The daily poll non-sensation
March 23rd, 2010| YouGov daily poll (The Sun) | Mar 23 | Mar 22 |
|---|---|---|
| CONSERVATIVES | 37% | 36% |
| LABOUR | 33% | 32% |
| LIB DEMS | 18% | 20% |
| LAB to CON swing from 2005 | 3.5% | 3.5% |
The LDs drop two
Another unexciting daily poll sees very little change except for the LDs to drop two and for Labour and the Tories to move up one.
The Tories might have expected a Sam Cam Mam boost but alas that doesn’t seem to have happened.
What is odd about YouGov is the contrast with the firm’s London poll where the swing is 8%. You would expect them to be more in alignment.
So not a lot to get excited about - the polls still point to a hung parliament.
UPDATE: And the lead remains at 5% with MORI
| Ipsos-MORI (Mirror) | Mar 21 | Feb 22 |
|---|---|---|
| CONSERVATIVES | 35% | 37% |
| LABOUR | 30% | 32% |
| LIB DEMS | 21% | 19% |
| LAB to CON swing from 2005 | 3.5% | 3.5% |
Not a lot to say about this one either except another poll suggests that Labour has not been hurt by the BA strike.
The really interesting numbers from this survey will be the leader approval ratings which the firm has been asking in a standard form since 1977. So far those are not available.
Mike Smithson
MessageSpace Advertising
1
sam cams baby wham…….. oh wait errr - bloody scotish sample
LOL yougov =
Pfffffffffffffffftttttt!
No need for detail
Inded there is not a lot to get excited about.
And with Ipsos-MORI pointing to a big meh from the public, could we be heading for an awful turnout?
YouGov = All foreplay and no climax
With the MORI and the ICM we’re definitely into hung parliament territory.
Cameron buckling badly on TV tonight as well.
broken Liberals on the slide
Inded = Indeed
Daily polls dont work a decent poll should be done over two or three days.
Looks like both Labour loyal panel members got their 50p.
Well it just does show that the tories on here shouldn’t be waiting for events to save them! Copyright SeanT!
So why the divergence with the London poll? Different methodology? Have they published anything or has anybody asked?
FPT:
Lords last day before Easter is Tuesday 30th.
So Constitutional Reform Bill will not go to Lords Committee until after Easter (by when GE should have been called).
So appears no chance of it going through without Conservative agreement.
Pb.com should stop publishing these polls
zzzzzzzz
yougov = mori = ipswich
icm = proper poll!
With the major stories of the last 24 hours I am surprised that the LD share dropped.
For anyone just tuning in:
Ipsos Mori poll for Mirror puts Tories on 35, lowest since July 2007: Con 35(-2), Lab 30(-2), Lib 21(+2)
Spandau Ballot?
Tim that was last night, and he answered it this morning on TV.
Cameron buckling badly on TV tonight as well.
by tim March 23rd, 2010 at 10:04 pm
Commons last day is also Tuesday 30th.
Both Houses return Tuesday 6th.
Budget day tomorrow - time for the election soon! How much are taxes gonna rise? What will the markets say? A fun day in store!
Hung parliament.
Labour 302
Tories 274
Liberals getting utterly murdered in the FPP scrap, 43 seats down 24 on 2005.
I don’t agree with the “non sensation” narrative promoted by Mike. For me it is truly sensational that the Tories are gearing up to lose their fourth election in a row, with rubbish Brown in charge, after a dire recession.
20 And for those of us tuning out….
Toodle Pip….
Tories down to 35% in Ipsos MORI poll… and it’s 37/33 according to YouGov
So no impact (yet) from Lobbygate.
Maybe by tomorrow?
So we don’t believe YouGov figures now?
But we did a few hours ago when their London numbers were posted?
Can you believe a poll that shows labour going up after last nights Balze of labour sleaze?
23 - I doubt either house will actually return after Easter, suspect election announcement will be made before Easter and the House will stand prorogued until dissolution.
Polls stagnant as people anticipate tomorrow’s budget. If Alistair doesn’t shower us with goodies then Labour’s holding job will be in serious trouble. Everyone’s desperate for the good times to roll!
Beat Balls breaches £1,100 in donations. Thanks people.
http://www.beatballs.co.uk/main/
Surely Labour just need some of their MPs to kill some Chelsea Pensioners and then they will be in the lead. After dispatches how can more people say that they will vote Labour today?
MORI POLL IS SENSATIONAL!!!
ONLY 35% WTF
Labour = WHU.
on yougov website, it says Con 37 Lab 32 Ldm 18 on the bar graph???
Why do folks still post UNS predictions?
Silly billies.
25- Are they? No polls showing scores level yet (unlike 2005) and just over 5 weeks until polling day. Labour ‘won’ in 2005 with a lead lower than these polls.
36
You Gov are becoming a joke! Talk about a Scottish sample, more like a moon sample!
From previous thread
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/labour/7507330/Labour-rotten-to-the-core.html
“Labour: rotten to the core
Telegraph View: An era defined by scandal and sleaze.”
5 more years of that???
29. Why is necessarily contradictory that the Tories have Arse-like swings in London (greater)?
Surely that simply means that there lead is now very narrow in northern marginals . Hardly surprising given that those areas rely on public sector jobs why London doesn’t as much.
30. Yes I can because the grand total of 1.5% of people watched the Channel 4 programme. 98.5% did not.
And the News coverage is not going to swing votes.
NI must be mightly hacked off what a waste of time these daily polls have been
The turnout at this election could be abysmal. Nobody cares and nobody is enthused be either party. Still an election there has to be and GOTV is going to be crucial.
Can anyone imagine the state of the debt by 2015 if Labour actually get in again. What percentage of the national budget will have to go purely on paying interest?
The idea that this lot could get another five years is beyond scary.
I still don’t buy that it will happen, but the polls are concerning at the very least for the Blues.
35.
Yeah, but Labour are also down 2% and are still 5% behind.
It seems it’s a ‘pox on all your houses’ again.
There is real confusion in these polls. Mori shows the LibDems gaining at the expense of the 2 main Parties - YouGov tonight shows the complete opposite.YouGov London Poll was excellent for the Tories. I genuinely struggle to believe that the Conservatives are as low as 35%. Its obvious that Labour have improved but fom a very low base and whilst not a LibDem myself the idea that they are much below 20% does not seem credible.
35 No MORI is ever sensational.
Or rather, every poll is and therefore isn’t.
25 - agree.
The Tories are going to lose.
It’s absolutely astonishing given all the open goals they have handed to them. The recession, the over friendly media, an old government.
Yet they are still going to lose. It’s mega-sensation, not non-sensation.
“And with Ipsos-MORI pointing to a big meh from the public, could we be heading for an awful turnout?”
Been saying as much for ages, down to 55% possibly?
Its pretty obvious isnt,
Labour are now winning in the north, and started to penetrate in south wales and the east midlands.
well, i reckon the yougov london poll didnt use the silly lab loyal/disloyal weighting rubbish. Looking at the welsh polls they did last month they didnt.
last ever labour budget in my working career tomorrow!
cheerio labour!!!!
49
Sally what are you on - if that mori poll is 35% you have gained like only 1 in every 30 voters over the last 5 years!
ONLY 1 in 30!!
These daily polls are becoming tedious. Brown isn’t going to win the election, nor will there be a hung parliament. Labour are dead, finished, caput.
Everyone knows the Tories went on too long last time. Its the same for Labour now.
50. I do hope you’ll stick around after the election so we can rub that prediction in your face.
For the very first time I think that the Tories may actually lose this election to the worst Labour government ever.
And why? Because the Tories have no philosophy as a backbone to power.
TICKETS WILL BE SOLD AFTER THE BA STRIKE FOR ALL THOSE WANTING TO EXIT BRITAIN.
God help us!
50- Tempting fate there. Not a single poll showing Labour even level with the Tories in two years?
50 hahaha!
my tax INCREASE is more than ash will earn next year!!!!!!!
44. I wonder if their contract includes a discount for inaccuracy?
54 Ave it. Are you getting the sack then tomorrow ??
37. That will be me you are referring to Sally!
Answer: because we don’t think they are any less reliable than any other statistical model that people promote on here. FPP is a series of local battles making up a national war. I’ve never been convinced than Cooke or any DNS model is any more likely to be accurate a GE than UNS.
“The Tories might have expected a Sam Cam Mam boost but alas that doesn’t seem to have happened. ”
Mike, I wasn’t expecting the Cameron’s news to make any difference to these daily polls, if weeks of good, bad or indifferent news for one or other of the main parties doesn’t shift the polls, then this certainly would not. And sudden one day shift is IMHO just a blip. I was looking forward to this new daily polling shedding more light on the public’s reaction to the media driven political weather. That its done anything but is the biggest disappointment for me. Its been more stable than some monthly polls that missed those big stories altogether.
re Mori Poll - what will be most interesting is when we see the Poll share of all those polled, not just the 50%ish that say they are definite to vote, but the 70%ish who give a preference. I think it is fair to say that this will be a higher turnout election than normal due to th close nature (1992 being much highr than 1997). Again I think the polls reflect the slow growing confidence in the economy - with today’s drop in inflation yet another sign.
57 - His contract will have ended by then.
50 - ‘Over friendly media’? Stoppit, you’re killing me.
59 - That’s not funny, Ave It.
*weeps*
56 - “These daily polls are becoming tedious. Brown isn’t going to win the election, nor will there be a hung parliament. Labour are dead, finished, caput.
Everyone knows the Tories went on too long last time. Its the same for Labour now.2
Agreed, its all over and all those resigning Labour mp’s know it
labour are in the teens in the south and southwest. yet they are regualrly hitting the high 30s in the north and will want to break 40 before election day.
“TICKETS WILL BE SOLD AFTER THE BA STRIKE FOR ALL THOSE WANTING TO EXIT BRITAIN.”
Bought mine today….not on BA mind you!
At this point in time all clues point out to a return to power for Labour. I’m afraid that Cameron has been found out as a creation of his PR machine, confirmed by tonight’s very poor performance on 4 News. It is a shame for us blues but we may be glad that this was not our year given the economic situation. Whether Cameron will stay on to fight another election depends on the ruthlesness of the Tory machine but who would replace him? Getting down to 35% is unbelievable.
58 dont worry weathercock we’ll be ok!
not sure about my team watford though - shocking results tonight
ipswich = ash + jojo
peterboro = bobajob
First of the front pages coming through…
http://www.politicshome.com/uk/article/7008/front_pages_wednesday_24th_march_2010.html
Marvellous anyway, it’s back to electoral revolution time.
This could be the best chance we have to sweep away what currently exists, if the result is so perverse as to upend the percentage vote then it’s time to hit the streets and create a single issue movement for reform in the inevitable autumn rerun.
