Mori has the lead down to 3%
November 18th, 2008
CONSERVATIVES 40% (-5)
LABOUR 37% (+7)
LIB DEMS 12% (-2)
Could this increase the chances of a 2009 election?
MORI has just sent me the headline figures which appear above and have confirmed to me that the shares relate to those who are 100% certain to vote.
This is a sensational poll for Labour and there can be little doubt that it will step up the pressure for an early election.
One thing is clear - MORI is living up to its reputation for great turbulence. In September it had a 28% Tory lead. In October it was down to 15% and today we have it at 3%.
My guess is that when we look at the detail the main driver behind the change be a sharp increase in the certainty to vote responses from Labour voters.
MORI is the only pollster not to use past vote weighting - but it does weight by those who work in the public sector and this has the effect of reducing the Labour and Lib Dem shares.
The MORI voting intention question is, in common with all the pollsters other than ICM, unfriendly to the Lib Dems.
The fieldwork was carried out from 14-16 November 2008. So it started on Friday and went through until Sunday - so it’s very up to date.
UPDATE: I’ve been in contact with MORI who tell me that when they saw the initial figures they did some additional checks. The past vote figures are basically identical to last month’s (ie. MORI haven’t inadvertently over-sampled Labour supporters) and they also had a look at newspaper weights, and they had no effect (readership figures are normal). These tests and a few more satisfied them that the data is accurate.
Mike Smithson
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Reposted.
A few things to consider:
This only matters (for Labour) if the 5, 6, 11 and 13 point Tory leads all recorded very recently are wrong and this single poll is right.
Is the poll properly weighted? There has been much criticism of the unweighted ComRes polling for the Daily Politics.
When was the fieldwork done?
I don’t believe this is valid. I know cries of the rogue poll rule will go up (I also disagreed with the 28pt lead poll).
First. And 12%? Oh dear god let this be an poorly weighted outlier.
Tories still at the magic 40 then (just)… Horrible for the LibDems.
Lib Dems 12% !!
The extraordinary story about this poll is the rise of Labour. The Conservatives at 40% are on the low side of what is polled with other pollsters, but not significantly so. Labour at 37% is startling.
Ouch! 12%. I come to pb.c and immediately see misery. Think I’ll take my leave again. Interesting times.
Poppycock! Labour higher than 2005?! Only if a lot of LDs are frightened of a Tory win.
LD’s on 12?
*12*?
This seems scarcely credible. What’s going on with the Yellow Peril?
Still, Dave can’t afford to fall below 40. Then people really will start screaming for something to be done about George.
Remember the title of the last thread: “Is the secret of success getting this number right?” referring to the Lib Dem vote share.
Gabble’s going to pop up any moment now…
Billboards filled with photo’s of Gordon grinning with joy, next to the phrase ‘No more boom & bust’
5. Is it a poll of Haringey social services managers?
Labour have got to be chuffed at pushing in to the higher 30’s in this poll, but Tories still grimly hanging on to their 40. All in all it’s looking like the media are getting what they want which is a genuine fight.
Cameron has lost a 20+ point lead in a couple of months.
Worse than what happened to Labour after the election that never was.
LibDems? 12%? Even less than I predict they will get at the GE….
Have the Tories really lost one in nine of their supporters in one poll? Doesn’t “feel” right. Suspect their 45% was too high, the 40% a little low. Tories still in the forties though, with Gordon having been given a gazillion pounds worth of free advertising. The Tories will win a GE election - net change of +4% for the Tories over the campaign is my assessment.
13, jein. The polls are torn between No Overall Majority/narrow Tory win and a decent Tory majority.
To be fair I am sure a lot of lib dem voters would vote labour rather than have a tory government.
We’re still at 40%!
14, lmao. ICM has the Tories with a nice majority, likewise ComRes. Remember the Golden Rule (not Gordon’s, Mike’s).
14 - funnily enough they are still ahead though.
Jonathan - he has retained his vote within a margin of 4-5 while Labour have swept up some floating morons. That’s not the same thing as losing a 20 point lead.
PS - The Lib Dems will really be hoping that Mr Smithson is right about ICM. I have long thought that the Lib Dems might get squeezed in a two horse race. At the moment, that’s what is happening.
UK Polling Report gives CON 290 / LAB 315 / LIB 18 for this LAB 11 short of majority.
Electoral Calc gives Clegg and Cable losing their seats in this scenario.
+7 is a hell of a jump.
Mike Smithson, when was the poll carried out, and how many respondents?
And this is even before today’s admission by Cameron that Tories will cut investment in schools, hospitals, Sure Start and many other areas.
Clearly, the momentum is building up behind Labour.
A snowball of growing proportions!
20 Ah the familiar smacking sound of Tory complacency. It’s within the margin of error.
Looks like the chance of a 2009 first half ‘cut and run’ election are increasing.
Weren’t there a huge number of tories who were dismissing the Brown resurgence as media created? They must have egg on their face now.
Has there ever been a comeback in British politics of this magnitude?
Cameron’s ‘playing the long game’ strategy is starting to look like John Kerry ‘keeping his powder dry’ in 2004.
With Baxter showing Labour winning circa 320 seats on this new poll compared with a mid-spread price of 243 hitherto, surely something has to give, BIG TIME!
I bet Cameron challenges Brown at PMQs to call an election!
1 Reposted. Obviously all questions to be answered but there is a definite trend emerging.
Brown should go now while his action man quick fixes are in place and before it becomes apparent they may not work or they start unravelling while the recession/depression gets deeper.
25, mmm, astroturfy.
It’s also before unemployment smashes through the 2m barrier and recession officially kicks in.
32, I disagree. There is a divergence in pollsters emerging. 11/13 are very different results to 3/5/6.
Labour always does worse than its optimal polling results.
Not surprised. The swing in mood and momentum has been quite unmistakeable locally as well as in the national polls. Add in those not quite sure they’ll vote and I suspect it’s near level pegging.
33 Plus some pre Election bribery
17. Yes, but why suddenly change their minds now? It was 44, 24, 20 not that long ago.
I’m scratching my head over this, but all I can believe is that the public think the laissez faire approach to the market has failed and Labour are mre likely to do something about this than the Tories. This over-rides the fact that Brown has been in government for over a decade! That really is all I can think of.
I’d still be buying Tory seats, but I’m getting less confident about it by the day.
Should Gordon be tempted to go early then it has a terrible feel of ‘70 for Labour and ‘74 for the Tories. Short term factors obscuring an underlying more deep seated weakness.This would be exposed in an election, and I suspect Labour would be booted out.
They are going to be booted out in 2010 in all probability, so better to protect the public from the Tories for hard first 18 months of the recession. Particularly as we now know what the Tories intend to do in general.Anybody remember Kinnock’s speech before 1983?
The battle lines are being drawn for a traditional “Tory cut” “Labour tax and spend” two-party election and this poll seems to confirm that. The onset of recession appears to be dragging many voters back to nanny hoping the long skirts of the state will shield them from the economic wind. Hence the big rise in Labour support over the last two or three weeks. A solid 40%, however, remain staunchly in the Tory camp and, at present at least, their share upto 40% seems pretty solid.
How loose, therefore, is the Labour share about, say, 32%? This is presumably fairly shaky and the key question is can the PM solidfy it over the next few months and go for a Spring GE or whether, as the recession bites, people will think that nanny’s skirts offer them no protection?
25 “Gordon Brown - five more years!”
Likelihood? A snowball (in hell) of growing proportions
37 Tories can’t be trusted to run a boom and bust economy.
As said before, there is no way in the GE that the Lib Dem’s are only going to get 12%. There are just too many beardy / sandal wearing types, students and general “I hate that Brown, but I also hate the Tories” type opinion for the LD share of the vote to be that low. I can’t see them getting below 15-18%, especially if they actually work out something half decent to say in a campaign (unlike the shambles that is now, where it is the Cable flip-flop show and little sign of Clegg).
I just don’t see this as being reflected on the ground. No way!
But as my reasoning on why Labour may well go to the country in the spring of next year - this is another step on the way. I will resist making the usual ‘Joke’ about vehicles!
I reakon we’re going to get a poll before showing Labour in the lead. You can see it coming, can’t you?
In a lot of way it reminds me of the famous ICM poll of January 1993 which showed the Conservatives in the lead for the last time until September 2000.
Probably correct. When you’ve been behind for ages, and there is no real underlying reason for the public to support you, a snap election is unlikely to turn out well.
42 I agree plenty of bearded sandal wearing types and students, but they are probably voting Labour.
32:
A trend?
Not in the size of the Tory lead. Tory leads from the last five polls are 13, 5, 11, 6, and 3%, two of which show an increase in the lead and three don’t.
The Tory figure will sooner rather than later fall below 40%
I can just see Labour’s Bill boards:
Britain’s slumping - Don’t let the tories ruin it!
Any idea yet of when the fieldwork was done?
50, no idea as yet. It’s rarely mentioned when the BBC commission polls.
50, aye, that and the other questions in post 1 (particularly the weighting question) are of vital importance.
Unweighted, the poll is worthless.
51, but won’t the detail be released by the polling firm?
42 “As said before, there is no way in the GE that the Lib Dem’s are only going to get 12%. There are just too many beardy / sandal wearing types, students and general “I hate that Brown, but I also hate the Tories” type opinion for the LD share of the vote to be that low.”
BUT their relative numbers get over-inflated in a low GE turnout. If - as I suspect - the next GE has a significantly higher turnout, all those “beardy / sandal wearing type” LibDems may still turnout, but their impact will be greatly reduced as their numbers get overwhelmed. In recent elections they have turned out en masse - but the “beardy / sandal wearing types” cupboard is bare of new recruits.
13%. Tops.
35. I bet you will be carrying Brown around Broxtowe come next Spring on your shoulders!
This is the man who saved the worlds economy! Blah Blah Blah!
It must be nice for you though to have a theoretical chance at least rather than no chance.
Looking ahead to an election.
MORI 25/11/2003 C =35, LAB = 36, LD = 22
The LDs are today 10 (TEN) points below where they were then!
Those 5-2 Ladbrokes odds against my holding Broxtowe are starting to look tasty - on UNS with no incumbency or other factors we’d be tied on this showing.
Btw, why is the site still advertising a US election party?
The fieldwork was carried out from 14-16 November 2008. So it started on Friday and went through until Sunday - so it’s very up to date.
At the moment Labour are promising a lot but delivering very little in terms of solutions to the crisis.
If you ask people if they want a TV for £20 most will say yes,but when the bill actually comes in and it is £200 most will think they have been ripped off.
That is what is essence has produced these figures.
Labour may even take a small poll lead for a time but when people come to cast their vote it will totally dissappear.
Keep the faith and remember the London Mayorals.
Gb is toast.
I don’t think this is BBC poll. BBC use ComRes, not Mori. I don’t think Mori have any clients at the moment (perhaps that should tell us something?
)
47 An underlying trend isn’t a smooth line.
As I see it the choice is between taking a risk with a snap election in the next month or so as some polling parallels with 92 seem to be developing or playing it long until 2010 and hoping (against the predictions of most economists) that the recession is short-lived and not as bad as feared.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7733948.stm
Ministerial demands. Worth reading for the Cabinet spokesperson’s response alone.
Imagining for a moment that Mr Brown goes for an GE next year and wins would this be their 1992? Is there not a fear among Labour supporters that winning the next election might do the party more long term harm than good? After all, the next parliament will need BIG tax rises to pay for the PM’s unfunded tax cuts (aka election giveway!). Labour already looks tired as a governing party (Mr Brown on the economy excepted) and another five years would only exacerbate this.
Despite this poll I still think the Tories are likely to win the next election because the fundamentals remain weak for Labour but now that the result is no longer a foregone conclusion this seems an interesting question to ask.
57, and on the 5, 6, 11 and 13 point polls?
You can’t take one poll (particularly when it’s at the extreme end of a very volatile polling situation) and pretend it’s a cast iron forecast.
46 - I disagree. Those beard and scandal types often for their often lefty views, have stocks/shares/pensions and I can’t imagine they are doing very well at the moment.
As for students, yes plenty are still Labour supporters, but as I said when I am chatting to a lot of the younger people in an academic setting, my original statement is what comes out of their mouths. Remember they have to pay £3k a year now, and that will most likely rise upto £10k from 2010 (I think is when the review is) and many are running up massive student debt. Add to that the ones leaving, many are finding it hard to get a good job, so the feeling of been conned into spending a lot of money and nothing but a call centre job to show for it.
I can’t believe the daily job losses aren’t having a negative impact on the government. Yesterday CitiGroup, today Wolseley to shed 2500, and close 200 branches.
If this is record of those who say they’re certain to vote, isn’t it likely this reflects the firming up of the Labour core, and therefore quite possibly reflects a boost in Labour’s home territories? (caveats about LD share notwithtanding)
58. It it usual for polls to be conducted over a weekend?
56 with Clegg now near the rock bottom Mori 11 that the LDs reached under Ming, pressure will start to mount.
You can attribute the move in the polls to reality to be perfectly honest
- interest rates have come down
- petrol prices have come down
Now both these are nothing to do with Brown bbut the man on the street seems himself better off.
Brown has also had better media coverage, and probably libdem supporters who dont want the tories in are boosting the labour figure.
I dont think the spreads will come in that much yet because
We need to see another marginals poll - this is where it will be decided.
Over an election campaign I believe Labour would lose support, as Mike always says, when Cameron is on the telly the tories go up. Imagine 4 weeks of last weeks pmqs.
This is a one of poll, i have no doubt the polls are getting closer but if you tick the tories up a couple and labour down a couple, that is in line with recent averages.
56. Not realy a fair comparisson though, because late 2003 was right at the height of the Liberal Bounce after Labours Iraq shambles.
Osborne has to go and Cameron needs an inner circle of advisors that goes beyond Notting Hill. Everyone calls Gordon Brown tribal, but Cameron is surrounded by a bunch of inexperienced novices - all rather like himself.
68. I don’t think we can do another leadership election. Normally there’d be pressure, but I don’t think there’s an apetite for one. Certainly not before the next GE.
68, disagree. Clegg’s useless, but safe until after the GE. Four leaders in one term would be bonkers.
71. Nonsense Frank!
72. Yes the LD problem is public exposure - they just don’y seem to be doing it the moment!
72. It would all be so different if you had elected Mark Oaten
Personally, I still have the Tories as favorites, but no longer clear favorites.
If the tories lose their favorite status, they’ll be in real trouble. I reckon there are a few fair weather votes in that 40% who back the perceived winning side. It could all unravel quite quickly. They are getting near that tipping point.
We’ll see what happens. In the meantime, it’s only one poll. But well done to Brown and co for a significant turnaround since August. Who’d have thunk it.
63 - For me, the imponderable in the ‘is 2009 Labour’s 1992′ is the reaction of the Conservatives to such a loss. Inconceivable to me that Cameron would survive it. Given their track record pre-2005 who knows what sort of weirdo might end up leading - with all bets off as a result.
Former senior law lord condemns ’serious violation of international law’ -
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/18/iraq-us-foreign-policy
65 The HE fees review is due in 2009. I work in HE and the consensus view is that fees will not rise beyond inflation in the forseeable future - the Chief Executive of HEFCE (quango that gives grants to universities) said as much in a recent speech.
38 Agree it has at first glance 1974 feel about it - governing Party in a mess, the opposition not trusted to deal with the causes (until Sunday not a very clear message) but difference is that then the Liberals vote increased significantly.
This is showing a strengthening two party split amongst voters. Those holding on to nurse and hopeful that Labour will deliver less pain versus a pretty solid section who don’t trust Labour to get them through.
Lib Dems are suffering because they are irrelevant in the choice - not helped by straddling the divide, Vince doesn’t seem to support the stimulus package nor the alternative, only memorable quotes are rubbishing both and saying “I warned you”. His negative approach outweighs poor Cleggs attempt at proposing a positive Lib Dem approach.
65 I only mentioned it that way, as it looks like the LDs have suffered the mother of all squeezes…
68 As Mike says, ICM is the one that matters for the Lib Dems.
Labour could call a snap election, but I’d expect the polls to shift against them as the Lib Dems rose, and the Conservatives benefitted from media coverage for Cameron.
Or they can hope for the best. The problem is, nothing they’re doing will actually prevent a very sharp recession, and one that will hit the M1 M25 and M4 corridors particularly hard. At best, they will mitigate its severity.
61: A trend should be based on more than three results that are contradicted by others.
71: Getting rid of your shadow chancellor in response to Labour spin would be really stupid.
77 If the Conservatives got up to 268 seats (however disappointing that would be) I expect Cameron would be given another chance.
Also like to say, as a political anorak, albeit one suffering faint concern as a right-leaning one, this is much more exciting than various flavours of more or less huge Conservative lead!
49 Martin its more that the Conservatives for the first time in a generation might be on the wrong side of the ideoligical divide.
In that big government intervening in the Economy is needed and public spending cuts at this time,or in the next year or two, may make the possible depression worse for many.
84 - Really? - would like to think so as I am a fan, but there is such a history of regicide over the last couple of decades….
