Labour? Remind me, which one is he?

Another opinion poll suggests that Ed Miliband is a drag on Labour. Last month YouGov ran a poll asking people how they would vote if Boris Johnson were leader of the Conservatives. Now ComRes for The Independent tomorrow asks how people would vote if Vince Cable were leader of the Liberal Democrats.

In each case, the final question has to be prefaced by a question asking people how they would vote and reminding them who is the leader of each party, because the usual voting intention questions prompt only by name of party.

So the second question, asking how people would vote if David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg were the leaders of the main parties shows the effect of naming the leader, and it is not good for Labour. YouGov found it depressed Labour’s vote by four points (and raised the Tory vote by two points). Now ComRes find a three-point drop (and no effect on the Tories).

As for the effect of Vince Cable as Lib Dem leader, well, he might certainly save the party some seats.

Update: YouGov also asked a three-step Vince Cable question for today’s Sun, with slightly different results. Copying the format of ComRes’s table above, YouGov’s figures, showing only a one-point Miliband Effect, were:

Much later update (12 September): YouGov asked another Boris Johnson alternative leader question, published in The Sun this morning. Here are the three steps from this one.

So, the Miliband Effect is Labour down two points and Tories up one. Again, not huge.

The figures are from here and here, which are clearly the same poll.

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• Toocleverbyhalf

  PS to your update – why on earth do “others” go up by 3% because doddering old Cable takes over the Libs? Suggests the respondents weren’t taking the questions v seriously – and who can blame them?

  Ask a silly question and you get a silly answer. Still I suppose it keeps a few pollsters off the dole…

• sweetmcdonald

  Lookman, the fools who got us in this mess are not leading in the polls. They are behind and justifiably so. When the ConDems took over, unemployment was on the way down and there was growth of 2.4% in the economy. Osborne soon put a stop to all that.

• http://www.lookman.co.uk/ Lookman

  That was because they were heading where Greece went. No one seems to understand that in recessions government expenditure should be concentrated in areas that improve economic performance, communications such as roads, a national broadband system, also in areas which improve skills. What has been happening is parties have concentrated on their core voter groups. The waste of money employed on demolition in the urban north was crazy. It was not green and would have been better spent on renovation. The money save could have been used on science parks around northern universities.

  The list of insane half thought out policies during Thatcher and Blair’s reign is unbelievable. Even more unbelievable are the party hacks who blindly follow political leaders who lack the life experiences to take up responsibilities within government. anon.

• http://www.lookman.co.uk/ Lookman

  Milliband is a joke without his stutter. I had to bear the tripe his father inflicted on students at University. Labour has no role any more – It never defended the working class and has been a disappointment since it inception.

  How political parties are funded should be reviewed. They have a big business attitude. The last thing big business want is challenges from beneath, but that is how the industrial revolution took place. Can anyone envisage left leaning radical capitalists these days?

• http://www.facebook.com/people/Iain-Hill/100000917822376 Iain Hill

  Our real problem is that none of the candidates is worthy of being PM. Vote None of the Above.

• Sophia Marsden

  I am not even going to look at labour unless they a) reinstitute clause 4 and b) repudiate, repent and offer coherent criticism that demonstrates they know why they are doing so the Euston Manifesto publicly.

• JohnJustice

  I think the story here, JR, is that despite being denigrated by most political commentators, Ed represents only a 3% drag on the Labour Party which is still 4% in the lead.