More from YouGov's Labour leadership poll
The full tables for the Labour leadership poll are now up on YouGov's website here (for members), here (for Trade Unionists) and here (as a nice summary). There are a couple of other notable findings.
1) How perceptions of the candidates have changed during the campaign. Ed Miliband, Andy Burnham, Ed Balls and Diane Abbott are all perceived by party members as being more left wing that they were in July. In July 30% of members saw Ed Miliband as centrist (22%) or right of centre (8%), that has now dropped to 21%. In contrast to the other four candidates, David Miliband is seen as increasingly right wing - in July 33% saw him as centrist and 19% as right of centre. That has now risen to 36% centrist and 26% right of centre.
2) Party members and trade Unionists still see David Miliband as the leader more likely to win the next election and as making the better Prime Minister. Despite the shift in voting intentions, amongst members David leads Ed by 55% to 25% as likely to lead Labour to victory, 45% to 28% on making best PM, and 44% to 21% on being an effective leader of the opposition. Ed Miliband still leads his brother on being likeable and sharing members political views. Amongst trade unionists David Milibands leads are smaller, but the pattern is the same. This implies many Labour members and trade unionists are voting for the candidate whose views they approve of, rather than the one they think has the best chance of winning the next election.
3) Labour's future strategy. 51% of Labour members think the New Labour strategy is wholly (5%) or largely (46%) right and should be retained. 47% think it is largely (36%) or wholly (11%) wrong and should be abandoned. In regard to the coalition's planned cuts, 25% of Labour party members think the party should oppose them on principle, and 56% think they should accept the principle, but oppose their scale or timing as damaging to the country. Only 17% think Labour should accept the scale of cuts and offer alternate cuts when they oppose specific coalition savings. An insignificant 1% think they should support the coalition cuts wholesale.
4) YouGov's regular poll for the Sunday Times also asked the general public who they think would make a better Labour leader if they had to choose between David and Ed Miliband. 30% backed David, 16% Ed, but the majority (54%) said don't know - a reminder that the two men still have a relatively low profile amongst the general public. (Not, it has to be said, that this is necessarily a bad thing. Leaders of the opposition do rapidly become known to the public, and having a blank canvas when it comes to public perception is better than having a negative image).
