Did Nick Clegg get his first “debate dividend”?
March 4th, 2010
What’ll be the consequences in the marginals?
Did I miss the glaringly obvious when I wrote that I did not know what had caused the 3% boost for the Lib Dems in the overnight YouGov daily poll for the Sun?
For the reason was plain to see as Mike L commented on the previous thread: “Last night’s news was dominated by the announcement of the Leader Debates - Clegg was side by side on split screen with Brown and Cameron and clips of all 3 were shown at the top of every news programme.
This could explain the LD rise in this evening’s YouGov poll. If so it may be an indicator of what will happen following the actual debates.”
That surely is right for the big challenge the Lib Dems always face is in securing media coverage. The debates give them a peg which will continue throughout the campaign. The big question is how this will impact on outcomes in the marginals?
For even without the “debate dividend” Clegg is already enjoying higher approval ratings now than Charles Kennedy got before the last election. Check out the Ipsos-MORI archive for the run-up to the 2005 election and here for the latest data.
I envisage this having two consequences: it’s going to be hard for the Tories to secure all the victories against Lib Dem incumbents that the crude uniform national swing calculations suggest they should get.
Secondly it might lead to higher Lib Dem shares in crucial LAB>CON marginals reducing anti-Tory tactical voting which could make Labour’s task that bit more challenging.
Already the prime focus of Labour’s ground campaigns in these crucial battle-grounds is to put the squeeze on known Lib Dem supporters (including me!) on their database to “unite behind Labour incumbents to stop the Tories”. Will they be less responsive if there’s a higher profile Nick Clegg?
That’s a big question and on it the election might be decided.
Mike Smithson
MessageSpace Advertising
1st
Are there any polls due from firms other than YouGov ?
They all seem to have gone to ground in the wake of YouGov’s daily tracker.
I’m not sure if that’s the reason or not, but I think the LibDems will do will when the main two parties seem to be throwing mud at each other, as they are over Ashcroft.
But I think there’s a danger of double-counting LibDem visibility in the marginals. First, we assume LibDems in marginals will do well out of incumbency, then we add a visibility bonus because Clegg’s on the telly. But maybe LibDem visibility was what was driving the incumbency bonus in the first place (ie you remember the LibDems because your MP is a LibDem), so having Clegg on the telly doesn’t do much to the marginals, however much it helped their nationwide polling scores.
OMG - after many years on here for the first time ever a post of mine has been selected for highlighting in an article.
I’m in shock!
Foreign Policy : The Conservatives need a six- or seven-point victory to win a narrow overall majority of seats in the House of Commons.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/03/03/the_unsinkable_gordon_brown
Only 6 or 7 points?
Andy’s influence?
How sweet the Name of Ashcroft sounds
In a believer’s ear!
It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds,
And drives away his fear.
If only…..
How sweet the Name of Ashcroft sounds
In a believer’s ear!
It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds,
And drives away his fear.
If only…..
How sweet the Name of Ashcroft sounds
In a believer’s ear!
It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds,
And drives away his fear.
If only…..
How sweet the Name of Ashcroft sounds
In a believer’s ear!
It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds,
And drives away his fear.
If only…..
Congratulations, Mike
But you did make a valid point.
How sweet the Name of Ashcroft sounds
In a believer’s ear!
It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds,
And drives away his fear.
It makes the wounded spirit whole,
And calms the troubled breast;
’Tis manna to the hungry soul,
And to the weary, rest.
Aah, the God of money….
Apologies, totally baffled by what just happened.
To expand the point a bit I think most people on here don’t really understand how unengaged a substantial part of the electorate are.
I will never forget that unofficial survey done in the last GE campaign - after several weeks of wall to wall coverage of the campaign about 50% of people could not recognise a picture of Charles Kennedy. I know it wasn’t an official poll and it was done in Motorway Service Areas but it was still pretty extraordinary.
Then a few months ago we had that Frank Luntz focus group where just 4 people (out of approx 40) could recognise and knew who George Osborne was.
There is no question that a very substantial proportion of the electorate have no idea who Nick clegg is, let alone have a view of whether they like him or his policies. (Ignore satisfaction surveys where people may give a response about him as they may think it looks silly to admit to not knowing him).
Clegg’s presence in the debates is going to have a big potential impact. What that impact will be I’ll leave to people much better informed than me.
FPT cont…
..and for those who have an interest in military history I’ll digress for a moment on the subject of Sherman.
He was a truly brilliant strategist. The Confederate south was a slave state. A tiny militarist and dandified aristocracy ruled. They owned everything and controlled everything. The slaves were nothing and the poor whites little more. But they had a lot of money from cotton – and this financed their war.
Sherman’s genius was to realise that to defeat them he need not fight them but only needed to destroy their society. He assembled a powerful army and marched it right past the enemy army and on into their heartlands. He burnt every town and plantation he came to and set the slaves free.
This put the Confederate generals in a sharp dilemna. Should they chase after him (ie back SOUTH and yield any ground taken) or should they just let him go? They tried a bit of both. Unsuccessfully. Sherman just pushed on as far as the cost and Georgia was ruined from end to end. The cotton money and the slaves – and the whole basis of the southern state – were gone. He took 3 days’ rest and then marched north into S.Carolina and did the same. And then on up through N.Carolina and back into Union lines. The Confederacy had had its evil heart ripped out.
Sherman won the war and utterly destroyed the enemy without really even fighting them much. Sun Zi would have approved.
And there is a fascinating parallel in history. Ancient Sparta was also a slave state. The dandified, homosexual but virulently militarist Spartan elite lorded it over the helots – agriculturalists to the west of Sparta who were forced to yield a significant share of their crop yield to feed Sparta. If you’ve ever seen ‘A Bug’s Life’ then the ants are the helots and the grasshoppers are the Spartans.
To the north of Sparta lay Thebes. The Theban king, Epaminondas, was royally teed off with the Spartans always fighting. So he assembled an army and went for a march – right past the Spartan army and on into the heartlands. He burnt Spartan homes and plantations and set the helots free and armed them and helped them to build defences. The food ‘tax’ and the whole basis of the Spartan state was gone and Sparta collapsed never to return shortly thereafter.
I wonder if Bill Sherman ever read Greek history…
On topic.
YES. I am a firm believer in the Lab / Lib fishing in the same pool view. The recent rise in LD polling has, unsurprisingly come at Labour’s expense.
Clegg getting airtime is good news for the LibDems. It will attract voters across, mainly from Labour. The overall effect is to widen the Tory lead a bit and to drop the bar a bit for them to achieve a majority. So good news for Dave too.
Suspect that Mike L’s explanation is good for a point or maybe even two. BUT not all three.
Could the other factor be Tories alienated (at least temporarily) by Off-shore Ashcroft? Or (think this less likely, but who knows?) Labourites alienated by Bully Brown?
I’ve got a feeling that today might see a very serious dirty trick played: the highjacking and misuse of a state agency for party political purposes.
Let’s watch this space.
colin, feeling?, get it out man! you do not need to fence sit on this site as long as you are right and it is not libellous.
The debates probably will help Clegg. I’m not sure that the 3% move in the polls is a reflection of this as that 16% start point looked a little low. I wonder what lessons the LDs with have learned from the London Mayoral debates. I think they emerged from that as the losers.
14, Patrick - you make some very good points here, though thinnk you take them a bit too far. For example, Sherman’s march created a swath of distruction through GA, and discombobulated nearby areas his soldiers never reached. BUT most of the state remained beyond and outside the Yankee grasp - it was simply too big.
Also the dominance of the slaveocracy was not quite as total, the elite was not as tiny nor as “foppish” (a very loaded but imprecise term) as you suggest. While Dixie society was more polarized (and more rural) than north of the Mason-Dixon line (and it’s extension, the Ohio River) the “middling sort” was not inconsiderable, even in the Black Belt (named for it’s rich soils, and by extension its African American workforce) which extended (and still does) in a belt between the upland South to the immediate north and the pineywoods further south.
Of course it’s undeniable that destruction of what Marx was already calling “the means of production” was key to Sherman’s strategy and rationale. Though Georgia was too big to be totally destroyed, Sherman’s march passed through some of the richest parts, and the destruction was indeed vast. Perhaps the biggest blow was psycological.
As for Greek history, not sure to what degree it was covered in his early schooling or at West Point. At the Point, the historical focus was the career of Napoleon Boneaparte.
20 Thanks for the local ‘polish’ on my post. My knowledge here is mostly taken from a the very good book ‘Ripples of Battle’ by Victor Davis Hanson.
By the way, did you know that both Mason and Dixon were British?
FPT 245 Richard Nabavi. That’s an interesting article. As you mention a programme to halve the deficit over four years sounds good if like some politicians and everyone who works at the bbc you confuse the debt with the deficit. We have a veritable mountain of debt and to say that we’ll only be adding to it at half the ridiculous rate that we are now doing so isn’t good enough. What politicians of all sides should be looking for is a way to get closer to balancing the books. The £19 billion of tax rises mentioned will certainly help but the only real solution is to cut spending in a big way. Unfortunately none of the parties seems able to face up to this. I think the conservatives want to go further than the others but I guess it’s hard to talk of big cuts when Labour are essentially happy to keep promising jam today with no thought whatsoever for the consequences. The LDs rather surprisingly seem to more or less accept Labours line too.
David Seymour can’t understand what’s happening!
The problem for the Tories is that no matter how much they want to ape New Labour’s brutal techniques, a nagging incredulity prevents them going all the way. They seem to think: Surely no one would believe that.
Cameron’s lacklustre performance in Brighton was the result of not knowing how to respond to the campaign of attack orchestrated with the usual panache by Peter Mandelson.
At a time when politicians are viewed with more contempt than at any time in history - which is really saying something - it is extraordinary that Brown and his spinners are getting away with it.
I pride myself on understanding politics more than most and would really like to be able to explain to you what is happening. But I can’t.
- David Seymour is a PR consultant and former political editor of the Mirror Group.
http://www.prweek.com/news/987863/David-Seymour-Brown-closes-gap-brazen-spin/
The so-called *ObamaCare* contract on intrade peaked at 90%; it’s now trading between 55 and 58%.
Edmund, if you ever pass-by Bangkok when I’m around, I’ll treat you with a soapie at Poseidon!
E.J. Dionne : Obama is determined “to press ahead and get health-care reform”
On Wednesday, the president made clear what he wants in a health-care bill, and he urged Congress to pass it by the most expeditious means available.
…[Obama is]unwilling to do is give the minority veto power over a bill that has deliberately and painfully worked its way through the regular legislative process.
…The health-care bill passed the Senate in December with 60 votes under the normal process. The only thing that would pass under a simple majority vote would be a series of amendments that fit comfortably under the “reconciliation” rules established to deal with money issues.
…It was Kennedy, you’ll recall, who insisted that health care was “a fundamental right and not a privilege.” That’s why it’s not just legitimate to use reconciliation to complete the work on health reform. It would be immoral to do otherwise and thereby let a phony argument about process get in the way of health coverage for 30 million Americans.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/03/04/the_republicans_big_lie_about_reconciliation_104648.html
I don’t post those extracts cause I think Dionne is right; but because I think it gives a pretty good idea of the “determination” and sense of “duty” felt by the Dems.
I feel pretty confident now that ObamaCare will pass before July. Sadly, I hold only 555 contracts of the 777 I previously!
Latest YouGov Scottish sub-sample (usual caveats apply)
(+/- change from UK GE 2005)
Lab 46% (+7)
SNP 19% (+1)
LD 16% (-7)
Con 14% (-2)
Grn 3% (+2)
BNP 2% (+1)
UKIP 1% (+1)
oth 0
http://www.yougov.co.uk/extranets/ygarchives/content/pdf/TheSun-results_02.03-trackers.pdf
If you pump those into the Electoral Calculus calculator, you get:
Lab 46 seats (+6 seats)
LD 8 seats (-3)
SNP 5 seats (-1)
Con 0 seats (-1)
(Speaker 0 seats (-1))
http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/scotland.html
Boy oh boy, is Peter Kellner going to look daft come the 7th of May.
26. (cont)
… and Martin Baxter.
26. correction: BNP 2% (+2)
According to Martin Baxter, the following seats would change hands (best currently available LAB price in brackets):
Lab gain from Lib Dem:
- Argyll and Bute (14/1 Ladbrokes)
- Dunbartonshire East (11/4 Bet365, William Hill)
- Dunfermline and West Fife (EVS - various bookies)
- Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (5/1 Ladbrokes)
Lab gain from Con:
- Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (6/1 Ladbrokes)
Lab gain from SNP
- Dundee East (9/2 Bet365, William Hill)
IMHO only Dunfermline & WF is worth a wee fiver. Maybe even a wee tenner.
Labour 46% in Jockland? Yeah right!
YouGov are doing something wrong with their methodology just lately methinks. (unles they have some inside knowledge of postal votes).
26 - How often does it need to be said, Stuart? Not only are the regional sub-samples too small but they aren’t weighted within the region itself.
The hatred for the tories in the west of scotland cannot be underestimated, so 15% tory is really 25% excluding “benefit city”.
Story about Purcell now out in the domain, no wonder there has been no support from his colleagues.
“Stressed?”, I would be if I lived a life on the edge like that.
Interesting trifecta for Purcell (and others of course)to bet on in the Cheltenham Gold Cup;
“Imperial Commander”, “Tricky Trickster” and “What a Friend”
Ahem Mike S …. comment 6 FPT !!
This really is quite chilling
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1255264/Pupils-aged-hate-register-Teachers-log-playground-taunts-Government-database.html
Seems to me that there is an even easier explanation - just usual opinion poll fluctuation. I think the Lib Dems had dropped a point or two in the previous polls and mainly, this is just bringing them back to where they were.
It is hard to take these daily polls seriously until they show a definite trend over a number of days. Probably enough now to say that the Tory lead is declining - fascinating since I think the myth that governments always closed on imcumbents had been comprehensively squashed. This campaign could yet give it a new lease of life!
Brown better be preparing hard for Chilcot
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article7048935.ece
“The families of troops who were killed in poorly protected Land Rovers have urged the Iraq inquiry to challenge Gordon Brown tomorrow on his funding of frontline forces.
They want answers because no one in Government has ever explained why the Snatch Land Rover was not replaced in Iraq and Afghanistan once it became clear that it was vulnerable to roadside bombs.
Jocelyn Cockburn, a lawyer acting for relatives including Susan Smith, whose son, Phillip Hewett, was killed with two others by a roadside bomb while on patrol in Iraq in 2005, wants Sir John Chilcot, the inquiry chairman, to focus on whether Mr Brown jeopardised soldiers’ lives by cutting funding and forcing them to travel in the unsuitable vehicles.”
Will we be seeing Brown’s temper front and centre…. after all he is always right.
26 Looking at that data it strikes me as odd that 41% are saying they’d be dismayed at a conservative government. If that’s the case why aren’t Labour much higher? Even in the ‘rest of the south’ more people are dismayed than delighted. The response options I guess may encourage this, but still the numbers seem very odd. Assuming these numbers are correct I guess it illustrates the difficulty of being a pollster.
