Tuesday 15 June 2010

Ed Miliband tops Fabian hustings exit poll from David

The Fabian Society's exit poll after last night's hustings - cohosted by the Fabians in partnership with Compass, Progress, LabourList, LeftFootForward and the Young Fabians at the Institute of Education - is a "just for fun" exercise.

This was an exit poll, conducted by email, of those who attended the event:

Who is your first preference to be the Labour party's next leader

Ed Miliband: 39.9%


David Miliband: 30.7%


Diane Abbott: 12.9%


Andy Burnham: 11.0%


Ed Balls: 5.5%

More hustings coverage and reaction

Note that we have not asked for those crucial second preferences, and we have no record of who attendees preferred beforehand. We did not ask attendees who "won" last night's debate, but rather who their first preference for Labour leader now was, following the event.

Attendees were only allowed to vote after the event: responses were accepted until midday today.

Ungracious efforts to rig the poll - for example, by circulating or tweeting the email address to candidate supporters - were unsuccessful, since responses were (laboriously) checked against event attendees.

We would caution the over-excited supporters of any candidate against thinking this was the key to winning the election. There are limits even to sibling rivalries!

No comments: