Isn’t David Cameron doing well?

Catch-Up Service, as the Prime Minister takes his turn at the seaside: The most interesting thing about that YouGov poll for The Sun and The Sunday Times on 6 August, on Boris Johnson as an alternative prime minister, was how much of an asset David Cameron still is to his party.

The findings were summarised by Peter Kellner thus:

Standard voting question: Lab 44% Con 32% Lib Dem 10%

Voting question with leaders’ names: Lab 40% Con 34% Lib Dem 10%

Voting question with Boris instead of Dave: Lab 38% Con 37% Lib Dem 10%

So, reminding respondents that Labour is led by Ed Miliband and the Conservatives by David Cameron halves Labour’s lead from 12 to 6 points. Asking them how they would vote if Boris Johnson led the Tories and Ed Miliband led Labour cuts it further to 1 point.

But Boris is a hypothetical question, and voters are notoriously poor at predicting how they would behave if different things happened, whereas Cameron versus Miliband is a real question. More than that, reminding voters of the leaders might mimic the effect of our leader-focused election campaigns.

In which case, given the poor press the Prime Minister has had over the summer, cutting the Labour lead by 6 points is quite a significant difference.

It is also worth noting the answers to the question, “How well suited, if at all, would you say the following politicians are to being prime minister?”

Cameron: well suited 46% not well suited 46%

Miliband: well suited 31% not well suited 59%

Johnson: well suited 24% not well suited 65%

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• SocialLab

  1. EM v DC: I note that Cameron is still below the 36% his party polled in 2010. It seems very unlikely, even with the Lib Dem collapse, that he will be able to increase his party’s share at the next election. This suggests a Lab victory or a hung-parliament are the most likely outcomes. As Tim Montgomerie notes the LDs are more likely to go with Labour in the eventuality of a hung-parliament. So the prospects of a second term for DC look slim, even if he is polling better than his party.

  2. EM v BJ: I suspect if this ever happens it will be in 2020, with EM as the incumbent. A lot can happen to both before then.

  3. For clarity I think it would have been worth stating in the blog that the fieldwork took place 2 weeks ago. It’s not exactly current (though that is not to say I expect things have changed very much in the meantime).

• http://twitter.com/francessmith frances smith

  but have you seen the rest of the tory party? showcased daily in the telegraph, they are not the most appealing people you can meet, so its not unsurprising that cameron polls better than his party.

• http://vitamind3info.blogspot.com/ Adrian

  I find it hard to believe that people still vote lib lab con

• criticalguardian

  In reality Johnson would show up the tories as selfish people with little
  brains and no morals.
  Johnson would make a good advert, so when is he replacing Cameron?