Can you spot “Brown’s bailout bounce”?
November 10th, 2008
Is John Curtice right about it being a myth?
One of the biggest errors that many pundits make is when they compare the numbers from one pollster with another and then conclude that there is a trend. You see this all the time and it is wrong.
The six pollsters that regularly carry out voting intention surveys in the UK each have their own bespoke methodology which is unique to them. The only valid comparisons are when you compare like with like and that means looking at each pollster separately.
Reproduced above, from UK Polling Report, are all the published surveys this year from ICM - the firm which has been polling for longest using broadly the same methodology.
Looking at the table and you see Labour’s share dropping down to 25% in June but then recovering so that in each of the two August polls it was on 29%. It then moved up to 32% in a survey immediately after the Labour conference but has since slipped back to 30% where it has stood for the past three polls.
There’s been no sign of any “bail-out” bounce there - just a substantially better Labour position than June, a notch up on August but worse than September.
The Tories, meanwhile, seem to have settled into a position in the low to mid 40s and have barely moved out of that range. The biggest variation with ICM seems to be the Lib Dems.
For an indication of the consistency of ICM over the past twelve years check out out the firm’s performances from 16 months ahead of the 1997, 2001 and 2005 general elections. It’s impressive particularly because ahead of 1997 and 2005 elections its Tory shares this far out proved to be a very good guide to what would happen.
So the weekend analysis by the prominent psephologist, Professor John Curtice “Exploding the myth of Brown’s bounce” seems to have foundation.
Maybe tonight’s November Populus poll for the Times, taken after the Glenrothes result, will show something different - but Labour needs to see the Tory percentage well below the 40 mark before it can start cheering.
Mike Smithson
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There’s been no sign of any “bail-out” bounce there - just a substantially better Labour position than June.
Hmmm, I am sure Labour would be satisfied for now whatever you choose to call it. You only have to comapre Glasgow East and Glenrothes to know there has been a postive step change in Labour’s fortunes. Surely that is a significant point? In the meantime, I wonder what the economic competance figures will show.
“Labour needs to see the Tory percentage well below the 40 mark before it can start cheering”
Or else, to strip the LibDem vote bare. The LibDem’s have an invisible leader. I suspect if asked, more people would think it is currently Vince Cable, as he is the one who gets the media exposure. Their sole distinctive recent policy initiative - tax cuts - will have been stolen by Darling/rubbished by Cameron come the election. Labour strategy may be that if it could strip away another 4% or 5%, it might yet prevent the Tories from forming a Govt. If the next election can be framed by Labour on the sole question of “The Tories are not yet fit to govern”, they would hope to get LibDem voters supporting that proposition - and voting Labour next time.
“You only have to compare Glasgow East and Glenrothes to know there has been a postive step change in Labour’s fortunes.”
In Scotland.
Labour and economic incompetence, or is it Labour and Economic Incontinence - budget deficit, trade deficit, inflation, rising unemployment, falling real savings returns, increased peronal debt, failing banks, decreased business start ups, rising regulation, and a return to nationalisation. All of this before a downturn or recession really kicks in. Brown makes Osborne look potentially competent, able, charismatic and capable of finding the wherewithall to open the top of a bottle of wine.
As for Brown and the New World Order - has he been reading Mein Kampf again? I hope the US Embassy in London has been pointing out that Brown has been blaming the US for all his ecoomic woes.
The Brown bounce is a Westminster-bubble phenomenon. This is not surprising, because most of modern journalism is a Westminster-bubble phenomenon. The by-election appears to have been mostly the result of a clever Labour campaign that has ended the SNP honeymoon in Scotland.
…. and, talking of economic incompetence ….
Gabble Check List for Monday, November 10, 2008
FTSE 100 opens at 4364.96
Optimistic milestones still to watch for:
4455.60 - up 90.84 (2.08%) to return to 2nd May 1997 level
5385.90 - up 1020.94 (23.39%) to come out of current bear market
5635.54 - up 1270.58 (29.11%) to match DOW performance since 2 May 97
5821.19 - up 1456.23 (33.36%) to match CAC performance since 2 May 97
6330.07 - up 1965.11 (45.02%) to match inflation (42.07%) since 2 May 97
6358.75 - up 1993.79 (45.68%) to match DAX performance since 2 May 97
6527.60 - up 2162.64 (49.55%) to return to Blair’s 27th June 2007 level
6930.20 - up 2565.24 (58.77%) to equal all-time high on 30 Dec 99
Pessimistic milestones to watch for:
3460.00 - down 904.96 (-20.73%) to reach Madasafish’s interim low
3287.00 - down 1077.96 (-24.70%) to return to Blair’s low on 12 Mar 03
2780.00 - down 1584.96 (-36.31%) to reach Madasafish’s low low
2144.30 - down 2220.66 (-50.87%) to return to 28th Nov 90 (exit Maggie!)
The direction of the stock market is important for savers and pension funds over the long term, but not the main concern at the moment.
Left over from the previous thread which I missed.
Camilla has said she doesn’t expect to be crowned as Queen. This is entirely separate from Charles becoming King. There’s not a scrap of evidence that William wants the job in his father’s lifetime. FWIW I expect that when he does succeed, Charles will ask the PM of the day to hold a referendum on the monarchy before being willing to hold a Coronation ceremony.
London Mayor. Boris was elected at a time when his party had a huge poll lead (see table above). That may still be true two years into Cameron’s government, but it is a prerequisite of London’s electing a Tory mayor, and 5/6 on strikes me as poor odds. I’d say such a Tory lead in 2012 was no better than a 2/1 shot. Laying is poor value too, given how long the money’s tied up for.
And as for that story about the men and how they paid for their beer - what can I say? People who liken public services to a night down the pub clearly wish that Thatcher had said that there’s no such thing as society - there wouldn’t be if they were in charge! Other than that, the only conclusion I could draw was that there is a body of opinion on here that regards millionaire tax-exiles as more intelligent than those rich people who live here and pay their taxes.
But then this is a betting site, and as such attracts those who think that they deserve something for nothing.
4 - I have long thought that this was Labour’s best strategy (and also the Tories’, scooping up all the anti-Labour vote). I have for some time thought that the next general election might follow the model of the Mayoral election, with higher turn-out and the Lib Dems badly squeezed.
re 3 Jonathan - non-voting questions are NO guide to voting as we have seen time and time again.
7 The Brown Bounce II reflects the fact most of politics takes the summer off. Journalists and commentators remember the very low ratings of June/early July (the Brown collapse after the May elections and the 10p Tax issue) and stuck in their minds was Tories 20%+ ahead. They were in Chiantishire or Corfu until Conference, and the Conference bounce was turned into a narrative of a game changer.
What really happened IMHO is that the Labour has recovered from the damage caused by the 10p tax row but no more. It has escaped damage from the financial crisis, which is perhaps a reflection of better media management and the lucky chance of a man winning the Nobel Economics prize at same time as saying “Gordon Brown has saved the world”.
Mixed messages over the £15bn tax cuts package though show strains still exist between No10 and the Treasury. The weekend spin looks to me like No 10 trying to bounce the Treasury (as happened over stamp duty) without regard to impact on the real economy - Brown seems more concerned with winning the political argument. All we are seeing from him and his spin operation are photo-ops as he leaps on another plane to tell the Saudis, Americans, EU what they must do.
In january, was there an ICM poll 37 for the Tories and 35 for Labour? I don’t remember that, is the year right?
Hush….. Cameron probably wants Labour to think that there is a Brown bounce.
More on the LD membership figures from Liberal England.
http://tinyurl.com/6942l9
2008 (presidential): 60,357
2007 (leadership): 64,713
2006 (leadership): 72,064
2004 (presidential): 72,868
1999 (leadership): 82,827
1994 (presidential): 101,091
1992 (presidential): 101,768
1990 (presidential): 82,455
1988 (presidential): 80,071
1988 (leadership): 80,104
At this rate by GE2010 the LDs will have 1/4 fewer members than at GE2005.
13. There has been one poll this year, in January that put Labour ahead. That may well have been the one.
13 Test, it seems years ago but there was indeed in December 2007 & January 2008 an bit of a Brown recovery (talk at time of a possible Spring election) - it followed one of the may re-launches.
Reed-Mogg has an interesting column (he’s often wrong but rarely boring) and I was struck by a piece about Roosevelt.
“Roosevelt fundamentally thought that the focusing on foreign causes for the Depression was a scam and an evasion… He believed that efforts to lay great stress on the potential of international conferences to achieve much that would be useful were just attempts to shirk responsibility for the monstrous failure for which Herbert Hoover as President, and for eight years before that as Secretary of Commerce, was more personally responsible than anyone else.”
Plus ca change…
Ted - @ 12 - “Labour has recovered from the damage caused by the 10p tax row”. Really?
From the Times, today:
“Further tax cuts, including more help for those affected by the abolition in April of the 10p income tax band, are likely to be announced by Alistair Darling as part of the PreBudget Report (PBR) before the end of the month. The Chancellor is expected to extend the temporary assistance for the 4.2 million households affected by the abolition of the band by another year, at a cost of at least £2.7 billion.
However, 52 Labour MPs have signed a motion calling for an additional commitment for the 1.1 million households that were not compensated in May, which could push the cost significantly higher.
Thinking back a little more than six months, I recall two postings from the same person “I do think the 10p issue is off the boil.” at 5:20 pm and “But yes, I do think the 10p issue is off the boil” at 7:48 pm on April 26th, 2008.
You are equally ill-briefed and just as wrong.
P0ker playas like Morus might be quite interested by this paper of British writer (Big Deal) and p0ka playa Anthony Holden:
P0ker Returns to the White House
Barack Obama’s hidden talent: He’s a top-notch p0ker player.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-11-06/card-shark-in-chief/
Sorry for the bold Bold. My bad.
18, ‘temporary assistance’ is a brilliant way of giving a few a small and brief financial respite whilst racking up billions more of national debt.
Apparently the Tory tax cut plans are all funded through existing spending (ie not funded by borrowing). I hope this proves true.
When it comes to taxes, I suspect there are two key aspects that could affect voting intention. Firstly, how does it affect me, and secondly, is it fair?
I don’t think the middle classes were thrilled to learn their income tax reduction meant that the poorest paid for it.
If Labour’s plans are a one-off sweetener for the poor it won’t make them feel much better, or the middle class (didn’t in Crewe and Nantwich anyway). It might just be a pre-election treat though, in the hope of tempting back some of the more gullible goons.
Great portrait of Nate Silver:
http://nymag.com/news/features/51170/
18 Mirthios - I still think that Labour has recovered from the polling damage caused by the 10p tax row - the figures show Labour back where it was before the row but no better - that isn’t the same as saying the 10p row could not be resurrected or Labour are out of the woods on it.
The “temporary assistance” has been transmogrified into “fiscal stimulus” through the miracle of necessity - why Gordon Brown was only last week telling the world that they needed to follow his lead as he had put £2.7bn of stimulus into the economy in September. Will bet that included in the £15bn package is continuation of the £2.7bn plus a bit more to cover the remaining half million still out of pocket.
Tax cuts! everyone’s at it now, Oh! how things have changed.
How much they have changed was made clear to me on the Today programme. Dinky Duncan, (Libertarian and free marketeer) sounding like the, Good Fairy, (whoops! sorry about that) casting his stardust hither and thither. I didn’t now it was possible to get the words, ‘poor and vulnerable’ into one sentence so many times.
I had this mental image of, ‘Dinky’ rubbing onions into his cheeks and wringing out his lavender scented hankie!
It’s enough to turn you into a cynic, bring back the real Tories: Sir Jasper Cruel-Heart MP, on yer bike and, ‘If it ‘aint hurting it ‘aint working’
On the polls, for Labour the fact they’re above 30% must be regarded as some sort of victory.
21 - Morris Dancer - to “Firstly, how does it affect me, and secondly, is it fair?” - I would add “thirdly, is it true?”
“Hansard: 14 May 2008 : Column 1377
The Prime Minister: We have said that we will come back in the pre-Budget report, but the right hon. Gentleman must not forget the fact that every person in the country who is an income tax payer at the basic rate will receive £120. Twenty-two million people will receive that money, and households in which there are two such people will receive £240.”
That simply was not true. Basic rate taxpayers over the age of 64 were excluded.
So the current spin, that the panic measures of May were a planned tax cut to help the poorest in our society and provide a stimulus to the economy, is simply Alcock from Brown.
24, must it?
So if the GE gives us Labour 30% and Tories 44% you’ll be happy with that?
One effect of the longish period of 20 point leads for the Tories has been to totally skew the politically class’ approach to polls. Imagine Labour considering a 13 point deficit ok.
23 - Ted - thanks. Have re-read my post and it was unfair to you. Apologies.
24 - all we need now is spending cuts.
26
It is not unknown, (in fact its mandatory)for a government to ’suffer’ in its third term. Voters will get tired of a government, they will eventually remove them from office, thats whats happened in the past, its what will happen in the future.
Personally I don’t think the Tories will get 44% or Labour as low as 30%, I still think the chances of a, ‘no overall majority’ are pretty good. Who the largest party will be is probably the question, at the moment that just about favours the Conservatives.
28
Which of course will not damage, ‘frontline sevices’
28 Easy, get rid of ID cards and all the spotty youths in airports handing out plastic bags.
Remember when YouGov could do no wrong on this site? It wasn’t that long ago. Now Mike chooses to focus only on ICM to ‘prove’ his partisan theory.
Here are the YouGov figures from the same period (source: UK Polling Report). As Mike puts it: “Can you spot “Brown’s bailout bounce”?”
Date CON LAB LIB ConLead
2008-10-30 42 33 15 9
2008-10-18 42 34 14 8
2008-10-10 43 33 14 10
2008-10-03 45 31 15 14
2008-09-24 41 31 16 10
2008-09-18 44 24 20 20
2008-09-12 46 27 16 19
2008-08-27 45 26 16 19
2008-08-21 48 26 16 22
2008-08-15 45 25 18 20
2008-08-08 46 26 17 20
2008-07-31 47 25 16 22
2008-07-25 45 26 17 19
2008-07-11 47 25 16 22
2008-06-26 46 28 15 18
2008-06-13 47 25 18 22
2008-05-29 47 23 18 24
2008-05-16 45 25 18 20
2008-05-08 49 23 17 26
2008-04-23 44 26 17 18
2008-04-11 44 28 17 16
2008-03-27 43 29 17 14
2008-03-14 43 27 16 16
2008-02-29 40 33 16 7
2008-02-21 40 34 16 6
2008-02-15 41 32 16 9
2008-01-23 41 33 16 8
2008-01-11 43 33 14 10
29, lucky for you the odds on a hung parliament are relatively long then.
Labour had a 10 point lead during this parliament and are now down to considering deficits of ‘only’ 8-12 points ok.
And the recession has yet to bite.
I’m equal parts worried and hopeful that these borrowing funded tax cuts could be a scorched earth policy mixed with an early election plan.
I do think the Tories would still win, but they’d have to bear the brunt of Brown’s bust and introduce the necessary measures to counter it.
