The final polls to be published before the war in Iraq started, conducted last weekend, all found a shift in public opinion in favour of British involvement in the war but still found a majority disapproving, both of military action and of Tony Blair's handling of the Iraq crisis.
Few political issues so dominate the public consciousness as the Iraq crisis is doing at the moment: 55% of the public named defence/foreign affairs as the single most important issue facing the country in the last MORI Political Monitor, and a further 7% chose nuclear weapons or disarmament. The National Health Service, the public's perennial obsession, is now of primary concern only to 6% - almost unprecedentedly, not even in the top three.
Whom do we trust? Certainly not politicians nor journalists. Doctors, yes, and no doubt nurses. Certainly teachers, professors, judges and priests, but not everyone trusts even them to tell the truth. One person in five say they don't believe that either judges or the clergy can be trusted.
The United States of America has a PR problem. It's not just that they are overpaid, over weight, and over here, although they are, it's that they are misunderstood. That's a big problem for the US of A, for the President, George W. Bush, and it is certainly a problem for Britain's Prime Minister, Tony Blair, at this time of world tension.
Tony Blair's answer to the challenge posed by last weekend's peace march has been, in effect, to ask the public to trust his judgment rather than their own. Five years ago, they might have done; but many fewer are prepared to do so these days. In MORI's most recent poll on the Iraq crisis, in the third week of January, just 26% approved of the way Mr Blair was handling the current situation, and his support may have fallen further since then. Mr Blair's personal and government ratings have both fallen sharply: the MORI Political Monitor at the end of January found only 26% of the public satisfied with the way the government is running the country and 33% satisfied with the way Mr Blair is doing his job as Prime Minister - almost identical to the troughs those ratings hit immediately after the fuel crisis in September 2000.
The general impression of the political scene over the last few months has been of gradually crumbling support for the government, as measured in tumbling satisfaction ratings, but tempered by reluctance to swing to the Tories, with a consequent seepage towards the Lib Dems and Labour support otherwise holding up better than might otherwise be the case - but this has been based almost entirely on broad-sweep polls, with only speculation about the details.
What's the source of all the talk about the rise in Anti-Americanism in this country? Despite reports regularly appearing these days in certain sections of the British media, Americans are liked by more people in Britain than at any time in past three decades.
