LDs soar to 22% in new ICM poll
February 7th, 2009
CONSERVATIVES 40% (-4)
LABOUR 28% (-4)
LIB DEMS 22% (+6)
…and Labour is back in the 20s again
There’s a new ICM poll in the Sunday Telegraph tomorrow with quite dramatic changes on the last surrvey from the pollster nearly a fortnight ago.
The big boost is to the Lib Dem total - up 6% at 22% which is only a fraction off what the party, then led by Charles Kennedy, got at the 2005 general election.
Generally ICM, which has a different approach to the other pollsters, gives Clegg’s party the biggest share. The Guardian January poll that had 16% was quite a shock. Maybe both numbers are outliers and the true figure is in the 19-20% region? Who knows?
What is very helpful to the Lib Dems is the way the ICM voting intention question is worded - and puts the focus on what is happening in the constituencies of those being questioned. Add onto that slightly more favourable mathematics and it’s easy to see why the pollster’s figures are usually good.
I know that this is the pollster that the party takes most notice of and there will be a lot of comfort from the latest numbers.
Labour’s 28% will add to the gloomy atmosphere at Number 10. This is the smallest share from the pollster since the awful slump last July and is the rating in the 20s since August.
It will be a little comfort to Labour that the Lib Dems are the main beneficiary though Cameron’s team will be relieved that for the second ICM poll in succession that they are still in the 40s.
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Wow!
first
Is Vince connecting?
Mike fraction ..short or above?
Mike, what do you think to Martins explantion that the Lib-Dem fugure could have been boosted by an unusual number of public sector workers (mainly teachers) being off work in the week due to snow?
What has caused the six percentage point gain for the Limp Dems?
It seems to be a huge increase given that they had been hovering over the 14-16% figure for so long, is it an influx of less than gruntled Lab voters dismayed by Jackboots Smith and ID cards, lack of salt on the roads and pavements.
Mike -
“fraction of…” or “fraction off…”?
First! time the LibDems have been in the twenties for a while. Time for Marf to bring out a nice big pinch of red salt methinks - perhaps that nice new owner of the London Evening Standard could oblige?
1. Expanding on Wow! This is a great poll for the LDs but dire for Labour. This could move the markets.
O/T. Anyone got any recommedations for a bet on the 6 Nations outright?
9 stjohn - I seem to recall you’re the expert in that department.
I’m looking at the footy - If I spot anything interesting in the next half hour I’ll get back to you.
The public sector work element is relevant. MORI, the only pollster that weights for this, finds that in normal telephone polls about 25% of respondents work in the sector. The actual proportion of all adults is just under 12%.
Mori also finds a hefty pro-Labour and a smaller LD bias in this segment.
Why have the Liberal Democrats started to improve?
I think the answer is in part that Nick Clegg has started getting very much better media coverage recently.
And also that Cameron, with his “love-bombing” of the Liberal Democrats, is reinforcing the Lib Dem message. People do notice, I think, that it is Nick Clegg who is coming up with positive responses, and that Cameron jumps on the bandwaggon a couple of days later.
Here’s a question I asked a few weeks ago but got no takers… perhaps Mike’s article could spark something:
Is it even remotely possible that the Lib Dems could gain momentum if/when the wheels come completely off the Labour wagon, and perhaps even move into opposition party territory? Is there some iron law of nature preventing the Lib Dems from moving beyond about 20% and actually threatening Labour, no matter how poorly things go for Labour over the next year?
1 stjohn - were you just too grown-up to type “First!”?
If the Tories remain at 40% plus, it really helps them to have the Lib Dems and Labour neck and neck in the mid low 20’s IIRC, It would give to Tories a majority of 60-100 seats or more.
This poll higlights how a strong LibDem performance undermines Tory hopes of a big majority. Despite the 12% lead over Labour, according to Anthony Wells ‘ swingometer, these findings would translate into a Tory majority of just 20!
14 Oi!
16 42 25 25 gives a majority of 100 Its not as clear cut as you think when Labour collapses.
13 - Labour are stereotypically the worker’s party, the Tories are stereotypically the party of business. The Lib Dems have no such easy affiliation and you would find many Lib Dem supporters with diametrically opposed views of what they stood for.
If the Lib Dems increase their support, they will get increased scrutiny. To get well beyond 20%, they need a simple elevator pitch. They haven’t got one yet, but nothing is impossible in life.
Everything is possible, S&S.
I wonder if the narrative is now changing:
1. Labour are self-destructing, thanks largely to Gordon Brown. They are DOOMED.
2. A Conservative Government is inevitable.
3. We need a strong Opposition and it has to be the Liberal Democrats.
re 13. As a long-standing Lib Dem member my goal has been to replace Labour the the main non-Tory party.
The past few weeks have seen Brown and his team take such a battering and it’s events like the financial earthquake that could, just, bring about big change.
18 Indeed - but IF the Lib Dems get 25 , I think the Tories will struggle to reach 40!
21 Mike - should I pay up on our £50 bet now?
Cable certainly has helped over the past few months with his straight talking common sense approach. Clegg I’m not sure about really, he still needs more heavyweight policy annoucements to make the Lib Dems a viable alternative.
This poll I believe is pretty much spot on, with the Tories and Labour both sliding as they bicker with each other. However Labour have to be worried, as this doesn’t take into account Sarkozy’s comments of yesterday.
This poll cetainly makes PtP’s bet yesterday for Leeds NW look very tasty indeed!
13. In the words of Kevin Keegan- I’d love it if that we’ve to happen:)!
How odd, never keen on polls that show such extreme movement. Lib Dems will be please though, wonder where in the Country these potential votes have come form.
It will be interesting to see how Brown performs in an election with 3 Million unemployed. Just imagine how stupid and out of touch Brown will look if an unemployed person confronted Brown and blamed him publically for the job loss. Brown would probably try blaiming it on the US or the Tories!
On topic, may I note my polite scepticism about this poll? In a period when the Lib Dems haven’t been particularly visible, such a sharp increase in their rating seems unlikely. I’m very willing to be proved wrong by subsequent polls, but this one has its corner metaphorically folded over in my mind at present.
Afternoon All,
Mmmm. Good poll for the Libdems and its interesting that they are up 6 points just as the Conservatives were up 6 points in the last ICM poll a couple of weeks ago. Clearly there is considerable volatility and if I recall as Mike mentions for the Libdems to do better in ICM polls.
Interesting to see in the detail if UKIP/BNP are up as well. I would expect to see a reaction to the wildcat strikes.
I get the feeling disillusioned Labour voters are starting to shop around between the other parties trying to work out which of them is going to suit them best. So it maybe now that the real battle for General Election is going to begin and it’s likely we could see more volatility in the meantime.
Repost from previous thread:
It’s hardly plausible that could have been such a large swing to the LibDems over the past couple of weeks, as there is no particular reason for such a rapid change. Also I doubt whether Labour is (yet) down as low as 28%.
We’ve seen quite wild fluctuations in the LibDem/Labour relative shares in polls over the last few months. Treat with a pinch of salt, IMO.
13. I think it’s possible. There used to be a tribal element in Labour’s vote which has been weakening for a long time. It’s a strange situation though as none of the main parties are saying what the WWC segment of the Labour vote wants to hear — immigration control and job protectionism, but at the same time there’s enormous pressure to stop them voting BNP. This makes things very volatile.
Greg Dyke on Any Questions
People have complained about calling Gordon Brown one eyed, I now understand people have complained about using the word Scottish, but noone has complained about him calling him an idiot !!!!
Seems a little rogueish, although the Lib Dems should still be rightly happy with this. It’s a hell of a jump, for no reason I can surmise. Not good for Labour at all. 28% for the government means they’d need an awful lot of tippex to correct the postal votes.
Not great for the Tories, but staying in the 40s is still ok.
re 23 I’ll do you a favour. Close the bet down now and I’ll give you a discount - £40?
25. The 2/1 Hills have on LDs winning Cheltenham looks much better now.
33, hehe I heard that too (one of the few interesting bits on the programme, I thought).
Don’t buy the Sun but was amused to see their front page.
35 Mike - You’re all heart you are!
re 37. My information is that almost all the move to the LDs has come in Martin Day’s territory
39.
39 Maybe Martin’s blog is proving so popular that more people are becoming aware of the LibDems?
Are the Liberals perceived as being strong on the Economy? Are they suggesting bold, creative and sensical ways to manage the UK’s public-debt explosion* ?
* Ferguson : “Average household debt has reached 141% of disposable income in the United States and 177% in Britain. Worst of all are the banks. Some of the best-known names in American and European finance have liabilities 40, 60 or even 100 times the amount of their capital. “)
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-ferg6-2009feb06,0,6972232.column
14/17. Pfp/MTF. Yes I was trying to demonstrate my greater maturity over other PBers. I was particularly hoping to have beaten PfP by a short head.
On the Rugby. I tipped South Africa to win the World Cup and Wales to win the 6 Nations last time for each event. But not my own suggestions. A pal who is good on Rugby bets. He suggests Wales to win the Grand Slam but is not bullish about this one. I just tried to get 6/1 with vc.bet but they have taken down the market. So I am trying to get matched on Betfair at 7.4. Can anyone oblige?
41. Well people stuck at home need “Heavy-weight” humour to pass the time!
For our Stars and Stripes : Peggy Noonan on Pelosi being a “disaster” and on how Obama “remoralized the Republicans”
Mr. Obama should have written the stimulus bill side by side with Republicans, picked them off, co-opted their views. Did he not understand their weakness? They had no real position from which to oppose high and wasteful spending, having backed eight years of it with nary a peep. They started the struggle over the stimulus bill at a real disadvantage. Then four things: Nancy Pelosi served up old-style pork, Mr. Obama swallowed it, Republicans shocked themselves by being serious, and then they startled themselves by being unified. But it was their seriousness that was most important: They didn’t know they were! They hadn’t been in years!
…Nancy Pelosi. … her public comments are often quite mad—we’re losing 500 million jobs a month; here’s some fresh insight on Catholic doctrine—and in a crisis demanding of creativity, depth and the long view, she seems more than ever a mere ward heeler, a hack, a pol. She’s not big enough for the age, is she? She’s not up to it.
…The national conversation on the economy is frozen, and has been for a while. Republicans say tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts. Democrats say spend, new programs, more money. You can’t spend enough for the Democratic base, or cut taxes enough for the Republican. But in a time when all the grown-ups of America know spending is going to bankrupt us and tax cuts without spending cuts is more of the medicine that’s killing us, the same old arguments, which sound less like arguments than compulsive tics, only add to the public sense that no one is in charge.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123388255500354969.html#printMode
re 41. Martin has helped create greater name recognition for Nick Clegg
16 to 22 is a massive change in the LD vote since 25th Jan. That is a 38 per cent increase in 2 weeks!
Is it just becauae the LDs are more inclined to be home for the phone calls?
I said yesterday that if Brown was seen as being determined to cling on until 2010, then their core support would begin to erode and that although core support will feel uncomfortable about switching directly over the the Tories, the LibDems will be seen as a more palatable place to switch their vote.
The warnings for the Labour Party are loud and clear in this latest poll. Either accept that the next election is lost, hold up their collective hands and offer the country a chance to elect a new government or cling on to power for another 15 months and risk virtual extinction.
If this trend continues over the next few months, there is a real chance that the unthnkable could happen and the Liberals will become the official opposition Party at the next election.
I can’t believe that the Labour Party will allow Brown to destroy the Party. Surely they will come to their senses and ditch Brown and call an election, sooner rather than later.
Thanks all for the great answers!
32- I could just see it… for one election and one election only (but perhaps the election that destroys Labour), the low-income blue-collar workers break in record numbers to the BNP, the middle-class moderate voters break to the Tories, many lower to middle-class left-leaning voters go Lib Dem, other disillusioned traditional Labour voters stay home, and Labour is left a smoldering ruin in May 2010.
It seems the next general election may very well be the Lib Dems’ chance of a lifetime, the one brief moment when Labour will be on its back and vulnerable to being supplanted by the Lib Dems as the dominant party of the left. If the Lib Dems can build momentum with the general theme that the Tories are dangerous/wrong and Labour are discredited/unfit to lead, they just might be able to do it (or so it would seem).
Krauthammer on the stimulus bill: “a legislative abomination”
[Obama] delegated the writing to Nancy Pelosi and the barons of the House. …
It’s not just pages and pages of special-interest tax breaks, giveaways and protections, … It’s not just the waste, such as the $88.6 million for new construction for Milwaukee Public Schools, which … have … no plans for new construction.
It’s the essential fraud of rushing through a bill in which the normal rules (committee hearings, finding revenue to pay for the programs) are suspended on the grounds that a national emergency requires an immediate job-creating stimulus — and then throwing into it hundreds of billions that have nothing to do with stimulus, that Congress’ own budget office says won’t be spent until 2011 and beyond, and that are little more than the back-scratching, special-interest, lobby-driven parochialism that Obama came to Washington to abolish. …
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/02/obamas_shine_wears_off_faster.html
Norwich South suddenly looks much better value at 9/4 with both Lads and Hills
49, do they even need to attack the Tories though?
There can only be one top dog leftwing party in the UK. We’re not socialists, after all. Surely if the Lib Dems just smash Labour they become the leftwing party by default, and therefore the Opposition/Government as well?
Equidistance is balls. Best time to kick a party is when it’s down.
49
It is hard to imagine Labour getting less than 20% however bad it gets ?
What are the actual economic policies being suggested by the Liberals (as we call the Lib Dem in Canada)?
48. Penny I can’t believe that the Labour Party will allow Brown to destroy the Party.
I agree. Regardless of how criminally incompetent they have been in Government surely they are smart enough to stop this?
To put it into perspective the Libdem vote based on a weighted sample of around 600 (average for 1000 sample?)requires 36 more people to have indicated they vote for the Libdems.
Potentially it could easily have been because a disproportionate number of people from a particular group could have been available that normally would not.
