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Poll: Britain IS Broken

By Paperstone on February 10, 2010 in Office Chairs

With a General Election looming, it appears Britons have absorbed the “Broken Britain” narrative propagated by opposition parties, the media and luminaries such as Noel Edmunds. A Populus poll for The Times has found that the British electorate is unhappy with the state of the nation today, believing society is broken and heading in the wrong direction.

Seventy percent of those polled believe society is now broken and 64 percent think that the country is moving in the wrong direction. Only 31 percent think it is on the right track. This compares with 57 and 37 percent respectively in America where Obama’s honeymoon has long since passed.

More optimistically, over half (55 percent) said that their children’s lives will be better than their own, against 37 percent saying that they will be worse.

“Broken Britain” has been a theme of Conservative anti-government campaigns over the last couple of years and political campaigning is heating up per se with a General Election imminent. Barring a national emergency, the last possible date for the dissolution of Parliament is 10 May, 2010, meaning 3 June is the latest a General Election could be held, though a 6 May election is thought most likely as local elections are already scheduled for this date.

The Conservatives have consistently led Labour in opinion polls since the end of 2007 and have frequently taken double figure leads, though recent polls may suggest some narrowing to 10 percent or less. However, polls prior to the exit poll on election day itself do not predict the election result. Further, the Tories require a national swing of 6.9% to gain a majority in the House of Commons which in turn would need a nine percent lead over Labour in the popular vote – assuming the swing was consistent across all constituencies (which it wont be). The Tory lead in the polls is narrow enough to raise the possibility of a hung Parliament in which no party has an overall majority (i.e. over half of all seats). This focuses attention on smaller parties, in particular the Liberal Democrats (currently with 62 seats) and the Scottish Nationalist Party (currently with seven, with a target for the coming election of 20 seats). Both those parties are potential power brokers in the event of no overall majority.

 

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Whenever the election, and no matter what your political preferences are, Vote Paperstone. Paperstone is not broken, nor are the office supplies we stock. Irrespective of the dominant political ideology of the day, they’ll always be a space for stationery.

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