Majority believe Miliband has been poor or very poor: State of the Party – June 2011

Last month we told you that Ed Miliband had experienced a slump in popularity amongst LabourList readers, but that’s nothing compared to what has happened this month.

53% of LabourList readers who took part in our latest monthly survey believe that Miliband’s performance as Labour leader has been “Poor or Very Poor”, up from just 32% last month. Meanwhile there has been a sharp dip in the percentage of LabourList readers who believe that the Labour leader has performed well. The % of you who believe that Ed has done an “Excellent or Good” job as leader has halved since last month, dropping from 41% to just 22%.

This slump can perhaps be explained in part by the fact that 69% of respondents thought that Ed Miliband was wrong to oppose last week’s public sector strikes. As the survey took place at a similar time, this is likely to have had an impact on the results. However, if we take a look at the graph below, you can see that this is part of a longer trend.

Rising discontent

There’s not much good news for the rest of the shadow cabinet either. Eight members of the shadow cabinet (Hillier, Creagh, Byrne, Woodward, McKechin, Lewis, Jowell and Winterton) are viewed more negatively than positively by LabourList readers. However for most of the shadow cabinet the real problem is that most of you haven’t formed an opinion on them, nearly nine months into their roles.

Two of the more high profile shadow cabinet members – Liam Byrne and Tessa Jowell – are more unpopular than they are unknown though, with 41% (Byrne) and 39% (Jowell) of viewing them in a negative light.

At the top end of the shadow cabinet rankings, Ed Balls, Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper remain unassailable as the three most popular members of Labour’s top team.

Full analysis of the results, what they mean, and where Ed Miliband must go from here will be posted on LabourList later this afternoon.

574 LabourList readers voted in the survey, which ran from Thursday 30th June – Monday 4th July. Thanks to all who took part. You can see the full breakdown of results here.