More unprecedented bad news as wages fall and prices rise
More bad news for domestic economic confidence, as the Asda Income Tracker reported yesterday:
Biggest ever drop in family spending power as prices increase twice as fast as income
The Tracker measures families’ discretionary spending power – how much is left to an average household after deducting taxes and basic items like groceries, fuel, transport and mortgage payments.
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How unions could win the public debate on strike action
All the polls show Britain’s unions are starting from a relatively good base of public support over planned strike action. That is encouraging.
But I suspect the support is slightly weak because people aren’t yet facing the inconvenience from strike action. Some of those supporting them now may shift against them a bit in the coming weeks.
The real battle is for the quarter of the public still unsure what to think about strike action. And rather than dismiss them, I believe its important people think hard about how to win that battle for public opinion.
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More polls show support for union strikes but media ignores them
Yesterday afternoon I pointed to a Populus poll, largely ignored by the media, showing widespread support amongst the public for unions.
Populus found 54% of people agreed that strikes were a legitimate way for unions to protect the pay and conditions of their members. Only 18% of the public disagreed.
Since then, more polls have shown support for unions positions but have also been ignored by the media industry.
Last night ITV reported on a poll by Comres that more than half of people think union strikes have “no chance of succeeding”.
But the broadcaster neglected to mention other key findings (hat-tip @neilrfoster).
When asked: “Public-sector workers are right to take strike action over maintaining their pension plans” – 48% agreed. 36% disagreed and 16% were unsure.
When asked: “Public-sector workers are suffering an unfair decline in living standards because of the spending cuts” – 43% agreed. 38% disagreed and 19% were unsure.
And contrary to popular perception, London had the highest support for strike action (58%) compared to other parts of the country.
A similar poll by YouGov released yesterday showed the public thought most public sector workers (except doctors and police officers) had the right to strike.
Watch: riots in Greece after confidence vote
Against strikes? Actually, people support unions
We are told by newspaper commentators almost everyday that widespread union strikes would not have public support.
Except, a poll by Populus this week has found the opposite. Bizarre that newspapers chose not to report on it.
Statements polled by Populus:
1. Strikes are a legitimate way for Unions to protect the pay and conditions of their members
Agreed: 54% (incl 19% strongly); 18% disagree (incl 6% strongly); 28% undecided.
2. Strikes are a legitimate way for Unions to protest against the general direction of Government policy
Agreed: 46% (16% strongly); Disagree 29% (11% strongly); 25% undecided.
However, there is some mixed news for unions too.
3. Ballots on industrial action should need a minimum number of Union members voting in them before strike action can be called.
Agreed: 71% (incl 31% strongly); 9% disagree (incl 3% strongly); 20% undecided.
Though most members are for strikes right now, this suggests unions should keep highlighting the democratic legitimacy of their strikes.
4. The Government should legislate so that strikes are not allowed in certain public services
Agreed: 46% (incl 20% strongly); 31% disagree (incl 12% strongly); 23% undecided.
The poll also showed that the public would have most sympathy for striking nurses (60%) followed by fire-fighters (55%).
Sympathy for striking workers was lowest for flight attendants (17%).
The poll suggests unions start from a largely sympathetic base of support. Though its also likely the numbers will change depending on how strikes are played out.
[Full tables on the Populus site]
Workless households: another success ministers don’t want to explain
Yesterday new statistics showed that the proportion of working age households who were workless was lower in 2010 than in 1997 – despite an increase after the global recession hit this country.
There was even more good news: the proportion of children living in workless households was also lower in 2010 than in 1997 and the number of children fell by more than a third of a million. I held off blogging about this until today because I wanted to double-check whether DWP Ministers would say anything about these figures.
Of course they didn’t – it was good news and they seem only to be interested in bad-mouthing the achievements of the Department they run.
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Poll blow for Tories, Labour, Lib Dems
The latest opinion poll for ICM contained bad news for both the government and for Labour.
The Lib Dems fell to their lowest level of support since 1997 with this particular pollster.
David Cameron’s personal ratings slumped, with 50% of voters saying that his government is doing a bad job.
And while Labour have a narrow lead in the polls, Ed Miliband is slightly less popular than small pox Nick Clegg.
Voters back Labour on health and education, and the Coalition on the economy, law and order, tax and immigration.
Another poll found that just 1 in 5 voters believe that David Cameron “sticks to what he believes in”, and gave Labour a 6% lead over the Tories, with the same share of the vote – 43% – as they got in 1997.
A Liberal Conspiracy guide to the “hateful Right”
Matthew Barrett on ConservativeHome wrote an article yesterday about “the hateful Left”.
After a full day’s work, Barrett managed to find nine journalists who are members of this “hateful Left”. We’ve come up with ten members of the “hateful Right” – it took us about ten minutes to compile, and we aren’t even scratching the surface.
If I were a right winger, I would think twice before accusing my political opponents of “spewing poison” or being hateful, particularly if after a day’s work the best haters that I could come up with were Owen Jones, Laurie Penny and a cartoon in the Guardian being mean about Iain Duncan Smith. So here’s a selection of some of the finest right-wing hatred, lies, self-pity and downright ignorance:
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How the Robinhood Tax campaign is gathering steam
contribution by Owen Tudor
Some people have very short attention spans. The resurgence of the global left after the Great Depression took a decade and a half (and a world war). The campaign for a UK national minimum wage took at least a dozen years.
The Robin Hood Tax campaign has been running for just over a year, it is on its way to victory. It has been staggeringly successful in several respects.
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Why is Tony Blair letting Cameron use him for advantage?
contribution by Steven Fielding
The Independent’s Steve Richards has highlighted the existence of an ‘informal alliance’ between David Cameron and Tony Blair.
Richards suggests this ‘alliance’ is based on a policy agenda embraced by many of those who worked closest with Blair in government as well as some of Cameron’ s most trusted Cabinet colleagues.
This will not come as news to those academics and Labour members who have always claimed that Blair was a Thatcherite.
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» Violence in the office
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