Will the Mayoral result resolve the YouGov row?
April 25th, 2008
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Punters still reluctant to bet on a Cameron majority
Ever since Ken Livingstone sought to discredit the YouGov polling organisation after the firm’s February poll put him behind for the first time the result of next Thursday election is going to be about more than who runs London. It has become, also, about the confidence we can have in surveys from the online pollster and the conventional firms.
This has become more the case this morning as the political world digests the sensational 18% Tory lead that is being reported in the firm’s April poll for the Daily Telegraph. This massive Labour deficit comes only three days after ICM in the Guardian reported that the margin with the leading phone pollster had been reduced to just 5%. The two surveys seem totally out of line. One of them, surely, has got this wrong?
Labour and its cheerleaders in the media will take comfort that for the moment this morning’s poll is “only YouGov” - something they weren’t saying last September when the firm was reporting double digit leads for Gordon at the time of the Labour conference - the biggest margins in media-commissioned polls.
Back then, it will be recalled, there was some rubbishing of the firm from Tory supporters - the same factions, no doubt, who were lauding ICM in March when it had a 13% Conservative lead.
Memo to all those with strong allegiances and the Guardian: If you attack a pollster when it is showing that your party is up then it gives you more credibility when the opposite is the case.
My main explanation for the ICM-YouGov difference is that fieldwork for the former took place in the immediate aftermath of Gordon Brown’s trip to the US which received extensive and, in the main, positive coverage. Fieldwork for the YouGov poll took place as the split within Labour over the 10% tax band abolition was at its peak.
So all eyes are on next Thursday’s result which I think will have a big impact on general election betting. If Boris wins by a decisive margin it will give more credence to the polls that have reported him ahead. If not then the reverse. The spread markets are not yet indicating a Tory overall majority.
Mike Smithson
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Not wishing to rubbish any polling organisations, whilst declaring my support for the Tories, the ICM poll is the one that seems strange at this point. It showed a decline in the Tory lead against the trend at a point when the government is falling to pieces.
That said both could be rogue polls.
mike where do you stand on weekend polls? Icm was taken over a weekend which may have distorted it.
The coverage of the us trip was unremittingly dire (pope, angela smith, nobody knows who British PM is, no coverage etc)
Apologies for going O/T so early but this is just gut-wrenchingly funny. Guido has found that someone has hacked Harriet Harman’s blog.
http://www.order-order.com/2008/04/harman-backing-boris-on-her-blog.html
Back on topic, I think polling is only useful over time to be honest. Whilst we all get testy about individual polls and polls in similar time periods diverging the real importance is pointing up the trend.
re 2. One consequence of the US visit was to blank the Tories and Cameron out of the news. As we have seen before the more coverage he gets the bigger the Tory margin
There was a new Scottish voting intention poll published in the Scottish Daily Mail yesterday. Unfortunately the Scottish edition of the Mail (which bears little resemblance to the English edition) is unavailable online, unlike the Scottish Daily Express. So no direct link I’m afraid. But the Herald does have a wee article on it.
The last Progressive Scottish Opinion poll for the Scottish Daily Mail was published back in August 2007, so for comparison I provide the changes compared to both that poll (when the Scottish National Party were at the very peak of the post-victory honeymoon: 48% was the highest poll finding for the SNP in its history), and compared to the actual Holyroods GE result in May 2007.
(Please note: Progressive Scottish Opinion are not a member of the British Polling Council. ie: consume with caution!)
Progressive Scottish Opinion/Scottish Daily Mail
Scottish Parliament voting intention
Constituency vote (FPTP)
fieldwork: 15 - 22 April, 2008
sample size: 1,004
(% change from last PSO/SDM poll August 2007) (% change from SP GE const vote May 2007)
1. SNP 40% (-8%) (+7%)
2. Lab 33% (-1%) (+1%)
3. Con 13% (+5%) (-4%)
4. LD 10% (+2%) (-6%)
5. Grn 3% (+1%) (n/a)
6. SSP 1% (-1%) (n/a)
No Westminster voting intention, nor Holyrood regional vote (PR) findings have been published (so far).
If you pump these findings into the Weber Shandwick ‘Scotland Votes’ seat calculator then you see dramatic changes in the FPTP map of the country, with a Lib Dem near-wipout.
More interestingly, if you pump these findings into a D’Hondt calculator - the PR method used for the Euro election next June - then you get:
1. SNP 3 MEPs (+1)
2. Lab 2 MEPs (n/c)
3. Con 1 MEP (-1)
LD zero MEPs (-1)
(Scotland will have only 6 MEPs at the Euros next year, compared with 7 MEPs in 2004.)
http://www.theherald.co.uk/politics/news/display.var.2222234.0.New_poll_claims_SNP_support_at_record_levels.php
http://www.scotlandvotes.com/
5.
typo: the Lab % changes should be (+1%) and (+1%).
O/T i think Ken was probably genuine in his comments the other day (about losing and advice to Boris). Wouldn’t be surprised if Boris offers him a job if he wins (something to do with the Olympics). I think they’d work well together.
2. I suppose there could be a ‘weekend’ effect in polling, due to the different nature of newspaper reporting, which in turn influences people being polled.
During the week, the ‘papers tend to go for headline-grabbing, usually negative stories. But at weekends the papers are bigger and stories can be covered in more depth?
Well, I have to say that a poll lead of 18% for the Tories sounds more plausible to me than one of 5%. What’s the big political story been? A Labour budget making the poor poorer - a government climbdown in order to carry it, following near panic from the back benches after they’d spent a week in their constituencies. All utterly predictable last Autumn, when, for some strange reason, no one was listening.
If any of us had been given that scenario last year or the year before, which of us would have thought a Tory lead of 5% more likely than one of 18%?
As to the “Cameron visibility effect” so beloved of Our Genial Host, why should that exist? (I’m agnostic about it.) If it’s there, it suggests that people - or the relatively small number of swing voters who decide elections, anyway - want his perceived “Tory Ultra Lite” brand rather than the flat-tax or jingoistic dystopias of Tory posters here. Possible - but no more so than a number of other scenarios.
Behind the thrashings of the mortally wounded beast in Downing Street and his Parliamentary Party lies the Question They Cannot Answer: what are you going to do with a fourth term? I wonder if there’s a Tory on here who can remember a single policy from their 1992 manifesto that they were enthused about at the time.
As to the Mayoral election, I don’t think the betting markets are sufficiently sophisticated, but I should make Boris no better than even money to poll 3 votes for every 2 Ken gets on first preference - a 12% or 13% lead. But will Boris put his face on my Oystercard?
9 “I wonder if there’s a Tory on here who can remember a single policy from their 1992 manifesto that they were enthused about at the time.”
There was only one Tory policy in 1992 that mattered: don’t let Kinnock get his hands on power. And Gordon’s only message in 2010 will be don’t let Cameron get his hands on power. One of those messages resonated with the voters; one will be doomed.
ICM vs Yougov. Which is better? There’s only one way to find out…
FIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!
3, hahahaha. Still, the ID card database will be just as unhackable, I’m sure.
I saw the QT debate (well, most of it). I thought Paddick came off worst, actually, which surprised me. On 9% or so he can’t exactly afford a bad performance, though his presence was dubious to begin with. He made a very nasty remark about Boris keeping things from his family, and seemed quite catty, too serious and full of himself.
Ken and Boris were both more light-hearted, though still clearly up for it. Interesting to see the reaction to Ken admitting his con trick with the Olympics. Perhaps a marginal victory for Johnson, but I doubt it’ll affect the polls too much.
Is it my imagination or is it just fluke that the left-leaning papers seem to end up with polls ‘not too bad’ for their side while the right leaning papers seem to end up with figures guaranteed to delight their readers?
Am I imagining this?
9. IA. Interestingly you talk about the ‘relatively small number of swing voters who decide elections’ but if we take Yougov at face value they have found 30 out of 100 such voters. From a +12% Labour lead to + 18% Tory lead in only 7 months.
Unless the rules have changed drastically something is seriously wrong with this pollsters findings
14 Shoot the messenger, eh Roger?
Yes I agree with Mike that these local elections are a test for the pollsters.
A year ago (25th April) the Yougov polls were C =37 LAB=32 LD=18
Today the changes in a year are C+7, LAB-6, LD=-1.
Labour are now polling with Yougov less than 30 for the 4th poll in a row. A new base line is being established and it is nearer to 25 than 30.
What is also clear from this is that the major decline in LAB support has brought no gains to the LDs. They have failed to capitalise on Labour’s woes. They are not even getting any crumbs.
Part of the reason for this is the fixation of their media activists with attacking the Conservatives. Looking at the “LD blogs aggregate”. In the national/mayor stories there are 3 posts attacking the Conservatives for every 1 attacking Labour.
Roger@14: Would only take 15 out of 100 to change their minds to get that effect, shurely?
Ian Swanson, the Edinburgh Evening News columnist, has some informed advice for the political betting community: ‘Don’t bet against Salmond hitting Westminster target’. (Please note: in common with nearly all Scotsman Publications Ltd journalists, Mr Swanson is not usually inclined to give the Scottish National Party a sympathetic report card!)
Somewhat surprisingly, Mr Swanson mentions, in addition to the Edinburgh East seat, the 2 West Lothian seats, but fails to mention all the other Edinburgh seats. This seems odd, because according to my (admittedly rather ‘back-of-a-fag-packet’) guesstimates, the SNP really needs to win at least 2 Edinburgh constituencies at the next Westminster GE in order to attain the published 20 seats target. In order of liklihood, these being:
1. Edinburgh East (Gavin Strang?)
2. Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) (likely to be a 4-way marginal)
3. Edinburgh South West (Alistair Darling) (likely to be a 3-way marginal: Lab/SNP/Con)
4. Edinburgh South (Nigel Griffiths) (likely to be a 4-way marginal)
5. Edinburgh West (John Barrett) (looks very safe for the Lib Dems)
Thus far, political betters seem to have rejected Alex Salmond’s 20-seat Westminster target, but there has been a very big move to the SNP in the last couple of days: hands up whoever you are out there
The current Spreadfair seat spreads are:
Con 320 - 323
Lab 362 - 364
LD 42 - 48
SNP 8 - 19 (last time I looked - a couple of days ago - it was 8.0 - 8.5!!)
PC 3 - 4
http://news.scotsman.com/politics/Don39t-bet-against-Salmond-hitting.4015645.jp
http://www.spreadfair.com/
FOR A BALANCED VIEW ON QUESTION TIME-READ BELOW
What a wonderful performance by Ken last night. He was just so calm, relaxed, authoritative, unspun, humorous- the equivalent of one of Jack W’s better malts.
