The effect of Brown & Mrs Duffy
The polling YouGov did on Gordon Brown's gaffe yesterday is up in full on the website here. 44% sympathize with Mrs Duffy, 23% with Brown. 50% think its a storm in a teacup, 46% think the worse of Brown. 26% think that Brown was genuinely sorry, 56% think he wasn't.
The imporant bit though (especially given we are a week away from an election), is whether it changes votes. 9% said it made them less likely to vote Labour, 3% more likely to vote Labour - the rest no difference. My regular readers will know I am not a fan of questions like this - people use them to signify approval or disapproval regardless of whether it will actually change their vote. Lo and behold - that 9% of people who say it will make them less likely to vote Labour, is made up of Conservative and Lib Dem supporters. Most of those who say it will make them more likely to vote Labour, are voting Labour anyway.
Of course, the better test of whether it changes any votes will be whether voting intention changes. We'll have the normal YouGov poll tonight, beyond that most polling will probably be after the third debate, so it will be difficult to distinguish any Mrs Duffy effect from a debate effect.
