Poll to poll

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

Yesterday, both David and Ed Miliband released YouGov polls. The data from both of these polls was presented in a way that was designed to make you agree with the essential premises behind their campaigns.

David’s poll, released first, suggests that that David Miliband is the choice of voters to be Labour’s next Leader. His campaign team go as far as to say he is the “overwhelming” choice.

Now of course this sits very well with David’s key campaign message – that he is the best placed to beat David Cameron at the next general election. In many ways it’s the 2008 Hilary Clinton “red telephone”, ready to go from day one strategy. David is experienced and he’s the best known candidate among the wider electorate. This is all good, but these findings being released as ballots drop (a week after the completion of fieldwork) surely isn’t a surprise. The messaging is timed and designed to maximise his appeal to the party as the candidate who can “lead us back to power” at the earliest opportunity.

It’s hard not to think though that polls such as this which give such focus to non-Labour voters, and those who won’t take part in the contest, have limited value at this point. They’re also likely to score candidates based on how well known they are among the wider electorate. David Miliband is undoubtedly the best-known of all of the leadership candidates, but that isn’t always an advantage. It means that it’s more difficult for a new leader, and the party, to craft a narrative about how/why the party is different and deserves to win back support. As Cameron found when he became Tory leader, being a relative unknown can be a real advantage.

Next up with their own poll was the Ed Miliband campaign, which suggests that policies which their candidate has been advocating – graduate tax, and maintaining the 50p top rate of income tax – would be more likely to win swing-voter support. The poll even suggests, in a non too subtle dig at David, that “72% of undecided voters said they would be less likely to vote Labour at the next election if the new leader adopts (a) New Labour philosophy.”

Again this conveniently matches up with Ed Miliband’s central campaign theme, “change”, and that only by moving away from the “New Labour comfort zone” can we win again. However, as with the polling that David’s campaign have released, it’s not as simple as that.

Ed’s poll was conducted on issues, rather than his own personal popularity. While it is entirely possible that voters might believe they are in favour of a candidate who supports a graduate tax and mainatining the top rate of income tax, that does not preclude them preferring David Miliband to Ed Miliband, or Andy Burnham, Ed Balls or Diane Abbott for that matter.

Few electors sit down, weigh up the pros and cons of an entire policy platform and make their decision on that basis. Electoral politics is about mood, personality, communication and winning the arguments – it’s not just about lining up popular policies and presenting them to the public.

So in summary, the analysis from each of the campaigns is a little simplistic for my taste, although of course it suits both teams to make things appear black and white as we put pen to paper in the final vote. There’s a gem of truth in the findings of both campaigns. David Miliband is the best known of all of the candidates. He would be able to grab the attention of the public immediately because they know who he is, and he has been a significant factor in national politics for some time. The issues that Ed is pushing are also broadly popular among swing voters. No-one can be surprised that voters want to tax the richest in society while we’re suffering cuts to public services. No-one can be surprised that Iraq was an unpopular decision for many. That doesn’t mean that Ed advocating these decisions automatically makes him more likely to be popular with the voting public.

Perhaps what we need is Ed’s policies and David’s reputation? A Mili-hybrid made up of the strengths of the two.

Or perhaps the real winner from all of this introspective, self-aggrandising polling is YouGov, who have surely made a significant profit proving things on behalf of leadership campaigns that many people could have told them beforehand…