Would every other leader do worse?

Today's YouGov poll was also reported as showing that any alternative Labour leader would perform even worse than Gordon Brown. YouGov gave respondents a list of other politicians and asked if people would be more or less likely to vote Labour in a general election if they were leader - all had a negative net score, with more people saying they would be less likely to vote Labour with them in charge than more likely.

I would be very dubious indeed about these questions for two reasons. Firstly there's the question design - less or more likely doesn't tell you that much. Many of the people who said they would be more likely to vote Labour with X in charge already vote Labour, so yes - having that person in charge might firm up their support but isn't winning more votes. Many people who say they would be less likely to vote Labour with X in charge are already not voting Labour, so it may be driving them even further away, but since they aren't voting Labour anyway it's not necessarily much of a loss. If you must do questions like this, it's better to ask people how they would vote if X, Y and Z were party leaders, giving alternative Labour leaders in different versions of the question.

Even then though (and I'd be amazed if some questions like that didn't come along sooner or later), the questions would be pretty meaningless. Regular readers will remember the questions we had when Tony Blair was Prime Minister that asked how people would vote if Gordon Brown was leader. Back then I had to laden down the results with lots of caveats about people not being very good predictors of how they would react to future events and that, in practice, Brown would probably get a big boost upon being leader. In the event he did, but a few months later he was trailing in the polls in much the way those pre-Brown polls had predicted. Those were a special case though, since Brown had been a very prominent politician for the previous decade and the public knew him well and knew what he was like. It could have turned out very differently and Brown could have shown a completely different side of his personality as Prime Minister... he didn't, he was the same Gordon Brown and people reacted in the way they thought they would. But the fact remains he could have surprised them.

In this case, with the possible exception of Jack Straw, none of the possible replacements for Brown are widely known by the public. YouGov took this into account to some extent in today's poll by giving respondents the option of saying they didn't know enough about each person (38% gave that response for James Purnell and Andy Burnham, 16% for David Miliband, 6% for Jack Straw), but the problem is really unsurmountable. People can't say how their opinions would really change were Andy Burnham or James Purnell Prime Minister since they've little or no idea of who they are, what they are like or what on earth they would do or change as Prime Minister.

If Brown's leadership starts to come under real pressure then expect more polls like this...but unless they are about very well known politicians treat them as just a bit of fun.