First YouGov polling on Corbyn
YouGov had a poll in this morning's Times asking some first impressions of Jeremy Corbyn from what people had seen so far (tables here). 31% of people said they were delighted or pleased by Corbyn's victory, 34% of people were disappointed or dismayed - 35% had no strong feelings or don't know.
Looking at people who voted Labour in 2015, 45% responded positively to Corbyn's election, 13% said they were disappointed, 14% dismayed. By 50% to 29% 2015 Labour voters expect Corbyn to do well as leader. The idea that most Labour voters are in despair isn't true - most seem happy enough at the moment with their new leader. There is, however, a significant minority of 2015 Labour voters who really aren't happy at all.
Later on in the survey YouGov asked people if they would trust Jeremy Corbyn to make the right decisions on various issues - the only one were he came up positively was the NHS, normally a safe issue for Labour, where 40% would trust his judgement, 34% would not. Everywhere else he struggled - only 28% would trust him on government spending and cuts, 27% on tax, 24% on immigration, 23% on the economy, just 20% on defence. It almost goes without saying that hardly any Tory voters would trust him, ditto for UKIP voters (some have suggested Corbyn could win back votes from UKIP, perhaps he could, but the poll here shows what a challenge it will be). More worrying here is the sizeable chunk of people who voted Labour in 2015, but don't trust Corbyn on key issues. 21% of Labour voters wouldn't trust him on spending, 35% wouldn't trust him on defence, 26% wouldn't trust him to run the economy.
Labour's performance at the last election was poor to begin with and Corbyn needs to hold onto those Labour voters who are currently saying they don't trust him (he can try to replace them instead with non-voters, Green converts and so on... but then he's trying to attract new voters just to make up for those he may be losing. Labour need to keep their existing voters AND attract new ones.)
Of course it's early days and Corbyn has a long time to build trust. To use a well worn metaphor, it's a marathon, not a sprint. That said, Corbyn's start hasn't been good: rather than a honeymoon, he's had an initial week of bad press and perceived gaffes. It's not a surprise that his initial ratings are negative given the media prism that most of the public have seen him through... but like it or not, that is the politics we have. We can only measure the opinion of the actual public - the actual voters, not some imaginary public where Corbyn got a better press. First impressions count, and the public's first impressions of Jeremy Corbyn don't seem good.
