Ed Miliband's Personal Ratings

Every week YouGov ask those they are polling what they think of the way each of the big three party leaders is performing. Any one week's "snapshot" tells a partial and limited story, but only the trend over time tells the real story.

Thus it is that The Spectator's Jonathon Jones reports on the latest figures, along with a graph covering the past three months' figures for Labour leader Ed[ward] Miliband.

They show an unmistakeable worsening of his standing, with only one in five of all respondents in both this week's and last week's survey saying he is doing well, and over three-quarters saying he is doing badly.

Firming up the seriousness of this situation still further is the fact that just three months ago almost half of all those who responded to the same question were in the "don't know" batch; but that has dropped steadily since then and is now just ten percent.

Those who no longer inhabit the "don't know" category seem to have decided he is doing badly, as the "doing well" figure hasn't shifted significantly during this entire period – in essence dropping from low- to mid-thirties down to the high-twenties (at least until the new year, which then saw a fairly big drop to just 20%). Even among Labour voters, more of them say Ed is "doing badly" than believe he is "doing well".

Note that 20% figure, which is actually very close to Nick Clegg's 21% (which I found surprisingly low) as a small comfort to the Reds. However their real opponents are the Conservatives, whose leader David cameron enjoys a significantly higher "doing well" figure of 44% – more than double either of the other two party leaders' figures. It's still not exactly brilliant, though that is understandable with the current national situation, but what a contrast with the other two!

I think, to be fair, we'll need another week or two to see whether Ed's re-launch last Monday leads anywhere that will change his personal polling for the better, so perhaps it would be unkind to read anything final or decisive into the results to date.

If, though, by the end of January there hasn't been a marked change for the better, then Labour really do have a serious problem. The hinted-at stepdown seems to have fizzled out, so this appears to leave them no remaining avenues to try. Inertia and the results of Labour's normal scaremongering, along with the other party/UNions/BBC etc manipulations, will keep the party's own poll rating undeservedly high – though even there, recent results have hardly been encouraging for Labour.

These next two weeks will be crucial for Ed-M. For him it really needs to be though of as make-or-break time, though his party doesn't work in a way that will have any way to depose him even if he fails entirely. Who could replace him anyway? The Spectator piece touches on this but shows that possibly the best choice is almost unknown outside the party's inner circle so is almost certain to be unable to be selected in their electoral college system of choosing a new leader.

As was the case before Ed was installed, his older brother is the most likely successor in practice.

What a brilliant choice that would be, re-opening all those divisions within the party again and giving the media huge amounts of material far into the future. That could well turn out to be really awkward – but what alternative does the party have?


In practice, none!