Marcus Wood

Has Gordon Got That Sinking Feeling?

Another day, another bad poll for Gordon Brown. In todays Daily Telegraph there is another poll out this morning - the third this week- that suggest Labour support will sink further if Mr Brown takes over at No 10.

Labour are shown at 32, Conservatives on 39 and the Lib Dems on 16% in the headling 'if there was a general election tomorrow who would you vote for?' question but the real interest is in the detail of the other polling questions.

As Mike Smithson on Politicalbetting.com puts it:

"A key question in YouGov was “If you had to choose, which would you prefer to see after the next election, a Conservative Government led by David Cameron or a Labour Government led by Gordon Brown?”. The split was CON 46% - Lab 33% which is by far the biggest margin that such a forced question has seen."

There has been a regular lift in the Conservatives poll share when the theoretical Cameron vs Brown question is put, but in the last few weeks this has gone from a 2 or 3% increase in the Conservative margin to a much harder to ignore level of closer to 7 points, making a 13% lead for the Tories overall.

With all the usual caveats about polling this far out from a general election it is, nonetheless a mystery as to why Labour seem intent on choosing a new leader who would appear to be even more unpopular than the one they so unceremoniously want to dump.