Thursday, November 22, 2007

Labour slumps in polls

A poll for Channel 4 News from YouGov, with changes from the last YouGov poll, CON 41%(nc), LAB 32%(-3), LDEM 14(+1). This is after Labour's data disaster, where the excuses from ministers are unravelling by the hour. Now it turns out that the sending of unencrypted CDs by post containing vast amounts of data, and more data than the recipient actually wanted, was endorsed at a senior level within HMRC. So, no junior staffer making a blunder then, more a management failure from top to bottom, and the top was until recently Gordon Brown.

Labour is now plumbing the depths that the Conservatives found after the ERM debacle in 1992, and conversely Conservative support is now at the level it was before that fiasco.

4 comments:

Onlinefocus Team said...

Hi Steve, I think, given a choice I'd prefer the poll in the Guardian:

"The Tories are on 37% (down three points), and Labour on 31% (down four).

Despite having only an interim leader, the Liberal Democrats are up three points to 23%.


I think it's all to play for with the next election. :)

(Mind you , just imagine if Gordon Brown had called a general election and the data scandal had emerged during it!)

Steve Horgan said...

Chris, that poll is against the trend given the other current polls. I think that Labour has now got issues beyond an event or two driving down their instantaneous popularity. Where this puts the Liberal Democrats is particularly interesting. Running a strongly anti-Tory narrative when the trend is away from Labour does not strike me as a sensible strategy.

Onlinefocus Team said...

Steve, do you really think we (the Lib Dems) are campaigning more strongly against the Conservatives than we are against Labour ? (on a national level) I don't see it that way myself....

Steve Horgan said...

In 1997 the two 'progressive' parties clearly aligned with each other, and probably would have formed a coalition but for the size of the Labour landslide. More recently Ming Campbell went so far as to effectively rule out a coalition with the Conservatives in the case of a hung parliament. So, yes, I would say that nationally the Liberal Democrats have spent the last 10 years cosying up to Labour, and disengaging from that should be a priority for a new leader.