All parties and politicians should be starting to get very afraid, low turnout, a result with no credibility, looks promising to me…
60 - hahaha! I don’t doubt it for a second!
But you’re getting 5 more Labour years by the looks of it, so pay up until your pips squeek and shut up you rich ****!
“Today’s Budget will finally bury without trace Labour’s vainglorious boast about its conquest of the economic cycle, by demonstrating how a golden economic legacy can be reduced to smouldering ruin through reckless profligacy with the public finances. And just for good measure, it is being unveiled against the familiar Labour backdrop of financial sleaze.”
R
Ash, to repeat myself. I hope that Labour get back in with a very small overall majority, perhaps 5 seats.
They would then actually have to fulfil some of the lies they have been telling to stay in office.
There would be another election within 18 months which would see the total extermination (I was going to say annihilation, but extermination is a much better description of what would happen)of Labour.
So for me these are great numbers, hopefully they will close even further in the not too distant future.
54 - you are not being made redundant on Thursday are you?
“Today’s Budget will finally bury without trace Labour’s vainglorious boast about its conquest of the economic cycle, by demonstrating how a golden economic legacy can be reduced to smouldering ruin through reckless profligacy with the public finances. And just for good measure, it is being unveiled against the familiar Labour backdrop of financial sleaze.”
42 Bobajob
Surely that simply means that there lead is now very narrow in northern marginals.
Let’s wait until we see the datasets.
My suspicion is that the London YouGov poll was not constrained by the new methodologies adopted for the daily Spandau Ballots.
Labour to scrap stamp duty on all homes up to £250 000 tomorrow.
Ooh, that sounds familiar!
53 My thoughts too. We will see.
It would be worth a thread examining the situation if true.
Labour are going to give a big giveaway tomorrow.
And the thick British people will no doubt swallow it lock, stock, the full lot.
O/T - Those who use twitter, is it compatible with mobile/iphones?
I’m getting told I should be on twitter.
“I think it is fair to say that this will be a higher turnout election than normal due to th close natur”
Bollocks, politicians are despised more than ever, you need to get outside the bubble to see why turnout is going to be poor.
78 trouble is Don they will try and change the voting system if they win again to keep the Tories out so we have permanently leftie governements.
Today is the last day of the phoney campaign, tomorrow is the first day of the campaign proper. It is clear that the Conservatives have one or two things up their sleeves ready for the campaign. Labour has thrown everything at the pre-election period and still remain 4-6 points behind.
Ave it retitrs in nrxt 6 months!!!
re66
You surely dont believe fiddled figures do you?
72 - “I’m afraid that Cameron has been found out as a creation of his PR machine, confirmed by tonight’s very poor performance on 4 News.”
You people really don’t try very hard do you? Putting ‘us blues’ after making a doomsday comment filled with Labour spin lines doesn’t actually convince people you’re genuine Tory supporters.
Labour are finished, and they think they’re gonna win! How utterly delicious. Roll on May 6th; or could it even be June if Labours internal polls are not going as well as others I could mention?
84- a giveaway budget tomorrrow = mayhem in the markets and average Joe even more stiffed by Labour.
60 - hahaha! I don’t doubt it for a second!
But you’re getting 5 more Labour years by the looks of it, so pay up until your pips squeek and shut up you rich ****!
by Ash March 23rd, 2010 at 10:17 pm
Dont think so. My company will move out. see if you can squeeze any pips them IDIOT/
82 - So they have been raiding the Conservative policy locker again.
Yes .
I called you a Silly Bobabillyjob.
There is plenty of evidence to suggest the marginals are different. That alone means UNS = Unreliable Nonsense for Sillybillies.
91 i’ve noticed the astroturfers are getting busy lateley . they are so thick though its so obvious what they’re doing.
chlon at 14 is right - Tories on the last thread were expecting a bounce tonight, and I was nervous about it myself. Remember MORI only counts 100% certains to vote, so the low shares for the main parties there almost certainly reflect rising pissed-offedness. YouGov basically measures party sympathy from reasonably interested people (those who couldn’t care less won’t fill in the poll either). So it’s reasonable to think that there’s a Tory lead of 5% or a bit more among those keen to vote and 4% among everyone who might vote at a push. Either way, NOM looks probable, even if you give the Tories an extra 2% in marginals.
Two more Events to go: the Budget and the leader debates. I’ll offer a small prediction which may be quite wrong - the Budget won’t shift things that much either way.
What about the London figures? As Rod C pointed out, they do actually agree with the aggregate subsamples for London from the recent daily polls, which show the Tories doing better in London and less well in the Midlands than before. Rather doubt if there is a net effect from that, though if true it’s good news for us Midland MPs.
63 only if my polling is as reliable as yougov
88. Indeed. I’m sitting back enjoying Labours hubris at being on a stunning 30-33% and thinking the election is somehow won. MandyCampbell has given Labour a good phoney war, but thats just what it is, phoney. The real battle is still to begin and Labour aren’t going to know whats hit them.
73
if that’s the case, then
norwich = tim + gabble + bribad + ash + jojo + yougov + mori
I don’t know if any other canvasser has found the same situation but that everytime there is a TV programme about sleaze as we had last night and mentioned in the daily press the feedback from the doorstep is the re-opening or reminding of the MP’s expenses saga. Found a few people (supporters of different parties)thinking of not voting in protest.
25,50 It is far too early to say that the Tories have lost. They are certainly looking much weaker than they were 6 months ago but IMO if the election was now the result would see them easily the largest party with a majority (or not) between -10 and +20. They would be in government.
However, it is quite hard to see how they can recover - they have become firmly attached to an economic policy which, to most people, means more pain than Labour’s. This is a very unwise position for an opposition party to take.
But the polls only “point to a hung parliament” if you believe that UNS will work this time. I don’t.
94 - sorry, my post 76 was to Ave It at 61.
The pregnancy was never going to shift votes. The budget may (or may not). Really we could do with seeing the aggregated and properly weighted data for the other regions to give us context for the London poll.
Now for your attack lines from MORI. Tories only up 2% since 2005?!? How can that be?!? Labour are only 2% up from Michael Foot in 1983. Their second worst electoral result in the post-war period looms! Now choose your attack line of choice…
91 Genuine Tory supporters don’t all bury their heads in the sand!
100 - Indeed.
So the Mori poll looks interesting, its a f**k-u-all poll really, which is probably about right. If the Yougov London poll is correct, it must mean the Tories are doing much worse outside of M25 land. Will that mean M25 land will declare UDI, if Labour win?
Could there be Civil War, I wonder.
98 when we get in we are going to put a 75% tax on ex labour mps pensions!!!!
Anyone see Peter Mandelson on ITN? What is going on with his hair and eyebrows these days?
109 - Pondering a civil war is moonbat territory.
JamesA, labours problem is that if they do get in they are heading for a perfect shit storm. They will be forced to make drastic cuts and having lied to the public they will reap a whirlwind. They have convinced people that all is well, we can carry on borrowing money and all will be well.
The problem is that the money has to be borrowed from somewhere and the markets aren’t going to carry on playing the game.
Once the pay checks to the public sector (including me) stop or are drastically reduced the winter of discontent will look like a minor inconvenience.
No electoral system will save them.
Could tomorrow be the last PMQs?
None next week but possibly a final one on Wed 7th?
The MORI poll is bad for both main parties.
It doesn’t surprise me the Tories are down on 35%. Cameron was on the news tonight and I just found myself yawning at his performance. Whatever it was that made him so fascinating in 2005 has certainly evaporated now.
114 - Possibly.
105 Ok no probs
The point made remains though.
The real story of these opinion polls is how disaffected the public are with the traditional parties. Given how poor they are, that’s unsurprising. They’re so poor, they don’t make any serious attempt to reach out to those who’ve deserted all of them.
re76 Ash
5 more years of Labour and you kiss your sweeties a Sweet Good Bye! In fact one more year of Labour will be enough for that. It wont be a trickle of tax paying individuals it will be a stampede leaving! Then you can have your glorious little Socialist Banana Republic! Owned ofcourse by the Chinese, see how you like thier working conditions and the total lack of a free society!
Sporting’s Labour and Tory GE Seat Spreads both unchanged on tonight’s two polls and continue to defy gravity.
Excellent news re stamp duty - a Labour Government announcing tax cuts, a Tory opposition not doing so but indicating a desire to help the very wealthy with IHT at some point in the next Parliament.
No wonder the Tories are falling further and further off the pace as each day passes. A Tory share of 35-37% a month before polling day would be laughable if it wasn’t so calamitous.
I can only assume that in return for agreeing to try for another baby, Sam Cam persuaded her man to defect to Labour, and he’s now acting as a secret agent in deliberately throwing the election. That’s the only logical conclusion, is it not?
[35] - MORI POLL IS SENSATIONAL!!!
ONLY 35% WTF
Get a grip for pete’s sake. When have the Tories ever done as badly as their worst poll score?
In the leadup to the 2005 GE one opinion poll gave the Tories 27%, and that was just days before the election when they scored 33%.
I still think there’s about an evens chance of the Tories polling more than 40% in the one poll that counts, and winning by a massive margin.
This is an election that will destroy any party that wins without telling the truth, I mean actually destroy, leaving it with decimated figures of support. If labour get in and proceed to cut and put up taxes they are gone as a force, if Cameron starts to say things will not be as bad as they thought and then they are, similarly.
The benefit for the tories is that people can cope with being told bad news and finding out it’s not so bad, if they are told that things are not so bad and then they get worse then they will destroy you. No bleating about changed circumstances or events, just electoral annihilation.
112 James - pay Coldstone no heed. He’s just getting chippy because his comrades at the Gas Board are going on strike.
76- No need for rudeness. I am also far from rich. Your comment reflects very badly on you and thus the quality of your political judgement.
I think you will find election day very disappointing.
Bad polls for Labour come what may.
This was a budget they didn’t want anyone ’serious’ to take seriously.
113 - the next government will not have to make drastic cuts to reduce the deficit.
Tax rises, growth, slowdown in spending, the deficit will be easy to manage if it is spread across the board.
The Tories have been all over the place on the cool, calm economic realities of the situation, which is why they seem to have thrown away their chances.
121. The Tories can win an election on 35%. If Labour get about 28% - which is just as likely.
I think turnout could be the most ‘interesting’ aspect of the election. Currently 12/1 for less than 55%, 4/1 for 55-59.99%.
76 ash
first time i’ve been called a **** on here - at least in print!!!!!
113. Don, the terrifying thought is that they might lash out with confiscatory tax policies aimed at all but their core support, perhaps someone might like to tell me that it will not be so.