31. Sir Norfolk - “How often does it need to be said, Stuart?”
Err… I heard you all the first ten thousand times, so there is no need for you to repeat it yet again.
As I have said many times before: punters are welcome to take, or leave, this information. It is only a wee tidbit of info, to be considered WITHIN CONTEXT. I am not forcing anyone to take it as God’s Honest Truth. In a free society each individual punter must use their judgement.
For example, I personally think that the latest YouGov numbers from Scotland are absolute tosh. There is no way that Scottish Labour are above 35% (probably nearer 30%). Peter Kellner is going to look an absolute idiot the day after the real votes are counted.
wibbler@35
Rules for heads say that using language such as ‘gay’ - which has had near-universal usage among British schoolchildren in recent years to denote something as inferior - counts as homophobic bullying, even if pupils do not have any homophobic intention in mind when using the word.
Primary school pupils must be taught ‘the nature and consequences of homophobic bullying’, according to the rules.
Schools Minister Vernon Coaker said: ‘The majority of schools already record incidents of bullying.
Wow. Just wow. I’m glad I’m not a kid in the UK!
36. M in Tokyo - “Seems to me that there is an even easier explanation - just usual opinion poll fluctuation. I think the Lib Dems had dropped a point or two in the previous polls and mainly, this is just bringing them back to where they were.”
Spot on.
Mike, and others, are gravely overestimating the ‘Debate Effect’ on the Lib Dems’ performance.
As we get closer to Polling Day, Oor Mighty Host is clearly getting caught up in his own party’s spin and propaganda. A worrying trait in an otherwise detatched observer.
Punters beware!
All the public see are the two main parties carping at each other - the recent spat (if they know/care about the details) being yet another case of ‘they’re all the same.’ Combine that with a reminder that there is another party to vote for… I think the most interesting aspect of the election will be turnout, tbh.
39 - Stuart, if you are referring to the latest YouGov sub sample as tosh, that is because it IS tosh - and total tosh at that - for the very reasons Sir Norfolk has given.
If you tell people labour are doing well and many people agree with them then it will have aknock on effect.
If Kellner wants to bet his own money that labour will get 37% plus in Scotland then I am in for a few quid as no doubt you are.
Mike.
I agree that the Lib Dems will get a debate boost however, your assertion that the Tories will be the gainers is counterintuitive.
On the Andy Cooke seat generator a change from 38/32/16 38/32/19 costs Labour one seat and the Tories six.
The tendency of Labour voters to vote Lib Dem to keep the Tory out will also be enhanced by a good debate performance by Clegg.
23. Interesting post, set me wondering are Election Campaigns fit for purpose??
We through the 24 hour news media/ internet etc etc, we are getting a longer more frantic election campaign. If David Seymour’s assertions are right then the team with the best “dark arts” will win the election – hardly new I know eg Thatcher pioneered the news based campaign in 79 appearing at ‘events’ in the afternoon to get on TV in the evening, Labour brought the rebuffal over from the US to great effect in 97
Does this produce the best result in terms of fit for purpose government??? But then how else would we do it?
26 - Stuart.
Last week you were telling us, falsely, that a full poll was to be ignored because it was a sub sample.
Today you are putting a subsample into electoral calculators.
Sort yourself out man.
43. John O - “for the very reasons Sir Norfolk has given.”
Hmmm… yes and no.
Sir Norfolk makes a valid point (which I only partially reject, for reasons rehearsed ad infinitum here at PB). However, I believe that I have identified why YouGov is gravely over-estimating Scottish Labour voting intention: both in sub-samples of Great Britain-wide polls, and in their full, (ahem) “weighted” Scotland-only polls.
Funnily enough, I think that YouGov’s Holyrood v.i. figures are even further out than their Westminster v.i. figures.
47.
tim accusing someone else of spreading falsehoods?!? Living in a glass house is a perilous predicament.
I have a very good record as regards integrity tim. You, on the other hand, have an awful lot to learn.
48 - Stuart, You may be correct in that YouGov’s ‘weighted’ polls in Scotland are somehow fundamentally flawed. But that’s a completely separate point from drawing the same conclusions from sub-samples, which everyone here, yourself apparently excepted, knows are completely worthless as reflecting voting intentions.
45 tim. I don’t see it as counterintuitive. A position of 38 / 32 / 16 that improved for the LibDems would NOT go 38 / 32 / 19 would it? (Because that assumes the entire LD gain then comes from Other). It would actually improve to something more like 38 / 30 / 18. The whole point you seem to sweep over is that LibDem gains will come mostly from Labour - and this is definitely good for Dave as it widens the Tory lead (and therefore seat count).
47 risible.
On topic, yes, the debates coverage probably plays some part although like others above, I suspect that the much mudslinging the two bigger parties have indulged in is more significant. That does beg the question why the Lib Dems feel the urge to get involved in that game when standing aside is so much more obviously to their benefit. I can only presume that it’s the instinct of the politician to be almost incapable of seeing a debate pass by without joining in.
As for the constituency effect, that might be more muted. My guess would be that the increase is mostly in Con/Lab seats - places where the Lib Dems have been receiving little coverage so far. Where they’re in contention, there’ll have been leaflets going out regularly for years.
As for Ashcroft, it’s time for him to stand down from his party position. His seat in the Lords remains tenable, though tainted (not least because there are others in a similar situation); his party position is another matter.
45 Tim
Have to agree with the Labour tactical voting, it could result in a few lost deposits for Labour, and potentially take seats from the Tories rather than the expected gains in this category.
Is it already showing up in the overall results ie are Labour voters in Con / Lib seats already reporting they will vote Lib Dem?
I still think the big issue is that the Lib Dems got a boost in 2005 from “Disloyal” Labour voters and will this unwind and effect the Lab/Con marginals??
The fun continues in Prestonpans. This is turning into laugh-a-minute.
‘Moffat to learn if she is still candidate in a week’
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/politics/moffat-to-learn-if-she-is-still-candidate-in-a-week-1.1010852
Bookies’ best prices - East Lothian (incumbent: Anne Moffat - Lab maj over Lib Dem = 7,620)
Lab 1/3 (Ladbrokes)
SNP 7/2 (Paddy Power)
Con 14/1 (PP)
LD 16/1 (PP)
54 The thing is that there are not very many Con / LD marginals but loads and loads of Con / Lab ones. So a recovering LibDem share will probably hurt the Tories alot less than it benefits them. No joke. It is in Dave’s interest to see the LibDems taking votes from Labour - all those middle England marginals will fall if Labour’s vote cannot be sustained.
Take our own NPMP’s eat of Broxtowe for example. His lead is 2,296 votes. The LibDems got 7,837. If the LibDems can get 500 voters to go for them instead of Labour then the Tories only need to find 1,800 more votes (even if the Labour vote does not drop for any other reasons). Nick would be delighted if the LibDems would just go away and let him fight the Tories without splitting the lefty vote.
54: I’m not sure, in a lot of Tory/Lib battleground, that vein of support has already been pretty well mined in previous elections. In that I don’t think there’s a signifigent number of people which voted lab which will switch now. They will already have in 2005, or 2001.
50. John O
Nope. Sub-samples are NEVER “completely worthless”. Cos if they were, then we would occasionally see Scottish sub-samples like:
SSP 31%
LD 25%
BNP 19%
Con 12%
SNP 4%
UKIP 3%
Grn 2%
Lab 1%
oth 2%
But we never, ever do see such sub-samples. Just think about it. Very, very, very, very hard.
Thinking is good for you. We all ought to do it a bit more often.
Yesterday on here plenty of posters were crowing at Hague’s demolition of HH at PMQ.
(I don’t doubt it happened HH is quite poor and PMQs are WH strong point)
However I saw the report on Channel 4 News - which I would consider to be one of the top 3 political news bulletins.
The story basically ran
William Hague faced a torrid time in PMQ when he faced questions on Ashcroft, followed by a couple of fairly evenly matched sound bites from HH and WH
From the story on TV I would have gone with Labour 1 Tories 0.
58 - What a very silly person you have become. Shame really.
56 - You are assuming a lot their Patrick, particularly that Labour voters will behave uniformly whether they are in LD/Con marginal or a Lab/Con marginal.
We’ll need to keep an eye whether the Labour vote has firmed up or not.
58 - In which case, stop falsely claiming that full polls are sub samples and to be ignored.
You cost people money last week.
60 - OK, in an attempt to elicit your wisdom, enlighten us how a very small sub sample that is itself totally unweighted can provide any meaningful insight into voting intention?
61 tim, pot/kettle interaction. I’m sure you’ve cost people money with some of your ‘predictions’ here.
Labour accuses wealthy Lib Dem parliamentaty candidate he is trying to buy Streatham!!!
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/lib-dem-candidate-accused-of-buying-seat-1915822.html
RedRiding it was also echoed by the BBC. Was there a timeslip somewhere and the BBC and C4 watched a PMQs in a different dimension. C4 News is however more loaded with Lefties than others.
Sky’s leftie Jon Craig said much the same.
It was one of Hague’s best PMQs vs Harman. Except in the tv media.
61. tim - “In which case, stop falsely claiming that full polls are sub samples and to be ignored. You cost people money last week.”
Two falsehoods in two sentences tim! That is pretty impressive stuff, even for a serial liar like you.
Please note: the Scottish Sun’s laughable report not only made out that it was a Holyrood v.i. poll (it wasn’t: it was actually a Westminster v.i. poll), but it did not even name the pollster (per British Polling Council rules), let alone supply information about sample size, fieldwork dates or methodology. So, any punter making a bet based on that Scottish Sun report (duly linked to by my good self) needed their head felt.
I don’t buy the premise of this post. We have seen huge movements in the LD share even when they were invisible in the media
Sounds to me as if David Seymour can understand perfectly well what’s happening, it’s just that he doesn’t want to accept that explanation.
It’s pretty convincing though and thoroughly depressing. The Tories are getting out-campaigned because (contrary to Labour’s arguments), they’re focussing on policy areas whereas Labour’s run a very effective spoiling campaign aimed at managing the media headlines.
They’ve achieved that because they understand how the news industry works: it’s one based on people, not ideas or concepts. Hence Harman answering a question about bond yields with a comment about Ashcroft: politics as Hello for ugly people.
The problem with this approach is that policies not only become irrelevant but can even be a disadvantage. Consequently, there’s no driving force to the government beyond staying in power: they’re not there to do, just to be. I wonder what Michael Foot would have made of it all?
“Even After Earthquake, Chilean Debt Safer than UK Debt. U.S. investors still prefer Chilean government debt to UK government debt as measured by CDS rates. Do you get how bad things are?”
Guido
http://order-order.com/
The “class war” is reaching new heights (or depths?) in the Mirror:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/03/04/true-blue-beast-is-nailed-at-last-115875-22084442/
Let us not forget the boost the Lib Dems got immediately after their conference. Will the debates have an equivalent effect?
It looks like the Conservatives are pretty certain to get 37/38% at a minimum.
So if we get a JackW scenario of the LibDems rising strongly in the campaign, especially with the leaders debates, then their support is going to be gained mostly at the expense of Labour. Personally I think Labour is already being overpolled at the LibDems expense.
Coldstone has proposed a result of 38,28,22 which seems very reasonable to me at present.
Andy Cooke gives that a Conservative majority of 50+.
So Cameron pushed over the finishing line by Clegg - the Martin Days might have mixed feelings about that.
It also puts RodC in strategic disagreement with JackW.
RodC v JackW now that could be fun watching
Another thing about enhanced LibDem profile is that it might encourage tacticle Conservative voting in Lab/LD seats.
72. You are forgeting that Others will not remain on 12%, if only because they will not have full slates. I think 37/31/24/8 is most likely. And I still see a hung parliament. I can’t help but agree with Iain Dale that 70 is a more likely LD figure than 50.
56. Patrick
I think the big issue in constituencies like Broxtowe is the missing Labour vote.
Using figures from http://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/pnorris/Data/Data.htm
The majority from 2001 – 2005 went down from 5.8K to 2.2K. However the Tory vote only went up by 198 while the Labour vote went down by 3.3K ie only 5% of the missing labour voters voted Tory.
It is generally accepted that Labour was punished by normally Labour supporting voters for the Iraq war. Given that anti-war sentiment is greater on the left of the Labour party there is a chance that these voters will return to keep out the Tories. Then it is up in the air as to whether this would counter balance swing from Lab to Tory amongst other Lab voters.
68. Just to expand on my point about yesterday’s PMQ’s.
I’m sure that almost every MP knew that Harman’s answer to Hague’s question (about bond default risk) was on the face of it abject. She floundered on the technical side and then brought up a wholly unrelated counter-point. However, they also all knew why she did it.
Were parliament to meet away from the public gaze, I’m sure MPs would have been howling disapproval at the irrelevance of the minister’s answer and the implied disrespect to parliament (ie them). But that’s not the point now. It’s a media game and the idea is to get the best soundbites in the news to play into their preferred narrative, not to hold the government to account. The commentators then have to fashion their own opinions to a large extent around the clips that will be shown to illustrate the session, whether or not they were representative.
70. I found the Mirror article truly vile. It links an unnamed Conservative supporter being verbally abusive to a mother with a Downs Syndrome child to David Cameron saying we should move on from the Lord Ashcroft debate (ignoring the fact that Cameron had a disabled child himself).
Morning all,
Do I think the Libdem figure is a debate dividend. No I dont. There was an identical poll in terms of vote share on the 25th of Feb. I put it down as a mathematical anomally of Yougov’s weighting approach (it will be interesting to compare the Party ID’s).
Anyway I think Mike makes somes good points that Clegg could help stop Labour’s 4th term and the debates are ordered (with domestic policy first - Brown’s weakest area) in such a way to maximise any trends against Labour. If both Cameron and Clegg have a decent first debate and better Brown then Labour will have another problem on top of all the rest they have.
Anyway gotta run…
Toodle Pip!
OT. Just watched Holmes on Sky “interviewing” Andy Burnham. You will never see a politician getting an easier ride. And to finish his “tough” questioning “Should David Cameron sack Lord Ashcroft?”. Strange but there was no mention of Lord Paul! Disgraceful bias as every conservative gets a good grilling as all politicians should not just the one’s Sky don’t like.
Interesting stuff in the Independent on the activities of some of Lord Ashcroft’s UUK companies:
“The Independent can also reveal that Lord Ashcroft has made moves that shore up the legitimacy of almost £3m donated to the Conservative Party. Bearwood Corporate Services, used by the peer to hand Mr Cameron’s party around £4.7m since 2003, is currently being examined by the Electoral Commission following an allegation that it was not operating in Britain, a legal requirement for companies making gifts to political parties.
However, while the firm only appeared to carry out very limited transactions between 2000 and 2007, its latest accounts reveal that it has suddenly begun to increase its business activities since then. The document shows that the firm, which Lord Ashcroft has only described as a “small merger-broking business”, bought stakes in five firms between April 2007 and September 2008.
It is since April 2007 that Lord Ashcroft has used Bearwood to make the bulk of his donations to the Tories, including the three largest cash handouts he has ever made through the firm. The revelations will increase the pressure on the Electoral Commission to complete its investigation into the company, now the second longest inquiry in its history. Last night, Labour MPs demanded that it complete its findings before the election.
