YouGov/Sunday Times - CON 32, LAB 38, LD 10, UKIP 13
This week's YouGov poll for the Sunday Times is up here, topline figures are CON 32%, LAB 38%, LDEM 10%, UKIP 13% - in line with the average YouGov Labour lead of six points or so. The rest of the poll was very much August fare (when a poll comes along with a big chunk of questions on whether TV presenters should have beards you know you are deep in silly season), though there were some repeats of YouGov's semi-regular questions on how Ed Miliband is doing as Labour leader. As usual they are not very complementary.
I've written about the strange anomaly of Ed Miliband's poor ratings several times (normally voting intention and best PM are far more closely correlated, and being ahead in voting intention tends to be accompanied with an opposition leader having more positive ratings. The sharp contrast between Ed Miliband's poor personal ratings and Labour's long-term lead in voting intention is unusual). I see how it resolves itself is one of the great unanswered questions of the next general election - whether Labour continue to do well despite Miliband's poor ratings (as the Conservatives did despite Thatcher's poor ratings in 1979), or whether the negative perceptions of Miliband weigh more heavily on the public as we get closer to a general election and a choice between who they want to form the next government, and Labour support is consequently dragged down. We cannot tell.
What we can tell is that perceptions of Miliband seem to be heading in the wrong direction. Today's YouGov poll has the proportion of people thinking he is a weak leader up to 51% (from 47% in July and 37% last September), the percent thinking he is not up to the job of Prime Minister is up to 62%, from 57% in July, 51% in May. Whether this actually matters or not is a different question - personally I find the evidence of repeated British Election Studies that perceptions of the party leader are an important factor driving voting intention compelling... but that doesn't mean that they can't be outweighed by other factors that are presumably responsible for Labour having been in the lead now for over 18 months.