On the other hand could the Labour Lords sleaze thing have something to do with it? Labour Lords shown in dubious light. Straw reacts by attacking Tory Lords (which has pretty much come to nothing. Chris Huhne says lets make it all elected. Sounds good (but doesn’t actually guarantee any improvement in quality of the representatives) and attracts people to them.
Cable is given every opportunity by the BBC to sound knowledgeable - presidential even.
In fact he is a flip flopping overrated pillock.
http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/2008/09/18/clegg-and-cable-the-two-gaffers/
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?p=30034302
I think the original post called it - this pollster gives a lift to the libdems because of its methodology. The key factor here is the very very poor show by labour which is totally in keeping with previous ones.
Interesting emphasis in the Telegraph article on Darling:
Mr Darling, whose future as Chancellor has been called into question by some Labour MPs unhappy with his performance, is seen to be doing a good job by 41 per cent of voters – while 47 per cent say he is doing a bad job.
A narrow majority (51 per cent) says he should be removed and replaced by a new chancellor with “different ideas.” 43 per cent – the vast majority of whom are Labour supporters – say he should remain at the Treasury.
This is an odd slant on things. Isn’t it Brown who gets most of the blame? And how true is it that Labour MPs have been questioning Darling’s performance?
Looks to me like some negative briefing about colleagues has been going on. I wonder by whom?
52- It seems the Lib Dems would need to attack the Tories enough to convince erstwhile Labour voters that their hatred of the Tories is shared in both quality and quantity (i.e., ‘you can trust us, we don’t like Tories any more than you do!’). In fact, if Labour really do start to crumble, it may be best to take a light touch toward Labour so as not to offend and retrench their now-persuadable supporters (i.e., ‘Labour, God bless them, they meant well but are unfortunately totally incompetent; we’ll handle things much better and give those nasty Tories the fight of their lives’).
OT By-election Rumour !!!
http://timesonline.typepad.com/politics/2009/02/mps-think-speak.html
Is everyone happy about the fact that from the middle of this month you will be able to go to jail for ten years if you photograph a policeman?
http://www.bjp-online.com/public/showPage.html?page=836675
49. Yes, except I think there’s also a very illogical element to it. There’s a big chunk of the potential BNP vote that is driven off by the relentless pressure from the political-media class. That vote is the really volatile bit. The people who would vote BNP if the media pressure wasn’t there.
55,
No.
Labour has lost it’s soul - or rather sold it for 12 years in government.
They are, in effect, in opposition while being in power.
I wonder if Labour’s rating is hurt by the snow, and the failure of the authorities to cope. Pictures of kids sledging are de rigeur for news programmes but it was seriously unpleasant for some of us caught up in it, or even just made to take days off to look after the kids.
24 - LOL @ the Lib Dem thinking a poll that has them 3% higher than any poll for months is “pretty much spot on”.
Why did I write ‘it’s’ ?
Senility here I come.
60 - Will anybody except a 3rd Labour speaker in a row, especially given how bad Martin has been?
From the poll report:
“Exactly half (50 per cent) back a tighter regime for EU workers, while 46 per cent think EU citizens should be allowed to work freely where they want.”
Over the last two weeks in what direction would that 50% have drifted towards? Not Labour obviously and not Tories either as they’ve been on TV talking up the EUSSR and the free mass movement of (manual) labour. The LDs *weren’t* on telly making people p***ed off at them.
45- Philippe, that’s pretty much the way I put it here yesterday… Obama should have taken charge of the stimulus process right from the beginning by dictating its general terms (i.e., stimulus only; non-stimulus matters can be dealth with separately later) and including Republicans in the drafting process. He was too arrogant to see the danger in allowing Pelosi to draft a pork-laden bill, which left it so full of non-stimulus spending that the GOP had a great opening to oppose it. You can be pretty sure that Obama did not see how this was going to play out. Pride goeth before a fall, as they say.
62
There are some who would vote BNP because of the media pressure - simply to make the ‘establishment’ taste fear.
68 - Which is quite ridiculous when you think about it as the Lib Dem are the most pro Europe party out there. As they say “the average is very low”
51. Peter. I’ve just backed LDs to win Norwich South on your steer. Would be interested in The Mighty Smithson’s views on this constituency? Mind you, he may not be talking to me now, after portraying him as an impoverished pensioner on the last thread!
From the article about dangerous photographes highlighted by zoomraker [61]
“The incident came less than a week after it was revealed that an amateur photographer was stopped in Cleveland by police officers when taking pictures of ships. The photographer was asked if he had any terrorism connections and told that his details would be kept on file.”
Sounds a foolproof way of catching terrorists!
71. Yes I agree it’s nuts. The point i’m making is that a chunk of voters have no positive reason for voting for any of the three main parties in England so they react negatively. Who do they dislike most at that precise moment.
re 56. I must take issue with you on that analysis. You can discredit any poll you don’t like by doing exactly the same.
But is not as simple as you think. There are so many different weighting issues and to talk about “people” is highly misleading. Thus one person saying they are 70% certain to vote counts as 0.7. If they voted for a party that is over-represented in the sample then they will get scaled down as will their view if they are in a demographic which ICM has too many of them.
Accept the professionalism of the pollster. Look at the record and make your own judgement.
ICM reigns supreme over getting the LD share right from this far out. Click on the link to find out
73 Everyone is a suspect in Zanu New Labours vision of the UK
This poll could be “spot on” for the Liberal Democrats, Aaron.
I think you are forgetting the spectacular Lib Dem local election results last week. They support this poll´s very encouraging findings.
I’d like a pound for everytime some one has told me that Labour will be replaced by the Libdems. When Labour were defeated in the post-Falklands election of ‘83, you couldn’t open a newspaper without reading some-such predicitons.
Having said that, I’m firm in my belief that the present party-polical setup will not survive for much longer, its had its day.
The Tories too once in power will be subject to enormous strains between the, ‘Red & Blue Tories’ which will soon become a split.
My prediction for the GE has always been Cons 38/39 Lab 32/33 Libdem 20ish.
Parliamentary Affairs seems to be giving free access at the moment
Interesting article on the rise of the BNP…
“The Canary in a Coalmine?”
http://pa.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/gsn043v1?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=1&andorexacttitle=and&andorexacttitleabs=and&fulltext=boundaries&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=date&resourcetype=HWCIT
re 72. Not read that comment StJohn - but I have become more broke thanks to the collapse in interest rates and the closure of Spreadfair. I know that Martin Day is doing a collection for me - thanks Martin.
I think we shall need to wait until a couple more polls are published so see if there is a definite trend as outlined in this poll.
Oupps… Yeah, I’m a day late. Was travelling extensively yesterday.
The economic situation strucks me as deteriorating very fast. Yet, a ray of hope is shining trhough those 2 proposals by N. Ferguson, who’s coming back from Davos:
——-
To manage the debt and to avoid mass bankruptcies of banks and households, as well as to avoid the “deflationary trap” that Krugman is warning about
—>…deflation, once started, tends to feed on itself. As dollar incomes fall in the face of a depressed economy, the burden of debt becomes harder to bear, while the expectation of further price declines discourages investment spending. These effects of deflation depress the economy further, which leads to more deflation, and so on.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/06/opinion/06krugman.html
—-> Ferguson has 2 propositions:
First, banks that are de facto insolvent need to be restructured, not nationalized. (The last thing the U.S. needs is to have all of its banks run like Amtrak or, worse, the IRS.) Bank shareholders will have to face that they have lost their money. … Government will take control in return for a substantial recapitalization, but only after losses have been meaningfully written down. Those who hold the banks’ debt, the bondholders, may have to accept a debt-for-equity swap or a 20% “haircut”…
State life-support for dinosaur banks should not and must not impede the formation of new banks by the private sector. It is vital that state control does not give the old, moribund banks an unfair advantage. So recapitalization must be a once-only event, with no enduring government guarantees or subsidies. And there should be a clear timetable for “re-privatization” — within, say, 10 years.
Talking of idiots, I have just read the quote from the Sharon Shoesmith interview. This quote just highlights her attitude and what I would suspect is on many people running public services.
“But if there’s a young person killed through knife crime this weekend, and I hope there isn’t, do we expect the borough commander of that London borough to resign? We don’t, we don’t.”
What a moronic thing to say. The police would only be in a similar situation if they suspected an individual as carrying a knife, they searched him, found a knife, then decided to give it back, only for the person to walk around the corner and stab somebody.
83 (cont) The commander would be responsible if that was the guidance he gave to his officers.
Find the rebel. Labour MP who’ll lose their seats or seats they will lose on this poll.
Alan Campbell - Tynemouth
Albert Owen - Ynys Mon
Andrew Dismore - Hendon
Andrew Mackinlay - Thurrock
Andrew Miller - Ellesmere Port and Neston
Andrew Slaughter - Ealing Central and Acton
Andrew Smith - Oxford East
Andy Reed - Loughborough
Angela Smith - Basildon South and East Thurrock
Ann Cryer - Keighley
Ann Keen - Brentford and Isleworth
Anna Snelgrove - Swindon South
Anne Begg - Aberdeen South
Anne McGuire - Stirling
Barbara Follett - Stevenage
Ben Chapman - Wirral South
Betty Williams - Aberconwy
Bill Olner - Nuneaton
Bill Rammell - Harlow
Bob Blizzard - Waveney
Brian Jenkins - Tamworth
Celia Barlow - Hove
Chris Mole - Ipswich
Chris Ruane - Vale of Clwyd
Christine McCafferty - Calder Valley
Christine Russell - Chester, City of
Claire Curtis-Thomas - Sefton Central
Claire Ward - Watford
Clive Efford - Eltham
Colin Burgon - Elmet and Rothwell
Dan Norris - Somerset North East
Dari Taylor - Stockton South
David Borrow - Ribble South
David Chaytor - Bury North
David Crausby - Bolton North East
David Drew - Stroud
David Kidney - Stafford
David Lepper - Brighton Pavilion
David Taylor - Leicestershire North West
David Wright - Telford
Desmond Turner - Brighton Kemptown
Doug Naysmith - Bristol North West
Emily Thornberry - Islington South and Finsbury
Eric Martlew - Carlisle
Fabian Hamilton - Leeds North East
Gareth Thomas - Harrow West
Geraldine Smith - Morecambe and Lunesdale
Gillian Merron - Lincoln
Gisela Stuart - Birmingham Edgbaston
Gordon Banks - Ochil and South Perthshire
Gordon Prentice - Pendle
Greg Pope - Hyndburn
Gwyn Prosser - Dover
Helen Southworth - Warrington South
Howard Stoate - Dartford
Ian Austin - Dudley North
Ian Cawsey - Brigg and Goole
Ian Gibson - Norwich North
Ian Pearson - Dudley South
Jacqui Smith - Redditch
James Plaskitt - Warwick and Leamington
Jamie Reed - Copeland
Janet Anderson - Rossendale and Darwen
Janet Dean - Burton
Jim Cunningham - Coventry South
Jim Fitzpatrick - Poplar and Limehouse
Jim Knight - Dorset South
Jim Murphy - Renfrewshire East
Joan Humble - Blackpool North and Cleveleys
John Hutton - Barrow and Furness
John Smith - Vale of Glamorgan
Jon Cruddas - Dagenham and Rainham
Jonathan Shaw - Chatham and Aylesford
Judy Mallaber - Amber Valley
Julie Morgan - Cardiff North
Kali Mountford - Colne Valley
Karen Buck - Westminster North
Laura Moffatt - Crawley
Linda Gilroy - Plymouth Sutton and Devonport
Linda Riordan - Halifax
Lindsay Hoyle - Chorley
Lynda Waltho - Stourbridge
Margaret Moran - Luton South
Mark Lazarowicz - Edinburgh North and Leith
Mark Todd - Derbyshire South
Marsha Singh - Bradford West
Martin Linton - Battersea
Martin Salter - Reading West
Mary Creagh - Wakefield
Michael Foster - Hastings and Rye
Michael Foster - Worcester
Michael Wills - Swindon North
Mike Hall - Weaver Vale
Mike O’Brien - Warwickshire North
Mike Wood - Batley and Spen
Nick Ainger - Carmarthen West and Pembrokeshire South
Nick Palmer - Broxtowe
Nigel Griffiths - Edinburgh South
Parmjit Dhanda - Gloucester
Patrick Hall - Bedford
Paul Flynn - Newport West
Paul Truswell - Pudsey
Phil Hope - Corby
Phyllis Starkey - Milton Keynes South
Robert Marris - Wolverhampton South West
Roberta Blackman-Woods - Durham, City of
Roger Berry - Kingswood
Rosie Cooper - Lancashire West
Russell Brown - Dumfries and Galloway
Ruth Kelly - Bolton West
Sadiq Khan - Tooting
Sally Keeble - Northampton North
Sarah McCarthy-Fry - Portsmouth North
Shahid Malik - Dewsbury
Shona McIsaac - Cleethorpes
Sylvia Heal - Halesowen and Rowley Regis
Tom Levitt - High Peak
Tony McNulty - Harrow East
Tony Wright - Great Yarmouth
Vernon Coaker - Gedling
77 - even if I was aware of them I’d disregard them. Of course 22% could be the true figure and I am aware of (and broadly support) Mike’s thesis that ICM are the most accurate pollster for the LibDems. Even so I’d take the figure with a pinch of salt until it is corroborated by similar movement (if not absolute figures) from the other pollsters.
For some reason, the filter does not allow me to post the explication of the second proposal of Ferguson, which is…
a generalized conversion of American mortgages to lower interest rates and longer maturities
83 Oracle - I agree 100%, and I too was gob-smacked by the complacency of the remark you highlighted. Just when you’re beginning to think maybe she’s been made a scapegoat, she opens her mouth and you think ‘Yes. Quite right to make her a scapegoat.’
78- That would be a very disappointing result for the Tories, I would think. That sounds like a Tory majority of about zero, give or take. But isn’t your prediction necessarily affected by events between now and election day, which could be in anywhere from four months to sixteen months?
I think more and more that the GOP was lucky to get out of office when they did (although a year sooner would have been even better). The same would be true for Labour; another year in government could set them back for many years, or even decades, in terms of their future electoral prospects.
