Wednesday, 25 April 2012 07:24

Written by Adrian Cousins

The recent polling on the cuts is bad news for all three main parties argues Adrian Cousins

Note: responses to question "Thinking about the way the government is cutting spending to reduce the government's deficit, do you think this is..."
Source: YouGov

According to the most recent YouGov polling 33% believe that cuts are unnecessary and 15% don't know. So despite the fact that all three main parties accept the argument that cuts are necessary and have been arguing this for over two years 48% of the electorate are not convinced. This certainly doesn't amount to "the government clearly winning on this question" as Nigel Stanley argues in today's Touchstone blog post.

The argument seems to be moving in the direction of those who oppose cuts. It also means that between one third and almost one half of the electorate have no political party that articulates their opinion on the cuts. With Labour voters the polling shows that 55% believe cuts are unnecessary - so over half disagree with the position of their own party leadership.

As with the issue of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan the issue of austerity exposes the persistent and growing democratic deficit in the UK, where vast swathes of public opinion can find no representation in parliament.

Moving to the question of whether people believe that the cuts are being implemented fairly the news is even worse for the Coalition. Two thirds of the electorate believe that the cuts are being implemented unfairly. At 66% this is the highest figure since YouGov started polling on this question.