YouGov have conducted a poll of Labour party members that shows half of Labour’s own members want Gordon Brown to go, and Alan Johnson is the leading candidate to succeed him. It was conducted on Friday and Saturday, so after James Purnell’s resignation and the extent of Labour’s defeat in the local elections was becoming clear.
As might be expected, Labour’s own party members were broadly positive about the performance of nearly all the government’s ministers YouGov asked about. 75% approved of Alan Johnson’s performance, 70% David Miliband’s, 65% Lord Mandleson’s, 61% Alistair Darling’s and 61% Harriet Harman’s. The only cabinet ministers asked about who got negative ratings were two of those who have just left – Jacqui Smith, whom 63% of Labour party members thought had been doing badly, and James Purnell, 50% of whom thought had been doing badly (the survey was conducted after he resigned). For Gordon Brown himself, 54% thought he was doing well, lower than all the surviving cabinet members YouGov asked about. 44% of his own party thought he was doing a bad job.
Opinions of Brown amongst his own party members were mediocre: 40% thought he was indecisive, 66% thought he was bad at communicating ideas, 41% thought he was weak. Only 25% of Labour members said he had handled the MPs’s expenses crisis better than the other leaders.
Asked about Brown’s future, 21% of party members think he should resign immediately, a further 26% think he should resign prior to the next election. Despite this, there was little sympathy for James Purnell’s attempt to precipitate Brown’s removal – 68% said he was wrong to do so, with 22% agreeing with his actions. 49% of Labour members did, however, say that Brown should go if 70 MPs signed a letter asking him to resign.
Should Brown go, Alan Johnson is the leading contender amongst Labour party members to replace him. 35% of them backed Johnson, leading David Miliband on 12%, Harriet Harman on 8%, Jon Cruddas on 7% and Ed Balls on 3%.
Full tables are here.
Thank you Anthony, posting this answers my email to you. These figures are all the more dramatic the more you look at them. What is really fascinating is that almost half want him to go before the GE (almost unheard of amongst the rank-and-file of either major party who are usually much more loyal than MPs – remember Mrs.Thatcher?) . However, this desire seems rather schizophrenic in that their view on Purnell for trying to kick it off is negative! Perhaps they want a seamless, peaceful transfer to some other face – will Gordon oblige? Will he heck-as-like! He will drag them all down in a Gotedammerung rather than improve their chances without him.
The PLP will not oust him.
The Cabinet-now-will support him.
For the same reasons-money.
Get rid of Brown now & a GE would have to be called.
Go to the wire with Brown & they get another years salary & perks.
It’s a no brainer.
I agree it looks like they’ve decided not to get rid of him. The problem is I think the Euro election results are going to be even worse than anyone in the Labour party is expecting.
Colin and Andy
I agree. Brown’s selfish bloodymindedness has guaranteed a period of Conservative government from next Summer I suspect, given the polls and the almost impossible catch-up needed. Another face, with a honeymoon might, just might, have marginally saved their bacon enough to have had a minority Labour Govt with LibDem support after a GE. Not now – Brown’s self-indulgence and their timidity has probably done for them!
I’m happy for Brown to stay for the Conservative Party’s prospects, but even sadder if he does stay for the prospects of my beloved country.
Tony,
I tend to agree with you. Labour is probably heading for a decade to 15 years on the outside at best. I was thinking of what you were if Brown stepped down, btw: They could at least, if they could get back to about 30-32, hope to force a minority under current conditions (high “other” support, etc.). Even in the high 20s, the Tory majority might be slim enough.
