For the past three weeks, Labour has sustained an average lead over the Conservatives of five percentage points. Results from individual polls inevitably fluctuate; but the Conservatives have not been ahead in any of the 23 polls that YouGov has conducted since mid-December. On the face of it, Ed Miliband ought to be cheerful.
In fact, Labour should be doing better. Here are some of the findings from the latest YouGov/Sunday Times survey:
- 54% disapprove of the Government’s record to date; only 32% approve – a net score of minus 22. Immediately after George Osborne’s first Budget last June, its net score was plus 21
- Just 23% think ‘this Coalition Government will be good for people like you’, down from 41% last June
- Only 35% think the Government is managing the economy well, down from 50% last June
- The ‘feel-good factor’ – the proportion expecting their financial situation to improve over the next six months minus the proportion expecting it to worsen – has deteriorated to minus 56; this is far worse than the minus 19 recorded during last year’s election campaign
- Following last week’s disappointing figures for Britain’s national income, 57% now think it likely that Britain will slide back into recession.
These are the conditions in which the main opposition party should be miles ahead, not a measly five points. This is especially so now, with the Liberal Democrats in Coalition with the Conservatives: Labour is now the only major, Britain-wide opposition party. It should be harvesting voters’ discontent in huge numbers. Instead its support is stuck on the low 40s, while the Tories continue to attract roughly the 37% support they achieved in last year’s election. It is the Lib Dems, of course, who have suffered badly; much of Labour’s rise since last May can be attributed to progressive Lib Dem voters unhappy to see their party in bed with the Tories, rather than voters generally converting disapproval of the Government’s performance into support for Labour.
Labour does have a perfectly reasonable answer. Fewer than nine months have elapsed since the General Election. It generally takes longer for ‘mid-term blues’ to hurt a government and propel the opposition into big leads. On this occasion, Labour still carries much of the blame for Britain’s economic weakness. Give the party and its new leader time (so the argument runs) and Labour should open up a much big lead over the Tories.
Perhaps. There is certainly room for improvement. Ed Miliband has a net rating of minus six (37% say is doing well, 43% say he is doing badly), though this represents an improvement since the minus 11 the week before and minus 21 in early January. When people are asked who they trust more to make the rights decisions about the economy, George Osborne or his new shadow, Ed Balls, 22% say Osborne, 19% Balls and as many as 41% neither. (The remaining 18% don’t know.)
It is possible to argue that Miliband and, especially, Balls, cannot expect much better figures so early in their new posts. In, say, a year’s time, that defence will no longer be available. If the ratings of the two men improve significantly, then Labour should move into double-digit leads and the party will have real hope of winning the next General Election. For the moment, the Conservatives’ argument that they inherited a mess that they are now having to sorting out, and that Labour is responsible for Britain’s woes, still has enough appeal to prevent Labour from capitalising on the government’s growing unpopularity.
