In This Article
30-Second Summary
Headline Link: ‘Gordon Brown's Personal Popularity Hits Historic Low, Poll Shows’
Background: The rebirth of Labour; Blair and Brown’s waning popularity
Opinion & Analysis: How bad does Brown have it?
Key Players: Gordon Brown (1951–)
Reference: The Telegraph YouGov poll, July 29–31, 2008
Subscribe to International Updates
Sang Tan/AP
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown
Poll: Gordon Brown’s Popularity at Record Low
by
Liz Colville
A new survey published by The Daily Telegraph suggests that a record number of British citizens are in doubt about their leader.
30-Second Summary
The telephone survey showed that “barely one voter in seven” polled thought Brown fit for the role of Prime Minister. But the poll also suggested that Foreign Secretary David Miliband, considered by some to be a viable replacement, would not likely be able to beat the Conservative leader David Cameron in a general election.
Several members of the Labour Party have openly declared the party to be in trouble. Miliband wrote an optimistic “manifesto” in a newspaper on July 29 that another Labour MP called “disloyal” and some journalists see as prescient regarding Miliband’s likely succession; it contained no mention of Brown.
Others are “ready to back” Miliband, but the YouGov poll shows that Tony Blair would actually have the best shot out of six possible candidates including Miliband.
Brown’s weakness is not that he is “out of touch” with voters—only 9 percent of participants said he is—but that he “lacks the qualities needed” to be Prime Minister, a response given by 52 percent of those polled.
According to British paper The Daily Telegraph, only John Major, the Conservative prime minister who succeeded Margaret Thatcher in 1990 and suffered a landslide defeat to Tony Blair in 1997, has achieved such poor results in a poll.
Tony Blair’s alliance with President Bush on the war in Iraq contributed to the former prime minister’s falling popularity. Brown, Blair’s closest ally, has inherited that part of Blair’s legacy, and arguably much more.
Several members of the Labour Party have openly declared the party to be in trouble. Miliband wrote an optimistic “manifesto” in a newspaper on July 29 that another Labour MP called “disloyal” and some journalists see as prescient regarding Miliband’s likely succession; it contained no mention of Brown.
Others are “ready to back” Miliband, but the YouGov poll shows that Tony Blair would actually have the best shot out of six possible candidates including Miliband.
Brown’s weakness is not that he is “out of touch” with voters—only 9 percent of participants said he is—but that he “lacks the qualities needed” to be Prime Minister, a response given by 52 percent of those polled.
According to British paper The Daily Telegraph, only John Major, the Conservative prime minister who succeeded Margaret Thatcher in 1990 and suffered a landslide defeat to Tony Blair in 1997, has achieved such poor results in a poll.
Tony Blair’s alliance with President Bush on the war in Iraq contributed to the former prime minister’s falling popularity. Brown, Blair’s closest ally, has inherited that part of Blair’s legacy, and arguably much more.
Headline Link: ‘Gordon Brown's Personal Popularity Hits Historic Low, Poll Shows’
David Miliband could “defuse” the situation, Brown supporters suggest, if he publicly backs the prime minister. But Miliband has declined to do so, and has appeared to “revel” in the possibility of becoming the Labour leader. Participating in a BBC Radio Two call with British citizens, several gave their support to Miliband, one exclaiming, “Get that God-awful man Brown out.”
Source: The Daily Telegraph
Background: The rebirth of Labour; Blair and Brown’s waning popularity
John Major, a former bank executive who became a Conservative MP in 1983 and rose through the ranks in various roles in Margaret Thatcher’s government, succeeded Thatcher in 1990 and maintained his position when the Conservatives won the general election of 1992. His seven-year position saw economic improvements following a recession and a temporary ceasefire in Northern Ireland. But Major did not fare well in the polls, seen by many to be a “colourless and indecisive leader.”
Source: Encyclopedia Britannica
Tony Blair has been associated with Labour’s modernization, achieving a landslide victory in 1997 after a nearly 20-year stronghold by the Conservative party. Blair became the Labour party leader after the 1994 death of John Smith from a heart attack. Many believed Smith would have been the next prime minister. Blair worked on “ditching unpopular Labour policies, such as unilateral disarmament, and forging a new agenda marrying free market economics with social justice.” From the beginning, Gordon Brown was his right-hand man.
Source: The BBC
Blair’s “close alliance” with President Bush over the war in Iraq contributed to a slump in opinion polls in the early part of this decade; Britons “overwhelmingly oppose” the war. Gordon Brown’s close relationship with Blair made Brown’s succession an obvious next step, though the two became more distanced ahead of Blair’s May 2007 resignation. CNN reported on the resignation, gathering opinions from journalists and politicians and quoting amply from Blair’s resignation speech, given at his northeast England constituency.
Source: CNN
The Glasgow East constituency was recently returned to the Conservatives in a by-election and was seen as a huge blow to Gordon Brown’s government; the constituency has been Labour for “almost 60 years,” according to the BBC. But a report on the result notes that by-elections don’t always deliver the same results as general elections. “Voters do feel they have a greater freedom to register a protest vote when they are choosing one MP rather than their next government.”
Source: The BBC
Opinion & Analysis: How bad does Brown have it?
In an article in The Guardian following local British elections in May, deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman insisted that the party was not in as dire straits as Prime Minister Major’s government in the mid-1990s. “Just remember back: the economy was an absolute disaster, with high levels of unemployment, really high levels of business failure, [and] record levels of people losing their homes.”
Source: The Guardian
Foreign Secretary David Miliband wrote an article in The Guardian July 29, in some senses declaring support of Brown, though he does not once mention the prime minister’s name. Recalling the Labour Party’s third successive defeat in the 1959 general election, Miliband writes that today “the temptation is similar fatalism. We must not yield to it. We need to remember that there is little real sense among the public—or even among Tory MPs—of what the Conservatives stand for, or what they would do in power.”
Source: The Guardian
Steve Richards, in a response to Miliband’s letter, writes that Miliband’s “ruthless streak” has the power to “change the political landscape.” Richards believes Gordon Brown is “trapped in a narrative from which there is no escape.” This period is seen as a crucial time for Brown to try to turn the tide. Nevertheless, Miliband’s “manifesto” makes it seem likely that Labour “will have a new leader by the end of the year.”
Source: The Independent
Key Players: Gordon Brown (1951–)
Gordon Brown, 57, was Chancellor of the Exchequer under Prime Minister Tony Blair from 1997 to 2007, when he succeeded Blair without a general election. He was born in Scotland, educated at the University of Edinburgh, and became involved in politics as a student. He worked as a journalist and editor for Scottish TV, wrote his doctorate on the Labour Party and Scottish politics, and became an MP in 1983. He befriended Tony Blair soon after, and together they helped to shape the Labour Party’s modern political platform.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica
Reference: The Telegraph YouGov poll, July 29–31, 2008
A graphic of a portion of the Telegraph YouGov poll can be found on the Telegraph Web site. It includes two questions about Gordon Brown and one question about an “alternative” to Gordon Brown, providing possible options of other Labour candidates for prime minister and asking those polled to say which party they would vote for given those options.
Source: The Daily Telegraph
Most Recent Beyond The Headlines
© 2012 Dulcinea Media, Inc.
;){kind=link}