71. I don’t think so. The Tories now have the right strategy and the right people. If the electorate, like a junkie hooked on heroin, decide they want another five years of “dealer” Brown giving them constant fixes of high debt, high taxes, high unemplyment and Brown enjoying their misery, then theres nothing the Tories can do about it. AT least they will be able to sit back and say; “We told you so.”
Not a remotely surprising poll.
Brown has dominated the news agenda for weeks, and the Cameron and Osborne have been as effective as Laurel and Hardy moving a piano.
If Mori rang me today, I’d probably say Labour too.
Dave’s pledge to abandon Labour’s spending plans is something, I suppose. But it won’t stop Labour shortly regaining the lead.
What a turnaround. And a somewhat unfair one, given that Brown is largely responsible for getting the economy into its current mess!
76. I don’t think that there will be an unravelling. I think there is a genuine fairly sizeable group of people in that 40% pissed off at Labour in that group who aren’t going to switch.
I do think that there is definitely a good scrap on now. Game on.
83. Move him to Party Chairman. Osborne just doesn’t convince as a potential Chancellor. Whatever his qualities may be, he has no background in economics and simply doesn’t seem mature enough to be Chancellor. Not with a young leader alongside him, anyway.
91 - he can’t move Osborne now, it would smack of panic. (And it would be). The time to do it, and look decisive and able to make the tough decisions, was weeks ago. He blew it, and has to stick with George for the medium term now.
88. Hmmm.
If Brown wins the next election (still unlikely), he’s going to inherit an enormous mess - one of his own making. A few Tories on here wish the Party had lost in ‘92, I wonder if future Labour supporters will say the same thing about 2010?
77. Good point, but we should also remember that even should Labour squeak home in 2009/10 there will be a lot of new, more Cameronite, Tory MPs who would mitigate the “Tory Taliban” tendency in the parliamentary party if there was a leadership election.
Is it worth pointing out that Ipsos Mori have had some of the most bonkers polls of recent times? That 28pt Tory lead was theirs, and then they had an adjustment for the next one that put Labour up 8pts in the course of a week or something…
I don’t think this is a good poll for the Tories, and agree it would be encouraging for Labour. But the trend isn’t theirs yet, however.
What makes you think it’ll be 2010?
it certainly makes politics much more exciting. expect fireworks for the next 18 months!
do we really want a 17 year Labour government - the final collapse will be awful.
82 Sean, if the recession hits hardest the South and South East, then this explains everything. Labour lurches to the left, solidifies core vote in heartlands, the South is screwed and solidifies the anti Labour vote there. Hence LDs=yellow taxi
82 - I now reckon an early election is Labour’s best (and probably only) chance. Incredible as it is to behold, it appears that a substantial chunk of the public and the media have actually been taken in. As Jonathan said at 76, “Who’d have thunk it.”
But the delusion is very unlikely to last until May 2010. So Brown - apart from not being able to believe his luck - must now be very tempted. A quick Christmas give-away, hope the Pound doesn’t crash too far, stuff the consequences for the country, hope people don’t remember what an appalling Chancellor and PM he is, and call an election.
Looking at this as a punter, it’s clear that at least in the short-term there will be a move towards Labour in the spreads, as well as shortening of odds in the NOM and H1 2009 election dates.
Ted - history never repeats itself. The broad point is that the govts support is very shallow.
To compare with the obvious extreme at the other end, the voters had 4 solid years to get well racked off with John Major. They have had only 6 weeks to re-learn the habit of liking Gordon.
Gordon is on the media a lot operating in an area he feels comfortable with (numbers rather than people - PMQ’s on child P for comparison). The voters recognise his expertise, in the way I recognise Nigel Lawson’s - and reward accordingly. At this stage it is only a flurry of activity.We have yet to see unemployment month on month on month.
We can be sure Gordon is looking at some truly ghastly economic data for the next year - that might tempt him
79 - That is not what many of the Russell group of Universities have been saying. Since 2000, they have consistently been pushing for the ability to set higher fees, due to slipping further and further behind the likes of the USA. I have read on many occasions in the Times Higher Education Supplement various VC of the big universities pushing hard their case for the ability to charge in and around £10k. I know that the VC of Warwick for instance said that even £10k was not enough.
One sign for me that times have changed is that the Labour party is putting campaigning resources into Crawley. Ministers are visiting again, the MPs profile has been raised. If Labour think a 34 vote majority is worth actively defending it really is game on.
84 Are you sure? Cameron would be hugely vulnerable if he lost on a platform opposing tax cuts. Surely, to lose now would almost destroy the guy.
Bit of a shock of a poll, but when you think about it, not entirely surprising.
Remember the major political story of the weekend was effectively “get Osbourne”, and yet in the last 24-48 hours the mood has changed again - certainly have seen the Tories upping their game since Sunday night, and we all know what happens then
70 GIN The LDs went on to get a similar result at the actual GE.
Why will they go up significantly higher than 12 in 2010?
86. I don’t buy that thought about the Tories being on the wrong side of the ideological divide.
Labour are proposing similar themselves, If i were you I would not take in the Bullshit comparing this to the great depression. It simply is not going to happen!
91 Frank, neither Brown nor Darling have a background in economics.
Isn’t MORI a face to face poll? Can you imagine someone facing a pollster at such a time of economic crisis and say with a straight face that they’d prefer Osborne and Cameron to be at the tiller…..
The pollster would laugh out loud….
89 - I think it is slightly unfair. Brown has dominated the news agenda without saying anything.
I have asked repeatedly on here what the labour policy is - they don’t have one - they have sad they will spend whatever necessary, so all we can assume is that like any other problem they will throw money at it and hope for the best. I think this is hardly a policy myself but the media seem to have bought the tories have nothing to say line without asking what Labour have to say.
the voters aren’t stupid . but they don’t all have the benefit or luxury of having the time to think about why things are in such a mess as they are , hence the superficial brown bounce.
Its up to Cameron & Co to both enlighten them AND to provide hope for the future.
Who was this poll conducted for anyway?
101. Unless there were a shedload of grants and bursaries that’d make it a working class (and most middle class) free zone. It’s expensive enough as it is. 10k would be insane levels to anyone not rolling in cash.
Oh well, off to Oxford Street to provide some economic stimulus to the vendors thereon. Then back here to start looking for jobs in… oh, any country that doesn’t have Gordon in charge of it!
Cassius calls brown out on yesterday’s performance:-
http://cassiuswrites.blogspot.com/2008/11/if-you-want-to-invoke-patriotism-mr.html
Maybe with Cameron’s announcement today there will be a change in the narrative.
These poll figures certainly confirm the way the swing seems to go with the media.
97. 18 months?
107 Glass of wine in hand, sunshine on his head. The champagne socialist laughs at the prospects of those who have lost there jobs and houses.
Well all these polls can’t be right and there’s been no evidence that the golden rule is wrong for the time being.
Back to inflation. Food inflation is still at 10.1% and heating & lighting at 39.0%
113, and the 11/13 poll leads suggest the opposite.
In January on back of a 1% lead in Mori and a 2% deficit in ICM there was a frisson of excitement regarding a Spring or Autumn 2008 election. Lets see how polls develop now there are clear policies and direction from both parties.
Expect a boost for Labour next week after a giveaway budget - will Tories drop below 40 in more than one poll? (they did so after all only a month ago in Comres). Will we see a Labour lead - good chance sometime next week I would think.
As long as there is a firm delivery of the fiscal responsible, low tax, low debt message then I’d expect Conservatives to recover from a temporary Labour lead and retain a stable 41-43% share for a time. Then its events that will matter.
Unstoppable force (residual hatred of Tories), meet immoveable object (those who blame Brown for the economic mess).
They will come together at a set of co-ordinates occupied by the LibDems.
Retire to safe distance, with popcorn.
Noone is surprised by this surely?
The more that Cameron and Osborne appear on TV the more the vote to keep out the lightweights will solidify.
In a couple of months you will have the new US President introducing a huge fiscal stimulus along with the rest of the World,and the Tories are now arguing for spending cuts in a recession.
108 It will be interesting to see how far Cameron’s brave new platform opposing both tax cuts and public spending gets him.
Then again, will it last the week? Tory economic policies are the new May flies of British politics.
Bring on an election then Labour - how about before Xmas ?
121. They are? Name one’s they’ve got rid of then.
120 - Is that the novice President you are toakling about?
Doesn’t seem to be much support for the Tories economic u-turn but of course that’s guests on the biased BBC.
121 - Better than having no policy at all - Jonathan while you’re here. Please tell me what the Lbaour policy is? Smoke and mirrors
105 Martin I hope you are correct about a possible depression.
If you are can`t see the Conservatives losing,should be a fairly easy win at least the same as Thatchers majority in 79, which still suprises me of only 44.
111 - In comparison to the big US universities, £10k a year is cheap. That is what many of the Russell Group VC are setting the standard against.
Vice-chancellors have repeated their warnings that top-up fees are not high enough to meet the rising costs of higher education and signalled it is inevitable that they will rise. - 2006, Wednesday October 4, Guardian.
It may not happen in 2009, or 2015, but in the next 20 years we will have a system like the US, where the middle class have to save for a college fund for their kids when they are born. It will only take one big university to say it is going to become a private entity, say Oxford or Cambridge (which I know they have looked at), and many of the rest will follow. We already have Buckingham that is private and charges £6k per year for EU students.
Another Councillor defects in Derby:-
http://tinyurl.com/6jhbou
120. Not sure if you’re aware, but Britain and France are the only 2 major countries yet to implement or announce a fiscal stimulus. The U.S. implemented one, with bi-partisan support, in February, worth $150 billion.
122 Is there still time for a pre-Christmas election?
Dez or Roger? Any idea of the labour economic policy?
Dramatic poll indeed. Time for us sellers of Labour seats to hold our nerve.
O/T. The BBC are reporting a Race of Champions on 14th December, at Wembley, between Lewis Hamilton in a Mercedes Road Car and Chris Hoy on a bike. The SPOTY is later the same day.
Surely this increases Hoy’s chances of winning and reduces Adlington’s chances? For the last two years the BBC coverage of this event has effectively decided the result. Zara Phillips and then Joe Calzaghe both got the best coverage on the night.
Hoy currently 7/1. I’ve had some.
Fascinating! Anyone still want to argue about the swingback thesis, or NOM always being the most likely outcome?
I still think the outcome will be something like
Con 37
Lab 34
LD 18
(MOE +/-1 for all parties)
Labour have a good chance as emerging as largest party.
They will do a deal with the LibDems, and in deference to the peverse election result will be forced to introduce AV, which of course will screw the Tories even more…
ROTFLMFAO
:)
130. Definitely off-message, don’t you realise that Gordon is leading the world to safety by persuading everyone to have a fiscal stimulus?!
130: Never mind the facts, Gordon’s leading the world!
Either that or he’s last to react, and the rest of the world is ignoring him.
re 131 yes. If Brown popped into the palace today we could all be going to the polling station on Thursday 11th December.
This is as much to do with the Tory party damaging itself by briefing against Osbourne as it is about Brown’s bizarre “recession bounce”. Just as the Labour ratings recovered when the Blairites stopped attacking Brown, so the Tory ratings will recover IF the right-wing stops attacking Osbourne. Labour held its nerve and didnt dump Brown even in the dark days. Will the Tories do the same?
106 Previous thread-
What I’m talking about here is the general election and would be very happy to wager, assuming no changes in methodology, that the eventual LD share is much closer to the current ICM poll figure than the others.
Mike - are you saying here that ICM’s 18% figure for the Libdems will prove closer than Populus’ 16% at the next GE?, In that case I’d like to have a £50 wager with you that the Libdems’ actual support level then will be < 17%.
120: The UK economy is different from the US one so why is copying Obama a good idea?
132: Borrow heavily to keep yourself in power knowing you won’t be in office by the time it has to be paid back?
84. I defer to your better knowledge of the party Sean, but I find it hard to see Cameron carrying on if he doesn’t at least lead the Tories to the largest party, however big an ask that is in electoral terms. Having had such a comfortable polling lead and then having failed to prosper following a recession attributable in part to the government and particularly the sitting PM, would unquestionably be regarded a failure
The truth, as we have seen on this board over the last few weeks, is that support for Cameron within the Tory ranks is conditional, in much the same way as support for Blair was within Labour. He’s tolerated, rather than loved. Respected, but grudgingly. Many think they’d do a better job if only they had his profile. If he doesn’t win elections, what purpose does he serve?
Anyway, everyone’s getting carried away. Let’s hope the seat markets move back towards a Labour lead - lots of money to be made by those who can see beyond the short-term.
Re: increasing chances of 2009 election, no way. Brown has already paid once for playing electoral tricks and would be slaughtered for doing the same again. As he keeps saying, he is “getting on with the important jobs”. If it turned out he was actually plotting and scheming again, he would nose-dive as much as in October 2007…
I have a £50 quiz on the next General Election on my forum (ubf)which carries entry to the Gold Section.
Anyone from here such as Peter From Putney could get automatic entry for Gold if suitably identifying themselves.
Apologies for being pushy,Mike.You could win £50 !
143 - MBoy Remember he also used to say he favoured fiscal prudence. He’s absolutely shameless, and I’m sure Mandelson would be able to formulate a suitable form of words: “Going to the country to reaffirm our mandate for leading Britain through difficult times blah blah blah”.
If they wait until 2010 the cat will be truly out of the bag.
Two things.
1.There is no chance of an early election.
2.The world economies are entering into a Keynesian reflation period.
The Tories have just bet all their chips on that not working,because if we’re coming out of a recession in 12-15months time,then the Tories have lost their bet.
128. Then I think it will be a sad day for university education in this country.
All this talk of David Cameron ‘decontaminating the brand’ is so irrelevant. They said the same about Kinnock in ‘87 and ‘92. People don’t give a fig. Cameron is a chimera. The leader of the Tory Party spent his time on absurd publicity stunts when he should have been honing future Tory policy.
There’s no excuse. Alastair Campbell’s diaries are a template for how to win an election. It’s 100% policy driven with a (Blair’s) lawyerly ability to explain it to the public. Cameron’s windmills huskies Camels and bicycles just look inappropriate for the serious business of opposition politics.
146 Well if that’s true then GB has just made a massive bet on assuming it works.
Picking up on Mike’s previous thread, if one were to notionally adjust Mori’s poll findings by reducing Labour’s share by 2% and increasing the LibDems’ support by this same amount, leaving the Tories unchanged on 40%, on Baxter this produces a tie between Labour and the Tories, with both winning 299 seats!
142: The assumption when he was elected was that Cameron would put the Tories in a position to win the election after next. It is only Brown making a mess of things that has changed that meme.
151. But he’d suffer from expectations creep.
150. Peter. I agree with you about NOM being the value bet at the moment. 9/4 still available with Ladbrokes and Stan James.
123 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7735113.stm
Amusing quote from Dave back at September
“The problem is that at a time when most people feel powerless in the face of the global financial crisis, they want the government to step in”
“We have always been ready - at a time of national difficulty - to put aside party differences to help bring stability and help bring reassurance.
“Working across party lines is not just something we say because it might sound reasonable - it is something that may well be very necessary”
The right now own Cameron. How long is it before we hear “keep the pound”.
101 Indeed the Russell group want higher fees. But wanting is not the same as getting. In the close political game we now seem to be in it would be suicidal madness - quite possibly an election loser - for either party to promise middle class parents a massive fee rise. So there won’t be one and the Russell group will just have to live with it.
The recession / unemployment bounce. I never heard anything as ridiculous. If Labour are inclined to believe it, they will get a surprise at election day.
People will be looking for hope.
5 more years of hope given to us by Gordon Brown? Do even Labour voters want this?
The state is on a fast track to owning every one of us, our identities, even our organs. They are bent destroying all we have worked for, our savings, our pensions, our children’s future.
For God’s sake, someone has to end this madness, end the nightmare which Brown’s government is making us live through.
139. I don’t think it anything to do with Osborne. The Osborne situation (or lack thereof) is a blip on the landscape. It is barely registering in the media outside of Westminster-centric blogs.
Excellent poll for Labour but the Tories are still at 40%. The case seems to be that anything above 40% is soft for the Tories and likewise anything about 30% for Labour. Of course, it all depends on which poll you look at. Mori is telling us one thing, Comres is saying something quite different. Which is the outlier? Who knows. As a Conservative I want Comres to be right but this certainly makes things interest and everybody just needs to keep a cool head.
re 140. Done. So I win at 17% or more but lose if not. We are, of course, talking about GB vote shares (excluding NI) - the same basis as the pollsters.
146. 1) Not sure. 2) Yes.
So if madasafish is right, then Brown is stuffed. If the BoE and the IMF are right, Gordon is home and dry.
I’m not certain that I’d want to trust my future to the forecasts of the BoE and the IMF…
Agree with Rod Crosby still on the likely outcome of the next election. I was never really convinced that we left hung parliament territory.
146 Well if that’s true then GB has just made a massive bet on assuming it works.
Thats true, he has.
148. What were all these policies then Roger,?, stick to Tory spending plans for a couple of years and then spend like crazy.
Calamitous poll for the Tories. Baby P was all sound and fury, signifiying nothing. The fact is most floaters and LDs and SNP-ers are recoiling from capitalism (and independence), and cleaving to Gordo.
