By Tim Montgomerie
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Most Tory members (54% over 30%) agree with the statement "the Budget produced some bad headlines in the short-run but its overall effect will be to boost growth and that will be good for Tory chances at the next election". But if they think the Budget is a long-term boost for the economy in the long-term they've soured towards George Osborne…
The Chancellor's net satisfaction rating is down from +43% at the end of last year to just +7% now. One of the lasting effects of the last week's political car crash may be a terrible dent in George Osborne's reputation for political tactics and strategy. Tory MPs are shocked at the mishandling of the 50p, granny tax and pasty tax issues.
The pessimism about the last week means declining confidence that the Conservatives will still be in power after the next election…
The 62% total includes…
On the subject of Tory prospects at the next election I recommend Mehdi Hasan's piece in the latest edition of the New Statesman:
"The simple truth is that Cameron needs to increase the Tory vote share at the next election if he is to secure a parliamentary majority. But not since 1974 has an incumbent prime minister pushed up his party's share of the vote. It was beyond the ability of Margaret Thatcher (in 1983 and 1987) and Tony Blair (2001 and 2005) and as a leading psephologist, John Curtice of Strathclyde University, points out: "Cameron is no Thatcher or Blair. If you look at his leader ratings, he is basically an average prime minister . . . He doesn't enthuse people.""
This uphill struggle was outlined by Stephan Shakespeare on Tuesday and is the motivation behind ConHome's Majority pages.
OTHER POLL FINDINGS…
…ON THE BUDGET…
ON POLITICAL DONATIONS…
These poll findings were written up in today's Times (£). More poll findings will be released over coming days. 1,898 Tory members took part in the survey yesterday.