Since the election, polling company YouGov has been regularly asking the same questions about the cuts. While they are not quite the questions that we would ask, they are still useful. Asking the same question allows us to see how public opinion moves over time.
The government started off wanting voters to think that the cuts are:
•being implemented in a fair way: "we're all in this together"
•confined to "waste" and back-office services
•the route to economic recovery; and
•inevitable: "we've maxed out the nation's credit card bill and now have to pay it off".
Straight after the election they were winning these arguments. But public opinion has now moved decisively.
Cuts are unfair
This chart shows how many people think the cuts are unfair. Immediately after the election only one in three said they were unfair. Now that has gone to almost two in three. That is a big shift.
Frontline servicesYouGov ask whether you are likely to "suffer directly from cuts in spending on public services such as health, education and welfare". This seems a pretty fair definition of frontline services.
As this chart of those saying yes to this question shows, ministers have never won this argument. From the word go around 70 per cent have expected to suffer from the cuts. It's increased a little perhaps, but it has been remarkably consistent.
Bad for the economyThe government message is that cutting public spending gives room to the private sector to drive an export-led recovery.
This chart reports those who say that the cuts are bad for the economy. It was about one in three before the election, but is now over half. It's not quite as dramatic as the shift in fairness, but is still a big shift.
Too deep and too fastYouGov have not asked questions about whether people think the cuts are inevitable on a consistent basis, but have now started to ask the questions I would have put from the word go.
We can't put them on a chart therefore, but here are the results from their poll of 20/21 February 2011.
A majority think cuts are necessary.
Necessary Unnecessary
55% 33%
But before ministers get too pleased, there is little support for their speed and scale (and we already know people think they are unfair).
Too deep Too shallow About right
50% 6% 27%
Too quickly Too slowly About right
58% 5% 26%
As people start to see the effects of cuts on their local services as council budgets are agreed, it is hard to see these figures moving back to the government.
i bumped onto this blog from a comment left by you in Guardian. I am intrigued and interested in seeing how the lefties think and what is the logic or reasoning behind them.
ReplyDeleteI've only been in the UK for 3 years. I was head hunted by a French Consulting company to work in London. Before I came here, I had a vague idea of what is left and what is right (political speak!) and who are the nasty Tories and the Labour party. I had an impression the Brits have a very mature political system whereby intelligent debates go on behind parliamentary doors and civilized outcomes are reached amicably between 2 or 3 main parties. They can't be worse than the third world country I grew up in!
Boy was I wrong. What I found was a bunch of politicians with IQ of 50 or less, making stupid arguments and made even more stupid decisions that has ruined this country. And most, if not all are from the Left leaning Labour party. I find your comments amusing but without the substance to back it up.
Take your comment regarding David Cameron's 30m odd family fortune for example. What has it got to do with anything? If nothing else, I take comfort that the leader of my country is already rich and does not need to suck the public purse dry to fill his own coffers. If I had that money I would give up my day job and enjoy the rest of my life partying and travelling without a care in the world. I would not stand for an election, then lead a government that has to make very unpopular decisions, make half the country hate my guts and threaten the life of my family. I know what your argument would be.... well he wants to make 3bn instead for himself and his ilk! Maybe he is greedy, or he is just a sadist and want the British people to suffer. Or maybe....just a teeny weeny maybe he wants to put Britain back on the right path. He will make a lot of mistakes along the way, but at least he is on the right path.
I would be very interested to have a civilized debate with you on any topic of your choice with regards to your political views and see if we can achieve a common ground. The sort of leftist comment made by Guardian readers are appalling and makes me wonder if the British public is a stupid as the comments made. Take for instance the comments on this article - http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/mar/09/david-cameron-the-one-show-matt-baker. They try to paint David as a vile creature and all he wants is to make everyone in the UK suffer. Just for the fun of it! The country is broke. The public sector is bloated, wasteful and in a lot of ways bordering between total incompetence and outright corruption. Being a consultant, I have a lot of friends who contract for HMRC and the Ministry of Defence. The amount of waste they tell me about is just beyond believable. I thought they were joking. This is not about bailout of bankers and what-not. The entire government structure needs a major overhaul and this current Govt is doing the best that they can do. It might just help if the Left did their part instead of being arm-chair critics and find something negative about every single policy passed by the current Govt.
ReplyDeleteDodgeek - my apologies for not publishing your posting immediately. For some reason it went through a spam filter. This has now been corrected and should mean all your posts are immediately published.
ReplyDeleteOne of my key criticisms of the present government is precisely because they are not addrssing some of the waste you mention. For example, we know that welfare to work programmes generally only yield an 8% return on the investment. Now if your car only started 8 times in every 100 would you keep it? Of course not, yet Iain Duncan Smith remains hellbent on maintaining a system that has been shown not to work in its present form.
Other plans commissioning plans by the government demonstrate a retiscence to view the available evidence that their schemes cannot and will not work.
In my eyes, insanity is repeating the same behaviour over and over and expecting a different result