Will the anti-Blair factions move back when Gordon’s in charge

All the focus from this morning’s YouGov poll for the Sunday Times has been on the relationship between Labour and the Tories and what happens when the party leaders are named.

One number, however, is missing from the on-line reports of the survey – and this could make grim reading for the Lib Dems.

The main numbers, as reported in the previous article had CON 38, LAB 34, LD 15, OTH 13. When the “named leader” question was put the Tories moved to 42% and Labour dropped to 32%.

The unmentioned Lib Dem figure on this question could be very low indeed – down to 13-14% maybe – if the others total has remained constant.

This is not surprising because in almost all the surveys in the past eighteen months there has been a significant switch from the Lib Dems to Labour when respondents were asked to consider a Labour without Blair.

For it is clear that a lot of the Lib Dems support since the Iraq War has come from former Labour supporters who have been unable to support their primary allegiance while Blair has still been there.

Now the Prime Minister is going will they return home so that a significant part of any “Brown bounce effect” could be from Lib Dem switchers?

For whatever reason YouGov has been the most unfriendly pollster for the Lib Dems in recent times and we’ll have to see what the non-internet polling firms are recording. Populus should be out on Tuesday in the Times.

Mike Smithson