Paddick was woeful, simply woeful. What were the LD’s thinking when they selected him?
Boris was clearly nervous and egdy, half blustering 6th form debater that doesn’t qite know what is talking about, half very pre prepared and stumbling through very rehearsed soundbites- “as mayor I will work day and night for you” (yeh right), but always best when he could resort to his humour, wit and charm which kinda of carried him through because he is so likable.
So points win for Ken. No knockout blow except to the hapless Paddick who was already dead and buried. How did the guy get to be Assistant Commissioner? The LD’s never fail to disappoint, just when you are beginning to like them. Shame.
I would think Boris still has about a 60%- 70% chance of winning this thing.
re 14. According to YouGov and ICM data on 2005 voting and today’s intentions there has been a very big swing away from Labour. Thus only 70% of those who identified with Labour in 2005 now say they are supporting the party.
ICM was even worse for Labour. The latest poll with the 5% Tory lead showed that on 61% of those who voted Labour in 2005 are now sticking with the party. See the detailed tables here -
http://www.icmresearch.co.uk/pdfs/2008_april_gurdian_april_poll.pdf
Page 4.
re 14 Roger - I did not notice you attacking YouGov last September when it had Labour 11% ahead - see
http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2007/09/25/so-will-11-gordons-influence-the-election-decision/
9. If you were talking about ICM I would agree with you. We all thought the ICM 5% was a clear rogue and out of line with all the other polls and the media narrative (e.g Populus had just given Dave his highest ever lead).However, in light of Smithson’s law we held fire for the next poll. Here it is, much more in line with the narrative and other polls so what’s the debate?. Guardian ICM as usual designed to give Lefties a comfort blanket(possibly by being commisioned over a weekend).
What’s much more interesting to remember was Roger’ strong prediction to bet on Labour following ICM as all the other polls would show a clear Labour recovery. I trust established readers remembered to do exactly the oppopsite of what Roger recommended.
14, not sure if you noticed, but there was a rather enormous change with all pollsters following the bottling of an election, and then Labour decided to be as incompetent as possible (25m people’s personal information lost etc).
Present Tory lead is almost certainly exaggerated, but the ICM/Guardian 5% was just as bad for inaccuracy. The real figure is probably betwixt the two.
re 14. Here’s another thread from September 2007 just after YouGov had produced a second 11% Labour lead.
http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2007/09/29/what-more-evidence-does-brown-need/
Attacks on the firm’s methodology now would have had more force if you had attacked it then.
Remember Smithson’s second rule -
“A rogue pollster is one that produces figures that you don’t agree with - the degree of rogueness at any one time being directly proportional to your view of a recent survey or group of surveys.”
14.
Roger is it not plausible that a large mass of people are not enthused with either side and were liable to change their mind quite easily. Last summer, they were fair weather Labour voters as it seemed the thing to be. Now with things going really badly for Brown, they have become (fair weather?) Conservative voters.
We are anoraks, we can understand how people can change their mind so easily, but for much of the electorate, its not much different from trying a new detergent.
That should be “can not understand”
How long before the size of the Tory lead becomes greater than Labour’s percentage share?
And before Roger pours scorn on that, it only needs Labour to drop 3 and Tories gain 3 for it to happen.
I’m worried though. Brown will surely be forced out long before the next GE, and we’re potentially back to square one again. The Tories need Brown to stay in office, so I would be more content with leads of no more than 10% for now.
I watched QT. Ken came over as fairly disinterested and just repeating the old phrases, Boris did ramble on a bit sometimes but when he was on song came across as serious and interested. Paddick was…..odd. When he talked about policies he was fine, but he kept trying to act like he was in charge. Interrupting, passing comment on the others remarks, calling them both useless. He came off as being like Clegg has tried to be, taking pot shots at both and failing badly to make himself look better. Boris looked in the end the same as usual, Ken came off looking bad over the olympics and crime.
I am slowly coming to the view, HF (16), that the situation is entirely the reverse. The Liberal Democrats are attacking Cameron’s Conservatives - and quite rightly too - for their pathetic attempts to look like Liberals, when really they are nothing of the kind. The Tories continue to be the same old Tories underneath.
This is the way to win over disillusioned Labour voters. So the Lib Dems need to increase their attacks on the selfishness and heartlessness of Conservatism.
But at the same time, some of the Lib Dem MPs are confusing the message. Some of them are going much too far along the road of market forces - and this blunts the Lib Dem appeal.
Recent statements about schools and about pensions are but two examples of where Lib Dem MPs come over as on the side of “them”, rather than on the side of “us”. This clearly needs sorting out.
Meanwhile, Clegg is quite right to attack both the incompetence and the authoritarianism of Brown’s Labour Party, and the deceitfulness and hypocrisy of the Cameron’s Tories. But he should be hitting them both much harder.
28, if that’s the way to win over former Labour voters why isn’t it shifting the polls?
23 I did attack it then, iirc, and think it does overstate leads. But Alan at 8, the point about weekend polls is not coverage, but rather that many Tory leaning voters are out. Weekend polls are considered by some to be like holiday polls. I’ve been thinking that might be an explanation for icm ever since Mark Senior ppinted out hat this was a weekend poll, unusual for ICM.
Northern Rock to chop 2000 jobs next week.
Brown will be on the phone to push it back until after Thursday no doubt.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/04/25/cnrock125.xml
Because, Morris (29), the message is a confused one, as I tried to explain above.
HF@16: Do you have a reason (poll’s internals or something?) to think that the LibDems are failing to get support from Labour? Because just looking at those numbers, it could just as well be that the LibDems are gaining support from Labour but losing an equivalent amount to the Conservatives. In which case it would make plenty of sense to attack the spend a good party of their time explaining to people what’s wrong with the Tories and why they shouldn’t be moving over to them.
Ian Swanson, the Edinburgh Evening News columnist, has some informed advice for the political betting community: ‘Don’t bet against Salmond hitting Westminster target’. (Please note: in common with nearly all Scotsman Publications Ltd journalists, Mr Swanson is not usually inclined to give the Scottish National Party a sympathetic report card!)
Labour’s veteran MP Gavin Strang [Edinburgh East] said he would stand down at the next election – after holding the seat since 1970 – but then announced he had changed his mind, almost certainly prompted in part by the fear of the seat going to the Nats. SNP number-crunchers have worked out from last year’s council election results that they are just 672 votes behind Labour in the Westminster seat. Some Nats insiders believe Dr Strang may still bow out closer to the election, making it easier for them to win.
One Labour insider readily admits the SNP could reach its 20-seat target. “They’re in a very strong position – they can say what they have done in government and talk about the bad things Labour are doing.”
[Angus Robertson MP, the SNP leader in Westminster] says: “We think a barrier has been broken down for a lot of voters who may in the past have questioned the advantage of voting SNP at a Westminster election. The feedback is telling us that and I think we have a tremendous opportunity.”
Somewhat surprisingly, Mr Swanson mentions, in addition to the Edinburgh East seat, the 2 West Lothian seats, but fails to mention all the other Edinburgh seats. This seems odd, because according to my (admittedly rather ‘back-of-a-fag-packet’) guesstimates, the SNP really needs to win at least 2 Edinburgh constituencies at the next Westminster GE in order to attain the published 20 seats target. In order of liklihood, these being:
1. Edinburgh East (Gavin Strang?)
2. Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) (likely to be a 4-way marginal)
3. Edinburgh South West (Alistair Darling) (likely to be a 3-way marginal: Lab/SNP/Con)
4. Edinburgh South (Nigel Griffiths) (likely to be a 4-way marginal)
5. Edinburgh West (John Barrett) (looks very safe for the Lib Dems)
Thus far, political betters seem to have rejected Alex Salmond’s 20-seat Westminster target, but there has been a very big move to the SNP in the last couple of days: hands up whoever you are out there
The current Spreadfair seat spreads are:
Con 320 - 323
Lab 362 - 364
LD 42 - 48
SNP 8 - 19 (last time I looked - a couple of days ago - it was 8.0 - 8.5!!)
PC 3 - 4
32, possibly but (unsurprisingly) I take a different view.
Tories are the opponents of the Lib Dems, but Labour are your rivals. You can never destroy the single rightwing party (and if you do it would just be reborn, because the UK isn’t so lefty as to have 2 leftwing parties and 0 rightwing ones). To assume a dominant position in UK politics the Lib Dems have to break Labour.
It still seems odd to me that so many Lib Dems seem virulently anti-Tory but quite friendly with Labour.
Just when you think things can’t possibly get any worse for Gordon, what up next?
Answer - a summer of strike action.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3811692.ece
33 - No because then they lose the Labour votes that they have gained. The reason that the Lib Dems did well in the 1990’s was that they were a recepticle for anti-Conservative votes that were never going to be pro-Labour. They started to make a decent fist under Kennedy of positioning to be the same in reverse a decent recepticle for anti-Labour but never pro-Conservative votes. Now whilst they might pick up some Labour votes it is not going to be nearly enough to offset the switch away in the south.
32
The LibDems will not convert many fedup Labour voters for two simple reasons imo:
1. Labour voters are fed up with a Labour Government: and want to get a Non-Labour one.
2. Vote Conservative and you do not get a Labour Government. Vote LibDem and you may do through a coaltion.
The protest vote may not like voting Conservative but the LibDems are not seen as a realistic alternative to Labour
34
Spreadfair labour seats 262-264, be careful!
SPIN
Cons. 314-320
Spreadfair
Cons. 320-323
Not often you get that close to an arb. I’d like to know IG prices.
Think SPIN will move their quote up four or so pips soon.
36 Its not surprising that union discontent is rising. Gordon & now Darling have been running a stealth incomes policy holding wage increases down for past two / three years at half level of RPI by trumpeting CPI as the real inflation rate. They are now trying to agree three year deals, again well below RPI levels. There were the 5 years of plenty from 2000 to 2005, now they are trying to claw back those pay increases as fuel & food costs rise.
The LDs best strategy would be to aim to replace Labour.
Labours natural supporters in manufacturing and mining are gone forever and after 8 years of DC the last remaining stone age unions like train drivers and teachers will have been smashed.
Perhaps by 2030 it will be LDs v Cons with Labour/Respect as minor party.