And the new lightweight fluffybunny vote blue get green husky-hugging Tories just don’t fit the zeitgeist. Indeed I’m starting to wonder if Mike’s rule - that when Cammo appears it always helps the Tories, any longer applies - we’ve seen a fair bit of Cammo in the last week, over Baby P, and it seems to have had no affect. If Cammo no longer works the magic then the Tories are in deep sh1t.
Osborne, of course, has to shift soon. As Bob Sykes says, the optimum time for the Tories to move him was weeks ago, when we all told you he was a problem. I told the Tories “two poshos was one too many” about six months back. Go check.
So let’s say they shift him at Christmas, bring in a heavyweight like Clarke, will that help? Who knows. The momentum is now against the Tories. Trend out the voting pattern and Labour will be in the lead by next Spring and certainly able to win a working majority.
It seems that 2009/10 is gonna be a repeat of 1992, not 1997, as we had so long presumed.
Not sure we can entirely blame the Tories for this. A once in a century economic bust was barely predictable. But the fact is they are now on course to lose the next General Election, and they need to show some savvy and ruthlessness.
But it will probably end in defeat anyway. I now think if Labour call the next GE in Spring, on the back of giveaway tax cuts and a refusal to trim spending, kicking all our problems into the future, they will probably win a decent majority, given the anomalies of FPTP. Tragic for the country, but that’s the facts.
On the upside, Tom Knox has just sold in his twenty-FIRST territory. Hooray!
Aaargh! My much touted theory that there would not be GE in 2010 now looks under threat, glad I never bet it. If next week’s tax cut package actually delivers, I guess Labour is on parity by March, and will surely cut and run.
Liberals are shafted – that part of my theory, that there’s a 1980s-style third party freezeout, seems to be borne out by these numbers.
Oh and one moire of my theories still holds (phew) – Ozzie needs to go.
148 But what are Labours policies Roger?
142. “The truth, as we have seen on this board over the last few weeks, is that support for Cameron within the Tory ranks is conditional, in much the same way as support for Blair was within Labour. He’s tolerated, rather than loved. Respected, but grudgingly. Many think they’d do a better job if only they had his profile. If he doesn’t win elections, what purpose does he serve?”
But that’s not ‘the truth’ whatsoever. Cameron is now widely admired and respected within the party. Certainly there were initial voices that expressed doubts about his experience and issues such as the green agenda but those have dissipated as Cameron has grown in stature.
My bets are unchanged
GE 2010
Con majority
132 Nemtynakht it was easier to type Chrisp.
In all honesty I think its as Darling said a few months ago, even though I was highly critical at the time, its the worst downturn for 60 years.
If this is the case the rule book goes out of the window, and it will be contest who reacts best to events.
148: David Cameron ‘decontaminating the brand’ is not irrelevant. The Tories lost or didn’t win back seats in the last three elections because people actively voted against them. That will not happen to anything like the same extent any more which will turn seats that on paper look solid Labour into margin.
134. So finally, Crosby admits that his bizzare obsession with AV/PR has nothing at all to do with making the voting system fairer and eveything to do with “screwing” the Tories.
Thanks. Its taken long enough!
However, theres one big problem with your view that AV will be the result of a hung parliament. Many of the Labour MP’s in the Commons in the next Parliament will be from those core Labour seats. They will be sitting on (reduced) but still large majorities. Why would they vote to weaken their position? Any vote for AV would see a big Labour rebellion, and we can assume the Tories would be voting against as well. It won’t take many rebel Labour MP’s to vote with the Tories to destroy Labour majority.
Didn’t one of Sunday’s polls say that 75% of people are against tax cuts funded by more borrowing?
That’s a collosal number. If Cameron has 4 solid weeks of an election campaign on TV every night going on and on and on about:
1) Labour’s massive borrowing
2) Labour’s tax bombshell to come
then he is going to gain votes during the campaign.
If it is the worst donwturn for 60 years we are going to see a lot more than 3m unemployed.
154. Looking back at September, I think that the Tories probably made a mistake in not savaging Gordon more then. By stepping back and giving him room and not linking him more closely to the crisis - as they could have done - would have prevented the moderate recovery in Brown’s reputation.
Brown is so responsible for the crisis - not the sub-prime/securitization bit but the whole regulatory structure and the credit boom in the UK - but by being allowed to “deal” with the crisis, doing what anyone would have, the narrative has allowed Gordon to regain some of his reputation for economic management. He is so partisan and such a total plonker that if the right had attacked him more vigorously he might well have fallen apart.
Of course, what was bad for the Conservatives was probably good for the country - during early October I did wake up occasionally thinking that things could really go pear shaped. And Gordon did the biz on the bailout (although it wasnt terribly difficult).
dez.
You are right, but the Tories have shut out the idea of Keynesian fiscal stimulus which is about to become the new orthodoxy.
Trust Osborne and Cameron over Keynes,Krugman,IMF,BofE,Obama,all other elected governments?
158 Yes, That’s agreed Mike. Although hardly necessary, I’ll email our respective posts to PtP, to enable him to record this bet.
163 Disagree - people vote looking forward. If the narrative from the Tories is big tax increases to pay for a bloated, under performing state there is a good chance that the public will say thanks Gordon but bye.
Of course against that Labour gets two bites of the giveaway cherry, next week and again at the 2009 Budget. Bribery could work unless the winter/spring unemployment, company failures are truly bad and the Christmas giveaway looks like it was ineffective (as it most probably will as there is usually a time delay) and has just added to the forthcoming tax bill.
An article questioning Browns sanity -
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/simon-carr/article1023102.ece;jsessionid=92906A7D79FB21612DB4D8CEDD373E6D?postingType=posting&mode=thanks&postingId=1023623
Sorry, but I think some people are clutching at straws here.
The Tories have only one person to blame for this - Cameron. He’s our main spokesman, the person who puts the message out, and the person who makes the headlines. If it was only the Tory right battering Osborne which is damaging the poll lead, then this would be a blip. It is a downward trend and I’m not sure even a Brown “bounce” any more.
I have never really been a fan of Cameron, and I’m a left-wing member who joined in 2004 after defecting from Labour. I worked flat out on the 2005 campaign and we won both seats I campaigned in. The Tory party is and has never really not been more than the sum of its parts. That is the problem under Cameron too - one more day, one more lukewarm policy announcement, rather than a concerted and holistic programme. He was eviscerated yesterday I have seen more active, pro-Tory support out in the sticks under Howard at the last election than I do pro-Cameron feeling.
People here may claim the media is biased against the Tories at the moment but I think the Tory leadership is biased against them - they don’t show any will to be in government and they think they can win by spin and flip-flop. To a large extent they made their bed and have to lie in it, and I’m not bailing them out this time, not even the people I helped in Reading and Newbury will get my active participation until there is something to participate in.
This poll is much more like it - I said, in terms of active positive support, during the summer, that if I was polling I’d get equal Labour and Tory ratings. Looks like the polls are just adjusting to fit that hunch.
@EdP - it also goes into detail how he smacked Cameron all over the place.
Your post proves that the spin is not just on Labour’s side.
174 yes. our problems are unique.
At the very least this gives Lab activists new enthusiasm and makes Lab supporters believe it is still winnable. Add in today’s announcement by Cameron on spending, the possible imminent demise of Osborne, Govt tax cuts next week, and the Tories will start to get shaky. Game on.
Uniquely bad. Thanks to Brown.
159 Ken
“I’m not certain that I’d want to trust my future to the forecasts of the BoE and the IMF…”
I’m not certain that I’d want to trust my future to MY forecasts
I mean in my original post that the Tory party is no more than the sum of its parts.
Brown might dither about a cut’n'run GE, but Mandelson and Campbell surely won’t hesitate. Pre-Christmas is a bit implausible, but early 2009 must be a runner now.
More interestingly, will Brown run as a “one more full-term” PM (code for “you’ll get Balls in 2010″)?
151/152
Kinnock suffered through losing an election to Thatcher - he was painted as a ‘two-time loser’(yes I know he had only lost one election, but this was the meme at the time) going into the election against John Major in 92.
I liked this comment…….
The vast majority of people who are mentally ill do not understand
that they are mentally ill. It is everyone else, not them, damn it!
That’s Mr Brown’s position. It was: The Americans, the Tories, the Icelandic terror state, a big boy did it, then he ran away, etc, etc.
The problem is, instead of giving him his medicine, his Labour colleagues humour him and say: “Quite right, Gordon! It IS everyone else!”
171. It certainly did. It was the same poll that put the Tories 11 points ahead.
What to believe!?
138. 100/1 odds for a December 2008 election.
and this one….
Brown is gripped with a manic delusionional aggitation that unfortunately can make him, like many psychotics in the grip of mania, very persuasive. The collective failure of the media and his own party (for it is their party and our country that will ultimately be destroyed) to allow him to continue will go down as one of the biggest calamities this country has ever known.
Open your eyes. He’s a complete and utter psychotic disaster.
If this poll is correct, this may be the high water mark for Labour. The Tories have rediscovered their bite in the past few days. Let’s see!
168 - Someone complained is was too similar to ChrisP - you can just say CHrisP I wlll know!!
This is my point Labour’s policy. Don;t get me wrong I think they are doing the right thing reacting as events happen - but if this is the best way why do they insist that the tories have a policy. In times like these a government proves it’s worth which is what I attribute the increase in support. GB was forced into action, which goes against his normal kick it into the long grass style.
182 But Spring 2009 will be too late - the narrative will have changed against him again. Massive forced business closures, and unpayable Xmas bills thudding onto doormats.
December 2008 or bust (literally)
OT
Just to remind us of how difficult forecasting is:
Barclays Bank has hit a new 14 year low of 139.9p.
It’s 15 year low in 1994 was c 122p
182. There’s no chance of an election between now and March, simply because the days are too short. However, contrary to my contentions on here, I must admit that Campbell and co will now be mulling cutting and running in March, as soon as daylight lasts beyond 6pm.
153 stjohn - I think I may have mentioned before that post the US elections, an NOM outcome at the next GE is easily my biggest position. It just seems eminently likely - for the Tories to win an overall majority, even on the new boundaries, they would have to gain circa 115 seats net. For Labour to do likewise, after 3 terms in office, they would have to lose fewer than 22 seats net. Very big asks in both cases. Just 3 months ago, I was getting odds on Betfair of up to 3.9-1 against an NOM outcome, compared with their 2.1-1 currently available .
174/178 - I don’t really think it’s so unique it requires a different remedy. It may or may not be worse than in some other countries, but not to the extent it justifies a diametrically different approach.
The neo-Keynsians are in the ascendancy worldwide. It would be interesting if the Conservatives were genuinely and aggressively championing the alternative neo-classical approach - it may well be an important role for them were they to do it. But I can’t help feeling they’ve fudged it - tinkering with temporary Keynsian tax cuts while talking the language of an economic approach which favours short, sharp shock to prevent a prolonged downturn and keep the deficit down. Can’t help but think Osborne/Cameron are trying rather ineptly to ride two horses.
[5] - “Labour at 37% is startling.”
It is that, but I’m remembering that Mori used to give Labour scores of 50%+ Labour never polled that much then, and they’re not going to poll 37% at the next general election either.
49- Martin, maybe the slogan could be “It’s Labour that got us here so only Labour knows the way out!”
“Fascinating! Anyone still want to argue about the swingback thesis, or NOM always being the most likely outcome”.
Yes. Labour won’t get re-elected (or emerge as largest party) on the back of a severe recession.
Astonishing spin on the news right now about the drop to “just” 4.5% inflation - the news are saying that this will make life easier in the supermarkets! The government is effectively spinning the drop as prices actually falling… No wonder they are doing so well in the polls when the media spouts this kind of rubbish…
188. You’ve been saying that for weeks now. “This is the high water mark” for Labour. Every time its followed by, erm, another even higher water mark.
Sorry to be cruel, but it’s true. You now have a very serious problem - you can’t keep ingoring the collapse in the Tory lead and whistling that it will return any day now just… well just because.
Do Something. Clarke maybe needs to be SCoE. He is uniquely positioned as the last chancellor to pull us out of recession. That gives him authority. The euro problem will just have to wait. The way things are going we won’t see a Tory government so all the eurosceptics’ hopes will be dust anyway.
On the upside, if you do lose this vote you would romp back to the most enormous victory in the 2014 election. Indeed, people would be so sick of Labour and lefties by then they might all vote BNP.
197: Like the last conservative government you mean?
192. Clocks go forward Sunday 29 March. So I would have thought the absolute earliest possible GE date is Thursday 2 April.
That would mean calling the election by around 10 March. 2 possible obstacles for Labour:
1) Budget - usually held mid March
2) If they want to make tax cuts for 2009/10 tax year these will not have hit pay packets.
So a May or June election would be more practical. But the longer they leave it the further we are into a recession.
So they face a dilemma.
190. I doubt there has ever been a Christmas election, and you’ll get 100-1 on there being on this year. It would just look desperate – no chance of it.
re 192 Eh. That didn’t seem to put people off in 1974 - turnout 79% or thereabouts.
The latest polling returns reflects a little known psephological phenomenon called the “Osborne blow-off”.
Flash electorate picture of Tory-boy with a squeaky voice in Fauntleroy suit or plus fours at opportune moments in national meda.
If necessary, repeat at regular intervals to allow for subliminal imprinting. But in general one picture does the trick.
Result: Cognitive dissonance; Brown is an appalling disaster, but the other lot could be worse.
164. being in power is always about backing yourself/taking a gamble on your own performance.
77,84. very hard to imagine the Con party right wing not insisting on a crack of the whip if Cameron does not win next time.
What facinates me is that Smithsons two laws are now in competition.
Firstly a rouge poll is one you don’t like. And i don’t like this at all. Is labour really one point more popular now than in 2005 ? I don’t belive it.
Secondly the polls showing labour worst/lowest are the most accurate. On this law we’d treat tis poll with a pinch of salt.
One other point. 3 of the extant ratings of Britains 5 BPC registered plling companies ow have the LD’s on 12 ? Whats going so wrong ?
At least we can put to bed the idea that Camerons performance over baby P was to be reflected in the opinion polls now.
His histrionics in the house,and mistakes over the mothers age,and apparently in one roll out interview,the babys sex, were never going to resonate,thank god.
198 - Actually, over the past month the index has in fact fallen very slightly (RPI from 218.0 to 217.7 and CPI from 110.2 to 110.0).
203. The past is another country. They cared about politics there.
198 - They were on mega spin on Working Lunch. They wittered on about certain prices falling (such as fuel), and inter-mixed it with the reduction in inflation level. The wording at best was very bad, and at worse misleading. They reported it as if prices were now falling across the board, rather than the rate of prices rises is slowing. The fact is that inflation is still 4.5% (well higher than that, but officially 4.5%), which is more than double the target).
However, given all of this. a) I don’t think the people who know about inflation rates believe it and b) people who don’t, won’t understand what this means, but they still know food, fuel bills, etc are costing them a lot of their income.
Despite these figures, (Comres a rogue?) I doubt that we’ll have an early GE, not after the last debacle.
193
I’m with you for the same reasons.
Hmmm so in a matter of weeks, the Tories have lost a double digit lead, must fill the troops with confidence in their leadership.
‘Steady the Buffs’
181. Madasafish. It’s OK, David Cameron is betting on you. Gordon Brown is betting on the BoE and IMF.
Any guesses when the next wave of unpleasantness starts in the markets? I can spot various things that could cause nervousness to rise - GM or Ford chapter 11, AIG going under. But, it’s more likely to be something else that I havent spotted.
We will then probably test Willem Buiter’s theories about highly indebted banking sectors vs GDP being a problem. Ireland and Austria being obvious potential targets. It’s really not going to be very nice.
Cameron won’t understand the numbers he got 17 and 27 (year old) wrong at PMQ last week…. or did he really want to think the Mother of baby P was 17 yrs old despite the facts.. He still thinks flip flop osborne is his mate despite the facts.
201 Feb 74 election had a very high turnout. Look if people can get down the pub on New Year Eve why can’t they vote in winter?
198. food and oil are falling, so it isn’t as misleading as usual
204. Yep.
Imagine if, every time we’ve seen Osborne in the last six weeks, we instead had seen Ken Clarke. I’m not a huge fan of Clarke and his euro views are piffle - but… he is a heavyweight figure and he speaks with serious authority about recessions, having dragged us out of the last one.
That wouldn’t have changed everything, but The Tories might still be 8 points ahead rather than 3. Not brilliant. But a lot better.
I’m just off to Salem to look at witches, but I’ll say it one more time: here’s the solution: Clarke as SCoE. Davis at Home (pleasing the right). Hague as FS. Ozzie to Treasury. Your best men in the best positions. And everyone pulling together cause these are testing times.
And do it at Christmas when no one’s looking.
If the Tories don’t do this, they will probably lose.
199. But Comres suggest that the tide has already turned back in the Tories favour. It just depends on which polls one chooses to believe.
210. On a month-on-month basis fuel and food is falling. It’s still up on the year, but it will make going to the supermarket easier. I do regret the use of falling inflation - no, the inflation rate is slowing. But anyway.
re 198 I repeat - food inflation is 10.1%. It might have dropped slightly from the peak, but food prices are still over a tenth more than they were last year.
