More think Boris doing bad job, pre-virus poll discovers
IMMEDIATELY before the lockdown, more people in Wales thought Boris Johnson was doing a bad job as Prime Minister than a good one, according to a poll commissioned by the Western Mail.
The poll, undertaken for us by Cardiff-based Beaufort Research, showed that 28% thought Mr Johnson was doing a good job (7% saying very good and 21% saying good) with 34% saying he was performing badly (20% very bad and 14% bad).
A breakdown of responses showed that those aged over 65, men and those from lower social classes were more likely than other groups to say that Mr Johnson was doing a good job.
Of those aged over 65, 13% thought he was doing a very good job and a further 29% thought he was doing a good job. Some 27% of the age group thought he was doing neither a good job nor a bad one, while 17% thought he was doing a very bad job and a further 10% a bad job.
Mr Johnson was least popular with those aged from 55-64, of whom 29% thought he was doing a very bad job and a further 15% thought he was doing a bad job. Some 14% in that age group thought he was doing a very good job and a further 12% a good job. Meanwhile, 25% considered his performance neither good nor bad.
Men’s perception of how Mr Johnson was doing his job was generally more favourable than that of women. Some 25% of men described his performance as good, with a further 9% seeing it as very good. Some 19% of men thought his performance was very bad, with a further 14% describing it as bad. As many as 29% said his performance was neither good nor bad.
At the same time, 21% of women thought Mr Johnson was performing very badly and a further 13% badly, while 6% said his performance was very good and a further 17% good. More than a third of women (34%) considered his performance neither good nor bad.
In a region covering Cardiff, the valleys and south east Wales, people were roughly split between good and very good (30% in total), bad and very bad (31%) and neither good nor bad (34%).
In north Wales the split was 27% (good and very good), 38% (bad and very bad) and 27% neither good nor bad, while in mid and south west Wales it was 25% (good and very good), 34% (bad and very bad) and 32% neither good nor bad.
In the higher ABC1 social grades, 40% saw Mr Johnson’s performance as bad or very bad and 28% as good or very good, while in the lower C2DE grades 27% had a positive view of his performance and 28% a negative one.
In every case, “don’t knows” made up the remainder of those polled.
■ Fieldwork for the poll was carried out between February 24 and March
15. A total of 713 interviews were completed and analysed. Fieldwork was unable to continue to reach the target 1,000 sample size due to the outbreak of coronavirus and the social distancing measures put in place that resulted in the suspension of all face-to-face interviews.