Is this simply about name recognition?
What do we think of the PH/Evening Standard poll?
There’s a new poll tonight by PoliticsHome for the Evening Standard on who the public would prefer as the next Labour leader. The figures are in the chart above.
The shares were: STRAW 16%: JOHNSON 13%: MILIBAND-D 8%: HARMAN 6%:PURNELL 1%: MILIBAND-E 1%: CRUDDAS 1%: SMITH 1%: MCDONNELL 1%: COOPER 1%: BURNHAM 1%. Compared with the last the PH poll there’s been an increase in support for Johnson and Harman and a decline for the others.
At this stage I’m somewhat sceptical about these findings which are little more than an exercise in name recognition. The whole style of the Brown leadership of the Labour party is that he’s the one that makes most of the big announcements and his cabinet don’t often get a look in. The consequence is that apart the top two or three very few members command much public awareness.
On PoliticsHome generally I had a meeting with them yesterday and I’m much reassured by their polling methodology. All samples are adjusted to ensure that they are politically balanced. We talked about the possibility of closer collaboration with PB and agreed to explore possibilities.
One piece of good news is that PH plan to update their massive survey of the marginals later in the summer. The first poll, involving a sample of more that 34,000 covering 238 key constituencies has become a key resource. It will be great to see a 2009 version.