Cameron and Osborne’s lead narrows
Cameron and Osborne’s lead on economic trust narrows
In the last Opinium/Observer poll before the general election, we found that 39% of likely voters must trusted the current prime minister and chancellor to handle the economy, compared to 25% who most trusted Ed Miliband and Ed Balls.
However, near the end of a campaign where it seems not much has changed, this strong 14-point lead is in fact down 3 points from the first week of April when Cameron and Osborne had a 17-point lead over Miliband and Balls (40% vs 23%), and down 5 points from the lead they had in February.
More Labour voters trust their top team than a month ago
Much of this change is down to Labour voters whose trust in their leader and shadow chancellor has risen from 63% at the beginning of the campaign to 68% now, with a similar but smaller increase among Lib Dem voters.
Although this may be well behind the level of economic trust the Conservatives have in their economic team (90%), it is interesting that the campaign has improved Labour voters’ opinion of their economic team rather than weakened it.
Views on the economy remain broadly positive
This is despite the fact that the view about the economy has remained more or less the same as it did as the start of the campaign – broadly positive. 36% thought that the state of the economy was good, and 27% thought it was bad.
Opinium Research carried out an online survey of 1,956 GB adults aged 18+ from 28th to 30th April 2015. Results have been weighted to nationally representative criteria.