Its an interesting question as to whether Gordo has the courage to go early. Gordo doesnt do courage, but then again Mandleson and Campbell werent working the dummy then. Difficult to dismiss this poll as a rogue given You Gov at 5%, but I canot believe the Lib Dems will poll as badly. I still think Gordo will go long, because he thinks the worse it gets the better it is for Gordo. And its going to get a whole lot worse. I still just have enough faith in the great British public not to fooled by all the spin.
213 - Because the pub is a pleasure while voting is not?
215: If the Tories don’t do this, they will probably lose.
Hahahahahahahahaha. Mood swing-o-rama.
201 Labour will want to wait until after the G20 Summit. All those photo-opportunties of Obama and a smiling Brown. Maybe something like this:
- Quick pre-Christmas giveaway to gain favourable narrative. There’s not much time, so this will be limited, but they’ll pre-announce tax cuts (maybe partially smoke-and-mirrors);
- Spring 09 Budget with massive and irresponsible unfunded tax cuts;
- G20 summit;
- Election in May or June, and hope the public hasn’t noticed the con.
170. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong. It’s just realpolitik.
Can you explain why Labour MPs in safe seats should have anything to fear from AV? In fact, only a handful would have anything to fear at all.
213. Because they don’t care anymore.
201. Great analysis Mike. Anyone got prices on the exact dates of a GE so how they reflect Mike’s excellent commentary?
213 - Whilst I think lower winter turnouts are a bit of an urban myth, there are plenty of people who aren’t down the pub on New Year’s Day. Quite a few older pensioners genuinely do avoid going out that much in the winter - noticeably so if you go into town etc.
Actually, a winter election may help Labour. Tory activists are generally more enthused still, but it is hard to run as aggressive a campaign when rank and file deliverers get home from work in the dark, you can’t knock on doors so late, people don’t want to stop to sign a petition on the street and so on.
re 202 there were 3 December general elections in the last century. 12% of the total or about 15/2.
218 - I know that, but they inter-mixed that news, with the reduced inflation rate. It made it sound like prices across the board were falling with a falling inflation rate.
I personally hate the new dumbed down Working Lunch, even giving a definition of deflation. Shake head. Used to think Working Lunch just about the right level, not for city types, but for those interested in the markets and financial products. Now it seems like it is targeted at GCSE students.
people generally get the government they deserve and a sea change in the country is needed to win power. mrs thatcher only just did it, there were cautious words in 1979 ; the dead hand of socialism over many years destroys people’s confidence and their ability to think change can even happen or that there is any alternative to being a posession of the state, to be milked and bullied.
watch the 79 election broadcast and you will see what i mean.
we’re in much the same position now. people shrug ; can’t even see how things could possibly change for the better. ambitions are modest.
many will stick with the familiar. many won’t dare rock the boat. their confidence is shot, they feel powerless.
Cameron may win a mandate for change but it will be a struggle.
Such is the dead hand of a decade of tax and spend socialism and its sapping effect on morale and hope.
212
Ken
I have a rally starting from early December 5th? 8th? and lasting about 2 months until Q4 reporting starts in Early February.
I assume the markets will be rather like 72-74 so it will not be a strong rally…more like July to September 08 - FTSE +10-15%.. tops.
Then as the retail sales translate into proits and retail closures (Woolies?) etc.
I still fancy the Israelis to bomb Iran sometime.. that would solve the deflation problem with $200 oil and queues for petrol:-(
Austria? Yes.
And of course Venezuela is spendin state revenues as if oil is $120… and Russia needs $95 oil.. and and .
Perm any one from about 10 options.
.
Each on its own is another global megashock to stuff the banking sector…
211 “Despite these figures, (Comres a rogue?) I doubt that we’ll have an early GE, not after the last debacle.”
I agree. Brown can’t possibly risk accusations of cutting and running or dithering about the timing. Earliest possible date for an election is 4 years after the last one - that is the pattern that has been observed by both parties for more than 30 years now - that means May 2009 or later.
199
seant, the man who believes that membership of the EU is just short of being in hell, is now promoting K Clarke!!
‘ello flying pigs you don’t see many of them do you.
Hmmm my prediction of No Overall Majority followed by a Conservative government controlled by the Libdems, taking the UK into the Euro, looking good guys!!
Odds?
Somewhat shell-shocked by the latest opinion poll figures.
The total for the 3 major parties is 89%
Am I correct in thinking that 11% is still to play for ??
227. Apologies Chris – thanks for the correction. When was the last December GE?
220
Obvious answer put ballot boxes in pubs!!
219- But it seems to me that the bigger question is ‘what is driving Labour’s surge in the polls?’ (which seems very real even if one can argue about the accuracy of this or that poll). Sean Fear says that Labour will never win in the midst of a recession, but isn’t it the current crisis that has propelled Labour to where it stands in the polls today? If so, isn’t there reason for Labour to believe that their standing will only improve as the crisis continues? If so, then why not a spring election?
223. More like 2 or 3% of that 11%. Others (GB) got 8% in 2005.
219: For Gordon to go early he would need to have a lead that would not be destroyed by his performance during the campaign (eg a last PMQs type event on election Question Time).
As for the polls, some say one thing, the others the reverse. We need more of them to see if this is a trend.
237. And an expected SNP upswing this time around.
re 228 quite - we might get to see falling prices next year if Gordon cocks it up even more.
236. As bizarre as that contention sounds S&S, you could be right.
In a complete about-turn, it does at least seem that the worse the economy becomes, the better Labour do. I cannot comprehend it.
232 Equally if he waits to 2010 he’ll be accused of just postponing defeat by clinging on to power until the last minute. 2009 looks better by the day - post 222 probably has it.
235. And Gordon will give you a free drink if you vote for him.
236. Good point. If Labour are best placed to win in a recession then Brown may as well go now. If we are going to be in recovery by early 2010 then the media narrative is possibly going to be shifting away from the economy to more day to day issues by this time nexy year. This is where Brown came unstuck the first time and is where Cameron’s message of change may gain traction once again.
218. yep but less than they were last month
and the change in polls? coincidental
re 234 it was 1923 - the second election in 13 months
230. I cant really see the UK economy doing well against the kind of background we both seem to be thinking of - mainly because I see a further bank bailout looming and people getting very afraid. Still Gordon might survive by blaming it on everyone else. But another major crisis would probably put paid to chances of an early election (I think).
I dont really see Keynesian stimulus being enough really. Will that make Dave look good? Difficult to say.
re 234 I perhaps should add it resulted in the first Labour government as well!
This was Andrew Sparrow in the Guardian.
The two surveys were from YouGov, in the Sunday Times, and ComRes, in the Independent on Sunday. YouGov put the Tory lead at just five points, its lowest level in a YouGov poll since December last year. The key figures were:
Conservatives 41 (down 2, from YouGov’s Sunday Times survey in October)
Labour 36 (up 3)
Lib Dems 14 (no change)
But ComRes found support swinging the other way. Their key figures were:
Conservatives 43 (up 3, from ComRes’s IoS survey in October)
Labour 32 (up 1)
Lib Dems 12 (down 4)
So what’s going on? I don’t really know, and no one else seems to either.
Two of the most reliable commentators on polling in the blogosphere have responded quite differently. Anthony Wells at UK Polling Report says that he’s sceptical about polls that contradict the trends reported in other surveys (ie, the ComRes one). But Mike Smithson at PoliticalBetting has responded by reiterating his “golden rule”; that the most accurate poll for Labour at any one time is the one showing it in the worst position.
Personally, if I had to choose, I would say that YouGov has got the trend right, not ComRes (in other words, I think the Tory lead is shrinking).
Sparrow seemed confident that Yougov was on the right track, wonder if he’d got wind of the Mori?
247 If you are right and there is a further bank bailout paid for by borrowing then Cameron/Osborne’s promise not to borrow “excessively” will look a bit lame.
249. How dare he question Mike, pb lynch mob, form up and sound off.
SeanT - of course you’re absolutely right about Clarke, but they just can’t see it. How many times has he been rejected by his own party? And we in the Labour party have always known he would be a genuinely formidable opponent. But I’m confident they’ll stick with Osborne and we’ll continue to wittle away that lead.
247
My view increasingly is that whilst house prices are falling:
house owners feel poorer.. and they are if they value their assets
Many house owners will have negative equity
And until the economy recovers so they feel secure in their jobs AND they no longer have negative equity..
they will keep their spending on a tight rein..
(Equity withdrawal is no longer an option and if they have no savings, negative equity and lose their job.. they are effectively bankrupt).
So Kenyesian measures will not work becuase they assume people spend surplus money.
Whilst under these conditions the propensity to save is far greater than the prooensity to spend.
We saw this all in the 1989-91 mini recession but the house bubble is much bigger and personal indebtedness much worse.
As prices have around 30-50% to fall from here and they are falling 14-16% pa from the Halifax ? figures… bottom in housing market is c 2011?
The answer is of course to give money to the young, council tenants and the unemployed… and tax those in employment to fund it:-)
250 Nickc - you think that a further bank bailout would be bad for the Tories? Or would it show Brown doesnt know what he’s doing?
241/244- It’s surprises like this that makes politics so interesting even after so many years of following it…
Maybe, just maybe, the reaction of the average Joe to circumstances like this, at least today, is that they feel threatened by rapacious capitalism and the dangers of free and open markets, and they want more than anything to be protected. Labour represents socialism/protection while the Tories offer the frightening uncertainties of free market capitalism. Anger and blame can come later for whatever mistakes Labour have made but, for now, protection is all-important. Therefore, better to stay with Labour until this all blows over.
Maybe, just maybe…
235 - Surely being drunk in charge of a ballot paper is some kind of offence? If it isn’t, don’t mention it to Jacqui Smith, it’ll give her ideas.
236 The answer is that, short-term, quite a lot of people are inclined to believe that Labour’s promises of bank bailouts, and massive borrowing to allow tax reductions and public spending increases to prevent a recession, will work.
Longer-term, people will see that they aren’t working, and unemployment is rising sharply. What’s worse from Labour’s point of view is that the brunt of the recession won’t be borne in their heartlands, but in places like the Reading, Swindon, the M25 corridor etc., where plenty of marginal seats are located.
“What a turnaround. And a somewhat unfair one, given that Brown is largely responsible for getting the economy into its current mess!” (Bob Sykes)
Bob, you people go on and on and on about this. I know from a spin point of view, it is good that the Tories can TRY to avoid the blame, but most of us out here who are not ideological Tories or Thatcher Reaganomists (if you forgive the neologism!) know exactly where the blame goes. Yes, to Blair (with sidekick Brown) for prolonging the unsustainable economics, but they did not invent it! In fact I would think any Clarkeite or Heathite Tories out there knows this as well.
236 Spot on, For ages, at least eighteen months, we have been talking about the possibility of an upcoming recession and Labours response throughout has been ‘that would be good for us electorally’ to hoots of derision from everyone else.
The fact is that New Labour as we know it was hardened and honed to it’s killer peak by the incalculable disappointment of waking up on that Friday in May 1992 to John Major still being Prime Minister.
Everything they have ever done since has been designed to ensure that quite literally, Labour never again wake up to that disappointment(frankly that unswerving focus on staying in power at any cost is something I find deeply unnerving).
Labour calculate that in a recession, just like ‘92, the country will ’stick with nurse for fear of something worse’ and the polls at the moment would tend to agree.
Many of my colleagues have been labouring under the delusion that a recession would be our deliverance when there exists the strong chance that the opposite could be true, however unfair that seems.
We are going to fight for this election, and fight very hard. We are going to have to use some of that pent-up anger, frustration and downright hatred of Brown to motivate normally passive Tory supporters into pounding pavements and whipping up support the old-fashioned way, house by house, vote by vote.
And I am now completely convinced that this current maelstrom of spin and media manipulation is indeed the appetiser for a carefully orchestrated 1997-style blitzkrieg of give-aways bribes and spin leading to an early spring election.
There’s so much propensity for the unexpected in the next 12/18 months that I would be sorely tempted to go now. Collapsing Barclays shares for example what does that mean? Are we in for a further wave of disastrous news from the Banking sector. I really can see no upside in Mr Brown hanging on to power for power’s sake and waiting for something to turn up when it won’t.
259
Not according to Winnet, unless Mandy is doing a double bluff!
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/robert_winnett/blog/2008/11/18/cameron_prepares_for_2010_election
247 it is very likely another bank bailout will be needed soon, as losses in the recession will mount even more. But where will the money come from . How will the public react?
the most worrying aspect of this recession has been that the unemployment and financial fall out are already quite severe, early on. It is genuinely worrying because we have a few more years of this but the cupboard is already bare (for the UK - others are better placed)
257- If that’s true and Gordon’s strategists see this (and perhaps have been planning accordingly all along), then all signs point to at least an effort to prepare for an early election. If the polls just don’t come around, then it never happens. But they’re certainly getting very close… If I were in the Labour bunker, I’d be following these polls very closely for the next few months, hoping people would buy into it, and planning for a spring election (i.e., an election before people see Labour’s plan isn’t working). A spring election seems to have much more chance of success than an election in 2010, at least viewing things from where we stand today.
260
The Banking sector is down 6.2% whilst the FTSE is up.. as I write.
Citigroup’s warning yesterday of 50k job losses just reminded markets that things in banking are goinmg to get worse before they get better,
LLOYds down 10.9%
HBOS-15.6%
RBS-7.6%
HSBC-4.4%
STAND -3.0%
Market rallies are lead by financials. Go figure…
254. A further bailout will obviously be the Tories’ fault therefore negative for them. Indeed, what Brown must now be hoping for is a slide into a 1930s style depression, which will also be the Tories’ fault and bring a Labour (if not communist) landslide.
The reason for the sharp swing to labour is the magic phrase “tax cuts” - anyone who is worried about how much money they have in tehir pocket and what they can afford will listen to whoever is offering the biggest tax cuts (regardless of when/how they’re going to be paid for). Whilst it sounds good in the short term, once these people realise that they’re not actually going to be that much better off the support will disappear. The best thing Labour could do now is call a snap election with the promise of big tax cuts to come.
262. then tell me James, do you think it was a good move by Cameron that on the day unemployement headed towards 2 million, Cameron used all six of his pm questions on the subject of Baby P?
As for the question - Does it increase chances of 2009? I suppose it does to an extent. But I still continue to believe in 2010 May, and think that Gordon will plump for that, regarding it as his best hope. There is a practical problem in that June 2009 already has a Euro, and in many places in England local government elections. He could of course go with May 2009, consigning the later elections to oblivion (turnout goes sharply down in the shadow of major elections), or combine them all in June - I am assured that there is not a legal bar to doing this. But people generally, and especially electoral officers, would absolutely hate 3 all out elections at once. Or go for the Autumn, but I simply don’t believe in Autumn elections unless forced by circumstances - they have not happened for many years (1974 October being forced when Labour could no longer govern with a minority).
Reading this thread, there seem to be two modes for posters on this site - panic and complacency… really odd reading people oscillating between the two!
Anyway, my feeling is that for some time the Labour identifiers have been firming up, helped by Gordon’s massively improved performance, post conference unity (when was the last time we saw a labour splits story?) and the general sense that Gordon Brown at least has a plan.
However, the flip side of this has been that the Conservative vote has also been strong - I remember mike posting some time ago that almost 100% of Tory identifiers were planning to vote tory. Nothing that has happened recently was likely to change that, as the outrage of Conservatives here at labour’s improving poll numbers showed.
That said, we may be beginning to see a tiny sign of some tories switching away, though we’ll need to look at the data to see. If this is happening, I think it’ll be driven by a combination of divisiion stories (voters hate divided parties, especially at moments of crisis) and the general sense that the Tory response to the economic crisis has been… confused - (Raise Spending!, No, Cut interest rates! No, protect sterling! No, Cut taxes! No, Cut spending!)
Either that, or it’s just margin of error, of course.
254 Well it’s hard to say - you’d think it would be bad for the government of the day but that hasn’t been the case up to now. I think the Tories could look wrong-footed if they appear to oppose borrowing too dogmatically because, as I am sure you know, the cost of NOT bailing out the banking system would far exceed the cost of bailing it out in almost any circumstances you care to imagine. And that is the only choice the government has - bail it out at a massive cost or see it collapse at an incalculable - and much greater - cost.
At the moment I think the balance of probabilities would be that the public would continue to blame the banks if further bailouts were required.
Actually I think one of Cameron/Osborne’s disadvantages in this is that they look rather like bankers themselves. They remind people of those slightly creepy young men in suits that have spent the past couple of decades selling us risky financial models. Unfair to perceive them like that of course, but politics is rough at times….
260
Barclays is easy to spin:- “Look, see how God has punished Barclays for not joining the Prophet Gordo on his journey to the promised land! Repent Sinners! I say again Repent!”
255. Very interesting analysis. Has more weight in many ways as it comes from one on the right.
The Independent site is displaying the poll!
Tory poll lead ’slashed to 3 per cent’
By Andrew Woodcock, PA
Tuesday, 18 November 2008
Gordon Brown has slashed the Conservative lead in the polls to just three points, according to a survey released today.