If you’d told me only a few years ago I’d be reading a column by Simon Heffer in which he said he’d be urging bankers to vote Labour, I’d be asking to your certificate of sanity.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7507562/How-can-David-Cameron-and-the-rest-of-the-Conservative-Party-be-so-bonkers-about-banks.html
But there it is.
The Tories might have expected a Sam Cam Mam boost but alas that doesn’t seem to have happened.
‘Alas’ hmmm you are a Libdem still Mike are you?
121 - Oh, for pity’s sake, just vote for Brown, be done with it and save the rest of us from your tiresome whining.
127 - If you think that then you should be residing in a padded cell.
I’m of the increased turnout gang.
I think with it being close, many more people will be interested, especially if the debates get an audience.
Whatever happens between now and polling day, there is 32% going to vote blue and red.
82 seth - if thats true then its good!!!
they should scrap it on all houses
if i wanted to trade up slightly from my £0.5m mortgage free house to something a little larger say £0.8m it would cost me £32,000 stamp duty boooo!
127 Ash, off the top of your head can you tell me the current levels of
a)the deficit?
b)the national debt?
if not how the hell can you make any comment upon what will and will not pay them off?
To all those Tory supporters meeting at Dirty Dicks next week, we can only hope to drown our sorrows by Labour supporters buying us drinks as they look forward to 5 more years of Gordo.
‘
That will be the day’, I can here you say. I agree, those tight-wad ******** Labour ***** bastards.
Facebook connections:
Con 154,000
LD 68,000
Lab 62,600
Lab 3rd!
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/818708-facebook-election-battle-being-won-by-the-conservatives
133 John O. Temper temper Councillor !!
132 - Heffer in poisonous anti-Cameron article non-shocker.
132 - Heffer, along with Warner is one of the touchstones of whether you are sane or not. If you agree with them on anything then you are ready for the asylum.
123. Yep. People are saying the Tories have been painting a picture thats too grim. I say if anything they probably haven’t been painting a picture thats grim enough. Fact is, the next Parliament is going to be a horror show. ALL political parties and politicians have a moral duty to spell that out. If a party gets in without being honest about whats to come then woe be tide them. I do wonder if Labour supporters have even stopped to think about what awaits them if they do somehow manage to cling to office after the rosy picture Brown and friends have been telling? I doubt it.
Just popped on to see the polls and post my response (I know you were all waiting for my wise words
).
YouGov remains silly.
The MORI one might be vaguely useful as an approximate floor of support, though I think it overstates the Labour floor, which is probably mid-20s.
Anyway, I’m off.
IPSOS say Tories only 1.8% above 2005 result.
The media will get more and more obsessed with a hung parliament - which is a massive boost for Labour.
I don’t know what’s going on with the polls at the moment - I don’t think any of us do - but however you cut it, 35% is a shocking result for the Tories - especially when you consider the bad headlines surrounding Labour.
When will there be overt panic from the Tory front bench?
124
Gasboard? I think you might find that its been a few years since that term was used.
If a normally docile work force such as exists in the Gas industry is driven to strike action, then there are serious problems with the managment.
113 i take heart from that but the pain will be terrible for people, which is why i dont want Labour to win. Things are bad enough as it is.
132. Coldstone, Heffer was backing Labour in 2007 before Brown blew it.
Ah, I didn’t see 105.
145 the Front bench will be reasting to their own internal polling which will be more extensive and specific. The back benches might get rowdy, but that will cease as soon as formal declarations of election are made and it will be all-in together to try and overturn the government.
Ave it presents the alternative NATIONAL SALVATION BUDGET!
Income tax = flat rate 20% fair for everyone
Personal allowance = £10,000 each fair for everyone!
NI = 10% on income £10,000 to £50,000 ie no one pays more than £4,000 fair on those who have done well in life
VAT = 25% easy to calculate - helpful for business!
State benefits, child benefits, tax credits, child trust funds = 0 fair on not encouraging spongers!
Ave it - a future fair for everyone except undesirables!!!
146 - I know plenty of people who work for the company involved and they are infuriated at the GMB not at the company.
137 - Debt is about the same as most countries had before the crisis. We had far lower debt going into the crisis, because the government spent years reducing it.
The deficit is very high. But most of it is due to the crisis, and little is down to “excessive spending”.
145. “35% is a shocking result for the Tories”
Sh1t, have I missed the election?
I think I speak for a lot of people when I say “roll on tomorrow” and let’s get this thing started!
133 - I’m about to promulgate a decree that permanently proscribes the ludicrous Sykes from ever voting Conservative. Then we can all be happy
141
Heffer is my kind of Tory, may not agree with ‘em, but you know where you are.
133 - oh, boo-hoo. You’ll probably be whining in May when you realise how badly your party has let you and your nation down.
If the budget goes well, and the stamp duty cut and any other giveaways are well-received, whilst the Tories bleat on about how bad things are and how we need to start the cuts immediately, then I predict Labour will be level pegging or better in at least one national opinion poll by weekend.
Has the news of this budget tomorrow been drowned out by all the other political news in recent weeks in the minds of the public?
Usual see it being trailed as a big event in its own right for a week or two before hand. This time, I reckon that if I wasn’t interested in politics, I might not even know it was it actually happening tomorrow.
236 you say this was a budget they didnt want people to take seriously . Sadly Darling shot that one to bits when he said on Sunday that if they win the election there won’t be another budget this year. So - this is it. Let’s see what people make of it…..
123 The Tories problem is that they have been saying that we must have bigger cuts to reduce the deficit more quickly or we will face some kind of economic armageddon. But politicians routinely predict doom if the other side wins, and “the deficit” is not something which is understood by most people. I have never had anyone use the term on the doorstep - people are more concerned about how any cuts/tax rises would affect them personally. And they fear that the Tories would go for bigger cuts and/or larger tax rises than Labour.
153 all of its down to gordon!
if we abolish public spending we can scrap taxes and put you in a tent!
Certainly looks like Dave got his tone completely wrong on the BA Strike, as intelligent posters recognised.
[ollie, 10:35pm] - When will there be overt panic from the Tory front bench?
If there were consecutive polls that put Labour in the lead one would imagine some private disquiet.. but you’d expect and hope that a putative Prime Minister would avoid panicking about opinion polls, given the real things they would have to deal with in office.
143 - It’s rope a dope stuff, people can see what’s ahead (and god help us if we get to Ireland type slashing of public sector pay).
The truth is that politicians are scared stiff of what is going to transpire if they tell the trith or otherwise.
Do you lie and win power? No, because you will be annihilated in the election later in the year, especially if you claim that it was ‘unforeseen’.
Do you tell the truth and not gain power? Well, your party might get rid of you because you didn’t win and replace you for the second election so that’s also a no.
Roll the dice any way, you lose. At least the second way is honourable though and history would be kind.
158. Do you think all is well in the economic garden then Bob?
158 Whining Bob Sykes, something about your posts gives one the impression that you’ve always been a Labour voter. Or you’re a big wobbly jellyfish.
153 - Well most economists estimate that four fifths of it is structural ie a factor of government chronically overspending. In fact we had a pretty dreadful deficit before the crisis hit which was entirely due to the government overspending.
The whole of the last 13 years has been a “giveaway” Bob.
Someone’s got to pick up the tab now.
158.”133 - oh, boo-hoo. You’ll probably be whining in May when you realise how badly your party has let you and your nation down.”
Oh, I didn’t realise that John O was a Labour supporter, I always thought he belonged to the party in opposition over the last 13 years. Lifelong Tory supporter indeed!!
155.
Too fcuking right.
This phoney war has gone on ever since October 2007 when Brown bottled it.
I’m sick to the back-teeth with it (if only because I’m a saddo who can’t draw myself from checking the hundreds of polls on here evey night).
Time to get the show on the road. Let battle commence etc etc etc.
Lets just get it done with!
153 Ash - don’t be a bloody fool man. There has been a great deal of excessive spending. In my little corner of the NHS a whole bunch of people are going to be out of work soon because the money has run out. And the shame of it is to have been witness to the waste that has led us to this point. Your targets and your pointless reorganisations.
Do we know MORI dates?
Sometimes MORI polls are a bit old.
154 - I missed it too.
TSE
Twitter only makes sense with a Phone, you get texts from those you follow. Otherwise you have to go to the website - too much hassle!
157 - You mean a UKIP supporter is your idea of a tory?
You seem very confused…
The budget will not be a giveaway budget. If it is, the public will see through it. If the public don’t see through it and are provisionally minded to give it their approval, the markets will help them rethink their view of it.
So the budget will be reasonably sensible. It will, however, have one or two eyecatching items.
Scottish Labour M.P. Anne Moffat calls Iain Gray a coward over her de-selection.
If she fails in her appeal, she will probably run as an independent.
Splitting the Labour vote, and causing Labour to lose the seat.
SNP Gain.
156 John O. And there was me thinking that you’d play Nancy to the evil Sykes …. Down Bullseye, down boy !!
This cannot be good for Labour
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/8584206.stm
[Bob, 158] - Stamp duty cut? The stupidity of the government knows no bounds..
We have a considerable budget deficit, we could do with some investment in our infrastructure and industry and… the government want to re-inflate a house-price bubble?
Are they really that stupid, or do they just not give a f***?
153 Ash
Extract from Budget Preview by Associated Press:
The British government is on track for a record 178 billion pound budget deficit this year. Borrowings of 12.8 percent of gross domestic product would just pip the 12.7 percent forecast in crisis-hit Greece and would be far above the average 6 percent for Europe.
The huge deficit is partly due to big expenditure by the government to mitigate the impact of the global credit crisis and economic downturn. It has taken over two troubled mortgage lenders, and holds major stakes in two big banks, Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group. The Bank of England has poured 200 billion pounds into inflating the money supply, and 400 million pounds has been spent on an incentive program for new-car buyers.
The country’s debt to GDP ratio is forecast to reach 82 percent this year, almost double the level two years ago.
The credit rating agencies have issued muted warnings over Britain’s fiscal position and the status of the country’s “triple-A’ sovereign debt rating, which allows the country to borrow relatively cheaply.
“With the U.K.’s budget deficit baring comparison with that of Greece, the markets and credit rating agencies would severely punish any sort of pre-election splurge,” said Deloitte economic adviser Roger Bootle. “At the same time, though, the Chancellor will point to the fragility of the economic recovery in resisting calls for a faster fiscal consolidation.”
Read. Learn. THEN comment.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100323/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_britain_budget_preview
178 thats good cos snp are our new friends now! like my alliance with malcolmG!!!
176
Heffer like many, ‘true’ Tories has been driven out of the party, by the Cameroon cult which has taken over the party which he has loved and supported all of his life.