Party funding rules state that a company needs to be registered and “carrying on business” in Britain to be eligible to make donations to political parties. Foreign donations are outlawed. However, little is known about the activities of Bearwood.
John Mann, the Labour MP for Bassetlaw whose complaint triggered the investigation, attacked the Electoral Commission yesterday for taking so long to conclude its inquiries and for failing to give him any feedback on when they would be completed. Senior sources within the Commission maintained that they would not be rushed but would report its conclusions as soon as possible. An experienced auditor confirmed that it did appear that Bearwood had suddenly started to increase its business activity two years ago. The Independent asked a spokesman for Lord Ashcroft for a comment on the issue, but did not receive a response.
The Commission began its initial inquiries on 7 October 2008 and informed Bearwood that it had received a complaint about its donations. It took the decision to begin a formal investigation into the firm on 30 January 2009, but has yet to report back. It could not confirm yesterday that the probe would be completed before the next election.
Companies that are alleged to have been used as part of a chain to funnel money from Belize to the Tory party coffers have been wound up since the Electoral Commission began to investigate Bearwood. According to accounts for the year ending March 2006, Bearwood Corporate Services appeared to receive £4.79m from its parent company, Bearwood Holdings. In turn, Bearwood Holdings is alleged to have secured that money from a shares issue worth £5.54m to Astraporta UK. Completing the alleged chain, Astraporta UK raised £6m by selling shares to the Belize-based Stargate Holdings. According to parliamentary answers, both Bearwood Holdings and Astraporta went into liquidation in March 2009 and were officially “struck off” as companies on Monday.”
77 What’s surprising about The Mirror article? It looks as if it’s follows their standard operating procedure; it’s certainly no different to many of the posts from one of pb.com’s most yellow carded and vociferous ‘contributors’.
75 Sure. But the Tory vote was 4,000 higher in 1997 than 2001 - so they went somewhere too. In 1992 the Broxtowe Tories polled fully 13,000 votes more than in 2005 (with 31,000 votes - way more than NPMP has ever got). The usual army of missing Tory votes is very apparent in Broxtowe. NPMP’s vote count has fallen steadily at every GE from 1997. In 2005 the Tories were, as you point out, up only slightly.
I think NPMP’s vote will fall slightly but the Tories will grow by more than the needed 2,000. He’s out.
57. Indeed there already has been tactical voting esp Labour to Lib Dem.
The big change in 2010 is the very real chance that The Tories will win. You cannot overestimate the amount of anamosity felt by core Labour supporters towards the Tories. Take the anti-brown / zanulab sentiment on here and multiply it by a factor of 10 and you are beginning to get a feel for it!
reflecting
Others got 8% last time - you don’t think they’ll do better this year? That would contradict elections since 2005.
67. Rob D - “I don’t buy the premise of this post. We have seen huge movements in the LD share even when they were invisible in the media.”
Spot on.
Mike has got this wrong. But that actually suits us non-Lib Dems! Let them chase their own wee fantasies.
In fact, the more Lib Dem wishful-thinking, the better. I remember the Moray by-election of 2006 with great fondness for that very reason: the preposterous Lib Dem ramping (including here at PB) made their humiliation all the sweeter.
I note that the Lib Dems are currently priced at 100/1 in Moray. Tee hee. Where is Mark Senior when you want him? Linda Gorn was never off his lips for months back then.
Bookies’ best prices - Moray (incumbent: Angus Robertson, the Scottish National Party’s Westminster Leader, SNP maj over Con = 5,676)
SNP 1/8 (PP)
Con 5/1 (PP)
Lab 33/1 (Lad)
LD 100/1 (Lad, PP)
80 Goupillon, I look forward to The Independent publishing an article into the financial and business activities of the Caparo Group in the UK. I won’t be holding my breath.
Its possible Clegg has had a boost from the TV debates publicity, but I think the more likely explantion is simply that YouGov was recording Lib-Dem support far too low, and todays poll has them where they should be, which is around 20%.
80 - You may like to listen to the Today Programme from 8.20 onwards which covered this.
Inlcuding an hilarious montage of Hagues answers, over time, regarding Ashcroft.
83 But there’s also an army of people who voted Tory in the past who truly hate Labour - and they will return to some extent or other. What we’re seeing is the polarisation of politics. The lefties hate the righties more than they used to and vice versa.
It is, however, the men in the middle who decide the outcome - and they don’t seem to want Gordon back. What is the swing in the marginals? That is really the only relevant question.
Sorry Mike but I disagree. The LibDems had one of their weekly see-saw shifts simply because it was time for it to happen.
More importantly as the LibDem profile rises, both Nick Clegg and Vince Cable will actually have to find some policies other than “we are not those 2 guys”.
Vince is already sounding more and more like the Glasgow Labour councillor of the 1970s, tax and spend, tax and spend.
Clegg just tries to copy the big boys and makes a hash of it.
Huhne just rants in his hypoccritical way.
LibDem uber squeeze coming.
I reckon the biggest political story tomorrow (and possibly today) will be Geert Wilders
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article7047443.ece
He has just been the big winner in the Dutch local elections
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6230AN20100304
91 - Brown is at the Chilcot Inquiry tomorrow.
Have we had a date for the budget yet?
72. another richard - “Coldstone has proposed a result of 38,28,22 which seems very reasonable to me at present.”
I concur. Coldstone is not going to be far off with that formula. Although I’d maybe say 40,27,21 is nearer the mark.
Note: that leaves about 12% for “Others”, which feels about right. And only 66%/67% for CON+LAB, which also feels about right.
So, only about two-thirds of people who cast a vote will vote for either Con or Lab. When was the last time such a low number voted for the Big Two? Must be pre-WWII.
92 tim
Sadly, I have come to the conclusion that no-one cares about Chilcot.
75. RedRiding
Except MORI voting shift details give no indication that this supposedly huge numbers of Labour supporters who voted LibDem or didn’t vote in 2005 actually exist.
The last MORI, which was itself bad for the Conservatives, still showed them gaining more ‘new’ voters than Labour and the LibDems combined.
73. “testicle Conservative voting”
Is that a new Olympic sport?
35. Wibbler. Do you really think the Mail should be relied on with that kind of story? Remember they have a ‘history’ that goes back to the 30’s which continues to the present day.
Bookies’ best prices - Broxtowe (incumbent: Nick Palmer MP)
Con 2/9 (Bet365)
Lab 7/2 (WH)
LD 100/1 (various)
83. RedRiding
Except last year showed that the Labour core vote is only around 20% and heavily concentrated in urban areas.
Labour gains votes in Islington and Leicester - so what!
We are seeing far too much in these polls. As a collection they are next to meaningless.
Only 95% of polls can be said to pass the hypothesis test (which implies a standard deviation of greater than 2). This does not however prove that individual polls are a valid proxy for the mean. Samples are drawn around the mean of the distribution but we cannot identify their actual location. Continuous sampling may over represent those to the right of the mean or those to the left*.
As for the distribution itself it is probably correct to say that we are looking at a skewed distribution. The mean is likely to be centre-left, with a fatter distribution to it’s left** and a long tail to it’s right. It is more probable for Labour/Lib-Dem’s to achieve 50% for the vote then it is for the Conservatives.
Add to which we have the noise of TfP and Cashgate [sic] which are temporary anomaly outwith the actual election campaign. This seems to be factored into the markets, with Sporting Index looking at a Conservative [mean] majority of 21 and would suggest there is some validity within Roberts VIPA model***.
In conclusion we are having to much of the trees and not enough awareness of the woods. Will the debates make the picture clearer? Probably, as the choice would be between a party of axe-wielding politicos on the right, the concrete-over brigade from the left, and the LibDems still searching for the ephemeral fairies.
As a punter all I need is a Conservative majority of one to be in the black. So I am not stressed and will definitely avoid all political coverage on the box.
* This, of course, ignores the anomaly of certainty to vote and passed-vote weighting, which further distort the sampling.
** Patrick’s Lab/Lib-Dem fishing-in-the-same-pool theorem.
*** If the distrbution becomes more normal then it is easier for the Tories to make considerable gains.
99. 82% likelihood of Tory win and 22% chance of NPMP surviving.
94: “So, only about two-thirds of people who cast a vote will vote for either Con or Lab. When was the last time such a low number voted for the Big Two? Must be pre-WWII”
A quick look at Wikepedia suggests 1918 but the results then were complicated by pro-coalition and anti-coalition division across the parties.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_1918
90.Re Cegg boost.
it may well be that Clegg benefitted from the coverage of the election debates,but some of the movement is aslo I think random margin of error on sampling
Ona more general point in interpretting mpvement you would expect any major political story which runs top ot the bill in the evening news and follows on the papers the next day to affect the follwing days tracker poll.
However it remains to besen how robust a rule this is.
90. Easterross - “LibDem uber squeeze coming.”
Oh, I do hope so Mark, I do hope so!
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the Scottish Lib Dems utterly collapse in May. We could then get down to the real nitty-gritty, without The Great Obfuscators involved:
LAB/CON Unionist coalition vs. The Good Guys
Mmmm… I wonder who’d win that contest?
104. The Clegg boost may, of course, be nothing whatever to do with Clegg or the LibDems. It is more likely to be some lefties deciding they don’t like Gordon as much as before.
Whether this is the reason for the rise I’m not sure, but I think it’s true that when the Liberal Democrats are given more coverage they will rise in the polls. So often the media concentrate on the battle between Labour and the Tories and totally forget the third party.
WE here on Pb have spent endless hours over the past 33 months since Brown became leader of the government trying to guess what will happen at the General election. We have looked at Labour up and Tories down, Tories up and Labour down, LibDems up and down, UKIP in and Greens out.
Frankly it has more resembled the script of the hokey cokey. The truth is simply that none of us really has any idea what is going to happen. It is 31 years since we were last in the position we are now, namely that a Tory opposition looks as though it is ready to unseat an unpopular Labour government.
The big unknown is the LibDem vote. 31 years ago their entire parliamentary party could fit in a yellow minibus with seats to spare. Now they need a fleet of 4 yellow minibuses to convey them to the Commons.
We do not know if there is such a thing as LibDem incumbency. It has never been tested against a Tory party rising in the polls and likely to be elected.
So let’s all be honest. We can speculate. We can prefer Rod Crosby’s model. We can prefer Andy Cooke’s model. We may be drawn to Robert Smithson’s model. We may not like UNS but we simply do not know what is going to happen.
This election will not be won or lost over 270 minutes of Brown v Cameron v Clegg or any other TV debates.
This election will be won or lost by the foot soldiers, the volunteers who have been pounding the streets in the marginals and elsewhere for months and years.
9 weeks today we will hopefully find out exactly what the truth is.
James Bulger killer Jon Venables ‘jailed over workplace brawl’
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23811840-james-bulger-killer-jailed-over-workplace-brawl.do
Having just listened to the “Today” article on Ashcroft, it is now clear that the BBC has given up any pretense of being independent or politically neutral. 5 mins of demands that the tories pay the money back,replays of Paxman interviewing Hague and literally, not a single mention of the fact the labour has twice as much non dom donated money as the tories or, indeed ANY non dom money.
The bias is now so bad that the tories might want to consider publically stating that the BBC is the mouthpiece of labour for this election and suggesting that any coverage they give should be viewed through this prism. This is fast becoming a disgrace in a supposedly democratic country.
Iain Martin in the Wall Street Journal wrote an article about a week ago pointing out that the Conservatives lacked attack dogs and were unwilling to go on the offense.
To me the Conservative Leadership seem like Arsenal 2010. They have a lot of able ball players but lack people able to tackle, win the ball and “put it about”. No Viera, Adams, Keown etc. Consequently Arsenal will often get bullied out of games and have won nothing for 5+ years.
All great teams had 1 or 2 hard men. Men that kept the other side at bay and warned off the thugs or dealt with them.
What we see with the Ashcroft saga is that the Conservatives are reticent about counter attacking. They have not gone for the open goals of the personal failings of Mandelson and the non dom Privy Councillor Paul. The Conservative PR people are too timid. They are not battling for the party. Hilton’s fluffy stuff just does not work when your opponents pick up guns against cricket bats.
Our Glorious Leader due to give a press conference at 9 with Zuma
112, maybe given the success of his first propagandist witch, I mean, wife, Brown’s decided to follow Zuma’s example and will Female Colleagues numbering from One (chief propagandist) through to Seventy-Three.
Another one to taunt ‘em with up the ‘Molestrangler’s Arms’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1255319/David-Cameron-Tory-party-gay-parents-time-off.html
If I carry on like this I’ll be getting a job as UKIP’s agent.
72
I’m beginning to think the Labour % is a little on the low side, probably now 30% at least. I didn’t take the confusion in the Tory ranks that seems to be developing.
The more you press Labour the stronger it seems to be getting, the more you press the Tories the weaker they seem to be getting.
I doubt the LDs were on 16% in the first place. Even if they were they’ve taken 2 of others and 1 of Labour.
Welcome to the wierd world of Yougov.
As above, I think Others will get about 10% at the GE. Leaving 40-30-20 for the main three, give or take 2%.
111 TC
Exactly. We should be seeing a full-scale onslaught against Lord Paul, Jack Dromey, etc. from the Tories.
They should bring it up in every single interview, get friendly journalists to rake through their past for dirt, press him on his pensions grab for his workers, etc.
He is a sitting target, and yet they are too genteel to go for him.
The date of the Budget is now an important factor in the date of the GE. We need a Budget and a quick short Finance Act prior to the election as otherwise HMRC will not have the authority to collect income tax after 5 April 2010.
For a GE on April 8, we would need a Budget next week and a Finance Act pushed through before disolution of parliament on March 11. As we have not had an announcement yet about the date of the Budget, that looks unlikely.
So, that leaves May 6 (probable Budget date 24 March) or June (with the Budget possibly in April). June has the benefit of it being further away from the potentially bad economic news in April that we have rehersed here before.
Are there any “events” that might arise during May that might count against a June GE? One is the locals. Any others?
114: So let me get this right coldstone….you’re attacking the tories for saying something which you agree with?
Or maybe you should just accept that the society has fundamentally changed its attitudes towards homosexuality, and that includes the tory party.
Oh dear the BNP have been caught using dodgy photos again…
http://www.politicalpenguin.org.uk/2010/03/bnp-photo-fail/
On thread, I think it’s a bit fanciful to ascribe a daily blip in the Lib Dem vote share to the debate announcement. More over-analysis of polls, methinks.
116 - Wibbler.
By their extreme ineptness the Tories have managed to maximise the damage to themselves over Ashcroft, both in its timing and in their shiftiness.
How can this have happened?
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the magnificent William Hague.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/8080379.stm
F1: USF1 not competing in 2010, so we’ll have 12 teams lining up.
http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2010/3/10484.html
Got to say that the driver lineup looks fantastic this year. SHould be a great season, if a bugger to predict.
A 3 point change is within the margin of error.
