Ukip’s spate of bad publicity appears to be hitting it in the polls. The racism row over the Meet the Ukippers documentary comes as the party has dropped several points in two new polls. According to Lord Ashcroft’s latest national survey, the party is now on 11 per cent, while Labour is up five points to 36 per cent. This puts them four points ahead of the Conservatives, who are on 32 per cent.
Another poll from ComRes/Daily Mail has Ukip down four points to 13 per cent, the Conservatives up three points to 34 per cent and Labour up two points to 32 per cent. YouGov has also reported that most voters believe Ukip isn’t a substantial political force and will fade away within a decade. All told, it hasn’t been a good week for the party and they will be looking to regain momentum at the spring conference this weekend. As the graph below shows, Ukip’s vote share has fluctuated over the last month:
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While there is little surprising about the position of Labour and the Tories, still neck and neck, Ashcroft has some interesting findings on their leaders. His analysis suggests that perceptions are pretty set and won’t change much before polling day. The questionable elements over each leader’s personalities appear to have remained unchanged for some time.
Those who participated in the focus groups were concerned about whether David Cameron can relate to those from humbler backgrounds than himself. Ed Miliband is seen a barrier to taking Labour seriously — and still hasn’t been forgiven for winning the 2010 leadership contest instead of his brother — while Nick Clegg gains sympathy for his efforts to get his voice heard in the coalition. On Ukip, Nigel Farage is seen as an invigorating force, even by those not considering voting for his party. But one remark suggest he still isn’t taken too seriously: ‘He’s a bit like your missus. He might have said something intelligent but you weren’t really paying attention
And as usual, the most interesting part of Ashcroft’s poll was likening the party leaders to inanimate objects. This week it is supermarkets. David Cameron would be Waitrose ‘pretending to be Sainsbury’s’. Nick Clegg is the Co-op ‘all its nice fair trade values’ while Nigel Farage is perceived as Aldi ‘you know what you’re getting. Down to earth. Anyone can shop there’. And Ed Miliband is the worst of both worlds: he’d ‘go to Waitrose but with his Lidl bag-for-life to carry round afterwards’.
The era of stable government is over
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