What I have found, Morris (35), is that when I live in a Tory stronghold, Labour people are very friendly and sympathetic towards Liberal Democrats; and a lot of the Tories there are unbearable.
On the other hand, when I have lived in strong Labour areas, it is the Conservatives who are pleasant and Labour people who are not.
I expect that would be because it is the closeness to power that attracts undesirable types in both cases. And this reveals itself in their ruthless desire to cling on to office.
Since I have lived most of my life in strong Tory areas, it is Tories that I especially dislike, while I do not in general have hard feelings about Labour supporters. I do about their governments, though, but that is another story.
But I think you are wrong to insist so much on the concepts of “opponents” and “rivals”. I tend to see political parties as instruments to advance certain principles and the policies that derive from them.
This is why I am profoundly uncomfortable with your Cameron project. You Tories can put forward whatever policies you like, but I am not convinced that you have abandoned your fundamental principles.
Old Labour is the natural party of opposition, it knows its place, and likes it.
England is a small c conservative country.
For the Conservative party to be in opposition for 13 years is the only real change.
As the fundementals have not.
Possibly, Mada (38) - except that Nick Clegg said quite clearly in March this year that he would never serve in a Labour Government, nor in a Tory one either.
I know that does not fit in with your propaganda attempts, but it does rather undermine your position.
@23:
Second Rule or Second Law?
I prefer Smithson’s Laws, to be honest. I like to think of Mike Smithson as a force of nature…
Of course, the problem with that is, everybody knows all good laws come in threes, so we need Smithson’s Third Law.
Smithson’s First Law: A rogue poll is one with numbers you disagree with.
Smithson’s Second Law: A rogue pollster is one that produces polls you disagree with.
Smithson’s Third Law?: A rogue election is one whose results you disagree with?
42 “I am not convinced that you have abandoned your fundamental principles.” … of individual freedom and liberty, smaller Government, stronger families, greater personal responsibility and strong national defence.
No we haven’t.
Someone once told me that Lib Dems do best in constituencies which would be Labour if they were in the North. I think if the Lib Dems want to do any better in the future they need to target the labour heartlands of the north. They have made significant gains in northern local’s so could use these as a platform for the general. Policy wise they should try taking on a few more issues like worker’s rights and poverty, while not being old-time-socialist.
@42:
I should hope not, Tressage. Tory principles are as strong as they ever were: Liberty, equality of opportunity, personal responsibility.
The LDs are like the the third largest company in a sector. The market leader is tired, complacent and losing market share. To equally attack both the second largest (and increasingly popular) company as well as the on-its-way-out big one is daft.
The message will be confused and confusing. It can’t be anything else. They would be trying to explain too much in too little time. A wicked waste of scarce marketing budget; actually, an ineffective use of ‘unlimited’ resources.
There will still be LDs trying to justify that odd position. But none of them will have run a company striving for market share.
@47:
That’s a problem with LD party leadership. They’re so obsessed with hating us Tories, they fail to realise that to progress as a party, they need to move against Labour.
They are the Lib Dem’s real enemy. KILL THEM ALL.
28 and 33. You cannot fight a war on two fronts. Attacking both Labour and the Conservatives divides your forces and dissipates your media space.
The LDs grew when they focused on the party in decline (Conservatives) and then when in 2003 they switched to attacking the Labour govt on Iraq.
But their ground forces remain focused on attacking the Conservatives and from the 2005 GE onwards the LDs renewed their attacks on the Conservative fighting on 2 fronts. So far after three Leaders it has failed but the strategy continues to be followed.
42 “[the Conservatives] have abandoned your fundamental principles”
But weren’t they the very principles you disliked about us, enough to drive you to another party? People have had enough of being governed by an -ism. They don’t really want very much from their Government. Just one that is sensible, that is careful with their money, protects us in our homes (whilst not trampling on centuries of personal freedoms) - and highly skeptical of other Governments bamboozling us into foreign adventures.
“I tend to see political parties as instruments to advance certain principles and the policies that derive from them.” If so, then what are those “principles and policies” as they apply to the LibDems? The voters currently don’t know what they stand for.
Attacking the tories and labour is splitting your attack, and therefore making them both too weak. That plus Clegg’s tory attacks have been limp and dull, parroting labour jibes or just calling them as bad as labour.
@53:
Although, quite what we’re doing pointing out to the Lib Dems what’s so obviously wrong with their flawed political strategy is beyond me.
3 - Further to Harman’s Hack attack, Guido now reporting that the hacker has changed all Harriet’s admin passwords. So the amusement will probably continue for some time.
Thanks for the comments on my earlier post. All I’ll say in reply is that a poll is a poll and an election is an election. Two different beasts. Show me an MP of any party who disagrees!
This relates particularly to the discussion on the Lib Dems - my recollection is that election campaigns do them good, but I’m prepared to be contradicted. I also suspect that their activists tend to be disproportionately concentrated in Tory seats (in fact I daresay that Labour has as many activists in Tory seats as it does in its own - political engagement is a white-collar occupation). If anyone has any info on the distribution of activists to voters I’d be interested in it (e.g. a hyperlink).
Of course Tories here will diss Lib Dems for attacking them. Why wouldn’t they?
52. The voters currently don’t know what they stand for.
I think voters who think about it know _what_ they stand for. But most voters don’t think about it: they conflate it with _who_ a party stands for, i.e. expecting political parties to stand for a coalition of defined interest groups within the electorate.
55
I dont think Harriet will be amused…
Attacking the tories endears them to ex-labour voters.
@56:
I’m not dissing the Lib Dems. I count myself and my party fortunate for the UK to have such a usefully inept third party.
@55:
I can’t access Hattie Harperson’s page at the moment. Why doesn’t she just get her web host to restore from last night’s backup?
Polls taken in the aftermath of an event, which is either positive or negative for a government, are probably faulty.
Having said that, this has all the hallmarks of the ‘Third term curse’ proving my point, political parties should do all they can to win two terms, then do all they can not to win a third!!
The Tories thought they had defeated the curse by winning a fourth, only to find out, that fourth terms are even more cursed than the third!!
61 - Doubtless she will, however it has been up so long there has been plenty of time for screenshots.
Ken Livingstone has agreed to tube and bus fare rises after the election - bbc;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7364637.stm
Won’t go down well..
44
“Possibly, Mada (38) - except that Nick Clegg said quite clearly in March this year that he would never serve in a Labour Government, nor in a Tory one either.”
Nick Clegg has said lots of things: being unfaithfull or not , etc etc . the impact gets diluted with all the junk.
he has, however, failed to stop his ardent supporters here being more anti Conservative than Labour.. so I assume no-one in his party actually believes him,
Actions etc words. And the LibDems have a long history of coalitions with Labour..
Now if he published a decapitation strategy aimed at Labour Ministers….
61 I managed to get in, the comments are hilarious
” Possibly, Mada (38) - except that Nick Clegg said quite clearly in March this year that he would never serve in a Labour Government, nor in a Tory one either. ”
You must of course take into account the ability of the Lib Dems to say one thing, but do another…. or equally DO one thing and SAY another.
This is hard wired into the Lib Dems, from top to bottom.
Watched Andrew Neil last night. He mentioned the ICM and YouGov results in passing. He was quite sensible in his approach suggesting that either or both might be an outliers.
Diane Abbott could be heard muttering about the 18 pointer being ‘You Gov’ as if that automatically meant it was to be discounted.
Some people are going to get a horrible shock, if the two companies are still divergent on the Mayorals and YouGov maintains its from.
In truth, I am not sure that the nationals and mayoral polls are directly comparable, but the it won’t stop the nature of the conclusion.
58. When was the last time she was?
9: “Behind the thrashings of the mortally wounded beast in Downing Street and his Parliamentary Party lies the Question They Cannot Answer: what are you going to do with a fourth term?”
You mean, aside from making ID cards compulsory and bumping the detention period up to 90 days?
The weather next Thursday is looking cool and showery. Anyone know which party bad weather would help? I remember in 1995 the election day was really hot and sunny and that helped bring people out in droves to give the Conservatives a kick in the ballots, so maybe poor weather would help Labour?
70 Maybe in the fourth term the Clunking Fist will stop punching poor people in the face?
Just a quick hello! What a miserable poll. Can’t say that it’s a surprise or undeserved. Cameron needs to move quick to turn the protest element of this poll into votes.
New Research 2000 Primary poll for Indiana :
Clinton 47% .. Obama 48%
http://www.southbendtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080424/NEWS07/284272668&template=247art
New Selzer Primary poll for Indiana :
Clinton 38% .. Obama 41%
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080424/NEWS0502/80424082
Do you think Peter Robinson deserves some sort of prize for this?
Five MPs employ more than one member of their family. The new Democratic Unionist Party leader, Peter Robinson, and his wife Iris, who is also an MP, employ all three of their children as well as a daughter-in-law.
73 “Cameron needs to move quick to turn the protest element of this poll into votes.”
Longer term, I’m sure he’d like that. For now he will be happy enough if former Labour voters just stay home. But perhaps a more pressing element in Cameron’s plan is to tie the current woes to LABOUR, not just to Brown. The risk is Brown resigning is allowed to reset the clock (although I think the Labour brand has been seriously harmed by all Labour MP’s allowing current events to have unfolded).
Full report here.
http://tinyurl.com/6×2nop
Alink on Guido led to this from PR Weekly TODAY!:
‘Tory sources said that although he did not come up with the term, Coulson has been instrumental in getting senior Tories to describe Brown as a ‘ditherer’ at every opportunity. With many newspapers picking up on the term, Downing Street is now concerned that the damaging tag is starting to stick.’
You don’t say!
Scent of mustard gas only just reaching the nostrils of those in the bunker.
I’ve changed my mind on this a little. Contrary to my earlier thoughts, there is some sense in the LDs attacking the Tories. After all, it does give them street cred with disillusioned Labour voters, who might be turned off by full-on attacks on their former party.
However, to turn this into votes, particularly in the North, the LDs have to ‘for’ something that resonates with ex-Labour supporters, and since the Iraq War effect in 2005 they haven’t identified anything.
Apologies there was also a Presidential question in the Research 2000 poll :
McCain 52% .. Clinton 41%
McCain 51% .. Obama 43%
http://www.southbendtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080424/NEWS07/284272668/1129/News
I know these are volatile times, but I just can’t accept that a 13% difference in the Tory lead, and a change in the trend (ICM: gap tightening; YouGov: gap widening) is caused solely by reaction to Cameron’s prominence in the media.
