Two Sunday Polls
There are two new polls in the Sunday papers. A new ICM poll in the Sunday Express has topline figures, with changes from ICM's last poll, of CON 45%(+2), LAB 29%(+1), LDEM 16%(-3). It was conducted betweeb the 30th
July and 1st August. It's actually the highest level of Labour support for two months, but seems to be at the expence of the Liberal Democrats. A second poll for BPIX in the Mail on Sunday had figures of CON 47%, LAB 24%, LDEM 16% and was conducted between the 31st July and 2nd August.
Both polls asked about the Labour leadership and again failed to produce any particular evidence that Labour would do better without Gordon Brown. 38% of people said they would be more likely to vote Labour if they dumped Gordon, but 40% said they would be less likely to. I don't like questions framed in this way - it is impossible to tell how many of the 38% are people who vote Labour anyway, how many of those 40% are people who would never vote Labour.
In ICM's poll Jack Straw was the favoured replacement for Brown, leading David Miliband by 24% to 20%. Other candidates were in single figures. In BPIX it was he other way round - Miliband lead Straw by 18% to 12%. It would appear that Straw and Miliband are the two front runners in the eyes of the public, though I doubt that is more than a reflection of the fact that they are the two who have been speculated about most in the press.
BPIX found 37% of people thought David Miliband was right in making media appearances in the last week that were interpreted as the beginning of a leadership challenger, 35% of people disagreed. 67% thought that, were Gordon Brown to be replaced, his successor should call an immediate election.
As I have said before, people are not particularly good at answering hypothetical questions about how they would react to future events, so this is not good evidence about whether a change in leader would actually help Labour or not. However, rightly or wrongly people do look to polls like this as evidence and it does drive the media story - so these findings are important for Gordon Brown's future.
