Will Gordon Brown help Labour?
There have been quite a number of hypothetical polls asking how people would vote if Gordon Brown was leader, and since David Cameron became Conservative leader none have shown Labour leading. Until now however none have been truly comparable.
Polls asking how people would vote if Brown was leader by definition mention the name of Gordon Brown and, to prevent them giving Labour an unfair advantage, also mention the names of David Cameron and Ming Campbell. While this means the parties are on an even footing, it does mean that these figures cannot be properly compared to normal voting intention questions where no party leaders are mentioned by name.
Ideally what we would should be looking at is a special voting intention question that prompts with the present leaders as well as party names, and comparing that with a second poll where Tony Blair is replaced with Gordon Brown - that is what Populus have done in their latest poll.
The standard voting intention question reported yesterday had topline figures of CON 36%, LAB 34%, LDEM 19%. The same question, but mentioning the names of David Cameron, Tony Blair and Ming Campbell produced results of CON 38%, LAB 31%, LDEM 17% - in other words reminding people and focusing their attention upon who the party leaders are improves support for the Conservatives under Cameron, but reduces support for Labour under Blair and the Lib Dems under Ming Campbell. The prompted question has a much lower number of don't knows than a normal voting intention question, the main beneficiary of which is the Conservatives - perhaps suggesting that David Cameron has the ability to appeal to floating voters. People who voted Lib Dem in 2005 are also more likely to say they would vote Tory now in a question including the leaders' names.
Next Populus asked the same people how they would vote at the next general election, assuming that Gordon Brown was Labour leader, Cameron was Tory leader and Campbell was Liberal Democrat leader. With both questions prompting by the names of the party leaders any differences are now meaningful. What actually happens is that Brown boosts the Labour vote - up by 2 points to 33%, with gains coming largely from the Liberal Democrats, who fall to 16%, and Others (presumably disillusioned Labour voters who cannot bring themselves to vote for Tony Blair and those who are saying Other as a protest vote, but who think they'll return to Labour in the long run). However, the Conservatives also rise by 4 points to 42%, gaining both from non-voting former Conservative voters and people switching directly from the Labour party (presumably those whose support was for Tony Blair, rather than Labour, and who see Cameron as a better heir than Brown).
What this suggests is that Gordon Brown will attract some disillusioned supporters back to Labour when he becomes leader, but at the same time he will also lose some current Labour supporters to the Conservatives. The poll suggests that the reason that most hypothetical polls until now have shown a larger Conservative lead with Brown as Labour leader is only partially to do with Gordon Brown, and is far more a result of the positive effect on Tory support of mentioning David Cameron in the question.
Of course, with all that said it is important to remember that this is just a hypothetical poll. While Gordon Brown is a very familar figure to the public, in reality we really don't know exactly what type of Prime Minister he will make. Brown as PM may in the event turn out to be very different to how those people answering this question imagine it and have a very different effect on Labour support.