11: Mike, there’s a difference between saying that non-voting figures are no guide to voting (which is true, especially if they’re not weighted), and that underlying attitudes don’t matter. I’ve been saying for some time that people don’t change their voting intentions that quickly if they don’t have an election to vote in. Non-political people decide at some point that they’ll probably vote X next time, and only think about it again occasionally, perhaps only when it becomes relevant. That’s why early by-election polls are usually unreliable - they reflect past leanings and can change as people focus on how they’ll actually vote next Thursday.
But there’s a big difference between “This Government is shambolic and I can’t wait to get them out” and “They’re not doing badly at the moment but I might vote for a change anyway if the others look any good”. I think there’s a good 10% of the electorate that has shifted between those two positions in the last couple of months, *on top* of the swing after the Labour conference that brought the lead down from 15-20 to 9-13.
That swing group needs further persuasion to stick with Labour, but a bounce in respect for basic competence was a necessary precondition which IMO has happened. I know that some here won’t agree, but I’m not talking about persuading mirthios and weathercock, but about the apolitical floating voter who gets his information from sometimes watching the 10 o’clock News.
The bounce could be reinforced, it could dissipate, we’ll see. But it’s there, and it has side-effects in confidence on both sides of the house (a few days ago Tories here were seriously debating what they’d do if Cameron didn’t win, not something we’ve seen for a while).
5 marquee mark
Arguably only in Glenrothes (local considerations, Brown a “Fifer”, “negative” actions of Fife Council) and not necessarily to be repeated elsewhere in Scotland and certainly not in England, as I think you are suggesting.
Jackie Ashley has a very downbeat column in the Guardian - she doesn’t believe in the Brown Bounce either except for the bounce in his step. Her hope seems to be that Brown can get a second hearing and recover but she ties that to him giving us “straight talking”. As Brown cannot accept he made any mistakes and couches everything in terms of how it hurts the Tories I don’t think that’s likely.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/10/gordon-brown-labour
33
Confused situations produce confused results.
On the polls I never question the results, but there are times when they might not be telling the, ‘whole truth’. We should also remember they are, ’snapshots’ of opinion at a given time, they cannot foretell the future.
I’ve also noticed that over the years, bad news for a government seems to produce an instant response, better news, (its rarely good) takes longer to permeate.
We should also remember that to get a working majority in one go from their present position, would take one hell of a leap for the Tories, not impossible I grant you, but one hell of a leap.
TK in the Sun.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/columnists/kavanagh/article1912177.ece
34. but about the apolitical floating voter who gets his information from sometimes watching the 10 o’clock News.
33
Oh! I backed Labour to win Glenrothes, did you?
Has it not been considered that if people get a tax cut they may…erm…actually save the money rather than spend it. Just me being naive, I know, but it would kind of defeat the ‘let’s spend ourselves out of recession’ approach. That said, if it’s targeted at the poorest I agree that the evidence is that these groups tend to spend rather than save tax cuts.
37 - Your thesis that “bad news for a government seems to produce an instant response, better news, (its rarely good) takes longer to permeate” is one that I simply don’t accept. There have been many occasions when bad news has taken some time to produce a response in the polls, Black Wednesday being the most obvious. Conversely, the Tories were on the up in the polls before the Falklands, but the successful reconquest produced a sharp spike in Tory ratings.
39, no. I thought the SNP would sneak it, but not enough to put a bet on.
Congrats on your win, although gloating is not exactly good form.
32. The Labour figures all look shocking there! A bounce used to be something where you had a lead!
By this I mean even recently in the US for instance McCain got a Palin bounce and i think he went 5% in the lead of Obama - we all know what happened there. But Brown and Labour are still at best trailing the Tories. In economic terms Brown was wrong on no more Boom and Bust but in Political terms Brown was completly correct - Labour are flat linning in the polls!
Labour are doomed - DOOMED!
PS On topic, John Curtice is of course right.
The recent poll that would most worry me if I were Nick Palmer MP was the ICM poll on 20 October which found that only 3% of Conservatives and 11% of Lib Dems would consider switching to Labour. That suggests that Labour have not yet persuaded floating voters even to look at them again yet.
10.”I have for some time thought that the next general election might follow the model of the Mayoral election, with higher turn-out and the Lib Dems badly squeezed.”
Snap!
The Labour recovery of its core vote began in the Summer, it could be more to do with the economic bad news starting to dominate the media back then. Combine it with a reaction from Labour core voters to the huge Conservative polling leads which would have magnified Labour’s shocking by election performances in C&N, and the SNP’s dominance in Scotland with Glasgow East. All factors indicating that the government were heading for a large GE defeat?
34.”but I’m not talking about persuading mirthios and weathercock, but about the apolitical floating voter who gets his information from sometimes watching the 10 o’clock News.”
With this recession starting to bite hard, the *apolitical floating voter* won’t need to occasionally watch the 10 O’clock news to get his information, they will be living the reality of it.
43. Any bounce Labour has - and ICM suggest it is barely discernable - will be of the dead cat variety.
40 - with interest rates below the real rate of inflation, what incentive is there to save?
46. What gets up my nose is they (Labour) call it a bounce and they are no where near taking a lead! Not only is it desperate but looks arrogant and out of touch - No.10 Bunkerism at its best!
Given that the now seems to be - astonishingly - a consensus on the need for tax cuts, now is the time for the Tories to make weather of this, and wield the axe, be bold. Any sign of timidity, or even opposition to Brown’s forthcoming bonanza, and I might just give up on the Tory Party. I’m sure many others will.
47 - I guess more to have some rainy day money rather than savings income as the roof wasn’t fixed when the sun was shining, and now it’s pouring the DFS interest free suite is getting soaked!
42
Gloating not good form? Oh yes it is!
One of the few pleasures left to an old man,
47/40 Not sure that they would save it as such; might repay debt though rather than spend, better in the longer run to reduce the high levels of personal debt, though for short term it is the poorer among us who will more likely spend it.
51 Now now Coldstone, you should follow the example of we Tories who never gloat do we?
Even when YouGov gives us a 26% lead we hold back in the comments and worry about hung Parliaments and Gordon Brown’s mastery of strategy…..
Hmmnn
53. We Tories have class. That’s the big difference.
49
When evidence is appearing every day of Brown’s incompetence, I would hope that the Conservatives would be very responsible in the statements that they make - firm and definite (which is high risk in itself, with the hostile BBC instantly on their case), but above all responsible.
47. Ricardian equivalence. A tax cut today is a tax rise tomorrow. It’s why spending cuts are important to persuading people to spend the money. Or targeting tax cuts at groups that will spend it anyway - because they dont expect to pay the tax rise or they have no choice (they have no access to financial markets to allow them to spread their consumption).
49 - Bob Sykes - certainly the opportunity is there. Hitherto, any suggestion from the Conservatives that taxes might be cut has been met with screams of “unfunded, unfunded” from the massed ranks of mandarins in the Treasury (who have then swooned with delight when their masters in the Government announce the same cuts!)
Fugitive Lib Dem donor Michael Brown to stand trial:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3413330/Fugitive-Lib-Dem-donor-Michael-Brown-to-stand-trial.html
58. Sounds more like Lord Lucan to me!
Of course if Brown had donated to the Labour party he could have had the title as well!
34. NickP. I think Mike’s point is that there was no “bailout” bounce. What there was, was a bounce from the conference, as Gordon promised to be more leftwing and reconciled the core. He then drew the teeth of the Blairite right with the return of the PoD. But, there will be no left wing policies and the left will become disenchanted again, while the PoD will be sharpening his poniard. I see the next few months as deeply unpleasant economically, and the government will need to be both lucky and good to build on their conference bounce. I personally think that Gordon is an incompetent strategist, and a competent tactician. It will be interesting.
As for the economy, we know that it will be bad. We also know that there isnt much a government can do in such a slowdown. Tax cuts on the order of 15 billion - even it is real money (which it wont be - Gordon is a real old wine, new bottles guy), is diddly - we know it wont all be spent, but over the next year, that might add 1% to growth. I’m assuming that the aggregate demand multiplier will be less than 1 with tax cuts.
54 ‘We Tories have class’ . Careful - that sounds very like an invitation for a Roger posting, containing the following, in no particular order: ‘Old-Etonian’, ‘Tory Toff’, ‘Bullingdon Boy’.
Yes of course it’s a myth - and John Cutice is not a natural Tory supporter as well. The mystery is why so many in the press want to portray Brown as the saviour of the world, rather than the instigator of the mess. What’s their ulterior motive? Can we detect the hand of Mandelson/Campbell in any of this nonsense?
60. And that 1% of GDP has to be seen against the background of a rise in the personal savings rate of up to 4% of GDP by 2010 and a probable hefty rise in corporate savings as well. It’s still a pretty modest package.
To get anywhere near offsetting the weakness of private sector spending, the government will have to look at allowing the budget deficit to rise beyond 10% of GDP. Do they have the stomach for that, one wonders?
As I understand it, John Major recovered from the very worst of his opinion polls ratings, circa 1995-1996, when he was at some junctures 30 points behind Labour - but he still led his party to landslide defeat.
Yet I don’t remember the media wittering on about the “Major Bounce”, perhaps because it simply doesn’t alliterate.
In fact, that could be one of the reasons journalists are so keen on the “Brown Bounce”: the phrase looks neat in a headline. You have to remember we hacks are a stressed and overworked bunch, and a tired sub-editor will always reach for the nearest cliche, rather than stretch for something more creative.
Hence perhaps the tenacity of the “Brown Bounce” in the narrative, despite the evidence, ably demonstrated above, that it barely exists. Labour have regained a few wavering lefties, and scared quite a few Scots about the validity of independence, and that’s it.
They are still staring hard at swingeing defeat, and the fact that people like Jonathan, NickP, and Coldstone find this 13% deficit “satisfactory”, or even “some kind of victory” says a lot about their inner state of mind. In their souls, they know they are gonna lose, they just don’t want to be wiped out.
But the train of recession is now accelerating into the tunnel of political annihilation: next stop: the unemployment figures, and the Bank’s new “growth” forecasts.
On topic: yes it’s a complete myth.
Post disappeared into ether, try again.
Interesting neo-Blairite policy from Margaret Beckett - no homes for shirkers, rent according to ability to pay, greater checks before offering social housing, no lifetime right to council house. Just what the Usual Suspects on the backbenches will make of it….
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5120047.ece
34 NickP.Of course even a remote chance that this government could survive a GE is cause for nervousness. The idea that we can recover by borrowing on top of huge public debt, giving the money away in tax cuts without once discussing the level of public spending and the cost of funding the debt - at a time when public revenue is falling and unemployment rising - should frighten us all. Unfortunately, “you can fool some of the people all the time”. “Some” clearly includes Labour MPs.
re 9 It matters not if Camilla is crowned queen. She will de jure and de facto become the Queen on the moment of her mother-in-law’s demise. There have been several Queens Consort who were never crowned - the 3rd-6th of Henry VIII, Queen Caroline of Brunswick, for example.
Tom Knox “Foreign Royalties” Forex Update:
This morning the pound dropped to its all-time low against the euro: 1.22.
Gordon Brown did a good job with the bank bailout (I could quibble with some of the details, but that’s neither here nor there). To some extent it reflects the greater power in the UK government, a compliant legislature (unlike the US or Germany). The crisis came early to the UK (mainly because of Gordon’s bad regulatory structure). For those who say he could have acted earlier - I say, banking bailouts are political in nature, they have to reach a certain level of panic before the measures are taken. Krugman was OTT, but GB did a good job of firefighting. It was easy - the rules on how to structure this stuff are simple and well known, the political stuff ditto. But people have been known to muff things like this.
But, the wider public are bemused. The press wanted a story - Gordon saves the day is easier than Gordon made a mess of it and then saved the day. The spin hasnt hurt nor has Gordon’s preening on the world stage.
The problem is that Gordon saved the day with £37 billion + £10s billions of guarantees, NR and B&B will lose the taxpayer billions. He didnt really save the day (he just averted the Apocalypse of capitalism) - he spent taxpayers money like water and people will probably start asking awkward questions. There are alternative narratives, but shifting to them may well be beyond the powers even of Mandelson/Campbell. Saving the day means everyone lives happily ever after and not the economy goes into the toilet. Pointing at the averting of an apocalypse probably wont help much.
66. No sooner does Labour start to shore up its core vote with banker bashing and (untruthful) promises of Keynesian splurges, than they take another swing at them. Does the left hand not know what the right hand is doing?
Or do some Labour strategists really believe that a Blair-style coalition of the resentful underclasses and the self-satisfied middle class can be reassembled in a recession?
re 32 no Gabble, you can’t. Like most things you say it’s compelte rubbish. You can detect the Labour party conference bounce when the deficit was reduced to 10 points. Since then it has reduced to 9 points. Some bounce then!
62, may simply be the desire for a contest rather than a walkover.
As I’ve posted before, the biggest change recently has been the increase in Brown’s self-confidence. That certainly helps Labour - people don’t vote for politicians who look and act like losers. Also Labour have certainly improved their handling of the media - which was so spectacularly bad earlier in the year that it was almost painful to watch. But these improvements don’t alter the underlying issues.
As for Cameron’s response to the changed economic environment, his strategy is now becoming clearer. He needs to reposition Conservative policy to take account of the radically worsened economic outlook, without giving the Labour spin-meisters ammunition to attack him with. It looks to me as though he is executing this manoeuvre very skilfully.
Morning all.
1. The deeper the recession, the more the ‘core’ will return to Labour, fearing those dastardly Tories slashing public spending and putting up unemployment. Boosts Labour to 32%, Tories held at 41%, Libs pushed down to 14%.
2. The deeper the recession, the more the floaters are confirmed in their ‘time for a change’/'anyone’s better than this lot’ narrative and soft lefties stay at home. Labour down to 30%, Libs up to 17%, Tories up to 42%.
3. The deeper the recession, the more determined the ’stay at home Tories’ from 97, 01 and 05 will be to return to the fold and boot out Brown. Tories boosted to 45%, Labour held at 30%, Libs held at 17%, turnout up to 70%.
Conclusion. Brown bounce is real only in that the Labour core will come home, holding onto nurse for fearing of something worse.
73
I know a ‘contest’ gives them an easy story but I wish they’d wake up and realise this is not a sports event.
NickP: “I think there’s a good 10% of the electorate that has shifted between those two positions in the last couple of months, *on top* of the swing after the Labour conference that brought the lead down from 15-20 to 9-13″
This is also a blatant untruth. The last polls from each of the six leading pollsters give these Tory leads:
BPIX: 16
ComRes: 8
ICM: 13
Ipsos-Mori: 15
Populus: 15
YouGov: 9
The range is 8-16. The average lead is 12.6 (somewhat different from your “9-13″).
And using Smithson’s Rule we get a Tory lead of 16.
Hehe, nice video on ConHome about Brown’s glee as the economy explodes:
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/torydiary/2008/11/brown-is-lovin.html
61. Class isn’t where you come from, it’s who you are. I’m sure even Roger understands that.
77. Nick Palmer and his minions are now using the reverse Smithson rule, i.e. whichever poll shows the smallest Labour deficit must be the accurate one.
Ming said that Brown is very competent and that the only other able person is Cable. What about Clegg you may ask? Of that he had nothing to say.
64
They are still staring hard at swingeing defeat, and the fact that people like Jonathan, NickP, and Coldstone find this 13% deficit “satisfactory”, or even “some kind of victory” says a lot about their inner state of mind. In their souls, they know they are gonna lose, they just don’t want to be wiped out.
