Early polls show little sign of immediate Corbyn boost

Several polls released this weekend show little sign of an initial boost for Labour from Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. The best poll sees Labour trailing the Conservatives by five points, while the worst sees a Tory lead of 12.

The three polls of voting intention in today’s papers show:

ComRes/Independent on Sunday: Conservatives 42%, Labour 30%, Lib Dems 7%, UKIP 13%, Greens 3%(-1).

YouGov/Sunday Times Conservatives 39%, Labour 31%, Lib Dems 6%, UKIP 16%, Greens 3%

Opinium/Observer: Conservatives 37%, Labour 32%, Lib Dems 6%, UKIP 14%

While these figures show little to no improvement from May, a poll of marginal seats does reveal an boost in Labour support that would deny the Tories of a majority. The ICM research in 20 Labour target marginals, 19 Tory held and one Lib Dem held, shows Labour taking a three point lead over the Tories by 42% to 39%. According to Mike Smithson of Political Betting, “this would deprive the Tories of their majority. Though on this swing Labour would only take seventeen target seats at the election, 77 fewer than what they need to have a majority.”

Yesterday’s Independent carried research from the ORB which found that 20% of Labour voters in 2015 are more likely to vote Conservative with Corbyn as leader, and that 37% of Labour supporters are now less likely to back the party overall.

Opinium found that David Cameron beat Corbyn in who would make the best prime minister, by 41%, to 22%, while the public has a more favourable attitude to Cameron than Corbyn, according to ComRes. When favourable and unfavourable ratings are compared, the Tory leader has a net score of -7, while Corbyn’s net score is -17.

The ComRes research also shows that people are split over whether media reporting of Corbyn has been unfair (37% think it has, 37% think it hasn’t) and that 52% think he is making people more interested in politics, with 41% believing he offers “a positive difference” from other politicians.

These polls come early on Corbyn’s leadership, and many will yet to have made their mind up on Labour’s new leader – next week’s party conference could be an important period of media coverage to set out who he is.