The Bubble Bursts
This month's sharp drop in the government's and Tony Blair's own approval ratings [June's Times poll] restores the political scene in Britain to what we generally assume to be its normal state, after more than three years when it seemed as if the laws of gravity had been suspended. For most of the half-century in which opinion polls have been measuring the state of the parties and ratings of the governments and their leaders, it has been a constant that governments are unpopular; for the first time, Mr Blair's ratings are beginning to be comparable to those of his predecessors.
Let's look at the figures in their historical context. This month, 28% are satisfied with how the government is running the country, while 62% are dissatisfied, a worse than to-to-one negative ratio. If we look back a few years, though , we see that John Major was achieving very similar government satisfaction ratings in the last few months before the 1992 election - for example, in January 1992, 28% were satisfied with the government and 63% dissatisfied; ten weeks later, Mr Major was returned to office with a narrow majority, so clearly, bleak as such figures look they are not necessarily disastrous.
On the other hand, at that point John Major personally was considerably more popular than Tony Blair is now. In January 1992, 51% were satisfied with his performance and 38% dissatisfied, a net +14 rating; today, 39% are satisfied with the way Mr Blair is doing his job whereas 52% are dissatisfied - Mr Blair's first negative rating in our monthly polls. Although Mr Blair's figures are by no means terminal - Margaret Thatcher consistently scored worse than this throughout 1986, yet won the 1987 election comfortably - it is a considerable comedown for a Prime Minister who only just over a year ago had more than 60% of the country satisfied with how he is doing his job. Normal service has been restored, so to speak.
But what are the electoral implications? Despite plummeting satisfaction with the government, there has been little movement in the voting intention polls - our poll for the Mail on Sunday three weeks ago with its much remarked upon 3 per cent lead seems to have been no more than a passing freak, probably at least partly a transient reaction to Mr Blair's disastrous speech to the Women's Institute; all three polls in the last week (MORI for the News of the World, MORI for The Times and ICM for the Guardian) show similar results, with the Tories on 32%-34% and the lead at 11-14 points. [all company trends]. While this represents a definite (and sustained) improvement for the Tories since the end of last year, it still shows them not even close to shaking Mr Blair's grip on power if the election were held tomorrow.
Nor is there much mystery as to why this is. Although the public is no longer prepared to government the benefit of the doubt, and seems thoroughly dissatisfied with its record on many fronts, it doesn't think much of the Conservative alternative. Even the Mail on Sunday poll in which we found the gap narrowed to three points and the government judged a failure in every one of eight key policy areas also found that Mr Blair beat Mr Hague by 37% to 18% as most capable Prime Minister. Only 29% are satisfied with Mr Hague as Conservative leader.
But, of course, that is not the end of the story. The election will not be held tomorrow, and there is time fir the figures to change. Maybe the government will recover its credibility, and this month's figures will be seen as no more than a blip - but all the signs are that the only way to do that is to begin to present the country with concrete achievements, especially in improving the National Health Service. Such improvements are not made overnight, of course, but perceptions can be changed far more quickly, and it is the perceptions rather than the reality that are important to voting - but then there is a strong argument for saying that thinking in that way is what got the government into this position in the first place. "Spin", once the public has seen through it, is merely counterproductive.
But the other side of the coin is that the Conservatives might recover their credibility. In their case, of course, as an opposition party, they can have no concrete achievements to offer. (A few more years of gains in local government and good management of the town halls might change that, but not in time for the coming election.) Perceptions are all the Tories are able to worry about - how can they persuade the public that they are a credible alternative government? It will not be easy, and it may be that the government has queered their pitch as well as its own by bringing spin and image into disrepute; but such a recovery, surely, is what Mr Blair really needs to worry about, however remote the possibility.
Of particular interest is to note where the dissatisfaction with the Prime Minister is most marked. When we analyse our poll by constituency, a pattern that is potentially very worrying for the government emerges. Whereas 52% across the country are dissatisfied with Mr Blair, the figure rises to 64% in Labour-held marginal seats, the battleground of the next election. Similarly, while only 48% are dissatisfied with the government in Labour's super-safe "heartland" seats (at which ministers have, perhaps misguidedly, been directing much of their recent energies), 64% are dissatisfied in their marginals. Add to that the likelihood that the turnout of Tory supporters will be better than that of Labour, narrowing the real gap in votes, and everything is suddenly much closer than it looks at the moment.
It was reported this week that Labour is considering campaigning with the slogan "Prime Minister Hague", in the hope of underlining and bringing to the fore voters' misgivings about the Leader of the Opposition. I wonder how wise this is. One of the (many) tactical mistakes made by the last government was its adoption of the slogan "New Labour, New Danger", which quite apart from its counter-productive effect on voters sick of 'knocking copy' helped to underline and establish Labour's own slogan, at Tory expense. "To us this was like rain in a drought," said Labour's political consultant and pollster, Philip Gould. Could Labour now be making the same mistake? Presumably Mr Gould will have thoroughly tested the slogan in his focus groups before ministers are allowed to use it. If not, is there a risk that people might start to get used to the idea of "Prime Minister Hague"? And maybe, after that, might even start to like it? If so, a two-to-one dissatisfaction ratio would suddenly start looking a great deal more unhealthy than it does at the moment.
