Who Benefits from Future Labour or Tory Governments?
Gerry Hassan
Fascinating figures from YouGov’s Sunday Times weekend poll – which as far as I can find are only available online and not in the newspaper version (at least north of the border) (1).
When voters were asked who they thought would most benefit from a Conservative Government they responded:
The rich 47%
Married couples 37%
Hardworking men and women 30%
The poor 11%
Single parents 8%
Immigrants 7%
When voters were asked who they thought would most benefit from a Labour Government they responded:
Immigrants 39%
Single parents 37%
The poor 29%
Hardworking men and women 25%
Married couples 14%
The rich 14%
I think choosing my words carefully this tells us a lot about the images and identities of Conservatives and Labour. The view of the Tories top three groups has the negative of ‘the rich’, but two positive groups which people identify with.
Labour on the other hand – has as its three top groups – parts of the electorate which the mainstream political discourse and media world invite us not to identify with: immigrants, single parents and ‘the poor’. It is interesting that the three groups most associated with Labour are marginalised, vulnerable groups – who are consistently stigmatised in much of our politics and media.
These figures will have been seen and digested by Mandelson and viewed as evidence of the death of the Blairite New Labour project. I think more than anything else they point to the tide of the moment flowing towards the Conservatives, and that the flow of this campaign, irrespective of the ups and downs of day-by-day action, strengthening the Tories.
Notes
1. UK Polling Report, April 12th 2010, http://www.ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/
