Yes to the reshuffle, no to free schools – State of the Party, October 2011

The results from the latest “State of the Party” survey are in – and they won’t make good reading for new shadow education secretary Stephen Twigg. After Twigg indicated that Labour’s approach to free schools could change – and the subsequent fall-out – we asked LabourList readers how they felt about Free Schools. The result was conclusive – 70% of you feel negatively about Free Schools, with only 19% in favour. If the leadership is to undergo a change of heart on Free Schools, then it looks like they will need to work incredibly hard to convince Labour supporters.

The Free Schools debate had an unfortunate knock on effect for Twigg personally. The new shadow education secretary is one of two shadow cabinet members (the other being Ivan Lewis) about whom more LabourList readers feel negatively than positively (36% negative vs 33% positive). For the rest of the shadow cabinet there are few surprises. Burnham, Balls and Cooper remain the most popular members of the shadow cabinet – but they’re also joined by newcomer Tom Watson at the top of the popularity tree. A broader picture will be revealed in our shadow cabinet rankings – which proved so popular at conference – which will return tomorrow. The reshuffle as a whole was popular though, with 68% of LabourList readers regarding it as a positive move.

And what about Ed Miliband? Our survey before conference suggested that you thought Miliband’s performance had been average to poor – has he improved? 40% of LabourList readers think Ed has done an Excellent or Good job, up from 31% in September. The percentage who think he has performed poorly or very poorly is at 31% down from 38% in September (and only 20% in July at the height of the phone hacking scandal). The number that is likely to concern Team Miliband most though is the percentage of Labour supporters who consider Miliband’s performance to be average. That’s at 30% this month, almost exactly the same as the 31% who said so before conference.

The economy is still the most biggest issue for LabourList readers, with 80% considering it to be important. Defence, International Development and Immigration were considered the least important, with only 15% of respondents considering any of them to be a “main area of interest”. We also asked which Labour MP had impressed you the most in October – stay tuned on Thursday when we’ll be revealing who has been chosen as the LabourList “MP of the month”.

446 LabourList readers voted in the survey, which ran from Thursday October 27th – Monday October 31st. Thanks to all who took part.