You are all trying to explain random fluctuations. This happens every day on the stockmarket, where shares fluctuate up and down. At the end of the day, and hacks come up with some plausible sounding, but completely irrelevant, explanation post-hoc.
You Gov tends to give LDs a lower share than other pollsters. I suggest nothing has changed in the last few days. The parties are still at about 40-30-20.
116 wibbler. Yes Dromey is an open goal with all the Unite money going into Labour. But apart from a joke from Hague where is it in the media? The Conservatives are silent on it. The people they put up for interviews are not briefed on it. Their PR people are unable to get that story into the media linked to Unite’s funding. They are failing at their job.
The Dromey scandal only partly appeared in labour papers. No mention of the Unite “40% of Labour’s funding”.
If Ashcroft is a problem by one person funding 1% to 2% of a party then Unite are a massive problem funding 40%.
Off thread Geert Wilders seems to have done rather well in the local elections in the Netherlands…
http://www.euronews.net/2010/03/04/far-right-makes-gains-in-dutch-local-poll/
121 tim. It has happened because of timidity and playing by gentleman’s rules and treating Ashcroft with trust.
It is also because the Conservatives PR team are both inept and lack influence with DC. They are too distant from the strategy and tactical discussions.
121 - Oh sweet Lord. Still banging on about this I see, yawn.
121 tim, your infatuation with Wee Willie appears to be out of control. Is he the new Nadine, or has he replaced MMR in your life? Get some help, and soon before you’re arrested for stalking the man.
103. Thanks GeoffH
So, over 90 years since such low numbers supported The Big Two.
That has got to be good for democracy. The Expenses debacle has seriously weakened Westminster and Whitehall. And that is thoroughly good news for ordinary people.
124. The media want a close contest. The BBC want a close contest and a hung parliament.
The media and the BBC are in a bubble.
Tax cuts in 3 years time - unless you vote Yellow or Red
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/benedictbrogan/100028411/tory-tax-cuts-in-year-three/
Hello Schards!
116
It’s very strange.
As if the Conservatives are just going through the motions.
After successive terms where the tories have been elected to clear up Labour’s mess (and been pilloried by all and sundry), maybe the Conservatives are going to let Brown suffer the consequences of his own scorched earth policies.
Just get things close enough to move forward in the face of the catastrophic measures that Brown and Labour will be forced to introduce.
…We all need something we can trust. I hope in our small way this newspaper does its bit by punching above its weight…
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/hamish-mcrae/hamish-mcrae-now-its-the-bbcs-turn-to-experience-a-dose-of-reality-1914767.html
Wonderful news, house prices are falling.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8549000.stm
116
I’m not attacking them, I’m illustrating the gap that exists between the Cameroons, (I’ve never met one) and the sort of Tories that exist in this neck of the woods.
I’m working on this game, (best after a couple of pints) ‘How Cameroon are you’ a sort of question and answer game.
‘Look into my eyes, and repeat after me, Mrs Thatcher was wrong when she called Nelson Mandela a terrorist’ that sort of thing.
Should be a hoot.
A bit of reality wrt yesterdays love in
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/geraldwarner/100028361/stockholm-syndrome-rules-as-journalists-laud-michael-foot-champion-of-the-closed-shop/
“Foot also looks good today because he was a conviction politician – now a vanished breed. But take a look at the convictions and the lustre can only wane. Few people in Britain in the 20th century were so infallibly wrong about so many things.”
Piers Morgan must be busy - Cameron forced to go with lightweight newcomer interviewer..
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/7361638/David-Cameron-to-film-behind-the-scenes-interview-with-Sir-Trevor-McDonald.html
136. Certainly plenty of people had convictions under the rule of some of the individuals Footie admired.
Provocative article from Iain Dale.
“Why Don’t the LibDems Select BME Candidates in Winable Seats?”
“The LibDems don’t have a single black or minority ethnic MP, MEP, AM, MSP, or London Assembly member. They also don’t have a single BME PPC, to my knowledge, in a winnable seat.”
http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2010/03/why-dont-libdems-select-bme-candidates.html
Is this because few BME Lib Dems have the wealth to get themselves into Lib Dem seats/targets that Huhne and that chap Nicholson have? http://streathamlibdems.org.uk/
“It takes a millionaire to be a Lib Dem MP”.
108. Easterross - “This election will not be won or lost over 270 minutes of Brown v Cameron v Clegg or any other TV debates.
This election will be won or lost by the foot soldiers, the volunteers who have been pounding the streets in the marginals and elsewhere for months and years.”
Nail. Head. Hit.
You are on form today Mark.
This is precisely why I am so happy and confident going into UK GE 2010: the SNP’s troops are in absolute tip-top condition. Whereas Labour’s troops look like the last stragglers of Napoleon’s army retreating from Moscow.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/Retreat_of_Napoleon_Army_from_Moscow_1812.jpg
BRING IT ON!
Interesting..
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/787/does-the-taller-candidate-always-win-the-election
Dont know how applicable it is in the UK though…
Wonder if theres going to be some discussion about who stands next to who during the debates..
3 anti-terror arrests after the BA worker last week
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23811875-three-more-arrested-in-anti-terror-dawn-raids.do
100. The seats I was refering to is the significant number of seats that are Lib/Con contests were the existing ‘rump’ Labour vote is larger than the current majority or the likely swing from Lib to Con.
Peter Hain has already argued for Tactical voting, giving it semi official approval. My guess is in these seats the Lab vote will collapse, and could deprive the Con seats that ONS would give them. It could actually mean that the Con could have a nett loss of seats in these Lib/Con marginals not the nett gain everyone is expecting.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting there isn’t a swing to the Con party, I still thnk they are the only party who could win a majority. I just don’t think it is as clear cut as it looks. And remember 10 days ago anyone who came on here and even suggested a hung parliament was shot down in flames!
140, your psot reminds me of an advert for… lettuce or cabbage I think. Florette, it was called.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvzjV-zakWE
140.
Stuart - any word on how things are going in Linlithgow ? I’ve got 5/2 SNP.
Scotsman breaks the wall of silence
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/news/Council-was-set–to.6122138.jp
“GLASGOW City Council chiefs were preparing to declare that former leader Steven Purcell was suffering from a “chemical dependency” before being overruled prior to his resignation on Monday.”
The end or the beginning ?
116: I’m not going to play this game with you coldstone. Parties change over time. Whilst you’re banging on about stuff which happened nigh on 30years ago.
Yes there people within the tory party which probably don’t like Cameron. Theres plenty in the labour party which think they should bring back Clause 4 as well and still call each other comrades.
121. I wonder why Hague would subject himself to that? The make up department didn’t do him any favours but he must have known what to expect. If he wanted to evade the question why turn up?
Brown totally dire and emotionless even when talking about Jon Venables
132 Everyone in the media considers Cameron is a “long player”. he does not rush into a position. He knows where he wants to go and how to get there and will do so in his own time.
why on earth would the Tories unleash the attack dogs yet? The GE has not yet been called. March has gone and very quickly april too will no longer be an option. Cameron will let things nudge along until Easter and then I suspect the dogs will be unleashed and Labour will simply not know what has hit it.
Meanwhile up and down the country Tory candidates and voluntary workers are pounding the beat, beefing up pledge lists.
I am sure the LibDems are doing exactly the same thing in their key patches.
What is Labour doing? Banging on about Lord Ashcroft. We see many supposedly safe Labour seats without candidates only 10 weeks before the GE. Is Labour really treating the electorate with such contempt?
East Lothian is a perfect example. Labour cannot even unseat an unpopular MP who is suffering from a stress related illness and thus not fully able to defend herself. They cannot de-select her without going through 3 committees at least twice. This is the constituency of Labour’s so called Scottish leader after all, not some backwoods seat. At the rate Labour is going, Anne Moffat will remain the candidate simply because its committee structure will run out of time to deselect her.
Labour 2010 makes the Tories 1997 look like a highly efficient fighting machine. Frankly unless YouGov starts to look seriously at its weighting system, it may prove to be closer to 1992 than 2005 with its prediction abilities.
On topic: No
If you want to understand the likely impact of the leaders’ debates, this is I think the most perceptive analysis:
http://tinyurl.com/58ogvs
140
I’ve never been convinced that all that door knocking etc. does much good. I can’t imagine a surer way of losing votes around here than interrupting an episode of ‘Emmerdale’
Its only done to convince party workers they are of some value.
139 - define “winable seat” for the Lib Dems. Arguably, given the current spread predictions show a nett loss, there aren’t any.
Shortest press conference ever?
144. Morris Dancer
116. “He is a sitting target, and yet they are too genteel to go for him”
I don’t think Andy Coulson will be happy with your characterization as ‘genteel’!.
152: I think it also includes seats which the Lib-Dems hold, but the Lib Dem candidate is changing.
Hold on, you’re saying the Lib Dems aren’t going to win any extra seats at all?
manifesto’s, PPBS and signing up to be a candidate is overrated too - best just to hide under a duvet and pretend you are an MP.
145. Ah so that’s what ‘hectic lifestyle’ means.
156 - my own view is that the spreads have it about right.
145. TGOHF - “… any word on how things are going in Linlithgow? I’ve got 5/2 SNP.”
Keep watching this space.
160. I’m on…
160. Are events or footsoldiers the main factor ?
150 - Richard.
You do have a point, and leaders debates usually cement pre held views of well know candidates, unless they drop a bollock they usually change little.
There is an argument however that for a less well known candidate they may have more impact and this is where Clegg may benefit.
You also need to consider the fact that it won’t just be those who watch the actual debates, clips will be shown all over the news and as all three networks are involved the pre and post hype will be big.
Harry Flashman’s spirit: you can get 3/1 on the SNP for Linlithgow and East Falkirk with Paddy Power.
Disclaimer: Stuart Dickson is not an Independent Financial Adviser. The value of your investments may go down, as well as up.
156 - I also think that as the incumbency effect is much larger for the Lib Dems, many of whom win as individual personalities rather than because of their party affiliation, it makes it harder to “hand on” a seat. I fully expect seats where the incumbent is standing down to fall.
I await an invite to Lord Ashcroft’s birthday bash today,he has reached 64 years of age.
Next year he will qualify for his State Retirement Pension and will he draw it?
I am rather hoping to take William Hague’s place at the birthday do.
163: The danger is though that in the media pre and post debate, the Lib Dems will be shut out, and it’ll all be about Cameron vs Brown.
Was chatting to a friend last night and he said that at least one of the debates won’t happen because the PM will be called urgently away to deal with some terrorist plot or something. I think that that is a mite cynical.
164. Ta - I don’t have a PP account and my bet is already placed. Its a top up decision now.
150 I think Richard is being somewhat unkind for obvious reasons.
I expect Nick Clegg to do well and to boost his party’s vote. This will not help the Tories at all.
163 tim - Clegg may benefit, but there’s a danger of double-counting; the LibDems would get more exposure anyway during the campaign.
As you say, it is the news clips which are more important than people sitting through four and a half hours of debates. (Is anyone going to watch the whole set of three?) All three leaders are perfectly capable of getting some good soundbites in, so in that sense the effect will probably be fairly neutral. Obviously that could change if any of the three makes some major gaffe or storms off the set. But I think all three will be playing safe; they’ll have rehearsed all the main themes which are likely to come up, so I don’t expect any fireworks or big mistakes.
165. I agree Tabman - which is why potentially the 2014/15 election is also a headache for the Lib Dems, with a second round of losses on the cards as various greybeards call it a day.
155 Roger, Coulson seems to have had little influence this year.
167 - I think that depends upon media expectation and what happens.
The pre-written story for Lab and Con ias as follows:
- Brown: useless
- Cameron: slick
If anything upsets that then it will become news.
re lib Dem campaign bounce.One of the enduring legends is that the Lib dems alays pick up in the camapign.Some of this particularly back in the 70.s and 80s was simply that voters dicoverd to their suprise that there was actually Lib standing in their constituency thatthey could acually vote for.
So what is the truth?looking at the ICM data for the last 5 elections shows that
1.if the beginning of the campaign is defined a sjanuary the Lib demsm always poll above that figure,apart from 1983.
2.if you take the average of the Lib dem ICM polls in the month preceding the GE the actual polling is always higher (except 83 the same)
The rality is that the cmapign gain is realtively small>if you look at the last 3 GE’s the average gain from Jan is c 1.5%,from the previous month 1.1.
So on the prec campaign period the lib dems on average gained roughly 0.5%, and the actual campaign itself 1.0%
So what of the 2010 GE?Based on a ICM Guardian of 21% the Lib dems would poll 22.6%,almost exactly the same as 2005.however two things are different>first the reaction of the public to a hung aprlaiamnet which may sqeeze the Libdems ,but gainst this the benefit of the TV debates which may help.
At this stage I assume they will cancel out and the final figures I would go for are Con 41%,Lab 28 and Lib 21.
H
170 Jonathan - If Clegg does well, won’t that be at the expense of Labour? That certainly seems to have been the pattern over the past year or so in the polls.
At the last election there was a much hyped leaders question time. It made absolutely no difference.
174: The danger of a ‘Black Swan’ is pretty low looking at the rules and the setup, and what we know about the leaders.
Egro, a big load of fuss in the media about nothing at all, and little impact.
172 - runnymede. Mandelson’s government will be forced to the polls in 2011 after a run on the pound, and after a lacklustre campaign by William Hague, Clegg hoovers up support form both to emerge the clear winner in votes (if not seats). Public outcry at the unfairness of the result leads to a short-lived national government charged with bringing in STV, and we all live happily ever after in 2012.
The end
176 You need Lib Dem switchers to defeat Labour. Why else has Cameron has spent a lot of effort courting them.
Look at it empirically. Labour have managed to obtain a majority in the past 13 years despite a pretty large block of LD MPs.
Most of these LD MPs hold seats that were once vital pillars of John Major’s commons majority.
You can’t afford to right them off. Labour can.
Gloomy quote in the guardian from the chairman of John Lewis about the recovery. If Labour’s fightback has been due to an increase in consumer confidence, will the optimism fade before or after the election.
“I think we’re in a bit of a false dawn, I’m afraid to say … Getting out of the crisis has cost an eye-watering amount of money and we simply haven’t started to pay the price for that,” he said. “Everyone wants to think it’s going to return to how it was two years ago. It’s not going to happen.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/03/services-bounce-warning-uk-recovery
172 - The crop of Lib Dem MPs really isn’t that old. The average in 2005 was a few years younger than Tory and Labour. That will close a bit in May as more Tories and Labour are retiring proportionately, but not fundamentally. Seven Lib Dems are retiring this time and I expect around half a dozen again next time would be par for the course.
Already the prime focus of Labour’s ground campaigns in these crucial battle-grounds is to put the squeeze on known Lib Dem supporters (including me!) on their database to “unite behind Labour incumbents to stop the Tories”. Will they be less responsive if there’s a higher profile Nick Clegg?
It could be we/they may not like what they see of Clegg on TV?
So what the Tories have said “vote Yellow get Brown” is 100% correct.
The Lib/Dems will never be the leading party in the UK, and I think people voting in this election will be voting to select a party to run the country, so I do not see the Lib/Dems getting above 20%.
180 ps right = write of course. Damn my phonetic brain. Once spelt “no” - know.
