One Liberal Democrat cabinet minister recently predicted that the spending cuts would see support for his party fall to 5 per cent. Things aren’t that bad yet, but the latest daily YouGov poll puts the Lib Dems on just 10 per cent — their lowest rating since September 1997 (an ICM poll at the time had Labour on 60, the Tories on 24 and the Lib Dems on 10).
Lib Dem ministers will shrug and declare, “There’s only one poll that counts, and that’s on election day,” but the party’s terrible ratings are beginning to sap morale among activists. For the Conservatives, the long-term fear is that the severe decline in Lib Dem popularity will pull the coalition apart as the party’s MPs, fearful of losing their seats, begin to rebel to maintain their distinctiveness.
Latest poll (YouGov/Sun): Labour 5 seats short of a majority.
Meanwhile, a look at the sub-questions (the full data sets are here) suggests that the coalition is struggling to win the “fairness” debate. Forty-seven per cent of voters believe the public spending cuts are “unfair”, while 36 per cent believe the opposite, describing them as “fair”. Forty-four per cent (the largest group) believe the coalition is cutting too fast, although 60 per cent agree that the cuts were “unavoidable”.
New Statesman Poll of Polls
Hung parliament: Labour 12 seats short
Finally, and perhaps most significantly, 48 per cent of voters blame the last Labour government for the cuts, with just 18 per cent blaming the coalition. As Jonathan Freedland argued this week, Labour must offer a much better explanation of the deficit if it is to be taken seriously again.
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