Labour losing popularity – a global thing, like recession?
Economic fears drive Labour to 24-year low. That’s the headline the Guardian are running with. And by all accounts there’s reason to be concerned, if you are in the UK. Lessons can be learnt. It seems the issue in the UK is at least in part to do with confidence.
“Labour has suffered a dramatic backlash from voters in the wake of Alistair Darling’s do-nothing budget, according to a Guardian/ICM poll published today. Support for the party has fallen to its lowest since Gordon Brown took office, with the Conservative lead quadrupling to a scale not seen since Margaret Thatcher won her final landslide in June 1987.
The poll, carried out over the weekend, puts the Tories 13 points ahead of Labour – up 10 points from a narrow three-point lead in last month’s Guardian poll. The lead is four points larger than in a second post-budget ICM poll published on Sunday, which also found rising Tory support.
Today’s findings suggest voters are losing faith in the government’s ability to steer Britain through difficult economic times, in spite of assertions that the UK is well-placed to ride out global turmoil. The poll shows the Tories have pulled well ahead of Labour as the party considered best able to manage the economy.”
The polls would indicate that support for Labour is really poor. That’s a familiar story, isn’t it? Is it human nature to seek change? Perhaps it is, and perhaps there is some justification in it when you think about what power does to people. After all, one can’t help but wonder if things might be a little better with a bit of a spring clean…trouble is, they often aren’t. Recession is a global thing, these days, and it doesn’t much matter who is in power, does it?
I still think people should vote with their consciences, and not be distracted by the various power hungry games that are and will be played. If we get another Labour government, we’ll probably have ‘just enough’ to keep those who would get out onto the streets quiet. But not quite enough to really make a difference in the areas that matter to the extent that they could, if the politic was willing… If we get another National government, we’ll end up selling more of our national assets, unpicking much of the social good that has been developed over the last years, and promoting profit and the interests of business before the interests of anything and anybody else. Crudely put, but essentially true. The real clincher will be who they have to form a coalition with…
And of course, who would be better equipped to steer is through a recession….that’s anyone’s guess :-)
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