The Ipsos Mori November Political Monitor put David Cameron’s Tories on 40 per cent - down five points on a similar poll by the same organisation last month - and Labour up seven points on 37 per cent. Liberal Democrats were on 12 per cent (down two).
Public satisfaction with the Prime Minister also showed a sharp increase over the month. While half (50 per cent) remained dissatisfied with Mr Brown, the figure was down nine points from last month and 19 since September.
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister’s satisfaction rating has risen six points since October to 41 per cent, while satisfaction with the Government improved by seven points to 32 per cent, with 59 per cent remaining dissatisfied (down from 69 per cent last month).
The three-point gap between the two biggest parties is the closest recorded by any major poll since March, and represents a dramatic fightback by Labour, which as recently as September was regularly trailing by more than 20 points.
It suggests that Labour has benefited from Mr Brown’s response to the financial crisis, which saw him attend the emergency summit of world leaders in Washington last weekend amid widespread expectation of tax cuts in next week’s Pre-Budget Report.
But public confidence in the economy appears to have fallen, following a brief upturn after last month’s bail-out of struggling banks.
Some 17 per cent of those questioned said they expected the country’s economic condition to improve over the next 12 months, down from 24 per cent in October. Just over two-thirds (68 per cent) think the economy will get worse - up from 59 per cent last month.
Despite public pessimism over the economy, more people (45 per cent) expected their own personal financial situation to stay the same over the coming year than thought it would worsen (39 per cent). Just 14 per cent thought it would improve.
Satisfaction with Mr Cameron dropped off slightly from 49 per cent last month to 45 per cent now, according to the poll. Over a third (34 per cent) of the public were satisfied with Nick Clegg’s performance as Lib Dem leader and 25 per cent dissat
212 Ken - still lots of stress out there - European credit markets on the slide (heading towards levels seen following collapse of Lehman). Sovereign credit showing no improvement (UK wider at 68bp).
Dollar 3m Libor had started to edge back up, but fell today.
Market volatility is high. Further ABX writedowns to come - one effect of changing the goalposts on the TARP.
I’m not sure that £37bn will be enough to stabilise the banks, and additional capital may be required if the ‘hits keep on coming’.
270. Another reason why pinning the blame more firmly on Gordo back in September would have been sensible for the Tories, if potentially bad for the economy. Not bailing out the banks isnt an option, not unless someone puts together a much better insolvency scheme.
Of course the people who came up with the models dont look like Dave and George, they are geeky looking PhDs in theoretical physics (wearing expensive, but usually rumpled and scruffy looking suits). But yes, they do look like rich and sleek bankers.
273 “more people (45 per cent) expected their own personal financial situation to stay the same over the coming year than thought it would worsen (39 per cent). Just 14 per cent thought it would improve.”
The degree of delusion is extraordinary - can 59% of people seriously think their financial position will stay the same or get better in the next year?
272- This is more of a supposition than anything else. I have no idea if that’s how Brits are really thinking but it seems plausible as a way to explain why it is that the polls are shifting to Labour. I’m less convinced by the theory that people are staying with Labour because they don’t think the Tories have a credible plan, since elections are usually overwhelmingly a referendum on incumbent parties (mixed with any lingering distaste for formerly governing parties now in opposition). If my proposed theory is in the ballpark, then Labour have every reason to strategize, legislate, and prepare for an early election as their best hope of keeping power beyond 2010.
274. And we all know that the hits will keep a’comin. I need to spend some time actually going through some of the numbers - but it’s clear that some countries are going to go down the pan and others are only just going to cling on. Yet, we are in that odd phoney war stage when everyone knows the shooting is going to start sometime soon…
I wonder if Gordon realises this? I suspect Dave and George do.
“Despite public pessimism over the economy, more people (45 per cent) expected their own personal financial situation to stay the same over the coming year than thought it would worsen (39 per cent). Just 14 per cent thought it would improve.”
It seems to me that Labour’s spindoctors have conned their followers into believing that 2009 won’t be so bad after all.
What happens when they realise they’ve been lied to?
I suspect it won’t be pretty.
Radio news headline:
“The cost of living fell by 0.75% last month”
That is clearly the text that has been press-released to them by the Treasury, and they are just reading it out. Has the Treasury released a deliberately misleading press-release, or is it just lying?
276. It depends what you mean by financial position, I suspect. Even in a worst case scenario with massive unemployment increases the vast majority will still be in work and their wages are unlikely to actually fall. Nor will the value of their savings.
House prices will have dropped sharply of course, and pension plans…but that’s never never stuff for a lot of people…that’s the kind of psychology that produces these kinds of numbers, anyway…
@280:
One wonders if there is any semantic difference between “deliberately misleading” and “lying”.
Perhaps a Labour support-o-tron could clarify.
279- That’s exactly why Labour should plan for an election in the next few months. Wait until 2010 and face slaughter; go in 2009 and have a good shot at it.
One reason that economic slumps don’t automatically result in punishment for the Government is in the nature of recessions.
The sad but true fact is that recessions have a massively negative impact on a few unlucky people directly - the redundant and the bankrupt and the repossessed, for example; but if you don’t fall into one of these groups you aren’t going to notice much beyond some empty shops and the newsapaper headlines.
And we have more people working in the white collar public sector than ever before - they feel safer under Labour for the moment.
At the beginning it’s all about fear of what might happen; further on it becomes anger about what has happened. Labours only chance of avoiding a wipeout is to get to the polls early - we are all talking about whose fault this recession is, but the public aren’t. At least, not yet.
Well what with John Sargent and now Gordon Brown just shows the public shouldn’t be trusted to vote for anything.
280. That looks like a straight lie. Why are you surprised?
282. I’m hardly a Labour member but while ethically they may both be repugnant, stating things that are factually untrue and stating things that are true in a way that could lead the listener to make erroneous assumptions/conclusions are technically different.
279. Martin – you have just made a very good case for an election in spring 2009.
280. That’s nonsense – inflation is still quite high (although falling) so prices are still rising.
253 - this fact may have gone unnoticed to many. but if you have your house valued now you will be told it has fallen 20% already and it will be a shock to you. truly frightening. more and more people are noticing. those who had 75% LTV are now 95% in the hole. zero equity, zero chance of remorgaging, max exposure as and when rates rise due to loose fiscal policy, and the prospect of several more years of falling prices and higher levels of job insecurity. as many people will be left high and dry as in the 90s , if not more.
All great news for Labour of course. Because they didnt let house prices get out of control and threaten the economy, did they?
Thousands of families are being wiped out financially, each week in this country.
79
People are natural optimists.
They want and need to believe “things can only get better”
And for the last 10 years they have - for all those who are not “poor”.
And as the “poor” fail to vote, they do not count.
The problem arises when the “voting non-poor” become “poor”.
And if they lose any hope of economic recovery..
I suspect talk of -1.6% fall in 2009 GDP is another example of optimism..
As it is an IMF forecast - and the IMF forecast for 2008 in April was 1.6% too high.. think -3%.
A 3% fall in GDP in 2009 would affext political mrkets in a major way, I suspect..
BVTW, which newspaper commissioned this poll anyway?
@292:
Yes, I suppose I have.
Gordon doesn’t, of course, have the Scotch Cullions for it, so it’s academic.
268 Yes but I can’t see any upside for 2010 apart from the “enjoyment” of another year in office and the electoral timetable you mention. If it goes wrong and it will be more than apparent by then, Labour will be lucky to escape with 100 seats. If on the other hand the recession isn’t quite as bad or long lasting as feared, people will vote for a change after 13 years in any case. Get the polling done with as soon as possible ie while the voters are fearful of what’s yet to happen and Labour may well sneak it especially with Mandelson and Campbell around (not guaranteed by 2010!).
298
They might dump the mess in the Tories laps and snipe from the opposition benches for 5 years then come back in 2014 on the back of a series of tough measures from Cameron.
2009: The year Tractors’s new-wave Mugabenomics finally come home to roost.
276 Mortgage payments falling, tax cuts promised , told prices will be falling (fact CPI at just above zero actually means prices not going up much doesn’t come through the media talk) - majority not worried by unemployment will think they are going to be OK.
Gordon & Darling are both warning of possibly hard times ahead but then saying we’ll get you through without much pain if you take our medicine. There’s been no media questioning on anything further than averting the disaster, now there’s been a bit of what does this mean further on?
Osbornes sterling warning helped change the fcus to longer term, Cameron’s tax bombshell has aided this change. Lets see how that will play.
296
I think it was on the, BBC politics Show, its a regularly monthly poll.
Before any Tory Poster says ‘Oh! BBC what do you expect’: only if you criticised last months which gave the Tories a very healthy lead.
p.s.
Still think that Libdem figure is too low.
293 - “prices are still rising.”
They were, in fact, fractionally down on the month:
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/instantfigures.asp
It’s a very slight fall for only one month and I don’t think it will every feed into a minus rate of year on year inflation with interest rates down dramatically. But it is a fall in overall price levels over the month.
286 - The Tories ‘lie’, Labour ‘deliberately mislead’
hey can anyone help?
Wasn’t there a thread about when labour would next have a poll lead. It was a fair few months ago i remember. I’m sure people where betting.
Anyone able to find the link on PB
301 I fear Cameron has lost the argument on this, they just look peripheral at the moment, and I’m not seeing a lot of motivation for Tories to vote.
Equally if Brown does start giving “low income families” a good dose of redistribution - I can see Labour have $15bn reasons to get out and vote.
The polls are not reflecting turnout imo - I think Lab have more than closed the gap now.
If Brown calls a GE in spring it could be tight, any later and he’ll probably have overshot and bad news will finally eat away any hope.
if you think your job is safe and stable then outlook should still be reasonably +ve for most.
at the moment for example, petrol coming down, food prices coming down, mortgage rates down, talk of tax cuts, etc.
of course, the default position for years has been 99% of people expecting next year to be better, so 59% is still a relatively bad reading.
304: Semantically the difference is quite significant -
Lie = to tell a deliberate untruth
Deliberately mislead = avoid telling a deliberate untruth, but present the truth in such a way as to cause the listener to believe in an untruth
Pragmatically, the effect is the same.
Keeping my head whilst all around me are losing theirs, I will venture above the parapet and voice once again my prediction of a 50 - 75 seat majority for the Tories in the next election.
I say this based on one important aspect of all the recent coverage: Brown has still not shaken off his image of being a purely political animal. I doubt many people on the streets doubt that all of Brown’s planning or meddling has been out of statesmanship or a sense of public duty. One instinctively still does not see Brown as someone who is out to help the country. He does everything, as now, through the prism of trying to get one over the Tories and to win the next election.
This may not seem important at the moment but Brown’s disingenuousness will shine through in a general election campaign. Remember wht has been demonstrated consistently over the last year: whatever else the Tory weaknesses, Cameron is a superb politician. When push comes to shove, Cameron will make the right decisions to win an election. I think most Labour posters on here, including Roger, Jonathan and whoever else, realise this deep down and still spend their nights kicking themselves that Brown will never be the winner they want.
Lib-Lab pact next up?
Tory spending plan “economic madness” says Clegg
13:20 | 18/11/2008
Nick Clegg, Liberal Democrat Leader
The World At One, BBC Radio 4
Mr. Clegg criticised the Conservatives’ announcement that they would not match Labour’s spending plans for 2010/11, saying it was “economic madness.”
He said: “This is the surest way to push this recession into a slump. It’s exactly what the Conservatives did in the 1980s. This is the very last thing you should do.”
Mr. Clegg continued: “Of course you have to borrow money for long term investment so that Britain comes out as a fairer and more sustainable economy.”
13:40 BBC News
Speaking shortly afterwards Mr Clegg added, “To say now…that we should take lots of money out of the economy would be a way of sending us from recession into full blown slump.”
He said that David Cameron’s announcement was an indication that the Tory leader had “nothing to say to help people now”.
He added, “We think the way in which Gordon Brown and his ministers spend our money is not the right way to spend it in a recession.
“It seems to be it’s much better to spend it on fairer taxes, on the elderly.”
287 I do agree there may be a case for 2009, but I am afraid I think this recession / slump is qualitatively different from anything that any of us bar the very oldest have seen before. If electoral politics carry on as normal (which they didn’t in the 30s of course), I think it is quite possible that people will take a hard nosed view that Gordon might be the better alternative. I find it difficult to believe that we will be even at the very beginning of recovery in mid 2010.
BTW, Mike, what are the odds on a Govt of National Unity being the next administration??
306 - But that ignores anyone on commission, anyone who gets a bonus, anyone who does overtime and anyone who is self-employed - nearly all of whom will see their income drop, without necessarily becoming unemployed.
301 Looking it another way.
Cameron has inexplicably positioned the Tories against Tax cuts AND public spending. Brave! In the meantime Osborne has associated himself with currency movements. Bold! They have changed their position from supporting the govt, to opposing it seemingly for the sake of having anything to say and appeasing the right. Decisive!
One possible analysis of the Tories is that they have been quite poor and deserve to lose their mammoth lead.
311 - Oh, and anyone relying on savings or investments to boost their earnings, and especially anyone retiring with a pension pot in the next year.
308
Read the future see Peter-the-punter’s post 196
Put yer money on it!
308 I think that’s a very good prediction Anatole.
303. OK - fair enough in truth I didn’t realise there were such figures available. Let’s hope we are not entering a deflationary landscape though, very worrying.
308 - I’m not sure ANY politician is widely perceived as being a high-minded servant of the people, nor are they ever likely to be, nor is it an especially desirable quality in itself.
Democratic politics is a tough game for people who want to win more than to take the high road. There is nothing wrong with that, and it tends to keep politicians thinking about what people want.
311. ok, to qualify, if you think your job is safe and your income relatively stable/you aren’t relying on discretionary extra income.
An interesting result for Labour but I doubt whether there will be much change from this point onwards. As others have pointed out, the political reaction to various unforeseen events will help to determine the picture now. The European elections in June could be challenging for the Cons unless they regain discipline. Whether Labour will swing back to a winning position is mainly a function of what happens in the economy and considering financial crises of this level only take place every half-century or so it is very difficult to know when the upturn will take place.
If there is a significant rise in asset prices before the next election then Labour will surely win - but will there be?
The one thing we can be sure about is that it will be testing for Dave and by the time the election comes round he’ll be looking as knackered as Gordon.
Is it just me or is 2009 now favourite? I can’t believe I am writing this after my protestations on here over the past weeks and months.
I can’t see any advantage in waiting, given that, as Richard points out above, the govt has a PBR, budget and Obama to come up before May.
Coldstone “Before any Tory Poster says ‘Oh! BBC what do you expect’: only if you criticised last months which gave the Tories a very healthy lead”
You forget BBC policy on polls. If Tory lead = “We don’t report polls” if Labour lead = “Tories in meltdown as Prime Ministers popularity surges…”
315
Gosh Tory poster supports another Tory poster, what a shock!
May I suggest, ‘Head before Heart’
PoliticsHome
As the political argument rages on whether it is better to cut back on government spending to get the economy back on track, or to increase borrowing in order to maintain high levels of public spending, PoliticsHome can reveal that support for one of the most expensive public institutions - the NHS - has been increasing throughout the economic crisis, and is currently at its highest recorded level.
Every working day, the PHI5000 - a politically balanced panel of 5000 voters across the UK - are asked whether they have a positive or a negative impression of a range of British institutions. The percentage with a negative impression is then subtracted from the percentage with a positive impression to calculate a net approval rating.
At the beginning of September, when the seriousness of the economic problems facing the UK began to be understood, the approval rating of the NHS was 9. As they economy has worsened, NHS approval has steadily increased. It now stands at 23: its highest level since the tracker began in April.
The NHS has now overtaken ‘broadsheet newspapers’ to become the institution with the highest public approval rating. It is also higher than the BBC, the legal system, Parliament, and the Bank of England.
Hmmm so how many hospitals will you close Mr Cameron?
hopisen at 273 sums it up well, but a few quick responses:
- The perception is that Brown has a plan (briefly, as Nemty keeps asking: save the banks, cut interest rates, coordinate with other countries to take the edge off with tax cuts, improve international monitoring so it doesn’t happen again) and Cameron doesn’t. For the purposes of this forum, discussing trends, it’s not relevant to argue whether we agree with the perception - it’s out there, and if people feel the key issue is the economy, that’s what counts. That’s why bad economic news isn’t benefiting the opposition.
- Note that Brown’s *overall* personal rating (not just for economics) is now at 41%, only just behind Cameron and ahead of Labour’s 37%.
- One can over-interpret poll differences, but a possible explanation of recent results is that a strong underlying shift to Labour over economics was briefly interrupted by the comments on last week’s PMQ exchanges - ComRes was taken on the Thursday and Friday - but that they’ve not had a lasting impact.
- While I don’t favour an election this year and think the public would be irritated to have one, Glenrothes persuaded me that the fact that it’s dark early isn’t really decisive - people will vote if they want to (it was getting dark at 4.30).
- I should be delighted to vote for AV. I think it’s somewhat fairer, since it enables backers of small parties to register their support before deciding the outcome, and it benefits MPs seen as moderate and sensible, which is at least arguably a good thing in itself
316 - Won’t be deflation as those figures come following a period of falls in oil prices in particular which will not continue at the same rate, and after a large drop in interest rates and devaluation which will put upward pressure on import prices. We are entering a period of lower inflation but the monthly fall is probably a one-off for those reasons.