Ahem! I’ve always accepted one thing, in the whole of British political history, no one party has ‘ever’ won every GE, if they haven’t managed it in the past, they certainly won’t in the future.
What I don’t accept, is that it is, ‘certain’ that the Tories will win a, ‘working majority.’ I certainly don’t accept the comparisons with the London election, which had unique, ’showbiz’ features.
The UK is in a very, very fluid political situation at the moment, anything can happen, and probably will.
p.s.
Your own situation amazes me seant! as a Libertarian (when it suits you) Cameron should be an anathema to you, he’s turned the Tory Party into ‘Blue Labour’ yet you still sing his praises. If there is one group of people, (as Heffer recognises) that should be dismayed at the present Tory Party its people like you.
Still Bi-Polar types like yourself are rarely rational.
78.That Queen song really nails it for me.
74. Brown’s renewed self-confidence is helpful in that it boosts his and labour’s morale but it also exposes another danger to him, his supreme arrogance. Brown has an unshakeable belief in his own ability (something he shares with many politicians!) but he can’t help both from showing how pleased he is with himself (which can be something of a turn off) and also it leads him into hubristic mistakes like ‘no more boom and bust’ and the 10p tax abolition.
64,77 This topic is factor 11 on the the tediometer. Are Labour still basically up the sh1tty creek? Absolutely.
What has changed since the Summer:
1) Labour have found a boat and are at last padding in the right direction. The poll deficit is much better than it was and they have won an election. It is significant, real votes. JM never managed that did he? There are also some people on board who are capable of navigating a course. The captain has also found his voice.
2) The Tories have lost their untouchable, walking-on-water image. Last summer it did look like game over. Not only were Labour weak, but the Tories were not making mistakes. But since Cameron’s failure to saying anything remotely substantial to the credit crisis, he looks fallible. The Osborne mini-crisis also showed it doesn’t take much to get them arguing amongst themselves. There are real questions over the Tories readiness.
Who knows what will happen in the year ahead. Not you or me. You have to be realistic, a full recovery would be unprecedented, but there is no precedent for what happens to a 3rd term Labour govt.
84 Andrew - yes, I think you are right about that. He made his worst mistakes when he was well ahead in the polls.
O/T This in the Independent is the type of Government untruth that really makes me angry.
Last year, after an inordinate delay in agreeing to the convention on human trafficking (slavery in real terms) the Home Office made a big fuss about setting up a specialist national unit to deal with this particular crime. It was tied into the bicentennial celebrations of the Abolition of Slavery and since then there’s been a high level of media attention to the work.
Funding has been cut back so there can no longer be a specialist unit, just a bit of cash to support general police teams investigating vice.
Now the Home Office declares they had always only said it would be funded for a time limited period - but they didn’t, Veron Croaker proclaimed
“This new team will be a specialist unit dedicated to targeting the global criminal networks that profit from this modern day slave trade. Those involved in the trafficking of men, women and children can expect to feel the full weight of the law.”
Now the men, women and children will not be protected.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/police-team-that-investigated-tide-of-human-traffic-is-closed-1006612.html
79. Class is, rather, what you are. I have met out of work miners with infinitely more real class than some of the internationally educated toffs I’ve had the misfortune to come across. And they keep their CVs up to date.
There clearly hasn’t been a “Brown bounce” in the conventional sense of Labour hacing taken a lead in the polls or even got anywhere close to the famous Margin of Error.
However, it’s not that long ago since some of us were wondering where Labour’s floor was - 25%, 20% or even less were being bandied about, and not by the Martin Days or the Ave Its, either.
I myself argued passionately that Labour was on course for a 1983-style débacle, when they took 29% of the vote. That may still happen, but it now looks less of a certainty than it did. It certainly looks as though the Party’s “floor” is there or thereabouts, and to the extent that has been established Brown has had limited “success”.
As I mentioned yesterday, I had the - very briefest - of chats over the phone last night with Barack Obama. He says it’s all pretty demanding at present but he’s loving every minute and is looking forward to doing a bit of lurking on PB.com again when things are a bit less hectic! I did try to get a few clues to help us with the Whitehouse appointment bets but no joy alas. He also revealed that Mike’s endorsement of him when he was a 50/1 outsider was a real source of inspiration and motivation. Many other factors played a part of course, but I thought that was interesting. Barack also said enigmatically ‘Who’s the jerk Roger at comment number 1?’, but I’ve no idea what or who he meant by that.
89. I don’t think i have ever said Labour would get 20% or less at the next GE.
[85] Yes, good to be reminded that there’s never been a third-term Labour government before. And FWIW the Tories couldn’t hold any of the seats they defended in by-elections 1992-97, whereas Labour has. (Actually I don’t read too much into it, tending to the view that the Tories don’t “do” by-elections.)
[91] Very decent of you to go to the trouble of posting just to agree with me, Martin…
[77] - I can’t speak for Nick Palmer, but I assume he was referring only to the ICM figures given by Mike in the post.
If you look at the ICM figures in isolation it does appear that there has been a marginal improvement in Labour’s position, from catastrophic, to merely dire. In June-August ICM give Tory leads of 15-20, and from September onwards it is 9-13.
I’m not certain that this is significant in a statistical sense, and if you want to get over-excited and ignore the random jumping around due to the margin of error then it would look clear that this “bounce” is wearing off. From the end of September the Tory lead goes +9, +12, +12, +13 which is only in one direction.
I wouldn’t say so much that there was a myth of a Labour bounce, since that sounds as though it doesn’t exist. I would rather say that the bounce has been greatly exaggerated - even an optimistic interpretation of the numbers shows that it is only 1/3 of what Labour require to regain a poll lead.
85 There is a clue on what happens to a third term Labour Government from our cousins on the opposite side of the world, running a campaign very like Gordon’s no time for a novice.
http://tinyurl.com/66soro
94 Brown’s Bump?
88. Class is what Labour emphatically are not - in any sense.
[96] - Brown’s Blip?
84. “he’s turned the Tory Party into ‘Blue Labour’”
That’s what I don’t get… if Blair turned Labour into a second Tory party with his move to the right, doesn’t saying the Conservatives are ‘Blue Labour’ just mean your calling the Tories, Tories?
87 — Don’t be silly Ted, Labour’s priority is compulsory ID cards for tracking law-abiding citizens, not tracking people trafficking!
100. Quite right, after all clamping down on people trafficking would risk reducing immigration with catastrophic effects for the UK economy? Britain desperately needs more sweated labour in these stringent times.
There is another way of looking at this though, the polls seem to move along in cycles. By this i mean the Tory lead fluctuating in each cicle. To start with the Tory lead got to as low as 2% in early January, peaking at 13% Tory lead in March.
The Tory lead then falls back to 5% in Aspril before surging to 20% in june. The next trough is a 9% Tory lead and I should imagine we are currently in a Tory surge phase again!
So it could be getting collectively worse for Labour with the paramiters of the Tory lead fluctuating between greater Tory leads compared with the previous mini-cycle!
If this is correct: Labour are doomed - DOOMED!
3
Worrying for Labour if this “bounce” is concentrated in heartlands like Scotland though surely?
Any regional figures available? Key battlegrounds are London and the South east, midlands and North West. If tories get a 13% lead there, it’s Cameron in no. 10.
72. moving the polls by 10 points and then maintaining that is not to be sniffed at. both parties had conferences, remember!
my view is that the original Con leads (of 20 pts plus) were probably a bit soft/fictitious/silly season and that where we are now is a more accurate reflection of something that could actually happen in a GE.
92. “And FWIW the Tories couldn’t hold any of the seats they defended in by-elections 1992-97, whereas Labour has”
‘92-’97 was the Tories’ fourth term, this is Labour’s third. The Tories did hold three seats in by-elections in their third term I believe (’87-’92).
105 Good Point.
94 That’s about the long and the short of it, Timothy. The obvious conclusion is that Labour are a sell on the GE spread markets and their relatively generous price should be taken now.
I can’t see this changing in the medium to long term so now is the time get on.
104 - I agree with that. What the financial turmoil may have done is precipitate an early return to Labour ranks by all those who were probably going to return at some point anyway.
Isn’t that why we’re in the EU?
101. Isn’t that why we’re in the EU?
108. Very possibly - good point. Now Labour have the chance to lose these voters all over again….
Re, supposed Labour tax cuts…
Labour shout from the roof tops about cuts to front line services etc when the Tories mention tax cuts etc, so I assume they will be annoucing the areas of where they are going to make ‘efficiency savings’ (or green tax rises etc) if this comes to pass.
Also, in my view - if Brown does announce (because it will be him who announces anything rather than Darling), it’ll suggest a 2009 ‘cut and run’ election.
I’m deeply concerned that ‘tax cuts’ will become a purely political punch bag between all three parties when we all know the cupboard is bare. I’m all for reducing the tax burden, but not if it has huge consquences that will cost us more in the medium / long term (or even in the short term if more sneaky stealth taxes are implemented).
Suspect as always, the devil will be in the detail. I predict middle england to get a raw deal from any Labour tax cutting package and that it will be smoke and mirrors.
I don’t think the opposition parties have to spell out their plans in huge detail at this stage - unless a GE is close.
Iain Martin in the Three Line Whip reminds us of another Labour government by election win against the SNP in Scotland, a year before they called a GE.
Brown bounce: remember Hamilton 1978
“Labour’s success in Glenrothes has created much excitement. It is supposedly without parallel, a sudden change in the climate of a kind unseen hitherto.
But it has been pointed out in several places, and a long in the tooth Labour source reminds me, that there is one parallel.
In 1978 Labour faced a tricky by-election in Hamilton, south-east of Glasgow.
The Labour candidate was a young Atlanticist from the right of the party with fierce anti-Nat views called George Robertson.
The SNP candidate was the best of all Nats, the feisty Margo MacDonald. The Nationalist bandwagon was rolling - with Labour having no overall majority the SNP had been able to play all manner of parliamentary games at Westminster.
And then polling day arrived in Hamilton. Labour won with an increased majority of 7,570 and the SNP bandwagon was stopped in its tracks. It didn’t really get moving again for another decade, until MacDonald’s husband Jim Sillars won the 1988 Govan by-election in spectacular fashion.
Robertson’s win was a great boost to the Union and to Labour morale but it was all forgotten at the following year’s general election when the Conservatives turned out Jim Callaghan.”
105-Kensington, Epping Forest, and Richmond (Yorks)
Lenders can sell borrowers’ homes after two missed payments, High Court rules
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/borrowing/mortgages/3415307/Lenders-can-sell-borrowers-homes-after-two-missed-payments-High-Court-rules.html
This is going to turf out families & individuals on the street - IIRC the government has reduced the time to 13 weeks for Mortgage interest Income Support. If someone losses their job but financially distressed individuals may have missed payments before losing their job. Indeed as this was a buy to let case: A tenenant could be paying their rent and still get turfed out if the landlord has pocketed it!
Nasty business this!
115. Most payments are monthy so of course 8 weeks would be the primary threshold for being booted out in essence. The governments change is 5 weeks short as it is 13 weeks.
This will increase homelessness and cause further house price falls if critical mass in repossesion kicks in.
113- I think this is right- Glenrothes said more about the SNP running out of steam rather than a Labour comeback.
Gordon has done a superb job in this banking crisis- but is still looking down both barrels at the GE
112 Osborne & Cameron have been making a deal of mortgaging the future because the cupboard is bare. They will take a hit from Labour on any spending cuts, both on pseudo-Keynesian grounds and on “same old Tories cutting vital services” but I’m not sure people who are themselves cutting back will be as concerned as they would have been over those. Cancelling ID cards, phone/email database will be attacked as “Tories careless with security” but again they are not popular policies.
Think some of it will be on basis of swapping public expenditure - a bit of smoke & mirrors - in claiming that if for example NI is cut for small firms to boost employee retention that cost can be written off against the unemployment benefit that otherwise would have been paid.
It’s putting a cap on borrowing equal to that forecast to happen as result of recession, without additional stimulus, as that is an inevitable increase but saying that targeted tax breaks would have effect of reducing the impact on employment and company failures on public expenditure by the same or more than cost of revenue lost.
Hard message to sell easily and Darling could steal the argument for his proposals.
Hmm.
I think there has ben a brown bounce or perhaps better describe as Blip however its not the one that the media describes. Labour had a bump of +6 and +7 in the two post conference polls pulling them from the med twenties to the very low thirties. The handling of the banking crisis seems to have cermented this and it has not evapourated like most conference bounces. However
1. Using Smithsons law Labour are still only on Thirty which is dire.
2. the anecdotal evidence is its just the core who are terrified of the tories and a recesion. They want, not unreasonably, the government cheques to keep comming.
3. We are still in crisis stage. When the lagging indicators like arrears, repossessions and unemployment really start kicking in I just don’t believe that an incumbant government is going to get any credit.
There only hope is carve out a few overlapping narratives and hope to get 30% in the next GE and save 240 or 250 seats a fll hundred ahead on the 1997 tory apocalpse from which to rebuild. I would as they are go for
- we will anethatise the pain. welfare spending, tax cuts, stop mass reposesions like last time.
- we’ll borrow to hand out cash to our core vote
- its all a global problem.
basically Labour will sugar coat the recession for its core supporters in a way Major didn’t. Its a difference but not much of one.
re LD membership figures. Grim but as a laging indiator i expect to get worse. Two leadeship executions in two years pises off party members and clegg is just not energising people. Given that nearly everyone just lapses rather than actually resigns and that takes 15 months from last paying i await with interest the first set of truly post clegg figures.
118, hmm, stealing ideas didn’t work very well last time. Right now Brown and Darling are portraying themselves as the wise old hands. Copying the Tory proposals would not be clever as it would render them vulnerable to the charge of lacking the right ideas at this crucial time.
Media narrative (excepting certain particularly well trained pets) may well shift soon. Depends on the strength of the Tory/Labour proposals.
113
I think it should be mentioned, that the, ‘winter of discontent’ followed that byelection which changed things somewhat.
In October ‘78 the Mail commissioned NOP, (which was owned by Associated Newspapers) to conduct a poll, it gave Labour an 8% lead, the Mail, (much more in the Tory pocket in those days) refused to publish. The Mirror found out about the poll, and bought it off NOP, (much to the Mail’s disgust) they published it, speculation about a GE, was quashed when Callaghan refused to call one.
So Labour were in a better position when that byelection was fought, they of course didn’t know what was coming up: neither do we!
66. It’s my understanding that it was because Jon Cruddas was asked to implement such an agenda (without building new council houses) that he turned the job of Housing Minister down.
The polls over the last 4 years give an insight into (1) the core vote levels of each party and (2) the changes in the attitude of the swing voter over the period.
Lowest poll ratings for each party since 2005 are Labour 23%, Conservative 28%, Lib Dem 11%, Other 5%. If these are taken to be voters who will always vote for their party no matter what, this leaves 33% of the electorate as floating voters.
2005 (post election) shows out of these 33%, according to the polls, none would vote Conservative in the next election, 8% would vote Labour, 6% Lib Dem and 19% were still undecided.
2006 shows out of these 33%, 2% would vote Conservative, 6% would vote Labour, 2% Lib Dem and 23% were now undecided (note the increase in floating voters voting Tory and decrease in Labour and Lib Dem).
