Britains economy: the state of the blame game

Peter KellnerPresident
June 06, 2011, 7:37 PM GMT+0

Peter Kellner explains how the Coalition has managed to avoid the worst of the public's blame when it comes to the economy's still-bleak prognosis

The latest edition of The Observer reports that many economists think the Government will fail to achieve its economic strategy of reducing government borrowing sharply, but in a way that will allow steady economic growth. It is perhaps cruel to remind the community of academic economists that in 1981, two years into the last Conservative government, 364 of them predicted lasting gloom – at precisely the moment when Britain’s economy started to climb out of a sharp recession.

Even so, the figures on growth, unemployment and living standards have been weak for some months now. Whether or not the economists are right this time, both the Government and the opposition must continue to persuade voters that their narrative is the more persuasive – both on who got Britain into the present mess and how to get us out of it.

In mid-June last year, during the Coalition’s honeymoon, 48% blamed Labour most for the expected public spending cuts. Just 17% blamed the Coalition most, while 19% blamed both equally.

For the following three months, Labour was consumed by its leadership contest, and scarcely engaged in the national debate. We should not be surprised that, shortly before Ed Miliband became party leader, the figures showed little change: Labour was blamed most by 44%, the Coalition by 21% and both equally by 22%.

For the past eight months, however, Labour has had the chance to look outwards and engage with the public; and it has been able to point to data suggesting that the economy is failing to revive as fast as the Coalition hoped. Yet, once again, the movement in the ‘blame’ figures is only modest: Labour 41%, Coalition 26%, both 23%.

Of course, if these slow shifts continue at the same rate for the next four years, blame will have shifted decisively to the Coalition by the time of the next General Election. But that’s a huge ‘if’. Should economic growth start picking up, Labour’s failure to achieve a clear breakthrough in the blame game could gravely hurt its chances of winning the next election. For the moment, it is making no headway with its argument that the spending cuts are too deep and too fast. In February 58% agreed; the figure has since slipped to 53%. At best (from Labour’s view), the underlying trend is flat.

Indeed, if we look at YouGov’s tracking data on which party is best able to deal with the economy, we find very little change since the start of the year. The Conservatives led Labour by five points then, and by six points in our latest survey. This matters. I cannot think of a General Election when a party has lost the economic argument and won more seats than its main rival. The figures suggest that Labour’s currently modest lead in voting intentions is fragile, and may well crumble in the face of a fierce election campaign.

There is another aspect to the blame game. In many parts of Britain, local councils are announcing cuts in services. Who do voters blame more for cuts in their own area – central government ‘because it is cutting sharply the money it gives to the council where I live’ or their local council ‘because it could achieve most of the savings it needs by cutting costs, without cutting services’?

Central government is blamed more, by 42-32% - but, again, there has been little change in the numbers since first asked this question in February, before most councils had announced their decisions. (The proportion saying they are unaware of any local cuts is also fairly stable, at just 16%.)

Given the continuing pessimism about both the economy and people’s own finances (as a quick glance at any of our economic tracker questions will show), the conclusion must be that the Government has done remarkably well to limit the extent to which it is blamed for the greatest austerity programme of modern times.

So far, the cuts have been largely prospective. Few have taken effect. This will change. Over the next 12 months millions of people will be able to judge whether, and how far, the cuts affect their own lives. Will anger mount – or will most people be pleasantly surprised at how schools, hospitals and other public services continue to function? And will the Government’s wider strategy for the economy be showing signs of success? By this time next year we should be able to answer these questions, and start to assess the chances of the next General Election producing a change of government. So far, however, the blame game numbers give David Cameron more reason for cheer than Ed Miliband.