In any case, the Labour rebels had been doing much of the running in the media over the last few days, Cameron didn’t seem particularly prominent.
Both polls surely have to be rogues, in opposite directions, and equally there appears to be a systematic tendency for YouGov to report a larger lead, and ICM a smaller one.
The Mayoralty is going to have a big impact. I’m convinced that Boris has won it, given the difference in the polling now and in previous years. This is going to come as a shock, though it really shouldn’t, to the Guardianistas, who just don’t get it right now. It’s also going to make the Tories look like a credible government-in-waiting. Their victory in the next GE will gain an air of being the expected result.
Brown and Labour will come to be seen as yesterday’s people.
80 Now more than ever equidistance is vital. No point cozying up to anyone too soon.
68: It’s odd how the ‘It’s YouGov’ line wasn’t used when Labour had large leads with them last Summer.
Neil’s comments are fair as the weighted average is roughly in the middle.
Strange though that Others are doing so well.
79. More here
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/torydiary/2008/04/brown-obsessed.html
Classic paranoia
Remaining result from last night Dover/Deal DC Little Stour and Ashstone Con hold Con 1109 LibDem 453 Lab 116
result last May Con 1424/1422/1169 LibDem 460/409/213 Lab 213/205/197
The Lib Dems are the third party because Labour savaged them. They turned their fire on them for not adequatley filling left wing shoes.
They almost entirely ignored the Tories and went for the Liberal throat. Labour have been standing on their chests, offering them a hand up and then withdrawing it to suit, ever since.
82 “Both polls surely have to be rogues, in opposite directions”
Why? Only one found that during the most advantageous period for the Tories in over a decade, one in ten of their supporters had left them!!! That just runs counter to all political intuition.
It has finally dawned on you LOT that Boris is NOT going to win.
HENCE THE SILENCE FROM RIGHT WING BLOGGERS
Ken was on top form, and Boris was a disaster. The audience were holding back their laughter every time Boris spoke, he was abysmal and you know it.
How do I know, normally after an event with Boris on show, all the right wing bloggers come out hailing victory for Bozzer…but not anymore
Come the 2nd of May poor old YouGov will need to start an internal inquiry
89. Oooh that post is a “keeper”
85. Just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean they are not out to get you
@83:
The Liberal Democrats: the eternal scruttocks of the British body politic.
With one district left to report Hillary’s margin in Pennsylvania remains 9.2%
http://www.electionreturns.state.pa.us/ElectionsInformation.aspx?FunctionID=13&ElectionID=27&OfficeID=1
@91:
Gordon Brown is the opposite of paranoid. He goes through life thinking that people *like* him.
89 I don’t know, we try and go in for a bit of calm and rational assessment of the debate - and we get accused of a loss of belief! Alright then, if you insist….
BORIS WAS BRILLIANT!!
BORIS WILL WIN!!! BORIS WILL WIN!!! BORIS WILL WIN!!!
BORIS WILL WIN!!! BORIS WILL WIN!!! BORIS WILL WIN!!!
BORIS WILL WIN!!! BORIS WILL WIN!!! BORIS WILL WIN!!!
BORIS WILL WIN!!! BORIS WILL WIN!!! BORIS WILL WIN!!!
Happy now?
The YouGov poll had a swing of just 2 from the last YouGov poll, in a period when all political intuition says some swing is reasonable. So if its an outlier/rogue then the last one must have been too, and the last one before that . . . are we seriously to believe there have been 3 rogue polls/outliers in a row?
The odds of that are 0.0125%
Mayoral debate on radio this a.m. was quite good. KL sounded a little wistful, demob happy even.
Matt O’Connor English Democrat candidate has resigned.
90
Yes.
Saved it for May 2nd..
89- as Ave it would say HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Seriously though, have you read last night’s thread?
Spammer must be very talented. To be able to type whilst you humming with your fingers in your ears is genius.
97 - “Matt O’Connor English Democrat candidate has resigned.”
Link? Reason?
16 HF said “What is also clear from this is that the major decline in LAB support has brought no gains to the LDs. They have failed to capitalise on Labour’s woes. They are not even getting any crumbs.”
Pick your start date, and you can prove anything you want. Look at the trends on the polling over the last year, and you will see that the Tories got a massive boost from the election that never was. Single-handedly Brown converted Cameron from a loser (last August) to a winner (November).
Lib Dem ratings fell though the floor.
Since then, Labour ratings have contined to fall, and the Liberal Democrats have picked up a good share of them.
Who knows whether this will continue? None of us. My best guess is that the Tories will have very good local election results, and this will feed into better opinion polls, probably at the expense of both the other major parties. Labour will almost certainly do worse than last year and worse than four years ago. The muttering about Brown is not going to stop.
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/voting-intention
100 Sally, he types using a pencil shoved up his
100. Opps I can’t type whilst I’ve got my finger in my ears [embarrassed smilie
]
@105:
I have a feeling the long Mayday Bank Holiday weekend is gonna be a tough one for Poor Old Gordon.
Right must go into the Tory office to see if I can squeeze abit more juice out of the orange before Thurday. See you.
86. Good result for the Tories. Terrible for Labour, their vote actually went down!
[70] OMG, I’d forgotten those two!
I wish I could really believe the Tories won’t introduce ID cards. However I’m sure the companies that stand to make a whole heap of cash from them are already pitching to shadow ministers that they won’t be able to do doodly-squat about benefit fraud and immigration without them.
So, which do you all hate more, the Lib Dems or the BNP?
[45] - Perhaps the Third Rule/Law would be that “A man of principle is one who defects to your party, whilst a man without principle is one who defects to another party”
LabourHome going awfully quiet and dispirited..Not much (any?) support for Gordon there.
Someone should visit them and cheer them up…
http://www.labourhome.org/
109 – Don’t hate either of them, what is your point exactly?
Matt O’Connor is on R. London now.
24: Unusually I agree with Serf. I think that both polls are likely to be roughly right, and there’s a great deal of volatility around. A good week for Labour? The polls narrow dramatically. A bad wweek for Labour? The gap widens to a chasm.
Here’s a typical email I had two days ago (quoting from memory but it’s roughly right):
“I’m dismayed by the 10p shambles. I am not by instinct a Labour voter but I think you do a good job and I voted for you last time. But now? I don’t think the Conservatives are very convincing either, and voting LibDem seems to avoid the issue in a marginal seat. Please persuade your party to try harder to make it possible for me to support you again. Right now I could not do so.”
Now I’d guess he’d have said “Labour” to ICM two weeks ago, and “Conservative” or “Don’t know” to YouGov last week. He is clearly not a lost cause for me, but it’s a more thought-out version of what I think many people are saying with more or less emphasis.
They read that the government is in constant crisis (even when it isn’t there’s always some minor story to feed the theme) and they don’t want to vote for that. They don’t think the Tories are terribly impressive (Cameron’s ratings in the YouGov poll remain relatively lacklustre compared with the overall picture, which seems to me to undermine Mike’s thesis) but hey, they’re the only alternative government.
So yes, I do think the Tories are well ahead, but the level of commitment is at present very thin. Either part of that could change, and we can’t honestly predict which.
110
With a clear corrolory that someone who defects back to your party again is someone who unfortuanatly mislaid there principles but has recently found them again.
[88] - I’m not denying that the ICM poll is out-of-kilter, but I don’t think that it can be by enough to explain the discrepancy. Put those one-in-ten Tories back into the fold and you only close half the gap.
Of course, if a rogue poll, in their favour, can’t even give Labour any lead at all anymore, then there underlying “true” position must be dire.
112. I’m sure there are exceptions, but I see a predominance of implacable partisan hostility on this site, and the hostility towards the Lib Dems seems to me as intense as to anyone. I used the term “hate” simply because, if words mean anything, the severity of expression can only be motivated by something at least very close to actual hatred.
113 - What’s he saying for the benefit of those of us who can’t tune in?
Did anyone see Balls on the news last night? He was trying to make out how dissapointed parents will be, problem is he had a fish eyed stare on, looked terrible! That plus he was mumbling.
The LibDems failure to capitalise on Labour unpopularity is no surprise.
As LabourLite they are also seen as Labour collaborators.
113
You can listen on the web. He said the whole thing was a shambles so I’m off.
The mayoral debate was very relaxed, there was a love in between BJ and KL, BP just bullied, Boris told him he was a yapper, v. funny.
I think BJ will offer him a job maybe something to do with the Olympics? KL knew his classics and showed BJ up, amazing, kudos to KL.
70 — “I wish I could really believe the Tories won’t introduce ID cards.”
Pressing ahead with the cards would mean going back on unambiguous and repeated statements from Cameron and Davis.
I wish I could really believe that Labour, if God forbid it won a 4th term, wouldn’t make ID cards compulsory; but I don’t and so won’t be voting for them in my Con-Lab marginal.
@117:
Well, this is the thing about politics.
We’re all friends of democracy here, engaged in occasionally fractious but generally good-spirited combat. Political parties as abstract entities, I find conceptually a difficult thing to hate.
There are individual people within each party (including my own) that I’m fairly certain I could grow to hate if I spent any time with them, but this doesn’t translate into hating the party, or hating all of its decent, hardworking members. That would be ludicrous, and that way lies insanity.
Whoops, not 70 but 108!
The question “who should the LDs attack?” is a bit misleading because the way our electoral system works means that noone ever gets a 3-way choice like that (and don’t tell me that the swing voters that matter ever bother voting for the 3rd party in their seat). The polls are talking about a “national vote share” that may work over an average but does not apply to any single voter’s choice.
The national LD party has to attack both Lab and Con to some extent because their local activists will be up against Con in some places and Lab in others. I guess they are up against Con more often, I don’t know the exact stats. If they only attack Lab they are going to be annihilated in Con-Lib seats.
Can we identify potential rogue polls as follows…
If the margin of error of the current poll doesn’t overlap with the MOE of the previous poll, treat it as a “potential rogue”, and wait for confirmation from the next poll.
Would avoid a lot of hysteria and personal abuse that way…
I will refrain from commenting on the polls unless this rule is adopted..
82.Yes agree its the different directions of ICM and You Gov which is surprising.
