Miliband’s popularity slumps: State of the Party – May 2011

Last month we told you that Ed Miliband had seen a decline in his popularity amongst LabourList readers, with only 47% believing that he had done an Excellent or Good job. This month there has been another slump – now only 41% of you think that his performance has been better than fair, and 32% of you think that his performance has been either Poor or Very poor. Of course it’s likely that a combination of recess and his honeymoon (both of which keep him out of the limelight) has contributed to this decline – but it suggests that Ed’s popularity is based on how much people see of him, and that support for him is a little soft.

Shadow cabinet popularity is very similar to last month, and as usual Ed Balls come on top as the most popular shadow cabinet member – 77% of you think he’s doing a good job. Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper and also in the top three (again, as usual), but there has been a surge of support for Douglas Alexander – 70% of you now view the shadow foreign secretary in a positive light.

On some of the big topical issues, you are almost completely divided. We asked is Labour should back military escalation in Libya – 51% of you said that we shouldn’t, but 49% of you argued that we should. This is reflective of the feelings in the PLP, who are accurately reflecting the concern of the membership.

Meanwhile LabourList readers are equally divided on whether or not there is a “Progressive Majority” in the UK – 44% say yes, whilst 40% say no. Progressive is such a subjective term, but it’s not clear that there’s widespread support for the notion that the UK is “progressive”, whatever the definition is.

Finally, as Labour goes through a period when both the policy review and the Refounding Labour consultation are high on the party’s agenda, we asked our readers if they had contributed to either. The overwhelming response was no – 67% of you said that you hadn’t yet taken part in either, whilst the remaining third had taken part through their CLP or personally. Over the next month we’d expect that figure to rise – but it will need to.

477 LabourList readers voted in the survey, which ran from Tuesday 31st May – Friday 3rd June. Thanks to all who took part. You can see the full breakdown of results here.