According to the latest Ipsos Government Delivery Index, two in five British adults (40%) think that the Government's policies will improve the state of Britain's economy in the long-term, although slightly more (46%) disagree, giving a net optimism score of -6. This is slightly higher than the net score of -13 in May 2006.
The public's detailed image of the Prime Minister has deteriorated significantly in the last 18 months, analysis of data from the Ipsos Political Monitor shows; but while Gordon Brown's image is better, it shares many of the most negative characteristics of Mr Blair's. The poll, conducted at the start of September (before the recent public falling out over the Prime Minister's retirement date) finds that Mr Brown, like Mr Blair, is primarily seen as out of touch, though the public also admit that he has sound judgment, a description they are reluctant to apply to Tony Blair, and many more people describe him as inflexible, tending to talk down to people and narrow minded than have the same impression of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat leaders.
Satisfaction with the performance of Tony Blair as prime minister has hit new lows over the past two months, the latest Ipsos poll has found. The prime minister's performance rating is now barely a third of what it was immediately following his landslide election in 1997.
On Saturday 9 September 2006, Dr Roger Mortimore (Ipsos's Senior Political Analyst) spoke at the EPOP Conference in Nottingham*, on "Ethnic Minority Voters and Non-Voters at the 2005 British General Election", delivering a paper by himself and Kully Kaur-Ballagan (Ipsos Head of Ethnic Minority Research). The paper, which draws on Ipsos research conducted for the Electoral Commission after last year's election, explores the turnout and votes of Britain's various Black and minority ethnic (BME) communities. Turnout is strongly associated with a positive attitude to elections in general, as might be expected; but there is also some evidence of a strong community effect, with those who live in areas with many other BME residents disproportionately likely to have voted. Surprisingly, there is no evidence that attitudes to the government's policy in Iraq had any significant effect. The findings also illustrate how a high quality research design, including respondents from...
Pulse Check
Pulse Check delivers key insights from Ipsos' Political Monitor, Political Pulse, and Public Services data, along with reactive polling, to help you navigate the evolving political landscape.
Public expectations of the NHS are running ahead of what the health service can deliver, according to new research published today by the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr) ahead of the release of monthly NHS waiting time figures on Friday.
The Stroke Association has worked with the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and Ipsos to gauge awareness of the relationship between salt and high blood pressure — a major contributing risk factor for stroke. The survey of over 300 Britons of south Asian origin found that only 19 people (six per cent) knew the maximum recommended salt intake was 6g a day, with a tiny proportion, five per cent, naming stroke as a primary health concern.
The research findings from the present study bear a striking similarity to those from MORI's earlier research on the regulation and revalidation of doctors. This may reflect one of the findings of the qualitative research: that even though doctors and the other professionals covered by the research are not seen as having the same roles, people seem to find it difficult to talk about non-medical healthcare professionals without also talking about doctors. They therefore fail to treat them as separate groups. This came across strongly in the focus groups, where respondents tended to focus on doctors, even when asked about non-medical healthcare professionals.
A recent Ipsos omnibus survey, published by Kingsmill, has found that almost half of parents in Britain would welcome more information about healthy eating for children 'a great deal' (45%). Moreover, more than four in five parents would welcome this 'at least a little'.
New research shows that local authority planners are increasingly satisfied with the consultation carried out by mobile network operators, for base station sites to support mobile phone use. Ipsos research carried out over the past six years shows positive improvement in all areas of consultation and information year on year. The main findings of the research were:
