Ed was right to attend rally – State of the Party: March 2011

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

LabourList readers have overwhelmingly backed Ed Miliband’s decision to speak at the TUC rally last weekend in out latest “State of the Party” survey. 85% of those who voted backed the Labour leader’s decision.

However any plans to give Labour “supporters” a role in selecting Labour’s next leader have been given a firm thumbs down. 61% of readers said that Labour Party supporters (who aren’t members or affiliates) should not play a role in electing the next Labour leader. Only 28% backed the plans. As Peter Hain’s “Refounding Labour” consultation begins in earnest after the local elections, he would do well to take notice of the strength of feeling against votes for supporters.

Ed Miliband has been given a strong endorsement of his leadership by our readers, with 14% of you describing his performance as “Excellent” and 40% describing it as “Good”. However there is still a sizeable proportion of our readership that remains unconvinced – nearly 20% consider Ed to be doing a “Poor” or “Very poor” job as leader. 27% think his performance so far has been “fair”.

Meanwhile in the shadow cabinet, Ed Balls retains his popularity with LabourList readers. An astonishing 89% of those who voted consider the shadow chancellor to be doing a good job – a number which has grown since last month, suggesting that responses to the budget have been positive. As has been the case for months now, Balls is joined by Yvette Cooper and Andy Burnham at the top of our chart – and Harriet Harman has seen a surge of support this month. So far what our survey seems to suggest is that Harman is more popular the more we see of her in the media.

And with only just over one month left to go until the AV referendum, LabourList readers are still predictably split between the Yes and No camps. No has a small lead over Yes this month (42% vs 40%) but there’s still everything to play for when it comes to Labour supporters in these final weeks.

549 LabourList readers voted in the survey, which ran from Tuesday 29th March – Friday 1st April. Thanks to all who took part – we’ll be updating this post with the full breakdown of results later today.