(Note: EC’s uniform swing offers the following: If the Libs are at 21 and Labour at 29, the Tories need 40 to get a majority. On 39 they could probably fudge it as long as the Ulster Unionists win at least one seat [and with Sinn Fein abstaining as usual]. On 38 it becomes rather unworkable. If Labour drops to 28, drop the Tory numbers by 1 for each margin. If Labour is at 30, raise them by 1 point each. Basically, the Tories probably need an 11-point edge for a safe majority, 10 points for a barely-managable-but-tight situation, and 9 gives an impossible minority)
I’ll say what I think I said before somewhere: If they can get the signatures to force an election, the anti-Brown people should dredge up a stalking horse backbench MP to at least force an internal election (even if said person promises to step aside to allow a clean election). I think it’s increasingly unlikely that Brown could beat even a stand-in opponent, and I think forcing Brown out is likely vital to the party’s survival…even if they have to burn him out. The worst part is that even if said person couldn’t win, I think they could get 35-40% in a fight.
I also must say that part of this stems, IMHO, from Brown’s decision to try and avoid an actual election (and no up/down vote on him) back in 2007. He did rather get foisted on his party in some sense, and I think that lingering irritation is making this crisis all the worse for him.
Gray
The EC’s UNS method, whilst fun, is I suspect defective in the case of predicting LibDem seats. When working professionally for their Liberal predecessors in the ’80s we always knew that West Country seats, where a greater proportion of the Liberal vote came from romantic old-fashioned Liberals largely drawn from the “gentle professions” who revert to voting Conservative, whenever faced with wanting to remove a Labour Government, are easier to win and also easier to lose. Seats in the South East and Urban areas which were harder to win in the first place, but more loyal once won (containing a higher natural anti-Tory voting component) behave differently. The local election results have borne this out. All the talk of why Somerset, Devon and Cornwall were bad for the LibDems is window dressing from all sides. The reason is simply psephological. Whenever I use the EC I dock a further 8 to 10 west country LibDem seats off their total and add them to the Tories, if the Tories score more than 38% whatever the LibDems score under 25%. Therefore I think Tories need less than an 11% lead for an absolute majority – nearer 9% I would guess.
I should say – not getting at Tony, it’s just quite a common misconception I see – that ElectoralCalculus does NOT use a uniform national swing. It uses a modified proportional swing.
Thank you Anthony that’s very helpful – and that changes my perceptions quite a bit about EC. From now on I will dock only 4 to 5 rather than 8 to 10 LibDem seats.
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I watched the SKY News live broadcast of Brown, Harman and Mandleson addressing the Labour activists.
We heard what was expected when the converted are being preached to and despite my wincing at the stage-managed emotions and the artificial candy-coated delivery one point was made clear. This was that with the many genuine Labour supporters who saw how Labour policies had improved the quality of life within the social circles that they worked and lived in, the Labour party had done this as a whole. Not by Brown personally. And here lies the problem for Brown and the Labour party. He somehow cannot envisage that the Labour party is capable of survival without him. Indeed, it would be far better off without him.
As a Conservative, I hope he stays on as a leader for as long as possible – but despite this, I whole-heartedly respect the honest views of those Labour supporters. Surely they and all non-Labour supporters deserve better from a governing leader, by having that leader know that the governing party’s legacy and the country’s fortunes would do so much better without him. But we all know that Brown is only focussed on one thing – himself.
I’ve had a trawl through quite a lot of the detailed results now – but much much more to do.
I’ve been looking at ward results mainly.
It is quite true that the Tories have been hit by the scandals aswell, mainly affecting the Euro election, but also it would appear losing us some points on the projected share of the vote from the locals – although it appears to be easily off-set by the set-back the Government has had.
Nevertheless, I just think these results are so awful they probably will now remove the PM. Although, having chosen him, it may be better to rally round him and play the experience card, rather than bicker.
I don’t often agree with what Polly Toynbee says, but she said on the results program it can’t get any worse, so there’s nothing left to lose.
But Steve Richards also made a good point – that the expenses scandal has been very demoralising for politicians, and ministers may actually lack the energy to stand up to Brown, and they haven’t really united around a credible set of characters or policy stance.
Labour’s in a bit of a bind which is that they’re probably better off: (a) without Brown, and (b) waiting until next year for the election. Of course the problem for them is that if they get rid of Brown the public will demand an election by the autumn. They’d like to have Alan Johnson as leader and the election next spring but I don’t think that is an option.