Blame for the riots: The Red-Blue split
Was it criminal behaviour or the cuts?
We’ve now got the the first comprehensive polling of public reaction to the riots and as can be seen from the YouGov data featured in the chart above there’s a big split between Conservative supporters and Labour ones.
The question was quite simple – “Thinking about the recent riots in London and other cities in Britain, which of the following do you think is the MAIN cause of the riots?”
As can be seen the big picture is that “criminal behaviour” at 42%, was most blamed – but just look at the RED-BLUE contrast. Only 35% of Labour voters chose this while 55% of Tory ones did.
There’s an even sharper contrast on whether “Government cuts” were responsible. Just 1% of the Tories in the sample put down this option against 16% of Labour supporters.
In many way this largely reflects the political debate though Ed Miliband has kept away, in my view quite wisely, from making partisan political points.
I’m hoping to do more from the poll in a second post.