A Plague O'Both Your Houses

Okay, so I've switched from Yeats to Shakespeare, this stuff is better than fiction. We've got honest to goodness polling data on this thing at last. With the normal caveats about a poll taken outside of a writ, here's it is. I think my title is the best way to describe the voters on this. Either that or voters don't care and this is just a repeat of the election results. I think the first option is more likely. What does this mean going forward? Well, good news and bad news for both sides.

For the coalition, the good news is that people aren't preparing torches. They aren't about to carry Stephen Harper back into 24 Sussex on their shoulders either. The bad news is that there is no real anger demonstrable in this poll about the whole lack of an economic plan. This may be that while there is a slow down in the country we are not in the crisis that most of the world is facing yet. "Yet" is the operative word, Tories. For the Tories the good news is that people aren't calling for Harper's heads. On the other hand they aren't all that upset about the "evil separatist supported coalition".

Where do we go from here? Well, if Harper dares to prorogue parliament (still a major risk for him and the country in my view), he will take this as a signal to continue the media assault begun today. For the opposition, if they can take down Harper now, avoid an election, and form government, the people may not punish them for it eighteen months hence. I think this should take some of the inside Queensway panic out of this crisis. Then again, it probably won't. The parties have a vested interest in making this as big as possible now. The Tories need this to be big in order to justify the highly undemocratic move of proroguing parliament in order to avoid a confidence vote. The Coalition needing this to be big in order to justify unseating a government six weeks after an election. As is usually the case in politics, there are no angels here.