<font color=green>The Brits are funny......I read where it says Bush popularity among the Brits has dropped to "minus 30". I thought how can you go 30 pts below 0....everyone must totally hate him. Then I realized they mean below 30 as in 27% think Bush is doing an okay job. Only 73% hate him. BTW 27% is worse than Blair but not by much.
And 41% think Blair is Bush's poodle! Have you ever heard anything so hilarious.......Bush's poodle! Too much!!
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Nation divided over justification for war
Alan Travis, home affairs editor
Wednesday July 23, 2003
The Guardian
The argument over whether the war against Iraq was justified is splitting the nation down the middle, according to the findings of this month's Guardian/ICM poll.
The results show the dispute between the government and the BBC has polarised opinion even more sharply than before. A clear majority - 51% - believe the war was justified, up three points since a month ago. But at the same time those who believe the military attack on Iraq was unjustified is also up - by two points - to 42%. The effect of the national debate has been a drop in the "don't knows" from 11% to 7%.
There is still a gap between the views of men and women. Fifty-six per cent of men say it was justified, compared with only 45% of women. Only 39% of men say it was unjustified compared with 46% of women.
The ICM survey also shows that pro-war opinion remains strongest among Labour voters, of whom 63% believe it was justified. Opposition is strongest among Liberal Democrat voters, of whom 49% say it was unjustified.
The poll also reveals a swing in British public opinion against President George Bush. While earlier this year British voters broadly endorsed his strategy for tackling the Iraq crisis, his personal rating in Britain is now worse than Tony Blair's, at minus 30.
Fifty-seven per cent of voters are unhappy with the job he is doing and only 27% saying they are satisfied. Suprisingly, Conservative voters are even more unhappy with the performance of the rightwing president than Labour voters.
But if the nation is split over whether or not Britain should have taken part in the war against Iraq, voters are equally divided over whether they think Mr Blair is acting as President Bush's poodle.
Forty-one per cent of voters told ICM that they agreed with the statement that "Tony Blair acts as the foreign minister of the US and does anything that Bush wants him to do". But 49% of voters, including 71% of Labour voters, say they do not share that view and agree instead that he "does what he believes is right for Britain".
There is much greater agreement over what should happen to the British citizens captured in Afghanistan and held in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. A clear majority, 56% - including 62% of Labour voters - think the government should insist they are brought back to Britain to stand trial. Only 34% think they should be tried by an American military tribunal.
· ICM interviewed a random sample of 1,001 adults aged 18 and over by telephone between July 18-20, 2003. Interviews were conducted across the country and the results have been weighted to the profile of all adults. |
