Fascinating piece on the blog of Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the RSA (and part of our election panel last month). In it, he reveals that Stan Greenberg, pollster to Clinton, Blair and others, carried out research just before May 6 which showed that Labour’s vote would have risen under a new leader; in which case we could now be under a different government. (hat-tip John Rentoul).
The Miliband brothers must, surely, be kicking themselves that they refused to join the many rebellions of recent years.
But one part of the research jumped out at me: It shows that the public now dislike Tony Blair even more than Brown. The relevant bit is on page 15 of this slideshow. While 60 per cent of voters were “cool” to Blair and only 25 per cent warm, Brown had a slightly better 55 per cent cool, 33 per cent warm ratio.
In other words, those return performances by a tanned and smiling Blair – designed to tee up Labour support – may have done more harm than good.
Jim Pickard
Kiran Stacey