Taking the last three polls from each with date end of fieldwork shows
ICM 20/04 Con 39 Lab 34 Lib 19 oth 8
ICM 04/04 Con 43 Lab 32 Lib 18 oth 7
ICM 16/03 Con 42 Lab 29 Lib 21 oth 8
Move Con -3 Lab +5 Lib -2 oth 0
YGov25/04 Con 44 Lab 26 Lib 17 oth 13
YGov11/04 Con 44 Lab 28 Lib 17 oth 11
YGov27/03 Con 43 Lab 29 Lib 16 oth 12
Move Con +1 Lab -3 Lib +1 oth +1
The first major differnce is the you gov score for others which is consistently c 4% points above ICM,and has bbena feature of Y gov polling(something to do with internet v TelephoneOn the gound vaialblity of candidates doesnt neccessarily give teh opprtunity to vote for others eg Nats in english elections.
So the first adjustment would be to spread the 4% over other parties which would raise Labour and Tory share by a couple of % but not change the Con lead.
However that leaves a question over the direction of movement.
Th eonly conclusion is that the figures have ben influenced by the date of surveying.ICM was at the end of the end of the recess with focus on Gordon ,Ygov was at the height of the 10p row.
I would split the differnce giving real figures of C42,Lab 30,Lib 18 oth 10.
The average of ICM /you Gov polls in May 2004 just before the June 2004 locals was Con 34.5,Lab 38,Lib 19.5 oth 7,giving swings of 8% Lab to con,3% Lab to Lib ,and 5% Lib to con.
The inescapable conclusion is a bad night for Labour,Though softened in number vterms to around 200 seats loss becaus eit has alrewady lost most of its councildseats,a good night fore the Tories and a stand still for the Lib dems with the risk that gains from Labour are mor ethan offset by losses tothe Tories.
And yes wetherfirecast of cooland shwery favours the Toroes as well.
Rogerh
114 Nick P “there’s a great deal of volatility around.”
The last 4 YouGov polls have been very consistent.
CON(%) LAB(%) LIB(%) C Lead
YouGov Telegraph 25th April 44 26 17 18
YouGov/Sunday Times 2008-04-11 44 28 17 16
YouGov/Telegraph 2008-03-27 43 29 17 14
YouGov/Sunday Times 2008-03-14 43 27 16 16
The real issue is whether Yougov is calling it right or is another pollster better? We will find out in a week.
@126:
B…but Rod, surely we only come here for the hysteria and personal abuse?
119
Yes. He was trying to do a Gordon Brown: turn off the viewers.
Personally I think Gordon shades it.
He was a bit better than Yvette .. but that of course is damming with faint praise
117
I don’t “hate” anyone. I may think the LibDems have some good ideas and be idealistic and sometimes are right(Iraq). But they consistently run away from the idea of power. hence their choice of leaders.
Rther like the Conservatives for 10 years and Labour (excluding Wilson and Blair)for 100 years… Political purity and freedom from the thought of having to make the mistakes and compromises of power.
They are happier in opposition.
They are making sure they stay there.
[122] BH writes: Pressing ahead with the cards would mean going back on unambiguous and repeated statements from Cameron and Davis.
Here’s one I made earlier: “this treaty is not a constitution”.
Just call it a “citizen’s entitlement” card or something.
These guys are politicians, BH, they’ll say anything.
117 – You are obviously a very sensitive soul if what you see here can be in anyway construed as “hatred”
125 ed. “If they only attack Lab they are going to be annihilated in Con-Lib seats.”
The largest group of voters that are “floating” are surely former Labour voters. These are thoroughly disillusioned with Labour and want a party that can hammer Labour for all their failings.
So how to attract them? Say you are more anti-Tory? Best to put clear yellow water between your party and Labour and attack Labour at every opportunity.
Attacking the Tories is SO… 1990s!
131, so you wouldn’t vote for anyone?
PA reports: Next Thursday’s council polls marathon in England and Wales looks set to be cliffhanger with both Labour and Tories fighting desperately for seat gains.
Mainstream parties’ concerns over a possible BNP advance were also raised this week when it forced Conservatives into third place at Hinckley Castle, Hinckley and Bosworth Borough, Leicestershire.
It is the latest in a series of East Midlands contests where it has performed strongly - although not enough for seat gains.
Also that region is barely touched by next week’s polls, with only five of its councils voting.
There were only three comparable by-election results in April but adding a Fenland ward, unopposed last year but contested in 2003, gives a fourth.
Analysis of these gives a projected nationwide Tory lead over Labour of 9.7%. Taking account of observed past differences in party performances between Commons and council elections when fought on the same day would lift this figure to 12%.
That is exactly the same margin found in a BBC survey of the 2004 main polls, when most of the seats up for election next week were last fought.
But the sample is small and Labour can point to two Stevenage, Hertfordshire, contests at the end of March where it performed well just days after Gordon Brown visited the town.
What evidence there is on Liberal Democrats suggests little overall change.
RESULTS:
Dover District - Little Stour and Ashstone: C 1109, Lib Dem 459, Lab 113. (May 2007 - Three seats C 1424, 1422, 1169, Lib Dem 460, 409, 303, Lab 213, 205, 197). C hold. Swing 5.1% C to Lib Dem.
Hinckley and Bosworth Borough - Hinckley Castle: Lib Dem 802, BNP 264, C 226, Lab 116. (May 2007 - Two seats Lib Dem 1093, 1076, C 405, 388, Lab 133, 131). Lib Dem hold. Swing 0.8% Lib Dem to C.
131. The tories see I.D cards as pointless and expensive, the party does, the grass roots do. Cameron and Davies both think this also, so the chances of them bringing the system in are just none. They have no reason to change their minds, it’s an unpopular system badly organised, bringing it back in the future would be voluntarily adopting something politically toxic in the extreme for no obvious benefit.
re 114. My thesis is not that Cameron’s personal ratings go up but the the Tory margin over Labour is bigger the more he has been in the news in the days before the fieldwork.
Most evenings I save the BBC politics page headlines and can track back what was in the news in those few days beforehand. There is a close correlation.
131. I cannot match your cynicism, IA, despite being an ex-journalist, PPC, Councillor and spin doctor. David Davis resigning the Tory whip would be sufficient disincentive to anyone contemplating a U Turn on this one.
@132:
I mean, I’m frequently rude to Mark Senior, Roger, Tyson. I think they’re somewhat in denial, and coming from a position of naivety about the human condition. But I don’t hate them; Goodness, they provide me with hours of work-day wasting entertainment. How could I hate that?
Rod “If the margin of error of the current poll doesn’t overlap with the MOE of the previous poll, treat it as a “potential rogue”, and wait for confirmation from the next poll.”
The margin of error for THAT pollster compared to that pollsters previous poll is the only way we can assess this. Until we get an actual election.
Yougov has produced 4 very consistent polls recently. We wait for May 2nd to see if they are consistently good or bad.
The 10p issue has been especially poisonous down my way. Lots of talk about resignations of LP members. The events of this week stopped that, but surely a worse own goal than Riise.
Gosh- this poll discussion is all rather amusing. Look at the US polls if you want to argue about methodologies- one poll had Obama 3% ahead before going into the Penn primary.
I think Labour have been 10% down since early 08. This is pretty much stable, but the gulf is now widening, and pretty soon after May it will be closer to 15%.
The situation is already irretrievable for Gordon. He lost it once he delayed the election.
Why do I know this? Because of instinct. I have a personal feel for the pulse of things.
But I’d be damned if I could call London. The odds on betfair look about right. No value on either candidate.
Can we all agree that given the National backdrop Ken Livingstone has been doing pretty well? Must be awful for him to fight against events beyond his control.
114 That’s a very fair summary of the current position. I’d say the underlying Conservative lead is now about 10%, but it is based more on dislike of Labour than enthusiasm for the Conservatives. Labour may recover (I’m sure they won’t lose by 10% at the next general election) - but, on balance, I’d say not by enough to be the largest party.
I think that next week’s local elections will be pretty bloody for Labour, but Labour suffered even worse in 1967-69, and nearly won in 1970, and worse in 1976-78, and still achieved a respectable defeat in 1979.
141- no I was almost sick after watching Riise’s own goal. I am the only born and bred Manc (city fan) in a family of 6 scally scousers, but for some reason I find watching Liverpool in Europe inspirational.
Just what was Riise thinking?
144 But then again who would have predict the full scale of ‘97 two years before. There was no precedent for that unless you count 1945.
131: “These guys are politicians, BH, they’ll say anything.”
But people won’t swallow anything. Even Labour’s most optimistic polling says that ID cards are supported by the slimmest of majorities (down from 80%+ in favour a few years ago) and we haven’t even been asked to start queuing up and forking out for them yet. Opinions won’t change just because a Tory government gets in power.
143, yes. He’s been helped by the semi-detached nature he’s enjoyed with the Labour party, and his own cunning slyness (the ‘April’s Fool’ vid where he slagged off Labour was clever).
Ironic that Ken Livingstone could prove of aid to Gordon Brown.
However, saving London could be a Pyrrhic victory for Labour, because it would strengthen the Supreme Leader’s position.
144. Of course those times Labour had popular leaders in the form of Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan. This time it looks increasingly likely that Gordon Brown is the problem.
WHat do the Tories need to do to make those anti Labour sentiment a real pro Conservative sentiment, rather than a weary acceptence? Can they do anything? Does it it even matter? I’m of the view that the Conservatives are never particularly liked or loved, but people still vote for them when a job needs doing. Labour on the other hand are frequently liked and at times even loved, but the public will still discard them when things go wrong. Or put another way, people vote for Labour with their hearts and the Tories with their heads.
143- as I said before Ken is a fine malt, aged, smokey, with a good kick.
The Labour party at the minute are a rabble.
Why was Tessa Jowell given a role in Ken’s campaign team? Who thought of that? Do people realise just how she turns people off? Like losing 5% just for the heck of it.
Ken has been fighting this thing with both arms tied behind his back, and kneecapped, but he is such a performer he may well do the business.
Agree with Martin and others that hatred isn’t the right term, except for the odd Creature who likes to simulate it and perhaps really feels it (and as they’re clearly way out it’s quite nice to be hated by them). It’s more like football crowds, who don’t in general really hate the rival fans but enjoy trying to make them squirm when their team is behind. I’m not keen on it and wasn’t when we were ahead, because it makes a sensible discussion difficult, but I’ve never felt hated here (or anywhere else). Roger’s stalker seems to me a bit over the line, though.
As for the general public, some of them hate some of us, but mostly they think we’re all rubbish. Sad, isn’t it?
3. Instructive of Guido and the morons who read his site that they should get such pleasure out of Harriet Harman having her web site wrecked by hackers.
PS James Burdett. I’m sure you aren’t one of those ‘morons’ but it’s interesting to note how few posters on here seem to take the same delight in it that you do.
