Who’ll win the battle of the £35bn of “Tory Tax Cuts” ?
March 18th, 2005
YouGov poll gives big boost to Gordon Brown
With the first poll on the budget showing a generally favourably response for its contents and for Gordon Brown in particular the big media focus has been on Labour’s “£35bn Tory Tax-Cuts” claim and the respective merits of the Chancellor and the Prime Minister.
According to the YouGov poll in the Daily Telegraph, 63 per cent see Mr Brown as an “asset” to Labour compared to 34 per cent for Mr Blair. When asked who was doing the better job, 52 per cent said Brown compared to 17 per cent for Blair.
Unfortunately the report of the poll does not include a party share figure although we understand that the question was asked. This might be covered tomorrow.
The Daily Mail’s front page this morning will not surprise anybody but sets the scene for what will be a major clash point of the campaign. Whenever the Tories mention anything the Labour retort is going to be that they are planning £35bn of tax cuts.
What is interesting is the way the Tories have tried to nail the figure as a “lie” and the manner in which the TV networks, who are legally required to be neutral, are reporting the argument.
For those who did not watch ITV News last night Simon Carr in the Independent has a good description on the Labour poster launch, how reporter, Nick Robinson, handled it and the Brown-Blair relationship.
…..Unfortunately, one of the journalists was ITV’s Nick Robinson, who isn’t as cuddly as he looks. With the field to himself, he pursued the Prime Minister in a single line of questioning. That is extremely rare. It was also extremely funny. The person who found it funniest was Gordon Brown. You rarely see a genuine smile in politics. Mr Brown struggled to suppress his, but eventually he gave in and let it beam. It was like the sun coming out.
Nick said: “Why do you persist in misrepresenting your opponents’ policies? You know they are saying they will increase spending but at a slower rate?”. .”Actually, that is not what they’re saying,” the Prime Minister started, speaking more quickly to bring off the semantic three-card trick we now know so well.
“You can’t cut money that hasn’t been spent,” Nick said. “You’re alleging they’ll make cuts. But now you’re saying they’ll spend less. The words are different!”
“They’re not different,” the Prime Minister said urgently, stepping across Gordon’s grin. What a hound he is, our Prime Minister, when he’s on form. What he says may not be true but that’s not important. What is important is what works.
But - you could see the scary thought scribbling itself across the PM’s forehead - what if it doesn’t work any more? The very same thought was driving Mr Brown’s delighted smile.
One of the site’s most regular contributors, Alex, made this observation on the Labour campaign strategy. Re: the labour campaign. Does anyone think that the focus today on the ‘35 billion’ Cuts is another brilliant Labour campaign move? Not. They’ve managed to kill the headlines about the supposedly positive budget, where they can trumpet their own record, before most people had even had time time to digest it and replaced them with another political spat where they’ve basically had to admit they’re misleading people somewhat.
JUDGE FOR YOURSELF. The BBC have a link to the video here.
General Election odds round-up.
Mike Smithson
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Trust is the problem - once it becomes an issue nothing you say will be accepted without question. Blairs face during that conference reminded me of Caucescu’s when he tried to calm the crowd down and they wouldnt shut up.
I wondered why Private Eye call him “Dear Leader”
The lib Dems should cheekily run a poster campaign accusing Labour of planning X billion pounds worth of public spending cuts. The Tories could do the same by specifying health and education
There does seem to be a pattern of Labour misrepresenting the other parties’ policies whilst not being entirely straightforward about their own. Spin is dead long live the spin.
I think people who think about politics, think about these things too much. Whenever you have a deeper level of understanding about something, your initial reaction is different to those who don’t (which is why market researchers are not allowed to answer questionnaires - or people who host political betting websites
). Most people take things at face value, which is why negative campaigning is always hated but works.
For example. In the recent US elections, there was enough information out there for infomed people to make up their mind who was the war hero and who was the draft dodger, but it didn’t prevent the pulic from seeing it the other way around.
Labour know that ultimately people believe that they can run the economy, and that in order to switch to a new government, they have to believe the Conservatives will run it better. If Labour can sow any doubt in people’s minds then they have already done their job.
And yes I am a cynic about campaigning Nick, but so are the people who run campaigns. The reason that they can all accuse each other of running dirty tricks campaigns is because they all do.
But Graham 5 - the effect of yesterday is that it will make the “negative campaigning” on Tory spending plans that much harder to carry out. The £35bn tax cuts become like the WMDs that weren’t there and make you question everything.
As a former BBC news editor what’s really amazing me about this campaign is the way Labour statements are attacked in a way would not have happened at the last two elections. A lot of this comes down to the Iraq war and the feeling that the media was lied to.
If Labour can’t make the spending cuts attack stick they have problems getting over the message on the economy.
I thought Alex’s comment, which I quoted above, was spot on.
BTW - its now just Labour! See my story at http://www.suttoncheamconservatives.com/page/3/75/
I hate to say it the basic point about propaganda is that the most effective lie is also a believable one, it carries a ring of plausibility. So Labour claiming Tory cuts not true but sounds plausible, but then going onto claim that they will sack every teacher, doctor and nurse in the land, that’s where effective propaganda passes into parody and loses it’s impact, even rebounding on its propagator and i’m not sure they’ve realised that.
I would point out that my post was as much about the way in which this row has overshadowed Labour’s ability to capitalise on (in a positive sense) on the budget as the merits of the row itself.
Graham at 6: were you looking at me? I didn’t say anything!
Nick Robinson’s intervention has been helpful to the Tories in defending on this issue (we can debate how far it’s his job to do that), but the operative word is ‘defending’. Jon’s comment at 4 is, I’m afraid, simply a description of British elections. In my experience, all the parties spin like mad about themselves and each other, with the LibDems having a modest lead in unscrupulousness. For instance, LibDems in one constituency this month have been claiming that the MP is standing down (false) because her husband is so ill she has to look after him (false) and by the way that home revaluation will increase most council tax (false - it adjusts the comparison between houses while leaving the overall take unchanged). She was scratching her head over it the other day - to argue over whether planned spending reductions in 2011 are “cuts” is one thing, but what do you do when your opponents simply make stuff up? I don’t think any party can really play holier than thou on this sort of thing, and I don’t think many posters on this site are naive enough to think so.
Incidentally, I gather the Mail is printing a feature article from me on a side-issue (can people have a decent life with a cleft palate?) today or tomorrow.
5, 7 - I agree somewhat with both of you. There is definitely a credibility gap since Iraq, but most people will still take the general message (of less for public services under the Conservatives) at face value. What the current spat will look like to a lot of people is arguing over specific numbers - which just gets a generalised “tsk, politicians, they always do that!”
Also agree with Alex that sticking to the positive at this stage would have done better.
Did you read the end of the Sun’s comment on this subject : “There is a very real and important choice between Labour’s massive expansion of public spending and the Tories’ more modest increase. Politicians must not insult people’s intelligence nor try to scare them in the battle to win their votes.” Sounds like a clear criticism of TB and GB.
Labour used exactly the same lie last election when the figure was £30b.
After Iraq, I think the climate has changed considerably in the media.
Where newspapers scrambled around looking for Tory sleaze stories in 1992, I think Labour lies are now on the agenda of which there are many.
“In some ways, Tony Blair reminds me of the late Robert Maxwell, the tycoon publisher. I knew Mr Maxwell for many years before I realised that he had a quite different attitude to truth and falsehood than the rest of us”
Andreas Whittam Smith - Independent, June 2 2003
I salute Nick Robertson. It is the duty of the media to seek the truth and not simply become a propoganda tool for the politicians who shout the loudest and tell the biggest lies.
Well, good on Nick Robinson for asking Tony Blair awkward questions, but… Before we get carried away with the idea that this was yet another Blair/Milburn cock-up, and if only the puritanical Gordon Brown were in charge of the campaign these ‘mistakes’ would never happen, let’s remember the £35bn line - “equivalent to sacking every teacher in the country, then sacking every GP in the country and then sacking every nurse” - is a Gordon Brown original. (You can read it in his speech to Lab’s spring conference (12/2/05) at http://www.labour.org.uk/ac2004news?ux_news_id=gbspringconf05.) I suspect the poster and press launch yesterday was his idea, which is why Milburn was nowhere near the action.