Similarly, I’ve wondered how American history would have been different had the GOP gotten out of office during the Great Depression two years earlier than they actually did (i.e., 1931 instead of 1933). The GOP could have been tremendously better off for the following fifty years or so had they not been associated with the Great Depression for many years before leaving office.
80. Mike. See posts 70 and 84 previous thread.
Any thoughts on Norwich South. Would you agree with PfP that lib Dems are value at 9/4? Or is this a 3 way marginal with The Tories as value?
If Labour were to fall any further than this latest ICM poll indicates, then Brown’s position starts to look very precarious.
Ladbrokes’ “PM on 31.12.09″ market is starting to look interesting with Ed Miliband and James Purnell, both currently priced at 66/1 seemingly the best bets imho for a few quids worth.
A win at these prices should take care of Christmas, unless you’re reckoning on Sandy Lane in Barbados!
90 stjohn - I’ve emailed you.
Mike S “Accept the professionalism of the pollster. Look at the record and make your own judgement. ”
Strange advice from someone who will only believe his favourite pollster’s view of the LibDems.
The obverse of your famous law must be: discount any poll that confirms your prejudice despite what other polls are saying.
Tory Overall Majority in the Next General Election
–> last price matched on betfair is 1.61 — or about 62%.
91. Sorry to mention Clarkson again, but I wonder whether he has given Brown an out. A medical problem has been mentioned before as a plausible excuse for Brown to step down, and tim commented (incredibly) that many people did not know Brown only had one eye.
With it prominent in the press is it a good time to step aside due to failing eyesight?
I seem to remember a poll from about twenty years ago where around 50 per cent said they would seriously consider voting Liberal, if there was a real chance that they could form a governement.
I wonder what percentage would be prepared to vote LibDem if there was a real chance that they would form the official opposition.
That is the danger for Labour if we get a few more polls showing the gap between them and the LibDems closing. In fact I think the attention for the next few polls will switch from the size of the Tory lead, to the gap between Labour and LibDems.
55
Scott
48. Penny I can’t believe that the Labour Party will allow Brown to destroy the Party.
55I agree. Regardless of how criminally incompetent they have been in Government surely they are smart enough to stop this?
SMART?
Are you living in a different universe?
These are the people who crowned Gordon Brown as Leader with no election.
Who cannot between them find a challenger they can all agree on. - largely because they don’t have a credible one?
And whose rules are such that the chances of a successful coup are less than winning the lottery.
Harriet Harman has more male testosterone on her own than the entire male members of the Shadow Cabinet. They give wimps a bad name.
More chance of an earthquake next week in San Francisco.
95 No chance Blunkett was a minister.
Floyd Norris : Last 10-year stretch of the history of the Standard & Poor’s 500
Over the 10 years through January, an investor holding the stocks in the S.& P.’s 500-stock index, and reinvesting the dividends, would have lost about 5.1 percent a year after adjusting for inflation….
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/07/business/07charts.html?_r=1&ref=business&pagewanted=print
98. Blunkett explicitly said a blind person could not be PM IIRC.
95 - I don’t think it makes any difference. He does an eye problem and if they were going to get rid using it as the excuse the powers that be would have made it absolutely clear the extent of that “disability” when the announcement was made.
All that Clarkson’s remarks have done have made more people aware that he does only have an eye, but that makes zero difference to his ability to make the right long term decisions and save the world.
The problem is that Brown public personality is such that I don’t think he is going to get much sympathy even if they do use that “out”.
There’s 2% going a begging there from the 8% fall in support for Labour and the Conservatives. The Libs have six so that two must be going to the Nats in Scotland and Wales whilst the Libs benefit in England.
96 Penny - Isn’t this also a danger for the Tories also, in that they could find themselves becoming squeezed out in a battle between Labour and the LibDems?
91 PfP - In the event of a hurried choice a few months before an election, I doubt whether they would go for someone as inexperienced as E Miliband or Purnell. Maybe after an election defeat, but that would be different.
If you want a Christmas long-shot, I’d look further down the list. A very experienced politician, has held some of the great offices of state, safe pair of hands, gaffe-free, not unpopular in the country, no great enemies in the party: one A. Darling. At 200-1.
OK, it’s a long shot. But a 0.5% chance only?
If these findings were to be confirmed in further polls showing the LibDems in the early to mid 20s there might be serious negative consequences for the Tories if another opposition party were seen to be gaining momentum. Disillusioned former Labour voters who had tentatively switched to the Tories could well be encouraged to switch again - to the LibDems- pushing Tory support down to the 35/36 levels.
Might win my bet on for 75-80 Lib Dem seats next time!
Wish I had put more on.
It fits with the by election results last week in January.
But could be a rogue, however reckon it underscores the BNP in Europe on June 4 regrettably.
/
The poll requires confirmation, else treat as rogue.
Nevertheless, from the current average position, a 1.5% swingback would put us in NOM territory…
105 - indeed, and as the bandwagon gathers momentum it will only be a matter of time before we have a poll: LD 36% Tory 30% Lab 22%
105 - It might also work the other way. If Tories are 20+ ahead, people will feel like they can vote Lid Dem as Labour will still be voted out and they want some opposition (and not Labour opp). However, if it gets tight, all those people whose no.1 priority is get Labour out of power will vote Tory to achieve that.
I think looking at all the polling question evidence is that the later seems to be more in tune with public feeling. They aren’t particularly pro-Tory, but are strongly anti-Labour. Whatever achieves a Labour loss is what many people will what to “engineer”.
LIBDEM policies
Here is Nuck Clegg speaking, as featured in the first lines of their “economic recovery plan” website :
Lib Dem plans to help families include tax cuts for low and middle income households, stopping unnecessary repossessions and action to cut energy bills.
http://www.libdems.org.uk/news/liberal-democrat-economic-recovery-plan-12693499
The guy sounds like Republicans….
Do LibDems = Tax Cutters?
“Our Plan to Help Families
1. Cutting taxes for struggling families so you’ve got more money in your pocket”
First thing on the list!
As I have mentioned many times the Conservative opinion poll lead is soft and their performance in council byelections this year indifferent to poor .
The LibDems may well be aqueezed at the next GE in Lab/Con marginald but so will Labour in Con/LibDem marginals and the soft Conservative support in Lab/LibDem marginals .
I imagine Mike is correct in his third paragraph in that the LibDems are indeed polling around 19-20%, with Labour 30-32% and the Conservatives on 40-42%. So this poll is hardly ‘rogue’: it just overstates the LibDems a little and modestly understates Labour and the Tories.
Populus will be interesting next week.
109 For the Tories to be 20 points ahead they would need to be back in the mid to late 40s seen last summer. I feel that is very unlikely if another opposition party is in the mid 20s - a Tory rating of 38 would be quite a strong outcome for them!
133. LibDems were on more like 16%, prior to this poll, although they will be banking on the usual election campaign boost to raise them a point or two.
I expect them to get just over 18% at the election…
o/t wtf is this all about.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/surrey/7876316.stm
how much more survailance? who authorised this little game?
115 - On that we can agree!
113 I totally agree!
103. I think there is some, lesser, risk of this also pfp. If the idea catches on that a vote for the LibDems is not going to be a wasted vote, then yes, the Tories could lose some of their current support to the LibDems.
The main reason so many voters have switched from Labour to Tories in the polls over the past couple of months is not because of confidence in the Tories to deal with the economic problems, it is more that there is dis-satisfaction with the way Labour are dealing with it.
If the LibDems can overtake Labour in a single poll, we will be moving into uncharted territory and, to be honest, anything can happen. While it is relatively easy for the Tories to criticise Labour and score points against them because of the way they are handling the economy and point the finger of blame for the economy being in a poor state prior to this recession, they will have a far harder job criticising the LibDems.
My dream gets ever closer, I dream of LibDums as the shadow opposition to a mighty Tory revival and decent Government. They can be the EU apologists, whilst The Government gets on with putting the UK back on it’s feet.
112.
I would laugh if another poll came out and put the LD’s on 11% later today!
Talk about clutching at straws - it is so obviously a potentially flawed poll given the LD’s figures it is beyond parady!
112. Er, Mark, the Tory lead in this poll is TOTALLY UNCHANGED. How can you call a lead WHICH DOESN’T CHANGE “soft”? What would a “hard” lead be like?
Silly man.
That said this poll seems to me, if not quite a rogue, a little surprising - an outlier. I know I’m out of the country but has Vince Cable been out with his personal gritter or something?
If I was an LD I wouldn’t get too excited by this, but then I woudn’t get too intrigued by it if I were a Tory or agitated by it if I were a Labourite either; it just feels “odd”.
Don’t get me wrong: I’d love it if the LDs replaced Labour on the left. Shame I can’t see it happening.
121 and of course in your twistrd mind all those who have voted LibDem in this years council byelections must be flawed voters .
Time you exiled yourself again ????
122 The Conservative lead may be unchanged but there are 10% fewer Conservative voters than in the previous poll pretty much the same $ of voters the Conservatives have lost in this year@s council byelections compared to when they were last fought .
123. Not all those LD voters you refer to could possibly be like you mark!
HANSARD SOCIETY
Hung-up over Nothing? The Impact of a Hung Parliament on British Politics
http://pa.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/61/2/396?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=1&andorexacttitle=and&andorexacttitleabs=and&fulltext=boundaries&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=10&sortspec=date&resourcetype=HWCIT
75. Mike Smithson. You seem rather defensive, particularly as I wasn’t really attacking ICM as such? I take the polls as they are and I don’t actually see what I said that would cause you to take issue.
I fully accept the professionalism of the pollsters but they can only work with what they have got. Samples of a thousand are not a lot. We have seen in the last two polls from ICM greater than normal shifts (and to an extent with all the pollsters) and that indicates to me considerable volatility. All I was attempting to do in some ways was identify whether it was purely volatility or there was a real reason such as the HoL issue.
Now I’m sorry if you don’t like the way I did it that much and I will bare your comments in mind in future. However, I will continue to make my own judgement over each poll nevertheless.
Even though the ICM team give questions weighted in the L/Dems favour it is more than astonishing that they have gained 6 percentage points.
On the issue of the LDs overtaking Labour, the LDs harmed their chances through their folly in GE2005 of the decapitation strategy agst the Tories. If they had instead gone after 25 Labour seats they could have picked up 12 to 15 and be sitting on 75+ seats and be starting off from a higher point in 10 to 13 other Lab marginals. Razzell/Rennard/Kennedy have some explaining to do.
This miss-focus of resources has continued regardless of the announcement of targeting Labour.
128. I think it is the stay at home factor with public sector workers due to Snow.
Private sector folk in hard economic times are likely to be far more inclined to make a dicey journey i should imagine than more secure public sector jobs, which may well if Schools close anyway.
124 Mark Senior, your post would make some sense to new readers that these council by elections have any meaning. However since you say similar things in the early months of each year, only to be proved wrong at the full local elections I am sorry but I have to point out the fallacy in your theory.
Obviously, there’s no reason for Lib Dems to get too excited about one poll. But when did the party last gain 6% between two polls from the same pollster?
This takes us back, I think, to the very perceptive point made on one of Thursday’s threads - I’ve tracked back but can’t find the post itself - that Iraq harmed the Lib Dems in some respects in 2005. I think that’s overstating it, actually, because Iraq continues to be the defining foreign policy issue of our generation, and it has shot to pieces Labour’s internationalist credentials; it’s also helped the Lib Dems to renew their activist base and come within striking distance of Labour in urban seats. Even so, in important respects the Lib Dems are better positioned to fight the next election than they were in 2005. I’ll give four reasons:
(1) Leadership. Yes, Kennedy was “popular”, but he totally lacked credibility as a potential PM, and failed to ignite the Lib Dem campaign in the way required.
(2) Philosophy. Now that Brown has repositioned Labour, at least in appearances, as a more statist party than Blair would have allowed, the Lib Dems can attack Labour from the right. Ideologically, this is much more comfortable (and promising) terrain for Liberals than defending public sector workers against Blairite reforms.
(3) Electoral arithmetic. The Lib Dems can now put the squeeze on Tory votes in Labour-held seats in northern cities in a way they couldn’t before the 2005 election.
(4) Policy. In particular, the 50% top rate, a middle-class electoral albatross, has gone from Lib Dem policy, and income tax cuts are being offered instead. As fiscal policy, I remain to be convinced; as electoral strategy it obviously makes a lot of sense.
130. That’s a very astute point.
124 LD voters in by elections that matter to few… lol
Italy playing v badly at Twickers.. so far
re 130 But that would have been picked up by the past vote weighting. If the LD voters from 2005 had been over-represented, as you suggest, then the ICM methodology would have scaled them back.
135 Mike - There could be an effect if LibDem-inclined ex-Labour voters were over-represented (i.e. they picked up Labour->LibDem switchers disproportionately compared with LibDem->Conservative switchers).
But we probably shouldn’t try to over-analyse one poll.
131 Council byelection results in January represent public opinion In Jabuary not in May/June so results may well be different then . Last year Labour opiniom poll ratings in Jan/Feb were relatively good but tjey collapsed after the budget together with their performance in the May locals .
I can do no more than repeat yet again the posting that Andrew Cooper of Populus made on here a few months ago 30% of Conservative support is soft and is susceptible to change . The same applies to the support for other parties . Public opinion IS volatile and the Conservative poll lead is not solid .
As Rod says above - treat with caution until confirmed (despite ICM’s record, they are not immune to statistical variation). It does seem like a pretty hefty swing (then again, the last one could have been a touch low for the same statistical variation resons).
But even if the last one was a point or so lower than the reality and this one is a point or two higher, it’s still a fair swing to the Lib Dems.
And, of course, although it feels unlikely, the last one could be have been higher than the actuality and this one could be lower … it’s not too implausible for this to reflect a reality of 24% for the Lib Dems and 26% for Labour …
However, we’re speculating off of one data point. I still recall some dramatic polls in the last Parliament (the 30-30-30 tie, for example). With that said, most of the dramatic polls tended to be in Conference season, and this is well outside of it.
