Good news for the Labour Left in a YouGov poll published today by the Sunday Times. Around 1100 Party members and 833 trade union members were recently questioned about their voting intentions for the Labour leadership and deputy leadership.
With only a few days of proper media coverage, support for John McDonnell still doubled from the last YouGov verdict - from 9 to 18 per cent of Labour members and an even better 26 per cent of trade unionists said they would vote for a left candidate. Interestingly, Jon Cruddas, the much-hyped "soft left" alternative, is an unimpressive fifth out of six with only 10 per cent support among Party members and 12 percent of trade unionists. It's pointless now to indulge in endless "if onlys" but with six weeks of a proper debate ( not the Albanian nonsense we're having now) it seems to me John would have got about 30 per cent of the vote.Which, coming from nowhere, would have been pretty damn impressive.
But let's look at policy, which is where it really gets interesting in terms of where we are now. A majority of Party members clearly support the policy platform outlined by John McDonnell.
Only 37 per cent of Party members support keeping Trident. 58 per cent want to scrap Blairite reforms of the NHS and education, and 66 per cent of Party members are in favour of increasing the top rate of taxation. 58 per cent want to bring the railways back into public ownership. 57 per cent want to see tax also increased on car use and air travel.And 68 per cent were in favour of distancing ourselves from George Bush's policies.
Basically , almost EVERY key policy John stood on is supported by a majority of the members and even more of the trade unionists. Real hope for the future......which I will point out next time someone tells me I am "extreme left" and living in the past.
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10 comments:
The latest YouGov poll findings are entirely consistent with those of the LabOUR/YouGov poll findings a year ago.
But the question remains as members: Are we going to have a say? The Labour Commission has published a simple checklist at:
http;//www.labourcommission.org.uk
such a shame John McDonnell wasn't a very good candidate
Anonymous, nice to see you have the courage of your convictions and won't even reveal your name.....which is why I'm not deleting such a pitiful comment.
grimmer: I was one of the TU members questioned in the survey and while I'd advocate quite a few 'left wing' policies I don't think Labour would win the next election if it adopted all my preferred policies. There is always going to have to be _some_ pragmatism. Not that Labour will win if the leadership does not start advocating at least some more so-called 'left-wing' policies.
Yes, I agree re a) pragmatism and b)the leadership advocating more left-wing policies!
"Only 37 per cent of Party members support keeping Trident".
That's the spirit - just as Mr. Putin tells us that he's intending to point his missiles at Europe's major cities.
Just teasing!
"Only 37 per cent of Party members support keeping Trident. 58 per cent want to scrap Blairite reforms of the NHS and education, and 66 per cent of Party members are in favour of increasing the top rate of taxation. 58 per cent want to bring the railways back into public ownership. 57 per cent want to see tax also increased on car use and air travel.And 68 per cent were in favour of distancing ourselves from George Bush's policies."
Good news for the Cruddas camp, I'd say...
Not really.Without a Left leadership his grandstanding (based largely on John McDonnell's policy platform) is pretty pointless, isn't it ?
I can just see Brown saying, OK Jon, let's do it........The fight will continue once the DL farce is over.
Nice poster Susan, although I suspect if it were to be published today it might fall foul of the law against "glorifying" terrorism.
It has always been one of my favourites!
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