2007 shows out of these 33%, 3% would vote Conservative, 4% would vote Labour, none would vote Lib Dem and 26% were now undecided(note again the increase in floating voters voting Tory and decrease in Labour and Lib Dem).
2008 shows that out of these 33%, 9% would vote Conservative, none would vote Labour, and 1% would vote Lib Dem with 23% undecided (note again the increase in floating voters voting Tory and decrease in Labour).
The issue I believe is that Labour are now down to their core vote (+8% currently) of precarious floating vote. Nobody who is a floating voter is currently solidly thinking of voting Labour: they have taken 8% or so floating voters recently, but the Tories have a “solid” 9% of the floating vote and about another 6% of precarious floating vote. This leaves only 10% of the floating vote for the Lib Dems to go at, and I calculate they only have around 1% floatng their way.
I see this as a current threat both to the Lib Dems and Labour that they cannot solidify floating voters to their cause, whereas the Tories can. On the other hand, there are still about 24% of voters who are still undecided, the battle for this 24% over the coming year will obviously decide the outcome of the election.
This explains both the Crewe and Nantwich and Glenrothes results, I think the Glasgow East result was a rogue result.
For tennis followers, Federer and Simon are 1 set apiece. I recommended a Simon win (6/1) with a saver (4/1) on Federer winning 2-1 in sets, so we’re guaranteed a fairly good payout.
“Cancelling ID cards… will be attacked as “Tories careless with security”.”
ID cards have nothing to do with security — both Stella Rimmington and the government’s own security advisor at GCHQ say so.
90.
“did try to get a few clues to help us with the Whitehouse appointment ”
Would this be Paul or one of Mary’s sprogs?
From those wonderful people who gave you the winner at Glenrothes.
http://www.politicshome.com/#4404
127
Sorry scroll to the poll.
Surely Glenrothes was different form Glasgow East because it was caused by the sad death of the MP who had served his constituents well. Glasgow East on the other hand….
re 125 yes - but you can guarantee that’s how every Labour MP and Labour supporter on here will portray it.
“…the sad death of the MP who had served his constituents well.”
I don’t consider voting for 42-day detention to be “serving his constituents well.”
125 The fact ID cards do little other than help bureaucrats limit freedom doesn’t mean Labour will not claim opposition means Tories don’t care about Security.
130 — then it’s the responsibility of the Tories and Liberals, among others, to call them out on their lies.
132, ironic from the party that brought us illegal immigrants working in the Home Office.
129 - I was away for Glenrothes. However, I don’t think it can be interpreted as anything other than a super result for Labour (and a horrid one for the SNP). Since the SNP have control of the equivalent Holyrood constituency, rather more than the circumstances of the departure of the previous MP must be playing a part.
I was struck by something that Aaron said a couple of weeks ago, which was that attacks on the calibre of a candidate might be seen as an indicator of who was going to win. Lindsay Roy came in for a hammering from the SNP, yet duly won and won very well.
I shall be looking out for this again in future.
133 also applies to 132.
123, 129. I don’t think you need such (impressive) sophistry to explain Glenrothes, or indeed the general picture, etc.
Basically the Tories are on course to win the GE by a solid majority.
A few floaters have retreated to Labour, from the LDs, in the face of recession.
In Scotland there is a different picture, which since Glasgow East has moved more significantly towards Labour. The SNP are now suffering an anti-incumbency feeling, as recession bites, and the voters are increasingly sure they don’t want independence. So Labour are gaining Unionist and anti-SNP votes.
This will save the government north of Carlisle, but Brown will still lose the GE.
125
“Cancelling ID cards… will be attacked as “Tories careless with security”.”
ID cards have nothing to do with security — both Stella Rimmington and the government’s own security advisor at GCHQ say so.
Indeed. The public’s taste for them has dropped, as can be seen by the fact that the government is not pushing them as much as they used to. At a time when there’s less money in the kitty I think they’d be praised for finding ways to cut spending and taxes without reducing services.
124 Well done Henry - a clever, clever tandem bet.
139. Cracking match - both players defended 3 break points on last to service games.
138. The numerous data losses have made supporters of ID cards sceptical that the ID card scheme will work.
If ID cards are so great a supporter ought to be able to name a country that introduced them, and show that the benefits were greater than the costs. Nobody ever seems to do so. Can anyone?
137 - it’s an interesting question, though - if Scotland is seen as competitive (from a Labour point of view), will this tend to draw off resources away from the south come the GE? Could this affect the dynamics in (say) the Midlands?
138 Raj - But ID cards are something Labour have been stubborn about. The interesting thing is that the same was true of the 42-days vote. Brown put a huge amount of effort into winning this vote, and wasted a lot of political capital on it - to no purpose, as was predictable. Why? It is totally inexplicable, in electoral terms. Labour could quite easily have said “We think this is on balance a good measure, but it is an issue on which Hon Members have different views, and therefore we will hold further discussions with a view to reaching a consensus”, and then buried it.
Why are they also so stubborn about ID cards, an idea which is evidently even more counter-productive in electoral terms? I haven’t the faintest idea, but maybe NickP could enlighten us.
Simon beats Federer 6/4 4/6 6/3
144. Rather that should be 4/6 6/4 6/3
137
So yer’ not going with this then?
Pressure on Cameron to raise game
Forty seven per cent of panellists now think the next election will produce a Tory majority in the Commons. That’s down seven points from fifty four in the last tracker ten days ago. And it is a dramatic plunge of twenty six points from early October when seventy three per cent of the panel thought that the Tories would win a majority.
Only six per cent of panellists now believe that the Conservatives will win a strong majority. That’s down ten points since the last tracker.
This is likely to add to the pressure on David Cameron from within his party for the Tories to lift their political game.
Thirty six per cent of panellists reckon the next election will produce a hung parliament, most of them thinking the Conservatives would be the biggest party.
From PH.
142. Any Labour MP with a majority of less than 5,000 will have been written off all ready I am afraid! Indeed some Labour MP’s such as Ruth Kelly are standing down and she has a nominal majority just above 5k! So unless she is angling after a safer seat (Think Huddersfield MP Barry Sheerman is going to stand down (He is obviously tryint to get a P for doing it) as he has moved house to wetherby north yorkshire local Labour sources have told me. So maybe Ruth Kelly will suddenly change her mind? I doubt there is anything in the Labour rule book about standing down then changing your mind near an election!
19. Regarding The Great Card Game That Shall Not Be Named on this site (my last post got chewed). Great news – perhaps the president will do Americans a favour and reverse Bush’s absurd ‘ban’ on online The Great Card Game That Shall Not Be Named.
143 But people are harassing Jacqui Smith over her delay in fingerprinting them, putting their details on a massive database, threatening them with fines or prison if they move without telling her and giving them a card with their picture on. She can’t stand up against the mass public demand for ID cards NW! can she?
143 Speaking as a Brummie, Labour will be completely wiped out in the Midlands. I would be surprised if they have any seats in England south of Liverpool / Manchester apart from the odd inner city slum. Crewe and Nantwich was an indicator as to the strength of the anti-Labour feeling in the Midlands, but it gets stronger as you get further south. There is still a feeling that the banks have had a handout from the government which was / is not available for the car industry. Jaguar and Land Rover, by far the biggest employers in Birmingham, are now badly struggling yet get no help from the government.
A by-election somewhere like Birmingham Northfield would be extremely intersting now, other seats like Edgbaston, Yardley and Hall Green look nailed on Tory wins.
146. Presumably those that don’t are getting their money on a hung parliament at 5/2?
148. That depends whether he got money from casino interests too, doesn’t it? I think Obama won Las Vegas…
150 - Meant for 142
150. Yardley? Err check your notionals dear boy….
144 Congratulations Henry, that has to be one of your very best spots - I just wish I’d lumped more on, but it takes bottle to bet against Federer at 6-1.
Many thanks, well that’s Christmas Dinner taken care of!
“and the Lib Dems badly squeezed”
I keep banging on about this – yet all I get is certain individuals saying I’m like a broken record and yet the issue rarely gets discuss.
Let’s try again: 2010 GE – classic 1980s style third party squeeze. Yes or no?
146. I think we all over-reacted to Glenrothes.
It was a fairly startling result, given the expectations that had been built up (cleverly by Labour, calamitously by the SNP) - but on analysis it don’t mean that much for Labour nationwide.
The situation in Scotland is unique, the situation in Glenrothes was even, er, uniquer.
For example: If you want to register a protest vote in Scotland, and give the ruling party a kicking, do you vote against the SNP (the ruling party in Scotland) or against Labour (the ruling party in London)? It’s confusing. The message from the voters was, therefore, blunted. They swang against Labour - but only 5%.
Factor in the local boy Gordon Brown, and the decline in support for independence (with maybe some Tory and LDs unionists holding their noses and actually voting Labour) and you have the full explanation for Glenrothes.
What happened there was jolly good for Labour, but I don’t think it will happen again, very often, outside Scotland; indeed it might not happen again outside Fife.
152. He did, but the big casino chiefs, aside from Steve Wyn, all backed McCain. He won NV/Las Vegas by promising a better deal for croupiers and other casino workers.
156 Yes.
149 Ah yes, Ted, I’d forgotten that. Maybe that explains it.
But I suspect the enthusiasm will die down when people find out that they are not going to be ‘given’ a card with their picture on, but charged at least £30 for the privilege - and that’s just for starters.
Thanks and congratulations, HenryG!
I didn’t lump on too heavily because the Fed’s a tough man to oppose but it’s another bottle of bolly into the PtP cabinet, for which I am very grateful.
Atb
PtP
155. Thanks Peter. Enjoy!
Off topic: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/7716839.stm
Murray now Scottish rather than British according to official BBC scorecard…
Red Meteor and Stuart Dickinson will be pleased…
156. Yes, Yellow Taxi time for the LD’s! Clegg and Huhne possible casualities!
162, grats on your punting cunning. Alas that I missed the tip.
Got Simon at 8/1 versus Nadal in Madrid (before it started). Laid him later, so my profit was minimal, but he went ahead and won it.
148 Ben
Are you referring to P*ker?
158. Perhaps this will be the first point of disappointment, among many, for the Obamaniacs. I think we should have a market on how long it takes Roger to lose faith in his new saviour and condemn him as an Uncle Tom or some other unpleasantness…
163, they might reflect that the first B is meant to stand for British, not Brown.
156 - Since those are my words, I ought to answer. Possibly.
If the Lib Dems allow themselves to be crowded out of the narrative in a “them or us” election, they will not only not take possible marginal Lib Dem/Labour seats, they will also lose a stack of Lib Dem seats where the Tories are challenging, with votes peeling off left and right.
166. Yes that is The Great Card Game That Shall Not Be Named. God only knows what we do when we want to discuss tools for stoking a coal fire.
167. Why will Roger and the Obamamaniacs be unhappy that Obama is a fan of The Great Card Game That Shall Not Be Named?
168. Come again Mr Dancer?!
171. Sorry - I’m suggesting he won’t reverse the ban.
173. Yes OK – I think you are probably right. More trouble than it’s worth probably.
164 I am sure Clegg will hold his seat and surprisingly despite his small majority I expect Huhne to do so too. Eastleigh council remains in Lib Dem hands. It is the lesser known Lib Dem MPs whom I am fearful for. Certainly imo it is worrying times for the party.
123. doesn’t this make the tenuous assumption that the 23% who would have voted for IDS are all now supporters of Cameron, and vice versa? + same for Howard and Hague
seems like a leap of faith to me, despite the overall increase in support
174. Quite. Doesn’t fit all that well with the narrative either.
118 Most of the Conservative proposals concerning tax can be understood in terms of keeping folk in employment and in their homes (already announced: measures to ease repossessions, help for businesses in corporation tax and VAT; to come: help with NI). The timeliness of these measures is clear, as unemployment and repossessions are going up fast.
When it comes to personal taxation, I’m much less clear of the underlying rationale. Obama spoke about delivering a fiscal stimulus to the economy the other day. But is the economy in a fit state to be stimulated at present? Given that a key characteristic of the present situation is the unavailability of credit, decreasing personal taxation at the moment is bit like trying to encourage an unconscious person to walk.
Personal tax cuts might have a role to play later in getting people spending again at the point when borrowing becomes easier.
Ben
I’m quite sure that The One has more important things on his mind than reversing the ban on internet betting. We at PB should certainly hope so. One reason why the US election was such a bean feast for so many here was that we did not have much competiton from informed US punters. We were competing largely against UK and European punters, many of whom seem not to have heard of PB.com.
Long may Mr Obama drag his heels over this silly prohibition!
178 - Has anyone pointed out amid all this insistence by the govt about Banks passing on mortgage interest reductions, that mortgages are getting towards the stage where they are significantly cheaper than rents? I have a relative with a Mortgage on a 200k flat that is not significantly greater than that payed by council tenants. If someone can’t afford mortgages at current rates then i’m not sure they should have a mortgage at all…
179 PtP - Interestingly, there is a market on Intrade about whether the ban will be reversed. I do like the idea of taking out an internet bet on whether internet betting will become legal in the US. Unfortunately, the Intrade contract is set out in very restrictive terms:
“This contract will settle (expire) at 100 ($10.00) if a bill amending the provisions of the US code implementing UIGEA [Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act] will pass by 11:59:59pm ET on the [31 Dec 2010], AND Rep. Barney Frank is among the bill’s sponsors”
Current price 10.0-19.9.
172, the BBC is all too happy to promote Scottishness and Welshness but seems to ignore Englishness and Britishness, despite having Britain in its name. It’s also become little more than Pravda for Comrade Brown.
117. The SNP did not run out of steam, they increased their vote by 13.25%. In any other circumstance this would have been seen as huge progress. What happened here was Labour and the media promoted one of Labours safest seats as a certain loss and the SNP were swept along after the Glasgow East 22% swing. I doubt you will see in any other election or by-election comment that increasing your vote by 13.25% is a negative.
Well done labour in Glenrothes. I was amazed at the result, but probably because at every recent election you had to take what the campaign said and make it worse. i.e. council elections - we will lose 400 seats, actually 900 or similar.
I think we should appreciate the nuanced political scene in scotland. Political parties probably cannot understand this but some voters will vote SNP at Holyrood, to provide strong independent scottish leadership for scotland, but labour at westminster, as they are the most relevant political party in scotland there.
Coldstone - I think PH100 should be taken with a pinch of salt. Just because they are politically balanced doesn;t mean they are politically accurate like an opinion poll. If you have 100 biased people, like Nick Palmer, then they will spout party line no matter what the facts show.
I also think the LDs will get squeezed severely at the next election. I cannot see an anti labour movement in labour heartlands as was successful for them in 1997. Although I have always voted LD if I lived in a marginal I would definitely vote Tory to get labour out. I can;t be the only one.
181 My money would be against a reversal within the time limit, Richard. There’s no rush and why pi*s off the Puritans right now? I shan’t be getting involved just yet though. I’ve creamed the US markets this year and have decided to put my feet up until the new year. I’ll look at it again in January.
Now, where are those holiday brochures….?
183. what about David Davis’s seat?
In all this talk of tax cuts etc we seem to be assuming that the credit crisis is over, and we are just dealing with the recession. With 6.6 trillion dollars of credit default swaps still out there, affecting most financial institutions in the world, I wouldn’t be too sure.
