Survey results: shadow cabinet rankings

For those of you who are familiar with LabourList’s weekly survey, you might be aware that we have four rotating questions – one of which we ask every week.

This week, the focus is back on the Shadow Cabinet. What do LabourList readers think of these senior politicians? To figure this out, we asked readers to give each Shadow Cabinet member a ranking from 1 to 5 (where 1 is the lowest and 5 is the highest) and then calculated the average score from this.

The results look more or less the same as they have the past couple of times we’ve done this. Andy Burnham has come in well ahead of the rest, with an average score of 4.1. Burnham’s reputation as Shadow Health Secretary seems almost untouchable, perhaps because as vocal defender of the NHS, he contributes to the political debate in a way that few can disagree with.

Meanwhile, Yvette Cooper, Shadow Home Secretary, comes in second place (again) with 3.5 – more than half a point behind Burnham. However, Harriet Harman, Chuka Umunna, Hilary Benn, Sadiq Khan, and Caroline Flint aren’t too far behind on 3.3 each.

Interestingly, Ed Balls is up by 0.3 points – he was previously on 2.9 and is now on 3.2, alongside Rachel Reeves, Angela Eagle and Jon Cruddas. Balls’ slight rise in the table could be for a number of reasons but it’s worth considering that it might related to Labour’s line on HSBC and Balls’ attempts to pin the Tories down on that issue.

As the table below shows, there’s been very little movement. The same 3 – Rosie Winterton, Ivan Lewis and Willy Bach – take the spots at the bottom, but that’s probably because most people don’t know who they are.