Is Blair set for a pre-exit polling renaissance?

In the latest BrandIndex figures that are on the YouGov site Tony Blair is enjoying what equal his best figures yet since this data started coming out. Last week we commented that he had moved off the bottom level for the first time ever and the latest data shows that he is now 2.5% off the wooden spoon position.

Added to that is the detailed data from the latest YouGov poll reproduced above. Here it will be seen that not only amongst all voters is he ahead of the opposition leader but he commands significantly more support from Labour voters than Cameron gets from Conservative ones.

So whereas four in five of his party’s supporters are ready to state that Blair “would make the best Prime Minister” less than three-quarters of Tory voters are prepared to say the same for Cameron.

Also 6% of Tory voters were ready to rate Blair ahead of Cameron while only half that proportion of Labour voters were ready to put Cameron in front of Blair.

That Blair is ahead of Cameron on this question is even more remarkable because the overall party voting intention shares in the poll showed a substantial Tory lead.

What’s clear as well is that Blair overall lead over Cameron would be bigger if it was not for Lib Dems supporters. As can be seen in the table, Gordon does significantly better than Blair amongst supporters of the third party and suggests that this is where the expected Brown succession polling bounce is likely to come from.

This is probably not surprising for there appear to be a significant number of current Lib Dems who were Labour and switched their allegiance because of opposition to Tony.

The surveys, of course, took place in the immediate aftermath of the breakthrough in the Northern Ireland peace process and Tony looks set to get a further boost when the devolved assembly meets for the first time in the week after the local elections. It is being widely suggested that straight after that then Blair will make his historic departure announcement.

In the Labour leadership betting Brown is at 0.25/1.

Mike Smithson