I’m sure that a couple of years of Dave-n-Pals and he’ll be followed by quite a few more.
181. What do you think?
178 - her appeal has failed. I don’t think she will stand as an independent.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/8582248.stm
179 - Surely Hersham’s artful O’Dodger?
153 Ash
Extract from Budget Preview by Associated Press:
The British government is on track for a record 178 billion pound budget deficit this year. Borrowings of 12.8 percent of gross domestic product would just pip the 12.7 percent forecast in crisis-hit Greece and would be far above the average 6 percent for Europe.
The huge deficit is partly due to big expenditure by the government to mitigate the impact of the global credit crisis and economic downturn. It has taken over two troubled mortgage lenders, and holds major stakes in two big banks, Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group. The Bank of England has poured 200 billion pounds into inflating the money supply, and 400 million pounds has been spent on an incentive program for new-car buyers.
The country’s debt to GDP ratio is forecast to reach 82 percent this year, almost double the level two years ago.
The credit rating agencies have issued muted warnings over Britain’s fiscal position and the status of the country’s “triple-A’ sovereign debt rating, which allows the country to borrow relatively cheaply.
“With the U.K.’s budget deficit baring comparison with that of Greece, the markets and credit rating agencies would severely punish any sort of pre-election splurge,” said Deloitte economic adviser Roger Bootle. “At the same time, though, the Chancellor will point to the fragility of the economic recovery in resisting calls for a faster fiscal consolidation.”
Read. Learn. THEN comment.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100323/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_britain_budget_preview
So darling will freeze the income tax bands… then surely this is an opportunity for the tories. As a bare minimum promise to raise the threshold by inflation. However, what they should do, not only to excite the tories but also offer a fig leaf to the lib dems, promise to raise the lowest income bracket to £10,000 over the next parliament. Sell this pledge as the reward for cutting back on public sector spending now rather than later i.e. if you want to spend your own money, vote blue; if you’d rather the government spend it on debt interest then vote labour.
I really do hope cam and osborne have something big up their sleaves. Remember, this budget is labour’s tax and spend manifesto. If the tories come out with a popular tax cut, then lab cant do anything about it. What would be really awesome would be for cam to announce this during the budget response
‘today lab have pledged to freeze the income tax bands for the poorest as well as the richest. I can announce that i’ll raise the income threshold for the poorest to £10000.Real help for the hardest pressed families in the country’
183 - Oh deary deary me.
183 - This is why you sound so out of it, you lost touch with politics some decades ago and are trading on old memories of what you expect.
Genuine question:
Could someone tell whether or not voters who spoil their ballot papers are included in the official turnout figures?
189. Theres no money for tax cuts.
Has Gordon admitted being under the thumb of the Dark Lord?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/gordon-brown/7506200/Gordon-Brown-is-asked-about-a-homosexual-relationship-with-Lord-Mandelson.html
187 - I was hoping for something along the lines of O, from the story of O
http://tinyurl.com/IWonderWhyILikeThis
Oh dear, Newsnight’s uncovered more lobbying shenanigans. Ladyman & Ingram have been bending the rules.
164.”If there were consecutive polls that put Labour in the lead one would imagine some private disquiet.. ”
I think there would be a considerably bigger reaction than that.
Let’s remember that Labour do not even need a lead to get the most seats - in fact, far from it.
35% at this stage is ruinous for the Tories - however you try and explain it away.
192 - I think they are - some people spoil their paper for a variety of reasons - I have seen mini-novels written on some ballot papers over the decades as to why they are spoiling their papers.
189. I would have thought that the obvious thing for Osborne to do would be to reintroduce the 10p tax band.
195 - Correct link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story_of_O
193 there would be if we scrapped state benefits!!!!!!!!
171 Seth Gillette
It looks like there may be a pledge in the Labour manifesto to have fixed term parliaments.
That should avoid all the ups and downs that we have gone through over the past 2 years on sites like this.
Long overdue in my opinion. Fixed 4 year parliaments. Superb.
Thats assuming Labour win of course.
185 lol !!!!
187 John O. Eat yer sausages !!
183 - Seriously, you have no fcuking idea.
181. “Are they really that stupid, or do they just not give a f***?”
They are both stupid and do not give a f*ck.
196 quit panicking! “ruinous” my a$$$
201.
That’s likely to be in the Tory manifesto as well I should imagine, along with the cutting of the number of MPs and reducing Whitehall by a third.
191
Really! I’ve never met a Cameroon, (is it a sort of biscuit?) I meet Heffer/Warner types everyday.
There must be something wrong somewhere: third term government, recession, financial scandals and the Tories are polling back in the mid-thirties, not too much to boast about.
188 But credit rating agencies and city economic commentators are not held in the awe that they once were - what were the crediat rating agencies saying about RBS and HBOS in the Summer of 2008? That they were AA rated! Frightening people with dire city commentaries will not win the Tories any votes.
156: why am I “ludicrous”, out of interest?
Because I’m being proved right?
Anyway, I don’t like the sound of your decree. I’d quite like to be able to vote Conservative in 6 weeks’ time, but it will need a fantastic turnaround on their part if they are to secure my vote. It might happen, and Burnley might still stay up as well 3 days later…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/gordon-brown/7506200/Gordon-Brown-is-asked-about-a-homosexual-relationship-with-Lord-Mandelson.html
Well, everyone’s heard “THAT” story haven’t they………
re 132 coldstone it’s only the Hefferlump’s sanity you need to question. The bitter and twisted, opinionated, self-important loon lost his sanity yonks ago.
208. “Really! I’ve never met a Cameroon, (is it a sort of biscuit?) I meet Heffer/Warner types everyday.”
Have you ever thought that perhaps that might be down to you?
207 Seth
Yes you’re probably right on that.
In fact i wouldn’t be surprised if both parties come out with identical manifestos, leaving the british people none the wiser. This is going to be one very weird election.
Thanks for the info, marcia.
I suspect there’ll be quite a few of them this time.
“I’m afraid that Cameron has been found out as a creation of his PR machine,” — what a joke. Wake up - we are in the middle of a storm of sleaze which is pushing up the ‘others’ vote.
Brown and Clegg have both made complete tits of themselves on TV recently and Cable made a complete arse of himself by pretending he was called in for consultations by the treasury, when in fact he invited himself in for little more than a cup of tea.
Meantime an absolute raft of the labour party are enmeshed in a sea of sleaze.
A YG poll puts the Tories on 40 in London …. is this bad news? It is if you are a socialist.
208 - There are plenty of socially liberal Conservatives knocking around.
Crick reporting the Mori
210 ‘but it will need a fantastic turnaround on their part if they are to secure my vote.’
Bob Sykes, are you suggesting that you will cast your vote on the basis of the Tory party’s lead in opinion polls? How odd.
@ 145 (ollie): The whole situation still seems analogous to 1979 to me. Then as now, a discredited government was somehow scoring relatively high in the polls and the GE itself - 38%, wasn’t it?
With hindsight, it is now obvious, even to Labour diehards, that the Callaghan government was hopeless and was leading us to perdition, but at the time only Tories could see this. There was a hard core that didn’t accept this, and thought their unsustainable non-jobs could be funded indefinitely by an impost on everyone else.
This attitude persisted right up to the end of the miners’ strike, I would say. Only after 1985 did it become unusual to find someone who thought Labour had a point. Conservatism was utterly dominant intellectually by then, but not before.
The same is happening now, I think. There is a corpus of interest that wants to hear we can have champagne public spending on beer money indefinitely, that “the rich” can be fleeced to pay for it all, and that the definition of “rich” will never be lowered to include themselves.
Labour’s pitch is somewhat like that of an estate agent who tells you your £300k house is worth £450k, so you’ll instruct him to sell it rather than someone else. A few months down the road, when it hasn’t sold, he tells you actually it’s worth £300k - like everyone else said it was. You knew that all along really, but you swallowed the story because hey, what if he’d been right?
There may be a constituency of Labour support that knows Brown has wrecked the economy, but will vote for him anyway because he’ll help them pretend it hasn’t happened.
“Really! I’ve never met a Cameroon, (is it a sort of biscuit?) I meet Heffer/Warner types everyday. ”
Explains everything about your love of the hard right, you are just too cowardly to admit you want to be like them.
201 jupiter1. What! You believe a promise in a Labour Manifesto?
This is the party that promised you a referendum on the EU Constitution in their last manifesto, remember!
“Really! I’ve never met a Cameroon, (is it a sort of biscuit?) I meet Heffer/Warner types everyday. ”
There’s a whole bunch of us in the NHS.
219 - I have some sympathy with that analysis.
1988!! top rate cut to 40%!!!
All about the high earners wopping it on the counter and waving it in the face of the dole-claimers!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ON-7v4qnHP8
219 very well put.
In 78, 79 it was far from clear what was going to follow. people hardly dared take a step out from under the state they had been living in, they had beeen cowed by years of dreadful government. the same has happened now. This is what Labour does. It bleeds people of their confidence and any change is hard won.
We won’t get a 97 wave of optimism. Labour’s disasterous government has seen that there is trepidation as to our future.
When is Brown going to call this election? Maybe then the polls will start moving as people start really paying attention.
Tonights MORI
A majority of those quizzed - 56% - thought Labour was right to say public spending should not be cut immediately for fear of putting the recovery at risk.
Some 32% backed the Conservative view that the national debt was the greatest threat to the economy, and work on reducing it needed to start this year.
No wonder Osborne is in detention.
220
Be like them no, respect them yes.
216
Not in this neck of the woods, I can assure you.
198
Thats the 10p band which when it was introduced was attacked by Hague/Portillo as a ’silly gimmick’ is it?
Dont the tax cutters get it? - there is no money! I repeat there is no money! Do I have to say it again - there is NO MONEY!
It is not just govt debt that is out of control, it is personal debt as well! WE ARE BANKRUPT!
Ash, off to bed now, still no reply re my question. So you have confirmed that you genuinely have no clue what you are talking about. That leads me to believe that you may well be part of the Labour treasury team.
218: no, of course not. The “turnaround” requires:
- 6 weeks of competence, and the boot being put into Labour day in, day out
- a credible, compelling manifesto for change containing sensible, properly-articulated and fully costed promises that can be delivered
- Cameron to look like the PM-in-waiting; the Shadow Cabinet to look like a Government-in-waiting
- a commitment to tax cuts, proper ones not IHT cuts for the wealthy
- some fire in their bellies, and something to put a bit of fire into my belly and the bellies of all the other “lost Tories”
They are failing miserably on all of the above. If they turn it around, I could see that victory is still possible. Possible - I put it no higher than that.