185 PtP - Yes, plus taking on all those vested interests. Not a priority.
I thought all your winnings were going on Bolly?
185. Wasn’t the whole rationale behind this band rather protectionist than puritan?
183. Quite right. And nor is winning one of your safest seats in the PM’s backyard on a reduced majority a success. Labour seem to have lost the plot a little, they’re over-reacting to the slightest bit of ‘not so bad’ news for them. It’s odd. Perhaps they still think this recession is their Falklands?
183. That may or may not be true.
What is indubitable is that Salmond and the Nats got trounced at the expectations game - they let the media runaway with the idea that this was a sure-fire SNP victory. Indeed Salmond, stupidly, was predicting a “political earthquake” two days before the vote, and hinting he’d actually placed a bet on his party to win.
Derrr. I think Wee Eck got carried away with his own verbosity; he was made to look a smug and grinning fool - which is very dangerous in such an obviously self-satisfied politician.
It also showed bad political judgment from your previously cunning leader. Maybe he’s had too many fine meals at Bute House, and is losing his edge.
Chances of Scottish independence in the next twenty years: 0.1%.
154 - Yardley would go Lid Dem on a 5% swing. Most people in Yardley worked at Rover or now work at Land Rover / Jaguar or related car supply chain businesses. There is no way Labour will retain this seat (Northfield for the same reason).
156,169 - Shhhssshhh. I have been selling Lid Dem seats at 44 for a few weeks now, don’t let the cat out of the bag. For me the likelihood of a Lib Dem squeeze is the best bet available at the moment, even more certain than a Tory majority.
176 - If you have any evidence that Cameron is less popular than IDS, Hague or Howard amongst voters I would love to see it. He is the best Tory leader in opposition since Thatcher, if anything he is steadily increasing the core Conservative vote.
183 - In Glenrothes, i thought there was a 5% swing away from Labour? Can you explain how a swing away from a party is a good thing?
189: Bit of both - the protectionists were quite happy to enlist puritan support.
188 Richard - If they had US Elections every week I could use bolly for bathwater, but I’ll settle for drinking the stuff - and a nice holiday.
Btw, you are holding those Labour sells, aren’t you? They are definitely long-term value.
192. that isn’t what i am saying, but the 4 leaders had 4 completely different policy platforms, and it is hard to imagine that they all had the same “core” support.
194 PtP - Yes, I’m holding the Labour sells. Looking forward to a nice profit in due course!
195 no they did not have completely different policy platforms. The Tory policy is smaller government, lower taxes and supporting workers and families. The core vote see through slight differences in approach, and accept that some items (e.g. Cameron and grammar schools) might not be to their taste, but wouldn’t stop them voting Tory.
Anyone who might switch parties because of policy nuances is by definition a swing voter.
178. For the poor who are the ones who are definitely being shut out of credit markets, a tax cut is very useful. One of the reasons why Ricardian equivalence doesnt work is that people have access to credit markets - they can bring forward consumption if they want by borrowing. In that case, giving them a tax cut now, simply means they know there will be a tax rise in future, which is no different from the household borrowing to consume now. But if you cannot borrow, then the tax cut gives the option to consume today.
197. two of those four played directly and deliberately for the sort of far right fringe voters who would not obviously vote for Cameron. that is not policy nuance, it is complete and repeated repositioning - successive trial-and-error in an attempt to come up with a Blair antidote.
Tories to annnouce tax policies/plans tomorrow, with Broon saying his plans ‘over the next few weeks’…
Here we go again, Labour forcing out policy from the opposition (ramp up an early election / talk of tax cuts etc) so they can attempt to steal the best parts!
Cynical view point of course, but am I wrong?
Feels slightly wrong all of this, like the opposition having to dance to Browns tune even though he hasn’t played a note yet…
Expect massive negative press onslaught from Labour tomorrow against key parts of Camerons plans while in the background under the media radar, majority public support.
Also expect a media narrative that follows Labours… for the time being.
The polls are going to be all over the place in the coming weeks. It’ll be like conference season again.
All of this makes me start to think a 2009 election is a real possibility even though it seems very unlikely for many reasons.
Confused…? you will be.
This headline story might be of interest to pb regulars:
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/
Perhaps we should charter a plane and have our next pb party in Thailand? I know a couple of nice, ahem, “bars”.
Daily Mash’s take on the communist proposal to ban low-priced alcohol: http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/alcohol-to-be-restricted-to-nice-people-with-degrees-200811101387/
197 Point to examples of “far right fringe parties” policy positions.
Don’t bring up Immigration though as the difference between current Labour policy and that proposed by Howard and his predessors is minimal.
Here are the main policies Conservatives have proposed to help ease the pain of this recession:
1. Freezing council taxes for two years
2. Deferring VAT payments for small companies
3. Cutting payroll taxes for every business with fewer than five employees
4. Stopping the planned tax rises on family cars
All fully funded out of current expenditure/waste I might add.
Can someone please tell me what concrete proposals the government have put forward?
Silver linings …… the US ban on internet betting apart from on Intrade for reasons which escape me, has resulted in the UK’s gaming industry, with its huge overseas earnings, becoming one of our few major business success stories over the past decade, including spectacular growth seen in spreadbetting and the establishment of Betfair as the world leader in its field.
203. are you thinking what i’m thinking?
vote blue, go green
and IDS’s approach to homosexuality
are all policies more usually associated with (completely incompatible) extremist fringe parties.
170/166. How can the word P*ker be banned on a betting web site, it’s absurd. Mike, Morus?
[192] - In Glenrothes more people voted Labour than did so at the 2005 general election. How is that not a good thing for a third-term government that was recently polling below 25%?
They’re still set to comfortably lose the next election, in my opinion, but they are also in a better position than they had been previously.
“One of the biggest errors that many pundits make is when they compare the numbers from one pollster with another and then conclude that there is a trend. You see this all the time and it is wrong.”
Nate Silver et al would love to hear your justification for this statement, Mike.
The best evidence - average of all the polls - is that the Tories are down about 4% from peak, Labour up about 5.5% from their trough, LibDems up 0.5% and others down 1%. The movement is real, but as Curtice suggests, it started before the bank bailout.
191. I don’t actually believe Scotland wants independence. It likes to emphasise its ‘otherness’ and distinct identity, so has no problem with electing a nationalist government, but I refuse to believe it really wants to end the UK relationship. Polling evidence has given mixed signals, I admit, but I think it’s more a manifestation of the ‘we are different, get used to it’ psyche that many Scots have (that’s not a criticism, just a point).
The financial crisis and the Iceland situation have given unionists so much ammo now, as well. The SNP liked to talk about how successful smaller independent economies could be - and even used Iceland as an example, I believe…
[197] - I think that your core vote/floating voter analysis overlooks that the polling figures can be affected by the willingness of the core vote to say that they will turnout.
Mike has previously suggested that some of the recent improvement in Labour’s polling is due to Labour core voters saying they are more certain to turn out, but you are identifying this change due to the attraction of floating voters.
This isn’t just a naming difference, it has implications for strategy and tactics, because core voters and floating voters will be attracted/enthused/won over by different approaches. Indeed, what attracts core voters may do so at the expense of putting off floating voters - but that might be worth doing if the floating voters have already decided against you. [This is assuming you accept the crude demarcation of thinking humans into discrete boxes labelled "core/sheep" and "floater/narcissist"]
207 - I thought the reason was the risk of the site being overwhelmed by spam and luncheon meat as was indeed the case a few years ago.
Seem to be a lot of people who feel that LDs are going to get increasingly squeezed out. I really don’t think so. When it comes to a GE, increasing nos of voters look at Lab and Con and decide they are not especially keen on either - and the Libs benefit (without a great deal of thought given to whether they have positioned themeselves as more anti-Tory or more anti-Lab)- their USP is that they win seats without being either one of the big parties. As has often been observed on here they always benefit from the improved coverage GE campaigns bring.
Speak for yourself Mr P. Some people refused to believe the empirical polling data, and cynically expected a wave of polling booth racism to sweep McCain to power and betted accordingly, despite their own political support for Mr Obama.
Examples of these Doubting Idiots? Step forward one Mr B. Bobjim.
200. Exactly! this is what I mean when I say - and repeat again and again - that the Tories must have an ideology which forms the backbone of any polocy decisions.
Fact is they have an ideology, ( a good one ), but are scared to refer to it. That’s why they are in such a mess when countering any moves by Brown. Really they should be ahead of the curve here, telling the media what they want to project. But they cant even do that with their main man, in the good old USA.
I want to vote for the Conservatives but they need to get their act together, or it’s absention from me.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23584248-details/Bringing+back+Peter+is+the+last+nail+in+Gordon’s+coffin/article.do
Will a well-connected Tory on here do the decent thing and tell Ozzie not to go there?
re 160 Richard you’ve forgetten the £30 they’re going to have to pay some private sector company to take their biometrics down the supermarket. Still at least they can probably rest easy with the prospect that the private company might take better care of their dabs than the government.
194 PtP - it looks as if we’re now about to enter a very quiet period in terms of political betting.
Oh well, there’s always SPOTY to look forward to (not sure that’s quite what I meant), plus of course the prospect of a snowflake falling on the Heathrow’s Air Traffic Control centre on Christmas Day.
Saddos or what!!
207. Yes it makes drawing iinteresting analogies between political campaigns and The Great Card Game That Shall Not Be Named impossible, for starters.
218. Spoty is surely a shoe-in for Lewis?
Mike getting a mention on the Guardian website:
“And Mike Smithson has written a good post about this on PoliticalBetting, with a chart showing all the ICM polling figures for 2008.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2008/nov/10/polls-labour
Obama’s popularity ratings up 9 pts since the election to 70 per cent. Decent rhetorical start for the President Elect.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/111838/Obama-Bush-Contrast-Popularity.aspx
re 200 perhaps we can have a book on how long it’ll take Gabble to pop up with his “unfunded tax cuts” nonsense.
211 Yes I fully agree. A swing voter, in my definition, included those who will always vote Labour or always vote Consvervative if they vote, but may choose not to vote as a protest. A core Labour voter who doesn’t turn out is the same as a Lib Dem voter - a Labour vote lost with no impact on the result of the election.
And to the Labour trolls desperately trying to convice Tories that our leaders have had completely different agendas - contrast if you will Kinnock, Blair and Brown. The core Labour vote voted for all of these, yet them have completely different and in some cases opposing views on core Labour policies.
As for racism in the Tory party, our leader didn’t say “British Jobs For British Workers”.
Or “No More Boom And Bust”
212. Surely there are now Firewall’s that can stop this now.
so what time do we expect the Times poll?
220 Indeed so, but then that’s what everyone said last year.
Frankly following Zara Phillips’ “surprise” win a few years back, this is a betting market probably best avoided.
209 - Yes you are probably right. To be perfectly honest though I think the recovery for Labour can probably be attributed to Brown being more confident and Labour not imploding into civil war on a daily basis.
re 218 PfP with the cold November the Xmas snow bet might be quite profitable as most punters would reckon it much more likely than the true odds.
217 Actual it is £45. I know the company who are going to do it. They deliver credit cards for £7. What a waste of money.
Afternoon all,
157. Speaking as a Tory supporter now but as a former Labour voter, I am ashamed to say (you cannot turn the clock back), I could never bring myself to vote Labour ever again under any circumstances so for Tories to hold their noses whilst voting Labour, I simply could not imagine that. My staunch Tory dad has a good expression when talking about Labour he says, “I would never vote for Labour as long as I have got a hole in my arse” which did make smile because I feel exactly the same.
Boring Forex Update From Tom Knox (Number 56):
The pound has now dropped below €1.22 in value - for the first time in history, I believe.
[224] - “A core Labour voter who doesn’t turn out is the same as a Lib Dem voter - a Labour vote lost with no impact on the result of the election.”
I don’t agree with this. Core voters, from both parties, also live in marginal constituencies. They can affect the election.
157 seanT
I think I said that at 35 (but more succinctly)
94 sums up the Brown blip.
154 sums up Glenrothes.
What is going to move the media to the more reasonable assessments being made above?
We have had:
- Curtice being realistic,
- Ashley being subdued,
- The DT offering a reality check.
Its SLOWLY seeping in.
But to be fair, its taken us afew days of 24 hour political nerdism to digest it properly. We have only recently worked out just how little the bail out achieved.
Events around the conference seem to have stabilsed Labour’s postion. The bail out may have cemented some of that.
If the bail out and all the resultant publicity didn’t do it for Labour, I can’t see what will.
FWIW and on that basis, I doubt Glenrothes will do much, and certainly not in the longer term.
Labour [and the media] saw the financial crisis as a game changer. When that didn’t materialise they saw it as a ‘recovery’ and the beginning of a climb. In fact it was the end of a period of decline and the beginning of a period of minor oscillation. Now they look for improvements in relatively small factors such as Glenrothes and the interest rate cut, in order to see incremental improvements. Such things will only affect the political weather for a few days. They will not change the climate.
The Tories have had everything thrown at them bar the kitchen sink; they have been assaulted on all sides. Gordon was saved the world, the media bow down and hail him, Tory sleaze frenzy, critisism from the media for their handling of just about everything. Result? Behind the noise, no real change.
Back to the point about the media. It doesn’t matter when they wake up. Its not making headway. But it might signal a retreat.
206 Are you thinking what we’re thinking? - apparently answer was yes because much has been introduced by the Labour Government
Vote Blue go Green - didn’t realise that environment was a far right fringe interest.
IDS and Homosexuality - as a gay man I’m was against section 28, different rules on age of consent and for civil partnerships and adoption but also I’m against criminalisation of those with different views to myself on the morality of Homosexuality, and there are a lot of them. Doesn’t mean politicians cannot take a moral stance and argue against prejudice and I’m pleased Cameron is doing so but IDS was pretty representative of majority opinion or of significant minorities.
The recent Observer poll into Sexuality in GB threw up the following statistics:
- 45 per cent of Britons still feel that gay couples should not be allowed to get married
- 56% believe that homosexuals should not be allowed to adopt children
- 40% believe that the age of consent for homosexual sex should be higher than it is for heterosexual sex.
- 24% believe homosexuality should be illegal. ABC1 social groups are generally more likely to hold liberal views than those in the C2DE groupings.
Last figure surprised me after 4 decades of legality 1 in 4 still thinks I should be criminalised.
O/T 150, Albion Til I Die, you have practically answered my question but am I right in assuming that you are West Brom & not Brighton.
If you are West Brom as I now assume, would you fancy your chances if your drawn away to us in the 3rd round of the cup with all the usual on the day cup shock possibilities, I certainly would not fear West Brom if it came to it & I would be quietly confident of an upset – I do not think your players would look forward to visiting a hostile Den with a big crowd.
236. “- 24% believe homosexuality should be illegal. ABC1 social groups are generally more likely to hold liberal views than those in the C2DE groupings.
Last figure surprised me after 4 decades of legality 1 in 4 still thinks I should be criminalised.”
Yes, it’s quite worrying isn’t it? Not just because of their clear homophobia, but also because they somehow think it’s acceptable for the State to get involved in the activities of consenting adults, whether they themselves agree with those activities or not.
There’s a party for them: it’s called the GOP conservative rump and it’s coming to a Western Democracy near you soon.
233 It was said slightly tounge in cheek and referring to the next general election
I don’t think the Lib Dems will come into play in marginals as much as in previous elections because of the landslide effect, a huge landlside means marginals only start to matter when the election is close.
I believe 2015 will be different, as there will be a whole host of marginal constituencies after the Tory tidal wave which were not marginal before. I just don’t see what the Lib Dems offer at the moment other than a protest vote, and Crewe and Nantwich has effectively made all English seats (outside Liverpool) marginal.
“24% believe homosexuality should be illegal. ABC1 social groups are generally more likely to hold liberal views than those in the C2DE groupings.”
I’m surprised the proportion is so high.
239. Crewe and Nantwich has been almost a marginal for the past 60 years, and btw, it’s in the North West, not the Midlands….
224. i don’t think the same people did vote for Kinnock, Blair, and Brown. and half of Brown’s polling troubles are caused by the loss of Blair voters.
236. doesn’t surprise me i’m afraid - that we can still have a homophobic leader of a major party shows that we are still in the dark ages socially in many respects
“but also because they somehow think it’s acceptable for the State to get involved in the activities of consenting adults, whether they themselves agree with those activities or not.”
People hold such a view about lots of activities, though, not just about homosexuality.
237 lol. I used to be Millwall myself for a while for spell in the 90s when I was working in the city and living in Thornton Heath / Brixton. Don’t worry, we played in front of 76,000 at Old Trafford the other week, I don’t think 10,000 at the New Den holds any fears.
In terms of your direct question, I would fancy us on the pitch if not off the pitch so much. Birmingham and Wolves have both felt the effect of a South London council estate in full on riot mode recently.
But respect to the Millwall. Neil Harris is a hero throughout the football world for what he has overcome, and having visited most teams in the UK and several countries with England, Millwall is still the most fearsome place to go.
benbobjim
If I were Mr Osborne I might think I should quit whilst I am only this far behind, but perhaps George feels Mandelson has punched himself out?
Run out of ammo whilst he still has loads left.
To quit now night be the worst of all worlds; to allow someone to win the war on the basis they have won a battle in which they lost all their troops.
Who knows? I am going to put on my Tory tin hat, just in case.
238 - If you think something is wrong, issues of privacy are secondary. Drug use and child pseudopornography are two examples of activities that don’t necessarily harm others but which are illegal (and indeed around which there is quite a broad consensus that they should be illegal).
232. i understand that sterling may have briefly traded lower against the euro during confusion after the death of Cleopatra at Actium, but certainly it is the LOWEST IN HISTORY!!! in peacetime
241 Rod Crosby OK if Crewe is in the North West rather than the Midlands, the hatred for Gordn Brown starts even further North than I thought. Perhaps Bootle is now a marginal as well.
238. A large proportion of the 24% who believe homosexuality should be illegal are surely immigrants. Muslims, Afro-Caribeans, Hindus, Sikhs, and people from Eastern Europe - who have come to our shores in such numbers - all have traditional “homophobic” views on gays.
The paradox of a liberal immigration policy, such as New Labour’s, is that it usually imports illiberal views.
Indeed imagine the number of people who want to prohibit gayosity has actually climbed in recent years, with the mass immigration of the last decade. What if the proportion of homophobes tops out over 50%, partly as a result of immigration?
A cruel irony.
243. saying that the state should never get involved in any activities of consenting adults doesn’t sound very workable
246. What is “child pseudop0rnography”? Scouting magazines?
249 My thoughts exactly.
[239] - Assuming that the next election is a Tory landslide sort of election, then Labour could save themselves probably a good dozen or so seats by shoring up the core vote they have in those seats, since the “marginals” after the election will be relatively deep into Labour territory.
All the traditional marginals will be won rather easily by the Conservatives in this scenario.
Conclusion: Cameron should attempt to win over Core Labour voters to increase his majority… [yes?]
251 - child p0rnography constructed out of non-p0rnographic material, whether by use of photoshop or other computing tools. It is illegal because it can be impossible to tell the difference between real child p0rnography and such imitations.
251 Baden-Powell liked photos of naked boys.
254 (cont) - Actually, it can be p0rnographic but not involving children, but doctored to make it look as though it does.
254. Well then I think there is no consensus on the illegality or otherwise of such materials.
Indeed I think a lot of people - me included - believe it is ludicrous to prohibit the possession or viewing of images of children that are not actually p0rnigraphic, but photoshopped to make them look that way. There is no crime here to be detected. It’s just someone thinking “bad thoughts”: thoughtcrime.
Orwell would have loved New Labour.
255 - Goodness me: you really do learn something new every day.
253 No.
Having heard him speak on a number of occasion, he is not afraid of telling people he doesn’t agree with them.
Better that than trying to do a Blair and be all things to all men.
He wants to get elected. He would like to to be for a long time.
But he doesn’t want to destroy the oppostion party as an aim in itself. That’s a Labour mindset.
254. You really believe that? It’s utter rubbish. I hope you dont have any strange manga on your computer, because you could end up banged up for six months and your life ruined.
258 Whether you want to or not!
249- True, but as long as native-born Labourites can join together with the Labour-supporting immigrant population in opposing traditional British values and culture, it’s still a net plus.
257 - I started with that purist view myself. However, you often simply cannot tell the difference between the real thing and the artfully constructed fake, and most consumers won’t know either. To allow such images to be lawful would in effect be to legalise child p0rnography itself. For me, the protection of children justifies the anomaly and it’s hardly as though the public are marching in the streets to have it rectified.
261 - Indeed. Touch of the information overload there….
253 No no no no no. The Tories (1) do not need the core Labour vote to win a GE, as their core is larger (2) why on earth would he upset a swinging voter, considering voting Tories, by bringing in leftist legislation whcih clearly hasn’t worked and (3) I saw a Labour core voter interviewed by Sky in Glenrothes. No teeth, voted Labour “because they help small businesses (WTF)” and becuase his dad did. Looked about 55, no teeth, little hair, overweight, although was probably in his teens. ho wi picture Roger to look. Wondered why his fishing business was going down the pan, but would continue to vote labour.
Labour are most welcome to their core voters. Wouldn’t touch them with a bargepole.
148 - hope so!!
262 According to Alan Johnson, we [the Tories] used to full of Etonians and closet gays. Now we are full of gays and closet Etonians.
The Tory party; the party of homosexual freedom and BME [from yesterday!].
I could live with that.
243. Yes and it worries me. As a social libertarian, I cannot understand the rationale that activities that do not harm or impact on others, when undertaken by consenting adults, should be any business of the state. In some cases, such as drugs, the very fact that the State interferes actual makes those activities harmful to others – via the unintended consequences of prohibition.
265 - Actually you couldn’t be more wrong about Roger. His wild flowing locks put us all to shame!
263. So what “images” are illegal then? Drawings? Sculptures? Cartoons? Photos of kids on beaches? When does it become p0rn and you can have your life destroyed?
And who decides?
What about this? -
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/5206,opinion,my-feelings-about-14-year-old-boys
It is, at best, a confusing and incoherent law. At worst it will lead to serious miscarriages of justice. And there is certainly NO consensus, as you claim, that the law is justified. I doubt many people even realise it exists; I imagine that many of those that have thought about it feel as uncomfortable as me - regarding this NuLabour concept of “thoughtcrime”.
250. Why? You are culturally brainwashed to think that. The world would an infinitely better place if governments accepted that the activities of consenting adults, provided they don’t harm or encourage harm to others, are no business of the state.
267. We really are far more exotic than colourless old Labour.
218 PfP
SPOTY is a dangerous market for me. I usually make the mistake of backing who I think deserves to win rather than who is likely to. Last year I got lucky because, unusually, the winner was indeed the most deserving. This year, it looks like it will be Hamilton whose qualifications would on the face of it fall well short of several Olympic Champions, starting with Hoy and Adlington.
I think I’ll keep out of it. It will be better for my temper as well as my pocket.
271 - OK, how do you feel about the German chap who advertised for and found a consenting adult, and then enacted his wish to eat another man? Don’t you feel that the state had some interest there?
268 Drugs are different. The very existance of drug abusers affects all of us, though state intervention is not always productive.
However, drug rehabiliation orders in areas where they are properly run can be very successful and I understand are one of the most rewarding parts of some judges daily workload.
270 - I have sympathy with those questions. But where you have a photo that is to all intents and purposes indistinguishable from real child p0rnography with real children being abused, do I have any sympathy with the convict? Not a scintilla.
273, that’s debatable. Swimming and cycling are fields that are relatively easy for competitors to enter multiple events. Hamilton only has one event, winning the drivers’ championship.
I feel a little sorry for Victoria Pendleton. Only one of her events made it to the Olympics, she could well have had three golds otherwise.
The rumour that the British Olympics will involve 71 different cycling events, 43 rowing events and 35 sailing events has yet to be confirmed:p
249- Sean T
The same happened in the US where the black and latino vote was the single decisve element in the passing of the California question 8 against gay marriage.
Since then, many articles of the liberal media (eg the Washington Post or the NY Times) have discussed this paradox: liberals want a lot of minority voters at the poll to elect democrats but doing so risks endangering the democrats’ hand in the culture wars over gay marriage or abortion.
The Tories are in a pickle. What really irks me, and I come to this conclusion as a former Tory councillor and association chairman, is that when we are in a situation where Brown’s ineptitude has got us into this financial mess he is still taking credit for the attempt to sort it out. If this was a Labour opposition every single Shadow Cabinet minister would be on the airwaves, in the newspapers, in the village halls taking the Tory government to pieces.
Apart from a couple of disjointed articles in national newspapers from DC the Tories have been mute.
Disgraceful
278 It’s always a problem when two forms of political self-interest conflict.
274. Of course the state has *some* role in regulating the behaviour of consenting adults. Otherwise duelling would still be legal. And, indeed, consensual internet cannibalism.
What I object to is the state trying to regulate my thoughts - as with yr absurd child “pseudop0rnography” law. How can you put someone in prison and ruin their life for looking at a FAKE image of child sex, where no actual child sex took place.
You are destroying them for having a “bad thought”. Bad thoughts are bad, but they are just thoughts.
Here’s a confession, I have bad thoughts all the time - I constantly dream of slaughtering europhiles, and if someone can photoshop me an image of Andrew Duff being eaten alive by wolverines, I’ll give them folding money.
Come and get me, officer.
278. So it will be left to governments the right to defend individual freedoms.
Thank goodness the right in this country is pretty much free of fundamental religion.
Tax cuts = Spring 2009 Election.
276. So you are happy to see a man put in prison for five years, with his life forever ruined, because of a FAKE image of child sex.
We all disapprove of pedos, but if they are not actually harming kids, or indeed looking at images of harmed kids, I see no one being harmed, and I therefore see no crime.
What if he photoshopped the image himself, from non p0rnographic images, and can prove it? You’re still happy for him to go to jail, as he must - under your wonderful law.
With all due respect, you are an idiot.
279. Everybody knows that this is partly Brown’s fault and Camerons has successfully articulated the ‘boom and bust’ and ‘cupboard is bare’ factors. The fact that Brown is seen as being decisive in this crisis is to a large extent a separate issue. If the Conservative bang on about Brown too loudly then it will look like panic which there is no need for.
283, possibly. Mixed feelings for that from me. Smacks of scorched earth and political opportunism, on the other hand, the chance to tell Brown to go to hell is quite appealing.
“The very existance of drug abusers affects all of us, though state intervention is not always productive.”
Rarely, if ever, productive in fact. The War On Drugs has seen drug use increase.
Regarding rehab programmes: that’s different – you are treating sick people who are addicted, just as you would alcoholics, and of course I wholeheartedly support it. But the vast majorority of drug users are *not* drug addicts, just as the vast majority of alcohol users are not alcoholics.
254 sounds like something out of Brass Eye. Paedo-geddon!
276 IMHO, the justification for outlawing child pornography is that (like receiving stolen goods) you’re generating the demand that causes the crime to be committed.
That’s not really the case where the images are artificial (however realistic they may seem).
245. The point is no-one in the public cares about this stupid Westminster Village spat between two very silly individuals. Why reheat it? Result: politicians get an even worse rep and turnout falls yet further.
277 It’s not debatable, Morris.
Hoy, Ainslie and several others have been winners at more than one Olympics. They get their chance once every four years, not every year. They have also succeeded without the benefit of obviously superior machinery. Whoever drives for McClaren has a very good chance of becoming champion.
I don’t belittle Hamilton’s achievements and unlike a previous SPOTY winner, Damion Hill, he does seem to have a bit of a personality, but in an Olympic year he’s well and truly trumped on merit.
That, of course, does not mean that he won’t win.
btw the laws about images of kids are not as unreasonable as is being made out. the classic use case is that adult films cannot contain schoolgirl fantasies without making it crystal clear that the actors are all well over 18. i don’t think that is a bad thing, it would be irresponsible to allow/encourage the use of adult actors pretending to be underage.
284 - So you’re equally happy that middle aged men look at pictures of children being violently violated with not the slightest way of us telling whether those children are the product of a warped mind and a computer or some poor kid that has been abused to order?
I’d rather be an idiot than a moral vacuum. With respect.
281. “Of course the state has *some* role in regulating the behaviour of consenting adults. Otherwise duelling would still be legal. And, indeed, consensual internet cannibalism.”
Yes, I should have qualified my view that I believe that causing immediate grevious bodily harm or death should be regulated (i.e. no unregulated battles for footie hooligans) but outside those parameters owt goes.
291, hmm. I thought I heard on the news that lottery funding enabled them to have the world’s best training facilities and bikes.
The award is for the year, not every four or ten years.
I’m not saying Hamilton’s achievements are greater, just that it’s debatable.
289 - That presupposes that we can tell the difference. Which, as I keep noting, and everyone seems to keep ignoring, very often, we can’t.
291. With friendly respect, that’s rot.
I am as pleased as the next man with our Olympians but most of them have won minority sports which would receive statistically zero coverage had we not won them. F1 is a major spectator sport in the UK and is one of the most physically demanding sports on Earth despite what its critics claim.
More, a post that suggests Lewis had an easy chance of winning the championship when the FIA quite clearly had it in for him (i.e. the debacle at Spa) is the post of someone who knows very little indeed about F1.
I’d talk to Morris Dancer about this – he is a real F1 expert and will explain it better than me.
283 - Excellent. I look forward to giving Brown the ‘Good News’ about his mandate to govern.
283. So we finally put an end to the nuliebour project a year before what many people were expecting namely May/June 2010 with closure in 5 months – watch this space as time will tell. I was hoping whilst watching the Remembrance Day celebrations yesterday that it was Brown’s last one as PM.
[286] - I can imagine Alistair Campbell and Peter Mandelson cackling gleefully over the prospect of challenging the Tories during an election campaign as to whether they would reverse Labour’s tax cuts.
295 Yes, I heard that too about the bikes, Morris, which would make that aspect debatable.
I don’t agree about the four years business though. In most sports, an Olympic medal is considered far more valuable than the the world title, precisely because it’s about being the best at one particular time every four years.
I’m watching Cameron’s speech seant, I don’t suppose you are!
Your views would go down very well with him, in fact I’d bet he’d like you to write the 2010 manifesto.
