A good deal of excitement on the left today as YouGov’s polling suggests the coalition’s “honeymoon” has ended. The government’s approval rating is now just +4 (41% approve of its performance, 37% disapprove). I don’t know why anyone should be surprised by this.
Not only was the budget astringent, the coalition has launched any number of large-scale reorganisations of fundamental services including, of course, education and the NHS. So, in addition to the economy – and government rhetoric has tended to stress the short to medium term ghastliness of everything – there’s great uncertainty about schools and hospitals. In fact one could argue that the government is trying to do too much too fast.
I think it sensible to move quickly on these matters since a) political capital depreciates and b) these reforms will take time to produce results and past experience suggests that reforms delayed are reforms abandoned.
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