320 Bobajob - To clarify, I wasn’t necessarily saying 2009 should be the favourite, but the probability is certainly looking higher now than it was a few weeks ago. I expect Brown is preparing for a possible Spring election, depending on how the polls look around Feb/March.
Pointless trivia corner: last time there was an election in December was 1923. Labour were the largest party, although they were 98 seats short of a majority.
314 Coldstone - In fact was the author of post 196, not PtP.
I’m sorry to inform you, therefore, that you have incurred the usual £1 penalty for this error, which will go towards funding the next PB.com knees-up.
318 We all know people who are losing their jobs, so even though, objectively speaking, most peoples’ jobs are safe, many people won’t think they’re safe.
319 I think the best we can hope for is that asset prices will have stopped falling by 2010.
Not really surprised at this poll and not really surprised at some of the usual suspects who argue that Labour cannot be that close.
I posted last week saying that the majority of the posters on this website, overestimates the intelligence and political awareness of the average voter.. and this latest poll just confirms that lack of intelligence and poltical awareness imo.
The average voter is the person who will decide the next election. Labour have realised a long time ago that when it comes to economics, the average voter’s intelligence is pretty limited and he/she will gauge things by how they personally are being affected at this particular moment in time.
They see falling petrol prices, a lot of them see their mortgages being reduced. They see the news that tells them inflation is falling. They see tax cuts promised in the immediate future. They don’t worry too much about the value of the pound, because they don’t see it as affecting them, until they go abroad on holiday, which is a long way off for most.
They have seen dire warnings of the biggest financial crisis rammed down their throats by newspapers for the past two months and were prepared for the worst. The reality of now is that they actually feel better off and they are mightily relieved. And who do they credit for this relief? Well Mr Brown is taking action and they are feeling a lot better off than they feared they would be.. so Labout gets the credit.
I know and I am sure every other poster on this forum knows that it won’t last and that there will be some pretty nasty medicine for them to take later. But the average voter relates to the here and now of the situation.
This might sound an over simplistic explanation as to why Labour are doing far better in the polls than they deserve to, but fwiw, I think it is the right explanation and we can all get too clever for our own good at times looking for more complicated explanations.
The Conservative message is not getting across to these people because it is too complicated for the avergae voter to understand.
And as for a 2010 election, you can forget it. Why would Brown bother to give unfunded tax cuts that the country can ill afford if he is going to wait until 2010? Far better to wait another year and give them then, if the Labour strategy is to try and go the distance.
326. Yes, agreed, I can’t quite believe it but I guess that’s the assumption now. The Tories are now in position of having to stave off a spring snap poll – and I guess that means some of their policies will be flushed out a la IHT last time.
310. But Clegg wants to cut £20billion off public spending as well. The guy really is an idiot, no wonder he’s so far off in the polls.
Bobajob-Maybe Brown will wait to see how his Party will fare in the June elections before he goes to the country. But I wonder if Mandelson and Campbell will want to wait.
324 - “after a large drop…” Sorry, meant BEFORE the interest rate and bulk of the devaluation came into play.
333 is to 321
Since today is predictions day, let me have a go:
1) Gordon Brown is an unempathetic, dull, dull, dull, duplicitous, self-deluding politician. The public despise him and some of them laugh at him. However, he also understands the rubrics of economics exceptionally well. In foul economic weather, there is a section of the public that regard him as a Giffen Good.
2) David Cameron is a charming (not necessarily in a positive sense), thoughtful, empathetic, human politician. However, he is transparently not particularly comfortable talking about economic issues. He has secured himself a good base of supporters, but that base appears to be slowing drifting downwards at present.
3) Nick Clegg. Who? Maybe we’ll see him before the next election sometime.
If things don’t change, the Lib Dems (and other minor parties) are going to be gripped in a vice between those who will do anything to get Labour out and those who don’t trust anyone but Labour to run the country in a recession. As with the Roundheads (right but repulsive) and the Cavaliers (wrong but wromantic), the country will be riven (or should that be wriven?).
Ultimately, however, I expect the Tories to pull through. I now wouldn’t be at all surprised to see something quite close to the 1979 result.
311. 60% of employees get no overtime, no shift, no incentive pay. For the remaining 40% overtime etc are roughly 9% of pay in 2003. Self-employed are 13% in 2006. Public service employees will be relatively secure.
330, you’re blind.
The polls are divergent. Two show healthy Tory leads, three show modest Tory leads.
You can’t just pick the poll you like most and pretend it’s a cast iron political forecast for the next 6 months.
Until the polls converge, we can’t say what the result will be with much certainty (based on the polls).
332. Yes the Lib Dems are remarkably incoherent at present, even by their own standards.
312 Jonathan . good try. Conservatives have said they are against short term tax cuts but for longer term ones delivered through sound economic management. Its an argument they need to sustain but now Brown has ceded the mantle of prudence and responsibility in favour of short termism and debt it is potentially a winning one.
309 That’s why Clegg is at 12%. Scattergun attack but comes across as supportive of Labour - why vote for Lib Dems and not the party actually doing what Clegg apparently supports?
See that Clegg expects the recession to be going strong in 2010/2011 as he’s worried about public spending growth being controlled then.
323 When has Cameron ever mentioned closing hospitals - is there news that I’ve missed?
The only hospitals that I do know of, that definitely have been closed are as a result of the current Labour governments cuts and meddling.
330-Great post Penny
No need to panic. It is one poll and it does not make all the others suddenly wrong. Once again I have said consistently that DC/GO strategy is exactly right and the doubters will come to regret some of the rsh nonsense we’re now hearing.
329. i agree with that. so far headline redundancies have been limited to very specific industries, which may be restricting the psychological impact.
328
196
153 stjohn - I think I may have mentioned before that post the US elections, an NOM outcome at the next GE is easily my biggest position. It just seems eminently likely - for the Tories to win an overall majority, even on the new boundaries, they would have to gain circa 115 seats net. For Labour to do likewise, after 3 terms in office, they would have to lose fewer than 22 seats net. Very big asks in both cases. Just 3 months ago, I was getting odds on Betfair of up to 3.9-1 against an NOM outcome, compared with their 2.1-1 currently available .
by Peter from Putney November 18th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Sorry Peter from Putney
338. And you Sir, are blinkered, if you cannot see the trend before your very eyes. Yes, there will be ups and downs, but the momentum is with Labour and surely nobody, even on this website, can deny that.
338. And you Sir, are blinkered, if you cannot see the trend before your very eyes. Yes, there will be ups and downs, but the momentum is with Labour and surely nobody, even on this website, can deny that.
OI
everyone - when was the article on when labour would regain the poll lead?
Apologies for the double post.
340 I’ll think you’ll find that most people would rather have a real tax cut today than some vague “long-term” one sometime in a possible future. Cameron at best has a really vague nuanced position to defend.
346, ICM and ComRes have recorded the opposite.
The momentum may be with Labour. Or the Tories. You’ve cherrypicked the poll that agrees with you most.
We can’t reach any firm conclusion based on the last 5 polls because they vary hugely.
re 284 to be fair there were falls in the indices this month compared to last, so what you bought today would cost you less than it would have done a month ago, but still a considerable amount more than last year.
“You can’t just pick the poll you like most and pretend it’s a cast iron political forecast for the next 6 months.”
Morris – Penny is a Tory poster…
BTW, the Liberals are in a shocking state. Their shift from statist to classical liberal and back again in the space of four months is baleful even by their baleful standards.
327. No they weren’t, in either seats or votes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_1923
353, really? Whoops. My point about cherrypicking a single poll stands though.
The shift doesn’t matter. What does is being led by a plank.
However, the Lib Dems will surely receive a moderate boost, at the expense of Labour, during the electoral campaign.
Nick Palmer
“The perception is that Brown has a plan (briefly, as Nemty keeps asking: save the banks, cut interest rates, coordinate with other countries to take the edge off with tax cuts, improve international monitoring so it doesn’t happen again) and Cameron doesn’t. For the purposes of this forum, discussing trends, it’s not relevant to argue whether we agree with the perception - it’s out there, and if people feel the key issue is the economy, that’s what counts. That’s why bad economic news isn’t benefiting the opposition.”
How does this explain the fact that the Tories have led in every poll since the summer of 2007, including this one?
I want an election as soon as possible, and think this poll is nonsense. Do you think we might now get an early election Nick? Because Tory activists are desperate for one.
Ah yes, but how can the conservatives top this one by Mandy?
From “The First Post”
Mandy wants a shot at Strictly Come Dancing
The harsh criticisms dished out to Strictly Come Dancing contestant John Sergeant – the former political correspondent has been labelled “a dancing pig” and condemned by many of the judges as a useless performer – does not appear to have put Lord (Peter) Mandelson off the show.
In fact, the Business Minister revealed yesterday on BBC Breakfast, in between discussing the Government’s efforts to rebuild the economy, that he would like to appear on the programme.
“I was cheering for John Sergeant on Saturday with, I have to say, a degree of envy,” he revealed. When asked if there was a possibility of his appearing on the show, he replied: “It would be nice to be asked.” However, he declined the offer to demonstrate his cha-cha-cha there and then, saying: “Not this morning, because it’s too serious, but another day invite me back and I will show you what I can do.”
355 Cameron is many things, but plank is a bit harsh.
re 315 PfP that’s another quid in the swear box.
133 stjohn - Good spot by you on SPOTY!
I think you’re right, it will improve Hoy’s chances butI read recently that Adlington is actively campaigning to win this trophy, plus - and I am whispering this - she’s English.
Personally, I think it’s a shoo-in for Lewis Hamilton.
358, ah, been attending the Derek Draper school of comedy and charm I see.
Remind me which party leader played politics with British forces, and then beat his own “Most Contemptible Worm” record by doing the same with the death of a 17 month old boy?
re 323 coldstone you might not have noticed but the Tories aren’t in government. Therefore, they cannot close any hospitals. However, before the next election - because of Labour’s policies on choice - then they will certainly have closed hospitals. Rum policy, what? You say you’re increasing people’s choice when the sole effect of that policy will be hospital closures.
355 I made a similar post last week, before the recnt polls giving Labour cutting the gap. I was told then that I understimated the average voter.
I will reserve my right to repeat the very same point if the polls DO eventually converge and show Labour doing far better than they have any right to.
361 Leave Dave alone. I know you’re hurting today, but show him a bit of loyalty.
363 - It’s a fair point. You were adamant that a 2009 election was good value, maybe even deserving to be odds on, and plenty of very well-respected punters disagreed.
We’re not there yet, but it must be seriously on the cards now.
357. Yet again Labour steals Lib Dem ideas!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7121335.stm
Have they no shame!?!
Well this poll is really interesting, and if followed by others like it, we might see a GE sooner rather than later.
But, I also think that its really good for the Conservatives, and really really bad for the Libdems. There is now a solid group of people who want Labour out of power, and the luxury option of tactically voting for the Libdems is disappearing fast.
First, they lost the Conservative leaning voters, and now they are losing the Labour leaning voters as both drift back to the main parties.
I think that any complacency in the idea that they will recover during a GE is misplaced. That will only happen *if* one of the main parties mucks up badly, or people are relaxed about one particular party forming the government.
Its good for the Tories because they have suffered the most over the last 11 years from tactically voting by both Labour and Libdem supporters propping each other up. It could also really hurt the SNP in Scotland.
The wave of cross party support they gathered last year will be effected if this is a tight GE. And, I suspect that they will hold onto their tactical Tory/Libdem voters in seats where they are challenging Labour, but it won’t be nearly enough without those Labour voters who wanted to give their own party a kick up the backside last year.
If the race remains close in the polls, expect turnout to be up considerably. And that is where it gets really interesting.
361.
Speaking of Derek Draper the article posted at 357 continues
So is he any good? His friend and former advisor Derek Draper thinks so. “I saw Peter take the floor at the 1994 Young Labour disco,” he recalled to the Times. “He set the dancefloor alight. It really was extraordinary.”
A masterstroke by Gord in bringing back Mandy.
Who can the conservatives wheel back in????
365. In all fairness yes, Penny was saying that – and I may well have been one of those guilty of criticising her for it, certainly I have done so to others. My conviction that it will be 2010 is now looking about a sound as my McCain bet in the US election.
367. “and really really bad for the Libdems.”
Correct. Did I mention that I think there’s a 1980s-style third party freeze on?
The logic of the Labour position seems to point to an election in mid-2009. As I noted the other day, the Labour tax bonanza is highly inflexible in that there would be little left in the locker to subsequently fight another major banking crisis or to prop up failing companies. A German MP made the point last night on R4 that Merkel expects to spend 30 to 50 billion euros, but only a minor part has been allocated at present. So the German Government will be able to respond to events as the recession unfolds.
So Labour needs to go to the country quickly. Nevertheless, an election in mid-2009 would be against a background of 2.5 million unemployed and a policy of future tax increases. A tough sell.
If they leave it to mid-2010, the tax bonanza is likely to have been seen to be ineffective, unemployment could be 3 million, and the IMF might be knocking at the door. An even harder sell.
363.I made that point, and I still stand by it. The average voter is not as stupid as some assume, and the level of tactial voting in Westminster and Holyrood elections over recent years would indicate that they can be very savvy about where their vote is of most usefully placed. And that can really make it a bit more difficult for those punters out there.
362
It was a question designed to ask what Mr Cameron would do when ‘in’ government.
What the argument is going to boil down too, is the 1981 question.
The Tory Right believe it was Howe’s ‘81 budget that rescued the economy, (I think North Sea oil and gas revenues had quite a lot to do with it) would the Tories be prepared to go down that road again.
In ‘79 the Tory Party manifesto did not mention, increasing taxes, doubling VAT and putting 2% on interest rates, in fact it denied it.
I remember well the Mail headline during the campaign, ‘We nail that Labour lie, the Tories will not double VAT’
If Tories believe that a repeat of ‘81 is necessary, fine! just tell the voters first.
Thanks Nick - 10 days asking and yours is the first repsonse.
save the banks (Everyone agreed)
cut interest rates (Responsibility of BoE & Everyone agreed) coordinate with other countries to take the edge off with tax cuts, improve international monitoring so it doesn’t happen again (Everyone agrees this needs doing)
I just can;t understand that the tories have nothing to say when labour do - I think both parties are following the correct course which is respond to events. How labour can claim tories have nothing to say - all actions are actions for a government not an opposition.
318. James - indeed, the public are cynical. But they prefer to turn a blind eye and it is the responsibility of most politicians to allow the public that comfort. Brown, though, crosses the line into clumsy, overt politicking and partisanship in a way which, let’s be honest, Cameron doesn’t. No-one exposed to Brown for more than five minutes is left with any other impression. This will undoubtedly be Brown’s downfall, in a GE campaign if not before.
370. Is this the 1980s when the Lib Dems came away with 22% and 25% of the national vote at GEs? If so then yes please.
368 Following in footsteps of the great John Sergeant the obvious choice from the Tories is Ken Clarke, who would wipe Vince & Mandy off the floor.
376.”370. Is this the 1980s when the Lib Dems came away with 22% and 25% of the national vote at GEs? If so then yes please.”
I think that any complacency in the idea that they will recover during a GE is misplaced. That will only happen *if* one of the main parties mucks up badly, or people are relaxed about one particular party forming the government.
I think that choosing the 80’s is like using the early years of this Labour government when it comes to the Libdems performance.
So, the LibDem’s are lining up with Labour to kick the Tories. No surprise there. Clegg is Menthol Lite to Brown’s Capstan Full Strength. Neither of them are good for your health, though…
378, I do think the Lib Dems will see their poll ratings enhanced by the electoral campaign, but not to higher levels than Kennedy achieved last time.
Er hang on. Is Brown really going to splurge JUST to win an election and then be left with a huge bill to pick up afterwards?
Are people seriously saying he is that short termist and vain? That he simply wants the prize of winning an election as PM and hang the cost (both monetary for the country and politically for the Labour party)?
367
The Lib/Dems seem to have no place in UK politics. If their left leaning vote can slide so easily to Labour and their policies have more in common with the socialists, then why bother.
Six months ago many people were contemplating the end of the Labour Party. Now it looks like Cleggy has created the world’s first oven-ready political party, trussed and stuffed; prepared for a good roasting.
381 Jim M - Yes, I think that is a fair summary. I haven’t seen anything by any Labour supporter to dispute that.
375.That is a good point, because watching the new Downing Street press machine swing into action, you see a team trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. There is only one problem, that purse cannot be let out on its own without a script.
But Thatcher, Major, Blair and Cameron can, and that is why they had the skills required of a PM.
373 Scrap ID cards and the associated Stasi database? There’s a few billion slashed.
207 - Brown’s an appalling disaster but the other lot could be worse? What do you have to do or say to be worse than an appalling disaster? We’ve all seen Cameron and Brown. Only Brown would seem to belong in a restraining jacket.
