The state is too big, voters say
Majority support Tory plans to scale back 'big government', poll shows
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Independent Minds
Two-thirds of voters back David Cameron’s call for the size of the state to be slimmed down, a ComRes survey for The Independent discloses today.
The poll also shows that the Conservatives remain on course for a comfortable victory at the general election, despite a small drop in their lead over Labour. The ComRes poll puts the Tories on 40 per cent (up two points since last month), Labour on 27 per cent (up four), the Liberal Democrats on 18 per cent (down five) with other parties on 15 per cent (down one).
There is no sign that the British National Party has achieved an electoral bounce since Nick Griffin’s controversial appearance on BBC1’s Question Time: its support is stuck at just two per cent.
The Tory leadership will be relieved that it has emerged from the party conference season with its lead almost intact at 13 per cent, a fall of two points. It had feared that the party’s gloomy warnings of the need for swingeing cuts in public spending would hit its support.
A large majority of voters said they supported Mr Cameron’s central message to his conference that “big government” needed to be scaled back.
Sixty-seven per cent said they agreed with the Tory leader that “the Government has grown too big and needs a major overhaul to make it smaller”. Just 28 per cent disagreed, with his call for a smaller state supported across the social spectrum.
Andrew Hawkins, the chief executive of ComRes, said: “The Conservatives are on to a winner with this campaign line.”
Today’s survey does, however, carry a new warning to the Tories – and a crumb of comfort to Labour – that the Conservative poll rating is relatively “soft”.
Nearly half of voters (45 per cent) say they agree David Cameron “seems likeable, but I am not sure I am ready to see a Conservative government”, with 49 per cent disagreeing.
Even 38 per cent of Tory supporters agree with the statement, underlining the problem party strategists continue to face in converting hostility to the Brown government into positive support for the Conservatives.
Thirty-six per cent of non-Labour voters also said they would consider backing a party they did not support “just to try to keep Labour out of government”.
The ComRes survey suggests the last conference season before the general election has made little difference to the balance of political support in Britain.
Labour had targeted its gathering in Brighton for the start of a concerted fightback against the Tories and Mr Brown won largely positive reviews for his conference speech.
Although a poll rating of 27 per cent marks a modest recovery from the low-20s over the summer, a 13-point lead for the Tories would be enough to give Mr Cameron a majority of 66 in a general election.
The Liberal Democrats will be disappointed to have fallen back into the high-teens although their 23 per cent rating last month probably reflected the fact that polling was conducted just days after the end of their conference.
Support for other parties remains at an historic high, reflecting the continuing disillusionment with mainstream parties. The Green Party, who are targeting the constituency of Brighton Pavilion for an electoral breakthrough at the election, have five per cent support, with the UK Independence Party on three per cent and the BNP on two per cent.
ComRes telephoned 1004 GB adults between 23rd and 25th October 2009. Data were weighted by past vote recall. ComRes is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules. Full tables at www.comres.co.uk
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Comments
Can't bl00dy move in this country without some oddball set of regulations or someone with a clipboard coming along to take an audit.
...And as for the myth about privatisation... Well... O_o
Here are some areas where a little humility and straight thinking on the part of the powers that be is needed.
The NHS, still centrally controlled, massively expensive and not very effective (depending who you believe somewhere between number 10 and 20 on a world ranking.) Spending a fortune on central IT systems, which don't work yet, and if they ever do will solve problems that have since gone away. The Uk is a bad place to have cancer, or be a diabetic, or have many other problems, because the outcomes are amongst the worst in Europe.
Child Benefit. This mostly recycles money back to the people it came from in the first place. Scrap it. Raise taxes on better off, give more support to worst off. Save lots of non-productive civil servants.
ID cards. The state wants to be the only organisation to know who you are and prove it unconditionally. Scrap them, they are unnecessary, and a symbol of big government.
Home Information Packs. Blatant interference between private contracting parties in an attempt to dictate contract terms. scrap them.
Universities (with one honourable exception). Micro-managed by state which acts as if it owns them. Set them free to sink or swim on their own.
Local authorities. Return local spending to where it has high visibility and will be keenly scrutinised. Local councillors are always held to much higher standards than MPs.
