More on Labour's image

Later on tonight we'll have the first YouGov poll conducted since Ed Miliband's victory - I've seen the results now, so I'm not going to say anything that could be construed as a hint.

In the meantime, here's some more polling YouGov did on Labour's last week. We gave people ten statements related to things Labour needed to change (or not) to win the next election - five broadly positive and optimistic, five broadly negative. Once again, there are some harsh truths there about the problems Ed Miliband is going to have to tackle.

To take the good news for Labour first, 39% of people think Labour's core values and principles are still strong, and 40% think the Labour party cares about all groups in society. In neither case is it a plurality, but YouGov run similar trackers asking about whether Labour's heart is in the right place and whether they represent all groups in society, and in both cases they run ahead of the Conservatives - these are Labour strengths. While there may be some good parallels between Labour's situation now and the Conservatives' in 1997, Labour are not a new nasty party. People may think they are incompetent and tired, but they still think their hearts are in the right place.

Slightly less positive were the ideas that Labour are ready for a quick bounce back into office after a short period of opposition (36% agreed, 48% disagreed), or that their problems were all down to poor leadership in the past and that the party itself was fine (37% agreed, 49% disagreed).

The negative statements though provide more worrying findings for the new leader. 59% of people agreed that Labour had "seriously lost touch with ordinary working people" (including 30% of Labour's own supporters), 70% that "Labour need to make major changes to their policies and beliefs to be fit for government again" (including 50% of Labour voters), 61% agreed that "Labour still haven't faced up to the damage they did to the British economy" and 50% agreed that "If Labour returned to government they would put the country into even more debt".

I'd still expect the cuts next month to leave Labour with a good healthy lead in the polls - but Ed Miliband needs to use his strength as a newly elected leader, and position of strength that a big lead in the polls will give him, to do some work on repairing Labour's image. Exactly how Labour position themselves on public spending, cuts and the economy will also be critical - but I'm sure there will be a ton of polling on that to come in the next month.