Monday 27 September 2010

Labour lead in first post-leadership election poll

YouGov's poll for tomorrow's Sun - the first since Ed Miliband's leadership election victory - has Labour in the lead.

Lab 40%
Con 39%
LD  12%

Perhaps just as significant, the net approval rating for the Cameron-Clegg government is now minus 5.
Approve 38%
Disapprove 43%

Since this doesn't fit Murdoch's agenda, we can expect this poll to be buried in tomorrow's Sun, beneath a pile of anti-Labour speculation and smears. And of course this is still (for now) just one poll.

But we should nevertheless recognise its significance. At this stage in the Parliament the Cameron-Clegg coalition should still be enjoying a honeymoon with the electorate, not falling behind even before cuts have begun to bite.

Last time there was a change of government - in 1997 - it took six and a half years for the Opposition party to regain the lead in even a single poll. Labour has managed this in less than five months.

It is suitably symbolic - and no insult to Harriet Harman or Gordon Brown - that Labour's first opinion poll lead and first 40% score since the autumn of 2007 should have come in the very first poll taken under Ed Miliband's leadership.

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