Poll reveals bad news for Miliband

Tuesday, 5 July 2011 10:00 AM

By Phil ScullionFollow @PhilScullion

Ed Miliband faces an uphill battle to improve his personal ratings after a poll showed only 34% are satisfied with his performance.

The Independent's 'poll of polls' placed his net rating as -14 points, worse than the minus nine points Iain Duncan Smith suffered in 2002 the year before he was ousted as Conservative party leader without fighting a general election.

Forty eight per cent of people are dissatisfied with the way Ed Miliband is doing the job after he beat his brother David Miliband to in last year's Labour leadership election.

Professor John Curtice, a politics professor at Strathclyde University put together the 'poll of polls' combining the findings of ComRes, Ipsos MORI, ICM, and YouGov.

He told the Independent: "Mr Miliband will have to overturn previous patterns of polling history if he is eventually to make it into Downing Street.

"Since 1979 all previous opposition leaders with unambiguously negative poll ratings at this stage in their leadership have eventually sunk without trace."

The findings increase the pressure on Mr Miliband, who appeared to have won back some support following some improved showings at prime minister's question time.

Professor Curtice added: "Although Labour can now point to eight consecutive months of poll leads, the party must be disappointed if not indeed concerned that it is not making much progress at eating away at Conservative support.

"Whatever misgivings people have about the Coalition, Labour is still struggling to present people with what they consider to be a viable alternative," he concluded.

This week's news follows on from a challenging one for Mr Miliband who was put in a difficult position by widespread public sector strikes.

He was criticised by the left for not supporting the strikes, but also faced counter accusations from David Cameron that he was "in the pocket" of the unions as they had been a deciding factor in his election as Labour leader.

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