Lammy boost in race for Mayor but Jowell still leads the pack

Latest polling in the race for the Labour nomination for London Mayor shows that Dame Tessa Jowell in still the one to beat – although with so many yet to make up their mind, it is a wide open contest.

It is the first poll of Labour contenders since David Lammy announced his intention to seek the Labour nomination early last month, and he will feel vindication for the early declaration as support for his candidacy sees the biggest rise here. Among the general public, the candidates score:

Tessa Jowell 12%, David Lammy 6%, Diane Abbott 6%, Sadiq Khan 6%, Margaret Hodge 6%, Doreen Lawrence 4%, Andrew Adonis 3%, Christian Wolmar 1%

This is a 3% rise for Lammy from the last poll, with Khan gaining 2% points, and Hodge and Jowell both up 1%. As well as Lammy’s announcements, the past few months have seen stronger rumours of a joint Jowell/Adonis ticket and the biggest hint yet from Margaret Hodge that she is considering going for it.

The fact that over half of Londoners have not expressed a preference means that whoever is selected will have a big job to reaching out to non-Labour supporters before the election in May 2016 – but it should also tell us that no candidates should be written off for failing to connect to the electorate just yet.

The selection will take place as an open primary, meaning that Labour supporters who are not full members will be able to vote. Some of the details are still a little hazy at the moment (Lammy recently wrote for LabourList calling for it to be made clearer), but it does mean that polling of Labour voters takes on a greater importance. When only Labour supporters are included, the results are:

Tessa Jowell 18%, David Lammy 11%, Diane Abbott 11%, Sadiq Khan 10%, Margaret Hodge 10%, Doreen Lawrence 5%, Andrew Adonis 3%, Christian Wolmar 0%

There are two big pinches of salt that must be taken with this part of the poll. The first is that it does not properly represent the selectorate; while these are people who intend to vote Labour, the chances are that many of them are not members and will not take the time to sign up as supporters. The other problem is that the sample size for only Labour supporters will be much smaller, so the margin of error increases (possibly to about 6%). While Tessa Jowell’s lead here supports a trend from previous polls, we still have to be cautious about the statistical relevance of this.