The News International effect wears off – State of the Party, August 2011

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

Last month Ed Miliband saw a his popularity surge in the wake of the News International scandal. From there, and with the August in full swing (and politicians on their holidays) it was perhaps predictable that his popularity would decline – even though this has hardly been the “silly season” we’re used to. Ed’s still far more popular amongst LabourList readers than he was two months ago, but the post-phone hacking shine appears to have gone.

38% of you believe that Ed has done an Excellent or Good job (down from 59% last month), while only 34% believe that he has performed poorly or very poorly (up from 20% a month ago) – the most popular single option was “Average” which received 28% of the votes cast. Yet on the biggest domestic issue of the month – the riots of early August – you’ve given Miliband a thumbs up for his approach. 55% of you think Miliband’s performance on the riots was Excellent or good, and only 20% thought it was poor or very poor (see graph below).

As for the shadow cabinet, Ed Balls – who usually sits at the top of the shadow cabinet tree as far as LabourList readers are concerned – has been overtaken by Yvette Cooper and Andy Burnham. However, as usual these three are significantly more popular than other members of the shadow cabinet. When Miliband comes to do his first shadow cabinet reshuffle, these three look untouchable as far as LabourList readers are concerned.

Elsewhere, we asked if you were attending Labour Party conference, and – perhaps surprisingly – only 29% of you said you’d be attending this year. If you’re not able to make it, don’t worry, as we’ll be bringing you our unique and comprehensive conference coverage each day live from the conference centre and beyond.

We also asked which Labour MP who had impressed you the most in August. Tomorrow we’ll be revealing who has been chosen as the LabourList “MP of the month” for August – who will follow in the footsteps of Tom Watson, our winner for July.

477 LabourList readers voted in the survey, which ran from Sunday 28th August – Friday September 2nd. Thanks to all who took part. You can see the full breakdown of results here.