For Cammo to win a majority, the Tories need to make gains both from Labour and the Lib Dems (and dare I say from the DUP!). My concern is that Labour does a good job in defending its second tier marginals, but due to a poor Lib Dem showing, the Tories make greater than expected inroads into their Lib Dem target list and end up with a majority.
I have no problem with a strong Lib Dem showing resulting in a dozen Labour seats switching over to the Lib Dems (City of Durham, etc.) as long as this is accompanied by a strong Lib Dem defence against the Tories. I see the seat totals as Tory and non-Tory; whether the non-Tory are Red or Yellow is of lesser significance in my mind.
182. Is it not that the half decent ones are old - Cable and er Cable and er Cambpell ? No , er Cable ?
123. You cannot talk about the “change” being “within the margin of error”, since the second poll also has its own margin of error. See fuller explanation on a previous thread. In any event the MOE of the LibDem share is smaller that that of the other parties, around 2% rather than 3%.
As a matter of fact this movement of three points in the LibDems share is significant (Alpha = 3.2%). They most likely have moved up a bit, although not necessarily by three points…
180 Jonathan - I agree in respect of LD/Con battlegrounds, but realistically there are only around 10 to 20 of those where the outcome looks uncertain.
It’s the much more numerous Lab/Con battlegrounds which really matter, and in those the LD vote holding up is bad news for Labour.
181. He may be correct to say it is a false dawn.
“UK house prices recorded their first monthly fall since June with a 1.5% drop in February, the Halifax has said.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8549000.stm
151 Coldstone. As far as knocking on doors is concerned, who on earth is prepared to stand at the door chatting about politics?? There is always something you would rather be doing, meals, TV, and a few more that need not be specified. Most people would say anything just to get rid of them - even Tories for Palmer. How can canvassers be so naive as to believe what they are told?
183 - I’m sure 20 years ago you could have found people who would say the Lib Dems “will never” get 60+ seats, or further back people who said Labour “will never” form a governement.
180. Jonathan - you are right. Removing the Lib Dems from a substantial number of previously Tory seats is vital for the Conservatives’ hopes of obtaining a lengthy period in office.
182. SNP - overall, perhaps not. But key individuals in key seats are getting rather long in the tooth.
181
That is exactly the message the tories should be spouting! It’s very worrying all this news of rebounding consumer confidence etc, which IMHO is entirely unfounded. The govt has put vast amounts of other people (and countries’, and printed…) money into desperately propping up the economy at huge cost but they are running out of steam.
Yhe nightmare scenario for the tories is taking over with a small majority just as the second dip down starts and not having prepared the ground to be able to blame Labour.
Why are the tories not killing the govt over the economy??
I think you are wrong on this, Mike, and so is much of the discussion here. Conservative posters naturally believe in the Great Man theory. So they see the exposure in the media of any party leader as crucial to his party´s share of the vote.
To some extent, perhaps.
But far more significant is expenditure on local campaigning. I think it was Easterross who touched onthis somewhere above.
Liberal Democrats have only a fraction of the funding available to Labour and the Tories. So they tend to save it up and spend only when the time is right. That is now.
We read on various websites about the level of Lib Dem activity - not all of it in the usual places (held and target seats).
With the new rules since the beginning of January, the amount of money that the Tories can spend is severely restricted, and so the playing field is considerably levelled. I think the Lib Dem share of the vote will continue to rise - and the appearance of Nick Clegg in the three-party debates will just be a bonus.
190
With you on that one.
‘D’ynow I was going to vote for X but now I’ve spoken to you, the scales have fallen from my eyes, I realise that you’ve prevented me from making a catastrophic mistake, I’m really really grateful: now piss off’
Thinking aloud…
Of course, if the leaders are canny, they will keep one or two major policy pledges or announcements under wraps and announce them during the debates.
Thusly, I think Cameron - as putative PM - could be the one who benefits most.
For instance, were Cameron to announce that he will hold a referendum on the future membership of the EU to ’settle the issue once and for all’ or to ‘have a public debate on the UK’s relationship with Europe’ (or similar guff), he could, at a stroke, bring several thousand UKIPers back into the Tory fold*.
Brown, as PM, could announce an election give-away (another pre-election Council Tax for pensioners, perhaps?), though if Parliament has been dissolved, such a luxury will not be within in his gift. Else, he does not really have much room for manoeuvre.
Clegg can promise anything he likes but he will be largely drowned out by the big beasts. That said, he is a good media performer and very photogenic - factors that will possibly work in his favour.
I just think that the Tories are in a good position to use the leaders’ debates to spring a few surprises.
*I am not a UKIPer and desperately hoping Cameron makes such an announcement, btw. Strategically, such a move would be hugely advantageous to the Tories, however. He doesn’t actually have to honour his pledge, although it could well strengthen his hand considerably with the EU if there is a ‘withdrawalist’ majority.
It is a calculation that should fill all of us with an immense sense of dread: there is now a 72.2 percent chance of a hung parliament. Or so says Michael Saunders, Citigroup’s chief European economist and the one man in the City everybody listens to when it comes to the interaction between parliamentary politics and the financial markets.
His model, which incorporates the standard data about the Westminster first-past-the post system, and into which he has fed all of the latest polls, also suggests that there is just a 6.2 percent chance of strong Tory majority, a 19.1 percent chance of a weak one and 2.5 percent chance of a Labour majority. Given the terrible state of our public finances, and Britain’s desperate need for a strong government with a clear commitment to fiscal reform, all of this is little short of disastrous, as I argue in today’s cover story in the magazine. No wonder the financial markets are so spooked: after months of assuming a Tory victory, they are starting to price in chaos and uncertainty, hence the collapse in sterling and spike in gilt yields.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5814998/britain-on-the-brink.thtml
186 - indeed. The geriatric Laws, Clegg and Goldsworthy* are others that spring to mind.
* - I think I’m safe to post that name, Marcus Woods isn’t on and I wouldn’t want to give him palpitations
‘The one man in the City everybody listens to when it comes to the interaction between parliamentary politics and the financial markets.’
Haha what a nice plug there
195 - canvassing is about voter ID for GOTV, not about converting people.
If people decide their voting intentions on the strength of a computer graphic showning all three leaders, then I’m off to Zimbabwe. Are the public THAT fickle?
188 In 1992 Major had a majority in the 20s. The Lib Dems had only twenty-two seats back then.
I simply suggest you need to get most of the 30+ LD seats you have lost back, even if you perform well against Labour, if the Tories are to win a majority.
You would have to be expecting a 1983,1987 style performance to get a working majority and tolerate such a large LD contingent.
BTW I suspect the LD vote in Labour marginals was already pretty high back in the Iraq war election of 2005. You would be foolish to rely on it.
Errr is she really really big?
http://www.politicshome.com/uk/story/2394/ukip_expells_mep.html
Or is he really really small?
198. I said “half decent” - those 3 are pygmies that would score 1/2 the recognition factor with the average voters compared to Cable.
Has there ever been a party where the leader isn’t the most recognisable figure ? Cons with IDS ?
197 - 72.2+19.1=91.3 +6.2=97.5 +2.5 = 100 so there is precisely 0 chance of a Lib Dem government according to that article.
re 196. Who the hell gives a monkeys about Europe? About 2% of the electorate. It is a non-issue and if he is wise Cameron will endeavour to get through the campaign without mentioning it.
203 - That’s a she?
205
No one is expecting a Libdem government, but a government with Libdems in it?
149. I so hope you are right but I fear not. I think the Tories are scared of being aggressive because Labour so successfully labelled them the nasty party. Look what they managed to do to Grayson recently. It will be very difficult for Tories to attack the obvious failings of this Government without being immediately contradicted by a so called expert.
I also fear that we underestimate the power of incumbancy which this Government has ruthlessly used to dominate the media agenda. It is not just a question of bias; it is the ability to control the release of information, guide the story and have any number of placemen come onto the media and give an “impartial” view. Incumbancy is a powerful tool-just look at the US congress. I think we underrate it in this country because we used to have an impartial apolitical civil service. That is no longer the case.
It may get better in a campaign where there is a clearer duty to give equal time and consideration but don’t count on it.
I am 48 and an elected Government has only been removed once since I was allowed to vote. This Government has already survived an illegal war that killed over 100,000. We are dangerously close to a post democratic age.
What has been distorting most opinion polls until recently has been a kind of Presidential Element, where people are sort-of making a choice between President Cameron or President Brown. This may have some limited validity in Con-Lab marginals, but nowhere else (Con-LD marginals, Con-SNP marginals, Lab-LD marginals, Lab-SNP marginals, various 3-way marginals etc.). This Presidential problem with Opinion Polls has possibly been aggravated by the fact that we now have a very contraversial US President, whom many British voters either adore or detest.
Cast your mind back to around December 2008. Then the political news was almost entirely the election of Barack Obama. The polls looked then as if voters were making a choice between World Leader. “Labour” meant “Gordon Brown, not Barack Obama”. “Conservative” meant “Barack Obama, not Gordon Brown”. “Liberal Democrat” meant “the EU”, which would now mean “von Rompuy”.
re 197 Well Mr Saunders is certainly not backing up his projection with any betting.
And let us not forget that the proven record of the pollsters is that they overstate Labour. Knock at least two points off every Labour share in all polls apart from AR to get a better picture. With AR add 2 points.
Cons sign up Clarence Mitchell (via Guido)
http://www.prweek.com/news/rss/988072/Conservative-Party-recruits-McCann-spokesperson-head-media-monitoring/
“Coulson was keen to stress that Mitchell would not be an active spokesman for the party.
‘Clarence will be monitoring output and coverage ensuring that our campaign team is on its game,’ Coulson told PRWeek.”
207 - Nikki Sinclaire (for it is she) is reportedly 6’4” tall.
202 Jonathan I suspect the LD vote in Labour marginals was already pretty high back in the Iraq war election of 2005. You would be foolish to rely on it.
True, but presumably that is already factored into the headline voting intention polls, so again we have to be careful not to double-count.
What a fantastically crap article from the Speccie.
Currency crisis?
http://www.economy-news.co.uk/pound-exchange-rates-03201003.html
Nope.
Gilt Yields Spike?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/marketforceslive/2010/mar/03/1
Errr.
Greece going ot IMF?
http://www.sofiaecho.com/2010/03/04/867832_eu-imf-welcome-greeces-revamped-recovery-plan
Hardly.
And we are supposed to take Fraser Nelsons rag seriously?
203: She is, I beleive 6ft 4. So yep..
197. Citigroup article on hung parliament chance 72%
And Labour only slightly less likely than the Tories to emerge as largest party
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/27329818/UK-Election-Update-Hung-Parliament-Risks-Rising
Agree totally…
re 204. Then how come that Clegg has such good approval ratings?
In addition coldstone will be shocked that she is a lesbian,.the horror of those rabid rightwingers voting for her!!
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/lib-dem-candidate-accused-of-buying-seat-1915822.html
An “enormously wealthy” businessman hoping to become a Liberal Democrat MP has given the party almost £300,000 in just three years, it has emerged.
The money has been donated by Chris Nicholson, who is standing for the Liberal Democrats in Streatham, south London. Keith Hill, who is stepping down as Labour MP for Streatham at the election, told the Commons that nearly all of the money had been spent on campaigning in the constituency. He added: “Even Lord Ashcroft cannot compete with spending on this gargantuan scale.”
As one of those polled yesterday and a Lib Dem I wish I could agree with OGH. It may well be the LDs are down to 17% tonight agian as happened a week ago when we were at 19%. As a very sad person who studied statistics at university, please do not read much into each individual daily tracker. If they were tracking the same people every day then trends would emerge more readily. But with different people, no matter how hard one tries there will be different results.
What a fantastically crap article from the Speccie.
Currency crisis?
Nope.
Gilt Yields Spike?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/marketforceslive/2010/mar/03/1
Errr.
Greece going ot IMF?
http://www.sofiaecho.com/2010/03/04/867832_eu-imf-welcome-greeces-revamped-recovery-plan
Hardly.
And we are supposed to take Fraser Nelsons rag seriously?
217. Better than Cables ?
faisalislam
Double dip in housing market. Halifax monthly house figures DOWN 1.5 per cent in February. Ouch!
re 216. And how much has Citigroup lost for its investors over the past three years?
193 Jon C
“Why are the tories not killing the govt over the economy??”
Is a good question. I think people have got used to the idea of large personal debts so the idea of government being in debt doesn’t seem that scary.
Also most people aren’t that interested in economics, (in the same way they are not interested in the science or medicine behind alot of day to day things) but are happy just to leave it to the professionals. While this is sensible in allowing people to get on with life, it leads to a disconnect between understanding the effect of government action, especially when there are long time lags between cause and effect. eg. Gordon Brown’s tripartate regulation system was attacked by Lilley as being bad but this wasn’t proved until 10 years later.
In between Gordon Brown was allowed to say stupid things like this which he should be crucified for but because it was along time ago is forgotten.
“In November 2003 during Treasury questions in the House of Commons, Cable asked Gordon Brown, then Chancellor: “Is not the brutal truth that the growth of the British economy is sustained by consumer spending pinned against record levels of personal debt, which is secured, if at all, against house prices that the Bank of England describes as well above equilibrium level?”
Brown’s answer has haunted him ever since: “We have been right about the prospects for growth in the economy and the Hon Gentleman has been wrong.”
216 Actually Rod the article says the Tories are 2:1 more likely tan Labour to have more seats, I would dispute that is ’slightly less likely’ for Labour
re 221. There are no leader ratings for Cable because he isn’t leader.
216 Quite so, Rod. However the interesting bit is in the last three bullet points. Do you agree with those?
* A hung parliament would be highly unstable and would therefore make a credible programme of fiscal restraint extremely unlikely.
* Our fiscal premium model suggests this is not yet fully priced into gilt yields.
* Unless we get a Conservative government with a clear majority, we think gilt yields will have to rise to about 4.75% and possibly higher if inflation remains a threat
The country is indeed in danger of sleep-walking into a disastrous outcome.
216, so we have Citi’s forecast. What have the Met Office and the British Collective of Prostitutes to say?
149. Easterross - “We see many supposedly safe Labour seats without candidates only 10 weeks before the GE.”
For example: Dundee West, where Labour have STILL not officially re-selected Jim McGovern MP.
I note that Jim McFarlane is standing for the new “Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition”. That will not help Labour’s cause in the seat.
Bookies’ best prices - Dundee West (incumbent: Jim McGovern, Lab maj over SNP = 5,379)
SNP 4/9 (Bet365, Ladbrokes, Paddy Power)
Lab 13/8 (same bookies)
LD 100/1 (same bookies)
Con 125/1 (PP)
195 Coldstone. The best response - “Of course I’ll vote for you. Make sure you send a car round for my poor old mother”. To see three cars arriving at the same time would be more fun than the election.
Do we have any polls due soon, excepting YouGov?
229. I live in Dundee West as a result of boundary changes and we were recently canvassed by Labour on behalf of McGovern. I wasn’t there to ask but there was no hint that he was not standing again.
221:When a country gets into trouble as much as Greece has done, it makes little difference.
