Bad news for Brown and Ming in survey of leadership qualities

A GfK NOP opinion poll for tomorrow's Sunday Edition programme (ITV1) gives David Cameron a 10% lead over Gordon Brown when it comes to preferred Prime Minister.  The Conservative leader enjoys a 29% advantage when it comes to the freshest ideas and a 16% advantage when it comes to being most in touch with modern Britain.  The only area where Brown enjoys the narrowest of leads is on security - where the Chancellor leads by 22% to 21% on who will best protect the UK from a terrorist attack.  GfK NOP do not appear to have asked voters about economic competence (at least not in my embargoed information).  Former Home Secretary Charles Clarke has sought to exploit the security issue by attacking Tory opposition to ID cards (Daily Mail).

The poll also contains bad news for Ming Campbell.  Just 5% identify him as their preferred choice for Prime Minister.  24% told GfK NOP that they would prefer Charles Kennedy to return as leader and slightly more (7%) preferred LibDem Home Affairs spokesman Nick Clegg to the embattled Sir Menzies (6%).

YouTube link: Stephan Shakespeare on YouGov cautions against overinterpreting polls that compare Brown and Cameron.

Comments

[James Maskell]

So a large number of "dont know"s then? This doesnt tell us a whole lot really...

[Tabman]

Have you looked at MORI? The undecideds seem to be going against Cameron. Something to do with a lack of clear policies, apparently.

[Jorgen]

Cameron has "relative policies" (or is "aspirational policies" a better term?). Isn't what he essentially is saying: He "is sure" (= hopes) that charities *eventually* will 1) become big enough and 2) be interested in removing relative powerty(!), if the state gives them money and trusts them ("we need to be more trusting, more open to risk" to avoid them becoming just another part of the state).

[James Maskell]

Hmmm, interesting MORI numbers. If in doubt, the voters will go for Labour...

[Editor]

MORI's numbers are as interesting as they are volatile.

[James Maskell]

Its a major enough polling group for us to pay some attention to it, even if it isnt included in the Poll of Polls.

[Editor]

Agreed, James.

[elrafa]

These polls are irrelevant. Until Brown assumes the leadership / premiership they are simply capturing what people think he may be like.

Say for example once he is PM he announces a pull out from Iraq, tax cuts, a robust campaign to remove illegal immigrants etc etc, his numbers will rocket.

[Ted]

James

Mike Smithson comment
"The print edition of the Observer makes confusing reading for those trying to work out precisely what was in the Mori poll. It prints two charts - one showing, apparently, a RISE in satisfaction amongst all voters since January for Cameron with a slight decline since September. That does not marry up with the story. Why in heaven’s name don’t they just print a table of numbers instead of fancy colour charts which are highly misleading? Rubbish Observer - Rubbish"

Aside from the media spin, Mori don't do themselves any favours by their different approaches to weightings - so for voting intention weighting sample is not adjusted by past voting and then their subsidiary findings don't have any weightings whatsover. This wouldn't matter if their sampling methods did catch a representative sample 19 times out of 20 but experience of the 80's & 90's showed that this is generally not the case.

[James Maskell]

Ted, I dont know what you are addressing to me. Im only looking at the most recent numbers. Im no number cruncher so I leave it to others to do that part. I stick by my previous comments as I see no reason to change them.

[Mark Senior]

Mori polls have been no more volatile than other pollsters recently The ICM figure of 29% for Labour was clearly ban aberration . We know cthe real reason for not including them is to pretend the Conservatives are doing better than they really are .

[Philip]

I note the only of the 4 measures DC is below Mr Brown is on security. The voters don't seem to like soft messages on security and presumably crime. I don't think we need to be afraid of being "right-wing" authoritarian if this means being tough on the criminal and terrorist. This contrasts with left-wing authoritarianism, which represses the law abiding and those who do what is right, by such measures as ID cards, and restrictions to freedom of speech. As for ID cards, it has been said that they would make no difference to the determined terrorist. It cannot be too difficult to win the argument against this repressive Big-State-Big-Brother measure - are we trying to do so?

[matt wright]

Numbers here are slightly diferent from other pollsters but show a Conservative lead. The key thing is that this is good and especially as all the polls show us consistently leading for the longest period we have seen for many years. We just won a by-election In Prestatyn ("oop North where the doommongers say we aren't doing well") which means we now have overall control of the town council. The seat in question is very mixed and not natural Tory territory. We see to have parralel universes - the real one where we are doing well and the invented one where those that don't like DC (or have closed minds) try to invent ever more silly arguments and would rather welcome a turn down in polls. They seem to be keen to help Labour and keep us in a pemanent one party Labour state,

Matt

[DP]

How would Cameron compare to David Miliband then Brown, pretty well I think but???

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