These elections remind us that leader ratings and supplementaries are a better predictor of electoral outcomes than voting intention
Regular readers of this website know that Mike Smithson and myself really value the various leader ratings and supplementaries as they are often a better pointer to election outcomes and these recent elections are further proof of that.
Based on the tweets atop this thread I wrote a piece in March saying that Mark Drakeford’s Labour party were in a much better position than the voting intention figures suggested thanks to the munificent leadership of Mark Drakeford, it is clear there aren’t enough superlatives for his leadership, given how well Labour have done in Wales at this election. Whilst the voting intention figures suggested a Labour lead over the Tories of 2%/3% in the constituency and regional sections the leader ratings were closer to the actual result where Drakeford’s Labour won the constituency section by nearly 14% and the regional section by 10%.
You didn’t need to be an expert in Scottish politics to realise that Alba were headed for a calamitous performance in the Holyrood elections because of Alex Salmond’s ratings, where he trailed even Boris Johnson. Thoughts and prayers for those elected officials, especially the MPs, who defected from the SNP to Alba. As career moves go it is worse than those who defected to Change UK.
Primus inter pares in the whole leadership ratings discussion is Sir Keir Starmer. At the start of they year I pointed out that his ratings is something that should alarm Labour supporters then later on the big red flag identified something truly worrying for him
What should really trouble Starmer and his supporters isn’t just the fall in his ratings which generally is a feature of being Leader of the Opposition is the fact a year in to the job according to the recent Redfield & Wilton poll he is seen less of the embodiment of telling the truth than Boris Johnson.
So in future don’t get seduced by the headline voting figures, even in the last week when the Tory lead was narrowing substantially Boris Johnson generally still led Starmer on the leadership ratings and supplementaries so Thursday’s results weren’t wholly unexpected to those of us who follow leader ratings.
TSE
PS – As an aside, if people are talking about Andy Burnham as Sir Keir Starmer’s successor then why not Mark Drakeford? His achievements as First Minister of Wales are much more impressive than Burnham’s tenure, I’m hoping we can soon bet on Mark Drakeford in the next Labour leader market.
Like Burnham, Drakeford is a clear lay, even before Starmer’s contretemps with Angela Rayner where it is looking like a case of Keir today, gone tomorrow, well gone before the next general election, which would effectively disbar Burnham and Drakeford as they aren’t MPs and are unlikely to be MPs before the next general election.