LONDON (Reuters) – British opposition Labour party leader Ed Miliband’s approval rating has hit a record low, a poll showed on Sunday, raising further doubts about his ability to unseat Prime Minister David Cameron in a national election in just over six months.
The survey was published after polling data last week showed Miliband’s left-leaning party was set to be nearly wiped out in Scotland, a traditional stronghold, and after a string of polls suggested a long UK-wide lead it had enjoyed over Cameron’s Conservatives has shrunk.
Derided by the press as socially awkward since he assumed the party’s leadership in 2010, Miliband, an Oxford-educated career politician with the demeanour of an academic, is seen by some in and around his party as an electoral liability rather than an asset.
Sunday’s poll, by YouGov for The Sunday Times newspaper, showed that 73 percent of voters thought Miliband, 44, was doing badly, with only 18 percent saying he was doing a good job. That gave him an overall approval rating of -55.
Last month, Miliband’s rating hit a 33-month low in a comparable YouGov poll, with 71 percent saying he was doing badly and 20 percent well. His latest approval rating means he has overtaken Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister and leader of the Liberal Democrats, as the least popular of the three main party leaders.
Labour’s overall support was 32 percent, the same poll said, just one point ahead of the Conservatives, its lowest level of support since 2010.
Read more at Reuters
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