The result is crystal-clear. 85 per cent of Party members who responded to our survey approved of the statement, 10 per cent disapproved, and the remainder didn’t know. But could it be that they liked the measures that will put more money in peoples’ pockets – the ISA tax break, the air passenger exemption for children, the stamp duty cuts – but believe that the Autumn Statement will do nothing to reduce the deficit?
The figures were: Yes 59 per cent, No 27 per cent and Don’t Know 16 per cent. So just over a quarter of Party member respondents think that the Statement won’t help to put the public finances on a sustainable path. That’s a significant proportion of nay-sayers. None the less, three out of five think otherwise. But might both groups agree that the Autumn Statement will make little electoral difference – a view I touted in advance on this site?
Not at all. No fewer than 73 per cent think that the Statement has improved the Party’s electoral prospects. Twenty-one per cent say that it has made no difference. Three per cent believe that it has made them worse. The remaining 3 per cent don’t know.
I would call that a positive response to the statement – with the gloss only taken off the results for George Osborne by the quarter or so who don’t think that the Statement did much if anything for deficit reduction.
Here are the figures for website respondents excluding Party members:
On the whole, did you approve of the Autumn Statement?
Yes: 71 per cent.
No: 24 per cent.
Don’t Know: 5 per cent.
Did the Autumn Statement help put the public finances on a sustainable path?
Yes: 46 per cent.
No: 40 per cent.
Don’t Know: 14 per cent.
What do you think the Autumn Statement has done for the Conservatives’ electoral prospects?
Improved them: 59 per cent.
Worsened them: 9 per cent.
Nothing: 27 per cent.
Don’t Know: 5 per cent.
Once again, we see the difference between party member respondents and other reader respondents in the result. The proportion of the latter believing that the autumn statement won’t help to make the public finances more sustainable is 40 per cent, not 27 per cent.
Over 800 party member respondents replied to the survey. The results are tested against a control panel that was supplied by YouGov.