So much for Labour's honeymoon
"Mr. Maude: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will place in the Library a copy of the background data for the Delivery Index provided by IPSOS MORI to the Cabinet Office on the public's attitude to and experience of public services relating to the last four quarters. [249963]
Mr. Watson: The Cabinet Office does not routinely receive any additional Delivery Index data from IPSOS Mori beyond that available on their website; the underlying data can be found here...
And because I like doing that sort of thing, I have charted the figures for replies to "On balance, do you agree or disagree with the statement that "in the long term, this government's policies will improve the state of Britain's public services"?
The underlying data comes from erratically dated polls, but there have been at least two per year from 2001 to 2008. The two clearest blue peaks relate to general elections, with the relative spike in May 2007 presumably related to local elections. The highest level of disbelief that governmental policies would improve public services showed in July 2003, but I am at a loss to explain that. Also notable is that bar the 2001 figures, faith in policies has averaged 34%, well below Labour's poll ratings for most of that period. Note also that the question has always been too difficult for at least 6% of the population, and sometimes as much as 14%.
Labels: fun with statistics, Parliament
A lot of the 'DK's are converting into 'No's, which is very interesting.
Labour's investment in public services always played well with Middle England voters, but now the failure to delivery improvements after the investment is coming back to hurt Labour.
Anonymous said... 10:22 am
Ooops, I interpreted the DK section as being the percentage of Yes/No's against the number of Devil's Kitchen blog posts telling the world to f*** the f*** off.
I see my error now. It would, of course, have been a larger percentage.
Croydonian said... 10:29 am
Our man DK has a way with profanity, does he not?
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