Three in four believe Britain's governance needs improving

Three people in four now say that the present system of governing Britain needs improving, according to the findings of an Ipsos survey for the BBC, published Tuesday (fieldwork 29th-31st May, 1,001 respondents). The first time the British public were asked how satisfied or dissatisfied they were with their system of governing Britain, in 1973, the result was roughly half and half, now it is three to one who are dissatisfied[1]. This three to one support for change now matches the mood of the nation in 1995 when the Conservative Government of John Major was headed for its 1997 defeat which resulted in the 179 majority for Tony Blair. The state of play today, if replicated at the election, would deliver a 178 majority for David Cameron, and our next book would be titled "Explaining the Tory Landslide". The current state of the parties shows the Tories on 40%, close to the average of 42% in all polls done by the major pollsters since the beginning of the year. Labour and the Liberal Democrats are now tied at 18% each. This is the worst result for Labour since polling began. It is far below the 36% they received in 2005. Labour has lost half its support. The swing since 2005 is 12.5%. In this past month of political upheaval, support for the Tories has risen seven, from 33% to 40%, the Liberals are down five percentage points from their 23% in 2005 to 18%, and the `others' combined were then has nearly doubled, from 13% in April to 22% today. Over the past five months the Tories have been virtually static at 42% plus or minus the 3% margin of error. Since the beginning of the year there have been 47 voting intention polls published; in 44 the Tories have been within the margin of error, the three `outliers' YouGov, in January at 35% (over the same days they also had the Tories at 41%), Ipsos in February with 48%, both clearly out of line with the averages over the five month run and month by month as well (BPIX with 45% was out of line for the average of the 13 polls in the month of May as well). It is a different story with Labour. Public opinion on Labour has been much more volatile. During the period January through the end of May, the highest figure recorded for Labour was YouGov's two 34% shares, one in January for the Sun, and the other in April for the Sunday Times. The lowest Labour share (ever recorded by a major pollster) was our 18% just reported, well below the 23% average for the month of May. Out of line, yes, for now, but let's see what the next few polls report. For, you see, Ipsos does not `weight' for past voting intention. To do so naturally `smoothes' the findings of the volatility of the electorate's reacting to the news of the day. Some commentators do not seem to realise this, and even have in the past been critical of Ipsos's record of volatility. For the record, on only one occasion each has Ipsos's reported share of the vote for each party been out of line for either the Conservatives or Labour this year. The public are sullen, some even mutinous. Now, with all that nerdy stuff out of the way, what, did you say, excited me in the poll findings for the BBC?

• In 2001, 45% were satisfied with the way Westminster Parliament is doing its job; that figure has fallen to just 20% now, down 15 points. Eight years ago satisfaction with Westminster was 45% to 30% dissatisfied, a three to two satisfied ratio; now it is 20% to 63%, three to one dissatisfied, a 29% swing, 29 people in 100 have gone from thinking that Parliament's doing an OK job to a pretty bad job.
• Those who say that they are very dissatisfied with the way Parliament is doing its job has tripled, from 11% to 33%. A third of the electorate are not just sullen, they're mutinous!
• Nearly a quarter of the public, 23%, say they are satisfied with the performance of the House of Lords, not good, but 8 points greater than the 16% who say they are satisfied with the performance of the House of Commons. Seven people in ten say they are dissatisfied with the performance of the Commons, four in ten are very dissatisfied.
• We've found over the years that only one person in five believe they can trust MPs to tell the truth. This has come as a shock to many MPs according to what they say, yet going back to 1983 we found just 22% who trusted MPs then (and government ministers were trusted by only 18%). I'm surprised that they are surprised.
• There's better news when people were asked if they trusted their local MP. In fact, half, 50%, said they did, but then 44% said they did not. Using the concept of swing to compare between these two sets of responses, 31 more people in a hundred say they trust their local MP to tell the truth than trust MPs in general.

• Compared with the dark, unhappy days of the Major Government in the mid-90s and its problems with sleaze, the problems facing Gordon Brown are monumental. Certainly one thing upsetting the body politic big time is all the kerfuffle over MPs expenses. It's not that the public haven't been sceptical of the motivations of their MPs for many years. The first poll findings about the priorities of MPs I'm aware of were found by Gallup in 1944, when, during the war, they asked "Do you think British politicians are out merely for themselves, for their party, or to do their best for the country?" The answers were: 36% for their country, 35% for themselves, and 22% for their party, with 7% unsure. I thought this was a great question when doing some research on past poll findings as I was writing a book on the history of polling in Great Britain, but thought their question could be improved. I wanted to know not only what the public thought the MPs do, but what the electorate thought they should do. The contrast then, and now, is vivid. Then over half, 56%, said they thought MPs were putting their own interests first, while only one in 20 thought MPs put the country's interests first. Now MPs seen as first out for themselves is up six points to 62% and just 5% for the country..
• It is the contrast with what they public think they should do which is startling. By comparison, while only 5% think that MPs put the interests of the country paramount, ten times as many, 52%, think they should put the interests of the country in prime position. And 62 times as many think that MPs put their own interests first as think they should.

There's much more on the Ipsos web site: have a look, and even more importantly, think what it means. For my part, a written constitution, fixed four year terms (other than on the loss of a vote of confidence), reduction in the power of the whips, more teeth for the select committees and especially the PAC, an extension of Freedom of Information, greater protection of civil liberties and less of the nanny state, and more. When I read through the shopping list coming out of Number Ten of the Prime Minister's list of proposed reforms, I thought where has he been? As a member of the Hansard Society's Chataway Commission back in the mid 90s, I recall that our Report called for many of the reforms he's now proposing. Indeed, in 1991 MORI carried out the survey for the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust which looked into many reforms, including many on Brown's agenda now. If only when New Labour had first come in they'd done these things then... It should be an interesting evening on Sunday.