Is Cameron winning the war of words on the NHS?
Conservatives 41%(-1)
Labour 24%(nc)
Lib Dems 18% (nc)
Labour’s still in the mid-20s as the months are tick by
The first ComRes poll in nearly a month is just out for tomorrow’s Indy on Sunday and follows the pattern of the other surveys this month in showing very little change in headline voting intentions. Here the one point drop by the Tories is well within the margin of error and is hardly significant.
What will make the headlines tomorrow morning will be the ComRes figures on views of the NHS – something that hasn’t been asked yet by any pollster since the Daniel Hannan row exploded.
When those in the sample were asked to say whether they agreed or disagreed that “The NHS would be safer under Labour than the Conservatives“, only 39% agreed and 47% disagreed. As we discussed here as the Hannan row was breaking Health Secretary Andy Burnham seemed unable to get traction on an issue that appeared to be very good news for Labour. These numbers must be very worrying.
Andrew Hawkins, the boss of ComRes chief exec, says “This is a killer for Labour – they have lost their advantage on one of the biggest electoral drivers”
One interesting figure is that 39% of Lib Dem voters agreed with the proposition while 51% disagree – this indicating backing for the Tories on this key issue.
As regular PBers will know I’ve long had concerns about the way ComRes handled its past vote weighting calculations. This was changed after the Euro elections and since then I’ve been very happy with their approach.
So overall a continuation of good polling news for the Tories and awful news for Labour.
UPDATE: Support for the others breaks down as UKIP 5%: GREEN 4%: SNP 3%: BNP 3%: PC 1%