The Lib Dems drop to 15%

Reports are coming out about new YouGov poll for tomorrow’s Sunday Times that has Labour at its highest rating for 8 months – on 34%. The figures are compared with the last YouGov poll taken before and on the May 3rd elections are: CON 38% (+1): LAB 34% (+2): LD 15% (-1).

According to Iain Dale’s blog Labour slips back to 32% if Brown is leader, ten points behind Cameron’s Tories who rise to 42%.

From the information that’s available it is not clear whether this was YouGov’s normal forced choice question when respondents are only given two choices or whether it was the more standard “named leader” question that we have seen a lot of in the past year. If it is the latter then it is a lot more serious.

The 10% deficit that Brown has with YouGov has remained consistent since March.

Other findings in the poll are:-

By 50% to 31% those said that they did not like the Chancellor

By 35% to 32% they did not think he would be “a good representative of Britain abroad”

By 49% to 46% that overall Mr Blair had been a good Prime Minister.

We should not jump to too many conclusions just yet. It is highly likely that much of the survey took place on Thursday when Tony Blair’s exit speech was making the news and before Brown’s big day yesterday.

This will be updated when I get more information.

Mike Smithson