British Public Opinion, June 1978

MORI interviewed a representative interlocking quota sample of 1,050 adults aged 18+. Interviews were conducted face-to-face in 52 constituency sampling points across Great Britain on 13 June 1978.

Q1 Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way the government is running the country? Q2 Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way Mr Callaghan is doing his job as Prime Minister? Q3 Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way Mrs Thatcher is doing her job as Leader of the Opposition?

	Government	Callaghan	Thatcher
	%	%	%
Satisfied	34	52	41
Dissatisfied	56	40	49
Don't know	10	8	10

Q4 How would you vote if there were a General Election tomorrow? (If undecided or refused at Q4) Q5 Which party are you most inclined to support? Base: All expressing a voting intention

	%
Conservative	47
Labour	44
Liberal	6
Other	3

  Q6 Do you think that the general economic condition of the country will improve, stay the same, or get worse over the next 12 months?

	%
Improve	22
Stay the same	33
Get worse	39
Don't know	6
Net economic optimism (improve minus get worse)	-17

Q7 Do you think the death penalty is ever justified or not?

	%
Yes, sometimes	77
No, never	21
Don't know	2

Q8 (Asked only to those who say the death penalty is sometimes justified or that they don't know) I am going to read out a list of various crimes and I would like you to tell me whether or not you feel the death penalty would be a suitable punishment for such a crime.

		Suitable	Not suitable	Not asked (never justified)	Don't know
Murder during an armed robbery	%	67	9	21	3
Murder of a policeman	%	73	4	21	2
Planned murder of husband or wife	%	57	15	21	7
Murder of husband or wife in a fit of rage	%	11	60	21	9
Terrorist murders	%	76	2	21	1
Killing a burglar in one's home	%	12	58	21	8
Accidentally killing someone during a fight	%	5	70	21	4
Murder of a kidnap victim	%	73	4	21	2

Q9 Do you think the present laws on abortion make it too easy or too difficult for women to obtain an abortion, or do you think they are about right?

	%
Too easy	35
Too difficult	6
About right	45
Don't know/no answer	14

Q10 If a married woman wants to get an abortion, should she be obliged to obtain the permission of her husband?

	%
Yes	52
No	39
Don't know/no answer	9

Q11 Who do you think should have the right to decide whether or not a patient with an incurable disease is discharged from hospital?

	%
Patient	31
Patient's family/spouse	27
Doctors/hospital	37
Other/don't know	5

Q12 Assuming the patient is too ill to make such a decision, who should have the final say, the doctors or the patient's family? Base: Those who think the patient should decide at Q11

	%
Patient's family	53
Doctors	42
Don't know	5