IPSOS-MORI have released their monthly Political Monitor and it has a double dose of good news for the Liberal Democrats.
This is probably the month in which Tim Farron has had the most exposure since his election as leader. His speech in the Syria debate was highly commended and he’s been on both Have I Got News for You and Russell Howard’s Good News. The fact that he’s ended up as the most popular leader in Britain speaks for itself. Before we all get too excited. his rating is only -7, compared to Cameron’s -14 Corbyn’s -15 and Farage’s -15, but he has a lot of don’t knows, 45%, to win over.
This has to be an encouraging sign.
What’s interesting is that although Corbyn has been trashed here, there and everywhere, he’s still only 1 point net behind the Prime Minister.
There’s also good news on the voting intention front – we’re up 2% to 10% from last month. This comes on top of a ComRes poll that shows us on 10% in Scotland with the possibility of winning 3 constituency seats. That second poll comes with massive health warnings as the sample was very small, but it seems that, perhaps, some of what Willie Rennie has been saying about schools, GPs and the Police is starting to resonate.
So, a bit of Christmas cheer all round. However, there’s a long way and a lot of hard work between this and decent election results in May.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
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3 Comments
Similar to the trend of other previous Leaders (except Ming).
Started with high level of Don’t Knows who are coming over the more they see.
*Warning: pedantry ahead* It’s a real stretch to say he is “the most popular leader”. More accurately he is the net least unpopular. Not just a nuance actually, quite a big difference. ie in a popularity contest if somebody is completely unknown they won’t have a lot of people saying they don’t like them but it doesn’t mean they are actually well liked overall. So it may just be a reflection of low profile over actual performance. Cameron is clearly the most popular, and also the least. You can be both and still win elections, as we saw in May. if we equate satisfaction with popularity, which is not exactly right anyway).
That all said, I’m sure Tim is doing a great job, just careful to not misinterpret polls to meet our own hopes!
I’m sorry to be carping, but without Nicola Sturgeon (of whom I am not the greatest fan) in here for comparison purposes, I do not believe this headline, however much I want it to be true and I do think Tim is slowly making headway and being seen for whom he is, rather than caricature he was being portrayed as during the leadership election.