They’re hardly having it all sweetness and light, and are forced to ram the tax increases and cuts down the throats of the electorate. Whether it’s the IMF or the EU doesn’t matter, they’re still having to do the same to stay afloat.
213. 215. re. Ms Sinclair, isn’t this all a bit silly?
217. Mike - with almost 40% of respondents replying ‘don’t know’ when asked about Clegg’s personal qualities, I wonder if we are really comparing like with like.
An only vaguely known leader of a minor party isn’t going to generate the same scale of positives or negatives as one of the major party leaders, so these ratings are at least in part a statistical artefact.
206 Agreed. Annoucing a referendum on EU membership would cause panic in the city and a run on sterling. Clarke would resign from the frontbench and it would bring to the fore the absurd obsessiveness about the EU which did so much damage to the Tories in the 1990s.
231 ICM this weekend and Populus Monday and Mike did say maybe an AR this week?
149
Maybe.
But there is a danger of Cameron’s attack dogs dying toothless and ring-rusty, of old age, if he leaves it too late.
‘Secret SNP talks for power pact in a hung parliament’
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/politics/secret-snp-talks-for-power-pact-in-a-hung-parliament-1.1010837
There’s a bizarre assumption out there that Brown will not do well in the TV debates.
Don’t know where this comes from - perhaps it derives from PMQs which is a completely unique format and wholly different from the set ups for the TV discussions.
But Tories who think these debates are a walkover for Cameron are displaying - yet again - the characteristic compacency which has dogged their entire campaign.
Perceptions of the respondents and their responses are different from the yah-boo nonsense in the House of Commons. If Cam tries to use PMQ tactics on Brown in the TV debates, I guarantee Cam will come off worse - he’ll look like a petty sixth form common room debater lacking all substance (which is ironically exactly what he is).
Mr Brown has a great opportunity to reach out to the British people in this format and it is daft to write him off.
I don’t believe that there will be a hung parliament at the moment.
But I wonder…
Is there any value in the idea of Vincent Cable as Chancellor. Surely if there were to be a coalition, that would be a likely and popular outcome. A fun mischievous bet.
Sorry Mike, the latest YouGov figures for the L/Dems are an anomaly. Same for the whole YouGov daily caper.
234 - runnymede. The figures Mike quoted yesterday were as follows:
Brown 36-58 (6% undecided)
Cameron 50-39 (11% undecided)
Clegg 42-28 (30% undecided)
Maths can’t be your strong point if you describe 30% as “nearly 40%”. It also means that more than twice as many were able to express an opinion as not.
239. There is virtually no track record to go on - Brown has only faced up to the mighty Marr, GMTV and Piers in the last 10 years - we have no Brown on QT, Paxo or Jeff Randall tapes to study the form.
200 Tabman. Makes no difference - canvassers will be treated as a pain in the neck. Nothing the householder says can be relied on.They are as welcome as a young man from Nottingham who tries to sell you a new wash leather.
240 - His price on SPIN shortened on Sunday.
239 I don’t think anyone is writing Brown off, but taking into account his media performances to date it’s not wholly unreasonable to believe that there is a degree of risk there for Labour.
It does make life more exciting. And all pols will be watching their man from behind the sofa.
242 - I should also add, that Brown has seemingly been around for ever and Cameron has been party leader for 4 years. Clegg only became an MP in 2005, and has been party leader for just 2 years so, given those factors and the far lower proportion of media time given to a third party leader those figures are pretty good.
209
Ah, yes.
The ’selected expert’ syndrome, much favoured by the BBC.
jameskirkup
Tony Blair will publish his memoirs in September. Book to be called “The Journey”.
236 With the YouGov / News International link up will we get Populus anymore?
244 - speaking from personal experience that’s often true - but you usually get a “not interested” response and the door closing. Converse to that you also get the “I’ve lived here X years and no-one has ever bothered to knock on my door before, how nice to finally see someone” response and, when you get a positive ID (which is not often in this Tory area) the response is usually warm.
re Lord Ashcroft, Lord Ashcroft should resign, get his residence/tax status in order, then come back, much the same as labour bought back mandleson and others, David Cameron should accept his resignation, noting the good that Lord Ashcroft has done, ie crimestopper, VC medal collction in museum, Help Hero donations, point out that Lord Ashcroft has ‘not cost the British taxpayer a penny in expenses unlike others, and the fact of the matter is and will remain Lord Ashcroft’s monies, tax status, resident agreement with ‘government official’ were his business and to release any infomation without Lord Ashcroft’s permission would be a breach of confidentiality, a very serious situation as poor Ms Pratt found out. I believe Lord Ashcroft will be an asset for the long term future of the Conservative Party and tour our Country.
250 good point, perhaps not!
250: Just the period for all the fervour over the election to die down…no suprise there.
247 - That is true.
Cameron and Brown, unless they do something really stupid, have little chance of substantially changing the perception of them.
Clegg has more scope although transferring that perception into votes will be the bigger challenge.
The key constituency to watch will be natural Labour supporters in the South and South West in particular who, if turning out tactically could save the Lib Dems 8 or 9 seats.
249 - presumably by private jet. First class at the very least.
206 - Mike, I was just using Europe as an example! The wider point is that the debates could provide a perfect forum for making key announcements/pledges.
O/T: I don’t dispute that Europe is far down the picking order insofar as ishoos are concerned. But Cameron could still pick up a number of UKIP waverers by making such a pledge.
139 - I’ll say it again
BNP = Lib Dems for Pussies.
jameskirkup
Blair: my memoir is “an attempt to inform and shape current and future thinking as much as an historical account of the past.”
BusinessWeek: Weaker sterling might benefit the economy
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-04/pound-may-cement-boe-pause-as-stimulus-aids-economy-update1-.html
meanwhile,Lord Ashcroft can still support the Tories as, his status now declared, is above board.
240
Cable would sign up as Chancellor in a Lib/Dem/Lab coalition like a shot.
Would Cable bring a chunk (a big chunk) of the Lib/Dems with him?
Can Brown split the Lib/Dems? (Cable is probably better known in the country than Cleggy - and appears to have a Stainless Steel reputation among ‘Generation X-factor’).
236, cheers
239. “Mr Brown has a great opportunity to reach out to the British people in this format and it is daft to write him off.”
Which leader regularly takes questions from the public at meetings all over the country, is it Brown or is it Cameron?
232. Thanks DavidL
Do you think that 13/8 on a LAB HOLD is good value in Dundee West? Or are the SNP on for a Gain?
225. Quite right. I should have said “given a hung parliament.”
That’s what happens when I try to do three totally unrelated things at the same time…
260 - But Phillippe, surely that can’t be true.
Have you not been following the narrative of the currency hysterics on PB.
This is heresy
March 4 (Bloomberg) — Bank of England officials may keep their bond-purchase plan on hold today as the pound’s worst losing streak since October 2008 adds wind to the sails of Britain’s economic recovery.
Burn the witch!
239.
The problem for Brown that you gloss over, is that he cannot hide his irritation. He has no control over the image he projects in hostile situations, he doesn’t have the capacity to difuse tension with a smile and a joke. Cameron and Clegg are much more controlled and would be unlikely to demonstrate outward signs of uncomfort.
264 - Nick Clegg
246 Brown will do fine. He’s a boring speaker who is not pleasant on the ear, and he tends to lapse into tractor-stats mode too much, but he is good at scoring points. The format is not one which will expose his greatest weakness, which is to get angry and evasive when challenged with a hostile question.
150 Richard Nabavi - Matt cartoon.
Richard I am normally a lurker and as such read your posts with special interest as I think you make consistantly relvant points.
But on this occasion I do not agree. My wife is not engaged in politics-when the debates were announced on Monday I assumed I would be watching them on the computer as some dire cr@p on TV would be on which she wanted to watch-to my considerable surprise she intends to watch al 3 debates and make a final decision based on that. She was Labour 1997 and 2001, Green in 2005. She is leaning Tory this time, we live in a Labour held Kent marginal and she is aware of that fact.
This had me thinking about the TV debates and after a discussion I relised that 2 of the main negatives people (especially the un-engaged) feel about Cameron and the Conservatives will be addressed by the deabte.Namely he is “all style no substance” and “the Tory’s have no policies”. Even if people only watch the first 30 minutes of each programe (the likely attention span of most un-engaged members of the public) they will come away realising that A) Cameron does have substance and B) The Tory’s have policies.
I also agree with the comment up thread that the Lib Dems will need to proove they have policies as well and are not just “not them” The Hung Parliament meme means people will actually for the first time since 79 look at the LD’s knowing that what they promise may actually happen- even if it is only as part of a coalition. If Clegg comes out of the debates with people feeling they have clear policies they will do well, if he looks policy light I feel they willl be badly squeezed.
Do we really have to wait till April 12th 2010 to know for sure when the election will be??? I’m fed up with all this speculation and guess work. I looked at a 1987 election clip where the BBC said that the Conservatives would win by a majority of about 20 seats and there was a 2% margin of error. It turned out that they got a majority of over 100. In 1992 the BBC exit poll suggested a hung parlament with the Conservatives about twenty seats short. They ended up wining with over 20 seats this too was out of the supposive margin of error. People can speculate all they like with what the results maybe but to be frank we all have no idea until the election results start to pour in.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100028420/hurrah-for-george-monbiot/
…And guess what? I’ll be debating with him on Andrew Neill’s The Daily Politics on the BBC at lunchtime today. Maybe we’ll find the odd thing in common. But I doubt there’ll be much snogging…
232. DavidL
Jim McGovern is still missing from this list of official Scottish Labour candidates:
http://www.scottishlabour.org.uk/candidates
Hands up all those who pay more tax than they legally have to!
223. Dunno, they haven’t lost me money anyhow.
Mike, did you follow up that tip I gave about the Matthew Lebo lecture at Essex Uni (the guy who reckons PM approval is the key determinant of the election)?
“The Pendulum Swings Back” 16th March at 5.00pm in the Ivor Crewe room…
re 236. Alas no AR poll this week. We’ll have to wait until next week.
paulwaugh
Penty of rumours that Ashcroft quit as Tory dep chairman today. No white smoke yet tho
276 Ah, shame. Next week it is then!
265. I would be astonished if the SNP do not take Dundee West. It could only happen on a very bad night for them overall. The boundary changes really favour the SNP bringing in areas not only where they are well supported but also extremely well organised. I would like to think that the loss of those areas might bring Angus into play but fear that is over-optimistic!
No mention here of Jim McGovern fighting to retain Dundee West:
http://www.scottishlabour.org.uk/people/james_mcgovern/266/
cathynewman
am hearing electoral commission ashcroft report is good news for the tories…
277 - Too late to lance the boil now, just prolongs the story.
re 275. Rod - don’t assume that I read more than a fraction of the the threads and I didn’t see it.
I’ve read one or two of Lebo’s papers.
janemerrick23
blair obv thinks labour will lose. & wot if GB plans labour leadership contest for sept conf, as one post-election plan has it?
271 “I also agree with the comment up thread that the Lib Dems will need to proove they have policies as well and are not just “not them” The Hung Parliament meme means people will actually for the first time since 79 look at the LD’s knowing that what they promise may actually happen- even if it is only as part of a coalition. If Clegg comes out of the debates with people feeling they have clear policies they will do well, if he looks policy light I feel they willl be badly squeezed.”
Clegg knows this, i think, and it is probably a driver of his 4 key principles message. At least one of these (Pupil Premiums) was picked up as a possible Lib/Con agreement point by the Guardian yesterday.
The others are:
- £10k IT starting threshold
- Investment in the sustainable economy (Green industries)
- Reform of parliament and voting system
271 RT - I wasn’t being 100% serious (but I think it’s a great cartoon!)
You make an interesting point there. Perhaps with all the conflicting stories in the media people will indeed decide to watch the debates in order to make up their own minds. That would be a very positive development. A lot will probably depend on whether the leaders can make the first 10 minutes interesting enough to hold people’s attention.
269. “264 - Nick Clegg”
I don’t know how many public meetings Clegg has done, I dare say it’s more than Brown’s total. Of course if it was visiting schools that was the measure Brown would be miles ahead.
niallpaterson
Just asked Tories - is Lord Ashcroft still your Deputy Chairman? “As far as I am aware, yes. But I’ll check for you”.
niallpaterson
Labour expect Electoral Commission to rule in Ashcroft/Bearwood’s favour.
283. He did a seminar at Nuffield College last month, and it’s repeated at Essex on 16th March.
March 16, 2010
Matthew Lebo (Stony Brook University) ‘The pendulum swings back: a forecast of the 2010 British General Election’
http://www.essex.ac.uk/government/research/seminars~conferences.shtm
Perhaps you could invite him on PB?
280 It is a mystery but they are printing leaflets with his face on them (or possibly recycling old ones).
re 269. Having seen both Clegg and Cameron in action “on the hoof” they are both impressive. Both, of course, had to face leadership debates during their leadership campaigns.
Brown, of course, got it without a contest and didn’t face such an event.
boils inevitably dry up.
285. The £10k IT threshold is very admirable - how is it paid for ?
paulwaugh
I’m told Ashcroft future depends entirely on what the Elec Cssn come out with on his donations today. Cd stay, cd go, let’s see
gabyhinsliff
tin hats on for Labour conference this autumn RT @janemerrick23 blair’s memoirs to be published in sept. it’s called The Journey. discuss.
Ashcroft story runs out of steam just in time for Brown at Chilcot - unlucky.
279. DavidL - “The boundary changes really favour the SNP bringing in areas not only where they are well supported but also extremely well organised. I would like to think that the loss of those areas might bring Angus into play but fear that is over-optimistic!”
Err… David… I hate to point this out, but there have been precisely ZERO boundary changes in Scotland since UK GE 2005. The Dundee West (and Angus) boundaries are identical with the boundaries Jim McGovern (and Mike Weir) won on in 2005.
285 - You can add Trident to that list.
Looking at the thesis on Prime ministerial ratings being key to predicting elections we can draw three conclusions looking at the leaders ratings over the last four years.
1.Brown is his own worst enemy (Self inflicted wound over the GE in 2007)
2.The Sun is his best friend.
3.Cameron has been in position too long.
287 - indeed it is. I don’t know the total either but its about 20 I think.
293 - changes to tighten up CGT IIRC
224: Yes i remember that PMQs and Brown’s arrogantly awful reply
You remember it, and so do I, but how many others? cable dserves a lot of credit for his work on debt a few years ago, although he seems lately to have backtracked a lot on fiscal discipline.
“Brown has got us out of recession” is about the level of understanding most people have got
House prices may have started to fall again, having failed to return to long term trends last year - propped up at insane levels as I said by QE and borrowing and super-low and surely longer-term inflationary IRs. Coupled with higher petrol proices maybe joe average will finally notice things aren’t magically all good again?
It’s a sad state of affairs when you have to hope that economic misery is what penetrate thick Labour supporting skulls to save us all from 5 more years of them making the misery even worse
gabyhinsliff
…do wonder if he’s just finished the job. #ashcroft was all about investing in marginals pre-election, when spending less regulated….