227,I wish they put you in detention
189. I’d agree with that. In any case raising thresholds in line with inflation wouldn’t really be a tax cut. But 10% band would also make very good headlines.
Can anyone confirm - has Labour already announced (in PBR presumably?) that thresholds are being frozen?
228 - Only a fool respects people like Heffer and Warner, at least you admit to being one of them.
231 that will be the election campaign then.
re 227. Pity it’s not from a politically balanced sample so we can give some credence to it.
Let’s see the data tomorrow.
232 how many times do you play notts county in a season?!
WTF WTF WTF WTF WTF WTF WTF WTF WTF WTF WTF WTF WTF WTF WTF WTF WTF WTF WTF WTF WTF WTF
32.3 up to 35% means that out of every 37 people certain to vote the tories have won over 1 person.
JUST ONE!
Or
2.7 out of every 100 people
That is RUBBISH!
The YouGov poll says that 54 per cent believe that the deficit should be cut by savings in public spending rather than tax rises.
238 - Yes. I don’t think I believe that either.
Didn’t RodCrosby make some prediction about the Tories dropping towards 35%, and everybody took the piss out of him for it?
233. no, it wouldnt be… but compared to labour freezing income tax levels it would be. And lets be honest, brown would most certainly be championing it as one if the situation was reversed.
And yes, 10% would be another possibility. They need something they can tell the public on the door step. ‘why should i vote for you?’ ‘because we are going to save you hundreds of pounds a year by slashing the income starting rate to 10%’
78
‘78.Ash, to repeat myself. I hope that Labour get back in with a very small overall majority, perhaps 5 seats.’
I would rather like that too, nice to see Labour clear up their own shit for a change.There would be no hiding place for them the bond & currency markets would see to that.
Then after 12 or 18 months with or without a rigged electoral system we would have a Labour free country for a couple of decades.
Just seen the front pages, and Miliband will be delighted at the Guardian and the Indy. Must admit that his tone in the Commons today was bound to tickle those tummies.
front pages.
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Newspaper-Front-Pages-National-Papers-On-Wednesday-March-24-2010/Media-Gallery/201003415580710?lpos=UK_News_Left_Promo_Region_0&lid=GALLERY_15580710_Newspaper_Front_Pages%3A_National_Papers_On_Wednesday_March_24_2010
Mirror has something on lowest Tory share of a poll for 2 years - no readable details.
Jack W, man, you’ve been in right rare form a livelong day . . . and into the night!
Are you doing a “tasting” of the more recreation half of your medicine chest? Or are you enjoying Ms Span’s latest politico-docu-drama: “Standing Committee; or What the Under-Secretary Saw”
241 - Rod Crosby = Hari Seldon
On thread - Not surprised at little change in figures. They are not shifted much by side issues like the BA strike, or death tax, or non-dom funds, or lobbyists, or a baby… etc. People are waiting to hear what coherent and consistent proposition is going to be expounded in the main two party fight. Nothing is happening and nothing is changing much in the meantime and the weeks drift by.
As a proponent of high others figures even I think these are starting to be a bit off. There aren’t going to be the options that people want on the ballot so they simply won’t vote, that suggests a figure of 8/9% or so as opposed to 14%. The MORI figures are therefore more likely to see a result of 37/32/22
if you presume that they are correct.
209 nickc
Frightening people with dire city commentaries will not win the Tories any votes.
It is not intended to win any votes. My post was designed to inform Ash of the current reality of the UK’s financial position so that he might avoid embarassing himself in future posts.
Cracking debate about the tomorrow’s budget and the economy on Newsnight Scotland, and not a politician in sight. Level headed, no point scoring, and the interviewer leading with questions that encouraged rather than confronted the guests. More please.
227, 236. The Tories are definitely failing to get across the message of how this colossal deficit buggers us up daily. I don’t know whether this is media bias or ineptitude.
For example, the staggering scale of the deficit has trashed the value of sterling. This means that we in the UK are still paying 2008 prices for petrol at the pump, because although the price of crude oil has fallen, you still need almost as many pounds to buy an $80 barrel of oil in 2010 now as you did to buy a $140 barrel 2 years ago.
There is a demonstrable direct path from Labour incompetence, to the collapse of the pound, to the hammering your wallet takes every time you fill the car. Labour’s colossal deficit impoverishes you every time you start the car.
Points like this are simple and cannot easily be obfuscated by Labour’s favourite “it’s a global crisis” line. If it were a global crisis, everybody’s currency would have tanked and there’d be no effect.
Why the Tories are not hammering this and similar parables home until we’re sick of hearing them, I really don’t know.
Time for me to head off I fear, I shall leave you with a quote from Edmund Burke that may be apt given the budget.
“Taxing is an easy business. Any projector can contrive new impositions, any bungler can add to the old.”
A juicy unions-Labour story in the Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1260178/BA-militants-plot-control-Labour-Damning-emails-strike-union-chief-reveal-secret-agenda.html
who was the interviewer christina? not glen campbelly?
Hello what have we got here,
BA militants and a plot to control Labour: Damning emails from strike union chief reveal secret agenda
The plot is revealed in a series of astonishing emails from Graham Stevenson, a senior Unite official who is also on the executive of the British Communist Party.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1260178/BA-militants-plot-control-Labour-Damning-emails-strike-union-chief-reveal-secret-agenda.html#ixzz0j2sYxKiF
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1260178/BA-militants-plot-control-Labour-Damning-emails-strike-union-chief-reveal-secret-agenda.html#ixzz0j2sTUyiP
244, Christina D
Are either of these topics - delighting Labourites and/or tickling tummies - areas of endeavor where you can lay claim to special expertise?
255.redcliffe62, it was Gordon Brewer.
I realise you need to say something…
But it’s silly to dismissively call a daily tracker “non-sensational”/boring. It is obvious there will be less movement of results in a day than the week to month of a traditional poll.
It is very silly to keep alluding to the “non-sensation” of that daily tracker every day, day after day.
I must admit folks, I am beginning to wonder about these polls.
Labour are literally falling apart - scandal after scandal, bad press after bad press - and yet the Tories seem unable to capitalise.
I am very worried about the state of politics in this country. I do not believe Cameron holds all the answers - but it is clear to me that he is intensely preferable to another five years of this shower. That the people of this country seem to be even entertaining that prospect thoroughly depresses me. It seems people don’t even care about sleaze anymore. Thanks, Labour.
I really, really hope that the budget opens people’s eyes and when the campaign proper starts we’ll see some movement again. But right now I can’t say I’m a very happy bunny!
257.SSI, that is why we have the sporran in Scotland.
Iain Martin at his WSJ blog - Brownites Getting Their Excuses in Early
Despite all the above hysteria, nothing new tonight.
YouGov unchanged.
Ipsos Mori all over the place (take a look at December 2009 if you doubt me on this).
Bond@219. I think your politics are as big a fantasy as your moniker. At this point in 1979 the Tories were scoring around 50% in the mori polls with leads between 9% and 13%. It was clear that Margaret Thatcher was going to win that election.
Of course the system was much more of a two party system then as well. The Libs - struggling with the blame of the Lib/Lab pact were on 10% - and with a far more thinly spread support base than they have now.
One of the striking features of the recent few months is how incoherent the Conservatives have been. Not sure whether to tack left or right. Fearful of the electorate on the one hand who fear swingeing cuts - and who hate bankers, and the City on the other hand who are demanding them - and are bankers.
And whilst they dither over what to do, their main team start to look like rabbits in the spotlight, unsure of what Conservatism means and what it should mean. And meanwhile the voters are at the point that they want more than screams of ‘but we’re not Gordon Brown’. The problem for the Tories is, that there might not be much more than that.
Why do Tories dislike British Airways workers?
They are not all that well paid. The fact that other newer, cheaper airlines underpay their staff doesn’t make them well paid. They are paid far less for a much harder job than the hypocrites and hate-mongers who attack them.
They are not responsible for the mess of customers missing their flights. If anybody is, it’s the management’s reaction which is out of line.
Funny I never hear you (or the media) blame Willie Walsh, isn’t it? So much for neutrality.
Daily Mail - BA militants and a plot to control Labour: Damning emails from strike union chief reveal secret agenda
I think this might be part of wider Mail investigation into UNITE.
Whelan was whinging all weekend about Mail journalists looking into his life.
252 Bond - the proletariat don’t care about the deficit or debt. They only want to know that the government will keep pushing money their way somehow or other.I almost hope for a Liebour election victory so that the proles will understand that you cannot print and borrow money forever, even with a Liebour govt.
252 Bond.James Bond
The problem with tim is that he is intelligent enough to understand the current state of the economy, its consequences for the country and its implications for future government.
I suspect the is a bold Labour poster and a shy Tory voter.
On Tories getting across their message about the deficit, you are absolutely right about the need to explain abstract economic measurements in sound-bites which focus on voter impact.
I still trust that this will come. The Budget has always been the starting gun for the key election debate.
Budget. Market Reaction. Explanation.
last ever labour budget tomorrow!!!
re266 perdix
Another 5 years of Labour and you might as well hand the keys of Number 10 over to Nick Griffin, because that is how bad it is going to get!
One more thought on the budget, Nick palmer keeps trying to downplay the significance of it. If this is the line taken tommorrow i.e. nothing to see here, the Tories must remind people of all the tax increases combined with the lack of spending review showing instantly that Labbour is far more comfortable raising taxes than cutting spending, so like the budget expect 5 years of ever increasing taxation.
The message then is simple if you are a taxpayer wherever you work regardless of what Labour say, what they have done shows what they will do and that is massively increase taxation.
263- “And whilst [the Tories] dither over what to do, their main team start to look like rabbits in the spotlight, unsure of what Conservatism means and what it should mean.”
Hate to say it, but after watching the events of the past few months, this does indeed seem to be at the core of the Tories’ problems. Having abandoned, at one time or another, nearly everything that ever made them conservative, they are now merely an amorphous party that can’t do much more than sell itself as an alternative to a failed Labour government. The problem is, if people aren’t completely convinced that they want to get rid of Labour and instead want to compare the two parties on the issues, the Tories aren’t left with much to say.
Just wondering, where is Mr Roe of the Scottish Currant Bun these days? Has he stopped posting?
So the Daily Mail has Communists taking over the Labour Party.
They’e been doing that story since 1900, three breathless Tories think its news.
272 - He has changed monikers for professional reasons.
274 - Changed to? Or is it a secret?
Scabrous Dave on the slide.
Proud Labour = THE UNIONS!
276 gabble = #
264 Paul Lloyd. Very interesting icm oll, there. How are they at getting an accurate lib Dem share? And if labour really are on 30%, what does that mean for lib chances?