Let’s see the next couple of polls. But definitely encouragement for the Lib Dems here.
Joe Biden has delivered the inspiring message that, in his considered opinion, there’s a 30% chance that the Democrats are getting it wrong with the stimulus bill, and that he and Obama will campaign against his fellow Dems in 2010 if that would help them:
“Biden told roughly 200 members of the House Democratic Caucus gathered for their three day annual retreat. “I promise you as [a colleague] once said to me, ‘I’ll come campaign for you or against you, whichever will help you the most in your district.’ And so will the president because, again, we’re all in this together.”
The vice president also offered some trademark candor about the prospects of success. He recalled a recent White House meeting with the president and senior aides in which they were discussing the many challenges the country faces. “If we do everything right, if we do it with absolute certainty, there’s still a 30% chance we’re going to get it wrong,” was his message at the meeting.”
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2009/02/06/biden-urges-passage-of-stimulus-despite-voter-backlash/
If comedians can’t make running gags from Biden’s material, they’re just not trying anymore.
re 136. Agreed - all polls can be subject to sample bias.
One of the key things to remember is that polls can only be seen as outliers with the benefit of hindsight. You can’t just conclude that a poll just out is one.
So ICMs LD drop of three points 16% last time was against the trend of all the other pollsters, and now ICM itself, that question should be raised over that survey.
I don’t believe either Labour’s 28 or the Lib Dems’ 22 at the moment. Nor did I believe the Lib Dems’ 16 in the last poll.
I can see an LD share of 22 come next May/June, but not yet.
re 137 Mark Senior. Two years ago you wrote that ICM was right and the other polls were wrong and we should look at by elections to see the “LD revival”…. A few months later in May 2007 the Conservatives won 900 seats and the LDs lost 240+
“Cumbria CC Carlisle Castle LibDem hold with very large swing to them from both Labour and Conservative LibDem 653 Lab 222 Con 117 Green 29 - 2005 result LibDem 937 Lab 853 Con 349 .
As Commentator will no doubt say , this result is a complete freak and outlier , the true position is that there is a massive swing from LibDem to Conservative as shown in the ICM polls that is so far not being picked up when people actually go out to vote .
by Mark Senior ( Liberal Unionist ) February 23rd, 2007 at 9:05 am “
No matter if the Lib Dems are on 22% on GE day I’ll be very surprised if they dont have a net shedding of seats.
Tory vs LD, the LDs will have a net loss
Lab vs LD, could well end fairly even with a very small net loss or gain either way.
139 - As someone who never liked Biden before the election, that sort of candour has led to him growing on me. I always thought it was largely an act, but it’s just a little too off-message.
Great material for satirists, but then the honest characters always are.
Let’s have a bit of that…only one poll but that’s put a smile on my face.
The other factor Mark Senior is that there will be fewer Conservative councillor gains because they are approaching a peak in the % that they have historically held.
OT,
The second diplomacy game is starting up:
http://playdiplomacy.com/game_play.php?game_id=7274
Of course, the first game is still running and may be for some time. Most of the original cast are double-timing their way onto this new board, but 2 seats are new.
Changes from the first one:
Nick P is sitting this one out. The England chair is taken by JohnKellett.
Monty and corporeal have swapped countries.
HurstLlama has moved over to Italy (Chris from Bethseda sitting this one out) and the Turkey seat is taken by David Roe. Russia is Jonathon (I believe).
As the merry-go-round for this game stopped, I found that I’m left with Germany again.
Therefore, the Political Betting Game#2 is:
* Uncle Monty - FRANCE
* HurstLlama - ITALY
* AndyCooke - GERMANY
* corporeal - AUSTRIA
* DJDave - TURKEY
* austinjc - RUSSIA
* JohnKellett - ENGLAND
If there is demand, possibly a third game could be set up.
144- I’ve never accused Biden of being a bigger liar than most politicians and I wouldn’t because, as you note, he often makes very frank (if embarrassing and impolitic) statements. This episode is very much in character for him, and is similar to his famous campaign remark that a President Obama would be tested with an international crisis in his first six months in office (for which we should gird our loins). My greatest objection to Biden’s character has always been his colossal ego, which was frequently on display as he condescendingly mocked and laughed at both committee witnesses and colleagues as a senator, not to mention his frequent references to his own greatness, brilliance, etc. in which he is not averse to wild exaggeration and outright lies.
19.
“Labour are stereotypically the worker’s party, ”
Hazel Blears was on the box the other night - her frock and ’style’ (sic) made her the spitting image of Pauline Prescott’s get-up; the ‘toff’s tart’
She spouted all the working class rhetoric in the world but it seemed completely unreal from someone who is clearly ‘on the other side’ from most (sic) “hardworking British people”.
143,
“Lab vs LD, could well end fairly even with a very small net loss or gain either way.”
I don’t think the LDs are geared-up enough to really take advantage of Labour’s weakness in some places but can you name me one seat where you SERIOUSLY (as opposed to ‘for effect’ ) think Labour will take a seat of the LDs? Nationalists maybe, Tories quite likely but Labour??? Especially if they have fallen a net 8 per cent nationally against the LDs since the last GE.
116: Dr Spyn.
Not necessarily the Plod’s greatest fan, but I think that this may allay your fears: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/database-of-faces-to-replace-id-parades-656495.html
Essentially this replaces the old ‘line up’ where volunteers are asked to come and fill in the empty spaces alongside the suspect. Video means the ‘extras’ are there all the time, and saves everyone money and hassle. Of course the Police do need to keep the faces / clothes / ‘look’ of people up to date…
It looks like the Labour price on SPIN has moved a couple of points as a result of this.
148 - I only ever saw the ego, so the realisation that there is an unspun, speak-yer-brains aspect is a pleasant surprise!
re 152. The big move on SPIN is the two seat increase for the LDs - up now to 44-47.
Labour is down 2 to 226-232. The Tories remain on 348-354.
134. Italy aren’t doing as badly as they have in recent years. England are absolute rubbish.
153- I could also have mentioned Biden’s poking fun at Chief Justice Roberts as another example of his embarrassing frankness (which led to his own humiliation days later when he botched Hillary’s ceremonial oath). I think he does say what he is really thinking to a greater extent than most politicians, which includes a genuine belief on his part that he is the most brilliant man in the world. His style is so different from Obama’s that there is certainly a comic element in their “odd couple” pairing. I look forward to the inevitable cavalcade of Biden gaffes awaiting us over the next few years, particularly those on sensitive topics such as the Middle East. I’m quite sure that Obama is not done putting out fires started by his VP.
Anthony Wells has now posted on this poll:
My suspicion here is that the previous ICM poll’s Lib Dem figure was an anomoly - it had them three points down at 16%, which was their lowest score under Nick Clegg and meant YouGov and ICM were showing the Lib Dems on the same figure, whereas normally ICM have them a couple of percentage points higher. Moving up to 22 is still very good for the Lib Dems, their highest level of support for a long time when most other polls show them in decline - for that reason, treat it with some caution till it starts showing up in other polls.
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/
155. Although a weird match to watch. England’s players are clearly of higher quality from their skills etc. But they’re playing with no imagination, no ambition and no flair. Which the Italians are doing, albeit with lesser skill levels.
150. Best guess could seats are Rochdale or Withington but my broad view has always been that the LD’s will suffer somewhat in a two party squeeze though it may be the Tories who will do most of the suqeezing. Whats left of Labour’s vote will be hellish motivated. You’d expect the LDs to stay firmly put in places like Brent and so on.
I personally think that some of those 2005 LD voters will go back to Labour. While the LDs may gain new voters from labour I’d suspect the biggest shift will be direct Labour to Tory.
I’m not one that believes the LDs will make too many gains from Labour. any more than 4 or 5 and I’d be surprised at this point.
154. No value in a Tory buy, marginal for a Labour sell. The LD buy looks correct so not much value there either.
England minus 27 points at 9.0 on Betfair if you hurry. One drop goal or penalty in final three minutes and its a winner.
161 - Sorry, posted that when the conversion was about to be taken, but took a couple of minutes to appear. No hope of that now.
Looking at the battlemap on Baxter, assuming that the Tories aren’t going to get 37%, you need Labour to be on 22 or below to see the Lid Dem’s having more seats than them.
These scenarios see Labour losing 200 seats with 120 going blue and 80 yellow.
116 re photos. Fairly obviously the police are asking for volunteers to provide mugshots for their electronic id parade system. instead of lining up live bodies they provide a photo montage. They need to keep it up to date because fashions change, long hair, skinhead, tache, no tache etc. Nothing sinister.
re 160 Agreed. No value in any of the six positions from SPIN.
159 What did the NI wits make of the Croydon Councillor story. Any good ones.
155 So Lib Dem…., you lose 36-11 and say the opposition were crap
that said England were not brilliant by any strech of the imagination. certainly not worth £85 a ticket!!!
166. I havent heard any comment at all but I try to stay clear of local politics most of the time, its stinking. To give an example of how bad it is, we have a new transatlantic data cable coming into the north coast and some nationaltists are complaining that it isnt landing into nationalist Derry but instead unionist Coleraine.
What these thickos, in particular Mark Durkan (a man that si leader of the SDLP no less) dont realise is that a fibre optic cable is bringing it in to Derry just 30 miles from its landing point and it makes absolutely f**k all difference where it lands. As regards jobs they seem to tink that it landing in Derry is going to create jobs when it patently isnt, its a cable for gods sake, how many people does it need to watch it?
Madness.
You political fanatics seem to forget that very few people like your politicians and their partes.
Most pople think that they are all a bunch of tosspots and express opinions against parties rather than in favour.
So the best the Tories can hope for is that only 60% of those expressing an opinion don’t want them in power. If 60% bother to turn out at the next electon that would mean that about 24% of the electorate are voting Tory.
UK plc going down the tubes whoever is in power.
I can only repeat what St John said. Wow. This is the sort of shift in the polls I would have been expecting for the last year. Labour struggling under Brown, the Tories on the verge of an outright majority, but not completely convincing and the lib dems recovering under a new leader and strong performing treasury spokesman after the mishaps of the last few years. What I don’t understand is why there would have been a sudden shift? the big story of the week - the strikes - didn’t anticipate any of this.
With a heavy heart, I suggest this is a rogue.
I see that as being a bad poll for Labour as well as obviously a good one for the Lib Dems.
Interesting link on the BNP from Rod Crosby up above.
A return to the olden days of Tories and Whigs?
POOR OLD LABOUR. WHAT A SH… No, wait. LABOUR = LOL.
Ha ha.
@169:
Malcolm, we don’t forget that, we *rely* on it.
France show how to play proper rugby.
Pelosi dismisses bipartisanship calls
“Washington seems consumed in the process argument of bipartisanship, when the rest of the country says they need this bill,” the California Democrat said, seeming to sweep aside the Obama administration initial desire to have broad GOP support for the plan… Pelosi’s increasingly partisan tone comes a day after Obama stepped up his pressure on Republicans, who have sought to downsize spending and increase tax cuts. They have been joined in their efforts by a coalition of centrist Democrats in the upper chamber, led by Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson, who has criticized the House stimulus as wasteful and ill-targeted… The new Senate cuts, if passed, “will do violence to the future,” said Pelosi, who is also pressing a reluctant Obama to repeal Bush administration tax cuts for the wealthy before they expire at the end of 2010.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0209/18514.html
First of all, the most recent polls show that the country DOESN’T like this bill. But more importantly, this shows that Pelosi is openly opposing Obama in both style and substance. Pelosi has been winning so far and Obama has been losing… who will prevail?
172.
“A return to the olden days of Tories and Whigs?”
Dictatorship of the Fabricants?
The Lib Dems have been coming up with more and more policy recently - paying for lower class sizes by scrapping child benefit, and permanent lower/middle tax cuts etc. I’ve noticed this get a bit of headline coverage.
The Tories haven’t really shown their hand, because when they do Labour takes their ideas. As a result they are the ‘party of no’ at the moment.
Sensational result for the LibDems
Not far to go before they overhaul Labour to be in second place.
177 Doubt many will have noticed policies - last week biggest story was BJFBW, this week snow. The economic news has been depressing (or perhaps Depression from PMQs) but nothing much to explain the shifts. It’s one poll, lets see if others confirm the direction of movements.
No doubt Labour are doomed at the next election even if Brown swallows his pride and brings back Blunket, Charles Clark & even John Reid, along with Alistair Campbell in a more prominent role - but perhaps even this is worth a try in these dispiriting times for No.10.
Interesting poll. Labour supplanted the Liberals as the main non-Tory party in the 1920s and there is no reason why the reverse can’t happen in future
However, the Lib-Dems would need a unique selling point to get a critical mass of core Labour voters to switch to them. And I don’t think they have one (or want to have one since, if they did, that might scare off ex-Tories from voting for them). Civil liberties and foreign policy issues might sway a few Guardian/Indpendent readers from Labour to the LDs (as Iraq did in 2005) but there aren’t that many of them. Most voters don’t feel that strongly about these issues. In fact, the “hang-em-flog-em” strain in public opinion is such that some people probably favour a reduction in civil liberties.
What the LDs need is a USP with economic impact to get low-income Labour voters to switch to the Tories. The obvious one would be to pledge to bring back the 10% income tax rate and to increase pensions and tax credits to the working poor. However, if they did so, they would lose lots of ex-Tories since they would be concerned that the LDs would put their taxes up. Hence, I think the LDs won’t stake out a clear USP on economic/tax/benefits questions and so will miss the chance to win over low-income ex-Labour voters and break the 25% barrier.
“I seem to remember a poll from about twenty years ago where around 50 per cent said they would seriously consider voting Liberal, if there was a real chance that they could form a governement.”
The first one may have been 20 or more years ago - it has happened since on a fairly regular basis. Certainly in this millennium!
“She spouted all the working class rhetoric in the world but it seemed completely unreal from someone who is clearly ‘on the other side’ from most (sic) “hardworking British people”.”
