Blair and Reid the big movers

For all the reported infighting at Labour’s Manchester conference the latest BrandIndex figures from YouGov show a boost for all the main party leaders during the week.

These are based on five-day rolling averages of more than 600 online interviews a day until yesterday – so the full impact will not be seen until after the weekend. John Reid, who spoke yesterday, got a huge boost and if that continues over the next few days the graph should move up even further.

But the biggest mover of all was Tony Blair who is now recording his highest ever ratings since YouGov launched the BrandIndex polling in the Spring.

The movements on the week are: Blair + 12: Reid +5: Brown +4: Johnson +1: Miliband +1

There’s a fuller report on Anthony Well’s UK Polling Report site.

There have been no national opinion polls since Monday and it seems highly likely that Labour will get a significant boost. Could they have over-taken the Tories? We’ll have to wait and see but it’s a well-established polling pattern that parties usually get a conference boost in the polls.

Mike Smithson