Privately commissioned survey brings more bad news

A YouGov survey commissioned by the Harriet Harman campaign for the deputy leadership has just been published and shows a two point drop in support for Ming’s party.

Although no top line figures were issued an extrapolation from the detailed data shows the following shares with changes on the last survey from the pollster eleven days ago CON 37% (nc): LAB 32% (nc): LD 16% (-2).

The survey was carried out from Tuesday to Thursday last week and so does not include any reaction to the election results.

The Harman campaign commissioned the poll in an effort to show how Labour would do better with her in the deputy job than any other of the contenders and on the face of it suggests that the party would do 14% better with her in the job compared 10% each for Benn and Hain, 9% for Johnson, 7% for Blears and 4% for Cruddas.

I write “on the face of it because what has not been revealed is the proportion who would be “less likely” to vote Labour with her there. Last time such a survey was carried out the positive impact of Harman was completely wiped out by the negative.

No wonder this data is not included.

Mike Smithson