With the General Election less than three weeks away, Survation’s latest online poll on behalf of the Mail on Sunday, in the wake of the Conservative manifesto release on Thursday, shows a 12-point Conservative lead over Labour.

This poll contains an updated Survation methodology; while Survation were the first British Polling Council member to include UKIP in its main party voting intention prompt for national polls, in light of UKIP standing in only 377 seats this General Election, down from 624 in 2015, Survation has chosen to ask initial UKIP voters who they would vote for if UKIP were not to stand a candidate in their constituency.

If a respondent who initially told us they would vote for UKIP is found to live in a constituency where a UKIP candidate is not standing, their vote is reallocated according to their ‘squeezed’ preference. UKIP votes redistributed in this way tended to break for ‘undecided’ and ‘would not vote’, although some were allocated to other parties.

Headline Voting Intention

CON 46%; LAB 34%; LD 8%; UKIP 3%; Others 8%

Conservative Manifesto Policies

There was mixed public support for other items in the Conservative manifesto, with some policies being very well supported, but others facing considerable opposition.

The most popular policy was maintaining the planned real terms increase in NHS spending reaching £8bn extra per year by 2022/23 (71% support vs 12% oppose), while maintaining the target of cutting net migration to under 100,000 was also popular (62% support vs 21% oppose).

The least popular policy was scrapping hot lunches for 5-7 year olds in English schools, replaced by free breakfasts for all primary pupils, with just over a quarter (27%) supporting the policy compared to 52% who opposed. Scrapping the “triple-lock” on pensions and replacing it with a “double-lock”, where pensions are only tied to average earnings and inflation (losing the guaranteed annual 2.5% rise) was similarly unpopular (28% support vs 48% oppose). The high-levels of opposition to these policies is especially interesting as they only impact greatly on a portion of the population; those with primary-school age children, and those drawing a state pension.

Of the nine policies tested, four had less support than opposition.

Social Care and the “Dementia Tax”

One of the most controversial policies in the Conservative manifesto related to changes to how social care is to be funded, with proposed changes raising the amount of someone’s ‘assets’ that are protected from £23,250 to £100,000, but including someone’s family home in what is considered their ‘assets’ for the first time.

Nearly half (47%) of all respondents oppose the proposed changes, compared to just over half apiece who supported the changes (28%) and didn’t know (26%).

Further, if these proposals were enacted into law, six-in-ten people said that they would be more anxious about getting older, while more than half were more anxious about securing a future for their children (53%), caring for older relatives (53%) and owning a house (52%).

However, despite opposition to the proposals, the public are not convinced that the moniker some have placed on the policy – the “Dementia Tax” – is fair; 37% think it is fair to call the policy the “Dementia Tax”, compared to 39% who think it’s unfair.

Full tables are available here.
Survation interviewed 1,017 UK adults aged 18+ online from 19th-20th May 2017. Survation is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules.