Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Vince Cable Tops Performance Index Survey

Last week I invited you to take part in a new monthly survey, which I'm calling the Politicians' Performance Index. I'm delighted to say that 1,256 of you did. You had to rate, with marks out of ten, the performance of 96 different politicians over the last month. In some ways the results are hardly surprising, but well done to Vince Cable for getting the highest average score. Unsurprisingly the quartet of Harman, Alexander, Brown and Darling takes up the bottom four places.

Next month I will restrict it to 30 politicians, as the feedback was that 100 were far too many. Anyway, here are the results.

1. 7.78 Vince Cable
2. 7.44 David Cameron
3. 6.69 George Osborne
4. 6.66 Alex Salmond
5. 6.26 William Hague
6. 6.22 Michael Gove
7. 6.11 David Davis
8. 5.74 Chris Grayling
9. 5.30 Alan Duncan
10. 5.18 Chris Huhne
11. 5.13 Boris Johnson
12. 5.10 Theresa May
13. 4.99 Liam Fox
14. 4.67 Dominic Grieve
15. 4.62 Andrew Lansley
16. 4.61 Ian Paisley
17. 4.50 Jack Straw
18. 4.44 Nick Herbert
19. 4.41 Eric Pickles
20. 4.38 Damian Green
21. 4.36 Nick Clegg
22. 4.26 Angus MacNeill
23. 4.26 David Willetts
24. 4.26 Oliver Letwin
25. 4.24 Norman Baker
26. 4.17 Pauline Neville-Jones
27. 4.15 Lord Strathclyde
28. 4.14 Francis Maude
29. 4.11 John Hutton
30. 4.04 Sayeeda Warsi
31. 3.94 Caroline Spelman
32. 3.91 John Denham
33. 3.89 Rhodri Morgan
34. 3.83 Philip Hammond
35. 3.80 David Laws
36. 3.75 Ken Livingstone
37. 3.73 Norman Lamb
38. 3.73 Grant Shapps
39. 3.68 Jeremy Hunt
40. 3.62 Angus Robertson
41. 3.59 David Miliband
42. 3.59 David Lidington
43. 3.57 Edward Garnier
44. 3.56 Peter Ainsworth
45. 3.56 Theresa Villiers
46. 3.54 Julia Goldsworthy
47. 3.48 Patrick McLoughlin
48. 3.45 Digby Jones
49. 3.42 Andrew Mitchell
50. 3.41 Jacqui Smith
51. 3.39 Lynne Featherstone
52. 3.39 Adam Price
53. 3.38 Steve Webb
54. 3.38 Ieuan Wyn Jones
55. 3.36 Nigel Farage
56. 3.34 Ed Davey
57. 3.34 David Ruffley
58. 3.25 Sarah Teather
59. 3.25 Cheryl Gillan
60. 3.23 Michael Martin
61. 3.16 Hazel Blears
62. 3.15 Susan Kramer
63. 3.14 Owen Paterson
64. 3.13 David Mundell
65. 3.10 Andy Burnham
66. 3.10 Don Foster
67. 3.09 Baroness Ashton
68. 3.09 Lord McNally
69. 3.08 James Purnell
70. 3.04 Nick Harvey
71. 3.03 Simon Hughes
72. 3.03 Liam Byrne
73. 2.98 Lembit Opik
74. 2.98 Michael Moore
75. 2.97 Lord West
76. 2.94 Tony McNulty
77. 2.93 Paul Burstow
78. 2.93 David Howarth
79. 2.93 Geoff Hoon
80. 2.93 Danny Alexander
81. 2.92 Ruth Kelly
82. 2.90 Peter Mandelson
83. 2.86 Paul Holmes
84. 2.83 Peter Hain
85. 2.83 Andrew Stunnell
86. 2.83 Alistair Carmichael
87. 2.82 Shaun Woodward
88. 2.74 Ed Miliband
89. 2.70 Ed Balls
90. 2.68 Yvette Cooper
91. 2.68 Mark Malloch Brown
92. 2.53 Alistair Darling
93. 2.45 Des Browne
94. 2.41 Gordon Brown
95. 2.25 Douglas Alexander
96. 1.76 Harriet Harman

29 comments:

Anonymous said...

