NEWS of the WORLD online 6.6.09
ICM POLL: CABINET WIPEOUT
Exclusive poll for News of the World shows senior Cabinet ministers
face election ruin unless they ditch Brown
SENIOR Cabinet Ministers in Gordon Brown's new government will lose
their seats at a General Election unless they ditch Gordon Brown.
An exclusive ICM poll for tomorrow's News of the World shows the
politicians who last night backed Brown will be kicked out by the
electorate.
ICM polled in the parliamentary seats of the Cabinet - and in Gordon
Brown's back yard.
This is the first poll to show how voters in crucial seats will
behave in a General Election.
And the poll shows these previously loyal voters - in previously safe
loyal seats, want Brown out.
A massive 12% from Labour to Tory will unseat many of Brown's most
senior Cabinet Ministers.
That would unseat SEVEN Cabinet Ministers - the same as Labour
managed to kick out when they beat the Tories in 1997.
Chancellor Alistair Darling, Justice Secretary Jack Straw, Work and
Pensions Secretary John Denham, Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell and
Scottish Jim Murphy will all lose their seats.
Two of the new recruits to the Cabinet appointed on Friday - Culture
Secretary Ben Bradshaw and Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liam Byrne
- will also lose their seats.
And four of the Cabinet Ministers who resigned last week - Jacqui
Smith, James Purnell, Geoff Hoon and John Hutton - also face the chop.
The vast majority of the Cabinet have safe seats, with majorities
averaging 7,000.
But the poll reveals they are now under intense pressure from their
own powerbase to move against Gordon Brown.
David Cameron is now clearly heading for a massive landslide - with
the most recent national poll showing he would sweep up 158 seats.
And tomorrow's poll also shows:
. Almost three quarters of Cabinet Ministers' voters believe it is
now time for a change.
. the majority of those expressing an opinion say they want their MP
to tell Gordon Brown to stand down (50% versus 42%)
. less than half (46%) of voters who backed Tony Blair in 2005 would
vote for Gordon Brown in a General Election.
. nearly two thirds (58%) of voters in previously safe Labour seats
think Gordon Brown is doing a poor job.
. almost a third won't vote in a General Election because of the
expenses scandal.
Tomorrow's poll shows that support for the Tories has shot up by 20%
in the Cabinet's own constituencies since the 2005 election.
Labour's vote has dropped by 17%, while the Lib Dems have managed to
hold on to their support, falling by just 1%.
However, support for minority parties has gone up by 9%.
On Friday night Gordon Brown insisted he was staying on as Prime
Minister, saying he was best qualified to sort out the political
crisis caused by the expenses scandal.
The scale of the damage caused by the expenses scandal is clear - a
massive 82% say they want their local MP to stand down if they
cheated the system over their expenses.
But the voters polled by ICM said they believe David Cameron has the
best ideas for cleaning up the system.
It is clear that voters across the country are thoroughly sick of
their MPs because of the expenses scandal.
Little more than a quarter of those polled (27%) want their current
MP as a candidate, with 40% demanding a new Labour candidate.
And only a third of voters are prepared to wait until June for a
chance to vote, which clearly shows David Cameron's strategy of
demanding a General Election now is paying off.
The poll also shows the Labour vote is far more vulnerable than that
of other parties.
46% of those who voted Labour in 2005 say they will do so again.
That compares to 51% of Lib Dems and a massive 74% of Tories.
In Gordon Brown's own Kirkcaldy seat his massive powerbase is now
seriously eroded.
Brown has a 18,216 majority and the poll shows he commands 50% of the
vote there.
However, voters don't really want him to stay.
Although 59% of voters there say he is doing a good job, less than
half of them want him to stay on at the next election.
Across the country there has been a 12% swing from Labour to Tory.
In Brown's constituency, almost one in ten voters (8%) have deserted
Labour. And the Scottish nationals have succeeded in scooping up
those disaffected voters.
They stand at 25%, in strong second place behind Brown, with the Lib
Dems at 8% and the Tories at 10%.
---------------------------------------
ICM interviewed a random sample of 1,248 adults aged 18+ across the
18 Constituencies represented by main Cabinet Ministers as at
Wednesday last week. Interviews were conducted by telephone and the
results have been weighted to the demographic profile of adults
living in those Constituencies. An additional 245 interviews were
conducted in Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath to allow analysis of the views
of 301 voters in Gordon Brown's own Constituency.
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