Who are ya?

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

There’s a depressing read in the Independent today on Labour’s invisibility problem – which I highlighted in detail recently. The hardest part about being in opposition – especially to a coalition – is that no-one knows who we are. And if they don’t know who we are, they certainly won’t hear what we’re saying. Take a look at some of these ComRes findings reported in today’s Independent:

Ed Miliband is at least recognised by a large proportion of the public, but (perhaps understandably) there’s confusion about which Miliband he is. Slightly bafflingly, 1 in 20 people think Ed is disgraced former Labour MP Phil Woolas…

Ed Balls is actually more widely recognised than the Labour leader, however that’s largely because he doesn’t have a famous sibling to contend with. However – perhaps confused by the fact that they’re both called Ed – 3% of voters think Ed Balls is Ed Miliband. I’m not sure who would take that better…

However, at least the two Eds are more known, than unknown. Some of our shadow cabinet members are indistinguishable from each other – more people think Jim Murphy is Liam Byrne and Meg Hillier is Caroline Flint than actually guessed their names correctly….