30 would be better! This has nothing to do with the poll but I felt worthy of a cut and paste from Guido's place:

Just days after resigning from Revenue and Customs over the child benefits data loss fiasco, Paul Gray is now working at the cabinet office.

When the top man running Revenue and Customs resigned over the catastrophic loss of two data discs containing millions of names, there was considerable praise.

Paul Gray seemed to have done something that all too many other people in public life fail to do. He had taken responsibility and paid the price.

Some also felt that his resignation offered some protection to the Chancellor Alistair Darling. But now we learn Mr Gray's 'exile' from civil service activity lasted precisely thirteen days.

Channel4 has discovered he's back working for his old treasury boss, Sir Gus O'Donnell at the cabinet office - on projects to "develop Civil servants skills".

Anonymous said...

Strange really that Vince Cable isn't running for the LibDem top job. Could it be that he is biding his time for Clegg/Huhne to flop and will then step in to save the party? I expect so. Tories would be in far more trouble from him than the vacuous Huhne or the floppily insincere Blair/Cameron clone-of-aristocratic-origins Clegg.

Paddy Briggs said...

Iain
Interesting. Your "constituency" could be expected to put the Tories at the top and the Labour lot at the bottom - which they duly have. But the Cable score shows an inetersting subtlety. Was it the "Stalin to Bean" soundbite wot did it? I suspect that it weas...

Alex said...

Andrew Stunnell - 2.83?

Who the [expletive deleted] is Andrew Stunnell and how does he score 2.83?

Anonymous said...

Vince Cable TOP Harriet Harman BOTTOM - who would have guessed that two months ago ?

Still time to call off the Lib Dem election, folks...

Anonymous said...

I honestly sincerely really truly genuinely don't get the 'Amazon' links that you created in your list.

Is there some kind of hidden joke involved?

30 is a good number. Vince Cable has really helped the LIbDems with their public image. They should be grateful to him!

:)

Curly said...

Will Mr. Bean make Cable a "one hit wonder"?

Unsworth said...

What Vince Cable understands is that the pointed barb of ridicule and laughter is so much more wounding, damaging and effective than any amount of synthetic rage.

But, in fairness, he's been pretty incisive anyway. Will Huhne or Clegg better his performance? Not on the evidence to date...

Anonymous said...

A telling description from Vince Cable, though deeply cruel surely from someone in the 'nice' party.

His calling for a collapse in the property market is pretty irresponsible I would say.

Anonymous said...

Lots of pro Cable comments, and I'm inclined to agree. The reason he's so good is because he's had a proper job before his political career. Interesting to see Huhne 11 places ahead of Clegg...

Anonymous said...

Jack Straw at 17 (even with his classic "I've never heard of "Dave" Abrahams" clanger). He must truly be the Annointed One...

Anonymous said...

Huhne makes Top 10 (barely!) but Clegg doesn't even make Top 20.

Things that make you go "Mmmmmmmmm"

scott redding said...

With only 1 woman in the top 25, does the poll reflect male dominance in British politics, or does it reflect male dominance in readers of Iain's blog?

Anonymous said...

Why is Edward Leigh not in this listing - as he leads the Public Accounts Committee I view his input and performance is much more than that of Tony McNumty!

Anonymous said...

The Lib Dems have missed a trick here by not pushing Vince Cable as leader. He's clearly the one.

But then, HE has also missed a trick by getting the frighteners over the ageism nonsense that pushed Ming out.

He should have had the courage of his convictions, challenged his party and stymied the lot of them.

I've used his Mr Bean jibe here at my blog - a pictorial/musical tale of Labour's lost last month!
(You can see where I stand on 'courage and conviction'):

http://keeptonyblairforpm.wordpress.com/2007/12/02/a-cheery-note-from-tony-smile-gordon/

Anonymous said...

