Which party leader will be the first to step aside?
Up to the end of July I thought that Ed Miliband was the leader most secure in his post with Cameron and Clegg fighting it out for second place. Now that has changed quite rapidly as we saw with the “Labour Insider’s” guest slot a couple of days ago on how EdM became much more vulnerable with the exit of Tom Watson.
For this survey I’ve added Nigel Farage who is under his own pressure following the resignation of UKIP chief executive and some highly critical things about the leader’s management style. Certainly expectations are running very high amongst the purples and not coming top in the national vote at EURO2014 could be problematical.
A year ago I’d have put Nick Clegg at the top of the “most critical” list but be has survived thus far. Coming fifth behind the Greens in the 2014 Euros could be very difficult although his position was strengthened considerably by the retention of Eastleigh.
One thing that helps Clegg is the party’s drop in membership. Almost by definition those still remaining are Clegg loyalists. I’ve got a 7/1 match bet on with William Hill that he’ll survive longer than Cameron.
If Dave gets through a potentially difficult September/October his next point of vulnerability will be the aftermath of EURO2014 particularly if UKIP do as well as some national polls are suggesting. We’ll be able to get an idea of voting patterns in Westminster seats by the data that will come out from the EU elections and this might just cause Tory MPs to panic.
He’s still blamed for not getting a majority against Brown and you can see the same argument over him being unable to beat EdM at GE2015. If Dave comes out of the election still as PM he’ll be okay. One thing that we know about Dave is that he’s at his best when his back is to the wall.
So which will be first out? Take the poll above.