Labour ends three-year poll malaise
By politics.co.uk.staff
A YouGov poll has put Labour ahead of the Conservatives for the first time in nearly three years.
The poll for the Sun newspaper placed Labour on 40%, a point in front of the Conservatives on 39%.
It comes as a huge boost for new Labour leader Ed Miliband, who makes his speech to the party conference later today.
Labour have not been ahead of the Tories in YouGov’s polling since October 4th 2007, before Gordon Brown’s decision not to call an autumn general election sent the then-governing party’s ratings into a nosedive.
The poll seems to suggest a blank slate for the new Labour leader.
A third of respondents said they “wouldn’t mind” if he formed a government.
Forty-four per cent said they weren’t able to pick out his individual qualities.
And although 43% said he would do well and 23% predicted he would perform badly, a third said they had no idea how they expected he would perform.
Meanwhile the YouGov poll, which questioned 2,000 people, put the Liberal Democrats on just 12%, another low for Nick Clegg’s party.
The deputy prime minister asked delegates to “stick with us” as he braced his party for unpopularity throughout the next five years in his leader’s speech last week in Liverpool.