There are any number of people whose jobs depend on being employed by the state, who don’t know what the IMF or PFI means, who will go to their graves convinced that Tories are fiends from hell [when, obviously, they're not], who are happy to vote Labour in expectation of a Labour bribe, who believe Sky News and the BBC when there are more reports of Brown being acclaimed World Saviour. Some of these people also belong in restraining jackets.
There’s no election date set. But a 41-37 Tory Labour spread means a Labour victory in seats. Do we want seventeen or eighteen years of New Labour, including as many as seven years of Brown? I can hardly believe even the possibility is being discussed on this site.
PS - Why are the odds in the box to my right so favourable to the Tories? Most people I know want Brown out, asap. Who the pollsters get their results from?
381
‘History is written by the winners’.
I believe Brown is an iconoclast and would accept the victory on those terms. Besides which, look at the damage the 92 Conservative victory did to the Labour Party and think what a 09 Labour victory would do to the Conservatives.
378. I agree, but I don’t think there is ever a large level of complacency in the Lib Dems, at least not in levels of effort. In just about every constituency there is a strong residual memory of those seats being traditionally won by one of the big two and we know we’re always up against a disadvantage in terms of media coverage.
Our lack of complacency in activists and sitting MPs is our greatest strength and the source behind our better ground game and improved incumbency ratings.
But my point was mainly that lots of people did vote for us in the 80s.
383 Richard Nabavi - But surely even if he is there are other cooler heads to pour cold water on such a strategy?
It would be completely barking if they all thought that way just for the pleasure of winning an election. They’d be decimated (times God knows how much) at the next one when they have to pay the piper.
Or is Group Think in operation in Labour now?
Darling’s futile fiscal stimulus
Created: 18 November 2008 Written by: Chris Dillow
How big will the tax cuts be in next Monday’s mini-budget? I can answer this with some certainty. Unless I’m surprised, there’ll be none at all. Not a penny. Not a bean. And if anyone says otherwise, they lie.
What there’ll be lots of are tax deferrals. Not tax cuts. Such is the state of the public finances that any tax “cuts” will be merely temporary. They’ll lead to tax rises later. Brown knows this. Cameron knows this. And even business secretary Lord Mandelson cannot slime his way out of it; he’s said that next week’s tax cuts will require a “medium-term adjustment” in the public finances.
Everyone, then, knows that taxes will rise later to pay for ‘cuts’ now. Which raises the following problem: if everyone knows that next week’s tax “cuts” will only lead to higher taxes later, mightn’t they just save more in anticipation of these higher bills? If so, the fiscal package won’t stimulate the economy at all.
This is not the only reason to expect tax cuts to be saved. People facing the prospect of unemployment will be keen to reduce their debt or increase savings. And most of us are creatures of habit, so our default position is, initially, to save any increase in our incomes.
What sort of fiscal package could get round this problem, and make people spend more?
Give money to the poor?
Some have suggested that that the tax cuts be targeted at the low-paid or unemployed who are more likely to spend. This is a quaint Keynesian fiction. The poor have debts too. Indeed, if you owe money to mad Billy the psychopathic loan shark, you’ll be more desperate to pay off your debt than if you only owe to Barclaycard. Your kneecaps could depend on it. The case for tax cuts for the poor rests upon fairness, not macroeconomics.
Another possibility is to target the tax cuts at spending, for example by cutting VAT. The trouble here, though, is that VAT-rated goods have a high import content, so even if demand does rise the benefit will leak overseas.
Alternatively, the government might simply raise its own spending. But this would only highlight the fact that taxes will have to rise later.
There is, though, one way in which the government could announce permanent cuts - if it surprises us by pledging to pay for these by cuts in government spending in the future.
But even this mightn’t stimulate the aggregate economy. The obvious danger is that no-one will believe them. But even if they do, higher spending by workers in the private sector might be offset by higher saving by public sector workers fearful of getting the boot.
So, there’s no hiding from the fact that any form of fiscal package could be offset by higher savings and so have little effect in boosting demand.
You might object that no-one knows who will bear the cost of the future fiscal tightening; will it be public sector workers who lose their jobs, or the rich who pay higher taxes, or just everyone?
Counter-productive?
But this is no argument at all. Uncertainty is usually a recipe for higher savings. Indeed, it’s possible that Darling’s fiscal package will actually weaken the economy, if it causes a more than one-for-one rise in private savings as everyone fears that they will bear a disproportionate burden of the future fiscal tightening. This isn’t impossible. One study (pdf) of fiscal policy loosenings around the world has found that the probability that they actually improve economic growth is only slightly better than 50-50. And most of those loosenings occurred with less hullabaloo about future tax rises than we’re getting now.
Which raises the question: why bother? One possibility is that people are so short-sighted that they discount heavily the obvious future costs of increased borrowing. If so, they will spend their tax deferrals.
Another possibility is that the government has a free shot here. Let’s say the economy heads into a deep recession. Would this be evidence that the package was counter-productive and contractionary? Maybe. But equally, Darling could say that it merely proves how much the package was needed, and that things would have been even worse without it.
Alternatively, if the recession proves shallower or shorter than expected, Darling could claim that this vindicates the success of the package when it’s just as possible that it merely means we’ve been too pessimistic about the economy.
We’ll never be able to tell assess these competing claims for sure. We’ll not see two paths for the economy, one with the package and one without.
And this means the government’s private cost-benefit calculus requires that it does something. Whatever happens to the economy, it’ll be able to defend the case for a package. But if it does nothing, it’ll be accused of standing by as Britain falls into recession, and will miss the chance of being able to claim credit for the upswing.
Darling’s package might not do the economy much good. But it’ll do his party good. And that’s what matters.
http://www.investorschronicle.co.uk/Columnists/ChrisDillow/article/20081118/249d3430-b568-11dd-9511-00144f2af8e8/Darlings-futile-fiscal-stimulus.jsp
381.”Are people seriously saying he is that short termist and vain? That he simply wants the prize of winning an election as PM and hang the cost (both monetary for the country and politically for the Labour party)?”
Yes, and if you have any doubts, just look back on his economic stewardship of the UK with a political timetable next to it.
We are partly in this borrowing mess because Labour had a GE to win in 2005, and Brown had a premiership to wrestle from Blair’s grasp.
Brown’s last act as a Chancellor was a bit of political theatre to try and wrong foot Cameron at his last budget, it was the 2p cut in income tax that became known as the 10p tax con. Yep, he screwed the lower paid to try and bribe those middle income voters he was after.
368, Iain Duncan Smith? David Mellor? John Gummer?
Brown splurge is to win an election?
Well if the Tories want to push that point, they’ll be left arguing against the Obama admins fiscal stimulus.
What you’ve got here is not difficult to understand, a worldwide Keynesian stimulus, which Cameron has today come out against.
If Cameron is right and the rest of the world is wrong,then he deserves to win the election.
387. You make a very good point. I listened to Peter Hitchens give a talk a few weeks ago and as much as he loathes the Labour government, he also really dislikes Cameron,Osborne and their clique.
He is actually hoping for a Labour victory because the result would be the disintegration of the Conservative party in its present form, making room on the political landscape for what he regards as a more traditional right of centre party.
392 - Surely Teresa May?
395 Just not Maggie Thatcher, that lady’s not for turning.
389.”It would be completely barking if they all thought that way just for the pleasure of winning an election. They’d be decimated (times God knows how much) at the next one when they have to pay the piper.”
But is Brown planning on being around then? He desperately wants to do a Major without the same exit after a GE, and the over riding concern of Gordon Brown, is Gordon Brown’s career.
If Labour are tanking and heading for a big defeat at then next GE, he won’t be there to lead the troops. This man will only be around if there is a real possibility *he* might win. Labour, forget it, and that has been their biggest mistake in letting this man become leader without a contest.
387 Even worse, imagine the damage to the UK? Look at the dreadful state of Scotland after decades of Labour rule for the answer.
389 Jim M - Well, there are some suggestions in the media that the Treasury, and perhaps Alastair Darling, are trying to exercise some restraint. As for the longer-term electoral future, I don’t think any politician looks to the next-election-but-one; there are just too many unknowns to worry about that.
The alternative view is that Brown really does believe he’s an economic genius who eliminated Boom and Bust and can do no wrong.
368 A masterstroke by Gord in bringing back Mandy.
Who can the conservatives wheel back in????
Jeffrey Archer perhaps?
The Tories winning the 92 election did more damage to them than it did to Labour. An 09 election win for Labour may stuff them for 20 years as well. The Tories have to win the next election.
393
But the Brown plan is not Keynesian because Keynes did not advocate borrowing and spending in the good times then borrowing and spending even more in the bad.
Perhaps this is NeoKeynesian - a freeform economic policy with none of those nasty disciplines.
Hmm
Labour turns it back on authoritarianism (but only economically)
400. good call, Archer for Mayor lol
397
Brown will not be around because he has already said he will fight only one GE.
Unless he’s lying?
402.”Keynes did not advocate borrowing and spending in the good times then borrowing and spending even more in the bad.”
That really should be given a different name, something with Brown in it?
I think we must all be more than a bit careful before writing off the Lib Dems next time. I think what benbobjim, sorry Bobajob, means by ’80s squeeze’ btw, is the 1979 result, where the electorate hammered the then Liberals, mainly for participating in the Lib lab pact, and widely seen as propping up an unpopular Labour Govt. As Corporeal says, the 2 GEs in the 80s, the Alliance did well in vote share - it could be argued they actually squeezed the other 2 parties. However, the negotiations on seats, and the theoretical rather than campaigning approach of the SDP (plus the David Owen factor in 1987) held the Alliance back in terms of seats gained. You may, of course, argue that the South Atlantic had something to do with the 1983 result!
2010, according to some Tories here will be as bad for the Lib Dems as 1955 was for the Liberals. I remember 1955 (vaguely) and the party had a totally shot infrastructure. Not now.
404.Exactly, that was the main point I was making.
401. Which is why a hung parliament is probably something good for Labour too. Neither a clear win or a loss, with the possibility of a realignment, and/or electoral reform, which will change the playing field forever.
402.
Whatever you wish to call it (can I suggest Krugmanism) the Tories are being very brave to oppose the worldwide direction.
Their position is “I wouldn’t start from here, not that I plan to do anything anyway”
Darling may be being leant on to ensure the tax cuts have the wow factor. But what happens when more bail outs are needed. We are heading for bankruptcy as a nation i fear.
393, absolutely. If we and the Americans pursue a similar stimulus strategy then Cameron’s decision to go off in the opposite direction will look ‘courageous’ in the words of Sir Humphrey…
People need to get things in proportion. The idea that ‘the nation’s credit card is maxed out’ is patently absurd. Removing Northern Rock from the equation, our debt to GDP ratio is slightly worse than the OECD average but better than France, Italy, Japan, etc. It is much better than when Labour came to power, and to compare like with like over the economic cycle, only marginally worse than when we went in to the last recession.
An analysis in the Guardian on why the UK is in a better position to deal with problems than most
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/nov/18/recession-economy-uk-analysis
400.
I was thinking more along the lines of Michael Portillo, who still has supporters.
400 - They brought back in convicted criminal Jonathan Aitken for IDS’s prison reform task force.
How long will Darling’s free handout feel-good factor last?
Six days, six weeks, six months?
How long will the recession last?
One year, three years, six years?
For me, it all points to a H1 2009 election.
413 - Who are these supporters and shouldn’t matron be calling them in now as it is getting dark?
tim, the opposition for the stimulis is that we have a very poor government defecit, we are not the USA and we do not have the capabilities of raising debt like they have without dire consequences on sterling and other aspects.
More importantly, Browns reckless spending is strangling future tax cuts, infact it probably means a net raise intax and cut in spending to bring back a budget surplus.
I do not believe that Brown will win an election, the question is posed, another 5 years of labour? They have no dream, no abition and absolutely no plan for the future of Britain but moving from crisis control to crisis control.
393 tim.
You know what I mean. This is going to have to be paid for later down the line in higher taxes or cuts in public spending. There’s no getting away from that.
For the short term gain of winning an election and then to face that doesn’t auger well.
393 Bush’s tax giveaways have had a negligible effect, partly because of timing and Paulson’s huge error in letting Lehmans go broke, mostly because they were not targeted on poor but across everyone but they didn’t work.
Obama hasn’t announced what he will do, rumours yes, plans no. The stimulus package under dioscussion is small in GDP terms so likely to be ineffective. The bigger package is funded tax cuts for the middle classes, funded through higher taxes on the better off - funded not borrowed. If he is being advised by Volker expect a sound money based policy.
UK has cut interest rates and let the pound drop 25% so putting in quite a stimulus already to recovery. Loading up additional debt could risk the benefits of those if the gilt market takes fright. Gordon might believe debt is at 37% but the market doesn’t and it sees huge guaranteed banking borrowing demand from the UK plus a growing Government demand. Premium on risk is growing.
410 But what happens when more bail outs are needed. We are heading for bankruptcy as a nation I fear.
Surely in reality this wouldn’t happen, as Brown would simply turn up the speed on the printing presses?
409 Here’s a behind the scenes look at the brains behind this week’s Tory economic policy. Enjoy…
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=k7vMvlRio5Y
I wonder why they’re not doing so well.
Of course it will have to be paid for later.
The huge gamble that all world governments are taking is that the fiscal stimuli will stave of a depression, and that the debt can be paid when the economy recovers.
On the other side of the argument are Cameron,Osborne and one or two congreesmen from Utah and Idaho.
Market alert!
Right what was the market for when Labour would next have an opinion poll lead - there was a article on pb about it - i reckon a rogue after the pre budget report may have lab at least 1 up. Wheres the market and where in the pb history is this bloody thread.
Please someone help!
417, we do not have a very poor government deficit. Repeating it will not make it true, however politically useful it might be for Cameron to claim it.
Looking at debt as a proportion of GDP, we are in a much better position than other large developed countries.
What are we too make of Labour MP’s qeueing up to get their photo taken with Brown?
Someone mentioned last night that they are taking on staff at Labour HQ too.
411 Why should we ape America? Why are we in any way comparable? They are a continental empire with a currency which is the worlds reserve, with boundless natural resources. They also didnt sell all their gold at the bottom of the market like Brown did.
The whole of this “global response” saying everyone should be adopting the same policies to this recession is patently ludicrous. Each country’s economy is structured totally differently.
Its pure barnpot thinking to say everyone should do the same.
Its just Brown’s spin to give his own doings a cloak of respectability.
This is a great country with great people but it has lost its way. much of the blame can be laid at the door of the Labour government sapping our hope and creating a don’t care dependency culture.
412
An analysis which excludes N Rock from UK borrowing - but makes no such similar adjustment for other countries - is hardly rigorous.
So it is worthless.
412 roger “An analysis in the Guardian on why the UK is in a better position to deal with problems than most”
Well, actually, that’s not what it says. It looks at various factors, and finishes by sitting on the fence:
Conclusion
We will not really know how resilient Britain is compared with other countries until we have come out the other side of the global downturn. In Britain interest rates are being slashed, the government is set to cut taxes and the falling pound should help exporters. Against that are high personal debt levels, while house prices still have a long way to fall. These could keep the economy in the doldrums for a long time, irrespective of how much policy stimulus is thrown at it.
I know Labour supporters are desperate to promote Brown’s spin, but direct misrepresentation of an article we can all read for ourselves is hardly going to impress anyone.
re 411 Removing Northern Rock from the equation, our debt to GDP ratio is slightly worse than the OECD average
isn’t that always the talk of someone trying to hide some inconvenient truth by pretending it doesn’t exist. Just like Brown pretends that all these shiny hospitals and schools have grown up magically like mushrooms, rather than the taxpayers will be paying for them well into the middle of the century.
On the wider question of why would Brown do all this to win an election if the downstream costs are so high? I point to his last 6 years of being Chancellor when he believed he could ignore growing debt and housing bubble, promise to keep increasing NHS budget and increase spending per pupil to Etonian levels, replace all school and hospital buildings, get 3 million houses built, deliver 20% of energy fro renewable sources. solve child poverty by 2010, solve energy poverty, solve poverty in Africa.
Nothing is impossible for the Global Saviour and Greatest Ever Chancellor. If the statistics look bad, change them, if the forecasts are bad, change them.
422 we can’t afford a fiscal stimulii - that’s the problem. others can. Because of what Brown’s done, it will just dig us deeper into the hole.
424, Just because “relative” to other countries it’s not so bad, doesn’t make it good.
It is absolutely unacceptable given the huge growth we’ve had since 1992 onwards to be in such a hole right now. As I said earlier, why would Osbourne and Cameron have to suffer the same spending cutbacks because of Brown’s incompetence and borrowing?
The USA has already had a sizable stimulus and appeared to have little effect on GDP and did nothing to head off the credit crisis. (Afterall, just how a stimulus would make banks lend at a cheaper rate I’m not so sure!)
421. very good
424. You don’t understand the difference between debt and deficit, do you?
411. “Removing Northern Rock from the equation, our debt to GDP ratio is slightly worse than the OECD average but better than France, Italy, Japan, etc. It is much better than when Labour came to power, and to compare like with like over the economic cycle, only marginally worse than when we went in to the last recession.”
The great untold story of the credit crunch. This is true.
I think Cameron could burst the balloon by quoting different and opposing measures that countries around the world are taking which are appropriate to their situation.