146. Well, I think the writing was on the wall after the 1995 local elections. The sheer scale of the defeat for the Tories told me Labour was heading for a landslide ad at that particular time I was very unsure whether the Conservatives could survivie the Blair/New Labour perfect storm that was engulfing them.
144, 146 - I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen two posters politely (if obliquely) trying to talk up the other party’s chances at the next election. Very sporting, chaps!
128. I would be happy for a statistician to correct me, but doesn’t the fact that Yougov sample, say, 1000 out of a total population of 50,000 (if that’s the size of their panel) makes their polls less volatile than those of conventional pollsters sampling 1000 out of 40,000,000?
re 142. I was talking with a prominent polling expert yesterday and his view based on the data that we have is that Boris is a 90% certainty. I’m not saying who it is - if he wants to then he will do it himself.
My reckoning is that it’s 70-75% and we should know more after the Sunday polls.
One thing you must do is disregard second preference polling -something that’s advised by ICM’s MD Nick Sparrow in the latest Economist. The sub samples at that level get so small - even down to a few dozen.
153 Iraq saved the Tory party. End of.
150 As a Labour supporter looking for something to grapple on, he’s the only show in town right now. He may well lose, but he’s got spirit, look competent, know what he wants to do and lands blows on the Tory.
On the ID cards tangent, the cards themselves are the visible bit, but the single national identity register is the real privacy-invading bureaucrat’s-wet-dream-inducing point of the whole thing. Most voters don’t understand this, so the government of the day can do whatever they want. I could see the Tories would bringing in the register but not the cards. Driving licenses would then turn into de-facto ID cards, until there was a demand from non-drivers and they brought in ID cards for everybody else.
152 - Roger, I find it funny. In the same way if someone hacked a conservative blog and put something like that on it. I just don’t take either myself or my politics that seriously to want to get upset by a bit of a joke.
133. if their policy in Con-LD marginals is just to attack Labour, they will struggle - for a start, the Cons will be doing that anyway, but do so from a stronger position with far more publicity
I don’t think they should just attack the Cons, but they do have to differentiate themselves, and there are quite a few of those seats
@152:
Calm down, Roger. You’ll give yourself a thrombo.
You’re acting like she’s been set on fire or something. Somebody found her password and uploaded a Back Boris image to her blog. Yes, it’s naughty. Yes, it’s slightly amusing. No, it’s not the end of the world.
157. Not sure I agree with that. By 2004 they were already showing the greed shoots of recovery at local level (which is where the revival of any party truely begins) But I do agree, but for Iraq Labour would probably have won a third landslide in 2005 and that would have set the Tory revival back quite a few years.
158. It’s not a civil servants wet dream, they’ll all be quaking in their boots down there, hoping the black spot doesn’t get passed to them to deal with. If anything goes badly wrong with it then demotions, sackings etc will be all over them. And after the last few months of information being handed out randomly, god knows what will happen.
“greed shoots of recovery” Freudian..?
159. I hate technology so the idea that someone could get a scintilla of amusement out of this leaves me baffled. But each to their own!
157. It wasn’t Iraq - it was the big fat porkies told by Labour. Oh and Brown claiming credit for a boom paid for by debt.
Here’s a scenario for you:
Imagine that Livingstone is defeated (75%-90% chance, say).
He decides to resurrect his Parliamentary career and gets selected for Crewe and Nantwich.
He pulls off a win because - well - he’s Ken Livingstone and is one of the most successful election-winning politicians of our time.
How long would it take before there’s a chance of Ken being touted to replace Brown?
@165:
At a guess, the very concept of “finding something amsuing” is one I imagine is difficult for you?
[134][138] The irony is, I suppose, that I actually do carry ID with me - my driving licence (and I don’t own or drive a car).
If a government proposed to issue ID cards paid for from general taxation and undertook to supply me annually with a print-out of everything it knew about me, with its officials committing a criminal offence if they didn’t rectify any inaccuracies, I wouldn’t mind in the least. I can see circumstances when they might be jolly useful. If I were knocked over, and unconscious, the paramedics would be very happy to scan a bar-code to discover who my GP was, for instance. It might save my life. (I think our Nick offered this example ages ago…)
Why didn’t Labour make that offer? Because they looked at it from the POV of the State, not the citizen. A first-term Cameron government might resist that temptation, but it’ll get to them in the end.
151- Nick Palmer- like football. You are obviously not that much of a fan. I cannot abide Chelsea or Man Utd. The prospet of a Champions League final with those teams; Rangers beating Fiorentina (my Italian side), and then to cap it Boris winning London- all in a few days. Arghhhh
169. Why would it? You keep saying the tories will do it, but not why. At the moment they are vehemently opposed to it, what will make them change their minds?
157. Your debating style is a tad abrupt. End of
170. Could be a bad Thursday for you tyson - NuLab and Ken put to the sword - followed up by the wonderful Gers knocking out the your team
167. Are you acid?
[169] Cuddles, I’ve answered that already - [108].
175. not really an answer though is it. Companies pitching to the shadow cabinet that it’s a good idea, thats about as vague as you can get.
Oh yes, I forgot, BJ said he will step down from Henley if he wins.
“You are obviously not that much of a fan. I cannot abide Chelsea or Man Utd”
We could fall out here Tyson! Interesting though that Man U fans these days don’t dislike City anymore. Not just because they’re a guaranteed six points but ….well probably but mainly because they’re not a threat. But if Chelsea beat liverpool next time round and Boris wins in London then there’s only one thing for it. Go South!!!
O/T Ben Brogan has a bit of advice for Gordon
http://broganblog.dailymail.co.uk/2008/04/sarko-shows-gor.html
(12 million people watched last night’s interview)
157 Anyone else find the expression “End Of” a little irritating?
I understand he wanted to say “End of Story”, or “End of Discussion” but “End Of” is lazy and makes the user sound as if trying to be “cool”.
Hey Fonze, listen up guys, we just gotta get real. End of.
Probably a hangover from Cool Britannia.
174- 167. Are you acid?
No I think he’s bitter.
“WHat do the Tories need to do to make those anti Labour sentiment a real pro Conservative sentiment, rather than a weary acceptence? Can they do anything? Does it it even matter? I’m of the view that the Conservatives are never particularly liked or loved, but people still vote for them when a job needs doing. Labour on the other hand are frequently liked and at times even loved, but the public will still discard them when things go wrong. Or put another way, people vote for Labour with their hearts and the Tories with their heads.”
That’s about right. I don’t think an absence of enthusiasm matters for the Conservatives this side of an election. If they win, and then perform competently in their first time, they’ll likely get a second term. If they don’t perform competently, they probably won’t.
180: yeah nearly as irratating as “issues around”.
152 “Instructive of Guido and the morons who read his site that they should get such pleasure out of Harriet Harman having her web site wrecked by hackers.”
I thought Haridan Harman’s sitelooks better now.
So, please Woger, is it true you have 4 houses and make 6000 a day?
[176] Supported by influential voices in the State apparatus and a media campaign. I hope the Cameron government resists, and I think it will in its first term. But, as I’ve suggested, the product is potentially marketable. And after he’s had a year off to enjoy his freedom as an ex-MP (and tell us all what he really thinks
) even our Nick might be willing to give them a hand with it.
156. Mike, thanks for just providing the final confirmation needed for me to rebalance my book massively towards a Boris win .
This time last week I was piling onto the 1/3 PP were offering for Clinton to win in Penn (a 75% chance), so the 4/6 Hills are offering looks very good value now, especially as they usually take large sums.
In many ways there’s nothing Ken can do about it, and he should sue Gordon for unfair dismissal, as the vote will be as much about giving GB a kicking as his own performance, and I think his recent demeanour seems to acknowledge as much, as pointed out by others here.
183, at the end of the day, there are issues around. End of.
Sometimes politicians act like they have Wernicke’s Aphasia.
[It's a disease where the person waffles, offering no information and providing non-answers].
182: Do you still stick by your original prediction of % for Mayor election?
155. only by about 1%, i.e. the panel should still exhibit 99% of the volatility of a random sample, assumng the panel itself was randomly sampled..
180,187
Style tips from A Moris Dancer, how ironic!
[157] - “Iraq saved the Tory party. End of.”
Simply isn’t true. Iraq torpedoed Blair, and the Labour ship is going down soon after him, but it did not save the Tories.
Cameron saved the Tory party, with a mention for Howard in having the presence of mind to ensure that the Tories had a worthwhile leadership election, rather than a grubby coronation [Brown] or a campaign conducted with such indecent haste [Campbell, Clegg] that the party was not able to catch its breath.
With IDS still at the helm, or an avowed right-winger, such as Fox, and the Tories would still be stuck in their box, with disgruntled former Labour voters going to the Lib Dems, and Lib Dem voters going nowhere. The Tories would be so busy blaming each other for their predicament, that they’d have continued to decline.
Iraq was an historic political opportunity for the Lib Dems, and they fluffed it. By comparison, Cameron has rarely put a foot wrong. The difference is there for all to see.
174, 181,
Um (checks own pH) … neither. Just wondering what the most potent Labour election-winning politician might do in the event that he loses his current job after May 1st.
Come on - it’s hardly less likely than Al Gore as Democratic nominee at the moment, and we’ve had full threads on that. Everyone’s talking about the lack of Labour big beasts at the moment - you can’t say that about Ken. He mobilises the Labour core and has a track record of getting Tories and Lib Dems to vote for him and is a definite break with the recent past of Brown and Blair. All of these facts have to have crossed someone else’s mind, surely?
145 Tyson “I was almost sick after watching Riise’s own goal.”
I was made up myself
Mind after the Istanbul debacle in 2005, I won’t be betting against them still going through.
114 Nick, the only way in which Labour could, possibly, get itself back into an election winning position is by dumping Gordon. He has proved a complete disaster - hard to think of a single thing he has done right. He cannot lead us to victory IMO.
The Economist like other media helpfully pointed out that Lab MPs have had over a year to consider the small print of the abolition of the 10% Tax Band. Their failure to protest before the start of the current tax year is very, very odd. If they did raise objections either privately or publically, it still looked as if Gordon wasn’t listening. Now Gordon has gone from boom to bust in a matter of 9 months, oh what vision, oh, what leadership.
Perhasp Harman will now take complaints about loss of data more seriously. She seemed to remain quiet over the loss of all that Tax Data.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7366578.stm
It is rather like a bunch of schoolchildren hacking into the staff database and handing over their password list to the Headmaster.