Like most others, I just cannot understand it. Just about everything news-wise is going against Labour and yet the polls keep nudging them ever closer to parity with the Conservatives.
First we had teflon Tony, now we appear to have bomb-proof Brown.
It has to stop somewhere, surely, but if it carries on until June and the current momentum is maintained, Labour could actually nose in front.
::Betting Post::
“Another 5 years of Labour and you might as well hand the keys of Number 10 over to Nick Griffin, because that is how bad it is going to get!”
And I bet 80% of Tory voters won’t be saying that in a year’s time. Three years and half of you will want Labour back!
Cameron won’t change anything for the better or worse. The problems of Britain, especially economic ones are largely out of a Prime Minister’s hands.
Broad social policy of Labour and Conservatives are basically the same (tactical disagreements are emphasized for the gullible/activist base). Institutional reforms (EU, devolution, constitutional issues etc) are driven forward relentlessly of popular sentiment or party line.
A very strong / independent Prime Minister might make an impact. David Cameron will never be such a Prime Minister.
A good old fashioned ‘Reds under the bed’ story to set the 70’s theme.
It is alll very funny - 35% is dire - If its 35/33 then rod crosby gets PB poster of the decade!
277. Ave it != happy
274. Is he a secret agent? Step forward Mr Bond and allow me to claim my £5.
272.Not sure, I was wondering as where David was as well. He said he had to stop posting under his real name, but I haven’t seen a poster fitting his description in his absence either. Hope he hasn’t been forced to give up PB.com altogether.
273 tim
The Daily Mail has always been behind the times.
Just caught up with Daves car crash interview shown on Channel 4 news. Poor very poor indeed, the poor chap looked lost and pretty stupid.
283 not worried gabble we will win!!!!
This simple fact remains.
Even if this poll turns out to be broadly correct, David Cameron will have his majority. IMO he will also have a small over all majority of seats.
It is in virtually every ones interests, save that of the country as a whole for there to be a hung parliament, or something as close to one as the establishment can contrive to achieve.
A hung parliament is the worst possible outcome for the people. For such a result will mean not more accountable democracy but the permanent or otherwise suspension of same.
Which might not be such a bad thing if times were not so horrendously awful, or indeed if we thought we could trust any of are political parties to act in anything but their own and therefore their puppet masters interests.
We can not, do not, should not, and would be certifiably insane if we did, especially given our experience regarding the matter in question.
The lib/Lab pact for just one example presided over the worst period in this country’s economic history since the last worst time.
Budget 2010: This may be Darling’s Budget but Tories need it to be Cameron’s day
Alistair Darling has one last opportunity to buy some votes with Wednesday’s Budget but our crisis-torn public finances mean it can be nothing more than a fiscally neutral statement.
nything else would see a Latin American-style dumping of sovereign assets, confirming our monarchy’s status alongside the world’s banana republics. We already have the requisite weak currency and rising bond yields – all we need now is a concerted flight to safety by our investors.
Darling may well have up to £20bn in lower than expected borrowing to play with. I expect he will have been battling with No 10 to keep hold of it so he can reassure jittery markets that it will be used to shrink the deficit rather as a fiscal conjuring trick for the benefit of Labour MPs in marginal constituencies. We’ll see, but I wouldn’t underestimate this last vestige of New Labour delivering some “jam tomorrow if you vote for us today” type policy announcements.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/damianreece/7507395/Budget-2010-This-may-be-Darlings-Budget-but-Tories-need-it-to-be-Camerons-day.html
Smeary (Unite funded concrete chucking) Gobble - Links, spins and lies
“David Cameron in Tory poll plunge shocker which says Labour and Gordon Brown would win General Election”
“…the public reckons Mr Osborne is the worst of the three contenders to take over at the Treasury after the election.”
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/03/24/david-cameron-in-tory-poll-plunge-shocker-which-says-labour-and-gordon-brown-would-win-general-election-115875-22134446/
http://bit.ly/davidcameraoff
289. It’s not these polls I am worrying about John, it’s the direction the polls are going and the momentum I am more concerned about.
278. I have been saying for ages that the Tories are wrong to underestimate the Lib Dem chances. Their vote is hardening as the election draws near. If the Tories get stuck at the kind of levels that Mori have here then they are going to find it very tough to take many off the LDs. Meanwhile they still have some good chances of picking up seats from Labour in the North East, North West and maybe a one or two in South Wales. The tighter the polls get, the less chance of a squeeze.
“David Cameron stumbles on equality in Gay Times interview”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/david-cameron/7507476/David-Cameron-stumbles-on-equality-in-Gay-Times-interview.html
His face is on fire!
290 Big change in tone in the Telegraph in recent weeks. They seem to be trying to undo some of the massive damage they have done to Cameron and the Conservative Party over the last couple of years.
Let’s hope it’s not too late.
Gobble - try sharing an original thought with the class rather than all of the linky linky rubbish. Go on you must be capable of it.
297.Richard, I think that Benedict Brogan’s influence is the key to this. He really has rowed in behind Cameron and Osborne in recent months, and become a very loud critic of another five years of Brown and Labour in government.
Just to make this clear, a party that is not only gaining nothing like a majority of the vote but is actually behind in the voting will not be allowed to rule. All my life I have had to cope with being ruled by a minority but this would tip it over the edge and many people will not accept the authority of anything coming out of such a government. We don’t do revolutions but this would move is areas of civil disobdience at the very least.
The Tories problem is that they have been saying that we must have bigger cuts to reduce the deficit more quickly or we will face some kind of economic armageddon.
by nickc March 23rd, 2010 at 10:40 pm
No that is the Labour doctored version. The Tories say that spending reductions to cut the government overspend should start now. Not savage cuts now. That is Nick Clegg on LibDem policy 45d.
Labour’s plan is to delay as long as possible and max out the national credit card and then cut like there is no tomorrow because it all needs doing at once. That is what will really hurt the punters.
The removal of stamp duty at a quarter of a million is a Tory policy if I recall correctly, so Darling would be stealing again.
298 - MacGobble tried that on Newsnight not that long ago, and “Daddy” Hannan (as he appeared to call him when he got himself in a right pickle) wiped the floor with him…
43 days to go….
And then we can lock the Labour up!!!
301 - Timmy’s favourite “Toff-ette” was right behind that idea…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-564860/Kirstie-Allsopp-backs-Tory-bid-scrap-stamp-duty-saying-time-home-buyers-milked.html
Andrew Gilligan in the Telegraph - British Airways strike: The rise of ‘Red’ Len McCluskey
296 - ‘“David Cameron stumbles on equality in Gay Times interview”’
Love that Telegraph article - just as Simon Heffer (b. 1960) talks about what he heard on the ‘wireless’, that piece can only bring itself to mention ‘homosexuals’ rather than ‘gays’.
297 - They thought they could attack Cameron with impunity while he was miles ahead. They are starting to realise he actually needs help. I’d say very few people at the Telegraph actually want 5 more years of Gordon Brown.
swing voter, Go to the cabin crew website, pprune.org.uk, and read the last 10 pages of comments from the last 3 days.
That will tell you what the staff want to do and their sentiments.
The problems lie with people who think BA is a public sector company and that people deserve have a job for life no matter how inefficient they are.
Spoke to a BA trolley dolly last night(well she is 37 now…) and she siad the key isue for many is no basic pay when on strike and their loss of staff travel if they strike AGAIN next week.
many who were striking last week are rostered off and volunteers coming in. They could have almost run a full airline they got so many people in who wnat to work on the same conditions as other airlines.
BA lost 340 mill last year, and the commies who run UNITE are not popular down Crawley way at all.
Those that went on strike this week will struggle to hold on to that travel perk. And may be rostered off for some time….
Heard one good story from apublic comment, that the volunteers were
having great fun and dashing around and only 8 people needed for a plane instead of 10 or 11 as they worked twice as fast.
BA policy seemed to be sensibel, to feed 1st class in the lounges before the flights and grog them up and so if they got little on the plane it was not an issue. As a one off people loved the “blitz” mentality.
As for who they fly with after next week when they have so many options, well I think future bookings will be down, less flights needed, so we know who will not be rostered on do we not?
Expect most people back next week if they are requested as the strike has failed, and people realising that the airline can survive, and work very well, without them.
Trolley dollying is not a profession, like law, in most cases it takes a just few weeks to get up to scratch.
The older cabin crew who think the world owes them a living as they fly the preferred lucrative routes are getting that message from other people who wnat their jobs and are working to show that.
296 Gabble, how many more stories about sleazy Labour politicians on the take will come out over the next few weeks?
swing voter, As a final point I used to work for a national airline (Ansett)that went bust due to the actions of its staff demanding “fairer” conditions, 9 day fortnights etc, so this is not new to me.
Still waiting for my superannuation from them………….lost in hyperspace.
thanks christina, Brewer being even handed and fair, well I never.
Back in the real world. My company recieved a new rates valuation which is 25% higher than before. This in an area where half the commercial properties are empty and rents are falling like a stone. What will we do as a result? Cut back on our space and reduce investments. My prediction is that much of the Labour budget will be based on tax rises that will never materialise due to leakage. An example will be reduction in money given to local councils on the assumption that they can put up business rates. When the rates go up space will become empty and further jobs will be lost. These impacts will not be measured in the budget. It is very hard to be optimistic about this country’s future and I am a born optimist.
Anyone who says the Tories have lost the next election have been smoking pot but they have not yet won it. If I do have one prediction it is that this site will beat all records for the number of posts and viewers over the next 6 weeks.
311.redcliffe, I did warn you that there was not a politician in sight.
Seriously, I like this kind of debate where you actually learn about the guests views without it turning into a contest. Stick a bunch of politicians on, one take a pop at the other, they then have to rebutt that and sling one back. Add an interviewer more interested in being confrontational and trying to trip them up, and you kinda of lose the substance or the middle of the plot/spin/policy.
307: ‘They thought they could attack Cameron with impunity while he was miles ahead’
Just demonstrates how appallingly naive and idiotic these supposedly right-wing journalists can be. Getting rid of Brown with a complicit TV and radio media, the electoral mathematics and New Labour’s utter cynicism and ruthlessness was always going to be an astonishingly difficult task! Yet these fools played games and muddied the waters. If Brown’s returned in triumph (and I don’t believe that will happen, but anyway) Gordon’s useful idiots in the Telegraph, the Mail etc. can just belt up and live with it. They wasted acres of column inches sniping at Dave when they should have done their democratic duty and exposed the true horrors of New Labour and Brown. Traitors the lot of ‘em!
312
This already happened to a neighbour who had offices in the peoples republic of Greenwich,massive business rates increase and within 18 months all 8 companies in the block had relocated outside the borough.
