More bad poll news for Labour. They are seen overwhelmingly as the most divided party according to an opinion poll conducted for the Daily Politics.
As I have said before, the electorate doesn't vote for divided parties, so the ComRes poll figures will cause widespread alarm inside Labour HQ. Sixty per cent of those questioned believed that Labour was the most divided party. By contrast the Conservatives are seen as most divided by 17% and the Liberal Democrats by 10%.
In the same survey 50% of people agree that the Labour Party would have greater appeal with voters if Gordon Brown stood aside to allow someone else to lead the Party into the next election, and 42% disagree. However, the vast majority (69%) of people think that if he were to resign, there are no obvious more popular candidates to lead the Labour Party. And that's why Brown is, and always was, safe in his position.
As is eloquently put by Tim Rice on the Letters page of today's Daily Murdoch:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article6979720.ece
Its pretty bleeding obvious New Labour is now a Zmbie Party (political corpses). It's like the end the Conservatives when all the obvious replacements had been stabbed in the back by so called loyal lieutenants.
ReplyDeleteStep forward the young blood of Hague - sorry I meant Millibean.
Then will step forward Howard - sorry I meant Hoon. Something of the night.
Finally IDS will step forward - sorry I meant Johnson. Limp in handshake and at the dispatch box.
Finally an unknown and untainted politician with a heartbeat will step forward in 12 years to challenge the Tories.
He's as safe as houses until the election, then he becomes very unsafe.
ReplyDeleteAfter just watching the DP, and listening to Ken Livingstone and Kevin Maguire, you would think Labour had had a good week, with Brown fully in control of his cabinet.
ReplyDeleteLivingstone even said the public don't care about these episodes! Utter self-denial = general election victory, according to Muckguire and Red Ken.
Please Brown - call the election!
Frank Field would be their best chance in my opinion - though they'd never admit it.
ReplyDeleteStop the dithering.
ReplyDeleteCall an election.
It's more extraordinary that 40% of people think that the Tories or Lib Dems are more divided than Labour.
ReplyDeleteLabour are so glum, you feel someone should arrange suicide watch.
ReplyDeleteHow different to them was the rousing, vigorous speech given by Boris Johnson today in West Hampstead. He injected rich red blood into the anaemic body politic. The details are here.
http://cyberboris.wordpress.com/2010/01/08/boris-galvanises-west-hampstead/
By keeping Brown, Labour is a) going to give Cameron an easy ride by pitting him against an extremely disliked PM and b) giving itself virtually no chance of even an aesthetic revamp before the General Election.
ReplyDeleteDear, dear, dear.
The problem with labour is they may well have the best policies, but they need time out of government to restructure and redefine who they are.
ReplyDeleteThe right-wing media has tarnished the term "New Labour", we need the Tories in for a couple of years so we can be reminded how crap they really are
Shows how few people know the LibDems. Bunch of lefty fantasists led by a cabal of right wing Euro-ists. Who are toffs, at that - which is fine by me, but they sure as hell don't like it talked about.
ReplyDeleteDivided? You betcha. Their grass roots despise their leaders as 'closet Tories' who would support the Conservatives to get Brown's corrupt gang out in a heartbeat, which they might (you never can tell) only they know their members won't have it.
Don't let the big smiles and lentils fool you. This is a (sort of) 'party' of con artists whose leaders craft their every Parliamentary utterance with an eye on the TV news but whose poster boy can't keep to the same economic policy for more than three months, and whose constituency organisations lie their heads off and say whatever they judge the locals want to hear. They are thoroughly vicious, hypocritical, unprincipled and dishonourable and unworthy of the name Liberal.
Watch their GE vote split as soft left floaters float back to Labour and the disgruntled Tories skitter home just in time to enjoy helping to drive a stake through Brown's heart. And when I say 'heart'...
excellent Javelin
ReplyDeleteI worry that all of this is going on too far ahead of the election. Its interesting for those of us who are committed or geeks over politics but the populus at large may become bored and then vote for the most boring person in UK politics, Ken Livingstone, or Jonah
ReplyDeleteI most certainly hope he stays the course and takes the flak when Nu Labour sink without trace.
ReplyDeleteZaNu Labour logic:
ReplyDeleteDivide and conquer.
We are divided, therefore we will conquer.
sarah
ReplyDeleteI switched on and thought it was a Labour Party Political Broadcast!!
Does no one in the BBC have a grasp of what impartiality means?
Of course you're united. You're winning. Let's face it, a couple of bad polls and you'll all be killing each other again soon enough.
ReplyDelete@ Jimmy The deluded Brownite troika with Balls and Mrs Balls.
ReplyDeleteAs much as I agree about people not voting for disunited parties, it was fairly obvious the result this poll would come up with.
ReplyDeleteIf you had a poll asking people whether they liked snow now you'd find far more people saying that don't than if you asked in the middle of a hot summer day, when people had forgotten the consequences of cold weather.