioned. Reviews were undertaken. All pointed in the same direction. Over control by the politicians in grey suits and dumbing down in the media. Not treating the electorate with the respect they believe they deserve.
So what do we have in this election? Even fewer men in control. Blair doing most of the talking, with Brown and John Prescott in attendance but with little to say. For the Conservatives, Howard is virtually a one-man band, supported by the loyal Sandra. With the Liberal Democrats it mostly Charles and Sir Menzies, and a bit of Simon Hughes and Matthew Taylor.
Helicopters and barges, vox pops and talking heads, trying to be heard over the constant interruption of the interviewer/pundit. Even I get fed up with it, and I'm a self-acknowledged political junkie.
It isn't as if they didn't know. For more than 20 years I've been tracking the public's trust, or lack thereof, in among others politicians and journalists. Just one person in five says they trust politicians generally and government ministers specifically to tell the truth, and just one in seven say they trust journalists.
Twice as many Labour supporters trust politicians (29 per cent) as Tories (16 per cent) or Lib Dems (15 per cent), but each parties supporters have the same low veracity score for journalists. A third (32 per cent) of Labour supporters loyally say they trust government ministers (only 12 per cent of Tories,and 14 per cent of Lib Dems).
But if (big if) the Opposition was to win on May 5, next year I suspect we'd find the situation reversed but trust in politicians overall remaining the same.
They, the politicians and the media, aren't taking this problem seriously. An interesting programme last week on Channel 4 - 'How to win power' produced by Grace Chapman of Blakeway Productions - should be mandatory viewing, if only to listen to the politicians argue for conviction politics (Hattersley) and abolition of the marketing advisors (Major).
The best comment was by Baroness Shirley Williams, who said the focus groups, private polling and marketing advisors should be taken, but not inhaled (not her words, but the gist of what she said).
Today's polls:
Wow. NOP, with April 22 to 24 fieldwork, have Labour up three to 40 per cent, along with Populus's tracker with them at 41 per cent.
NOP, however, has the Tories at 30 per cent while Populus has them at 33 per cent. Neither is good news for Howard, nor Kennedy for that matter who is hanging at 21 per cent in NOP and slipping in Populus.
MORI's poll in the FT tomorrow is a massive 2,300 interview face-to-face poll done over the weekend and Monday. Watch this space.
Oh yes, forgot to mention the Sun's 'Gnome poll'. I've mentioned the usual doughnut polls, lollypop polls, popcorn polls and chocolate statues polls in the past, but gnome polls? A first in my memory of 10 elections!
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