Sorry, Wage Slave, didn’t you mean (’sick’)?!
“Don’t get me wrong: I’d love it if the LDs replaced Labour on the left. Shame I can’t see it happening.”
Don’t lie sean - the only reason you would “like” it is because it would give you added opportunity for more OTT ‘amusing posts’, helping you to retain your position on PBC for next year.
Yes, it is good to see a magnificent poll result for the Lib Dems at last. But I shan’t get too many hopes up until we have seen confirmation from a series of polls. I did agree that Nick and others in the party have been getting more and better coverage recently, so this result may have been stimulated by that fact.
re 170 As I said earlier on the thread you can only deem a poll to be a rogue with the benefit of hindsight.
On Monday there’ll be Populus which operates in a broadly similar manner to ICM - though is less LD friendly.
181 And, I think with Clegg as leader, they are even less likely to take the sort of economic position you mention. The irony is that there probably is no better time than this, with the economic and environmental position and future so cloudy, and existing orthodoxies under the cosh, for this to happen.
If this story is correct, the new Obama bank rescue plan looks like a complete copout, a bunch of wishy-washy compromises… how can they possibly sell this to the electorate - it appeals to no-one at all!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/07/business/economy/07bailout.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss
149. I can’t believe Blears is still around, to be brutally honest she cannot connect with the electorate and talks down to people. I take it she isn’t in a marginal though?
182.
” “(Hazel Blears) who is clearly ‘on the other side’ from most (sic) “hardworking British people”.”
Sorry, Wage Slave, didn’t you mean (’sick’)?”
This is a human bodily function which is often stimulated when in close proximity to HB. it’s thankfully been a wee while since I last shared coffee and biccies with her. Let’s just say Carole Thatcher would be preferable at a pinch.
Btw when I mentioned “Pauline Prescott’s get-up” in the earlier post this was not, Tracy Temple has asked me to point out, a reference to hubby John who in previous incarnation was a bar steward all at sea and not an able semen.
183. I haven’t heard a half-plausible explanation for the poll. All Ican think of off the top of my head is a response in the wake of the strikes of ‘let’s protest against the 2 established parties’.
181.
“he Lib-Dems would need a unique selling point to get a critical mass of core Labour voters to switch to them.”
How about:
“Blair and Brown were a disaster, ‘Sit on the sidelines’ Cameron would be even worse. They’re both in it up to their eyeballs with dodgy businessmen and were up George Bush’s ****.
Vote for the crazy politicians who aren’t in it for corruption or (Oaten/Opik aside!) ego.
You’ve nothing to lose (you’ve lost it already) why not give it a try?”
Bit long maybe?
188.
” I haven’t heard a half-plausible explanation for the poll”
How about: like most polls it’s likely to be quite a bit out. As was the one you are comparing it with. So don’t read too much into it.
One swallow doesn’t make a Conservative Future Conference…etc
181, I don’t think the LibDems DO need to come up with a unique selling point. The Conservatives have benefitted from disenchantment of Labour voters, while at the same time being accused of having no policies.
All that is needed from the LibDems at this stage, is to simply be there to pick up votes from the hard core Labour supporters who are angry that Brown is destroying both the country and the Labour Party, by his determination to cling on to power, for his own selfish reasons, regardless of the consequences for everyone else.
Die-hard Labour supporters would find it difficult to vote for the natural enemy of their Party, but Liberals over the years have been the natural Party of choice for registering a protest vote.
as a longstanding Liberal I’d be delighted if this was the first sign of our sweep into power ….. but realistically let’s see what happens next, and if any sort of a pattern starts to emerge
137
Matthew Parris described Lib-Dem support as “soft almost all the way through”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article1749999.ece
193 Is he referring to sandals
Good evening.
The economic news it terrible at the moment and it is hardly surprising that things look bad for Labour.
However one has to consider how people will react when there are more stories like this one
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2009/feb/06/house-prices-property-gazumping
My trusted business contact sees manufacturing orders picking up in the third quarter. At this point unemployment could still be rising but the impact of a recovery in house and share prices on voter psychology would be profound.
The politics is more a matter of Labour keeping its nerve and not being blown off course by events such as the BJFBW strikes (and I wonder how much the BNP was behind all this)
O/T This is great
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/dietandfitness/4303781/Gym-has-human-dumbbells-to-help-customers-exercise.html
196. Chav-fighting classes, Boob Aerobics, WAG workouts.
Certainly different.
195. The BNP werent.
O/T Just checked the Test match score-WTF???!!!
199-you were saying ????
182. No, you’re wrong. I would GENUINELY like to see Labour finally trodden into the dirt of history - they utterly disgust me as a party - however I reluctantly accept that Britain will always need a viable party of the left.
That party should be the LDs - a liberal, internationalist, soppy, ecowanky, procriminal, localist, tax n spend, candid, sometimes likeable, stupid gay party; they would make a fine opposition for the freedom loving, patriotic, libertarian, monarchist, low tax, Unionist, pro-British anticrime capitalist Conservatives.
Labour have become too repulsive, sleazy, corrupt and inept to be considered a worthy government of the nation - now and forever.
With the LDs and the Tories swapping government in a responsible fashion, the outlying votes could be mopped up by a rump Labourite left, the BNP and the Greens.
The face-off twixt the honestly europhile LDs and the honestly eurosceptic Tories would also lance another boil in British politics. To the benefit of all.
Just get a frigging move on, you libbers! Labour are on life-support: you guys just have to pull the plug.
Obviously a great poll for the LibDems. With all due respect to Nick Clegg, I really don’t think it reflects any particular LibDem policy statements. It reflects what quite a lot of us have been picking up on the ground - many swing voters are bored and fed up with Labour, but not impressed by the Tories. Telling a poll you’ll vote LD feels a good option for those. It doesn’t appear to be much to do with the economy - if we were on 41% like Darling we’d be very cheerful indeed.
O/T: the BNP are making an effort in our by-election, and we’re intrigued by the leaflet style. It looks exactly like a 1970s stalinist ‘tankie’ leaflet - with Soviet-style heroic coal miners depicted in a huge black-on-white image, a burly shaven-headed candidate, and a message that ‘we have no quarrel with our brother Polish workers’ (but they ought to go home anyway unless they have special skills). Also implies the trade unions are worse than Labour. We’re not used to the BNP round here (the ward is full of commuters in detached houses and semis) and people are scratching their heads - is this their usual approach? They ran us a close second last time, though none of the parties were trying hard in the ward then - I can’t remember if they even had a leaflet then.
ANOTHER wicket gone-goodbye cruel world,I’m going to end it all
I’m really pleased.Not because England are getting slaughtered but because the Windies NEED cricket in the way no other country does.
199
Don’t tell me you believed England would be any good at cricket? The same players and a Management Team who could not organise a pissup in a brewery - and who have an unrivalled record of failure - are hardly likely to change.
Expecting England to be good at cricket is like expecting Labour to run the economy properly.
Any news on what the UKIP and BNP % is in this ICM poll?
203. Patrick. Don’t forget there is always tomorrow. A chance to beat Man Utd at home.
202 - You would know Nick
Did you used to write the newsletters on dialectic materialism when you were in your local Soviet?
Focus on the 28% Nick instead of dissing the Toies - people think Labour are appalling, incompetent, duplicitous and clapped out, however you spin it.
201. I’ll put you down for a postal vote then Sean.
203. Clearly the Engand top order want to watch France vs Ireland, which is a cracking game.
201.
“anticrime capitalist Conservatives”
shome mishtake shurely?
You meant, of course, the Criminally-capitalist Tories, sponsored by GamblinBankers ‘R’Us.
Free markets are the opposite of Capitalism which is so close to (sic) Communism that they can smell each other’s sweat (both stink)
203. Oh, my good god.
202 Keep singing that song Nick, they are not bored and fed up with, they are sick to death of, and want Labour out. The writing is writ large. If things get as bad as I think they are going to, the Gordon saved the world, British jobs for british workers and no more boom and bust will be the death knell for Labour. Can you imagine Gordo fronting the Labour campaign against Cameron. …
Record lowest score is 45…
23-7
26-7 currently.
204 On the point of cricket being quite a USP for the Windies I totally concur.As someone who was a teenager in the mid 1980s and recalls our 5-0 thrashing at home in 1984,and another whitewash in early ‘86,this is bringing back some very painful memories.
(On a happier note,even though we were on the receiving end,I still cherish the ODI of May 31st 1984,when Viv Richards made 189 not out of a total of 272-9-he scored 189 out of 261 whilst at th crease,including 97 (?) of the last 100-I will forever hold Sir Vivian Richards in the highest reverence,for many,many other milestones,of which this was one of the most spectacular
Spread 68-74.
Great poll for the LDs, but needs confirmation in other polls. I suspect previous polls have been understating the positive public reaction to the LD economic position, which has mostly been called right…
pennyforthem: That polling has been done more recently. About 45% said they’d vote LD if they thought they could win. Enough for a huge majority.
207
I’d take a point happily-although all 3 would take us 7th in the table-funnily enough the Hammers have beaten the Mancs at home in the last two seasons,after a 15 season drought (of beating Man U at Upton Park,that is)
202. the stalinist ‘tankie’ leaflets are no surprise. BJFBW has been a propanganda gift for the BNP.
Stand by for their first MEP on June 4th
Thank you, Tony Woodley, thank you Derek Simpson.
Well done all the leftie journos like ’shameless’ milne and kevin maguire. Well done, heroic Billy Bragg.
Mathew D’ancona in the Telegraph. Worth a read IMHO
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/matthewd_ancona/4550881/Gordon-Browns-been-shamed-and-scorned—and-upstaged-by-Tony-Blair.html
Could this be Fred Flintoff’s Ian Botham moment ?
202 NickP - “many swing voters are bored and fed up with Labour, but not impressed by the Tories. Telling a poll you’ll vote LD feels a good option for those.”
I suspect those aren’t ’swing’ voters, but formerly reasonably solid Labour voters, who would never vote Tory because of the residual anti-Thatcher and ‘my family have always voted Labour’ factors.
I further suspect that when it comes to the GE, many of them will simply stay at home, unless the LibDems can give them solid reasons to vote for them.
222 It would have to be Headingley 81 to the power of 4 if it was to help
209. Not so unlikely. I nearly voted LD last time - in my Frank Dobson-esque Camden constituency - as a tactical way of nutting Labour.
220 Ermintrude - You forgot to thank the BNP’s star recruiting agent, Harriet Harman.
Back on topic !What would you sooner bet ?England to win this Test or the Lib Dems to win the next GE ?
191. “I don’t think the LibDems DO need to come up with a unique selling point.”
Agree. It’s like a scene from a “Carry On” type film where the officer asks for a volunteer to step forward and everyone steps backwards apart from one bloke. Both the Tories and LDs want ZNL to be that one bloke.
223 et al.
I suspect the major swings between 2005 and 2010 will prove to be Lab to stay at home and stay at home to Con, with a smaller actual Lab to Con swing.
220 - And, er, what about Gordon Brown? It woz ‘im wot started it.
OT and for those interested. Could Netanyahu be slipping at the last moment in Israel leave Likud even more dependent on its proposed coalition partners than initially expected? Likud are pushing the line that the right wing Israel Beiteinu party might not just coem along with Likud after all to try to solidify the Likud vote.
In short, is it quite over yet?
I spend some days without coming here, and Patrick is no longer Labour! This is very confusing.
Perhaps Gordon should do his best to get Ed Balls, his prodigy, to replace him and that would mean Labour totally doomed. My wife is pretty sure she heard Balls talking on tonight’s 6 o’oclock news on radio 4 of ‘childrens’ as a plural noun. If that is the case, surely not only should Jim Knight, the school’s minister, have urgent spelling lessons after his copious misspellings on his blog but Balls, in his capacity as secretary of state for children, schools and families, should have some basic grammar lessons - even though both spelling and grammar are not deemed very important in today’s climate and in Labour’s educational priorities.
Disillusioned core Labour voters switching the the LibDems is hardly bad news for the Conservatives.
In all the discussions about the “bias” in the electoral system what was usually missed is that the major reason the Conservatives need a bigger lead to win is because of the large number of Lib/Con seats compared to the number of Lib/Lab seats. A major switch from Lab->Lib will change that.
229. Yup. Remember the very low turnout of the last two elections. A lot of those stay-at-home voters were Thatcher’s Tories, who were sniffy about Labour but remained unimpressed by Hague/Howard/IDS etc, and were content to stay schtum as long as the economy stayed good.
But the Tories now look like a capable government with a papabile leader. Meanwhile the once just-about-tolerable Labour government is now HATED by the previously lapsed and apathetic Tories, thanks to the economy, the EU, crime, immigration, multiculty pc nonsense etc.
I predict these lost voters will turn out in droves to kick Labour in the goolies - as they did at Crewe. And the upsurge will make a mess of many electoral models.
Never mind the cricket lads, check out the rugby. Ireland are on their way and will no doubt be more fancied after a good win against France……which is why its worth looking for Ireland to drop a game somewhere.
@233 (P. Collinson)
As much as I dislike him, I found great solace in Peter Mandelson’s quip about the difference between rebuttal and refutation. The battle for eloquence in politics lives!
232 Me - are you sure you’re not confusing different Patricks?
232 Open-minded,I emphasise;open to persuasion,reason-and with likely 15 months to go,my vote (if I do) is up for grabs-more urgently is that imminently England will beat their previous all-time lowest Test score-aaarrgghhhh!!!
236 Fair play,that at least one of the Home Nations can smile warmly tonight
Only once in Test History has a whole Test side been bowled out with no batsman making double figures:this was South Africa on tour in 1924,at Edgbaston-SA were bowled out for 30
Well done Ireland. Sets up a fascinating Six Nations - with Wales, France, Ireland battling for top spot. England may scrape seventh.
At least our cricket team are… oh.
Has Gordon been ringing round the various English captains or something?
238-PfP- I’m sure. Patrick (West Ham fan…)
239-lol Patrick! I understand your indecision.
The stalwarts of all parties get delusional occasionally and today it is the turn of the LibDems.
