All the pollsters finding that current LAB voters reluctant to give Corbyn their full backing

All the pollsters finding that current LAB voters reluctant to give Corbyn their full backing

Corbyn has got the Ed Miliband problem

Looking back over GE2015 polls what should have raised questions about the voting intention findings was that in all the leader ratings of different forms Ed Miliband was always a long way behind Cameron. I made that mistake.

People are voting for a Prime Minister and their view of the contenders is, as I’ve argued, a much better pointer to election outcomes than their party choice where the polls have failed twice in the past six general elections.

A factor that undermined Ed Miliband’s numbers throughout the five years of his leadership was that Labour voters were not giving him support on anything like the same scale as Tory voters were for Cameron.

So as a new tracker for the next general election I’m going to do monthly examinations of the support from declared LAB voters are giving to the party leader in all the different forms of leadership question from the main pollsters that monitor this regularly.

Once we know whom the Tories choose to succeed Cameron my comparison will be with be with that person. In the meantime my chart shows Corbyn’s backing from LAB voters compared with Cameron’s support from CON ones.

As can be seen the picture is the same across the range of pollsters with their different question formats. Unless things change or the Tories elect someone who struggles with its voters LAB looks as though it has chosen another loser.

Mike Smithson



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