Teflon Tony Rides Again

The June MORI Political Monitor, published today, finds little movement in voting intentions. Labour, contrary to the assumption that the Black Rod spin row must have damaged Mr Blair, is fractionally up since last month, though none of the figures have moved to a statistically significant degree -- there is no more change than must be expected from sampling variation.

The pattern of change closely matches that found by ICM in their polls for the Guardian, though they persistently find Labour lower and the Tories and Lib Dems higher than MORI. NOP, who this week published voting intention figures in the Daily Telegraph, agree closely with ICM.

Voting intentions

There is no mystery why ICM's and NOP's figures differ from MORI's. Both companies apply a significant weighting factor on the basis of declared past vote. ICM also filters its answers on the basis of likelihood of voting, which MORI doesn't do between elections. Therefore, since those who think themselves less likely to vote are disproportionately likely to support Labour if they support any party, it is unsurprising that ICM's Labour support figure is lower and Conservative higher than MORI's. We are measuring what the whole adult population actually thinks at the moment; ICM is attempting to measure how the electorate really would vote if there were an election tomorrow -- two different measurements which unsurprisingly produce different results.

But despite these differences in the details, the message of all three companies' polls is the same: there is no sign of slipping of support for the government, or ground made up by the Tories, over the last few weeks. According to ICM, 40% think Tony Blair is "more honest than most politicians" while 49% disagree, and 11% have no opinion; but only 27% think Iain Duncan Smith is more honest than most, and 43% that he is not. On these impressions, the opposition has nothing to gain from distrust of government.

Interesting, too, to see where the slight increase in support for Labour over the last month has come from. Labour's share in the MORI Political Monitor was up among women (from 46% to 50%), the 55-and-overs (from 38% to 43%), among the ABC1s (from 37% to 41%), owner occupiers (42% to 44%) and in the south of England (from 38% to 41%). In every case the Tory share fell correspondingly. All of these are natural Tory groups; none of them, apparently, are impressed by the latest Tory avenue for attacks on the government.

Nevertheless, the conclusion that some commentators were drawing from this week's polls -- that the government is undented and can therefore go ahead and win an early referendum on the Euro -- seems foolhardy, to say the least. If falling trust in the Prime Minister and government has not damaged support for his party, that is only because his opponents are equally mistrusted, as for that matter is the media. In answer to ICM's question on the spin controversy, pitting the credibility of the government against "Conservative inclined newspapers", more of the public said they believed neither (36%) than believed either the government (31%) or the papers (22%) -- and this without ICM even offering their respondents the explicit option of saying they believed neither. But the less trust any group can inspire, the harder it will be to win hearts and minds on the euro. Public opinion may be stuck where it is, or may go its own merry way with little regard to what the politicians and newspapers are telling it.

And, at the moment, the momentum is against the Euro, not in its favour. At the start of the year, when the euro coins and notes first went into circulation on the continent, several polls found a sharp swing in favour of the euro and many commentators believed this trend would continue and quickly deliver a British majority in favour of joining, or at least close enough that a well-liked and trusted Prime Minister and Chancellor could pull them the rest of the way once the referendum campaign began.

But since the turn of the year the trend has been in the opposite direction. The MORI Financial Services/Salomon Smith Barney poll in January found 33% in favour of joining; by May it had fallen back to 31%. ICM on 3 January found 31%; last week in their poll for Goldman Sachs it was 25%. Furthermore, predictions that would be a further surge of support for the euro once British holidaymakers had had the chance to use the new currency abroad have not, so far, been fulfilled; admittedly, the summer is young, but leaked private polling by ICM reported in the Daily Telegraph this week among those who had travelled to the continent this year found a minimal effect.

Recent events will not sink the government, it seems. But they won't float the euro, either.