I have to agree just because France or Germany do something - we dont normally follow their lead - we’re not in the Euro and they are. Should we now join it, because they are all lumped together?
can people even see my posts?
421 Here’s a cabinet meeting. I believe they’re discussing the economy -
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1143601/boardroom_pg_tips_chimps/
427 – it’s only worthless if you think that NR is a dead asset – in fact, it’s already paid off a lot oby ejecting its customers with prohibitive mortgage rates. I am one such customer!
good day - yes but we can’t remember either
437-LOL! I saw it. But I don’t know when that thread was posted.
The myth of record debt
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7733794.stm
437 No we can’t.
437 - Yes. Get on yer bike and look for it yourself. Hope this helps.
422 tim. But Tim, how does the perceived package that Gordon Brown plans (if he does) compare to those other Governments’?
Is it the same model?
well at least people can see me. I am sure there was a market with monster ods of labour getting ahead this year - like 12-1.
They could sneek a rogue in the aftermath of the pre budget report, but where is it!
442 - The anti-Obama unmasked.
439 - Yes the new NR business paln is almost as good as the last.
Drive away all your good credit risks by having prohibitive rates so you can pay down debt to owner, but leave owner with poorly balanced risk on remaining asset. Genius.
#411 The forecast for the year is £581bn net debt.
Add back in the cheques we’ve already written for NRK, Bradford and Bingley, the Bank Recap and it baloons to ~£740bn.
Which is pretty close to 50% of GDP and we are not technically in recession yet.
(The bond market will also be factoring in the potential £250bn of government backed loans to the banks).
A nice line for the Tories, suggested by Simon Carr in today’s Independent:
“tax cuts should be for life, not just for Christmas”
449. already used by Cameron yesterday….
these off balance sheet debts, public sector pension funds, nationalised banks, and the private finance initiative, are all massive additions to government borrowing and debt.
The markets can see this, no matter how much Brown wants to say it isnt so .
The true nightmare is hidden off balance sheet - just like the fidlding of figures and chicanery done by the banks, Brown has been playing exactly the same game with the nations finances - which now the tide is going out, the markets are now realising.
The debt is real - it does exist and has to be paid back.
Gordon Brown has led this country to disaster. We are boxed in, with nowhere to turn.
Thanks, Crash Gordon.
442 Now Jonathan’s doing the same as Roger. You can argue about whether the article is right, but its conclusion is:
So how do they compare overall? Arguably, Labour’s plight is worse because it is starting a recession from a higher net debt position than the start of the recession in the early 1990s. Borrowing also seems to be beginning to rise faster.
But things are not yet remotely as bad as they have been on many previous occasions. Claims the country is in a better debt position than it was in 1997 are true, but less relevant than the comparison with the start of the last recession in the early 90s, by which measure today’s debt is higher.
In other words, this particular article, far from expoloding the ‘myth of record debt’, says EXACTLY what the Conservatives have been saying - that Brown did not do enough to reduce debt during the good times.
449. Do keep up, boy.
Good day- Don’t ask me how I found it! And you own me one!
http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2007/08/05/competition-when-will-labour-lost-its-poll-lead/
449 Cameron’s line already.
Tory spending plan “economic madness” says Clegg
LOL! Clegg is without doubt an absolute political moron.
Lib Dems = Tax Cuts AND Spend… WFT?!?
Clegg has now ancored himself right behind Gordon, there is no point in the press even listening to what Clegg has to say anymore. Is it any wonder they are suffering in the polls.
I’d pencil in a stab proof vest for one of Clegg’s Xmas pressents if I were one of his relatives.
445 - Why a rogue? If people believe the spin that the government will look after them and it will all be ok in a few years then why not level pegging or a small lead.
454-There’s just one problem, when Labour will lose its poll lead. So no thread, at least I didn’t find one, about when will labour regain. Sorry…
ME @ 454 - thats not it!! It was when will labour regain the lead - from a time when they were in the 20’s.
thanks for trying anyway!
434, yes I do understand the difference between deficit and debt. And whichever you look at, the situation is nowhere near as bad as Cameron would have us believe.
429, I think the comparison without Northern Rock’s debts is the correct one. Northern Rock’s debts are backed by real assets that are still generating income, they may well not cost the taxpayer a single penny in the long term.
What we are talking about is whether our current level of national debt is affordable. I repeat, our debt to GDP ratio (which is surely the best indicator of how ‘affordable’ our debt is) is not much worse than when we went into the last recession, and that was after the Lawson boom. Of course the proceeds of the Lawson boom went into tax cuts, whereas the proceeds of a decade of steady growth have gone into those shiny schools and hospitals that Chris A talks about.
452 Calm down old boy. If you look back you’ll see that I just posted a link and its title in 442. Thought it might be useful to people.
But since you’re spinning today like the old 78 you really are, it was interesting to see how much debt/GDP rose 92-97.
452 - Typical labour - all about the headline - nothing about the detail
It occurs to me that this parliament must have had more twists and turns in it (in the sense of the media narrative, the direction of the polls and the presumed outcome of the next GE) than any since 1979-83, and probably a good deal longer than that.
90 editorial jobs to go at the Independent.
As losses mount across the media and jobs get culled, how long will they remain loyal to “saviour” Brown?
448 That doesn’t even include PFI, Network Rail and public sector pensions. Debt is far too high after eight years of plofigacy and extravagent waste. Britain cannot afford any more borrowing.
The answer now is to raise interest rates and stimulate foriegn investment which should lift the pound and poosibly tax reciepts. Athough that will have some negative consequences; falls in prices such as oil would be better passed on to the consumer.
A cut in public expedinture is needed; or at least a freeze. The government cannot continue to spend like there is no tomorrow; people need money in thier pockets to spend now; and the spiralling deficit must be addressed.
Although these policies seem somewhat brutal, a spending slurge funding by extra-borrowing will sink Britain’s economic competetiveness; as taxes rise exponentially. There is also no evidence that this sort of action has any real effect upon the economy.
456 Vote Liberal - Get Labour (twas ever thus). Imagine being one of Cleggy’s MPs today! When will they pack him off to the St Ming of Kennedy Chapel of Rest?
56. WFT! - of course I mean WTF unless someone can come up with something amusing for ‘WFT’.
Also, my view is that if Labour go in 2009 the country will get exactly what it deserves. All that the activists, councillors, PPC’s and MP’s could do is campaign as hard as possible, stand back and see what the people decide to do.
461, Sorry, Jonathan, I’d misunderstood you - I thought you were suggesting the Conservative were wrong. Anyway, yes, thanks, it was useful, as the excerpt I posted shows. Always useful to have Labour supporters provide anti-Brown ammunition.
Putting aside what the true level of national debt is, expected deficit, if it really is that bad etc.
It gives a good indication of how poor people understanding of economic matters/terms are in the wider world, when people on forum like these (supposedly people politically clued up and well read) make mistakes like confusing the year by year budget deficits with the total debt.
I find it hard to believe how jornos and members of the public have such a hard time understanding very easy facts/stats like national debt. It isn’t rocket science. Maybe they don’t want to understand.
One thing is for certain that the Tories continued claims about national debt and budget deficits seem to be having little traction with large numbers of public, who simply don’t understand what they mean or how they effect us.
460 - For questions such as whether Northern Rock’s debts should be taken into account, we have the Office of National Statistics. They ruled that it should. Messing around with statistics in this sort of way is the trait of the very worst Governments.
464- Like the Waffen SS defending the last few hundred yards around the Fuehrerbunker, they will remain faithful and fight to the last man.
456. 466. If you looked back you’d realise he actually criticised both the Labour and the Conservative plans. It’s just in the article I assume you’re referring to the BBC only use part of the quote.
456. 466. If you looked back you’d realise he actually criticised both the Labour and the Conservative plans. It’s just in the article I assume you’re referring to the BBC only use part of the quote.
468 You need to relax a bit. Thought it was a just good read and not really biased one way or another. Oh well.
BNP membership list leaked
http://bnpmemberslist.blogspot.com/
We ARE different from US: says DARLING
Darling stressed that the UK is well placed to weather the storm in the financial markets, pointing to today’s labour market data which showed employment in the three months to January rose to its highest level since September 2005.
He added that the loosening of the fiscal position in the coming financial year, which was forecast in the latest budget to add an extra 140 mln stg into the economy, would also be supportive in the coming year.
‘There is a loosening this year which I think will help the economy,’ he said.
However he signalled there is no need to mimic the US government’s massive fiscal stimulus package, which has accompanied numerous cuts in US interest rates.
‘The American economy’s demands our different from our own,’ he said, noting that the slight loosening in the 2008 budget and a moderate tightening two years later are ‘right for our economy.’
http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/19032008/323/uk-s-darling-stands-budget-gdp-forecast-despite-renewed-market.html
Just out of interest, does anybody have knowledge and/or links to why the ONS rules that PFI, Network Rail etc etc don’t need to be included but NR does. I have been given a thorough description of why public pension aren’t included, and I can to a certain extent see why they aren’t. However, what about PFI, Network Rail, Bradford & Bingley, etc, why haven’t they always been part of the number?
anyone like to give me odds of 12 - 1 that labour WON’T get one poll lead this year as I can’t find the market?
474 I agree. I didn’t say it was biased, did I?
re 463. I am sure that that is right. I cannot remember a period of such great movement though this is helped by the way polls are carried out now. The old days of chronic Labour overstatement are gone and this is contributing to the turbulence.
475 - It would take a heart of stone not to laugh.
re v478. So you will pay me £120 if Labour doesn’t get a poll lead and I will pay you a tenner if they do? Is that what you want to bet?
Given the narrowing of the polls a May 2009 election becomes more likely. That’s certainly the view of a senior Lib Dem I spoke to yesterday. He still thought that 2010 was favourite, but that a snap spring election was coming up on the rails fast.
The timing makes sense - people will see the benefit of their tax cuts, while the full ravages of the recession haven’t yet been fully appreciated.
Maybe worth a punt.
475 Hmm - that should stir up a bit of unrest.
477. The line has always been that PFI is merely a contract for future spending, taken out of current budgets. It is not therefore a debt as the asset is held by the PFI contactor. So, therefore, just as future office rents do not count as debt, neither does PFI.
(461 - Jonathan, From yesterday - Andrew Tyrie and I worked together in BP back in the early 1980s and I got to know him reasonably well. I do agree with you that he deserves a front bench position. Nigel Lawson, a hard taskmaster, was effusive about Andrew as his Special Adviser in his autobiography. Perhaps, he is a bit too much of a loner and not sufficiently clubbable. Who knows, but a talent underutilized!)
Great poll for Labour and we’re going to have to fight real hard, which is no bad thing, and certainly no cause for panic. Reading Bernard Donoghue’s diaries, I had forgotten that Labour had pulled almost level with the Tories as early as 1977 as well as mid 1978 (that prompted the election fever that October). Didn’t save them in the end, and I think the same will eventually apply to this Labour Govt.
480 “The old days of chronic Labour overstatement are gone and this is contributing to the turbulence.”
Major crises often cause very large polling movements in a short space of time - the Falklands being an obvious example and also the fuel protests in 2000.
475 - yoikes
Just found out there’s a BNP member or two in my road
460. No the question the bond markets will be asking is whether the debt position over the medium term is sustainable. And they will pose this question, because even without any fiscal stimulus, the deficit (that’s the difference between spending and revenue, just to make things clear) is likely to rise to around £100bn next year, and on past form will hang around at this level in 2010 and 2011 as well and probably still be around £80bn in 2012.
What that means is that government debt (that’s the accumulated stock of liabilities, just to make things clear) will rise from 2009-2012 by almost £400 billion, or 26% of GDP. And I repeat this is before any fiscal stimulus, and net of bailout costs present and future.
That’s around a 60% rise in the debt stock, taking it to around 70% of GDP - and on fairly conservative assumptions. Taking a slightly more pessimistic view about government revenues, the debt stock could easily double, which would take it towards 90% of GDP. The debt ratio would be likely to rise still further as well, unless the deficit were reined in very quickly.
And now we get to the really worrying bits - a) will such a rapid buildup of debt push up bond yields and crowd out private spending, thus proving counterproductive? and b) if it threatens to, will the government listen to some of its advisors and start monetising the deficit (printing money to buy government debt)? It’s this latter fear which has really spooked the markets of late.
485 - Hmmmm, it is bit like saying a mortgage isn’t personal debt, because you commit to making repayments out of your future salary and will own the “asset” in the end.
The example you give of office rent really emphasizes a point. If you rent a property you can give the minimum notice and stop paying. With mortgage repayment / PFI you have to make those repayments for the length of the deal, otherwise you lose the asset, except in PFI is much more restrictive than a mortgage.
I take it that the Tories, then Labour, have stuck to his line from the beginning of PFI.
488 a few people will be crapping themselves tonight!
So we sort of have explanations for PFI and public pensions, however ropey. Still got Network Rail, B&B etc etc to explain away why they are still off the balance sheet.
Anyone remember the £2.7bn tax giveaway through increase in Personal Allowances that hit pay packets from September? I can’t remember seeing a single media report or comment on this thread about it. Did anyone notice it?
The point is there’s lots of media talk now about a tax giveaway and there will be a huge fanfare next week. But the question is, come next Spring will people have actually noticed it? Will it make a real difference to that many people?
We already know much of it is going to be continuation of existing measures (increase in PAs as above, Stamp Duty threshold rise and Fuel duty freeze). So there must be some doubt as to how much people are going to actually notice by next Spring.
491 - haven’t searched through it yet but I bet there’s some interesting names on there
493 I saw Yvette Cooper on telly earlier and she said that the deferral of the extra 2% on fuel duty was a tax cut.
I thought we had a principle that how you cast your vote is a private matter? The BNP was not a proscribed organisation last time I looked. And no, I am not on the list.
But I think this is reprehensible in the extreme, not funny.
I can’t see an election in March/April/May 2009.
Unemployment passing 2 million, the pound still in freefall, the crunch hitting people hard with a lot of repossessions after the Christmas period- I don’t think Brown would ever allow himself to risk election in the face of such economic figures which the Conservatives would no doubt throw at him.
Brown’s best opportunity is right now: before people hit the crunch. A 3% poll defecit would almost certainly deprive an overall majority and he could call the election as a referrendum on his economic management. He won’t do it, but there will never be a better time in the remainder of this Parliament.
Let’s keep it real. Tories to win comfortable majority in 2010. Public to chime with the sensible side of this massively significant “sensible v profligate” divide that has opened up today.
494 i would look at it quickly as the list is being taken down all the time all over the net !
496 - think these are BNP members not voters
where exactly is the bnp list?
475
500 - agreed, but they presumably vote that way too! - so the same principle is at stake imho.
If this had been a Tory……
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5179455.ece?token=null&offset=12&page=2
The BBC would have it as the top story!
http://www.easybourse.com/bourse-actualite/marches/japan-ex-pension-officials-targeted-in-knife-attacks-564109
If this happened in Britain we’d lose half the civil service.
503 - agree that you should never ban the BNP or its activities, no matter how much you like them.
Reason why there’s a degree of double standard (I’ve had loads of non-political people asking me for the link once I drew their attention) is because the BNP don’t exactly have a good PR record, to put it politely.
New thread - “Pre-Boris MORI would have had it at 39/39/12
Re BNP list
CTRL + F “Patel” (i) Phrase not found.
496 Yes. Like it or not, individuals do have the right to vote for the BNP - it’s not illegal.
Well, not yet. We’ve not quite reached the one party state.
495 Chancellors forecast in last Budget assumed VED increases, fuel duty increases and didn’t include the 10p tax giveaways, stamp duty holiday. So those will need to be added on in PBR then additional measures added. As I said last night I’m not sure very much of the £15bn will actually be new - half?
Obviously a theoretical tax cut as against increasing duties & VED, reversing 10p giveaway and re-introducing stamp duty but as these are already in place they will not stimulate the economy. Not sure have effective the rest of package will actually be especially as there is also talk of increased Goshen savings and we’ve already seen budget tightening in Government Departments (spending cuts by any other name).
Do wonder in practice if the Treasury have won the argument and Gordon Brown’s Tax Cut Extravaganza is more spin than real. Treasury knows it isn’t affordable accept for marginal high profile announcements, with cash clawed back through departmental budgets or use of reserves.
Half hearted stimulus, ineffective but showing Gordon is doing what it takes.
163 Sean T, and others: You may think you are keepers of the true Blue Flame, but I am sorry to tell you that to the rest of us you look like prize lily-livered poltroons. After enjoying a purple patch in the polls, at the first sound of gunfire you scurry back, custard-like, to your ideological cave and start carping about the leader. From a safe distance of course.
Just step back for a moment and consider where the Tory party is now compared to 2005, and who led it there.
If you don’t like it, then why don’t you s*d off and join the rest of the malcontents in UKIP in a game of pocket billiards?
475.
Good betting opportunity here.
Shadsy,any odds about Nick Griffin being replaced as BNP chairman
Re Coldstone @ 323 - so the spin continues from Labour. Firstly Cameron is not proposing hospitals close. Keep saying this drivel and you will get bit on the bum by the electorate, especially as Labour have closed hospitals, surgeries, post offices etc and that was in a boom before the Brown bust.