Someone on the site predicted that there would be a poll with Lab down below 30%, I’m sure that he (and others) received a good payout from the bookmakers.
173. Practice the penalties - no repetition of 1961.
@187:
“End of” is on the Verboten list. I implore you all to read, and REMEMBER the Verboten list.
http://verboten.org.uk
It’s the only way you can avoid being first against the wall when I am SABDFL.
196 What is the Tories approved vocabulary then? Talk about nanny knows best!
186 Great minds, Caveman, great minds….
I’ve just done the same myself. Livingstone now no win/no loss; Boris wins me a monkey.
194 I disagree. It isnt a change of Leader Labour needs. They’ve done that already.
Another Labour voting friend of mine, who put all faith in Blair, then all faith in Brown then went on to say, it could all have been different with John Smith.
Labour is unpopular because of what they have done.
It is a Scientific fact that if you favour the unproductive over the productive, the economy will suffer.
197, you can talk, disparaging my marvellous sense of style:p
@196:
This is not Conservative Party policy. This is just my saying, if you use any of these phrases in my presence, I shall have no choice but to destroy you.
[192] Andy, Ken has never fought an election outside London, and I doubt he ever would. I suspect he rather hoped - when he first ran for Mayor - that there would be an elected Lords by now, in a multi-member (STV) election for London seats there, what would be his chances of topping the poll with or without the Labour ticket? If you offered evens, the punters here would bite your hands off.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, it would require a London Labour MP to stand down. And now that dear old Piara Khabra is no longer with us I’m not sure any of them are particularly doddery. I guess Glenda is the oldest, and you wouldn’t suggest that to her if you wanted to keep all your body parts!
Morning All.
In reponse to upthread comments heres what the LD’s should do and why they won’t.
1. Accept that the Government is in terminal decline and can’t be “worked with” after the election.
2. accept that the Conservative brand decontamination is now in terminal ascent.
3. Ergo use every scrap of the national air war to pumel Labour and ignore the tories.
4. accept that they are just trying to hang onto what they have got in ex tory seats. by using incumbancy and anti labour rhetoric in these seats they need to reassure small c conservative voters that they don’t need to vote tory to get an anti labour MP they already have one.
5. try and find a replacement USP after Iraq with the liberal/lefties. I think in many labour seats it should be inequality and just go on and on and on about it.
6. accept over all that this is now the scramble for africa and that anything that isn’t nailed down needs shifting into labour held seats.
Why won’t this happen?
1. the party is run by people like mark senior.
2. too much of the party’s industrial mass is the next “most winable” 50 tory seats that are now out of reach till the second/third terms of a cameron government.
3. the entire calamity cleggover project is about protecting southern marginals. Its why the Mp’s went for someone that looks like him.
4. the long term effect of a hyper localist approach to politics is it destroys your capacity for strategic. The pot hole/focus culture means no one is thinking about the chess move 20 moves ahead.
O/T and apologies if already posted. Gerard Baker in The Times thinks the Democrats have mucked it up:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/gerard_baker/article3811396.ece
@167
Here’s a scenario for you: Imagine that Livingstone is defeated (75%-90% chance, say). He decides to resurrect his Parliamentary career and gets selected for Crewe and Nantwich. He pulls off a win because - well - he’s Ken Livingstone and is one of the most successful election-winning politicians of our time.
This is an incredibly London-centric idea. Livingstone means nothing in the north of England. Imposing a Cockney ‘cheerie-chappie’ on a seat like Crewe and Nantwich is a guaranteed vote-loser.
205: agree but dont think Gwyneth was a northern lass herself
194 199
The US have a recession. So what does the government do? It gives everyone a cheque for $500 or so to spend to increase consumer confidence and spending. And halves interst rates.
the UK is about to have a recession. So the Government increases taxes on: long list VED etc and taxes the poor more. Interest rates barely drip down but as the BOE is so incompetent, LIBOR rises to record levels versus the BOE rate.
And Labour wonder why they are losing voters?
brown is a sympton. Chnaging Brown will not cure it - although I admit he is a great recruiter for teh Conservatives.
it’s the economy stooopid.
192 Conservatives would love to see Ken Livingstone lead Labour. He’s right up there with Stalin, Chavez and Col Gadafy.
178 Roger
Man U fans these days don’t dislike City anymore. Not just because they’re a guaranteed six points
You really do leave yourself wide open Roger. Check the results of the two Manchester derbies this season….
Save your guarantees for the Oscars
@208:
Nah, not Stalin. Being lead by an embalmed corpse might help Labour’s electoral chances.
203 A very good post, yellow submarine. That is exactly what needs to be done.
What a pity for the Lib Dems that “the party is run by people like mark senior.”
re 203. I think that’s a good analysis - sadly.
202 - Ken Livingstone, of course, fought and lost Hampstead in 1979.
205/167. You’re overlooking the obvious. Ken stands for Henley.
211 Mark Senior is LibDem? I thought he is Labour Undead.
Ah, well. Just Friday morning speculation on whether KL will quietly leave the stage if defeated.
Chalk it up as a loony theory then.
This is pretty funny from Daily Kos
But the problem with positioning oneself against Labour is that, if Labour’s out of office at this election, it’s only good for one Parliament, and there are relatively few easy Labour targets left.
202. If Ken loses, but still polls well above his fellow Labour candidates, he can fairly blame the maladroit Gordon Brown for his defeat - as well as claiming to offer an approach that could restore Labour to some degree of popularity. A claim, surely, that will receive a sympathetic hearing in the party. As I don’t believe, for a moment, that Ken will retire from politics, it is all too easy to see him becoming the focus of an anti-Brown faction in the party wishing to reorientate the party leftwards. This could become a very interesting subplot in the months ahead.
192,202 And in any case he won’t be a potent election winner if he has just been voted out…..
186/198. Caveman,PtP. That’s a great price on Boris with William Hill, 4/6 = 1.66 Betfair, 60% chance. I have been backing him elsewhere at shorter odds over the last few days. I’ve gone in again.
I agree with Mike that he is at least 75% likely to win = 1/3 or 1.33 Betfair. If Mike’s esteemed expert is correct that he is 90% likely to win = 1/9 or 1.11 Betfair, then Hills are offering tremendous value.
re 214 - so Ken would be up against Boris’s dad?
221 Ye, it’s starting to look like a done deal, StJohn. I won’t go red on Ken, just in case, but I wil keep him neutral which gives me a free bet on Boris worth £500 if he wins. Not a killing, but not bad either. Trust you are similarly well placed.
198. Indeed PtP. How’s the pb betting syndicate going? Haven’t seen any updates recently but might have missed something.
FWIW, looking at Hills other prices there’s also a touch of value on H2 2009 for the next GE at 11/2. It trades around 4/1 on Betfair, and although the strong assumption now is GB will now hang on until 2010, he won’t want to be boxed in and he may try and go a bit earlier. I think Nick P may have also expressed an opinion that this might be a potential option.
Personally I don’t think that the mayoral contest will confirm either of the two polls. The respective standing of the two main candidates will only be influenced by national polling in so far as the Conservatives are doing well and Labour are doing badly. I also suspect that Boris will pick up a chunk of votes from people who might never be willing to vote Tory in a General Election. It is also especially unlikely to tell us how the Liberal Democrats are doing, as the Lib Dems are totally excluded from the mayoral race.
What might give us a better idea of the standing of the parties in London will be the London Assembly seats which are more likely to be reflective of voting intention in national elections.
225 - What if the London Assembly results are not significantly divergent from the Mayoral poll?
223. I’ve taken a view Peter. I am now GREEN Boris, RED Ken.
Ken said something in the debate last night that had me staggered: “the bid for the olympics was a con-trick” or words to that - I could not beleive he said that! What i cannot believe more is that the media have not focused on it more. That should have been a knock - out blow of a gaffe for Ken next thursday.
Ken has said he is a liar and manipulated an international body for his own political purposes. Does not do a lot for London’s reputation in the world.
I did think the debate was amusing though - Paddick said he was at one with Clegg!!!!
Wonder if Clegg has more to tell us!!!! 
224 Syndicate has been slow starting thanks, Caveman, largely due to my distractions, but it should be underway soon.
I’d be inclined to hold off GE betting for the moment. The May elections may cause a shake up. That 20/1 we took about 2008 is now down to 12/1. Might be a bit shorter next week.
All the best.
228. Boris got some unintended laughs as well - the ken livingstone comes from the bowls……. comment got some laughing in the audience and in my house!!!
227 Pleased to hear it StJohn. I don’t suppose you ae laying wake at nite worrying about that one.
Saw the debate on tv last night and I thought Ken probably did best. He’s the most polished political performer of the 3 and I still believe he is ging to sneak home. Unless the Evening Standard has got some more dirt on him to come, I can see him gaining momentum up till polling day.
232. Remove the blinkers! Ken was all over the place - he looked haggered and at times looked a bit under the inflience!
225 - you got there before me, taken me 45mins to read through the thread. I do not think that the Mayoral vote will tell us anything about the London picture, yet alone the national picture. I agree that the Assembly Constituency vote, may well show this, but I am not so sure about the top up list.
Martin - Reading your posts sometimes I wonder if you are one talk about being under the influence.
Labour are facing meltdown next week, but don’t bet against Ken! Boris did not do well yesterday.
Was in Liverpool for the Chelsea game and just loved the Riise goal. Reading the local paper before the game found out that there is a cliff hanger as to whether Labour will retake the council or at least force it back into NOC. One of the reasons is the Lib Dems splitting with a number becoming Liberals. Could this be the one good piece of news for Labour at the elections?
I know that some people dont like hearing about canvass returns, but since the weekend, there have been a sizeable number of people who are admitting that they are not Conservative Supporters, but they will be voting for Johnson.
This happened in reverse in 2000. I can see that the difference between the three elections being far more wide open than it was in either 2000 or 2004.
235. No i don’t drink and post!
When i say Ken was all over the place i meant rhetorically and because of his record. Yes, i do occasionally imbibe my taste buds with beer but it trains ones eyes to look for symptoms of a “canny operator” like ken - think he must have had some malt before the show!
people from where?
236 - Probably their only good news!
235 - Watching the debate last night, my thoughts were that Ken was ok and there were flashes of the old Ken but he does seem to have an air of resignation hanging over him. Boris was good, not perfect but then who is, he got his main points across with gusto and was pretty impressive at points but again a mixed bag. Paddick was clearly fighting for attention but I think a little too hard at times, he mangled crime which for an ex-cop should be a gimme. At times he came across as stroppy and petulant and at others down right nasty and rude. I would score it as Ken 4.75, Boris 5, Paddick 2.5, all out of 10.