I wonder who gave Brown more then 1, even one over represented how well he had done.

Vince Cable was the only one i gave a ten to, he had performed fantastically, and would be an asset to any of the front benches in Parliament.
Analytical, composed and measured. His conclusions are, typical with libdems, pretty useless, but he certainly shines in Parliament.

Anonymous said...

The suggestion that it was the Bean thing that did it for Cable, i dont think is true, he has led the opposition to the handling of Northern Rock, he has whored himself succesfully around the media as the goto man to criticise the NR policy.
He came across as the most informed of all the senior politicians of the last few weeks. That is why he did so well.

K S Rees said...

I'm still baffled as to why Cable isn't running for the job, his performance has been both consistent and noteworthy. Just out of curiosity did Cable state any reasons in particular for not running?

A Swansea Blog

KS Rees

Anonymous said...

Perhaps the next version could indicate which party the MP belongs to?

Some of us ignorant types do not know all of them!

Peter from Putney said...

Please Iain no more league tables, ever. Apart from providing ego trips for those mentioned, they are just sooooo boring for the remaining 99.99% of us.
Most boring of all, BTW, are the blogging league tables! Do we really care whether you received more hits than Guido or vice versa ...... answers on the back of a postage stamp please, yawn.

Anonymous said...

I wonder what, as we can probably assume most of the people that took this poll are tories, went wrong for the Conservative politicians who were low down

Paul Evans said...

KS Rees, he essentially said that having seen Menzies Campbell torn to shreds by the media, partly for his age, the jokes would have already written themselves if he stood for leader - and it wouldn't do the party any good.

Martin said...

I'm not surprised by Vince. But how Andrew 'not fit for purpose' Lansley gets so far up any list I've no idea!

Anonymous said...

I think a lot of Liberal trolls have been voting because I find it hard to believe “Brutus” Cable is top of this heap. He’s a backstabber who’s knifed his two previous leaders [proving the true nasty party is Liberal], and he was probably given this temporary role is so he can’t backstab himself!

As for his “Mr Bean” jibe at Comrade Brown – “Brutus” Cable is a plagiarist. Check out this link and you’ll see Leo McKinstry first likened Comrade Brown to Mr Bean and Nixon in the Daily Express on 19 November:

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/25661/PM-a-cross-between-Mr-Bean-and-Nixon-

Anonymous said...

Perhaps, but since "Al" Fayed is presumably the only person in the UK that still reads the Express, that's largely an academic point...

Annd Brown is not in a position to criticise anyone for plagiarism in their speeches.

Anonymous said...

Message to anonymous – in response to mine – yes, Comrade Brown is also a plagiarist – exposed by Danny Finkelstein in The Times for plagiarising one of John Kerry’s speeches. Which also proves the closeness of the political arm of the trade union movement [aka the Labour Party] to the American Democrat Party.

Regardless of who you think reads the Daily Express [and it’s certainly not my usual newspaper] – the point is Cable is a plagiarist who’s basking in glory belonging to someone else. This is plain wrong [or unjust – to use a favourite howl of the Left]. It’s Leo McKinstry [who is a journalist and biographer] who deserves credit – not “Brutus” Cable.

Anonymous said...

Iain,

What about setting up an equivilant of the BBC's celebdaq, where we can buy and sell politicains?

Surely than would be a more accurate, or at least as accurate, way of tracking how well politician are doing? And as a free-marketeer, it would appeal to your sensibilities?

Afterall after his big joke last week, we'd all have sold our Browns and bought Cabels.

Anonymous said...

OK I'm sorry but I don't 'get it' with Vince Cable, I just think he's....creepy. Give me a bit of Chris Huhne any day! Grrr!

Oh yes and well done Damian Green for getting number 20!

Anonymous said...

I couldn't agree more with Torygirl that "Brutus" Cable is creepy - and he's a creep who slopes off if his compatriots are going to be massacred in elections! [I have witnessed this!]

And don't you think he looks as if he's been plucked from an undertakers convention? [Although I would happily place him in embalming fluid, and bury him somewhere!]