Riddell: Cameron more popular than the Tory brand

"The Brown brand is slightly more popular than the fading Blair brand, but both are outshone by the shiny new Cameron product."

That's the key conclusion of Peter Riddell in today's Times as he mines the latest Populus poll.

Populus gives the Tories a headline lead of two points - 36% to 34%.  But that lead increases if David Cameron's name is mentioned:

"Once voters are prompted with the name of the leader, support for David Cameron’s Tories rises two points to 38 per cent, with Mr Blair’s Labour down three points to 31 per cent and Sir Menzies Campbell’s Lib Dems down two points to 17 per cent."

If Mr Cameron enjoys a 38% to 31% lead over a Blair-led Labour party he appears to enjoy a 42% to 33% lead over a Brown-led party.  The increase in numbers partly reflects a squeezing of the 'don't knows' and LibDems.

It's dangerous to read too much into these numbers as Peter Riddell concedes.  These responses, he writes "are based on a split, or half-sample, of the total of 1,512 adults, which increases the margin of error."  They will, nonetheless, provide some encouragement to party modernisers like Francis Maude.  They believe that David Cameron is more popular than the party and it is for the whole party to adopt the leader's tone and approach if voters are to be convinced that Project Cameron has really succeeded in producing a 'modern compassionate conservatism'.

Comments

[Chris]

In the comments on the main page I fed the numbers into baxter, which as always should be taken with a pinch/bag/mine of salt.

Headline figures:
CON 256 LAB 321 LD 37
LAB 3 short of maj

Current leaders:
CON 317 LAB 274 LD 22
CON 7 short of maj

Cameron,Brown,Campbell:
CON 323 LAB 283 LD 10
CON 1 short of maj

Positive showing on all fronts, thought it could and should be far better. We need to make better use of Cameron, and we need to get our stories spun properly. So far everything we've proposed has been bang on the mark, but the stories have been mishandled and consequently we've looked like we're either super right or super left wing.

[Sean Fear]

Yet, the Yougov tracker suggests that while people give Cameron a high rating, in terms of approval of his leadership, he is not personally popular.

[william]

Riddell's key sentence is -“he (Cameron) needs to spell out his beliefs and policies before people can judge if he would be a good prime minister or not”.

The attempt ot do that Built To Last is said to be uninspiring. Possibly because the language is so woolly - 'trusting people' 'sharing responsibility' 'supporting institutions and culture'.

The ideas are coming straight from Compassionate Conservatism, Jesse Norman's treatise on thinking beyond the State and towards empowering individual and local enterprise.

The ideas would be popular if voters knew about them.

[Anthony]

Sean - once you put it in context he is; people simply don't have positive reactions towards politicians per se. Cameron and Hague are consistently the two most popular of any politicians we track (although I expect people like Boris Johnson, who were known to the public prior to being a politician would score higher if they were included).

[johnC]

'thinking beyond the State and towards empowering individual and local enterprise.'

Very true: this is an excellent philosophical base which people could support and feel enthusiastic about.

The problem is that Cameron doesn't so far seem to be translating this philosophy into practical politics, e.g. freeing the health service from the shackles of the NHS bureaucracy, ending the compulsory BBC licence fee, restoring grant maintained schools with the power to set their own pay scales and admission criteria, ending the tax credits system with its demeaning and intrusive means testing etc. etc. He needs to think his slogan 'guaranteed by the state, not run by the state' through in practice.

[Prodicus]

Peter Riddle. Rod Liddle. Roddle... Priddle... it's getting very confusing. Bit like the polls.

[David Banks]

We're a brand now are we? i thought we were the next government in waiting. Oh no , please don't bring back the Hague baseball cap...

[David Banks]

We're a brand now are we? i thought we were the next government in waiting. Oh no , please don't bring back the Hague baseball cap...

[Umbongo]

This is wonderland: the ONLY message from the polls is that Messrs Cameron and Maude are failing miserably by producing only a (very) marginal lead over the worst government in living memory (and there's stiff competition for that title). You need only to have seen the interview with George Osborne on BBC yesterday about the tax credit fraud to see why. "Should the scheme be abolished? Oh no, just tighten it up!" Pathetic.

[David Belchamber]

How right JohnC @ 12.00 is, especially on:"freeing the health service from the shackles of the NHS bureaucracy" and "restoring grant maintained schools with the power to set their own pay scales and admission criteria...".
We applaud and encourage idealism from DC; what people are clamouring for now, as John points out, is that he should translate his philosophy into practical politics; i.e. we want idealism to become "pragmatic idealism".
Grant maintained schools are a relatively easy fix, as was shown by the c1100 that opted for GM status under the tories years ago. It certainly transformed the schools that I knew when they opted to do so.
By cutting out the middle man, you empower the governors and heads (in partnership with parents), so they can concentrate on the all-important job of maximising the potential of their pupils.
With the remaining 163 grammar schools, GM schools could provide additional social mobility, which this government has reduced by axing GM schools and the Assisted Places Scheme.

[Renny]

Lets re-brand properly! Ditch dull old Conservative with all its negative connotations and replace it with something shiny and 'New'(and meaningless lol) like Progress or Forward. Then maybe people will forget about the late 80's early 90's and accept we have changed.