Nadine out of the jungle
Nadine Dorries is out of "I'm a Celebrity..." and to celebrate Lord Ashcroft has released a poll of her Mid-Bedfordshire constituency. Topline voting intentions in the constituency are CON 51%(-2), LAB 22%(+7), LDEM 14%(-11), UKIP 8%(+3), GRN 4%(+1) - changes are from the general result in 2010.
Opinions of Dorries in her own constituency are not particularly flattering. Asked to rate whether they have a positive or negative view of various politicians on a scale of 0-10, she averages at 2.8, well below Boris Johnson (6.1), David Cameron (5.4), Nick Clegg (4.0), Ed Miliband (4.0) and Nigel Farage (3.5). Only 8% of people in Mid-Bedfordshire rated her above 8/10 on a positively scale.
58% of people disapproved of her decision to go on "I'm a Celebrity..." compared to only 16% who approved. 57% disagreed that she'd be able to get more publicity for the issues she cared about on the show rather than at Westminster, 54% disagreed that donating her MPs salary to charity made up for her absence. On whether or not she was a good MP people were evenly split 35% thought she was, 35% thought she wasn't. Finally, 58% of people thought the Conservative party were right to suspend her, compared to 26% who thought it was wrong (17% said it should have been left to the local party to decide). Conservative voters were even more hostile - 64% thought it was right to suspend her.
44% of people said they were less likely to vote for her because of her appearance on "I'm a Celebrity...", only 8% were more likely. Readers will know my reservations over questions like this - lots of the people saying less likely are Labour and Lib Dem voters anyway, so they are hardly lost votes. I'd even take the 44% of Tory voters who said less likely with quite a big pinch of salt, as in the event that Nadine Dorries somehow ends up standing as a Conservative candidate again lots will end up voting on national issues. Those concerns aside, it does suggest that the MP's decision has gone down very badly in her constituency.
In other news, today's YouGov daily poll for the Sun has topline figures of CON 33%, LAB 41%, LDEM 9%, UKIP 10%. That 10% for UKIP is right at the top end of the level of support YouGov have been showing them at and is worth keeping an eye on. At the tail end of last year we also saw an increase in UKIP support when the European summit rose up the media agenda.
