How much of a drag on Labour’s support is Brown? Well, Balls would do better

One detail from the Indy’s poll about how Labour leaders other than Brown would do particularly amused me: Ed Balls would do a better job than Gordon Brown at holding down Cameron’s majority. Now, in a way this illustrates the problem with this kind of poll: the one percent uptick in Labour support is due to the fact that the public know they don’t like Brown and have yet to find that they don’t like Balls either. But it does show how strong anti-Brown sentiment is in the country.

On the subject of polls, I’d be fascinated to see someone do a name recognition poll on the various leadership contenders. I wonder how many voters could pick Alan Johnson out of a line-up.

PS The eight point jump in Tory support in this week’s ComRes poll, does rather suggest that last week’s was a rogue.