To The Hustings?

There is little in this week's MORI poll for The Times [Political Attitudes in Great Britain for March 2001] which should discourage Tony Blair from calling the general election next week, should he wish to do so, for fear of the political effects. It is true that the public seems profoundly unimpressed with the government's handling of the Foot and Mouth crisis, and that opinion on this issue has deteriorated over the last week (69% were dissatisfied with the way the Government is handling the Foot and Mouth outbreak in the Times poll, conducted on 22-27 March, compared with 52% dissatisfied on 15-17 March when we polled for the Mail on Sunday [FOOT AND MOUTH POLL]). But this dissatisfaction has not fed through into any adverse change in voting intentions: Labour's share is 50%, as it was in January and February.

On the other hand, at least one finding in the poll might argue against delay: the economic optimism index (EOI: the balance of those who expect the state of the economy to get better over the next year minus those who expect it to get worse) has fallen sharply, from -2 in February to -29 now. This is probably a reaction to falling share prices rather than the impact of Foot and Mouth on the agricultural and tourist industries. (The European Commission's consumer confidence index, a composite measure based on a survey by GfK, was also published today and found no fall in confidence; but the GfK survey was conducted before the share price fall though well after the start of the Foot and Mouth epidemic.)

It is a moot point how much economic confidence really affects voting in modern elections. In the 1980s, there was a very clear correlation between MORI's EOI and voting intention figures, and the academic David Sanders was able to produce models using economic data which were powerfully predictive of the general election results. Since then, the relationship has been much weaker - perhaps especially since "Black Wednesday", when sterling fell out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism. This humiliation for John Major's government presumably made it clear to voters that international economic forces are often too strong to be within the control of national governments, and to be less likely to apportion blame or give credit to the party in power for the state of the economy. Since the 1997 election, the relationship between EOI and voting intention in our polls has only been weak: the r-squared co-efficient, which measures how closely two variables are correlated, is 0.071, meaning that only 7.1% of the variation in Labour's lead can be attributed to changes in economic optimism.

Nor are economic issues very high in the public's list of worries and priorities: only 10% name unemployment as one of the most important issues facing the country, and 9% name the economy in general or the economic situation. By contrast, 49% mentioned the Foot and Mouth outbreak, and 37% the NHS. Nevertheless, unemployment is at its lowest level for years and the economy generally seen to be in good shape, despite the sudden rise in pessimism about the future, so perhaps it is natural that the public seem more concerned about issues where they are dissatisfied with government performance than where they are not. It is an unfortunate fact of politics that a government can rarely hope to get as much credit for what it does well as it will get blame for what it does badly. Hence the low priority put on economic issues at the moment does not necessarily imply that the government can afford to be complacent about the electoral effects of an economic downturn; so if, as some commentators expect, we are about to enter a recession, Mr Blair might be well-advised to get the election out of the way as soon as possible.

Linked to this is the success of Gordon Brown's budget. As our survey and the trends from our previous post-budget survey show, Mr Brown has pulled a remarkable rabbit from his hat, convincing considerably more of the public that they will personally benefit from his proposals than that they will suffer; and the public also believe it will be good for the country as a whole.

Q Do you think the Budget proposals are a good thing or a bad thing (a) for you personally? (b) for the country as a whole?

Source: MORI

Combining the two measures, it is the best received pre-election budget since MORI first used these questions in 1976. Again, from a purely political point of view, the quicker the election - before the good impression starts to fade - the more votes to be had.

Nevertheless, the risks of calling the election while Foot and Mouth still rages through the countryside are real. The majority of the public say they do not want the election to be called under such circumstances. If Mr Blair does so, will it damage his image? Or, more directly, will it damage turnout? (We already seem to be heading for a record low turnout: just 49% of the public say they are certain to vote, compared to 66% who said so in March 1997 - admittedly, at that point in 1997 the election had already been called, but 61% were certain to vote in February 1997. Turnout will be higher in the key marginals, of course, but it will be correspondingly lower elsewhere: just 39% are certain to vote in Labour'' safest, heartland, constituencies where the party has a majority of 35% or more. Add to this any further fall in turnout caused by Foot and Mouth, and where would it takes us?

Mark Stuart in this morning's Independent revealed that this situation is not, after all, unprecedented. The general election of 1923 was fought in the middle of what was then the biggest ever Foot and Mouth outbreak in Britain, though it was smaller than the current epidemic. Yet no-one complained, and Foot and Mouth was not an issue in the election, he notes. What he doesn't report, though, is that the 1923 election had the lowest turnout of any British general election since 1918, just 70.8%.

A tricky decision for Mr Blair. We await the outcome with interest.