Put that porno stuff on the first page, please!
Oh! apparently Dave’s just promised that if you vote Conservative he’ll personally give you a warm puppy to cuddle, aaaaah sweet!
294. i’m really glad to say that your views will never be reflected in the government of any country that i actively choose to live in
296. you are correct on this point, although unfortunately you are up against ideologibots rather than debaters.
295. hamilton wouldn’t be in my top ten for this year, but the huge bias of SPOTY towards F1 may well win it for him.
Cameron’s on the telly banging on about something or other. Right now he’s claiming that the Tory record on unemployment is one of compassion. Yeah, right.
284 You need to learn a bit about law before you start calling people idiots. There are plenty of laws where you don’t need a victim e.g. speeding. Who’s to say though that there aren’t victims from the sort of actions you are describing. Creating and distributing images of whatever nature is more than just thinking a thought.
The co-chair of Obama’s transition team declared on on Sunday morning talk show that Obama is “ready to rule” from Day One. Ready to rule??? All hail His Excellency Obama!
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/warner-todd-huston/2008/11/10/obama-spokesman-says-obama-ready-rule-day-1
297 Ben
F1 is the epitome of minority sport. Swimming, cycling and yachting are too, although participation in them greatly exceeds F1 and its feeder sports. The ‘popularity’ of F1 stems from being televised. It is sport primarily for armchair viewers, which is why the champion is automatically a SPOTY favorite.
262. Homosexuality is practically a british cultural value. Stephen Fry eptomises this.
280. Why self-interest?
I want minorities to turn out at the polls and i want gay marriage to be legal. I get no benefit from either one. I still want them both to happen. What I really dislike is the attitude by some west coast liberals that some how the african-america community ‘owed them’. Which is sneering, patronising, repellant nonsense.
From the get-my-retaliation-in-first comments about Cameron’s speech from a couple of Labourites, I assume it was excellent.
301. we do have the best kit in most of the sports we are competitive in, but to highlight that is probably a bit unfair on some of the athletes whose achievements are considerable.
britain’s best olympics in living memory will ironically and drastically reduce the chances of any one british olympian topping a national poll. conversely, having a british driver on the mclaren team drastically increased the chances of an F1 SPOTY.
304, not in the top ten? You, sir, are a Bolivian mongoose.
297, hehe, nice of you to say so, but I’m not sure that’s quite right.
301, there is no Olympics for F1 though. We’ll just have to agree to disagree.
236-The recent Observer poll into Sexuality in GB threw up the following statistics:
- 45 per cent of Britons still feel that gay couples should not be allowed to get married
- 56% believe that homosexuals should not be allowed to adopt children
- 40% believe that the age of consent for homosexual sex should be higher than it is for heterosexual sex.
Who did they poll? Guardian readers? All these numbers look way too low for me!
As for the somewhat bizarre notion about pictures that look like p€do stuff but isn’t…Just bizarre.
What percent of gay people are they? 6%, 10%, I forget the latest figure bandied about by Tatchell and co. But I hazard a guess that boys feature in far more than 6% or 10% of p€do cases. And women are not normally known for p€edophilia.
307. hits the nail on the head. the armchair F1 fan also tends to only watch F1, further increasing its chances.
you only have to look at the list of F1 non-entities who have won SP without having much achievement in S or evidence of a P to see the bias.
311 LOL!
Yes, let’s.
309
It’s brilliant! the question and answer session is even better. The market is crap, governments are going to save everything.
The Mormon Tabernacle Choir is humming in the background, there’s a lump in my throat, although that could be vomit!
Vote Dale Winton, y’know it makes sense.
‘Ello we’ve just had an Obama plug, he’ll be blacking up next.
306-You forget that GWB’s 52% in 2004 was no mandate but Obama’s 53% was a mandate for change.
Figures! Who needs them!
312. any other statistics you would like to lazily guess based on your own stereotyped views?
what percentage of p£dos wear NHS glasses and flasher macs, do we think?
309. Must be brilliant if coldstone is making all those god awful jokes.
315, whislt I concur the Obama love-in is not very edifying, it’s not like Cameron is the only one doing it.
re the porno pictures. It seems obvious to me why doctored images have to be treated the same as “real”. Otherwise it would be damn near impossible to prove that real images were not merely doctored ones, and there would be few if any convictions…
319
Oh! thats all right then, yep your right, It’s the politics of the absurd.
Sky News: “Haven’t you been outmaneuvered by the Labour Party on tax?” Interesting.
305. No. Antifrank is an idiot, and so are you.
If you are speeding you are a clear and present danger to other drivers and pedestrians.
If you see some FAKE images of children THAT INVOLVE NO REAL PEOPLE you are not necessarily a danger to others.
The law is an ass on this point. It is perfectly legal for a 21 year old man to have all kinds of naughty sex with his 17 year old girlfriend. But he is not allowed to look at titillating photos of her, and can go to jail if he does.
Indeed he is not allowed to look at FAKE images of her doing naughty stuff.
Anyone who can say this law is not confused and incoherent is an idiot. e.g. you and antifrank.
320 - surely, the objective is to protect children, not convict those with paedophile tendencies (which, if not acted on, remain just thoughts rather than a crime)?
In the age of the internet, prosecuting based on possession of images seems, well, barking.
324. “the objective is to protect children”
Where do you think the images come from?
325 - well, if they’re fake, photoshop….
312-Are you denying that homosexuals are over represented among the child molesting community?
As for NHS glasses, last time I checked child molesting was primarlily driven by sexual urges, not by the wearing or not of glasses, sandals, or rucksacks. And it is sexual proclivity which distinguishes homosexuals from the rest of the community.
Of course if it turns out that 90%+ of child abuse victoms (and I don’t mean the 15 year old girl with her 16 year old boyfriend variety) are girls then perhaps homosexuals are underrepresented among the child molesting community. But I somehow doubt it.
322 - Your reading comprehension skills are sagging. At no point did I say the law isn’t confused and incoherent. Of course it is. I am, however, happy to defend the general principle. Since the block capitals seem to assist you, let me have a go. You are arguing to undermine a PRINCIPLE by giving examples of WOOLLINESS.
You have always struck me as a man of fertile imagination. Let’s test it. Imagine yourself as a police officer. On a tip-off, you find yourself in a man’s house. He has 55,432 pictures apparently depicting under 7s in various stages of undress and various stages of violation. There is no conceivable way of telling whether these pictures depict real or concocted images. If you do not think that the law should be able to deal with this vice (in all meanings of the word), then we have no common ground on this subject.
323. driving offences don’t necessarily present a danger to others, but make perfect sense.
i think you will find that statistically, those who seek to make and distribute indecent fake images of kids do present a danger to children.
326. Okay, thought you were talking about any pictures.
I remember hearing about a case recently where there was a kind of software which would turn a photograph into a cartoon style image. Pa3dophiles were using this to distribute real p0rnographic images as legal fake ones. This may make up some of the justification for banning any pseudop0rnography.
328 is (of course) addressed to 323.
325. The images we are talking about come from the imagination, and a computer - not actual children. That’s the issue.
However I take Rod Crosby’s argument up above, that these images have to be policed in some way, otherwise it would be impossible to get convictions on real images - as the defendant could always argue they were computer-generated, or he *thought* they were computer generated.
This is a valid point. However as far as I can see (I may have misconstrued the law), even if the defendant can prove the images are FAKE (let’s say he generated them himself) he would still be convicted. As it is an offence to possess even fake images.
That, to me, seems to be where the law tips over into absurdity. If a man can prove the images are fake but still go to jail: then that is thoughtcrime, as I understand it. He is being convicted for what he merely imagines. In which case we are all in trouble. Especially Lib Dems.
332-then that is thoughtcrime
NuLabour have criminalised thought.
328. Imagine yourself as a police officer, raiding the flat of a 19 year old student. You find three photoshopped images, of the man’s 17 year old girlfriend’s face - superimposed on a nude photo of an older model.
In your law, the man must go to prison as a pedophile for looking at FAKED images of the girl he is allowed to have sex with every night.
309. Cameron’s performance very classy. What a contrast to the tired, dishevelled Brown with his transparent lies.
PM Wilson had alzheimers in office
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7720200.stm
An analysis of former Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s speech patterns suggests he may have had early Alzheimer’s disease in office.
I wonder if in 30yrs time the archives will release “PM B**** was on Largactil while Chancellor….”
244. I appreciate that you have to back your own team no matter what as it’s certainly an inbreeding of football fans so I’m not surprised that you would fancy beating us should we be drawn to play at the den, quite rightly 76,000 at Old Trafford shouldn’t holds any fears compared to 10,000 at the New Den even though it would be than 10,000 at the New Den but I take your point that it should not phase any of your players but it’s surprising as to the amount of times that I have read that despite their massive ground, Man U don’t really get a great atmosphere given their regular 76,000 sell out at every home match - On a similar note, Arsenal’s Emirates is nicknamed the Library for a lack of noise which is something to do with the acoustics of the stadium design apparently.
We have always had an intimidating atmosphere especially at the old Den during our Cold Blow Lane days, I would just feel that “its all on the day” & other factors such as Kenny Jackett turning us around so much so that we are finally now going in the right direction after 4 years of decline since to 2004 cup final & we are now realistic promotion contenders as we certainly look good enough for the play-offs at least, we are playing well hence 3rd in our division & as such you should only really fear the real cream of the prem, if we kept things tight at the back as we don’t concede that many at home we could nick it 1-0 or 2-1 with the 5 quality strikers we have this season, Harris, Alexandra (injured for 1 more week), Grabban (our top scorer), Easter & Kandol (although Leeds don’t want him cup tied as he is on a 6 month loan spell), also not forgetting the cup being a great leveller & we have a decent record against you in recent games, we beat you 1-0 with Cahill scoring the winner at the Den in the 03/04 season, but I’m sure you beat us at the Hawthorns IIRC 2-1 OR 3-1 in the return game.
However, it is all irrelevant if were not draw together.
157. Also in the bigger picture , SNP increased their vote by 13.25% , so it was not a disaster apart from the perception that had been setup after Glasgow East. Even with Labour getting the vote out it was still a swing TO SNP and in other parts of the country it will mean SNP wins.
334 - But I have already acknowledged that the law is confused and incoherent.
After your post at 332, I am slightly concerned that we are now having an argument for the sake of it. And unlike the Monty Python sketch, I haven’t been paid for it in advance.
316- Whether it’s 52%, 53% or 93%, the important thing is that we’ve elected a Ruler, Benevolent Dictator, or whatever you wish to call him, and I’d thank you very much to not question his motives or policies during the next eight or so years lest you reveal yourself to be a racist or perhaps even a Republican.
O/T £1 = €1.22
Another record for Brown’s ponzi/miracle economy !
Does anyone know the official turnout for the US election? Boylesports still havent settled the market yet
339. No, you tried to justify this law with an extreme example. I merely did the same, in reverse.
I am glad you accept the law is confused and incoherent. You seem also to accept my point: that there is not the huge consensus over the law that you first supposed - otherwise you wouldn’t accept that the law is confused and incoherent.
So our argument is over. Hooray!!
Pound is back over €1.22. Boo!!
Photoshopping is essentially a product of the imagination, it is the creation of an event/situation which has never taken place. Therefore the image doesn’t actually exist. How can that possibly be criminalised?
337. good parody of the sort of incoherent, hypothetical football drivel that occupies 95% of radio 5 live airtime.
191. Sean agree and it may be independence will never happen, but unless Labour change big time , more people will be voting SNP as they are the main challenger in Scotland , Tories will take a very long time to ever recover and the Lib Dems have lost the plot and will be squashed. Alex will lick his wounds and come back stronger, still think at next GE , there will be SNP gains.
BBC have a write up of the Cam speech
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7720086.stm
Policy to be announced tomorrow…
343 - If you look at post 263, the guts of my position is stated there (it had not occurred to me that anyone could think that the current state of the law relating to sexual matters could be considered rational). You have now accepted that some pseudop0rnography needs to be controlled. Ergo, you come within my big tent. I shall refrain from external expressions of euphoria, because I’m a rather more sober character than you.
340. That’s a stupid thing to say and you probably know it. Obama will have the same constitutional powers as Bush, Clinton, Reagan, he will not be a Benevolent Dictator or a ruler any more than any of them were.
You will have the same power to question his motives and policies as you would any other President. It would rightly not have been acceptable for Michelle Obama to rant about “whitey,” as it was rumoured she did. You can even be as racist as you like so long as you can put up with people pointing out that you are being racist.
So man up, accept you lost and stop whining.
344. how would you feel about a photoshopped image of a plane striking the palace of westminster, accompanied by detailed plans for making it happen and jihad martyrdom videos?
thoughtcrime?
350 = 5 yrs in Guantanamo
337. Apologies Albion Til I Die, it was the 02/03 season, which was the season that we had the tear up after the play-off semi-final 2nd leg defeat against Birmingham.
Does anyone know how much of a problem it is *in practice* to secure convictions of people who posess real pornographic images of children, but who claim that they thought they were fakes?
279: I agree with this.
Brown and Nulab have absolutely wrecked the economy, yet the media narrative is one of them having “saved” it or some such nonsense.
I really worry whether the tory front bench team understand just what is going on, and how bad it’s going to be thanks to Labour. The government’s reputation deserves to be in absolute tatters, yet it is not. Are they biding their time to avoid an early election, and give themselves the maximum time to get the economy growing again by a 2015 election?
Seems a far fetched theory. I suspect Cameron is just a bit lightweight, sadly.
344. I don’t want to prolong this argument as antifrank and i have reached a sort of agreement, despite his being an idiot.
However there is a BIG difference in your scenario - you talk of “detailed plans” for making this terrorist event happen. If the police found a pedo with detailed plans to kidnap and abuse children - then of course the law should be involved. We already have laws for that kinda stuff.
What we were talking about was a guy who FAKES images of pedo stuff with no real people involved at all - and that’s it. I think the law is wrong to imprison this guy, even if he is sad and disturbing.
OK, end of argument - for me. Three hours wasted on Lib Dem issues is quite enuff.
342…and neither have Victor Chandler! the figure will be above 60%,i am sure.
353. Not too difficult, but it seems prosecutions are rare…
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article604825.ece
Bookmakers delay payout on Obama
AT LEAST two bookmakers are refusing to pay out on tens of thousands of bets laid on Barack Obama’s victory until the US president-elect’s inauguration in January amid fears he may be assassinated.
One angry punter said he was told by a senior Sportsbet bookie that the company would not pay out until then in case Obama was shot before he took office.
Sportsbet’s chief executive, Matt Tripp, denied assassination was the company’s primary concern. “It might have been a figure of speech among five or six other things,” he said of the conversation between his company and the punter.
Mr Tripp noted that payment at the inauguration was clearly stated in the company’s terms and conditions for the bet.
A Centrebet spokesman said it would also not be paying out until the inauguration as a matter of policy. “(Assassination) is a horrible thought but it could happen,” Neil Evans said.
355. an image of an underage kid involved in disgusting acts pretty much consistutes a detailed plan for abuse (as well as, potentially, giving the idea to anyone who looks at it)
where do you draw the line on detailed plans? would you need step by step instructions? tab a into slot b?
