GALLUP NEWS SERVICE
London, UK -- Newly elected governments invariably claim that they have a "mandate" to do everything they promised to do during the election campaign and to refrain from doing everything they promised not to do. Gallup's post-election survey for The Telegraph suggests that the Blair Government has a renewed mandate to govern -- but not much more. There is a marked gap between Labour's campaign pledges -- negative and positive -- and what a majority of voters would like to see happen.
In a June 8-9, 2001 poll, Gallup listed a number of developments that could occur over the next few years due to Labour's re-election and asked "Could you tell me for each of them whether you personally would like to see it happen or not?"
As the figures make clear, the overwhelming majority of electors are fed up with spin, sound bites and over-clever news management. No fewer than 92 per cent -- spread across the entire political spectrum -- would heave a sigh of relief if the Government "placed more emphasis on practical achievements and less on presentation."
Some of Labour's campaign pledges were among the practical achievements that voters would like to see, but some were not. Most voters want Labour to fulfil its promise of longer sentences for persistent offenders, and more than two-thirds are prepared to see taxes go up in the interests of health, education and welfare. A smaller majority also seem prepared to countenance more private-sector involvement in financing and managing the health service.
However, there are at least two fields in which a majority would like to see Mr Blair and his colleagues go considerably further than they have said they would. The first, not surprisingly, concerns the railways. Almost three-quarters of voters clearly have no more confidence in Railtrack than do Railtrack's investors. Seventy-three per cent would be grateful if the Government took the railways back into public ownership. The second concerns child benefit -- the only remaining universal benefit and one that has almost iconic status among many Labour activists. However, it turns out that 62 per cent of voters -- including 65 per cent of those who voted Labour last week -- would like to see the well-off pay income tax on any child benefit that they receive.
Gallup also asked why so many people are reluctant to vote Conservative at the moment, especially at the national level. The discovery that 81 per cent of voters believe that the present-day Tory Party lacks "a team of strong leaders" merely confirms the finding that none of the present leadership team commands any substantial amount of public support.
However, large majorities of voters -- including many Tory supporters -- also agree that it is hard to know just what the Conservative Party stands for at the moment, and that the party "gives the impression of being out of touch with modern Britain." This almost certainly illustrates a widespread sense that the early 21st-century Conservative Party -- largely white, male, elderly and eminently respectable -- still fails to reflect modern Britain's much greater diversity.
A substantial threat to a full Tory recovery, more than the figures in the chart may suggest, is posed by voters' views on the economy and the state of the public services. At first glance, one might suppose that voters are not terribly worried about the economic consequences of a Tory return to power, nor about to their effect on education and the National Health Service. In fact, the figures conceal sharp partisan differences. Conservative supporters may not be worried about how their party would perform in connection with the economy and the public services but Labour supporters, in particular, show signs of extreme anxiety.
On prices and jobs, 89 per cent of Tories deny that there is any risk of rising inflation and unemployment under a Conservative government, but 74 per cent of Labour supporters believe that there is such a risk -- and, as the election results last week indicated, Labour voters still outnumber Tories by a wide margin. Similarly, the figures on the public services conceal the fact that, while 91 per cent of Conservative voters loyally say they have no worries about it, 62 per cent of Labour voters do.
However, the Conservatives had quite a lot to say about the public services during the election campaign and the use of the word "interested" in the question may well have led respondents to reply in a straightforward, literal-minded way.
Anthony King is professor of government at Essex University, and is a political analyst and a special contributor for the Daily Telegraph. This article is re-printed by the Gallup Poll News Service with permission from the Daily Telegraph.
Survey Methods
Results are based on telephone interviews with 2,017 respondents, aged 18+ from across Great Britain, conducted June 8-9, 2001. For results based on a sample of this size, one can say with 95% confidence that the margin of sampling error is +/2.2 percentage points.