PoliticsHome has the low-down:
Charles Kennedy and Sir Menzies Campbell are the former political ‘big beasts’ that the public would most like to see more of, according to a new PoliticsHome poll. 1,228 UK adults were shown a list of former political big hitters and asked to tick all of those they would like to see return to prominence.
The two former Lib Dem leaders were the most popular choices, with just over a third of people (thirty four per cent) wishing for Kennedy’s return, and twenty two per cent backing Campbell. Kennedy was the most popular choice among supporters of all political parties and none.
For the record, here’s the list of former big-hitters missed most by Lib Dem supporters, and whom we’d – apparently – like to see more of:
Charles Kennedy – 64%
Ming Campbell – 48%
Charles Clarke – 18%
None of these – 16%
David Blunkett – 14%
Tony Blair – 13%
John Prescott – 13%
Other – 12%
Ruth Kelly – 1%
An interesting and diverting poll, which on the bright side shows the cross-over appeal of our two most recent party leaders. Looked at another way, though, the figures do suggest more than one-half and one-third of ib Dem supporters are glad to see the backs of Ming and CK respectively… Best not to dwell on that conclusion, chaps.
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7 Comments
I’m wary of this. I notice it doesn’t include any Tories, such as Iain Duncan Smith or John Redwood. It seems calculated to generate another process story about how Clegg is less popular than Kennedy/Campbell and calculated to avoid embarrassing Cameron in the same way.
Not that that is to dismiss Kennedy or Campbell’s popularity.
While I agree with James’s caveats, this poll does at the very least indicate that it’s about time we got Charles Kennedy in front of the TV cameras a bit more. It’s a tricky balancing act, of course, because the party needs to promote Nick Clegg as strongly as possible, but there are advantages to presenting him as a leader backed by a strong ensemble. The public respect Vince Cable as an economic commentator, and they have a lot of affection for Charles as an approachable, decent politician. We should make the best use of them both in supporting roles.
Unfortunately there are still some people who think CK is still our leader.
Changing our leader should be the last resort. We should also retain our spokespeople in place for at least 3 years; ie Chris Huhne was starting to get noticed making sense on the environment – then we changed his job!
Same for many others – It has taken Vince several years to make the press take notice – we would not move him now – would we?
Because we get so little press – our people need to be in place longer IMHO.
I agree with James – the choice of names is so extraordinarily biased that there is little we can usefully conclude from this poll. Most people don’t follow politics closely so will treat this as “which of these can you remember and don’t actively dislike?”. Liberal Democrats score well on not being disliked, and with the absence of any Tories, Tory supporters are going to opt for CK and Sir Ming rather than Blair and the like, aren’t they?.
1228 adults were polled. No doubt they all had opinions. Stephen Tall has chosen to republish the opinions of just one sub-set of those adults, the ones who support the Lib Dems. Golly gosh, those people put Kennedy and Campbell ahead of Blair.
Wonder what all the others said? Wonder why anybody bothers reading this blog?
But David, Stephen linked to the full article and noted the preference for Lib Dem grandees amongst the entire sample (not just the Lib Dems).
The real puzzle is why 18% of Lib Dems want to see more of Charles Clarke. I wonder what percentage of medieval historians want to see him back? 😉 [I refer to http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2003/may/09/highereducation.politics%5D
Fair point Richard, I must learn to read more carefully before shooting off mouth….