Leader of Lib Dems not popular with Lib Dem voters

Date published: 21/09/2007

Simon Danczuk, Rochdale’s Labour Parliamentary Candidate, has revealed the findings of a national opinion poll that has just been carried out with 1,100 members of the public across the UK, which shows Ming Campbell, the Liberal Democrat leader is not popular with supporters of his Party.

Mr Danczuk said: "Vision Twentyone, a company I am involved with, has just completed a national survey which shows a quarter of people who would vote Liberal Democrat in a General Election actually think Ming Campbell should resign, a further 28% believe he "needs to do better". We know from national press coverage that there are many in the Liberal Democrat Party who think it’s time for Ming to stand down, and this was shown at their Party Conference in Brighton, though it seems the public now share a similar view.

"I now put the question to our town’s Liberal Democrat MP, Paul Rowen, whether he supports Ming as their Party’s leader. It is well known that Paul supported Mark Oaten for leader of the Lib Dems when their previous leader Charles Kennedy stood down, does Paul now believe Mark Oaten would have made a better leader than Ming Campbell? With Rochdale Council being controlled by the Lib Dems and implementing their policies it’s important for Rochdale people to know what sort of national party leader they have.

"We carried out the opinion poll for Unite the Union (the new combined union of Amicus and the Transport and General Workers Union) and it clearly shows Labour are retaining a strong lead amongst the public and that Gordon Brown is the most popular of all political leaders. If the General Election were called tomorrow there is little doubt Labour would win a good majority of Parliamentary seats, and I believe that would include Rochdale."

• 1,102 UK residents were interviewed by telephone between the 4 and 19 September 2007. The sample was stratified by region, age, and gender to ensure it was representative of the wider population.