Standing in Opinion Polls
In the first month of Cameron's leadership, the Conservative Party's standing in opinion polls rose, with several pollsters placing it ahead of the ruling Labour Party. While the Conservative and Labour Parties drew even in early spring 2006, following the May 2006 local elections various polls once again generally showed Conservative leads.
When Gordon Brown became Prime Minister on 27 June 2007, Labour moved ahead and its ratings grew steadily at Cameron's expense, an ICM poll in July showing Labour with a seven point lead in the wake of controversies over his policies. An ICM poll in September saw Cameron rated the least popular of the three main party leaders. A YouGov poll for Channel 4 one week later, after the Labour Party Conference, extended the Labour lead to 11 points, prompting further speculation of an early election.
Following the Conservative Party Conference in the first week of October 2007, the Conservatives drew level with Labour When Brown declared he would not call an election for the autumn, a decline in his and Labour's standings followed. At the end of the year a series of polls showed improved support for the Conservatives giving them an 11 point lead over Labour. This decreased slightly in early 2008, and in March the Conservatives had their largest lead in opinion polls since October 1987, at 16 points. In May 2008, following the worst local election performance from the Labour Party in 40 years, the Conservative lead was up to 26 points, the largest since 1968.
In December 2008, a ComRes poll showed the Conservative lead had decreased dramatically though by February 2009 it had recovered to reach 12 points. A period of relative stability in the polls was broken in mid-December 2009 and by January 2010 some polls were predicting a hung parliament
A YouGov poll on party leaders conducted on 9–10 June 2011 found 44% of the electorate thought he was doing well and 50% thought he was doing badly, whilst 38% thought he would be the best PM, 23% preferred Ed Miliband and 35% didn't know.
Until his veto on treaty changes to the European Union in December 2011 amid the Eurozone crisis, most opinion polls that year had shown a slim Labour lead. However, many opinion polls showed that the majority of voters felt that Cameron made the right decision, Subsequent opinion polls have shown a narrow lead for the Conservatives ahead of Labour.
Read more about this topic: David Cameron
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