One fairly consistent feature of GB-wide polling is that Labour tend to fare better in supplementary questions among Scottish respondents than they do among respondents elsewhere. For example, Scots are typically more likely to think that Ed Miliband and Ed Balls are preferable to Cameron and Osborne as custodians of the economy. But there's precious little sign of that phenomenon in YouGov's latest polling on whether Ed Miliband is a strong or a weak leader. Only one region of GB has a lower proportion of people than Scotland who think that Miliband is a strong leader, and there is no region at all that has a higher proportion of people who think he is weak.
PERCENTAGE WHO THINK ED MILIBAND IS A 'STRONG' LEADER :
London 12%
South excluding London 10%
Wales and English Midlands 14%
North of England 15%
Scotland 11%
PERCENTAGE WHO THINK ED MILIBAND IS A 'WEAK' LEADER :
London 45%
South excluding London 49%
Wales and English Midlands 42%
North of England 45%
Scotland 49%
This matters because the No campaign's hopes rest to a large extent on Labour being perceived as having a genuine chance of winning the next UK general election. Scots who think that the party is led by a weak leader are scarcely likely to be filled with confidence on that score.
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ReplyDeleteLabour will not form the next government; the blue Tories haven't even brought out their RBS shares give away and other sundry goodies with which to bribe the voters. The Tories will probably gain an overall majority as people are reminded of how red Tory Labour caused the crisis. Austerity's complete failure will be irrelevant as the south east of England and London choose the next right-wing government which will whip the poor and in Scotland's special case, dismantle devolution bit by bit.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Stevie , Labour will not win the next election no matter what Owen Jones and the other dangle berries say. I also think the YES campaign have to play on this next year, make it clear to voters Labour can't and won't win in 2015, this could be the key to a YES vote. Miliband is not a good leader, like Lamont, so I hope and pray they keep both of them.
ReplyDeleteBruce
A rumour over on 'wings' that Johann Lamont is about to quit.
ReplyDeleteI would normally dismiss this as another one of those daft rumours, but with her continuing silence, reaching well past the 'let the dust settle' stage, their is clearly something far wrong with her.
Things not going well for Labour leadership at the moment.