Labour's worst poll rating of all time

Further grim reading for the Labour Party in today’s press. Not only were they greeted with headlines such as “No way back for Wendy” and “Losing his (Gordon Brown) grip on Scotland” but the latest YouGov poll has Labour at its lowest poll rating of all time. The new poll, conducted by YouGov for the Sun Newspaper, has Labour trailing a massive 26 points behind the Tories who are on 49%. Is it all bad news for Gordon Brown? Well, apparently not as asked if voters would back Labour under a different leader, all of the suggested alternatives have a minus net reading – still safe then Gordon!

But what does the poll mean in Scotland. Well, the poll broken down by Scottish figures has Labour on 26%, the Tories on 21%, Lib Dems on 13% and the SNP on 32%. Before going further – this is the third YouGov poll since April that has the Scottish Conservatives on more than 20%. If this was the result in Scotland the next time round Labour would lose Scotland with the SNP taking 23 seats compared to Labours 21 with the Tories taking seven seats – including Alistair Darling’s Edinburgh South West – and the Lib Dems taking 8 seats – down 3 since 2005. The big winners from this latest poll are the SNP who comfortably meet their target of 20 seats whilst at the same time making a very impressive gain of 17 seats. Labour are the big losers down a whopping 20 seats since 2005 with the Tories picking up six seats of which five are from Labour – Edinburgh South, Edinburgh South West, Dumfries and Galloway, Stirling and Renfrewshire East – and one from the Liberal Democrats – Berwickshire Roxburgh and Selkirkshire.

Who are the big hitters from Labour that would lose? Other than Alistair Darling the biggest name that would lose their seat according to this poll is Des Brown. Others include Michael Connarty, Nigel Griffiths, Gavin Strang and Anne Moffat. The Liberal Democrats would also lose Danny Alexander and Shadow Shadow secretary of state for Scotland Michael Moore.