Ed Miliband – a concerning report
An Ipsos MORI poll in January 2011 had it that 11% of the public liked Ed Miliband but disliked the Labour party, while 20% did not like Ed but did like the Labour party.
In this period Miliband’s total “likeability”, according to the pollsters, was the same as Michael Howard’s in April 2008.
Over the period between October 2010 and February 2011 the proportion of the public who were dissatisfied with Ed almost doubled from 22% to 43%.
Furthermore, the polls picked up a lower “don’t know” percentage than is typical of an opposition leader. This means that many more people have an opinion on the leader of the opposition, today, and according to polls it has been negatively placed.
YouGov, for the Sunday Times, have today revealed another uncomfortable figure that shows Ed Miliband’s “well figure” of 26% equaling the lowest he’s seen.
The percentages for David Cameron have increased by 2% while Ed has dropped 4%. And yet, this month’s ComRes online poll for the Independent on Sunday and Sunday Mirror shows Labour to be leading the Tories by 4% – signalling no change for Labour, but a drop of 2% for the Tories.
The perception of Ed Miliband has changed very little over the year. While the Labour party tops polls, particularly now the cuts are starting to bite (despite the majority of the public, according to other polls, saying they agree with the Coalition’s economic policy – though whether they agree with this being frontloaded onto the frontline remains to be seen), Ed Miliband himself is not being trusted by the public.
More disagree today that Ed Miliband would be better protecting jobs than they did in April and January this year, and less agree today than they did in January and April.
On other points of note, most people agree that there is a class system today, while fewer see themselves as working class. Ipsos MORI made a damning statement looking at the Labour party vote in the last election saying a “working class” party, given the percentage of people who identify as such, and the percentage of those people who vote, is not feasible anymore. So perhaps the squeezed middle strategy was right, and so too the appeal against predatory capitalism?
Whatever your thoughts, it is not working for Ed, the figurehead of these moves.
Nothing other than concern can be said for these results. We cannot believe everything we read in polls, but they are the best indicator we have, and they are often very close to correct. We are where Gordon Brown was coming up to the election of 2010 a year later, even with a new leader, and a government doing unimaginable things without mandate. This is greatly worrying.
This is a capitulation to ‘personality’ politics. You know the sort that deliver the Chavez’s of this world. I think Labour should stick with ED because he is a nerdy ‘boring’ intellectual. This cult of personality must be broken – though in reality with Cameron it becomes the cult of no personality.
I agree, the cult of personality is a curse on real politics, but this is not going to change anytime soon, and if it did it would bring down voting turnouts. We should have more “real” people in politics, not academic political robots.
“I think Labour should stick with ED because he is a nerdy ‘boring’ intellectual.” In other words – because of his personality? Not because of his principles, policies etc? Which are what? Not exactly radical. In such desperate times Ed Milliband is looking like a naive public school boy who does not want to step out of his comfort zone and who points toward what he might say, without saying it, then jumps on the most popular bandwagon when it comes along. The Labour Party is sure to continue to sink with him at the helm. It’s not just about that though, it’s about what Labour have been doing on the ground for quite some time – cutting jobs, bulldozing local council facilities and selling off the land to property developers for a start. That’s not Labour, that’s no labour.
What people think of individual leaders is one factor amongst many that goes into their decision of how to vote.
We can tell how much weight they place on this particular factor by comparing these personal approval ratings to the answer we get to the question who you would vote for if an election were held today. Under most polls conducted at the moment, Labour wins a majority.
Whatever people think of Miliband and Cameron as individuals, there are not enough people prepared to vote Tory to give Cameron a majority. The Tories have not won an election for 19 years, nor won comfortably for 24 years. That suggests a long term problem deeper than personality politics. As does the fact that last year the Tories couldn’t win the easiest election they will ever contest, despite doing reasonably well on the individual likeability of their leader vs Gordon Brown.
Hi David,
I’m glad you raised those points. I got to say, for obvious reasons the polling question on whether a person would vote such and such the next day has always struck me as weak, as it has done pollsters themselves, who consider how much time, effort and importantly spin goes in to that time before an election, which couldn’t possibly take place over the whole political calendar.
Of course, and as you say, Cameron could not, and seemingly would not, muster up enough votes today to gain a majority. But is this actually cause for celebration (and I say so as a Labour party member, and supporter – not mutually exclusive – myself) for the left or for Labour?
Asylum and immigration, as an issue for the electorate, grew in the years that Blair was PM, and it is well documented that when Cameron wants to rally the core troops he talks about the big ‘I’ word.
In February 2011, from a sample of 1004 adults, 37% felt that immigration was a very big problem, 37% believed it was a problem, 16% felt it was not a very big problem and 5% felt it was not a problem at all.
35% of those who voted Conservative in 2010, according to YouGov, appealed to family values over anything else, 41% voted for them on matters of traditional values (compared to just 19% for Labour) and 28% on patriotism – while only 6% voted for the Tories appealing to tolerance and diversity.
I know it feels good to put down David Cameron, who until recently, was seen by the electorate as a soppy, guilt-ridden rich boy exploring leftist sentiments in the party of Thatcher; but a good deal of the voting population didn’t find the Conservatives right wing enough, and this is no cause célèbre.
