The Voice of Britain: From our Archives (1)

MORI began conducting regular, almost monthly, political polls in 1978. Beginning with a post-budget poll in April for the Sunday Times, then a detailed poll on the Common Market (as we called it then) in May, we continued with further polls - all of which we are now re-releasing – in June, July, September and November for the Daily Express.

These polls track the evolution of public opinion through the last two-thirds of 1978 as a general election, due the following year, loomed. The parallels between then and now are obvious. A Labour Prime Minister, a former Chancellor of the Exchequer elected without facing the country after his predecessor retired, was challenged by a younger, Oxford-educated Conservative leader who was also a relatively unknown quantity. Economic considerations were to the fore (though it was inflation that was then its most troubling aspect, together with unemployment). Labour trailed the Conservatives in voting intentions for most of the year, though the gap was rather narrower than that faced by Gordon Brown in 2009.

There are some obvious differences, too. Reading the poll findings, it's striking how much more sympathetic the public seemed to be towards politicians then than has been the case for many years now. In 1978, 20% felt that James Callaghan was out of touch with ordinary people, 25% that Denis Healey was out of touch and 27% that Margaret Thatcher was. In June 2006, we asked a similar question about the then PM, Tony Blair, his chancellor, Gordon Brown, and the relatively recently elected Conservative leader, David Cameron. Even though many had not yet formed an opinion, 31% felt that Cameron was "not in touch with what ordinary people think", but that was better than the 45% with the same opinion of Gordon Brown and the 62% feeling that Tony Blair was out of touch.

In a similar vein, in 1978 most leading politicians were acquitted by most of the public of being "dishonest", though 30% applied that label to former PM Harold Wilson. His successor, Callaghan, was considered dishonest by 12%, Denis Healey by 14% and Margaret Thatcher by 17%. Our more recent polling has not explored the issue in precisely those terms, but we do occasionally ask whether the public considers leading figures to be trustworthy or not. In fact – perhaps surprisingly given the pervasiveness of the impression that the public holds all politicians today in very low standing – at the time of our last poll on the matter in October 2007 both Gordon Brown and David Cameron were judged to be trustworthy by more than took the opposite view. Nevertheless, and even allowing for the difference in wording, 43% considering Brown to be untrustworthy and 40% saying that of Cameron seems rather a comedown from opinions in 1978. What is more, a consistent proportion of around 60% were saying that they thought Tony Blair was untrustworthy whenever we polled on it during his last three-and-a-half years in office.

In these polls you will see the public's evaluations of the leaders, the parties and their policies as 1978 progressed (how fascinating to note that 55% of the public thought that if the Conservatives were to win the election, Ted Heath would make a better Prime Minister than Margaret Thatcher would). See too, perhaps, the steady decay of Labour's underlying position as the impact of a well-received budget faded, the government attempted to enforce its pay policy and the trade unions built up towards the confrontation which contributed to plummeting support for Labour as 1979 dawned. There are questions, too, that might ring a bell today: what the public felt about the possibility of a hung Parliament after the election, and reflections on the introduction of radio broadcasting of the Commons for the first time – relevant, perhaps, as we wonder what a televised leaders' debate will do to the election? But there is much more, not all party political: compulsory seat belts and capital punishment, what the government should do with North Sea Oil windfall, attitudes to divorce (as Princess Margaret ended her marriage with Lord Snowdon) and the maximum penalty for bigamy. Half the public, 52%, believed that if a married woman wanted to get an abortion she should be obliged to get the consent of her husband, and 73% thought that "Higher-paid people pay so much income tax that there is no incentive for them to work harder".

• Please read the second instalment, with some of our polls between the turn of the year and the 1979 election.