MORI's latest Political Monitor finds, for the fourth successive month, very little difference between Labour and the Conservatives. Labour has regained a slight lead, but the general picture is one of stability. By a two to one margin, the public remain critical of the way Tony Blair is doing his job. This has not translated into higher levels of satisfaction with Michael Howard; his satisfaction rating now stands at -2, the lowest this year.
A recent survey for the Commission on London Governance shows that Londoners express high levels of satisfaction with living in the capital. Seven in 10 Londoners also feel that they have a different outlook to people in the rest of the country, putting this down to a faster way of life and the capital's more multicultural environment. The Capital's history and heritage as well as its cultural diversity are highly valued.
MORI has just completed a major research project for The Boundary Committee for England. Some 17,000 residents in the north of England have been asked about the possible future pattern of unitary local government in the area.
Dr Elizabeth Nelson, the founding partner of Taylor Nelson, now one of the world's largest market research groups, leads the London arm of the International Women's Forum, and asked me recently to have a look at the upcoming elections in the USA and here in Britain. I'll confess, I hadn't been paying enough attention to what's been happening to the women's voting intentions since the last general election. Mea culpa!
This week the Electoral Commission and the Hansard Society published a report seeking to audit the nature and extent of the UK public's political engagement, to be used to provide a platform for further debate about what might be done to enhance engagement in politics and the political process. The report is primarily based on a Political Engagement Poll conducted by the MORI Social Research Institute of 1,976 UK adults aged 18+ conducted in December 2003.
MORI interviewed a representative quota sample of 1,989 adults aged 18+ at 208 sampling points across Great Britain. Fieldwork was conducted face-to-face on 11-16 March 2004. Data are weighted to match the profile of the population.
The terrorist attacks in Madrid last week have had an immediate impact on British public opinion, according to MORI's latest Political Monitor. Asked unprompted to name the most important issues facing Britain today, more of the public mention defence and terrorism (41%) than any other issue. This is the first time since March 2003, then at the height of the Iraq War, that defence/terrorism has been seen as the most important issues facing the country.
