Britons Unhappy With Support for Bush

[Slaine mac Roth]

Poll slams Blair's support for Bush

20:20pm 30th October 2004

A majority of voters believe Tony Blair's staunch support for US President George Bush over the Iraq conflict has been bad for Britain, according to a new poll.
Nevertheless, the Communicate Research poll for the Independent on Sunday contained good news for the Prime Minister - showing healthy support for Labour despite Mr Blair's problems with issues like Iraq.

Asked how they would vote if there were a general election tomorrow, 39% of those polled said Labour - a seven point rise since the last equivalent poll a month ago.

The Tories were on 33%, up three points. The Liberal Democrats were on 17%, down 10 points - although the last poll was carried out during their annual conference, when they were enjoying greater than usual media exposure.
Asked whether Mr Blair's support for President Bush in Iraq has been good for Britain, 19% agreed, 74% did not agree, and 7% said they did not know.

Asked whether the world will be a safer place if President Bush rather than his Democrat challenger Senator John Kerry wins this week's US presidential election, 24% said it will be, 56% disagreed and 20% did not know.

There was also scepticism about the Government's decision to agree to an American request to move the troops of the Black Watch from their base in southern Iraq to a new position near Baghdad.

Asked whether the Government was right to agree the request, 33% agreed with the move, 60% disagreed with 8% 'don't knows'.

Asked whether they thought that, in the event that President Bush loses the election, Mr Blair's standing in the world will be seriously weakened, 50% agreed that it will, 42% disagreed, with 8% don't knows.

Some 1,009 adults were interviewed for the poll by telephone.


Daily Mail on-line

[ElfDude]

Tell my if I understand this correctly... Mr. Blair is a member of the Labour party, but has gone againt the wishes of his own party when it comes to supporting the coalition in Iraq. Is that correct?

If that's true, I'm guessing that while the Tories would like that about him, they'd still rather have a member of their own party in office so we're not seeing large support for him in the polls from Tories either?

[Slaine mac Roth]

To be quite honest I'm surprised that there's any supposrt for him left at all.

Since he came to power, British politics seems to have been reduced to lies (especially regarding involvement in Iraq), 2 minute sound bites and photo opportunities.

The problem we have is that there is no real alternative as the Conservative Party is completely innefectual while the Lib Dems have never, really, been taken seriously.

I suppose the best we could hope for is that there will be an Independent MP is every constituancy to split the votes leaving no-one with a majority. Then they'll have to work together and maybe something will get done.