The Daily Politics team went out onto the streets of Gravesend and Chatham to ask their thoughts on welfare. The results were pretty conclusive…

An interesting poll for number crunchers in today’s Sun, not least because Margaret Thatcher is named as Britain’s most popular post-war PM. Dave scored a grand total of zero percent, suffering the indignity of coming behind Alec Douglas-Home. Tony Blair won three elections for the Labour Party but only 21% of Labour supporters felt he was the best post-war PM. Also notable that only 18 percent of Tories went for Churchill compared to 25%, 28% and 36% of Labour, LibDem and UKIP supporters respectively. The winner is clear…

Those results in full.

The Guardian are saying the results of their ICM poll are “divided”. In electoral terms, that would be called a landslide…

The news that McBride’s book will upset Labour conference has caused a flutter today. Many of his old allies have popped up to help the re-branding exercise. No doubt they will be salivating at the prospect of the serialisation rights, hence why no one has noted that the deal will earn Mad Dog far more than the royalties he has pledged to give away. Looking back at his recent blogposts shows the level of detail we can expect about the Brown years; one thing stuck out about his latest musing though:

“As our internal polls used to tell us, there were a number of Tory leaders who could potentially have beaten Tony Blair in 2005, and Hague was arguably one of them.”

You have to wonder what a Civil Servant at the Treasury was doing having access to “internal polls” in 2005. What internal polls? Surely the Treasury were not polling this sort of information? A Labour source familiar with that particular period does not recall any Labour Party poll commissioned on the subject. Was this done by that famous impartial charity the Smith Institute? If not, who paid for it and was money declared? What else will Damian let out of the bag about doing Gordon’s leadership dirty work on the taxpayer? 

Liam Byrne calls it a “hated tax”, Jim Murphy says the government should “listen” to the public. Most damning of all, Owen Jones warns of the disastrous electoral consequences of the government’s changes to the spare room subsidy:

“A warning to Number 10. You calculate your attempt to demonise benefit claimants has paid off, removing all potential empathy. But – unfortunately for you – most are decent people. When the electorate realise you are inflicting misery not on “scroungers”, but on some of the most vulnerable in society, your campaign will fail. You bank on the suffering remaining below the radar, and you will be proved wrong. We will hammer you with the consequences, and, in time, you will be defeated.”

Apparently not content with peddling the bedroom “tax” lie, a YouGov poll shows Labour aren’t being entirely truthful about what the public think, either. Awkwardly, 49% of the public support the government’s reforms, compared to just 38% against. Even 34% of Labour voters support the policy. They won the battle on how the debate was framed in the media, but despite what Owen says the “decent people” he talks of recognise that the reforms make sense…

UPDATE: At least one Shadow minister is finally listening to the public:

The graph above, via Survation, analyses all the Eastleigh polls since Huhne quit with a 5-point margin of error. Guido’s money is still on the yellows, though an upset isn’t impossible. With UKIP finishing strongly, Farage must be kicking himself he didn’t stand…

The government’s proposal to introduce a minimum price of 50p per unit of alcohol is regressive taxation at its worst. It is an attack on both the poor and on the middle class, the seasoned drinker and the responsible drinker. For a “Conservative-led” coalition to implement a statist, anti-market, high tax raid is counter to the historic role of the Conservative Party. The joke that only the PM and Jeremy Heywood back the policy has more than a ring of truth to it.

This week Boris entered his champion of the people mode, bashing Dave for “hitting the poorest hardest” with minimum alcohol pricing. Osborne thinks it could actually cause a drop in takings from alcohol duty, and Theresa May, who is responsible for pushing it through, is said to be “cool”. Health minister Anna “Super” Soubry – as she is ironically known by her less than enamoured colleagues – admits responsible drinkers will be hit. Ken Clarke says it won’t work, James Brokenshire agrees it penalises everybody, even the LibDem minister Jeremy Browne isn’t on board. It is also worth noting that David Davis is a particularly strong opponent.

The Cabinet is against, but the PM is steam-rolling it through. You can tell Dave what you think in the poll below…

George needs to find a billion pounds fast – what would you do…

Before Christmas the PM rejected calls for a royal commission on drugs, arguing somewhat unfeasibly that the current policy was “working”. Despite that Clegg has moved in the right direction coming out as pro-liberalisation, packing off Jeremy Browne “Sugar” to Amsterdam on an, ahem, “fact-finding mission”. Tonight a new Ipsos Mori poll shows that 53% support either the legalisation or decriminalisation of cannabis.

Two thirds want a review of all policy options, rather encouragingly that figure increases to 70% among Conservative supporters. A Portuguese-style decriminalisation of drugs is also backed by just under half of the population. Dave is resisting the British public’s freedom to party…

@Kazipooh page three so last century! You maybe right, don't know but considering. Perhaps halfway house with glamorous fashionistas.—
Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) February 10, 2013

With Murdoch hinting that Page 3 is “so last century”, po-faced critics of boobs are campaigning with new vigour today. So much so that Guido is launching #SavePage3.

They do not speak for everyone…