I predict a big swing from Labour to the Green party next election.
Despite an intensive search for new policy, nothing worth a damn has appeared. Providing an effective opposition against this most incompetent and corrupt of Governments should be like shooting fish in a barrel, yet if Labour have landed any punches they’ve not received any credit for it. (The Government have been forced into numerous U-turns, none of which has hurt them.) Labour have not even bothered to capitalise on media-grabbing ground-up movements like Occupy or Tax Uncut (or whatever they’re called).
And polls claim that the majority regard the deficit as the greatest priority. Which I find hard to believe. Why would anyone care about an abstract concept such as Government accounts when faced with real problems such as unemployment, falling incomes and living standards, collapsed private pensions and personal debt? It seems that the South East, where the media is based, is living the Life Of Reilly, without a care in the world.
This is the genius of the Tories / neoliberals. Until Labour rejects neoliberalism and engages in the mother of all brutal and bloody fights (which is what fighting the neoliberal establishment is going to be), I don’t expect it to make any headway. But the Green Party will make headway. And maybe some Socialist parties.
I think this is quite likely. The Greens at least do sound like a real party, like Labour do, but with the added bonus of not being afraid to talk about the problems facing the public re neoliberal economics. This is a pity because at the heart of the Green party is an aversion to trade union activity and proximity to politics, and also an end goal in ecological politics, not necessarily a politics of jobs and good growth. They will manage to pick up on people’s fears in this crisis, as well as the political crisis in Westminster, and who can blame them while Labour faff about. But this should be a wake up call for the party, and it shouldn’t sit comfortably in the knowledge that the Greens will be wooing, not just their core support, but their core ideas.
There are too many immigrants and welfare recipients who vote Labour to keep their benefits.
It doesn’t matter what the polls say now, there isn’t going to be a General Election until 2015.
“It doesn’t matter what the polls say now, there isn’t going to be a General Election until 2015.” Yep. Effectively leaving the UK without a democracy. So now Italy has an entirely unelected government of bankers and ex NATO people, forced upon the people. It has no democracy. Greece is looking bad, France could be next. Here we are we a government that wasn’t elected by the majority of people and cannot be recalled. This is not what democracy looks like. Do we actually have any time to wait around for these people to tear our society apart for the good of the banks and what is Ed Milliband and the Labour Party doing about it exactly? Tentatively declaring that Capitalism can be saved and isn’t all bad whilst we are getting on toward £1 trillion in debt with a trade deficit of 90% and no manufacturing etc.
The problem is there is a lack of political distinction between Ed M. and what the ConDems are doing. The Labour Party, in reality, is showing no real opposition. It’s capitulation. He’s jumped on the bandwagon re welfare benefits (comparing the Fred the Shreds of the world to welfare recipients). He keeps bleating on about “negotiations” between government and trade unions but negotiations can only go so far and workers can withdraw their labour. Sometimes Mister Ed should be supporting yet it is all mealy-mouthed bleating from a so-called leader of the opposition. He uses the language of the occupy movement yet can’t get himself to actually vocalise support. He wants to be establishment-friendly Ed but also chuck a few progressive crumbs at the Lab voters/supporters but you can’t have it both ways. I think the establishment is winning.
I think you raise a crucial point, Ed cannot have it both ways any more. As was joked about at the LRC conference, the Labour party have discovered capitalism, and accepted it into its hearts, as the ship it sails on has started to perish from the bottom. In order for the Labour party to be a hub of ideas and stay faithful to its principles of ensuring a civic duty is provided to everyone, irrespective of age, class, gender and race, then it is going to have to make a choice: do we accept the establishment as it is, or do we make more than mere epithets and sighs towards those who are struggling, while the fortunes at the top exist unblemished.
Ed is in a unique position where he can nod quite firmly to the left in the knowledge that a great many voters will appreciate it. Despite the fact many feel the Labour party are to blame for the crisis, i think many will start to realise that they cannot be blamed for maintaining crises, and while many voters agree there should be savings and even cuts, they probably would not agree to cuts to the frontline – something that was not mandated for.
All this works to his favour, but he is not rising to the bait – and his own polled ratings show this. We should not look back at this time in 2015 and see little but a(nother) lost opportunity.
I agree he’s not rising to the bait. Instead of nicking the occupy movement language he really should acknowledge them. Again, Ed M. is hostile to the 30 Nov strikes yet he doesn’t put himself firmly into the shoes of a public sector worker who has had their pay frozen, pension rights attacked and hanging on to their job by the finger nails. If he wants to be accepted then he has to stop this having it both ways. If he wants to be seen as some real opposition then he has to make some tough decisions and show some leadership and where people in 2015 will look at him and think OK, he’s provided an alternative to the ConDems. But being a pessimist which I am I some how doubt Ed will do any of this, he will carry on regardless and will be subjected to a coup by the Blairites.
Very important point there – one which highlights why Ed hasn’t been cosying up to the unions, is that New Labour zombies, Blairites and Progress pirates are probably organising a coup attempt. Like David Miliband tried back when, compared to Blair, he looked half decent. And look at Progress now, actually, all GDH Cole this, and Tawney that – the image change to sentimentalism and totemism is preparation for attack, maybe?