Shadow cabinet: Survey results

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

The results of the LabourList / Left Foot Forward / Liberal Conspiracy shadow cabinet survey are in – and show the scale of the task that candidates will face if they are to be elected. The survey implies that candidates in the real election will need 40% (or 103 votes) to be certain of election – with former cabinet ministers Liam Byrne and Jim Murphy only just making it over the line.

Seven women, rather than the minimum six, were ‘elected’ with Caroline Flint, Tessa Jowell, Diane Abbott, Emily Thornberry and both Angela and Maria Eagle joining the most popular candidate – Yvette Cooper – in our ‘grassroots shadow cabinet’.

Name recognition clearly counts in this survey, which is one of the reasons that we see Andy Burnham and Ed Balls performing so well, along with Diane Abbott taking 54% of the vote (despite a lack of support for her leadership campaign in the PLP). However I’d expect to see Cooper, Balls and Burnham as the top three names on the ballot – Cooper in particular is popular across the PLP, and will be looking for a good result to ensure she is in the reckoning for the shadow chancellor position.

Whilst this survey provides an interesting talking point ahead of today’s results, and suggests the broad contours of the shadow cabinet, it is the votes of MPs that will decide the final result. Some names that don’t feature on our list are expected to poll well – including the popular John Healey, and Ann Mckechin who should win significant support from her Scottish colleagues.

LabourList will be in Westminster this evening bringing you the results as we have them.

The top 19 in our survey were:

Yvette Cooper 93%
Ed Balls 86%
Andy Burnham 79%
Hilary Benn 76%
Alan Johnson 72%
Sadiq Khan 65%
Douglas Alexander 64%
John Denham 60%
Ben Bradshaw 59%
Caroline Flint 58%
Tessa Jowell 56%
Diane Abbott 54%
Emily Thornberry 53%
Angela Eagle 53%
Peter Hain 49%
David Lammy 44%
Maria Eagle 42%
Liam Byrne 40%
Jim Murphy 40%

1,033 people voted in the poll which used the same rules as the PLP election (ie voters voted for a minimum of 6 women and 6 men and up to 19 people in total).