Populus Perspective

Revelations about the gory details of abuse of the system of Parliamentary allowances by some MPs has hit the Labour and Conservative parties equally hard, according to the latest round of published polls. The latest Populus poll for The Times was the first to be conducted after the scandal broke and showed support for both main parties dropping by 4%. Subsequent polls have told essentially the same story. Regardless of which party’s MPs have been more in the spotlight on particular days, or which party those accused of the most serious abuses represent, the great majority of voters think that the parties are "as bad as each other": 86% agreed with this statement in the most recent Populus poll.

Because Labour and the Conservatives have seen their support fall by similar amounts over the last couple of weeks, the Conservative lead has remained about the same – but David Cameron’s party has slipped below 40% for the first time this year and the Conservative average in published polls for this month matches its lowest level since the non-election of October 2007.

Labour meanwhile is averaging less than 24% in published polls since the Daily Telegraph started to publish details of MPs’ allowances – their lowest level of support since the Michael Foot era over 25 years ago.

The graph below shows the decline in the proportion of voters backing the two main parties - from over 70% in late April to barely 60% now, representing about 5 million voters switching away from both Labour and Conservative, with the main beneficiaries being UKIP, the BNP and the Greens.

Most voters in England and Wales think that Scottish devolution has been better for Scotland than it has for the rest of Britain, according to a special poll by Populus to mark the tenth anniversary of the Scottish Parliament. 70% in England and Wales think devolution has been good for Scotland – and exactly the same proportion of Scottish voters agree – while only 42% think Scottish devolution has been good for the rest of Britain. Most think that relations between Scotland and England haven’t changed as a result of devolution, but one in four Scottish voters think that relations have worsened, compared with only one in 7 voters in England and Wales.

The poll found widely differing views on the flow of funds to Scotland. Scottish voters were ten times as likely (41%) as those in England and Wales to think that Scotland gets too little money from the rest of the UK; voters in England and Wales were ten times as likely (31%) as those north of the border (3%) to think that Scotland gets too much money from the rest of the UK.

21% of Scottish voters now favour full independence, while 15% in England & Wales say that if there were to be a referendum on the issue they would ‘hope to see Scotland become an independent country’; a further 36% of voters in England and Wales ‘wouldn’t mind either way what Scottish voters decided in such a referendum’ – meaning that slightly less than half of voters in the rest of Britain now actively want Scotland to remain part of the UK.

87% of UK voters are satisfied with the life they lead, making us one of the more contented nations in the EU, according to a study published recently by the European Commission. Britain ranks alongside Belgium on this measure and fractionally behind Ireland (88%). The Dutch top the contentment league table, with a remarkable 98% saying they are satisfied with the life they lead, just ahead of Sweden 97%, Denmark 96% and Finland 95%. The Bulgarians are least contented, with just 38% saying they are satisfied with their lives. Hungary and Portugal (both 46%) and Romania are the only other member states where less than half of people are satisfied with their lives.

Across the EU voters are substantially less satisfied with their national governments than with their own lives. For the EU as a whole 76% are satisfied with the life they lead and only 34% with their national government; satisfaction with national Parliaments is, across the board, even lower. In only six of the 27 EU member states are more than half of voters satisfied with their country’s government: Finland (68%), Netherlands (66%), Cyprus (65%), Denmark (60%), Luxembourg (60%) and Sweden (56%). The UK (29%) ranks in the bottom third of EU countries in terms of trust in its government; among western European countries only Italy (26%) and Greece (23%) are lower, and satisfaction is, again, lowest in Bulgaria (15%).