The Queen's Platinum Jubilee.

[Northern_Brewer]

Look at the graphs below Boris has been way above KS from February to November when you would have thought due to the way people like you think he has handled covid it would have been the other way around, and in the other two the majority don't think Labour are fit to govern and wouldn't trust them with the economy

First thing - I don't in any way think I'm representative of people in this country. I read UKHSA/PHE reports rather than rely on the media's interpretation of them, and have a background in the molecular biology of infectious diseases that means I can read original scientific papers and have a pretty good understanding of them. Most people aren't like that.

Secondly - stuff like "best PM" is an amalgam of a whole bunch of stuff, where "competence" is only a part (compared to eg "likeability"), and the specific details of how one part of the job was handled is an even smaller contributor. And there's tends to be a bias towards the incumbent in these things, as they are generally much better known and can actually "do stuff", whereas all the LOTO can do is criticise.

But this Yougov survey is perhaps more relevant, specifically on how well the government is handling coronavirus, and it looks rather less rosy for Johnson. A brief initial surge of enthusiasm in the early stages of lockdown, another bounce due to the vaccine programme but that's evaporated as first delta and then omicron came along. And Yougov allow you to compare other countries - the UK is quite similar to the US in particular, but a lot of countries have seen this pattern of vaccine boost then delta pessimism to varying degrees and with different timings, but the UK has fewer people thinking their government has done well than most countries.

Yougov also ask the simple question "Thinking about Boris Johnson, do you think he…Competent or incompetent? , to which the answer has been "yes" apart from briefly during the vaccine rollout.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

He has hovered around 50% to 55% through most of that graph from July 2019 to September 2021 i thought (taking the amount of criticism he gets here) that figure would have been much higher and as the labour party are not fit to govern and are not to be trusted with the economy it looks like Boris may move on but the conservatives are going nowhere.

 

[Leon103]

Can we go back to talking about the queen.

 

[Binkei Huckaback]

Athe labour party are not fit to govern and are not to be trusted with the economy.

How do you know that? It's impossible to predict. And whether or not they are to be trusted with the economy depends on your view. The economy belongs to everyone, not just the rich. If a party taxes people who can afford to pay to help the less well off in society, invests in infrastructure and public services, doesn't subisidise big business if they're paying dividends to shareholders, chases those individuals and companies who avoid and evade tax, then that, in my opinion they can be trusted with the economy. Growing tthe economy shouldn't be at the expense (literally) of the man in the street.

Not that I'm saying the Labour Party will do all those things. But they should.

 

[An Ankoù]

Can we go back to talking about the queen.

Oh no. Not the old Jelly Bean! Surely you can find enough if that drivel on the Daily Express site. Can we go back to talking about beer and wild, abandoned sex?

 

[Chippy_Tea]

How do you know that? It's impossible to predict.

It's a quote from my earlier post where the polls show they are not ready to govern or trusted with the purse strings.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

. Can we go back to talking about beer

You have many forums where you can talk about beer feel free to use them.

 

[Binkei Huckaback]

It's a quote from my earlier post where the polls show they are not ready to govern or trusted with the purse strings.

Ah, the *polls* show. That's opinion, not fact or even a qualified guess. While a lot of science goes into polling to get as broad a demographic as possible, they still only tell us what people think.

A good supplementary question would have been 'have you sat down with the Labour manifesto, costed everything and come to a mathematical conclusion?'

Or they could have asked which party people last voted for, who they'll vote for next time, then asked if Labour could be trusted with the economy.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Ah, the *polls* show. That's opinion, not fact or even a qualified guess.
While a lot of science goes into polling to get as broad a demographic as possible, they still only tell us what people think.

Polls show peoples opinion that's why they are called opinion polls these are the opinions of people who are highly likely to vote for the party they have a high opinion of!

A good supplementary question would have been 'have you sat down with the Labour manifesto, costed everything and come to a mathematical conclusion?'

People don't trust labour because they have an awful history where the economy is concerned the YouGov poll question wasn't "have you costed everything in the labour manifesto" was it.

Or they could have asked which party people last voted for, who they'll vote for next time, then asked if Labour could be trusted with the economy.

They probably did why not do a little searching yourself.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

A good supplementary question would have been 'have you sat down with the Labour manifesto, costed everything and come to a mathematical conclusion?'

Not really - people just don't do that. You could equally say the same of the last Tory manifesto which was committed to a policy - Brexit - which was widely forecast to permanently cost the economy £80-100bn/year and cost the government £35-40bn/year, which is one reason why we've got the highest level of taxation in 70 years. But people voted based on what they read on the side of a bus - and they believed promises that we would stay in the Single Market & Customs Union, but Johnson was influenced into ignoring those promises.

There's good evidence that the two things that really matter when people cast their vote are "who do you think will be most capable PM" and "which party do you trust with the economy". So it's really significant that Starmer is now 13 points ahead of Johnson on the former question - it's the first time a Labour leader has been ahead of his Tory counterpart since January 2008. Starmer doesn't need to be loved, he just needs to be hated less than the other guy, all these things are relative.

Obviously they're still some way behind on the economy - but these things take time, particularly when your starting point is Corbyn. Tories-Labour were 47-14 on the economy under Corbyn, now it's 32-18 so Labour have gone from 33 points behind to 14 points behind. And it's hard for them to tell any kind of story about the economy at the moment when all attention is on the pandemic, hopefully the virus will occupy fewer headlines in 2022.

 

[Justin Dean]

Um taxation level nothing to do we recovery national debt from the burden of covid?

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Um taxation level nothing to do we recovery national debt from the burden of covid?

The pandemic is obviously part of it, but the OBR reckon that the long term economic "scarring" effect of Covid-19 will be 2%, compared to 4% for the hard Brexit chosen by Johnson. Given that Sunak raised taxes by £65bn, you could say about £20bn is Covid and £40bn is Brexit.

See para 2.25 and Box 2.5 (after para 2.71) of their October outlook :
https://obr.uk/download/economic-and-fiscal-outlook-october-2021/

 

[Binkei Huckaback]

Um taxation level nothing to do we recovery national debt from the burden of covid?

Sorry, I think you've missed out some words there.

 

[Binkei Huckaback]

They probably did why not do a little searching yourself.

But I'm not trying to prove anything. Just saying that no-one can really know for certain one way or another. Everything in opinion polls is just that. Unqualified opinion. And probably a lot of those people couldn't manage their own finances properly.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

probably a lot of those people couldn't manage their own finances properly.

Unless that disqualifies them from voting, that's irrelevant.

Another chart, of Johnson's net "doing well/badly" ratings :

 

[Chippy_Tea]

But I'm not trying to prove anything. Just saying that no-one can really know for certain one way or another. Everything in opinion polls is just that. Unqualified opinion. And probably a lot of those people couldn't manage their own finances properly.

What I am trying to get over is it is their opinion and it shows which way they are likely to vote it's not about how fit they are at running the household budget it's about how they think the main partys will run it and as the polls show labour are not trusted.