Conservative voters back electoral reform; public doesn’t want to cut MP pay

An interesting snippet from today’s YouGov poll:

Here are some proposals that have been made for reforming our political system. In each case do you agree or disagree with it?

Introduce a new voting system for electing MPs which would link the number of seats to the total vote of each party, and make it harder for a single party to win general elections outright.

Support: 52%
Oppose: 20%

Amongst Conservative voters:

Support: 40%
Oppose: 33%

Not surprisingly, Liberal Democrat voters are much keener, but it’s interesting to note that a majority of Conservatives agreed with this question. It looks like Conservative voters are rather keener on substantive political reform than David Camerson is, who has concentrated on welcome but rather more peripheral elements of the topic.

The other question that particularly caught my eye was on MPs’ pay, where the public views are, in the circumstances, relatively generous to MPs:

Backbench MPs are currently paid a salary of £65,000 a year. If the system of allowances is changed, and properly regulated, so that MPs can claim only what is absolutely necessary to do their job, do you think a backbench MPs’ pay should be increased, reduced or remain about the same?

Increase: 30%
Reduce 29%

Within that, 21% think MPs’ pay should then be increased to £80,000 or more. Only 9% think it should be cut to £40,000 or less.