LONDON (Reuters) – Most British voters believe government spending cuts announced last week are unfair and excessive, two opinion polls showed today.
However the surveys were inconclusive about support for the ruling coalition and the opposition, one suggesting the Conservatives in the lead while another showed the opposition Labour party ahead for the first time in three years.
Conservative finance minister George Osborne last week outlined a five-year austerity drive, including major cuts to welfare and government expenditure, to reduce a record peacetime budget deficit of 11 per cent of gross domestic product.
A Populus poll for the Times newspaper showed 58 per cent of people surveyed believed the effects of the cuts would be unfair, with 20 per cent of voters more pessimistic than in June.
Most also now believed the coalition was making deeper cuts than were necessary and only a third believed the government had succeeded in protecting the most vulnerable in society, the Populus survey showed.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies said on Friday the 80 billion pounds ($125.9 billion) of cuts — the biggest spending reduction in a generation — would hit the bottom half of earners hardest.
A separate ICM poll for the Guardian newspaper showed that while most voters believed the spending cuts were unfair, there was no large-scale revolt against the measures.
