BBC says the Conservatives Party 'has an image problem'

5.00.00pm GMT Tue 15th Feb 2005

The BBC has found out the bleeding obvious - that the Conservatives Party have an image problem! An ICM survey for BBC2's Newsnight has found that the Tory party's immigration policy may be more popular with voters than the party is itself.

An ICM survey for BBC2's Newsnight asked 1,012 people if they supported tough immigration controls, without specifying they were Tory policies. 82% said they supported the plans, but only 65% did so when told that it was the Tory policy on the issue.

Leading Conservative Mr Norris explained that current conservative policies are designed to firm up their own vote rather than win new votes by saying "I worry that some of the issues prioritised so far, like immigration and tax cuts, are designed to appeal to our loyal supporters and won't be enough to persuade the unconvinced."

Rick Nye, former head of research for the Tories and director of polling company Populus went on to say "If people either don't like you...or think you are irrelevant, they don't care what your policies are."