Lifestyle and Leisure
Reasons to move: Government
The current labour government is haemorrhaging support at an unprecedented rate and this looks set to continue for the foreseeable future.
Seemingly every day the media reports another crisis to hit the government, and Prime Minister Brown is bearing the brunt of public disillusionment.
When we asked Emigrate America readers to name the things driving you away from the UK in our annual survey, 13.7 per cent of you listed the government – the fourth highest response. Even more worrying for the Labour Party was that Gordon Brown was easily voted the British 'personality' you'd be most glad to see the back of – with 19.5 per cent of the vote.
Since we conducted our survey, though, the government has been battered by bad press. If the survey were conducted today surely the percentage naming Mr Brown and his cronies as a motivating force behind our readers' emigration plans would be far higher.
According to a survey in The Independent last month, Gordon Brown leads the most unpopular Labour government in history. Only 17 per cent of people approve of the Brown government's record, while 70 per cent disapprove – the same ratings as Margaret Thatcher's government just before she was ousted by her own party. The results were similarly awful for Mr Brown, with his personal ratings at a new low. Only 22 per cent of people are satisfied with him.
The decline in support for the government is intrinsically linked to the country's economic decline, but has been exacerbated by additional factors as well: the loss of sensitive personal data followed by embarassing by-election losses in Crewe and Nantwich in May and its fifth place, behind the BNP, in Henley in June. The low point was the Glasgow East by-election last month and now Mr Brown may face a leadership contest from within his own cabinet.
Of course, when you're trying to get away from an unpopular leader and government you don't want to encounter the same problems in your new homeland. Unfortunately, this would be the case with the present George W Bush US government. A poll in May showed Mr Bush is the most unpopular president in modern American history: the CNN/Opinion Research survey indicated that 71 per cent of the American public disapprove of how Bush is handling his job.
However in the US there will be a changing of the guard in the near future with November elections, whereas in the UK we may have to wait until 2010 to get see a new government.
Americans also have the prospect of Barack Obama for president – a man given a reception akin to that of a messiah when he toured Europe last month. His soaring speeches and the agony of the Republican Party have also led to increased support from across the US.
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