Even if this poll is accurate all the speculation about replacing Labour or blocking a Tory majority is pie in the sky in the current circumstances. In twelve months time, who knows but it is unlikely to be a wave of LibDem success based on the amazingly well known LibDem tax policy, or the increasingly waffling Cable Guy sweeping the LibDems to official opposition.
Keep some perspective, don’t go down the old Tory route of believing the wish is the reality or the current Labour way of simply ordering that their reality be implemented with a simple: ” make it so” of the starship Enterprise.
One other thing to note on Israel, there are stories that Israel thinks its getting closer on the swap of the IDF soldier held by Hamas. If this isnt wishful thinking all those people the Israelis held during the recent Gaza operation will shortly prove useful.
It may also take a bit if wind from the right in Israel as well at an interesting moment though its anyoines guess if it will happen or not.
244. I would like to see the Lib Dems replace Labour as well, for much the same reasons as SeanT and others upthread. But I really can’t see it happening if it didn’t in the mid-1980s, when Labour were widely viewed as a joke party with zero relevance in the modern world.
The Liberals blew it then (did they ever really want it?) and I suspect will do so again this time. They lack the ruthlessness and are far too focused on trying to beat the Tories.
critique of the latest boundary review, and historical background
http://pa.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/61/1/4?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=1&andorexacttitle=and&andorexacttitleabs=and&fulltext=rallings+thrasher&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=date&resourcetype=HWCIT
246
If the Conservatives win the next general election, and if they follow through with the GBP 50,000 limit on political donations, the Lib-Dems have a good chance.
If councils seats are an indicator of activist base, there’s not so much separating the two parties. Without the union cash, Labour are Lib-Dem sized.
I can’t see the Lib Dems taking over from Labour without overcoming two key constraints; History and Geography. It’s probably possible for them to do so but it would require a huge amount of energy.
FWIW I think the only way for the Lib Dems to take over from Labour is if they positioned themselves as the party of the working class. Take away Labour’s core vote, perhaps make a case for the unions to disaffiliate. But to follow this tactic require a sacrifice of the more ‘leafy’ seats. The current party elite aren’t going to do that.
248. It’s not just about money, though, is it? It’s about breaking long-ingrained habits of voting in the old industrial areas and among certain ethnic groups.
It’s about how a very middle class party whose leaders’ cultural reference point is Brussels rather than South Yorkshire or Tyneside persuade Labour’s core vote to come over to them.
Labour’s coalition is falling apart due to its own contradictions, the Lib Dems would have to reassemble essentially the same coalition without having the history or the electoral hinterland to do so. It’s not impossible but it’s a very big ask.
249. Pretty much snap, there, G.
England 49-7: our lowest ever total passed=all England needs is a freak thunderstorm to hit Jamaica,and England will be smiling again
250
It would be an exciting battle to see though, don’t you think? Take the union cash away, and will the British left still favour big government, or will they see low taxes as a priority?
OT. Torres is amazing. 3-2 Liverpool
254 Whoever said scousers nick anything not tied down was’nt wrong
If this is true, Nick P is not going to like it!
http://timesonline.typepad.com/politics/2009/02/ministers-aband.html
“Against a backdrop of rising unemployment, Senate Democrats struck a hard-won deal yesterday with a handful of Republican moderates to scale back spending in a massive economic stimulus bill, virtually guaranteeing Senate passage of the legislation but also ensuring arduous final negotiations with the House.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/06/AR2009020602097.html?hpid=topnews
Two issues: first, bipartisanship has gone out the window; the Democrats’ only goal is to peel off just enough Republican votes to avoid a filibuster (i.e., about two Senate votes). Bigger issue: this will go to a House-Senate conference committee where a furious Pelosi will do her utmost to put back in the bill all of the spending that the Senate has taken out as part of their effort to slide it through. It is anybody’s guess as to what will come out of the conference committee or who will vote for it.
246.
” the mid-1980s, when Labour were widely viewed as a joke party with zero relevance in the modern world.”
ie when people widely began to realise they were just another bunch of crooked Tories, you mean?
Sidebottom is out. 50-8.
254. Unkind people might look at Benitez’s worries over Torres’ fitness for next week’s internationals and conclude he was exaggerating somewhat.
243 Apols, Me, you were indeed correctly in referring to the 38 year old, West Ham supporting, Bournemouth residing, would-be cigarette quitting and erstwhile Labour advocating, PfP sympathising (for paying over £4 for a pint of Peroni), the one of several rather than the only PBing Patrick.
I can’t help thinking however, that come the day, Patrick will know on which side his bread is buttered and will revert to his old allegiance.
A bit like the Daily Maily really, only in reverse - how many times over the past 38 years has that August journal endorsed any party other than the Tories? And who will they support at the next GE. I’ll offer odds of 5/1 on up to £20 that it will indeed be the Tories once again. This bet in whole or in part remains open until midnight tonight to UK based punters only.
Why some are employing foreign workers….
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/31408dc6-f48e-11dd-8e76-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1
Eng 50-8;ah well,at least Freddie comfortably made double figures
@256 (Stars and Stripes)
Do you know if conference committee resolutions are also subject to filibustering?
Are we expecting any more polls this weekend?
51-9
260 One point of order-I am NOT 38 until 18th February,so have 11 days to go (well 10 1/2 to be pendantic as I was born at c.5.30am ):lol:
260 Just to clarify that - I’ll offer bodds of 5/1 against the mail endorsing any party other than the Tories up to a maximum stake of £20 - sorry for any confusion.
251. I think so. The idea that the Labour party “represents people like me” is a hard one to destroy. Specially when the tories and lib dems seem to care even less than the labour party.
253. Take the union cash away and the British Left would find an alternative source of funding. You would get tory dominance for a few elections before voter and party behaviour changed.
260. PfP. Can you clarify. Daily Mail to back Tories at 5/1 or to back anyone but Tories at 5/1?
263- After the conference committee strikes a compromise, the bill has to again pass the House and Senate. Therefore, the House vote we’ve already seen, as well as the impending Senate vote, are merely preliminary in nature. Also, that means that the product of the conference committee is subject to a filibuster.
202. How can something be simultaneously 70s and Stalinist?
@270 (Stars and Stripes)
Thanks. Further to that, have you ever known for the original Senate version of a bill to go through but the conference version fail? I imagine it may have happened during the Clinton years.
250 If you mean the ultra ultra core vote of Bristol South, Liverpool West Derby or Stoke Central then no that should never happen even if Labour went with Das Kapital as their election manifesto. However many of their other seats while massively improbable are not in the same class.
Anyone know if Downing Street sent good luck wishes to England in the Windies?
266 - Patrick - give me a break - I can’t remember the tiniest little detail on every single PBer - admit it, I did do quite well with you!
What odds on England to win the test match. Wasn’t Headingley ‘81 a 500/1 shot?
The fightback has clearly already started.
268
Yes, but without the need for public sector union backing, wouldn’t the priorities/policies be different? Labour would have to compete with the Lib-Dems for activists, donors, and votes.
This is worrying though perhaps not too surprising
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/4550144/CIA-warns-Barack-Obama-that-British-terrorists-are-the-biggest-threat-to-the-US.html
lost by an innings.
275 Apologies for sounding off-hand! I’ve actually grown to quite like you:I’m more than a tad sensitive about my age as ever more ex-schoolfriends and/or their relations are hitting the big 4 0 :which makes me run cold with dread-at least mine will fall on a Friday,so I can drink until my liver looks like Chernobyl power station
The LD’s are not going to become the main party of the left and our as likely as the LD’s were going to become the main party of the right at the time of the laughable “Real Opposition” scheme, where the LD’s tried claiming the opposition despatch box. Uterly Pathetic!
The Labour party have the unions, which they are pandering relentless to through HH assualt against white middle class men - take the onquiry into Finacial Service pay in London. It sends out two messages - tough on the bankers (Bogy men of our time) - plus an olive branch to the unions and “Fair Pay”. The Labour party also have the stupid, who are part of the client state: Though the BNP are doing a good job of hoovering up the White Labour vote - this is probably more than offset by Immigrants over the last 10 years.
The second point is electoral geography/ seats to become the opposition party Even with the Labour party on this poll they get something like 200 seats plus the LD’s will be further behind Labour than they are the Tories in seats. It’s cobblers to say the LD’s will surplant Labour and should be filled in Loony in the achive list!
280 Good on you Patrick!
268. The idea that the Labour party “represents people like me” is a hard one to destroy.
Hmmm, tell that to those Labour supporters voting BNP now.
Did you not see Blears v. the unions on Newsnight? “If you wear a bowler hat Labour are on your side, if you wear a hard hat you’re on your own”
What odds a LibDem election victory then?
276 The 500-1 was quoted at the close of day 3 of Headingley 81 by Ladbrokes-a few (notably including Dennis Lillee and Rodney Marsh of the tourists) put a few quid on,and apparently the 500-1 did not last beyond that evening-to what point it came in I could not tell you.
R.I.P English cricket
272- I don’t have a specific answer for you, but that undoubtedly has happened. That result is far more likely when one party controls the House and the other party the Senate. What would likely happen is that it would become apparent in conference that either the House or the Senate couldn’t pass the product that appeared to be emerging, in which case there would either be further negotiation in conference until something was produced that could pass or they would give up and start over again (i.e., produce a new bill in the House or Senate and start the process over).
277. Marginally. The views of voters and party members will be the main determinate of the policies that Labour put forward and those voters and party members will still have ties to the union movement.
If campaigns become one sided, the system will adjust to make it competitive again. Or when Labour eventually get back in, (which they will), they’ll bring in public financing or allow union donations again. It’s a pretty pointless and vindictive idea.
280. Patrick, good luck to your boys tomorrow. Liverpool have (somehow) gone top of the Premier League. Obviously I was a little slow in following the cricket.
Onto more serious matters, that telegragh story bothers me. I can’t quite believe it.
284. Probably the same as Elvis being found or aliens visiting earth!
283. If I had any money I’d bet you that Labour would win more working class voters than the BNP at the next election. Even in that quote you gave me there is the implicit assumption that Labour are ’sposed to represent those wearing hard hats.
The BNP are no more going to replace Labour than the Lib Dems are.
This is staggering - Labour need shooting for allowing all these people to plot in this country: What were the Silly sods thinking?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/4550144/CIA-warns-Barack-Obama-that-British-terrorists-are-the-biggest-threat-to-the-US.html
290. I am not suggesting that the BNP will supplant Labour, merely that enough working class blokes voting BNP gives lie to the premise that natural Labour voters can’t be tempted elsewhere, even to the LibDems.
287
I don’t see anything vindictive about it. Union donations wouldn’t be banned, but if all donations are limited to £50,000 then Labour would have to represent the best interests of voters, rather than their paymasters, the public sector unions.
The left doesn’t have to be statist.
292. But the BNP have positioned themselves as an explicitly working class party which is what I was suggesting that the Lib Dems needed to do.
BTW does anyone have any actual data on where the BNP get most of their voters from?
291 “four out of 10 CIA operations designed to thwart direct attacks on the US are now conducted against targets in Britain”
293. But the lefts voters and members interests are close to the interests of unions.
What do you think unions do?
288 Cheers for the support;I’d happily take a point,but lets se what happens
284 Re aliens visiting-might they not be the obnoxious mutation of homo sapiens otherwise colloquially known in the UK as ‘chavs’?
260-PfP-
You have a great memory. I can’t even remember all these details about myself! 
291. The problem of Islamic extremists setting up in the UK was known about as far back 1980s. Sucessive British governments turned a blind eye.
What about this as a wager offer. I’ll bet that at the next election there’ll be a swing in GB vote terms from Labour to the Lib Dems. If anyone wants to take this on we can discuss.
Stumbling and Mumbling on Sarkozy’s vat cut claims.
“Far from showing that the VAT cut hasn’t worked, the data has for me had the opposite effect. My immediate reaction was that the cut wouldn’t work, as consumer spending is not terribly price-elastic. But the data has caused me to have a little (only little) doubt about this.
But even if the cut hasn’t worked yet - and we’ll never know the counterfactual - it does not follow that it will bring us nothing. The move has an income effect. If shoppers don’t spend more in response to lower prices, they’ll have more cash left over. Which they could spend. They needn’t have done this already. It’s possible, therefore, that even if the VAT cut hasn’t worked yet, it might eventually do so.
Sarkozy’s dogmatism is, therefore, inconsistent with both data and theory. But I suppose his mind is on other things.”
http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2009/02/sarkozys-stupidity.html
The BNP are starting from a very low base. If they ever get to the point where they’re regularly challenging for MPs in once ultra-safe Labour seats then those seats could easily turn into 3 way marginals, or even 4 way marginals in a few cases.
299 - The French were warning about Abu Hamza & co as early as 1994, from memory.
BNP have a distinct working class identity. For all John Major’s talk of us being a ‘classless’ society, we are not. I’m starting to think that a party can only really supplant Labour by being unashamedly working class. I don’t think the Lib Dems should really target labour’s core vote as such. There are 100 to 150 seats that it’s quite clear labour will not lose at the moment. The Lib Dems should be focusing on the slightly easier ones.
296
The unions, are public sector unions. Without their influence, Labour, in competition with the Lib-Dems for activists, funds and votes, might well re-evaluate whether statist solutions are in their voters best interests.
If Labour had spent the last 10 years in government determined to reduce income tax, rather than raise government spending, imagine the difference that would have made to people’s lives.
Sorry to be off thread but this is interesting in that if Labour MP’s can twitter about there activies, which of course could be deemed a sucrity risk - why the F*cking hell do they block expenses!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/4550765/Spare-us-the-Twitterers-of-Westminster.html
296. “What do you think unions do?.”
They collect subs from millions of migrant workers.
The unions are internationalist which in the current context is putting them on a medium term collision course with their membership.
301. If they dont have the free cash to spend, it makes no difference at all.
303. the French who were suffering a camapign from Islamic groups at the time were expressing cncernes in the late 1980s.
