{"id":18663,"date":"2015-11-25T09:16:33","date_gmt":"2015-11-25T08:16:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=18663"},"modified":"2015-11-25T09:17:17","modified_gmt":"2015-11-25T08:17:17","slug":"is-jeremy-corbyn-good-or-bad-for-the-labour-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=18663","title":{"rendered":"Is Jeremy Corbyn good or bad for the Labour Party?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, it depends on your perspective and there is evidence to support both views. The most recent evidence is from two polls<\/a>:\u00a0a YouGov poll for the “Times” and a ComRes poll for the “Daily Mail”.<\/p>\n

On the one hand, the first poll finds that\u00a066% of those who were eligible to vote in this summer\u2019s leadership election believe Corbyn is doing \u201cwell\u201d as leader.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, the second poll reveals that Labour is trailing the Tories by 11 points, by 29% to 40%.<\/p>\n

So whether you think Corbyn is good for Labour depends on what you think is most important: appealing to Labour supporters or to the overall electorate.<\/p>\n

Two things to bear in mind:<\/p>\n

1) Labour supporters are a relatively small number – a few hundreds of thousands – compared to the population as a whole and are a self-defining group who became supporters because they believe in Labour’s values and Corbyn’s expression of them.<\/p>\n

2) The electorate is a much much larger constituency of tens of million of people who are simply defined by their eligibility to vote, that is they are citizens over 18. Of course, whether they are registered to vote and whether they will actually vote are other matters.<\/p>\n

Now, as we know, polls only tell us so much and can be wrong – but soon we will have accumulating hard evidence of Corbyn’s appeal or lack of it where it matters – that is, voters who will determine whether Labour wins the next General Election.<\/p>\n

The first bit of electoral evidence will be the result of the by-election on 3 December in Oldham West and Royton<\/a>. Then, in six months, we will have elections to the Scotland Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, lots of councils in England, and the mayoralty in London which will enable millions of voters to tell us what they think of the Labour Party and Jeremy Corbyn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"