Good morning. Snap polls aren’t a perfect way of measuring public opinion – they involve people being asked about events that have only just happened, many respondents will not have read beyond a headline, and no one will have had time to mull it over properly – but they are better than nothing, and, on Covid at least, certainly a more reliable guide than newspaper front pages. (Many newspapers suggest Britain is clamouring to end the lockdown, when in fact the survey evidence suggests the opposite is the case.)
And so there is good news for Boris Johnson this morning. There have been two snap polls about the roadmap for lifting lockdown in England he announced yesterday, and they both suggest that voters are in favour.
According to a YouGov poll, the number of people who think the PM has got “the balance about right” outnumbers the combined total of those who think he is relaxing the rules too slowly and those who think he is relaxing too fast (a bigger group).
This is from the YouGov write-up of the findings.
English people tend to think the path being set to a post-lockdown future is happening at about the right pace (46%). A quarter think such a timeline is too rapid (26%), while another 16% think it is too slow.
Most Conservative voters (54%), as well as 42% of Labour voters, agree with the pace the prime minister has set. Labour voters are more likely than their Tory counterparts to think that the plan is too quick (34% vs 18%), while Conservative voters are more likely to consider it too slow (20% vs 11%).
And Savanta ComRes has a snap poll suggesting a majority of voters are satisfied with the PM’s roadmap.
The poll also suggests 31% of voters think the plan is “about right”. There are more people who think it is either “cautious” (30%) or “very cautious” (15%), but respondents may have regarded these as good qualities. Only 19% said they regarded the plans as reckless.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: The ONS publishes its weekly death figures for England and Wales.
9.30am: The DWP publishes its quarterly universal credit figures.
10.45am: George Eustice, the environment secretary, speaks at the National Farmers Union conference. Sir Keir Starmer is speaking at the same event at 12.30pm, and Liz Truss, the international trade secretary, is on at 2pm.
11.30am: Matt Hancock, the health secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
12pm: Downing Street holds its daily lobby briefing.
After 2pm: Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, makes a statement to the Scottish parliament about Scotland’s plan for lifting lockdown.
Politics Live is now doubling up as the UK coronavirus live blog and, given the way the Covid crisis eclipses everything, this will continue for the foreseeable future. But we will be covering non-Covid political stories too, and when they seem more important or more interesting, they will take precedence.
Here is our global coronavirus live blog.
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