So I would like to think the smile Gordon Brown couldn’t hide yesterday was some degree of embarrassment that his uber-hyped spin had backfired, and landed Tony right in it. But I somheow doubt it.
Apologies, the link shouldn’t have a .) at the end:
http://www.labour.org.uk/ac2004news?ux_news_id=gbspringconf05
The difference between Blair and Maxwell is that no one knew that Maxwell was stealing from pension funds! In the interests of good taste I will refrain from any references to Blair going overboard.
The point really is that it doesnt matter whether we have seen through him or not, or whether the majority of the electorate understand the nuances of arguing over slightly different increases in spending in six years time - no the problem for Blair is that the media have reacted quite ferociously and of course that is where nost “punters” will form their opinions from
There was an amusing commentary in the Telegraph today. Apparently most of the media weren’t told about the poster launch, and it was lucky that anyone with the capacity to ask awkward questions was there at all. It was suggested that Labour are pioneering a new form of campaigning (in the wake of public meetings without the public tested to good effect at the last election) which is press conferences without the press
Any Tips for the Gold Cup??
Portillo made an interesting point about the difference in the 2001 and 2005 campaigns last night in that independent experts say that the tories figures add up and that labour will have to raise taxes this time round whereas the same claims could not be backed up in 2001. Sir Rembrant ew for the gold cup
21 Icarus. No - but bet on Turnout at 60+ in the General Election.
PA story on the local by-election. No numbers yet.
Prime Minister Tony Blair, pondering the General Election date, was jolted by the first post-Budget council by-election results, with Chancellor Gordon Brown’s package apparently winning extra votes in true blue Tunbridge Wells and working-class Hyndburn – but nowhere else.
Labour gained in the Lancashire town by just three votes from Tories while losing three seats to Liberal Democrats – two at Lewisham, south London, and one at Midlothian, Scotland.
Conservatives won from Lib Dems at Tunbridge Wells, Kent, helped by a big Labour increase, and Cherwell, Oxfordshire.
Liberal Democrats also picked up a Residents’ Association seat at Epsom and Ewell, Surrey.
Is it just me, or is this a particularly unusual/weird/strange set of by-election results? Every one of my forecasts was wrong.
Mike et al. I still think that you are not picking up the thrust of what I am saying. Labour have a commanding lead when it comes to the economy. The Conservatives have to convince people that they can run it better. It is not the same as WMDs, because all Labour is doing is casting doubt on `tory spending figures. Labour are relying on the perception that is already out there that the Conservatives will cut public services. You have to assume that Labour have enough evidence (through private polling, focus groups etc) that this is both a perception and a fear amonst a sizable chunk of the electorate, and that all they have to do is keep holding a mirror up to that fear and reflecting it back to them.
Nick - my point was that you commented a couple of days ago that people here were too cynical about campaigns - I was just getting my defence in before you attacked me for it - sorry. Just to say, my wife had a cleft palate, and she has fought through early prejudice to be a successful researcher and business woman. it can be done, but we need to fight prejudice against these issues. Thanks for your campaign.
Mike have invested a small amount on 55-59%. I just dont see them turning out.
And to support my thesis an article by Robin Cook in todays Guardian entitled -
The Abstention party is the biggest threat, not the Tories
…….”The net result is that the proportion of the electorate who perceive much difference between the two main parties has fallen from more than 80% under Thatcher to less than 30% under Blair. Every Labour MP knows that this perception is a grotesque distortion of reality, but we will not shift it unless the leadership starts to explain how Labour’s substantial achievements are all rooted in its distinctive values of equality, solidarity, social justice and liberty.”
Labour MPs may think it is a distortion but it is not aimed at them (Nick) but the New Labour government. It sounds from another Guardian article that the new intake of Labour MPs will be even more New Labour than the last so not much hope for an assertion of back bench power after the election.
By-Election Result 17 March 2005. Councillor elected for St John’s Ward, Tunbridge Wells: Brian Charles Ransley (Conservative).
