This piece first appeared in Saga Magazine in April 2001
The text here may not be identical to the published text

Polls Apart


The third MORI pre-election poll of Saga readers

You like the Tories, hate the euro and are evenly split on fox-hunting. Welcome to the third pre-election Mori poll of Saga readers. The interviews were carried out before the March 7 Budget.

Three issues will decide how you vote in the General Election – whenever it comes. Presented with a list of six policy areas and asked which would be very important in their decision about which party to vote for, Saga readers gave their top three.

 

· Health care – 72%

· Law and Order – 63%

· Pensions – 60%

 

The people asked were taking part in the third Saga poll of political views. The previous polls were conducted just before and just after the Pre-Budget Statement in November (see Saga Magazine January 2001). This new poll in February was partly to assess how views had changed in those three months.

On two of the key issues – Pensions and Law and Order – you thought the Conservatives had the best policies. The margin on law and order was around two to one, the same as it was in November. But Labour had clawed back of lot of the gap on pensions – now you voted for the Conservative policies by the narrowest of margins, just 32% to 31%. And it was almost as narrow a lead for Labour on Health Care policies – 32% voting for them while 30% said saying the Conservatives had the best policies, exactly the same proportions as in the November poll. But there has been a major shift on the economy, where Labour has taken the lead. More of you now think Labour’s policies better – up from 30% to 35% - and far fewer think the Tories are best on the economy – down from 38% to 30%. On the other hand, the Conservatives now have a clear lead on education – whereas in November opinion was more evenly divided.

Although these issues are the ones that will decide your votes, they are not necessarily the issues you think are the ones that are the most important facing the country. Here you identified four top priorities for the next Government.

· National Health Service – 46%

· Europe – 37%

· Education – 35%

· Law and Order – 26%

 

Strangely, pensions moved down that list with only around one in seven (15%) of you mentioning it

On Europe you are an insular lot. More than half (55%) of those polled said that Britain should leave the European Union. And, not surprisingly given that strong anti-Europe view, only one in five (21%) would vote to replace the pound with the euro. Those figures are more anti-Europe than the whole electorate where well under half (44%) would leave the European Union and nearly one in four (23%) would adopt the euro. Party support plays a big role here. Among Saga readers, seven out of ten Conservative voters would leave the European Union whereas only three out of ten Labour supporters would take that step.

So what does all this tell us about your voting intentions when the Election is called? Saga readers are the mirror image of the general public. Just over half of you (55%) say you would vote Conservative in the next General election while less than a third (29%) would vote Labour. Compare that with a national MORI poll in February which showed 50% would vote Labour and 30% Conservative.

Your views have not changed significantly between the last poll – conducted just after Gordon Brown’s Pre-Budget Statement on November 8 2000 – and the current one, done in the second half of February this year. The earlier poll showed that the Chancellor’s promises of better pensions and a higher Winter Fuel payment shifted a significant number of you towards Labour – and that shift has stayed. But you are still overwhelmingly Tory – and far more so than you were at the last General Election. A new analysis by MORI of the voting in 1997 shows that, as close as MORI can estimate it, 44% of people with the same social profile as Saga readers voted Conservative and 36% voted Labour. So you are now much more likely to support the Conservatives and less likely to support Labour than you did then. But there is little comfort for the Tories in two other key findings.

First, you are less likely to vote at all than you were in November. Nine out of ten said then you would be ‘certain or very likely’ to get to the polling booth. But in February that figure had dropped by a tenth to just over eight out of ten (81%). Second, your strong political leanings to the Tories are not reflected in your views of the Party leaders. Fewer than four out of ten of you (37%) are satisfied with the way William Hague is doing his job, half are dissatisfied. This lukewarm response is barely better than you give Tony Blair – just over one in three (35%) are satisfied with the way he does his job. Your favourite party leader is Charles Kennedy – more than two out of five of you are pleased with his performance. Despite that, the fortunes of the Liberal Democrats are in decline among Saga readers. Only one in eight of you (12%) say you would vote for them – down from one in seven (14%) in mid-November and around one in six (16%) earlier that month.

Although party leaders come off badly, Chancellor Gordon Brown has a strong following. After his giveaway Pre-Budget Statement in November - £5 a week on the retirement pension and the £200 winter fuel payment – satisfaction with the way he did his job rose to 45%, and that has now risen further. As many as 55% of you think he does his job well, with only 39% dissatisfied. The difference between the two of +16 is what MORI calls a ‘satisfaction rating’. And you have moved in the same direction – but in a much smaller way – in your views of how he is handling the economy as a whole. Just over two out of five of you (41%) think his policies will improve Britain’s economy, but almost half (47%) do not. This negative ‘satisfaction rating’ of –6 is, nevertheless, three points up from the –9 he achieved in November. It will be interesting to see your views of Gordon Brown and his policies after his Budget on March 7.

You are also optimistic about your own economic future with nearly one in five of you (18%) saying your family’s financial circumstances are likely to improve over the next year and slightly fewer (17%) saying they will worsen. That makes Saga readers slightly more optimistic than the population as a whole.

Finally two key policies that the next Government will have to deal with after the Election.

The Scottish Executive seems likely to introduce big concessions to people in care and nursing homes, paying not only for their nursing care but their personal care as well. In England the Government has only said that it will pay for nursing care. Saga readers are pretty well united on this one. Four out of five believe the Scottish system should be extended to the rest of the United Kingdom. Only one in eight disagreed with that policy.

You were more evenly split when it came to fox-hunting – or rather banning hunting live mammals with dogs, as the current Bill before Parliament would do. Two out of five (40%) would ban it while a fraction fewer (35%) would not. Younger readers (under 54) and Labour voters are both more likely to vote for a ban than older ones or Conservatives.

MORI interviewed 1005 randomly selected Saga readers between 15-22 February 2001. Tables and data © MORI.

April 2001


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