No Labour bounce, no drop in approval for Cameron or his government. That’s the impact that two weeks of front pages dominated by the phone hacking scandal on the opinion polls:
Ed Miliband’s numbers have improved, which will come as some relief to the Labour leader who suffered a terrible month of polls in June. But despite a 13 point jump in the last fortnight, his net approval rating has only recovered to where it was six weeks ago, and that was hardly a rosy position.
Certainly, Ed’s response to the scandal seems to have reflected well on him. 49 per cent of the public think he’s handled the affair well, compared to 36 and 33 for Cameron and Clegg respectively. Perhaps most strikingly, even Tory supporters think he’s done well, by 44 per cent to 35. However, the only modest improvement in his approval rating (which is still very negative and well behind Cameron’s) suggests that he is struggling to translate even this into a success; a problem that is likely to increase as Cameron recovers.
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