One can extend the same thinking to schools, recycling services or almost anything else. But first get rid of the idea that bigger is better. It seldom is.
Here in Bristol, we have a newly expanded local hospital - Southmead - a new local health centre, six newly rebuilt schools... It costs over a quarter of a million pounds to train a doctor just to graduation...
It's dead easy for millionaires like Camoron to cut back on those things he rarely if ever uses: I wonder if he's planning cuts for Eton?
In education thousands are employed at the ministry, why?
You mentioned hospitals, but why do they have to be owned and operated by the government? France has a better health care system than ours, but they privatise hospitals.
How many local authority services do we need? How many 'coordinators' for diversity etc do we need? We need a long hard look at what the state does in detail and decide if we need it all. There is so much government sponsored busy bodying about that I cannot believe we need it all. Why is one quarter of government spending done by quangoes?
Cameron has made great play on the fact his deceased son Ivan had superb care from the NHS, not some service he ever used as you put it. I think you are letting your massive inverted snobbery get in the way of your understanding of what "public spending" is about. Training Dr's and teachers is one thing, appointing bloody old Labour hypocrit cronies like the Kinnocks to very highly paid sinecure's is quiet another.
Having more pen pushers in the MOD than there are soldiers in the undermaned underfunded, British Army is another example of Labours wonderous management of affairs. By the way, for Christ sake give Eton a rest and check where Harman, and the Millibands went to school. Where do you think the Millibands communist dad taught? Nelson Mandela Comprehensive on a B
The tories pulling the plug on these sort of investments, to return us to the 1980s.
They don't want to spend the same money on schools, and hospitals. As conservatism is all about looking after yourself. Not relying on a state to help you.
It's basic Thatcherism. Middle class people love it, as their taxes are low. Everyone else just suffers.
Sadly, Cameron's playing on intelligence with the terms he uses. 99% of the working class people voting for him have no idea what he actually means.
If they actually realised that Cameron plans to close schools, cut investment to their children, and weaken the NHS, so they have to wait 6 months for a scan, he'd never get in.
A very dishonest political policy, conservatism. Only ever gets in power in times of financial trouble, when they play on people's fear.
In normal times, nobody would consider voting for them. As no matter how rich the country is, only 10% of the population will see any of it
They also win when they have created financial stability e.g. 1955, 1959, 1988. They bequeathed to Labour a stable growing economy in 1997 and look what Labour have done with it; created the biggest debt in history which will cost more in interest charges that what is currently being spent on education.
Labour have never left office with a lower rate of unemployment than when they entered it and 2010 will be no exception.
Ditch Scotland, after all the SNP with support from New Labour want independence any way.
This will not only help to thin down the state, it has the advantage of saving England millions of pounds going North of the border. And England gets the Houses of Parliament back.
Just a thought.
Just a thought (supported by the evidence).
New Labour initiated devolution, used the Barnett Formula to give Scotland the highest amount of money per head of population, putting Scotland at the top of the money give out, with England at the Bottom with the least. Over the last ten years physical and financial resources have been slowly heading north of the border, and now they want to give Scotland limited tax gathering powers. Which is one of the last few actions you take to give a devolved region independence.
What part of this don't you understand.
What short memories people have. Think of the way things are now, and then remember:
sleaze/brown envelopes ... recession ... in and out the ERM/"Black Wednesday" ... the feud over Europe, which just meant that we havered inconclusively in the middle, with the worst of both worlds, neither in nor out ... the privatizations that were supposed to increase efficiency, boost competition, cut prices (think railways, gas, electricity, water!) ... "right to buy" which led to the shortage of affordable housing that we have now ... centralization of power in Westminster and Whitehall at the expense of local councils (what was that about "smaller government"?!) ... "the community charge" ... the slashing of the UK's industrial base without any serious provision to deal with its effects ... the "Big Bang of '86 which created the financial/banking climate that's proved so gloriously beneficial to us all in the last year! ... the origin of a foreign policy conjoined to the USA's ...
If a majority of Brits seriously think that substituting one lot of arrogant, privileged, hectoring sharks for another is any sort of solution, well, perhaps we deserve what we get ...