If not Brown, then who?

As usual the YouGov poll in the Sunday Times contained a wonderful grab-bag of issues. One that got some coverage in the papers was a question asking how people would vote if Tony Blair was still Prime Minister - it is of course pure media fluff given that Tony Blair is not about to suddenly return, deux ex machina, and save Labour from electoral doom, but for the record the poll showed a Conservative lead of only 5 points with Blair as Labour leader.

If Brown was replaced, who would people like to see as his replacement? YouGov asked and Jack Straw came out top with 13%, followed by David Miliband on 7%, Harriet Harman on 5% and Alan Johnson on 5%. Straw's position at the top is almost certainly purely a result of name recognition - no one else managed 5% and a whopping 61% said don't know. At this stage, with no obvious alternative to Brown who is well known by the public, questions like this really don't tell us anything.

10p tax rate 52% of people would prefer to have the previous arrangements of 22p basic rate and a 10p starting rate, 20p would rather have the 20p basic rate and no starting rate. 35% of respondents said they now thought the worse of Gordon Brown because of his decision to abolish the 10p rate and cut the basic rate.

Faith schools Better news for Labour here - asked if Ed Balls was right to criticise faith schools over unfair admission procedures 50% of people agreed with him, compared to 38% who thought he was undermining good faith schools and should leave them be.