How key is this to the next general election? If you think that there’s a glut of polling from Ipsos-MORI polling at the moment you are right. For as well as the regular MORI political monitor for Reuters there were also special pre-budget questions for the Economist – details of which are now available. The most significant findings politically related to that subject that we’ve touched on a fair bit on PB – who is to blame for the cuts?…
Are the Hutton pensions reforms the right place to fight? The reforms to the public-sector pensions that John Hutton, the former Labour Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, proposed in his report for the government earlier this week have understandably dropped out of the news. They will, however, be back. Even without the need to reduce the deficit, public-sector pensions were becoming more and more expensive, given rising life expectancy. Hutton has given the government all the political cover…
Which is most to blame for the cuts? (YouGov) CON-LD coalition % Last Labour government % Both % Neither % Don’t know % 07 March 2011 27 40 22 6 5 21 February 2011 25 41 24 5 5 07 February 2011 25 38 26 6 5 25 January 2011 26 40 24 5 6 10 January 2011 22 40 25 8 5 11 December 2010 23 41 24 7 5 15 November 2010 22 43 23 7 5 07…
How far should ex-ministers go in helping the coalition? With the big domestic political story being the publication of the public sector pensions review there are calls by left of centre bloggers that the man who carried out the study, ex-cabinet minster John Hutton, to be expelled from the Labour party. On the Liberal Conspiracy site Owen Jones links Hutton’s cooperation to that of his fellow ex-minster Alan Milburn:- “..both Hutton and Milburn were appointed not for their expertise, but…
Which is most to blame for the cuts? (YouGov) CON-LD coalition Last Labour government Both of them Neither 21/02/11 25 41 24 5 07/02/11 25 38 26 6 25/01/11 26 40 24 5 10/01/11 22 40 25 8 11/12/10 23 41 24 7 15/11/10 22 43 23 7 07/10/10 17 47 20 10 20/09/10 21 44 22 7 06/09/10 22 45 20 6 31/08/10 23 45 20 6 16/08/10 22 45 21 6 02/08/10 22 45 20 6 19/07/10 21…
Who is mostly to blame for cuts to local council services? (YouGov) All sampled CON voters % LAB voters % LD voters % Local councils for not cutting their wasteful spending 27 57 9 37 Central government for reducing local council’s funding 29 9 49 21 Both equally 37 30 38 35 Should the coalition be relieved by these numbers? Hardly a day goes by at the moment without the local council cuts stories. For much of the burden of…
Where will the big cuts fall? Ken Clarke’s comment that ‘the middle classes are unaware of the scale of the government spending cuts that will hit them this year’ has, not for the first time in his career, set off a bit of a political storm. It’s true that in order to make cuts of the order necessary to close the structural deficit by 2015, there’ll have to be painful decisions taken. What’s interesting is his focus on the middle…
What are the lessons from the first encounter? I’ve just go round to looking at the coverage of this afternoon’s first clash between chancellor George Osborne and his new shadow, Ed Balls – an encounter that has been several years in the making. It was planned to have started in June 2009 but Gordon Brown found himself so weakened by the elections of that month that he had to keep Darling at the treasury. Then it could have been on…