Result:
Joanna Au Brey, Liberal Democrat - 390;
Maurice Knights, Labour - 244;
Phyllis Leslie, Green - 66;
Brian Ransley, Conservative - 500.
Simon Carr on the launch of Labour’s new poster: Unfortunately, one of the journalists was ITV’s Nick Robinson, who isn’t as cuddly as he looks. With the field to himself, he pursued the Prime Minister in a single line…
Friday, March 18, 2005
Result of Midlothian By-Election
Midlothian has a new councillor following a by-election for electoral ward 15 - Dalkeith/Woodburn.
Raymond Prior (Scottish Liberal Democrats) was elected with a majority of 324. The turnout was 42.5%
The full result was as follows:
Maureen Anderson, Scottish Labour Party: 418 votes (29.62%)
Douglas Crawford, Scottish National Party: 179 votes (12.69%)
Bob Guipillot,Scottish Socialist Party: 48 votes (3.40%)
Rosemary McDougall,Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party: 24 votes (1.70%)
Raymond Prior,Scottish Liberal Democrats: 742 votes (52.59%)
No of spoiled papers - 1
Polling day electorate - 3316
Percentage poll - 42.5%
Total votes polled for all candidates - 1411
Majority - 324
24 votes for the Tories!!!
Last time in Midlothian was
Labour 793 48%
Lib Dem 366 22.2%
SNP 289 18%
Scot Socialist 143 8.7%
Scot Conservative 55 3.3%
Turnout at 42% seems quite good
What I found intriguing about the coverage of the ‘35 bn’ cuts story was that BBC News 24 led with the Tory reaction to the claim, rather than the original claim.
with all due respect imagine that Rosemary McDougall knew 24 people including herself
Anthony Wells has some more detail on the Budget poll.
BBC - MP thrown out over Blair war jibe: An MP has been thrown out of the House of Commons chamber after claiming that Tony Blair had “misled” Parliament over the Iraq war. The Commons speaker ordered Plaid Cymru’s Adam…
Did you take my tip Sir Rembrant ew for the gold cup Icarus?
Sorry missed it. I normally bet on no 6 (Kicking King was no 6) but odds didnt look worth it.
If you have a system stick to it (until you run out of money!!!)
7 and others
I agree that it is the media reaction this time round that is telling. There have been various stories about various journalists being apparently put under pressure by various ’spinners’ over the last eight years (allegdedly derogatory letters to their editors etc.). Is it possibly a case of the “worms” (ie journalists) seeing a weakened and vulnerable ankle to bite and turning for personal rather than political reasons?
Well it is certainly true that a sustained questioning session like that in 1997 and Nick Robinson would have had no leads from within the Government for the last 8 years. Journalists breaking ranks is a sure sign that they don’t see the Blair team being there much longer.
Remember the old verse;
“One cannot hope to bribe or twist
(Thank God!) The British Journalist,
But seeing what the breed will do unbribed,
There’s no occasion to.”
I know one lobby correspondent in the Commons, and he is certainly prejudiced against individual MP’s who have made his life difficult. Others have his complete admiration - and in both groups are people from all parties. the idea of the worms turning certainly has credibility.
Of course the reason the Mail rants so much about Blair treating the public like idiots is that that is THEIR job!
8 The Tories introduced the Council Tax. There would inevitably be some day a re-valuation exercise. Therefore it is fair to say the Tories support the Council Tax. If the Tories didn’t think there would have to be a re-valuation some day, they have been very niaive. If they did, they are currently being very disingenuous.
Knowing about 20 local S&C residents as I do, I know at least who those 20 blame for the Council Tax re-valuation that will soon be hitting them - every single person blames the Tories.
BTT re 43 - so why did the Lib Dems vote in favour of the revaluation exercise when they are trying to pretend that they are against it? They also voted against the Tory motion to stop the revaluation both in 2003 and in March 2005!! Typical Lib Dem lies and deceit!
44 For the pretty obvious reason that we want the COuncil Tax abolished rather than try and put sticking plaster on it.
Peiping Analects mishap murders switch..