Poll shows little sign voters will reward Brown for ending recession
Intriguing press conferences from Gordon Brown and David Cameron this morning, trying to shape the news coverage ahead of tomorrow’s economic growth figure, widely expected to show that the UK came out of recession in the last quarter of 2009.
Gordon Brown emphasised the fragility of the new-born recovery. David Cameron emphasised the need to show intent and start cutting back the public sector budgets immediately.
Channel 4 News commissioned a poll from ICM – you can see the details here – to see if Gordon Brown looked like getting any sort of electoral dividend for being at the helm as the recovery comes.
I understand that some of Labour’s private polling has been suggesting that there’s been a spiral of silence amongst voters who have felt embarrassed about being better off in a recession which is hurting others – these are mainly people in employment who benefit from lower interest rates.
Labour strategists hope these folk will, once the recovery is formally announced, feel more comfortable admitting that they’re better off and give some thanks to the government that presided over it.
Precious sign of that in this poll though.
It suggests 46 per cent feel worse off than they did 12 months ago, and most worryingly the groups feeling more worse off than others are the ones that turn out to vote – 50 per cent of the 35-44 age group, including lots of young families, often critical groups in marginals.
Only 11 per cent admit to feeling better off than 12 months ago, and a lot of them are in the younger, lower-turnout age groups.
On economic confidence, the country looks split nearly 50/50 between those who are confident/not confident about their financial situations, much as things were the last time ICM asked about this in October.
Asked if the end of the recession would make them more likely to vote Labour, 12 per cent said yes.
That could, presumably, be significant in marginal seats. But it is more or less cancelled out by the 10 per cent who say the end of the recession will make them “less likely to vote Labour” – thankless business, politics.
A thumping 72 per cent say it’ll make no difference to their vote. One fifth of respondents give the government the credit for getting the country out of recession (men seem keener to give the government credit than women, the top “AB” social groups seem keener than others)… a third (32 per cent) say they don’t know who to credit.
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