309. concerns
On topic
Martin is being modest about his own blog contribution so let me quote it here
http://delivernothinglabourparty.blogspot.com/
Liberal Democrat’s are a peculiar bunch
Liberal Democrats have been in the Labour pocket since well before 1997. I despise them for their lies, their inability to admit failure and confront the truth. The Liberal Democrats are the worst political party in the United Kingdom – they tend to be racist, hypercritical and masters in perverting the political scene. The Liberal Democrats are doomed to failure at the next election – even their leader Nick Clegg has a high chance of becoming the first leader in quite a while to loose his seat. What do the LD’s do?
They claim people with facts are Loonies! It is the pompous idiot’s who cannot see the realities who are Idiot’s! They cannot see the Yellow Taxi coming that will mean LD Representation slashed, culled or decimated! Pride comes before a fall but the LD’s have fallen already and not just in the opinion polls. The Liberal Democrats are doomed – DOOMED at the next election! It will be a joyous occasion when the self interested get busted! Two Fingers up at you Liberal Democrats – you have been Labour’s PENIS for too long and you are going to shortly encounter a protracted period of IMPOTENCE!
Frank B one of the of the myths in the Labour party is that they are working class but like the Bolzheviks they are really a middle class elite trying to claim the working class as their own and so tend
to patronise real working class people with predictable results.
289 Hi Martin, You were saying…..
MIKE CAN YOU RELEASE 313 pls asap
313 pS I’ll only use that login once ….
312. Spot on. But Labour’s history and deeply entrenched positions in many parts of the country mean that many people still profess loyalty to them.
I half agree with the idea that the BNP are actually more credible challengers for the Labour core vote; from a positioning point that is clearly correct. But the realities of their weak organisation and rather serious image problem significantly limit the likely inroads they can make.
This is a very good poll for the Libs (and with others up possibly good for us NATs). But I think for the first time since 1992 the Lib Dem vote will become less targeted. They have done very well in concetrating their resources in target seats, mainly in more urban areas where they have large numbers of councillors. My worry for them is that they will increase their share of the vote whilst losing seats.
I can only really talk about Wales with any authority but from what I see the Libs will increase their vote in Cardiff, Swansea, Newport and Wrexham but will struggle to increase on their 1 urban seat (cardiff Central).
In the rural seats they are losing support to the Tories. In the case of Ceredigion I am very biased but am confident that enough Tories will go back to their party to see Plaid in with a comfortable majority (tory vote collapsed last time). Brecon and Radnor will be very close with a strong Tory working hard and in what should be a truly safe Lib seat in Montgomeryshire Lembit is doing all he can to upset a very small “c” conservative community (see link)
Lembit in county times
If this trend is repeated in the south west and in Scotland it could be a very bad election for the Libs.
300. Presumably you mean in net terms, Mike, not absolute…
e.g. Lab -5, LD -3 = 1% swing “to” the LibDems from Labour?
I think it’ll be close to zero, but if I had to choose, I’d guess a very slight swing “to” Labour…
312. Damn right which is why a bod like myself, working class upbringing, father a blue collar union shop steward with years working for the state and who has apparently nothing in common therefore with the Tory party (or so Labour would tell me), wouldnt touch them with a barge poll.
That is of course if they cared to actually stand in this part of the UK, but no, instead they cop out.
318 – “Good for us NATs”
May I ask which ‘Nats’ you are, Scottish or Welsh?
Cheers, SSC
Political nerds of the world, rejoice!
You can now get an Angela Merkel Barbie doll.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/06/angela-merkel-barbie-doll
Royal Bank of Scotland to pay ONE BILLION pounds in bonuses
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/4551817/Royal-Bank-of-Scotland-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/4551817/Royal-Bank-of-Scotland-to-pay-staff-1-billion-in-bonuses.html
321 - Plaid.
Though to be honest we make up a very small portion of any UK poll and ICM treat Wales and South West as one region so they are completely useless to predict results.
I’ll tell you why the BNP will never get significant traction, enough to really upset the general mode and operation of politics in the UK for any significant time and impact.
Its because the average British working class geezer and gal isnt actually that ignorant and that stupid and they arent extremem unless really really pushed. This is despite what some, particularly on the left, who like to think they farm the working class vote, would have you believe.
Mike S, Its perfectly possible that the LDs will see a vote swing from Labour in raw numbers but will that mean they will see many net seat gains come 2010?
324 Toxic…
318 I rather think if their vote increases in Swansea it will do so in West rather than East and if Labour are slipping puts it well into play with the reverse in Newport. As for Mid Wales don’t rule out Opik going and Williams staying.
235.”I predict these lost voters will turn out in droves to kick Labour in the goolies - as they did at Crewe. And the upsurge will make a mess of many electoral models.”
Bang on the money with that comment Sean, and its not just Labour who have benefited from their disappearance in recent years. How will this effect those Lib/Con marginals, even if the Libdems manage to retain some residual Labour tactical voters?
From a Lib Dem perspective this election is surviving with as few losses to the Tories as possible, and getting into close position in Labour held seats for next time around.
The likes of Swansea West and Newport East are longshots (although possible on really good of polling figures, especially Swansea West) but if going into the next election we have held 40-50 seats and are the main opposition in a fair amount more I think that’ll be a good result. 2013/4 is I think the big election for us.
With FPTP the airgame and UNS is overrated. It’s 650 local elections influenced by them and bulding a local activist/voting base for making a run at the seat. A potential Lib Dem seat is defined more by the local org far more than anything else.
The sort of situation I’m imagining is that the sort of areas (in England) that are 70 Lab, 20 LD, 10 Con, becoming 30 BNP, 30 Lab, 30 LD, 10 Con. I’m not expecting any great tidal wave either way but the possible splintering of the Labour vote leading to all sorts of odd situations.
I’m not expecting that by 2010 though. I think the Lab->LD swing in 2010 will be mostly protest vote but potentially a very big protest vote if things carry on like they are.
@324 (Maggie Thatcher Fan)
That is unbelievably stupid. It’s an open goal for the Tories and Lib Dems, come PMQs or the news.
These people who insist their bonus is ‘contractual’ would be well advised to remember that they would be out of work if they hadn’t been bailed out. It was appalling negligence on the part of Brown and Darling not to insist on contract restructuring at the time of the government intervention.
The sad thing is, any Labour member worthy of the name will be appalled. Blair would have done something about it. Brown has his head in the clouds thinking about the G20. He is the ultimate liability.
332. But shouldn’t the government and the regulatory agencies be taking a pay cut as well?
In an attempt to appease ministers, RBS has indicated that no individual banker will receive a bonus with a cash element of more than £25,000 under its plans.
*The remainder of the bonuses, to be paid next month, will be in RBS shares, with a large proportion of them deferred or not paid at all if an employee leaves RBS within an agreed period, or if their area of the bank makes significant losses in the following two years.* UKFI, which is led by John Kingman, a senior Treasury official, is considering the proposals.
About half of the bank’s “bonus pool” will consist of payments that RBS believes it is contractually obliged to pay. Much of this sum will be paid to employees of ABN Amro, the Dutch banking group for which RBS is now acknowledged to have overpaid at the height of the banking boom. The proposed remaining bonus pool, worth about £500 million, is discretionary.
332 The justification seems to be its 60% down on last year. Who gives a flying f**k. In the current climate it’ll just make people hate banks even more. Perhaps that’s what Gordon would like to take the heat off him… I am a customer of said bank. They will be getting a call Monday Morning. They shouldn’t be allowed to pay anything like that until the state has been repaid for their foolhardiness.
333
YES!
332 The Daily Mash had it spot on:
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/business/rbs-execs-to-rev-their-ferraris-very-loudly-outside-your-house-200902051559/
A total failure by the Govt. to firmly grasp the banks by the bollocks when their very survival was dependent on Govt. bail-outs. Labour’s total lack of commercial nous is exposed yet again.
322. We already have an Angela Merkel lemon squeezer, my son bought it in Berlin. Because of her sticky-out ears it works very efficiently.
308. I wish the unions collected subs from “millions” of migrant workers. If they did, then any problems associated with wage or conditions disparities would quickly disappear. But actually, their attempts to recruit migrant workers are half-hearted and intermittent.
I wish the unions were truly internationalist. But they can’t decide whether they are internationalists or little Englanders. At the moment, the little England mentality is winning.
Oh dear. England were a bit pants. At least the Italians were nice enough to gift us a decent margin of victory though.
Let’s hope Wales thump Scotland tomorrow. Has Brown wished Scotland luck?
330 I don’t think Swansea West is a long shot at all. Certainly not for its region. It is a prime Lib Dem target with elements like a retiring MP, a University, and a strong Council base. Newport East OTOH really is a long shot but just in view.
Three possibilities for this poll. Not sure which if any are true.
1. Its an outlier and as Mike S says you can’t spot these till after the event.
2. the snow has really buggered up the public sector weightings.
3. the snow and strikes have unsettled people in a “War of Jennifers ear” way. One way of reading the headline figures is Establishment parties down 8% Non Establishment Parties up 8%
perhaps everyone is just hacked off.
Final Comment. Millions of Pensioners, Disabled and Child Benefit claimants have now had their £60 binuses from Godon AND everyone has had the end of January Pay Cheque. If that hasn’t done somethin to Labours certainity to vote score ( and it doesn’t look like it) then Labour really are in trouble.
You have to be careful on this Bonus stuff - What if someone made 100 million Profit for RBS in a particular part but this was more than offset by the loss making parts. Is it *fair* to penalise the wealth creating part? If RBS had collapsed the wealth generating sector may well have been gobbled up by a competitor - some of this Bonus stuff is pretty self defeating and I was personally offended by Cameron’s comment on ex-finanical service employees doing charity work because it is there fault - the fault lays with Labour’s economic incomptence not the pawns taking the flack. If he comes out with comments like that he will lose much support IMO.
328. I think Lembit could be in a lot of trouble. On the list in both Montgomeryshire and Brecon the Tories beat the Libs. The Libs keep the seats because Plaid voters (in the east of Montgomeryshire) and Labour voters (in the south west of B&R) vote tactically.
I can not see Plaids core welsh speaking support (28% speak Welsh in constituency) voting for Lembit this time. His personal life is becoming a joke and publicly dumping a local welsh speaking “celebrity” for a cheeky girl will not go down at all well. Also his opponent is a Welsh speaker who lead the calls for a Plaid - Tory coalition in the Assembly.
Lembit could quite easily lose a 24% majority.
Roger williams is in a much more straightforward fight but only has a 10% majority and the Tories are putting a lot of resources into the constituency.
Mark williams in Ceredigion is (with proviso that I am very biased on this one) toast, with a majority of only 219 votes.
@333 (runnymede)
Well, I’m not overly offended by MPs salary - I think it’s a reasonable amount. I am offended by their expenses, not for their own sake, but because of the stupid disclosure games they insist on playing. I am also offended by the low workrate of certain MPs in safe seats though.
I don’t know what salaries/bonus structures are like in the FSA. The FSA was clearly not up to the job. The problem with setting very specific capitalization ratios and other micro-regulatory measures as per Basel II etc is that they become a target in themselves. In the future, I hope there will be regular ‘too big to fail’ tests for all financial institutions, with the ability to split up overly large banks.
339 Morris Dancer are you ok????, any self respecting English/man/woman/person.. (assume you are) want Wales to get hammered in every game they play….. I certainly do.
“The unions, are public sector unions. Without their influence, Labour, in competition with the Lib-Dems for activists, funds and votes, might well re-evaluate whether statist solutions are in their voters best interests.”
I’m getting a bit tired of this. You’ve got causation all mixed up. Labour party are not the party of the public sector because the unions donate to them. The unions donate to the Labour party because they are the party of the public sector. The Labour party is the party of the public sector because that’s what it’s voters and activists want it to be. These voters and activists will not change because of the removal of union donations. Labour party voters are more likely to be union members. Labour party activists are more likely to be union members. If you get rid of union donations, Labour party donees will be more likely to be union members.
326. “Its because the average British working class geezer and gal isnt actually that ignorant and that stupid and they arent extremem unless really really pushed. This is despite what some, particularly on the left, who like to think they farm the working class vote, would have you believe.”
Bang on the money, although in my experience it’s those on the right on this site who keep repeating that Labour are going to lose working class votes to the BNP.
338. My “subs” comment was silly I must admit.
345, except when they have money backing Wales, obviously.
348 aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
343. Why no sign of LD erosion in the Sennedd (sp?) seat then. same boundries ? Of course some people will change votes with a different candidate but surely not that many ?
338.
“We already have an Angela Merkel lemon squeezer,”
Do they do an Andrew Marr and a Wayne Rooney?
340. Swansea West is possible, but I think it is more likely they will lose B&R or Montgomeryshire than take it. If the LDs keep 3 seats in Wales they should be happy. Keeping at 4 would be a great result. falling to 1 seat is not impossible (but would be a disaster).
349, you’re not at the dentist’s, you know
For what it’s worth, if I didn’t have money backing them I’d love the Scots to stuff the Welsh. But I don’t think they will.
322.
“You can now get an Angela Merkel Barbie doll.”
That’s Angela-goes-anorexic!!
343 Yes but Ceredigion doesn’t usually do as expected see 1992 and then in 2005. In theory it should be entirely a foregone conclusion but no one should be surprised if Williams held next time and is booted out a while later when no one expects. Also unlike Opik he badly wants to keep his seat.
@342 (Martin Day)
Is there any reason why a bonus should not be in terms of options on RBS stock slowly vesting over 10 years, dependent on sustained performance of their trading portfolios? I doubt many people would have problems with that, because it aligns itself nicely with taxpayer’s interest. It is win-win for everyone, and maintains a long-term approach.
Remember, this £1bn consists of £500m discretionary CASH bonus, plus unspecified stock options (which only vest over a short-termist 2 years). Have the government learnt nothing from the “wrong short-term incentives” message which has been done to death over the last few months?
346
We are at least in agreement that Labour are ‘the party of the public sector’.
Martin, wibbler - um…what further disclosure of expenses do you now require, given that everything down to individual receipts is to be published?
