Whilst the commentariat debates among itself just how unelectable the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is likely to be come 2020, YouGov is keeping up its research into what the plebs think of the Islington North MP.
The data, at least for those who buy the idea that Labour lost the last election because Ed Miliband was seen as too leftwing, does not make for a pretty graph, with Corbyn far to the left of even Green leader Natalie Bennett and Scottish Nationalist leader Nicola Sturgeon.
On the plus side, David Cameron has been mostly tracking to the right since he ended up as prime minister in 2010, and now stands only a little to the left of Ukip leader Nigel Farage.
Tim Farron, leader of the embattled Liberal Democrats, sits close the centre ground it appears he is coveting these days, though the public see him as quite similar to Charles Kennedy – who presided over the Lib Dems’ greatest electoral success in 2005, and sat on the social democratic wing of the party that Farron also calls home.
The extent to which the left-right distinction matters is less clear than the survey results, and it’s worth pointing out in the full data around 30 percent claimed ignorance on where most of the leaders stood, and even more for Farron and Bennett.
At a Hansard Society event earlier this month analysing May’s general election none of the political scientists on the panel mentioned left and right in great detail, with Jonathan Tongue suggesting that the Tories cleared up on the old tropes of leadership and economic competence.
More information on the data above can be found on YouGov’s website.
Image Credit – Nigel Farage and Jeremy Corbyn, via Gage Skidmore and Global Justice Now
