Why are we surprised that private sector workers don't back Labour?

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In one respect this is just another opinion poll:

"Members of the far-left Unite union behind the British Airways strike want their bosses to stop giving money to the Labour Party. In a stunning affront to the hard-liners running the union, a poll has revealed that grass-roots members would also prefer David Cameron to Gordon Brown as Prime Minister. "

In another respect it is a reminder to the Conservative Party about where they should be targeting campaigning efforts. The current strategy appears - with historical justification - to have been directed towards AB voters. However, this poll confirms that the new bedrock of support for the Conservatives will be the ordinary workers employed in the private sector and the self-employed.

And - as I said here - there's other polling evidence to support this assertion. Evidence that this Unite poll confirms. And this is what I said about those voters:

"These are the people who were most damaging by the smoking ban, who are irritated by the endless nannying lectures on drinking, eating and, seemingly, everything else they enjoy. These are the people who are roundly cynical about global warming, who want to use cheap flights to warm places once or twice a year. These are the people who’ve seen labour rob their pensions, let them down on education and want to tax them to the hilt for the horrible crime of using their cars.

And let me close by saying this: if Anthony Wells analysis is right then David Cameron has his strategy wrong. Sucking up to middle-class Lib Dem voting public sector professionals and labour-voting social workers by coming across all green simply isn’t delivering – in fact, if we carry on like this, we’ll just alienate those hard-working people who hate labour more than they love the Tories"