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State of the Party survey: The Galloway Effect and a weak local party to blame for Bradford defeat

April 10, 2012 4:34 pm

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Labour lost the Bradford West by-election thanks to a combination of “The Galloway Effect” and a lack of community engagement – that’s the verdict of LabourList readers. Another reason which resonated with you was “Failure to engage with the Muslim community”, but there’s some relief for Ed Miliband, as “Leadership” was one of the least widely cited explanations.

We also asked LabourList readers how they thought Labour had handled this year’s budget response. The response was positive for the party, with 63% believing that the response had been “Excellent” or “Good”.

As for Miliband’s personal performance over the last month, readers are still divided – albeit slipping back from last month. 39% of you think that Ed has done an Excellent or Good job as leader (down from 41% last month). Meanwhile 37% believe that his performance has been Poor or Very Poor (up from 30% last month). But after an extremely volatile few months, Labour supporters views on Miliband seem to be firming up – both for and against.

656 LabourList readers voted between April 5th and April 10. Thanks to everyone who voted. Don’t forget to check back later this week for the latest shadow cabinet rankings – and your MP of the month.

Related posts:

  1. State of the Party survey: Mili-bounce back
  2. State of the Party survey: December 2010
  3. State of the Party survey: Steady Eddy
  4. The News International effect wears off – State of the Party, August 2011
  5. State of the Party survey – March 2011
  • http://twitter.com/ed_podesta ed_podesta

    Add together ‘lack of policies’ and ‘leadership’ if you really want to consider the deep problems that labour has, rather than simply sweep them under the carpet by blaming ‘the galloway effect’.

    • http://www.facebook.com/elliot.bidgood Elliot Bidgood

      I agree that leadership and (to a lesser extent) policy are major problems in general, ed, though it’s questionable to what extent they were relevant in Bradford West specifically. While the flaws with Labour and it’s leadership, as well as disillusion with party politics more generally, were factors and probably contributed to the size of the victory, it’s also hard to say that the local factors and Galloway weren’t relevant or that this was a standard case. We held Oldham East, Feltham, Leicester South and even Barnsley Central, another Yorkshire seat. Further, as has already been pointed out, Galloway’s “real Labour”, anti-Blair, anti-Iraq rhetoric would only have been more potent had someone like David Miliband rather than Ed been the leader.

      The party does have much bigger problems, but it’s also true to say that Galloway knew that the combination of his personal appeal and West Bradford’s demographics & idiosyncracies gave him a better-than-average chance of a breakthough there. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t fix the other problems or be on guard for future upsets (for example, if Salma Yaqoob contests Birmingham Hodge Hill), but all things should be taken in context.

  • http://www.facebook.com/davidlevene David Levene

    I don’t think lumping “weak local party” and “lack of community engagement” together is fair; there was a lack of community engagement, but that wasn’t necessarily the CLP’s fault so I think it’s a bit of a leading question. Also unfair that the write-up emphasis the weak local party bit rather than the community engagement bit. Just my two pennies

  • AlecMack

    every disaster needs a scapegoat and the blame certainly isn’t going to flow uphill. easiest thing in the world to do is blame the local party, even though local members were warning of the shift to Galloway a week before the election and were told by the party full timers not to tell anyone for fear of causing panic. insightful leadership

  • Labour Member London

    I have little doubt that, if Labour had won Bradford, many members would also have attrubuted that to the ‘Galloway effect’ too.

    What the ‘Galloway effect’ analysis does is to gloss over the thorny question of personality and policy. In other words, did people vote for George because he is gorgeous, or was it because of what he said?

  • Duncan

    I put “other” – I was surprised that the most commonly suggested reasons I’ve seen in threads here were not included in the options.

  • Ironknee

    How many of those who say weak local party or failure to engage with the Muslim community have actually been to Bradford? Or is it a case of blaming anyone without knowing if these statements are true of false

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