Miliband’s rating slips to new low
Miliband’s rating slips to new low
- Almost half of likely voters (48%) disapprove of his performance as Labour party leader while only 19% approve giving him a net rating of -29%
- Mr Miliband’s net rating in the previous survey, in December 2011, was -21% (21% approving, 42% disapproving). By comparison, Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg’s approval rating (17%) is only 2 points below Miliband’s. Only Clegg’s higher disapproval score (56% of likely voters, giving a -39% net score) separates the Labour and Lib Dem leaders.
- Prime Minister David Cameron has seen his numbers improve slightly since December. The last survey (rather unfortunately from Opinium’s perspective) came just before the EU summit and THAT veto meaning that the Prime Minister is probably still benefiting from a residual boost in his approval rating.
Labour voters are also only giving luke-warm support to Miliband
- When we break the approval ratings down by how respondents would vote in a general election we see that while Conservative supporters are lock-step behind David Cameron (with a net approval rating of +85% among Conservative voters), Ed Miliband’s support is far lower (net approval rating of +17% among Labour voters). While Nick Clegg’s rating among Lib Dems is higher than Ed Miliband’s rating among Labour voters, this is slightly deceptive as the survey is based on those who said they would vote for a particular party today, a base that is obviously considerably lower than it was in May 2010.
- Another complicating factor is that fully 34% of Labour voters neither approve nor disapprove of Ed Miliband. With some other polling companies have shown Miliband actually slipping into a negative net rating among Labour supporters, the question is how many Labour voters in our survey actually disapprove but are saying “neither approve nor disapprove” to avoid being disloyal?
Approval ratings
| † | % Approve | % Disapprove | Net rating | Net rating (own party) |
| David Cameron | 39% | 43% | -4% | +85% |
| Ed Miliband | 19% | 48% | -29% | +17% |
| Nick Clegg | 17% | 56% | -39% | +36% |
Opinium Research carried out an online survey of 1,983 GB adults aged 18+ from 13th to 15th January 2012. Results have been weighted to nationally representative criteria.
Interview Method and Sample
This survey is conducted online by CAWI (computer aided web interviewing), using Opinium?s online research panel of circa 30,000 individuals. This research is run from a representative sample of GB adults (aged 18+ in England, Scotland and Wales). The sample is scientifically defined from pre-collected registration data containing gender, age (18-34, 35-54, and 55+), region (North East, North West, Yorkshire and Humberside, East Midlands, West Midlands, East of England, London, South East, South West, Wales, and Scotland), working status and social grade to match the latest published ONS figures.
Opinium also takes into account differential response rates from the different demographic groups, to ensure the sample is representative.