313 - That is why election nights would be much better if MPs were banned from being panellists. They add next to nothing to analysis.
Just waiting to fly back to UK on BA from HKG and I agree with Redcliffe. BA cancelled my flight but rebooked me on a new one without asking which arrives 30 minutes later. I had a text, an email, a direct phone call and a call to my office to let me know the changes. This level of competence is way beyond what I expected from BA.
Having been an adult and voter in 1979 I would challenge the assertion in an earlier post ( was it Paul Lloyd?) that everyone expected Margaret Thatcher to win the general election.
In the run up to the election there were all sorts of forecasts and the polls were not as universally promoted and studied as they are now.
Uncle JIm seemed as safe if not terribly effective pair of hands.
In fact there seem some remarkable polling parallels with now and 1979. Not exact but interesting.
From the MORI website:
Then, as now, voting intention polls were volatile at the margin, swinging from almost level in November 1978 (when the Conservatives led Labour by 43% to 42%) to a cavernous 19-point gap (55% to 36%) just two months later, at the end of January 1979…..
Then the ‘others’ were only 3%; now they are scoring between 10% and even 15% in some polls. Then the bias was slightly in favour of the Conservatives……
But the real contrast between today and 1978-9 is in the standing of the Prime Minister. Even when confidence in his government collapsed, “Sunny Jim” Callaghan, the “avuncular father figure” remained a relatively popular figure. In November 1978, before the disastrous events of the “winter of discontent” and an iconic but unfair Sun headline applied the coup de grace, 54% of the public were still saying they were satisfied the way he was doing his job, even though only 39% were satisfied with the government and the Tories had a lead in voting intentions….
at the end of January, satisfaction with the government had plummeted to 17% - around the level the Brown government was plumbing this summer, but lower than its current 21% - and Callaghan’s rating dipped too, down to 31%. But the next poll found him back over 40%, and he maintained that up to the election; Gordon Brown has only achieved 40% satisfied in one monthly poll since the “election that never was” more than two years ago……..
There is also a nice graphic showing how close Labour and Tories were in late March. The election was on the 3rd May.
The gap widened in April. In February it was 19% and the first two polls in March the lead was13% then 9%, and the polls in April were 10, 12, 6%. The first poll in May was 5% and on the day before polling on 3rd May an 8% lead with the final result being 7%.
http://www.ipsos-mori.com/newsevents/ca/ca.aspx?oItemId=409
Sorry, the MORI numbers are at:
http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/poll.aspx?oItemId=2449&view=wide#1979
315.I will second that.
300 - ukpaul, we’ve had it before, in 1951. Nobody started civil disobedience or refused to accept the result. But I agree that if the Tories had a 5% lead the LibDems wouldn’t go in with Labour.
voreas - I’m not really downplaying the Budget, it’s obviously very important. But I’m not sure it will shift that many votes. Committed people will seize on the bits that suit what they already intended to vote, and the floating voters will see the rival commentaries, shake their heads and go on floating.
314. Councils do not control business rates, they have no control over the amount set, and arent even involved in the valuation.
320 - That’s the challenge for Alistair Darling. He needs to make sure that the commentaries on tomorrow are split between attack and defence. I think he’ll manage it, but it might be that he can’t polish a turd, in which case, he might struggle to get the 1/3 of commentaries favourable that he really could do with.
But, as I say, I think he’ll manage it somehow.
And if he pulls election victory out of the fire, he’ll be rewarded with the Spanish Archer.
313/315: agree with Christinas and Lucian. The most satisfying interview I ever did was on some late-night radio 4 programme on a not especially controversial subject (I forget what). The interviewer gave us about 15 minutes, letting us develop a theme and just intervening rather than interrupting to clarify or draw something out. I know it sounds dull but I don’t think it was.
It’s common on Continental media, but the Paxman rottweiler technique has captured too much of the British media.
re280 swingvoter
To say that Britians economic woes are beyond those of a govt to deal with is a cop out! It is just the kind of defeatist mentality that will result in a Socialist Banana Republic! If we dont hand the keys over to Nick Griffin then maybe you would prefer handing them over to Robert Mugabe! Either scenario is just as likely if we have to suffer another 5 years of Labour incompetence and criminality!
323 Nick Palmer
Daniel Hannan made a similar point about the USA media.
“The presenters aren’t sycophantic; but neither are they belligerent. They start from the premise that, if you’ve bothered to have someone on your show, you might as well let him make his point. They don’t ask a question and then interrupt before you’ve started answering.
You start getting used to it after a while, and going back to the Beeb is quite a shock.”
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/9365466/After_American_television_the_BBCs_bellicosity_is_quite_a_shock/
321 So this is a central government tax plan in which the local Tory councils get the blame. How very NuLabour.
320 - That was then; we now have a parliament that is in crisis over expenses, lobbying, you name it, add the result to this climate and you only need the spark to set it off.
315 Lucian Fletcher
I only know of one exception to that suggestions about politicians as pannelists - the STV coverage of the Scottish 2007 elections.
Good chairing during the interminable wait, allowed the MSPs there to interact as human beings, and not as enemies.
BBC and ITV, however, are probably incapable of that sensible approach.
Nick Palmer MP @323
When I first arrived in the States I hated the confrontational Sunday morning ‘debates’ where everyone shouts over each. Still do. I prefer the Charlie Rose format, except it is a little too softball, but themes and more complex memes can be developed and communicated. I really missed the C4 evening news of the mid-80s when the 3rd segment was a 15 minute piece on one subject. I presume that is no more from your post.
During my stints with Fox, 5-6 minutes was considered a huge segment. I was always amazed how much you could cover in sufficiently nuanced detail in that time. I hate the 90 second slots, but they are great discipline in honing the message and really understanding what is the essence of a story.
Daily Mail - SamCam back on the school run, as David says death of son Ivan last year prompted them to try for a new baby
I wouldn’t normal bother to link to a puff article like this in the Mail. But it just goes to show the dangers of twittering and the MSM.
“The Camerons were congratulated by Gordon and Sarah Brown, and Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg and his wife Miriam.
The only sour note came from Commons Speaker John Bercow’s wife Sally, a Labour council candidate. In a reference to Mr Cameron’s schooling, she used the Twitter social networking site to suggest the couple should call the baby ‘Etonia’.”
I saw this twitter from Sally Bercow yesterday, she also IIRC suggested Bullingdon for a boy. It was a very catty remark better kept private in light of the Cameron’s loss last year, and this article highlights that loss. I was totally supportive of her doing her own thing in Labour politics despite Bercow being a Tory MP, and now Speaker. But she really isn’t doing him or herself any favours here. Its not about dignity as one poster suggested yesterday, its about growing up and being mature. Her husband is Speaker, and Cameron is the leader of the opposition. Surely she can twit without resorting to this kind of stuff?
328 - I don’t blame the chairs, I blame the politicians.
How often have we seen Tories say: ‘coming fourth in Manchester isn’t the story here, the story is Labour losing a council seat in Wythenshawe’ or a Labour MP: ‘being behind UKIP in these elections is not the story here, it is the failure of the Tories to win 40 per cent of the vote’?
I recall hearing the Lib Dem MPs in 2001 saying ‘these results prove that we are the real opposition to Labour now’.
The comments bear no relation to the electoral reality and that cannot be blamed on a Dimbleby no matter how past it they undoubtedly are.
I don’t know why Mike called these polls a ‘non-sensation’ - after the YouGov London poll earlier today we were being led to expect a significant swing to the Tories this evening. So after that little false dawn (*puts on Canadian accent*) it’s another truly terrrr-ible night for the Conservatives.
332. The non-sensational implication of these polls is the Tories are not going to win the election…
Guardian CiF - Brian May on My battle for Welsh badgers
Interesting comments on US TV - thanks to DaveB and TimT.
There’s a reference to a Politics Home poll (without VI) in this Times piece which may explain the improving polls:
“The research, for the PoliticsHome website, showed that 45 per cent of voters think the economy has turned or is turning a corner, compared with 34 per cent in January. Forty-one per cent now credit the Government for its handling of the economy, compared with 36 per cent in January.”
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/budget/article7073367.ece
Witan, thanks for those links.
The parallel with 1979 is that a discredited Labour government achieved 38% and finished 7% behind the Conservatives who gained a majority of 40ish.
I expect something similar, for the reasons I outlined previously.
336. A 7% Tory lead is certainly possible, but a 45% share of the vote is way beyond their reach!
337. James, completely agree.
Something like 40:33:18:5, I reckon.
338 BondJamesBond I’m more on 40:30:18 for the reason that I think Labour supporters will underperform re voting (on that losing parties’ bases are demoralised etc…) It may well go sub 30 for Labour.
339 (on that… = (on the basis that …
339. With the narrowing of the polls, anti-Tory voters (by which I don’t just mean Labour voters) are going to be more highly motivated than in a long, long time. In any case, unless the polls change, there is no sense at all of which party is actually ‘losing’.
A 7% Tory lead is certainly possible, but a 45% share of the vote is way beyond their reach!
by James Kelly March 24th, 2010 at 1:47 am
You maybe right, but please don’t let your wishful thinking get the better of you.
Although is seems apparent that even the so called Tory half of the press are secretly trying to engineer a hung parliament, calling the precise, or even approximate result of this election has now become virtually impossible. Some people or indeed pollsters will get it right, because that is the nature of the beast. However it will be more by lucky guesswork, rather then poll data or anything similar, this time.
I have no doubt that the blue team will at least achieve far more votes then the red team, this in itself is a democratic victory of sorts.
However I can just as easily see Cameron gaining the largest election victory in modern political history, whatever the polls say up to the big day itself. It could be very possible that even Labours core vote will simply not show up on the big day, while you can be absolutely certain that the Conservative vote will, if only because it always does.
Personally I would not like to have any money on any particular result. Unless I could get odds on Cameron’s blue team winning by anything from 1% to 15%.
342. John - may I call you ‘my dear child’? - I can sincerely promise you that I’m not allowing my wishful thinking to get the better of me. If I were, I would scarcely have conceded the possibility of a 7-point Tory lead.
The possibility of a 45% Tory vote share, or of a 15-point Tory lead, is however unquestionably wishful thinking.
343 James Kelly
James, young chap, I think you are right. 45% is a little too top end for the Tories this time and I would expect it to settle 1.5% - 2.0% below at 43.0% - 43.5%.
As to the gap with Labour, this may easily be as high as 15%. That would be 28.0% - 28.5% when compared to the Tories. This is well above Angus Reid’s highest total for Labour in its sequence of polls and well over 10% above the last figures achieved in a National Poll.
Anyway, let’s say Labour is 15 points adrift, where would that leave the Lib Dems: around 19.0% - 19.5%. Others being 9.5% - 10.0%.