240. There are some qualities of a 68 election in this years locals and London elections. Still don’t think it will be a vintage for the tories on that scale but pretty good for them none the less. The joker in the pack is Nick Clegg and how his team will fair - If Clegg does not do much then Cameron may end up knee capping Brown and Clegg politically! Two birds with one stone!
236. The mets elect in thirds so a labour majority is very unlikely although NOC quite possible. The Lib Dems have had a good innings in Liverpool (10 years of majority control) and need a period in opposition to refresh. Its a toss up wether another 2 years will allow them to bed some stuff down or wether they’d be better off getting the boot this year so can start rebuilding straight away. personally I think they deserve to see out the capital of Culture year
240. I hope we don’t get the reaction we did last year when Blair came out with a big grin saying it wasn’t as bad as everyone predicted. Well not as bad as his people were trying to spin it before the event maybe.
203 Yellow submarine. Congrats a much better job at summing up the Lib Dems position than I have done.
“The pot hole/focus culture means no one is thinking about the chess move 20 moves ahead.”
The Lib Dems have created a marketing channel to most homes (called Focus). They are however unable to use it to push national messages through because they lack a coherent central organisation focused on regular campaigning. Instead it waits for the next injection of adrenaline from a by election. When they lose badly in a by election (Crewe?), their central structure will lose their USP.
To lighten the mood, are the Lib Dems stuck in a 1990s timewarp?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdu7xoHU9DA
244. Brown does not do smiles! That one he did on America has talent made me feel sick!
OT. I’ve seen Yokel battling a few of the Obama lovers on various threads on the past few weeks to accept that the problems he’s now been having with down scale voters against Clinton are not necessarily issues that will just go away in the general, and could impact him seriously, especially against someone like McCain, and thought this article by Joe Klein (no right winger) explained the shift we’ve seen in the last month very well…
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1734643,00.html
In particular, the following section on “low-information signaling” was very interesting…
“Yes, yes, the bulk of the sludge was caricature, and some of it, especially the stuff circulating on the Internet, was scurrilous trash. But there is an immutable pedestrian reality to American politics: you have to get the social body language right if you want voters to consider the nobler reaches of your message. In his 1991 book, The Reasoning Voter, political scientist Samuel Popkin argued that most people make their choice on the basis of “low-information signaling” — that is, stupid things like whether you know how to roll a bowling ball or wear an American-flag pin. In the era of Republican dominance, the low-information signals were really low — how Michael Dukakis looked in a tanker’s helmet, whether John Kerry’s favorite sports were too precious (like wind-surfing), whether Al Gore’s debate sighs over his opponent’s simple obfuscations were patronizing. Bill Clinton was the lone Democratic master of low-information signaling — a love of McDonald’s and other assorted big-gulp appetites gave him credibility that even trumped his evasion of military service.”
I don’t know how solid this “low-information signaling” research is, but it would certainly explain a lot of Gordon Brown’s problems as well.
I think the YouGov poll is definitely skewed. But I do think that the government have been on the receiving end of some unreasonably hostile, almost hysterical, coverage in the press at the moment. FWIW, my Samplemiser figures show a Conservative majority of 136
Conservatives 393
Labour 195
Liberal Democrats 33
Ironically my predictions show a hung parliment a few days back so we seem to be in an unusually volatile polling environment.
Hillary looks to minimize the scope of her expected defeat in North Carolina :
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120907504315142995.html?mod=rss_Politics_And_Policy
Brown on America has talent? Have I missed soemthing here?
Hillary looks to the North Korean Communist Party, ZANU PF and the Birmingham Labour Party to indicate she’s ahead in the popular vote !!
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/25/us/politics/25campaign.html?_r=3&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=politics&adxnnlx=1209124914-XV3+GPrv2YMZFUIoyCSxZg
250, surely you must’ve seen it?
Brown very generously gave away £100m of our money. Excitingly, the show only had a target of £50m/$100m.
223. May I ask why you think it is a done deal? My impression is the last few days Ken has had the momentum.
250.
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,91211-1312416,00.html
Top right!
247
“it would certainly explain a lot of Gordon Brown’s problems as well.”
Interesting.
I am trying to think of Gordon -in his public persona- saying or doing anything I conidered to be what I would call “normal human” behaviour.
I cannot think of any. Not one jot or word of normal human action which makes me empathise with him.
Cameron cycles.
Clegg gets his legover.
Gordon? Works?
O/T The BBC report on MP’s employing members of family has an amusing (well made me smile) typo on the Robinson family’s political business
“Mrs Robinson employs their son Jonathan as office manager and daughter-in-law” - so does he come in every other day in drag pretending to be a daughter in law?
One of the (many) reasons I want Ken to lose is so that I can watch his post-Campaign interview. I reckon he is going to lay into Gordon Brown and the Government with reckless abandon, and blame them for his loss. It will rally his troops after the battle, tell a few home truths, and give him a lot of personal satisfaction - particularly as the Labour Party will not be able to discipline him.
257. If people in London are more interested in giving Brown a bloody nose then they don’t deserve much from their mayor. We’re not talking local councils here. The mayor has real power. It’s really got nothing to do with the national picture.
258 Probably not, Frank, but who is Ken going to blame for his loss? The Tories? Yes, up to a point. Lib Dems? Yes, for not giving him the second preferences he thinmks he deserves. The Labour Party heirarchy? Yes, he will blame them in spades. What suport has he had from the Government in general, and Brown in particular? None worth speaking of. They all wanted to distance themselves from him. He was fighting for them, and they deserted him.
The speech almost writes itself.
As the North Carolina primary looms the states former senator, John Edwards, supporters move over to Obama :
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/john-edwardss-supporters-are-flocking-to-sen.-obama-2008-04-24.html
203 - I’ve been telling you guys this for ages on here, and get accused of being a Tory every time I do! The folly of focusing on decapitation last time is that there’s fewer Lab/Lib marginals to go for this time.
253 Sure, Noisy.
There’s the polls, KL’s failure to make any impression in the set-piece debates, the absence of palpable gaffs from Boris, the whiff of corruption which the Evening Standard has brought to public attention, and, in my case, there’s the vibes I’m picking up from friends and acquaintances who like me live and work in London and who I regard as sound. Oh, and there’s the esteemed Mike Smithson’s opinion.
I may be wrong, Noisy, but I can promise you my money is where my mouth is.
262 Whilst it will not make a difference to the result, technically Ken did make an impression in the Newsnight whereas Boris was pathetic/abysmal.
107 86. Good result for the Tories. Terrible for Labour, their vote actually went down!
by GIN April 25th, 2008 at 10:23 am
Funny that the supporter of a party doing so well in the opinion polls should be so desperate to spin this result. There are two ways of calculating the swing here. Comparing with the highest vote last time, the tory share is down by 2% and the Labour share by 3%. Comparing with the average vote last time, the Tory share is down by 4.2% and the Labour share down by 3.8%
I think there is a growing problem at the petrol pumps - just been to my local supermarket in huddersfield and their was quite a queue forming!
This could indeed be a very bad set of locals for Labour if this gets out of hand.
264 What anbout the Lib Dem share, Footsoldier? (Sorry, I cannot be bothered to do the arithmetic, but I guess you already have!)
Mind you just looked at Sky News:
http://news.sky.com/skynews/home
265 “This could indeed be a very bad set of locals for Labour if this gets out of hand.”
Well, only if people have enough petrol to get to their polling station!
261 The 100 Experts at Politics Home have said what their views are on Lib Dems. headline conclusions:
The next election is going to be tough for the Liberal Democrats. The majority of the Westminster insiders polled by PoliticsHome expect the LibDems to lose seats. The insiders expect there to be a hung parliament and so the LibDems could still make a big impact if they hold the balance of power. In order to maximise their electoral strength the insiders recommend:
- That that party doesn’t rely too much on Nick Clegg to make its case but emphasises the whole LibDem team.
- Civil liberties, green issues and an anti-establishment message should be the top ingredients of the LibDem brand.
- The party should consider co-operating with the Conservatives now on a few specific issues - in anticipation of some bigger post-election co-operation.
click on link on landing page
http://www.politicshome.com/landing.aspx
I am surprised that Livingstone has not been castigated more for his prison camp joke. Next he will be cracking jokes like: My father died at Auschwitz – He fell from the guard tower……………..
I don’t find it funny at all but maybe it is something Ken believes appeals to Muslim voters?
178- roger- just to remind you that City did the double this season.
Harry Flashman- so next week Tuesday- Utd beat Barca, Wednesday- Chlesea beat Liverpool, Thursday the Gers beat Fiorentina, and in the evening Boris wins, and Labour get stuffed.
I have booked in an appointment with the GP Friday to get some prozac just in case this comes to pass. Ughhhhh
263. Again I think that your analysis is a little too black/white. Boris has been ok and had no gaffes but not great or spectacularly bad.
with re: if Ken loses then he will blame the standard and the right wing press. He won’t turn on his party and he will leave a barbed comment about hoping Boris doesn’t f*ck things up
Something of the Northern Rock about this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7367003.stm
Motorists should not buy more fuel than normal ahead of a planned refinery strike in Scotland, No 10 says.
270- yeh right Martin. There was so much made of Ken’s remarks. PC gone ballistic. Never heard the last of it.
I actually thought that it wasn’t that bad. Wasn’t funny either
O/T - Gordon needs a whole train carriage to himself.
http://timesonline.typepad.com/politics/2008/04/the-845-london.html
Very bad news for Labour this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/7366920.stm
We will have to see what the next few days bring but this underlines the picture that Britain is starting to descend into chaos: Teachers on strike, local government workers on strike, Labour rebellions, potential shortages at the petrol pumps, rampent food price inflation, directionless government etc.
New thread - Sean Fear’s Friday Slot
272 He was p1ss poor on Newsnight. To be generous I would say he was a puffed-up rhetorical fart. No actual grasp of what he might actually do or how he would handle tricky decisions.
But otherwise he’s stayed on the right side of the line.
266 Augustus: Both were three horse races so the arithmetic is quite straightforward: Liberal Democrats up 5% on first basis and 8% on second basis.
Thus swing is either 3% con to lib dem or 6% con to lib dem.
re 278. Love is in the eye of the beholder Jonathan.
280 Some gentlemen prefer blondes