How the party leaders are seen
There are unlikely to be any polls out tonight, so I thought I’d have a look at some of YouGov regular trackers that quietly roll by on a fortnightly basis without much comment, since it’s really the long term trends that matter. These figures are all based on YouGov’s regular tracker of what qualities people think the three main party leaders have. People are given a list of qualities and asked which they think that leader has (note this means that if 30% of people say a leader is strong, you can’t conclude that 70% of people don’t – while people are asked to tick all that apply, in practice many people will limit themselves to the ones they think apply most.)
David Cameron. Top ratings are now being seen as decisive (32%) and strong (32%). Contrast this with how he was percieved prior to the election, when the quality people most commonly associated with him was charisma. In the months since then, the proportion of people picking charisma as one of Cameron’s qualities has dropped from 40% to 29%.
Prior to becoming PM only 24% saw him as decisive and 23% as strong, but the big jumps in these scores happened the week he became PM. It seems to have been a result of either his response to the hung Parliament, or just the mantle of office. Since the coalition formed perceptions of Cameron’s decisiveness have remained unchanged, and perceptions of strength have jumped about without an obvious trend. Where he has grown more steadily in office is in perceptions of his honesty (28%, compared to 20% prior to taking office) and sticking to what he believes in (29%, compared to 22% prior to taking office).
Along with charisma, his biggest fall is being seen as in touch with ordinary people. Only 14% now think being in touch is one of Cameron’s qualities, compared to 20% prior to the election. 34% think Cameron has none of the qualities asked about, not much different from the 31% he scored before the election.
Nick Clegg. Nick Clegg’s ratings have collapsed since to the election, but to a certain degree that is purely a result of “Cleggmania” subsiding. It may be fairer to compare perceptions of Clegg now to perceptions of him before the first leaders’ debate, but even then they are pretty grim. In many cases, his ratings now are similar to his ratings prior to the debate – the exceptions are charisma (17%), which is still above his pre-debate levels, being seen as in touch with ordinary people (17%, compared to 23% or so prior to the debates), honest (down to 16%, compared to 25% or so prior to the debates). The steepest drop is in sticking to what he believes in – only 6% now think this applies to Clegg, compared to about 20% prior to the debates. 44% think he has none of the qualities asked about.
Ed Miliband. Ed Miliband’s ratings are still very low on most counts, simply because people don’t know much about him. In the latest survey 32% said they didn’t know what qualities he had. At this early stage his highest score is in being in touch with ordinary people, where he gets 21% (higher than both Cameron and Clegg!). 34% think he has none of the qualities asked about (meaning only a third ascribe any qualities to Miliband so far).
To sum up – Cameron is now seen more as a strong and decisive leader than the charismatic figure from before the election. Clegg has largely declined to pre-Cleggmania perceptions, but hardly anyone thinks he sticks to what he believes in. Miliband is seen as more in touch than the other two leaders, but it still largely an unknown quantity.
“It’s closer to home than you think…”
You mean in the Beano? I thought you’d stopped reading it.
I swapped my Beano for the Economist.
There’s a plugin on the home page of UKPR which automatically loads the latest YG figures. Can’t believe you guys haven’t spotted it before…
@Neil A
Curse you and your power of plug-in observation!!!… :-) Anyhoo, if you strip the url from the underlying HTML, you get this:
h ttp://widgets.yougov.com/UKWidget/widget.html?referral_code=
Which gives it to you direct.
Regards, Martyn
@Martyn,
Well I am a Detective…..
(Although my wife will attest to my complete inability at a range of household observational tasks).
@Neil A
Ah, suddenly things make sense… :-)
@All
Unbelievably, the BBC are keeping their Election 2010 site up to date. Their opinon poll site currently goes up to 19 Nov. You can see it here: h ttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8280050.stm
Regards, Martyn
“I swapped my Beano for the Economist.”
I gather the Spectator is the better comic, although I’m told the Telegraph is the an even more mirth-inducing publication these days!
“Well I am a Detective…..”
Presumably the singing variety, I should imagine.
Right, back to the cricket now the drinks break is over.
Thanks for the tip off regarding BBC updating their GE ’2010 polling database – their “poll of polls” highlight the trend like no other graph I’ve seen.
@ Nick Hadley
I think in recent years, there were some switches from the Tories to Labour. As for the high level defectors to the SDP, they probably couldn’t go back to Labour because it would be politically embarassing. I wonder two things though.
1. Would New Labour would have wanted the big party switchers back? I could imagine some strong antipathy by moderates in Labour who left to fight the Bennites and Trotskyists and Militant on their own while simulatenously fighting the Tories at the same time.
2. I am aware of some of the secret cooperation of Labour and the Lib Dems in 97′ and 01′ where Labour chose not to compete in certain constituencies to help give the Lib Dems a chance to win them from the Tories. However, considering how many seats Labour won that were either completely unexpected or longshots at best, I wonder if Labour might have gained even more seats than they did.
@ Nick Hadley
I think there are three basic kinds of party switching politicians: you have ideological party switchers, those who switch for political expediency, and those who are a mixture. I think that the SDP rebels probably fall into the first category.
Of course party switchers for ideological purposes doesn’t neccessarily make them better. Ronald Reagan was originally a Democrat and he switched to the Republican Party on purely ideological grounds. Namely, his opposition to civil rights efforts.
His first entry into electoral politics was his public campaign on behalf of Proposition 14 in 1964 (a ballot intiative to constitutionally prohibit fair housing laws in California….basically giving people a “constitutional right” to discriminate on the basis of race and ethnicity) which the Democratic Party and all its elected officials publicly opposed. He became a Republican after the election and soon ran for office after that.
@ Amber Star
“Nick Clegg has gone up in my estimation.
Mervyn King implied that Clegg had been less than truthful in saying that it was a conversation with King about the economy/ Greece situation that changed Clegg’s mind on economic policy.
We now find that King was playing politics & having conversations about it with the US ambassador! I am not going to give my opinion about Mervyn King – given he is now the unelected Chancellor in all but name, it could be considered partisan.
But I now find Clegg’s account of the meeting to be the more credible, a U-turn by me. Of course, I still dislike him for trying to interfere, pre-GE, in the Labour leadership but I now consider him foolish & naive rather than a cynical, lying toe-rag.
One can become wiser & less naive as one gains experience. There may be some hope for Nick Clegg in the future so I cannot maintain my previous level of dislike. I wonder if other things will emerge to cast him in a better light as we go forward.”
Was Mervyn King really playing politics or was he just making off-the-cuff observations? I think most observers expected the Tories would easily come back to power this year (even Labour thought so).