In yesterdays ST, Mathhew D’Ancona was warbling on about how Browns Bounce was “largely cosmetic’ yet important nonetheless
359 - If the instructions are put in bad rhyming verse, you’ll probably get off eventually:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article4157834.ece
358 - that Centrebet quote’s news to me. My Obama bet was settled on Saturday, and I got a message saying it was transferred successfully to my bank account when I withdrew it. Haven’t checked it’s actually in my bank account mind you, but will…
357. QED. I find that case somewhat perturbing. This stupid man just mucked around with a few nude photos of adult women - and it sounds like he went to jail?!
Hm. But I promised not to argue any more. Endex.
349- Sorry to say, G, there’s nothing worse than a sore winner. Your knowledge of American politics may be quite limited, so you may not be aware that the powers commanded by American presidents have varied extensively, from the nearly powerless Andrew Johnson to the near-dictatorial Franklin Roosevelt. If Obama and his advisors fancy themselves as being more in the FDR mold as potentially revealed by a telling slip of the lip, this is of great importance to me, particularly since it is likely that no president since FDR has had a more supine Congress waiting for him to work his will. But since angry name-calling is more your style than discussion, maybe this is all lost on you.
358. Compare and contrast with Paddy Power…
I wonder who would my business if the odds are identical in future ?
363. However, as often in these cases, there was more to it..
They guy had plenty of form.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tees/5327826.stm
re 273 interesting interview with Bradley Wiggins in relation to SPOTY in today’s Indy. I particulary liked the quote about how he was shunted aside 4 years ago (when he only had 3 Olympic medals) by a piece about a dead race horse!
342 - My guess is that it will be over 60%, but not by too much.
The latest figure for votes counted that I’ve seen is around 125m, which is about 2m more than in 2004. That would actually represent a fall due to the increase in population in that period. In the 10 years between the last two census, the population increased by over 30m, so it works out at about 12m every 4 years. Much of that increase will be in under 18’s so the increase in people of voting age will be lower.
I make it that voter numbers have to get to about 130m to equal the 60.7% of 2004. Estimates of the number of uncounted votes are very vague but I’d guess it will be around the 130m. It’s certainly close enough to the 60% that I doubt bookies will pay out until its confirmed so you may be in for a bit more of a wait.
It does seem quite clear that turnout won’t be far different from 2004 and may even be slightly lower. This doesn’t seem to be stopping people from claiming that there was a large increase (I was told by someone who really should know better that it had increased by 10% the other day).
366. Fair enough. And look at his face! Personally, I’d convict him for having the most kiddie-fiddler-ish face in Britain, without any other evidence.
364. You might want to take note of the fact that I said that Obama would have the same powers as Clinton, Bush and Reagan. All modern presidents.
370- Not that that makes you any less wrong. Reagan faced a House of Representatives firmly in the hands of Democrats throughout his presidency while Bush never enjoyed majorities on the scale of what Obama will have.
Can we have an end, please, to the ludicrous attacks on the BBC. I hate these moaning minnies who go on and on about bias and the “Brown Broadcasting Corporation”.
YAWN! The Beeb is an institution we should all be proud of, and part of a thriving national industry:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7719968.stm
Crucial paragraph:
“British programmes and formats are now responsible for more than half of the world’s television output, 53%, the Producers Alliance for Cinema and Television (PACT) found.”
Hooray for the Beeb. Down with the horrible auntie-bashers.
369. Oh leave poor Gordon Brown alone for 5 minutes Sean !
Any further news of the final result for Missouri, or at least when the count is expected to be completed? This is holding up settlement of all the spread bets on the number of States and ECVs won, as well as conventional bets on Missouri itself.
374 ….. and not forgetting Ladbrokes’ “Firewall” market, where Missouri appears likely to be the “winner”.
Shadsy - no chance of you doing a “Paddy Powell” I suppose?
372 - “British programmes and formats are now responsible for more than half of the world’s television output, 53%, the Producers Alliance for Cinema and Television (PACT) found.”
How many of those productions are non BBC original programming?
371. Bush may not have had as large a congressional majority as Obama but he did still manage to massively extend the remit of the presidency.
Anyway, no matter who controls congress. The US president will not be a dictator it’s farcical and petulant to suggest he will be. The office of the US President is a comparably much weaker office than that of the British Prime Minister who has almost no checks on his power and is rarely defeated on any issue. Yet I would not describe any prime minster as behaving as a dictator.
375. PfP - Am I being a bit dim today but what is a “Paddy Powell”?
378. Was he not a 1970’s radio 1 DJ ?
but the governements’ reputation is in tatters! It’s just no-ne told some of the Westminster bubble journos! Everyone you speak to cannot abide Gordon, he evokes such a lot of anger and people are fearful of the future. they lay the blame by and large firmly at his door. The Tories are 13% ahead in the latest poll .
The ID cards thing and the Stasi database arent exactly popular amongst younger voters.
It’s just a small number of Labourite editors led by a handful of journalists, and the BBC, trying to make the General Election more of a contest,
In reality, Brown and the clapped out Labour government are as bust as the banks are, after this enormous credit boom which they did nothing to stop.
They did let house prices get out of control. It is threatening our economy. We havent had an end to boom and bust. We’re now having the most spectacular bust of the past 50 years.
It is mostly Brown’s fault. Prudence was a sham, a con. The money has all gone. The country is practically broke, and now those who bothered to save are getting raped by 5.2% inflation, the threat of job losses and slashed savings rates. And orders to the banks to lend out THEIR money which has just been pumped in, cheaply, at a loss, and to the feckless. It is outrageous. .
Believe me, there’s no Brown bounce. There’s a lot of anger with him, and millions who LOATHE him and his cohorts with a passion.
Gordon Brown. Mention him in conversation, in public.
People boil.
379. Harry’s ghost - perhaps he was related to Colin W Power?
312. How would you answer those questions Peter?
378 Goupillon - PP is renowned for paying out early, when the result is believed to be beyond any reasonable doubt - erroneously on two recent occasions at very considerable cost to this bookmaker.
377. Quentin Hailsham did in the 1970’s he coined the phrase “elected dictorship”.
Meanwhile Brown says “No more Boom & Bust” blah blah blah and we have the BBC lap dog’s sniffing the PM’s rear quarters and loving;y licking his balls.
I think this may well have a deeper electoral significants if Money is required to be repaid:
http://itn.co.uk/news/d87ad766ca6d04bbacd59ba5142d346f.html
383. What were the two errors ?
“294. i’m really glad to say that your views will never be reflected in the government of any country that i actively choose to live in”
Why do you care what consenting adults do in private? More, if you do why do you think it is the job of the state to interfere and regulate them if they are not harming anyone else?
I can understand fiscal conservatives, I can debate with purist libertarians, I can argue with communists.
But social conservatives I will never understand – I can understand them not liking things but what I cannot understand is why they believe it is the business of the state to regulate them. That I cannot understand, and never will.
358 Elephantman
These are not bookmakers I would use. Will Hill paid out long ago, as did most bookmakers in this country.
387 Where you in favour of the ban on fox hunting?
387 What you may consider harmless, others may consider harmful.
377- “Anyway, no matter who controls congress.” If you believe that line, I don’t see any basis for rational discussion.
You also don’t seem to see the irony in your original rant against me in assuring me that my right to dissent will be unaffected while insisting that I shut up and cease my dissent (based on that contorted logic, I’m sure you’ll be a big fan of the Fairness Doctrine upon its reintroduction).
If you don’t believe de facto dictatorships are possible in the U.S., read up on FDR and how he steamrolled the Supreme Court, for example. If Bush had ever attempted such a thing, the cries of “dictatorship!” would have been deafening (and justified).
There is another economic problem with a collapsing currency:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/recession/3417608/Pound-drops-to-record-low-against-the-euro.html
Who in their right mind would put £1 Billion into purchasing government gilts in sterling if further pound depreciations mean it is worth less. Say the pound falls another 20% against the Dollar & Euro. That would mean the £1 Billion became £800M before you factor in any interest off the gilt.
What Brown is proposing just increasing borrowing is madness - you will have to cut public spending elswhere.
312. “45 per cent of Britons still feel that gay couples should not be allowed to get married”
Just read that. Almost more incomprehensible a position than the 24 per cent who believe homosexuality should be illegal. I must get out of my metropolitan bubble. I had truly forgotten that these arch-busybodies even existed in any numbers in the UK.
350. Well the ‘accompanied by detailed plans for making it happen’ would suggest conspiracy to murder so it’s quite different. The picture alone shouldn’t be a crime.
390. Even if it is harmful (such a drug use) as long as it doesn’t cause immediate grevious harm or death, or harms others who do not consent what business is it of anyone but those who consent to do it? S&M is physically harmful, do these people advocate banning that? (Probably they do)
What’s your position Sean?
370. We will look back on Clintons second term as a golden age in american governance, the ultimate in checks and balances, enormous prosperity and a government living well within its means (because Congress forced it to) I was there for part of it, i saw the Federal Government closing its doors because it ran out of money.
The last eight years, for anyone who considers themselves a fiscal conservative (someone who can add up correctly, and can understand the consequences of failing to add up correctly is a fiscal conservative) has been an awful tragedy, eight years of Big Government socialism, there wasnt a problem that Bush didnt think throwing money at couldnt solve. He has expanded the federal government like no president since Roosevelt.
387 - It’s very straightforward. If someone’s concept of morality is absolute, why should it not override someone’s privacy? If you think that someone else is doing something objectively wrong, why should you let them do it?
How do you feel about a private club barring anyone who is black?
388. PtP - I am surprised Centrebet is not paying up quickly - I do not know much about Sportsbet. A rather worrying article in this week’s Sunday Times is suggesting all is not well at William Hill:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/leisure/article5114368.ece
391 - I’m sure Amnesty International will adopt you as a Prisoner of Conscience when the Obamaestapo haul you off into protective custody at 3.00am.
“How do you feel about a private club barring anyone who is black?”
It is unacceptable because it is harming the black person that applies to join. Absolute morality scares me stiff, by the way, and I’m amazed that people with that position exist in any numbers any more. As I say, must get out of my metropolitan bubble.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7720144.stm
Have we touched on this yet? Some people need to get a grip. Particularly Andy Burnham.
400 - But you are imposing on the freedom of the club members to exclude who they think fit.
And I do find the juncture of your antepenultimate and penultimate sentences highly amusing. A manifestation of absolute morality and a fear of absolute morality in consecutive sentences.
388 PtP on the question of Bookies paying out, I had three separate bets with Corals at their extraordinarily generous odds on Labour winning Glenrothes last Thursday.
To date they have paid out on just one of these, despite my having emailed them on Saturday to which I received a standard response to the effect that this would be dealt with promptly.
Following our exchange yesterday, I checked through my Wm Hill “statement” over the past 14 months - and although the layout was almost unintelligible, after scrutinising every entry for over an hour, I am happy that the arithmetic is 100% correct.
390. There is absolutely no doubt that homosexuality is harmful to the individual, but that doesnt of course, mean that it should be banned. The life expectancy of a homosexual is about twenty years less on average, with much higher rates of depression and suicide, giving you about the same life expectancy as someone who is Sudanese.
Nice to see these two think rising unemployment is something to celebrate, no more boom and bust:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23584248-details/Bringing+back+Peter+is+the+last+nail+in+Gordon’s+coffin/article.do
Mr Spin & Mr Doom
400. Freedom of association is *far* more important then hurt feelings.
I see The Independent is headlining with:
‘Cameron promises tax cuts to half[sic] job losses’
http://tinyurl.com/559oau
Interesting idea. I take it it means that half of those who become unemployed will get a tax cut. But as they won’t be paying much tax anyway it will be quite cheap for the government to implement. I wonder how he will decide which half is entitled.
377. one of the most misquoted political statements of all time. What Hailsham talked about was an “elective dictatorship.”
The Germans 1933-45 had an elected dictatorship; we have an elective one…
New thread “And now for the Barack and George W show….”
404 i shouldnt imagine its as much as that but any reduction is likely to be because with fewer people to choose partners from, as a gay person, you are more likely to be single and single people , particularly guys, tend to neglect their health when they live alone whether they are gay or not. Its more due to being single than a gay thing per se, i would chance.
Intrade have been very slow in paying out my US Presidential winnings. At present this does not bother me too much as the payment will be in $ and the pound is continuing to fall against this “strong currency”.
403 Yes, Peter, their arithmetic is OK, as is their honesty. The problem I came across was a computer error. The sum was significant and might easily have passed without notice if I hadn’t kept decent records.
402. But mine is not absolute morality is it? I have already written key caveats such that freedom comes with responsibilities and should not cause immediate GBH or death. And your argument about private clubs banning blacks is ludicrous because of another key caveat of mine that says that freedom should not harm others.
If a gay couple choose to grow cannabis in their flat, smoke it, whip each other raw, then have sex what business of it is of the state to interfere? You should try answering that question instead of twisting my position to create straw man arguments to throw back at me. Sadly though this is typical of social conservatives, they twist and distort and dream up extreme anecdotes to justify their busybody politics.
410. Not that it impinges on my argument either way, but yes this is correct. Gays’ lifestyle choices are to blame rather their actual gayness causing the life expectancy gap.
404 - Made up statistics alert .. Made up statistics alert .. Made up statistics alert ..
404 - That’s been pretty widely discredited. It was based, ludicrously, on a survey of obituary columns in gay lifestyle journals compared with the actual average for men generally.
It is massively statistically flawed. For one thing, many obituaries are of slightly younger people. Firstly, the magazines have a young readership. Secondly, obituaries generally have a younger age profile than you might expect. People’s careers very often peak in their 40s/50s or younger for people like musicians and sportsmen. If you die at your peak, you have a fair chance of getting an obituary. If you live well into retirement, your achievements are faded or forgotten by the time you die, and only the big stars get an article.
413 But your view that the private members’ club should be required to admit black members is a form of social conservatism. After all, adopting your earlier line of argument, provided that the club members are all consenting adults, who they choose to socialise with (or choose not to socialise with) and on what terms is a matter for them, not the State.
However, reasons why someone might step in to prevent consenting adults from doing things that one considers harmful would include:-
preventing hurt feelings to others (hence your argument about private members clubs); stopping people from going to hell (if your religious beliefs lead you to think they might do so if they act in a particular manner); thinking that it’s morally right to prevent people from harming themselves, even if they consent to it (hence restrictions on the sale of alchohol and cigarettes); public policy (hence the ban on duelling) ; or preventing undue influence (so that, for example, big gifts from clients to solicitors can be set aside).
I daresay there are other arguments, but whether or not one agrees with them, I’m sure they can all be engaged with.
7 - I’m with you on this one. The ‘Brown bounce’ was a cleverly spun myth. Brown just happened to be in the right place at the right time in Glenrothes. Nothing more.
At the time, I dared to suggest the Glenrothes result was a one off. The SNP were out-gunned and out manoeuvred but this didn’t reflect an underlying trend.
http://theorangepartyblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/brown-just-pulls-off-glenrothes.html
The Curtice and Mike’s analysis are very illuminating.
236. “- 24% believe homosexuality should be illegal.”
This may have something to do with changing demographics. Muslims as a bloc are generally anti homosexual as are africans of all religions and many asians.
Although liberals are generally pro-immigration, many immigrants are not so liberal.
Ah, c’est la vie.