Indo govt might be inspired from this

Comment Central - Times Online - WBLG

The Conservative NICs policy could indeed be damaging Labour. But for a strange reason.

Voters, as a previous post established, often misattribute policies.

But there's something else. Their reaction to the policy, should they hear of it at all, is different depending upon which party they think it belongs to.

Andrew Cooper of Populus provides the following examples from his most recent poll:

1. Tax break for married couples & civil partners makes people more likely to support the party proposing it if they think that is Labour (18% vs. 8%) or Lib Dem (25% vs. 7%), but slightly less likely to do so if they think it is the Conservatives (18% vs. 20%).

2. Reducing the planned NI increase makes people more likely to support the party putting it forward if they think the Conservatives (30% vs. 17%) or Lib Dems (31% vs 8%) have said it, but if they think it came from Labour, more are repelled than attracted (24% vs 14%).

3. Requiring foreign workers in the public services to speak English makes twice as many people ‘less likely’ to support the party saying it if respondents think that party is the Conservatives (12%) rather than Labour (6%).

These findings - like the other ones I drew attention to this morning - support the modernising contention that policy is seen through the filter of the values voters attach to a party.

But they also raise an intriguing possibility.

More people think the promised reduction in the planned NICs rise is a Labour plan than think it a Tory plan. And if they think it a Labour plan, it makes them less likely to support Labour.