Bookies’ best prices - Angus (incumbent: Mike Weir, SNP maj over Con = 1,601)
SNP 4/7 (Bet365)
Con 6/4 (VC, WH)
Lab 100/1 (various bookies)
LD (various bookies)
When Tory posters mention media bias!
Where have all the journalists gone?
Mar 4th 2010, 10:26
I HAVE to say that I find the downplaying of the Ashcroft story in the Tory-supporting press astonishing and disappointing.
Here we have a secretive figure who wields enormous influence in the Conservative Party and thus in the country. He once kept the party afloat and has accompanied William Hague, the man who got him ennobled, on official business. There is no doubt that Lord Ashcroft is an important public figure, whose tax status and “clear and unequivocal” assurances are of legitimate public interest.
And it now appears that the assurances Lord Ashcroft gave regarding his residence when he was made a peer were not quite what they may have seemed. And it seems as if Mr Hague only found out about Lord Ashcroft’s tax status in the “last few months”—possibly the worst answer Mr Hague could have given, since it implies that the Tory leadership was kept in the dark by Lord Ashcroft for a decade, but at the same time has known about his non-dom status for some months and said and done nothing about it.
Put aside political allegiance, and, if possible, the impending election. If you are not interested in the nexus of power and money in British politics, and in whether the people at the top keep their word, it seems to me you ought not to bother being a journalist (or edit a newspaper). This is without question a big story, and I am surprised to see the Telegraph and the Mail bury it on inside pages.
Incidentally, James Forsyth at the Spectator is an honourable exception to this rule/rant
From the Economist.
BBCLauraK
Gordon Prentice writes on his blog that there will be a public admin committee inquiry into Ashcroft - Thurs 18th March
273, awww, at first I thought you meant *you’d* be on the Daily Politics, Miss Plato
re 289. Tim might note that Lebo only uses the poll numbers of those “who approve” and pays no attention to those who “don’t approve”. I think that that Lebo’s right.
302. LD 100/1 (various bookies)
242. Calm down - I’m using a different set of figures to those quoted by Mike. They are in the YouGov poll linked below - when asked about the leaders’ personal qualities, 38% replied ‘don’t know’ for Clegg, compared to 11% for Cameron and 7% for Brown.
He’s not well-known and as a result doesn’t provoke strong positives or negatives on the scale of the other leaders. I suspect even among those expressing an opinion he is only vaguely known by many and that may produce a structural upward bias in his ratings as he is given the benefit of the doubt.
An alternative measure might be to look at the ‘who would be best PM’ question, where Clegg gets just 9% - only around half the level of his own party’s support versus 80-85% ratios for Brown and Cameron.
http://www.yougov.co.uk/extranets/ygarchives/content/pdf/TheSun-results_01.03-trackers.pdf
If I was cameron id do the following:
-Thank ashcroft for all his support but declare his non-dom status is no longer exceptable in the post-expenses parliament
-Manifesto pledge to retrospectively collectlost income from all sitting lords since 2005 if they wish to remain in the house
-Move grayling to deputy chairman position. Think we’ll all agree he’d be a great attack dog so put im there as he’s not a great HS.
-Bring back david davis to HS. Not only popular, a media performer and a man who knows his stuff, but a big enough appointment to throw ashcroft off the news.
Go cameron, go!!!
Oh just a thought, there could be a problem for the Libdems.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23811846-william-hague-in-the-dark-over-lord-ashcroft-tax-status-for-a-decade.do
See the comments.
297. You’re are right. The changes that moved us from Angus to Dundee West came into force in Feb 05 just before the election. We are still in Angus District which is of course heavily SNP and they recently won a local authority bye-election here (including parts which are a part of Dundee West) where they did really well. That was a part of the basis for my comments about their local organisation. Whether it is markedly stronger than in in 2005 would be harder to say. I had forgotten that the changes were in force in 2005 but I still think that they give the SNP a very strong chance in Dundee West.
308. I forgot to add - Kennedy was getting 15-20% ratings from YouGov on the ‘who would make the best PM’ question in 2005. Clegg’s ratings are only a bit better than those of Ming Campbell.
267 An absolute crock of shit. The weaker pound will not help us because growth in the Eurozone ,where the bulk of our exports go,is stagnant and business investment in Britain is down 24% on the year. Until the election is called and a feasible plan for reducing our debt is put in place,Britain’s economy will continue to suffer.
SkyNews:
Commons Public Administration Committee to investigate Ashcroft’s appointment as a peer.
Some dead horse….
264/269 - In fairness, opposition politicians have sod all else to do than going up and down the country holding public meetings. Not their fault of course - they’d love to have Brown’s problem in that respect. But it’s hardly a telling point to say they visit a lot of church halls to shoot the breeze.
By the way, Tabbers, you said a while ago you had news from the county of Devon that would interest me. Drop me an e-mail with said news if you would be so kind.
314 - Some Committtee with a Labour majority…
oh, and it appears ashcroft is in the clear over bearwood. http://twitter.com/paulwaugh
So is that two labour foxes killed?? Now if cameron moves him anyways he could yet turn this into a positive episode.
SkyNews:
Labour expect Electoral Commission to rule in favour of Ashcroft and his company.
305: lack duck committee. MPs will effectively breakup by the end of March anyway, so will there even be time for findings?
291. Good point Mike.
318 I sugget the likes of Huhne and the Labour mob who were braying about ‘dodgy money’ and ‘tainted’ election results might want to watch their step if that is the case.
Legitimate donor helps party remove unpopular government…..
311. Thanks David. I suspected that you must have known that, but your boundary change comments were a bit unclear.
Welcome to PB! I assume that you are Tory-inclined yourself?
My paternal grandparents were from Dundee, and AFAIAA that (Dickson) side of the family come pretty exclusively from the east coast, from the Mearns to north Fife.
On the maternal side I am a Gael (MacGregors, Mackintoshes etc). Has anyone seen Rob Roy? I met Liam Neeson when he was filming that movie. Crikey, he is very, very tall. And the wee actress he was having the on-screen romance with was an absolute midget. Very funny to see them in the same room.
318 - blatant abuse of a public body for party political purposes.
318 gabble
have they anything to say re your non-doms or have the complaints not been made yet.
PS Kraft making first job cuts in Midlands marginals today. 150 jobs gone.
304.ScottP, this witch hunt against Lord Ashcroft is utterly vindictive.
308 runnymede - What do you make of the Michael Saunders presentation (link at 216)? I don’t mean his election forecasting, but his take on the implications of a hung parliament for gilt yields and inflation.
Public Admin Commitee Membership:
Member Constituency Party
Dr Tony Wright MP, Labour
Mr David Burrowes, MP Conservative
Paul Flynn, MP Labour
David Heyes, MP Labour
Kelvin Hopkins, MP Labour
Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger Conservative
Julie Morgan, MP Labour
Mr Gordon Prentice, MP Labour
Paul Rowen, MP Liberal Democrats
Mr Charles Walker, MP Conservative
Jenny Willott, MP Liberal Democrats
Labour - 6
Tory - 3
LD - 2
Hmm, wonder what their conclusion will be
I know some parts of the media and PLP bedwetters are getting very excited about Ashcroft, but could we talk about something else? The article’s a perfectly good one.
On topic: Clegg has the most potential to improve because fewer people hate the Lib Dems than the Government or the Tories, and he’s relatively unknown. But if he’s awful then he could drive away the maybe voters who might back him. I suspect he’ll get some increase (1-3 points say), and will benefit from the campaign too.
I doubt Cameron or Brown will do anything but firm up support of those who back them and reinforce the loathing of the anti voters.
206, Mike I think it’s not the electorate that matter when it comes to Europe. It’s the Tory core. Immigration, taxes and Europe probably rank as the top three concerns among the Tory core and Cameron is ignoring all three. Labour are not ignoring their core, giving away money is what they do best and how the win votes so they have had an upturn in the polls since Darling has been silence by Broon and Balls about cutting the deficit.
Coulson seems to have silenced DC on the matters that the Tory core find important and they have lost their way. If DC wants to win a sizeable majority he needs to get down to business and make tax and immigration front and centre. Nothing energises a Tory like the promise of a tax cut and clamping down on immigration…
Finally they need to forget about the NHS, it’s Labour territory. If they win the Tories need to show by action that they are ‘the party of the NHS’ because right now it sounds hollow and doesn’t resonate with voters. Make education their big splash, bring back grammar schools and they will get a raft of support from not only the middle classes, but also the aspirational working classes. I went to a grammar school and I can tell you now that I got an education one can only expect in the private sector in the state sector. Parents care more about their child getting a decent education than ‘equality’ in schools (which really means dumbing down so the thickest kids don’t feel bad about failing).
So, to sum it up I have to disagree with you Mike, the Tories, by ignoring their core, are doing themselves a disservice.
Oh and Gordon Prentice has been the chief Inquisitor leading the witch hunt and, surprise surprise, sits on the commitee.
If I were one of the three torys on the PAC, I wouldn’t turn up. Any witnesses who think it is a witch hunt should do a Boris.
328 - top most read stories on BBC website
UK house prices ‘dropped by 1.5%’
British boy kidnapped in Pakistan
‘More birth defects’ in Fallujah
Child-rape accused dies in crash
Mutya applies for Sugababes name
Deadly waves strike cruise ship
Bank to announce interest rates
Outrage over Australia war games
Many die in India temple stampede
In pictures: Railway’s golden age
I note that the Tories are in joint FAV position in Berwickshire, Roxburgh & Selkirk. You can get CON at 10/11 with Bet365 (LIB DEM HOLD at 10/11 with Hills).
That’ll put the wind up em at Clifton Terrace!
329
A wonderful exposition of a core vote strategy.
Worked well for Hague and Howard?
Divisive, polemic and doomed to show the Conservative Party are the Party of the rich and prosperous and stuff the rest..
Back to 180 seats…
As a natural Conservative leaner, I would find it difficult to support that.
306 - There’s no contradiction.
Negative ratings can move first and give you a heads up on the following polls and spread markets.
Look at Camerons ratings last spring/summer with MORI.
Last May they dropped 6 points because of expenses I presume, it wasn’t until the next month that the positives fell by the same 6%
Thus Camerons net ratings dropped from +23 to +16 to +8 but it was the negatives that moved first.
332
It’s amazing that after all these years, some still don’t get it. Luckily, Cameron and Coulson do.
227. Not necessarily. We are (imho) moving into the “era of hung parliaments” due to the changes in the electoral system that I have discussed here numerous times (accelerated by the general contempt that politicians now attract).
This change requires new thinking. Hung Parliaments only produce crises when they are unanticipated, freak occurrences. When they become the norm, as in the rest of Europe, the markets and everyone else adjusts…
239
‘239.There’s a bizarre assumption out there that Brown will not do well in the TV debates.’
The ‘bizarre’ assumption as you call it,is based on Brown’s very poor public speaking and presentational skills,which is surely a matter of fact and not assumption.
329 The Tories have spent the past 15 years concentrating on their core vote. And much good it has done them.
Elections are won and lost by swing voters, and swing voters are often repelled by policies which are attractive to core voters.
335
unfortunately that adjustment leads to unelected civil servants taking more control of policy as the politicians haggle over who gets the biggest car in the new coalition.
336. Shurely shome mishtake? According to Nick Palmer, he’s positively Gladstonian in PLP meetings…
329. Pure delusion, I’m afraid.
337 – “Elections are won and lost by swing voters”
Exactly, appealing to the Country as a whole wins elections, pandering to ‘core voters’ is a killer, which is why Max’s views @329 is a suicide note for any party going down that route.
339, yeah, and Nick Robinson reckoned Jacqui Smith gave a speech to eclipse Cicero to the PLP, justifying ID cards for everyone. What a shame the public didn’t get to see this brilliant display of oratory and rhetoric.
So one question I haven’t yet heard answered is who the Tory’s coalition partners may be in the event that they fall just short.
We know that they have an alliance with the Ulster unionists but don’t think they will win many seats. Would they team up with the DUP?
What other bizarre concoctions could there be. Torys and SNP on a promise to support a yes vote in an independence referendum.
For once I agree with tim, Fraser Nelson has lost it.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5815878/why-we-should-give-the-elgin-marbles-back-to-greece.thtml
one of the most stupid articles I’ve read for a long time.
BBCLauraK
Electoral Commission has cleared donations from Ashcroft’s company, Bearwood Corporate Services
335 Rod - The problem, though, is that in this particular election (unlike the past three, say) there is an immediate and massive crisis facing the country, which everyone agrees requires urgent action.
We’re already seeing special-interest groups and minor parties manoeuvering to undermine that action (see 238 above, for example) in order to further their own interests. Add in the problems of cuts to services and the inevitable public-sector strikes, and the very mixed messages coming out of the LibDems, and it seems to me that there is a very clear danger than a hung parliament would be utterly incapable of taking the necessary action.
Would the LibDems, to take one specific example, provide 100% support to a Tory government trying to face down public-sector strikers? Or would they try to use it to get electoral advantage for the inevitable second election which would be on the horizon?
No prizes for guessing the correct answer.
The Curse of the One-Eyed Son of the Manse will not go away. Pharma big boys AstraZeneca were very chuffed when Gordon welcomed their chairman as one of Britain’s Business Ambassadors three months ago. This was never going to go well. The smile was soon wiped off their face when Mr Ambassador fired 2,200 of his staff this week.
The curse was particularly powerful in north of the border. Last Thursday Gordon shared the top table at a Labour Party fund-raiser in Glasgow with the leader of the council, the flamboyant “high-flyer” Steven Purcell. Colleagues say he was buzzing at the party. The next morning his career was over. Purcell mysteriously cancelled meetings before eventually clearing his whole diary and promptly resigned citing “stress“.
http://order-order.com/2010/03/04/jonahs-omnishambles/
322. Thanks. Yes another Scottish Tory-if the polls are to be believed we must pretty well all post on here. I must say that I am personally disappointed that we are not in Angus anymore. Voting Tory in Dundee West is a bit of a token gesture. It is fun to be in a marginal seat in an election because people pay attention more (I suspect that might even impact on the topic of the thread) but I don’t really have a dog in this fight.
336. Agreed. Try watching a gordon speech… its so boring, monotonous and emotionless. He simply cant connect to people as he isnt able to show visual emotion as he speaks or use words in a manner which illicits emotion. Clegg has a different problem as he tends to be to forceful when speaking. Cameron on the other hand has spent years honing his speaking techniques. Even when he answers a difficult question or isnt sure he does so in away which makes him sound understanding and an expert on the topic! He is very similar to blair in this respect. Now, if we pretent it was a clegg, brown, blair debate who would win?? Blair hands down! This’ll be the same for cameron.
279 Unless you know something I don’t there are no boundary changes in Scotland at this GE. They were before the last GE in 2005.
However if the SNP cannot capture Dundee West when in Jim Fitzpatrick they have one of the most energetic MSPs sitting for the West seat at Holyrood, they have no chance of picking up any seat and would certainly lose at least 2 back to the Tories.
I just cannot see Dundee West as anything other than a nailed on SNP gain. It will make Dundee the first ever entirely SNP city in Scotland with both MPs and MSPs SNP members and the city council presently SNP controlled.
