Surprising and mostly encouraging new MORI results:
- 53% are willing to pay more tax to avoid cuts to public services, against 42% favouring service cuts
- 43% think there is ‘a real need to cut spending on public services in order to pay off the very high national debt we now have’ (up from 40% in June); 44% disagree (down from 51% in June); 10% are ambivalent (up from 7% in June)
Annoyingly, MORI are spinning this as a story about the public failing to face up to hard truths about the necessity/inevitability of cuts
- 62% think ‘Making public services more efficient can save enough money to pay off the very high national debt we now have, without damaging services the public receive’. This is not especially helpful though at least it suggests that many of those prepared to entertain spending cuts are doing so in the (mistaken?) presumption that this can be done without harming services.
http://www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/Docs/Polls/poll-public-spending-charts-november-2009.pdf
