THE Queen’s ability to understand the everyday difficulties of the British people shows up politicians as out of touch, a new poll has found.
Asked who, between the monarch and the country’s elected leaders, was more concerned about the problems facing them, 35% of respondents chose the Queen, while just 9% opted for politicians.
Three times as many people responding to the YouGov poll for The Sunday Times also believed the Queen was more “in touch” with ordinary Britons — 28% against 9%, although both were outnumbered by the people believing none of them was in touch.
The poll of 1,546 people also shows overwhelming support for the monarchy as an institution and for the Queen herself. Twenty-nine per cent of respondents said the Queen was the greatest monarch the country has ever had, with a further 38% saying she was one of the greatest.
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Asked if they wanted to retain the monarchy, 73% said yes, compared with just 18% who favoured an elected president. Two-thirds of people wanted to see the Queen continue on the throne for as long as possible, compared with 23% who would like to see her retire and pass on the role to her heirs.
The findings underline the results of an ICM poll last month which found the gap between supporters and opponents of the monarchy was the widest it had ever been.
Anthony Wells, associate director of YouGov, said: “The Queen is more in touch than government ministers and politicians — although it is more a case of negative opinions of politicians than positive ones of the Queen.”
Wells said that looking back over other polls from previous years it was clear that support for the monarchy had been “almost rock solid throughout the last 20 years, but may have become slightly more positive in the last year or so”.
He added, however, that the strength of support for the monarchy had still not returned to the levels of popularity seen in the mid-1980s, after the wedding of Prince Charles and Diana but before their difficulties became public.
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The preference for the Queen over politicians extended to the dinner table . Given a list of politicians and royals, 34% said they would prefer to have dinner with the monarch, against 14% for the Prince of Wales.
The status of politicians as social pariahs was confirmed: 7% opted to eat with the prime minister, 4% chose Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, and 3% went for Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister.