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Political Poll for The Independent

Political Poll for The Independent

Date Published: 31 Jan 2012

Categories: Economy | Politics | Public and communities | UK

Description

The public back Labour’s policy on cutting the deficit but do not trust the party on the economy, according to a ComRes survey for The Independent.

Labour has a slender one point lead. It is on 38 per cent, unchanged since the most recent ComRes poll for the paper in December. The Tories are on 37 per cent, down one point, with the Liberal Democrats on 14 per cent, up three points. These figures would give Labour a tiny majority of just six seats if repeated at a general election.

Asked whether the Government should slow its programme of spending cuts now the economy is shrinking again, 62 per cent of people agree and 30 per cent disagree.

Most people still blame Labour for Britain’s economic woes. Asked whether the Coalition is more to blame than the previous Labour Government for the current state of the economy, only one in four (26 per cent) agrees and 62 per cent disagree. Labour voters are divided; some 48 per cent think the Coalition is more to blame but a surprisingly high proportion -- 42 per cent --disagrees with this statement.

Asked whether they trust Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne to make the right decisions on the economy,  35 per cent agree and 55 per cent disagree – a  net “economic trust” rating of minus 20 points.

Labour’s position is much worse. Only 24 per cent trust Mr Miliband and Mr Balls to make the right decisions on the economy, while 65 per cent do not – a net rating of minus 41 points. Some 42 per cent of Labour supporters do not trust the party leader and Shadow Chancellor to make the right decisions, while 51 per cent do.

ComRes interviewed 1,001 GB adults by telephone between 27th and 29 th January 2012.  Data were weighted to be demographically representative of all GB adults and by past vote recall.

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