The Tories’ coronavirus plan has paid off. We’re now blaming each other for this mess.
It seems that the Conservative government’s approach to the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic has paid off. Because the latest YouGov polling shows the majority of the public would blame each other if there was a second wave – not the Tories’ chaotic handling of the crisis.
The coronavirus blame-game has reached its climax
On Tuesday 4 August, YouGov released the results of its “daily question” survey. And as it tweeted, 52% of people ‘would hold the public most responsible’ if there was a second coronavirus wave:
Who Britons would hold most responsible if the UK was to suffer a second wave of coronavirus:
The public: 52%
The government: 31% https://t.co/qFvuDA67rd pic.twitter.com/EzyN92s1iJ— YouGov (@YouGov) August 4, 2020
Read on...
By The Canary‘s calculations, if you removed the “neithers” and “don’t knows”, this would mean that the polling would be 62% blaming the public and 37% blaming the government.
Looking at the YouGov survey in detail, and across age groups the ‘blame the public’ answer had the majorities, albeit very slim ones for people between 18-49 years. The results across political parties were predictable. Most Tory voters blamed the public, most Labour voters blamed the Tories, and the Lib Dems sat on the fence; much like the years of the coalition government, then. EU referendum ‘Leave’ voters blamed the public by 67%, while ‘Remainers’ were divided – 42% the public and 44% the government.
Chaotic Tory ‘leadership’
The results are not surprising. Because the Tories’ handling of the pandemic has been driven by three main mantras:
- ‘Do as I say, not as I do’; Dominic Cummings’ road trip to Durham being the prime example.
- ‘More flip-flops than Brighton beach’. The government’s chaotic approach has seen it repeatedly send out mixed and muddled messages and contradictions. For example, the switch from “stay home” to the meaningless “stay alert” catchphrase.
- ‘That’s another fine mess the public have got us into!’. The Tories have repeatedly rolled out narratives that the pandemic is our (the public’s) responsibility to manage, not theirs.
So, it seems that for many people, the rot has sunk in – and that we’ve only got ourselves to blame if there’s a second coronavirus wave. But breaking the YouGov results down into social grade, and they show an already worrying trend across UK politics that has developed further. That is, the divide and conquer of the working classes.
Divide and conquer
Social grade is a way of splitting society into different social and economic groups. As UK geographics describes, there are four brackets of social grade:
- AB: “Higher & intermediate managerial, administrative, professional occupations”.
- C1: “Supervisory, clerical and junior managerial, administrative, professional occupations”.
- C2: “Skilled manual occupations”.
- DE: “Semi-skilled and unskilled manual occupations, unemployed and lowest grade occupations”.
The YouGov survey showed that the majority of people in the poorest social grades (C2 and DE) would blame the public if there was a second coronavirus wave:
All sewn up
This is the result of peak ‘divide and conquer’ from the Tories. We’ve historically seen it with the Brexit vote and its accompanying narrative about immigration; a similar, government and media-pushed agenda surrounding social security claimants being ‘scroungers’ and ‘benefit cheats’; the switching of working-class voters from Labour to the Tories, and the legacy of Margaret Thatcher’s Right to Buy scheme carving up working-class communities.
Now, when a second coronavirus wave hits, the Tories have it sewn up: we’ll all be too busy blaming each other to notice their catastrophic failings. Meanwhile, Keir Starmer’s Labour Party has done little to stop this toxic narrative from sinking in further. And as the ‘new normal’ sets in, it seems that the UK is going to be a more divisive and fractured place than ever before.
Featured image via Chatham House – Flickr
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The disparity between Labour and Tory voters is telling, which leads me to ask whether this was a whole of UK survey or whether respondents were from England?
I’m rarely convinced by ‘survey results’. Is it possible that what constitutes a significant sample response is one that is widely published as a significant sample response. It then becomes an advertising meme that everyone can identify with. It would be good if one could assume that YouGov aren’t part of the Establishment that have been responsible for the mixed messaging that has, in effect, widened the divides among the Ukanian peasantry for over a decade or more, let alone during the current ‘crisis’. Confused messaging must contribute to confused behavioural responses and a group’s seeming inability to act in a coordinated manner suggests an unknown ‘agente provocateur’ at work. It would be sad to think that YouGov is that agent. The repondents cannot be representative of a working class who are adamant that they are not political!
I am not surprised by this survey. Attacks on Corbyn along with people in the “Labour” party, smeared and vilified by the usual suspects, equates to a substantial part of the population actualy believing these lies.The all powerful media, owned by the wealthy extreme right, will win every time. The only chance is alternative platforms such as this, to at least get some perspective on the stories.
It’s very naive to think that opinion pollsters can be trusted. The media have been in lockstep with the Tories over their coronavirus propaganda – and the pollsters are a key part of that.
The Tories are experts at turning people against each other. They’ve done it for decades with miners, postal workers, teachers, junior doctors. The did it with Brexit, they did it in the last General Election, and now they are doing it with Covid 19 and immigration at Dover.