Miliband and Labour get a conference bounce

There’s a significant post-conference bounce for both Labour and Ed Miliband reported in the Sunday Times today. YouGov has the Labour lead up to 11 points – and Labour over the 40% mark again (LAB 42%, CON 31% LDEM 9%, UKIP 13%). Meanwhile the percentage of people who think Miliband is doing a good job has risen from 22% last week to 30% this week according to YouGov. Those still aren’t good numbers for Miliband, but he’ll be heartened to know that he has that kind of reputational increase in him.

It’s likely that the policies announced by Labour last week – as well as the media attention and gloss of conference – have impacted upon the polling. As Anthony Wells says over at UK Polling Report:

“Looking at some of the specific policies Labour promised at their conference, 63% support the energy price freeze, but the most widely supported policies were actually increasing the minimum wage (71%) and increasing corporation tax for big companies and cutting rates for small firms (71%). There was majority support for seizing land from developers who don’t use it (53%) and making firms offer an apprenticeship for each immigrant they employ (52%). The only major announcement from the conference that people did not support was giving the vote to 16 year olds, opposed by 61%.”

It may be Socialism (I don’t think it is, actually), but regardless, it’s popular.