Looking at this the weakness is in the LD - Lab - Oth shares. Unless you see the SNP crashing in Scotland, I would take a further 2% from Labour and split it between Others and the Lib Dems.
So final stab:
Con 43.0% - 43.5%
Lab 26.0% - 26.5%
Lib 20.0% - 20.5%
Oth 10.5% - 11.0%
Done and dusted. Glad we have found something to agree on!
John - may I call you ‘my dear child’? -
No you may not. That is what I call you remember? Oh of course you do. I was forgetting how childish some people can self evidently be.
As for a 15% lead. I was not referring to a 15% lead. I was referring to a POSSIBLE 15% victory. Which is not the same thing.
Be honest, are you really so sure that your vote will actually drag themselves away from TV and vote for another 5 years of Gordon’s lot?
Your ground forces are shot to buggery. What do they have left to say or support on the doorstep other then scaring people to death over NHS treatment or other the usual big bad blue boggy man stuff.
Also have you personally considered it might be nice for a change to be in opposition? I can assure you many of your members have. I know because I meet and speak with them constantly. As a libertarian I care not one jot about party politics, I care about my liberty and freedom, and who I believe is best placed to conserve it.
I hate the Conservative Party with a passion, and infinitely more then I hate Labour Party voters. Some of which are my best mates. However my hatred of the Conservative Party is ONLY exceeded by my fear of anything to do with wholly establishment created socialism.
Growing up is partly about understanding what really matters in life. Which is keeping as much control over your own life and free mind as possible, while devoting your life to looking after your nearest and dearest. Party politics is a mugs game designed for immature partisan mugs like yourself to play, who can’t seem to find better things to do with their time and energy. Perhaps you may like to try finding a girlfriend or other, you never know she may give you something more useful to worry about.
344. John, as a matter of interest, what age do you think I am? I’ve never mentioned my age here, and yet you seem to have confidently concluded that I’m a foetus. It would be ironic if it turned out that I’m older than you.
I’d say the absolute maximum for the Tories is about 41%, and the absolute minimum for Labour is 28%. But those are extreme points that I don’t expect to be reached. My best guess on the available evidence would be something like 37/32/21.
So, alas, we still have nothing to agree on.
James Kelly. I agree a 45% Tory vote share is most improbable. 40-42% is not, given that the election campaign has not started yet and that with the real thing not yet upon us many polled will be stating first preference/protest preferences rather than real politik voting patterns (read UKIP). My view is that the peak of the bell curve for probable outcomes is around 39-40%. That being the case, I am certain that by the end of the campaign, it will be clear to the whole electorate that the Tories will win the popular vote. I am also pretty sure that the narrative by then will be that they will win an overall majority. Then, the losing party effect on the get out the vote will come into play, suppressing the Labour vote below their polling numbers.
As you may infer, I am a fundamentalist rather than a chartist when it comes to reading the tea leaves. I don’t buy Rod Cosby’s historical swingback, nor do I buy the tinkering with raw polling data based on recall of past elections, a point I was making before the latest YouGov changes.
This is my analysis, rather than wishful thinking. Wishful thinking would be 45:23:23.
James Kelly / John Galt / Seth O. Logue
There seems to be a certain amount of confusion in your posts as to who is talking to who!
345. “Be honest, are you really so sure that your vote will actually drag themselves away from TV and vote for another 5 years of Gordon’s lot?
Your ground forces are shot to buggery…
Also have you personally considered it might be nice for a change to be in opposition?”
I answered the latter question the other night, but you seem to have missed it. To recap, your radar for picking up party allegiance appears to be even more haywire than your ‘age’ radar. For the gazillionth time, I am a dyed-in-the-wool SNP supporter, and in the last local elections (conducted under STV) I ranked the Labour candidate seventh out of seven.
I do however want the Tories to lose this election. That’s how objectionable they are. My ideal outcome is a hung parliament with the Tories firmly in second place, and I’m getting considerably more optimistic as time goes on.
346 James Kelly
I’m heartened. I’d take 41/28/21 from a Scots perspective. I have taken your extremes to balance for party affiliation. All we now need to do is apply oldnat’s rule of +2 for the Tories and -1 for Labour and we get to 43-27-21-10. We are as near as dammit in conjunction again!
Nothing like blogs for bringing people of differing political persuasions together.
P.S. John can quite easily guess your age from your photo on your blog.
348. You’re absolutely right, Oldnat. From the ‘young chap’ in Seth’s post I just automatically assumed it was John Galt’s reply. I would apologise profusely to John, but after his delightful post 345 I’m not sure that would be entirely appropriate!
350. “P.S. John can quite easily guess your age from your photo on your blog.”
Not anymore he can’t - I took it down months ago! By all accounts I look a bit younger than I am, anyway. (Or at least I did until I started posting here…)
Seth. I posted for you a couple of threads back a quote from Maggie that I know John Galt will like. It was posted by someone to contrast unfavourably Pelosi’s legacy vs Maggie’s.
“Our views on the way a government should run the economy can be described as “libertarian”: that is to say freedom to develop trade and industry within the framework of a strong and clear law. The most important part of the case for this economic freedom is not the way it produces greater prosperity but its consistency with certain fundamental moral principles of life itself. Each soul or person matters; man is imperfect; he is a responsible being; he has freedom to choose; he has obligations to his fellow man.
“Morality is personal. There is no such thing as a collective conscience, collective kindness, collective gentleness, collective freedom. To talk of social justice, social responsibility, a new world order, may be easy and make us feel good, but it does not absolve each of us from personal responsibility. We don’t carry out our moral commitment by taking up a public stance on these things, but only by choosing to do something about them ourselves. You can’t delegate personal morality to your country. You are your country.”
The last two sentences gave me pause about my assertion that as a nation we bear collective responsibility for war crimes conducted by the bad apples. I strongly believe what Maggie says about personal responsibility to act and her rubbishing of collective conscience etc… I can square the circle by concluding that we all, as appropriate to our roles in the decision making and to our capability to influence the correct implementation of those decisions, must act personally to ensure that we only fight just wars and that the systems are in place to preclude torture and breach of the rules of war, and to ensure that immediate action is taken to stop and remediate the inevitable failures of those systems, and to hold responsible those who fail to act in line with this (as voters, voting the bums out). However, as a nation, we should be financially and morally responsible for the inevitable failures - this is but part of the price to be paid for defending our security and freedoms.
Age has nothing to do with growing up, the world has more then enough Peter Pans intentionally or otherwise messing it up for every one else. But as you ask somewhere between 30-40. Which at my age is no more then a babe in arms. My once 12 year old was more mature in her understanding of the world and the people in it then most I have met in their sixties.
I don’t think you have actually read my post, if so not at all properly. You seem to basing your opinions on Polls, and the untrustworthy fools that fiddle with there data. A big mistake, especially if you intend to bet any cash on result of the forthcoming general election. Exit polls have a habit of being somewhat wrong, however they also have a habit of being far more accurate then much that came before.
I base my opinions on common sense, and my common sense is telling me that I have no bloody idea what the result will actually be. It very likely could be anything from a 1% to a 15% Conservative victory on the day. Does that make my opinion clear enough?
Which does indeed include your prediction, so in fact we do agree.
347 TimT
Wishful thinking would be 45:23:23.
That would require the BBC to go off-air on a six week pre-election strike. The right call though for ‘unfiltered’ voting intention.
354. “A big mistake, especially if you intend to bet any cash on result of the forthcoming general election.”
I already have - a £20 bet I entered into last autumn with SeanT, that the Tories would not win an overall majority. If you recall what the opinion polls were saying at the time, you’ll instantly realise that I’m not basing my thoughts on this election on polls alone. However, pretending that polls tell us nothing at all - and that ‘common sense’ or intuition is somehow more reliable - is the greatest folly of all.
TimT
I have always been slightly suspicious of Margaret Thatcher as an original political philosopher. I remember an interview with Ted Heath in his late stages. The interviewer quoted a Margaret Thatcher bon mot (I can’t even remember what it was) and he started shaking his shoulders in laughter saying snidely: “she could never have written that”.
This is not in the least saying I prefer Ted to Margaret as a PM: Thatcher was immeasurably the better leader. But for all Heath’s envy, there was truth in his attack. What I think they both shared was a pre-war, middle England, grammar school to Oxford outlook on life, which as you rightly say was libertarian. I would qualify as disciplined, fearless and meritocratic libertarian.
Both Thatcher and Heath did have strong moral compasses. Their terms in office were characterised by decisions of principle (Heath on Powell and the “unacceptable face of capitalism”; Thatcher on the Falklands = and other - ministerial resignations). There was no way either could be described as sleazy or allowing their governments to become corrupt. Thatcher was more of an outsider and sought less to assimilate socially than than Heath. She remained the daughter of the Grantham shopkeeper and her greatest social success - the sale of council houses - was a direct result of this identity.
On your quotes - I missed them first time round - I am certain that they identify Thatcher even if their thinking and logic is not original to her. It is morality born out of wartime experience and fashioned in the Cold War battle with communist totalitarianism. I think today we are inclined to be far more “nuanced” in our determination of right and wrong: to Thatcher these were at extreme of the spectrum without any shades of grey.
I guess the coming political philosophy is Blondism. Vernon Bogdanor’s rather sharp remark in the promo documentary on the Camerons was interesting: he seemed to discredit the renunciation of 20th century state intervention for a return to 19th century ‘community driven’ Victorian charity. The more closely we look at Cameron the less Thatcherite he appears. State, individual or community: which one is the right driver?
On war crimes, I know I would trust both Heath and Thatcher as field commanders. I’m less sure of the others.
oldnat
Have you overdosed on Nytol?
old nat, I do remember Murphy as a guest on a Sscottish by-election a few years ago and he was delightful and came across as a normal chap.
I liked him based on that. Nothing skeletor about him at all.
He was happy to give and take, and admitted they had been smashed but these things happen.
No belligerent dogma spewed from him, unlike the volcanic and vacuous verbosity that he defines as politics today.
Stating the tories should not support Scotland more in 2010 to match the agreed budget were the words of someone either criminally certifiable or mentally under pressure.
This from a London based labour party (Scottish Offioce section)that had allegedly agreed to provide similar forward funding and this waa advised to the holyrood leader of labour, Gray last year, but have now changed their mind this week/month despite the parliament as a whole at Holyrood agreeing it was a sensible and bi partisan thing to do to secure jobs.
Good to see the PB tradition of ludicrous over-interpretation of random fluctuation of poll results continues unabated. When will any of you learn the basics of statisitics and probability to be able to avoid the almost universally ridiculous comment above?