‘Colleagues say he was buzzing at the party’
Ouch…
The revelation that the Public Accounts Committee is going to ‘investigate’ Lord Ashcroft on the very eve of a general election is a perfect illustration of why Britain must get rid of Labour.
The abuse of power in order to cling to power has been a core characteristic of New Labour, from bullying government information officers into acting as Labour spin doctors through to the manufacturing of ‘objective’ evidence and statistics to support Labour claims.
These people are cynical political obsessives who truly believe the end justifies the means. By turning what should be a non-partisan and respected Parliamentary committee into an election campaigning tool they demonstrate their unfitness for office.
357 - It is amazing that Hague had ten years to do this but has left it to others just before the election isn’t it.
I quite agree.
345 - “Would the LibDems, to take one specific example, provide 100% support to a Tory government trying to face down public-sector strikers? Or would they try to use it to get electoral advantage for the inevitable second election which would be on the horizon?
No prizes for guessing the correct answer.”
Richard, even under the skewed electoral rules of FPTP, if Cameron were running a minority government he quite clearly would not have majority support. Therefore, there quite clearly would not be majority support for the measures that he might take.
Were the boot on the other foot, for example, that a minority Brown government were seeking to “face down bankers”, I’m pretty sure you would support him 100% wouldn’t you?
353 It’s just a small point but watching BBC news last night I found it incredible that David Cameron could give a more heartfelt tribute to Michael Foot than Gordon Brown was able to.
327 How many of them have serious expectations of still being MPs let alone members of that committee or any other committee on 7th May?
360
Brown was probably annoyed that Foot died without permission…
361: As I said this committee will probably have a maximum of 2 weeks after the hearing, until the Easter break, and then imediately afterwards Parliment is dissolved. (assuming May election)
I see the Electoral Commission has confirmed clearance of the Ashcroft donations according to BBC sources:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8549243.stm
On topic: I tend to think this is more a plague on both your houses rise for the LibDems. The one thing that has been newsworthy is that they are not being linked with Non-Domness by the media. There are some doubts around Hulne’s leadership funding, but that has not made it’s way in the media…
Tim - Do you truly expect anyone to believe that the PAC decision to go after Ashcroft is motivated by concern for the public good rather than nakedly partisan calculation.
Gordon Prentice, the third-rate MP for Pendle, can’t face the fact that his time in Parliament is up because his voters don’t want him anymore. He really thinks that it’s ‘Ashcroft money’ that will cost him his seat.
He’s got no objection to Paul money or Cohen money, however. Labour can spend as much of that as they like in marginal seats.
Prentice and the other Labour losers on the PAC can hold their discredited-before-it-began investigation: it won’t save them.
353 David I am sure Alberto Costa will welcome you to join his ever increasing band of campaigners in Angus.
Welcome to the PB Tory group. We may be small but we are certainly not ignored.
360. And of course before he had had time to implement his £20000 death tax!!
366 Correction PB Scottish Tory Group!!
359 Tabman - But you haven’t addressed my point. Almost everyone (including the sane half of Labour) agrees huge cuts in public spending are required. Your esteemed leader went so far as to call for ’savage’ cuts. A Conservative, Labour or (in your dreams!) LibDem government with a good majority would try to implement such cuts; even then they would run into huge opposition, and it wouldn’t be easy. But at least with a stable government you have a 4-5 year time horizon and the clear ability to get a balanced and coherent set of measures through parliament.
However, in a hung parliament, the temptation to play politics, with an eye on the second election would be irresistible. That is the problem, more than the policies of the individual parties.
333: “I think it’s not the electorate that matter” - the authentic voice of the Tory activist.
Toenails upset, evidently:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2010/03/lord_ashcroft_donations_legal_and_permissible.html
“The report, expected out later today, will be read carefully however for any possible criticisms.
I understand that, contrary to internet rumours, Lord Ashcroft is not resigning as deputy chairman of the Conservative Party.”
Hmm. Let’s see if he’s right this time about internet rumours.
355. Yes sorry I have clarified what are clearly misleading comments at 315. I totally agree with you that if SNP don’t pick up Dundee West they are not picking up anything. Not sure if that is resulting in the uncertainty about McGovern tho.
365 - I doubt that there are many people who would brand Tony Wright, Kelvin Hopkins and Paul Flynn as stooges or losers.
However, it is Hagues decision to delay the answers on Ashcroft until just before the election that should worry you more.
370. The post at 333. reads more like a Labour wish-list drawn up by one of your little helpers, Nick.
91. Geert Wilders party to become the biggest in *liberal* Holland? Astonishing. He’s now outperforming Pym Fortuyn.
What if he becomes prime minister? What will Brussels do? Will Labour continue to exclude him from the UK?
Eventually, something like this will happen in the UK, unless a proper right wing government is elected first. You can only ignore the people for so long.
paulwaugh
Harriet Harman just told the Commons the Tories “are trying to buy seats with Belize dollars”.
373 - All lefties. All partisan. All hate Ashcroft.
Just the kind of objective people who are fit to sit in judgement on a Conservative peer, just before they go off to defend their seats (and jobs) against a Conservative challenger.
It’s a new low for Labour.
373
Tim
I agree with you on Hague: he is a complete waste of space.
(Which is why Tory right wingers like him: he’s one of them: )
375, let’s hope he doesn’t meet the same fate as Fortyn.
“Harriet Harman just told the Commons the Tories “are trying to buy seats with Belize dollars”.”
Buying them with Indian rupees is fine though.
345 I was of the same opinion about 3-4 months ago that the Tories need to stay away from the issues I mentioned. The problem I have is ever since Dave reneged on his ‘cast iron’ guarantee of a referendum on a European issue the party poll rating has gone down from big majority to small majority and hid personal rating has gone into a tailspin. Europe is a core issue and while it may not win him an election it could lose it for him. The same thing goes for the other issues I mentioned, if the core know that they will get Thatchers Tories back they will be more inclined to go out and vote. So rather than getting Dave to make these speeches it is down to his front-bench while he has to stay on the current course and build his personal ratings back.
All I know is that the current softly-softly approach ‘party of the NHS’ isn’t working. The message is lost and activists are low on morale. A tax cut pledge would energise the core, you can’t deny that because it worked in 2007 with IHT pledges made by Osborne.
I live in a relatively safe Conservative seat so anything I say makes absolutely no difference…
380. Even Soviet rubles were considered OK at one point…
380
Harriet believes marriage is the best way to a good seat
380 If true, given the relatively weak pound, Ashcroft will be getting good value for money.
So on Ashcroft the current position is that:-
1. He is tax resident in the UK and has legally paid all the tax due on his UK income.
2. He is non-UK domiciled, which is legal, as are a number of other donors to all the main political parties.
2. His and his company’s donations to the Tory party are all legal.
So the scandal is, what, exactly?
If we’re meant to get excited about the fact that Hague did not know until recently that Ashcroft was a non-dom, can we start asking a lot of questions of Brown about whether he knows what Blair’s tax status is and why he uses all these strange offshore companies etc? After all, if a former Labour PM is seeking to avoid Labour’s current and future tax rises, I think we should know, don’t you?
375 - Don’t be silly Sean.
Wilders party stood in less than 1% of seats.
What the hell are labour doing?? They are sounding like the nasty party. If anybody saw john mann on bbcnews… what a twat. Im pretty sure ashcroft lawyers will be going over his words very carefully. I would love to see ashcroft step down whilst issuing libel and deformation orders against the labour party.
“ever since Dave reneged on his ‘cast iron’ guarantee of a referendum on a European issue”
Ah. I think we can take your postings with a pinch of salt - the deliberate misinterpretation of the referendum promise tends to come from certain quarters.
toenails sounds gutted - meanwhile Kraft workers get fired.
“Ignore the elephant in the room - its what we do”
353. DavidL - “Yes another Scottish Tory - if the polls are to be believed we must pretty well all post on here.”
A sense of humour never did anyone any harm at PB.
Hattie got told off for her answer.
Two Labour MP’s want debates on Bearwood and Ashcroft, they are still pushing it.
386, and came first and second in the two places they stood.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/netherlands/7367086/Dutch-anti-Islam-MP-Geert-Wilders-makes-strong-showing-in-local-polls.html
385, the scandal is that limpwristed cretins are unhappy so they’re scweaming and scweaming. If that doesn’t work they’ll cwy.
385 Cyclefree - To be fair, Labour have scored one genuine (if slightly arcane) point, which is that there seems to have been confusion about what exactly Lord Ashcroft promised in respect of non-dom status. However they seem to be muddying that point with lots of extraneous noise.
James Arbuthnot on BBC News.
Ha Ha .
381 – Max, Re: ‘cast iron’ - you are repeating a fabrication – a un-truth.
BBC headline from 14 Jan 2008,
“Cameron pledge on EU treaty poll”
“Cameron said; “The Tories would hold a referendum on the EU treaty, if they won power before it was ratified by all EU states.”
The Tories are not in power – the Lisbon treaty has been ratified by all EU states and the referendum has been dropped as a result. There was no “reneged” as mentioned as Cameron did exactly as he said he would.
The sentence is fairly short and concise so I really can’t understand how so many can be confused by it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7185953.stm
Harriet Harman, the Leader of the House of Commons, has labelled the issues surrounding Lord Ashcroft, his donations to the Conservative party, and his tax status, as “sleaze on a multi-million pound scale.”
Ms Harman was asked to withdraw her comments but refused to do so.
385. Reporting of Blair’s private affairs has tendency to be suppressed, of course.
391 - 376 - Labour must be so dissapointed that the Ashcroft donations are legal. This explains why the Ashcroft tax status was released this week. They really are flogging a dead horse.
How come at least 5 Scottish Tories regularly post on here. About 7 SNPers. At least 3 SLDs. And yet no SLABers!?!
Very, very, very, very odd indeed.
396. Feck me - she’s scared.
paulwaugh
Lab MP Barry Gardiner just used Parl Privilege to say Bearwood Corp Services is ‘non-trading and ‘loss-making’ concern which offsets tax
paulwaugh
Harman said she wd ask Chancellor or maybe the Biz Sec (Mandelson) to investigate Gardiner’s claims. No bias there then
396 She’s gone bonkers, saying that when, it seems, the Electoral Commission have cleared the donations.
396. Labour are experts on “sleaze on a multi-million pound scale” so at least this is a topic Harriet knows something about, unlike everything that came up at PMQs.
paulwaugh
Business Qs is turning into Ashcroft Qs. I know we in pre-elxn frenzy but amazed the Speaker has allowed whips to get away with it
Labour are going to get creamed over this, they are making a mountain out of an anthill and all the public at large will see is
‘Tory cleared’
‘Labour get hysterical about it’
393: Richard. Yes - but not a point for a party which has broken so many of its own promises to make. Let alone for a party with so many dodgy donors of its own - some of whom were made ministers - and not forgetting that senior members of this party were interviewed by the police over “cash for peerages”.
Arbuthnot was the Chief Whip involved in the Ashcroft peerage negeotiation and it’s just been revealed live during an interview with him.
No Comment
No Comment
No Comment etc etc.
402 - Yes but perhaps she wants it referred to the court of public opinion first. The EC have arrived at a judgment Labour and their Lib Dem fellow travellers should just STFU.
“369 359 Tabman - But you haven’t addressed my point. Almost everyone (including the sane half of Labour) agrees huge cuts in public spending are required. Your esteemed leader went so far as to call for ’savage’ cuts.”
FWIW I think quite a bit of the fiscal gap will be closed with tax increases rather than cuts. This, after all, is what happened under the Tories in the 1990s. Lamont invented a whole series of new taxes and raised most of the existing ones. At the moment it’s easier for politicians to talk tough about “cuts tomorrow” because this is vague enough to avoid frightening either the electorate or the markets. But the sheer size of the task, and the horrendous political implications of closing the gap entirely through cuts, will lead to significant tax rises.
New thread
399 SD
I like the designation SLABer - it sort of sums them up
I still don’t understand why people think a 6% lead will result in a hung parliament. It just won’t (Remember the boundaries have changed to favour the Conservatives since last time). In 1987 the Conservatives won a majority of over a 100 from about a 10% lead in the polls. In 1992 John Major got over 20 seat lead from a 7% lead in the polls. It is all if but and maybe’s there is never UNS over the whole country it never happens. Who is to say that some Conservative voters have not moved to Labour voting areas in the past year (Maybe down sizing their house). Is it not plausable that at some stage Labour may need more votes to level peg with the Conservatives. Many New Labour voters may also go back to the Conservatives who is to say.
214. “Then how come that Clegg has such good approval ratings?”
People think he’s Charles Kennedy?
Spot on - all this indignation over Ashcroft is really raw fear.
The Labour sleazeballs know they are on the edge of the abyss and they are kicking and screaming as the slide towards oblivion.
385 Well Ashcoft is trying disproportionally to influence UK govt policy directly, not least tax policy, way beyond the power of any mere voter. This is not a good starting point in a democracy. Yes Labour have donors, but none to my knowledge have personally grabbed the reins of power within the party to the extent Ashcroft clearly has. I doubt marginal Labour MPs have a personal relationship with JK Rowling. After the election lots of MPs are going to owe Ashcroft a personal debt of gratitude.
But it gets worse than that.
It turns out that despite all his megabucks, he is too frit to have any personal stake in what Tax policy the UK has. His Tory party could put all our taxes up to reduce the deficit and he wouldn’t pay a penny.
Surely you can see this is far from ideal politically for the Tories.
388 - what about labour reneging on their promise of a referendum? Or did they just lie about having one in the first place?
405. No they won’t because that is not the way it will be reported. This “story” has now run for the best part of a week and there seems no shortage of parties in the media wanting to comment or moralise on it. My mother, who knows nothing about politics, was asking me about it last night. Do not underestimate how much success this kind of smear operation has when the full force of the state is put behind it.
WHY ARE THERE NO REPORTS ON PHILIP GREEN WHO IS THE BIGGEST TAX CHEAT OFF ALL COULD IT BE HE IS ON GOOD TERMS WITH LABOUR.
Anecdote alert - just initiated a debate on the Ashcroft afair in the tea room over lunch (remember these are supposedly hard-left public service layabouts we’re talking about). Of those who had heard of him - a minority - the consensus was that he hadn’t done anything wrong or illegal and those moaning about him were just jealous that they can’t choose to become non-dom themselves.
I despair at the anti-tory bias in the MSM. Most of the people I work with are Labour supporters but even they agree about the bias.
I think Harriet Harman is a disgrace - not a word about her husband being parachuted into a safe seat with Trade Union money. So much for all women shortlists. Her hysterical ranting at PMQs was appallying. How anyone can think of voting Labour is beyond me. They have always been the real nasty party, they are full of nasty spiteful bile. They don’t care about this country or it’s heritage.
The Times editorial said yesterday:
“The most damaging charge that can be levelled at Mr Cameron’s Tories is that they are not as other people, and do not live by everyday rules. Lord Ashcroft’s disembling and duplicity stand as a slight to Parliamewnt, his party’s leader and this newspaper”
PS sorry about the typing error.