353 The Jocks had a fair first half against SA IIRC, I wouldnt write them off, and it is a celtic grudge match. Wales must be favourites however.
350. In the Senedd election the Tory was a more traditional Conservative and the Lib is a popular local farmer. In the fptp vote he won comfortably but in the regional vote (the breakdown by seats for this are not widely printed) the Tories got more votes. The Plaid and Labour voters backed the Lib on fptp to keep out the Tory but “went home” on the list vote.
I simply can’t see the Plaid supporters backing Lembit. The same (to a lesser extent) goes for the Labour voters. If these Plaid and Labour people simply vote for their first preference Lembit could lose. If they actually back the Tory he will definitely lose.
If any bookie was willing to offer odds I’d be willing to put a few quid on the Tory, even with a 24% lib majority.
@358 (Nick Palmer MP)
Oh, I thought that it was still possible that all individual expense receipts (both those already collated, and those to come) were not going to be published. If they are then I apologize, I was mistaken.
Be interesting to see the breakdown by demographics in this poll.
As Anthony Wells posted recently the war between Labour & Conservatives is really over C2s - the skilled workers where BJFBW matters. Last ICM the Tories had a big lead 49:31:11 in C2s, has this declined with the defence of freedom of movement? is that where the -4% has come from?
Where has Labour lost support of ABC1’s perhaps as result of Laws for Cash and BJFBWs? Have they lost C2s (perhaps to parties outside Tory/LibDem) ?
Lib Dems are usually strongest in ABC1 and weak in C2DE (which is why talk of them replacing Labour as the party of the working class cannot be taken seriously, they are a middle class party) - have they picked up lost Labour (and Tory) votes in ABC1’s or more importantly gained in C2s.
312.
” Two Fingers up at you Liberal Democrats – you have been Labour’s PENIS for too long and you are going to shortly encounter a protracted period of IMPOTENCE!”
I was worried for one moment, that Ermintrude had graduated, in a hurried fashion, through Tory white powder to the pills, then I realised the post was quoting Martin Day and everything fell into place!
359. We’re looking really good at the moment. We have the best team I have ever seen play for Wales, everything is going great. So I thoroughly expect the Scots to give us a sound kicking tomorrow with Wales simply unable to string passes together and Scotland landing penalty after penalty.
351. that would be more like a lemon-shredder.
I don’t know whether they do other ones. My son paid the extortionate sum of 15 euros for this bit of tat but anyway it takes pride of place in our kitchen now
364, not so sure. I think Wales were winners in 2005 and then cocked up hugely in the following year. They’ve got the players, and I think they should win by a fair margin.
Then England should be a walkover, which leads on to the French game, which should be a fun time in Paris.
362.
“Laws for Cash”
Another Tory campaign in search of the ever-touted ‘defector’? Sponsored by a slot-m@chine merchant by any chance?
356. Difficult to say but i don’t think the Bonuses is anything other than politics! Say you are a Mortgage adviser and you have a salary of £18K a year but due to good performance you have managed to secure some excellent business and you get £30K in bonuses. (Unlikely proposition given current Mortgage Lending but Bonuses do not just go to city traders etc. Banks really screw you if you work for them for performance - I once worked in a cleric bank job in a processing centre and the target was to screen a thousand Cheques and paying in slips an hour! I could not do it!
358. Nick, For some reason details hit a stumbling block sometime ago due to MP’s addresses being made public. Now i don’t know whether the case has changed and this objection has been overcome but I was citing my thoughts on Labour MP’s twittering about their lives, where they eat, the trains they catch etc as this would give potential hostile forces knowledge of when to Assinate Labour MP’s!
OT
Labourlist have obviously decided to have a death wish and as a chief mourner want Dale at it.
At least they keep mentioning his name in almost every article.
Has Draper lost it completely?
Most strange behaviour..Makes Gordon Brown seem (almost) normal.
369, maybe he’s developed a Dale fixation?
36. Maybe I should write an acceptence Speech for David Amess at the next election!
Or Jeremy Clarkson in Sheffield Hallam! 
368.
“I once worked in a cleric bank job ”
You mean you were paid for being there? Evidence that you have ever WORKED has yet to be disinterred on here. Piling vicars on top of one another were we?
363. um, sorry, I forgot the quote marks. But there could surely be no mistake about the true author of this sublime prose…
367 - Did you see the photo of Cameron in the Daily Mail today with the convicted benefit fraudster Shelley Ross and her Carphone Warehouse bloke.
Is Dave helping with community sentencing already?
“Soon Ross was seeing (the unrelated) Shelley Ross, a statuesque, Dublin-born model and former Stringfellows pole dancer, who had writhed in lace scanties under the stage name of Soraya for £10 a dance.
She and Ross first bumped into each other at Heathrow airport. ‘It was love at first sight,’ Shelley later cooed.
In early 2003 she gave birth to his son Carl Cosmo, who was baptised at Nevill Holt.
But her past came back to haunt them both when, in 2004, she pleaded guilty to benefits fraud and was ordered to do 120 hours community service. While their relationship also seemed to have been unconventionally detached, Shelley was allowed by Ross to rub shoulders with his friends in the newly trendy Conservative Party.
Indeed, she is said to have been one of the organisers of the 2006 Tory Summer Ball, at which she was pictured with David and Samantha Cameron. The bikini and hotpant clad rollerskating waitresses were Shelley’s idea.
”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1093043/David-Ross-The-public-school-high-roller-lost-multi-million-pound-gamble.html
370 I think he is fixated about anyone who does not listen the the words of the great leader.
374 off thread not interesting, try again later.
The ironic thing about marginals is had Ceredigion gone marginally the other way it’d be talked about as a possible Lib Dem gain.
In Wales I think Lib Dems will come out with 3-4 seats. I don’t see Lembit losing a 24% majority and I think Roger’s fairly safe on 10%. Ceredigion I have no real info on.
360. Would you like a modest charity bet ? £10 to the Lake District Mountain Rescue Service if the Lib Dems hold Montgomeryshire at the next GE. ( note the wording - I wouldn’t be surprised if lembit walks). £10 to a charity of your choice if the Conservatives gain it.
I think there is a mechnism for recording this sort of ting but can’t remember who we email.
374. Tim, you remind me of the Forest Gump - British version obviously!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/4551766/Speaker-Michael-Martin-in-secrecy-row.html
I am surprised the Telegraph have not linked the Twittering and MP’s secrecy - seems strange that Labour MP’s can Twitter but not give full details of other things!
374. I saw Tony Blair hanging out with killers from Northern Ireland, and he ended up giving them good old UK taxpayers money. In fact so has Gordon.
Next…..
377. Your right of course. But I think the fact that Plaid got their act together in the Assembly election (very comfortable majority) and that the Tory vote got squeezed so much last time (down from 19.4% to 12%) means that it should be good for Plaid this time.
378. It’s very tempting but betting against a 24% majority at evens is a bit of a stretch. Also as a member of the left of my party it is against every principle I have (possibly not saying that much) to bet on a Tory winning. The Libs should keep it but the way Lembit is acting will make it very very unsafe. If he walks it is completely safe. If he doesn’t I give Glyn Davies a good 1 in 3 chance.
379 - I think Dave is admirable in letting the benefit fraudster organise the The bikini and hotpant clad rollerskating waitresses.
Her experience as a pole dancer will have been useful.
Dont get too excited Mike - your party will always be an irrelevence now and in the next 500 years!
Ps - might have been posted before - England cricketers = c***s. England cricket = labour = gordon brown.
382 still of thread still not interesting, noone is going to bite.
383
I hear Watford was postponed.. I has the right sort of ring to it.
382 tim = england cricketer!!!!!
382 - I can understand the snipe about an alleged benefit fraudster, but what precisely do the waitresses or the pole dancing have to do with it?
Are you a prude? How insufferable.
Lucky liverpool but they will never win the title again.
Get down the DSS you scousers!!!!!!!!!!
PS portsmouth - can they keep hull up??
PPS six nations who gives a toss? Sport for public schoolboys. Nice to see ireland not to bottle it for once….
388. You obviously haven’t been to many Welsh rugby games if you think it’s a game for the public school boys. Don’t think we’ve got any in the current team.
387. I really think ‘Tim’ is Draper.
Can’t see why the Tories would lose 4% since the previous ICM…
… other than that Tory voters were more likely to be fighting through the blizzards to get to work whilst work-shy Liberals put a cigar on and were there to take ICM’s email/call
Never let it be said that the Treasury arent backward in coming forward, about 8 yrs late of course
Treasury to launch independent investigation into bank management
The BBC reports the Treasury is to launch a full independent probe into how banks are managed - the investigation will also look at pay and bonuses received by executives.
twm? Is that tim in english? Hopefully you are not the same ‘tim’ as another poster here.
wales = small country dependent on its big neighbour for handouts.
391
MIke , Do you know what percentage of calls ICM make to mobiles and landlines respectively. Lots of people dont have landlines any more, especially the young and those flatsharing(too many arguments about the bill) Could it affect the polls in any way?
392.
“the Treasury is to launch a full independent probe into how banks are managed”
So they’ve put you in charge Captain Mainwaring?”
“Quite so, Wilson, quite so!”
re 383. That’s a big prediction Ave it. Clearly the depression prices at your local Weatherspoons are having an effect.
On bonuses, a more pragmatic reason than banker hatred for not paying out £1bn in cash is that this money could be better used to bolster the capital of RBS and make it a more effective lender.
My own pet theory, completely void of any factual backing, is that Gordon will allow the bonus speculation to ramp up over a few days. When the chorus of disapproval becomes deafening, he will ‘be decisive’ and stop the bonuses in a mistimed sop to populism.
393. No it’s Tom. As in the abreviated form of Tomos. Should in fact have a ^ on the w but don’t now how to get that to work on this website (any suggestions welcome).
As for handouts I’ll let you peddle whatever line you like. They used to say the same about Ireland. UK economic policy is based on maximising the revenue from London and using this to subsidise the rest of the country. If Wales set it’s own economic policy we would not need the handouts (although Cardiff would end up subsidising the rest of the country like Dublin in Ireland).
396 HAHAHA!!!!
You had the camera on me tonight - I was in the wetherspoons!!!!
I’m quite right about the 500 years though!!!
395/392 BBC has most likely “learned” this from the Sunday Telegraph interview Darling gives tomorrow.
Remember Gordon Brown’s speech on the day he became PM about how important announcements would be given to Parliament first?
re 394. Fair point. I think that the current answer is none - all the telephone polling is done to landlines. I know it’s being looked at.
281.”I’m more than a tad sensitive about my age as ever more ex-schoolfriends and/or their relations are hitting the big 4 0 :which makes me run cold with dread”
Patrick, my other half reckons he has never seen anyone hit 40 in a more graceless manner than I did. I wouldn’t even acknowledge it, and refused any type of celebration. Any cards bearing the number were banned.
Have a good birthday.:D
Mike, how could you theoretically poll mobiles? Landlines can be matched to addresses quite simply but mobiles are, by definition, not that easy. I suppose you could ask all networks for billing information but this is unlikely to work and you would still miss all pay as you go phones.
402 wait till you get to 50, you’ll be doing your nut… paricularly when you start getting junk mail from SAGA….
353.”For what it’s worth, if I didn’t have money backing them I’d love the Scots to stuff the Welsh. But I don’t think they will.”
So would I!
Kids desperately checking the weather tonight after more heavy snow fall up here, they have tickets to the game at Murrayfield, but alas, the weather might defeat them this time.
It seems someone is not suffering from the credit crunch. £3 million for a car…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7876741.stm
361 - you’re right that it’s not 100% clear, wibbler, but pretty much so. All the current receipts will be published next spring. all the speakers in the debate (IIRC) said it’d be daft to do that and not go on disclosing for future receipts. The amendment that I co-sponsored which would have ensured that wasn’t called because it was deemed unnecessary, so it’s still not quite nailed down, but I can’t see anyone wanting to reopen it.
231 Yokel - Israeli elections
The important thing is the share the center-right block is going to get.
It is stable at 63-67 according to every poll, well above the critical 61 out of 120. This means that Likud is almost certainly going to win (i.e. Netanyahu will be the next PM). The only other possibility is Kadima being narrowly the largest party due to the recent hemorrhaging of support from Likud to the right wing. Then it is theoretically possible that Kadima will form the new government with support of a right wing party. Such scenario is doubly unlikely and such a coalition would be highly unstable.
407 Nick - whats your view on the cricket. Is it the same as Labour supporting England!!!
Ps good luck with the commuting to London but you know that you dont need an annual season ticket next year!!!
Jacqui Smith claims £100k allowance … for living in her sister’s home…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1138782/Jacqui-Smith-earns-100-000-claiming-sisters-house-main-home.html
404.SAGA… oh god. Plenty of time yet before I hit 50, but Fitaloon and my brother in law do so within a few days of each other next year.
My sister and I are busy trying to plan their perfect birthday present at the moment, nice when they both liked the same idea.
A weekend away with the family, and the grand tour of their favourite island, stopping at the most important tourist spots of course.
410 Two coppers round the cock, thats another £120K a year no doubt
412 ooops clock
410 15 months left for her - worst home secretary of all time!
More grim news for Gordon. It turns out the man he has appointed to look after our publicly-owned banking interests had a lucrative sideline running an extremely dodgy bank accused of facilitating massive tax evasion:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/
413. I thought you had delibratly slipped the ‘cock’ in!
410 Interesting article on Ms Smith - and surprisingly long and detailed. In the old days, the press only ever ran articles like this about Conservative MPs.
“410 Two coppers round the cock, thats another £120K a year no doubt”
Precisely what goes on in your village?
You are supposed to eat the orange remember
411 post eaten by the ether/blocked
celebrated my 50th by white water rafting below Victoria Falls followed by tracking lions on a walking safari (and being tracked by lions when circumstances meant we had to walk in the dark through a marsh full of feeding hippos…)
418 tim - Just when I thought your posts weren’t worth reading any more, you come up with that one
Red again tonight, was it?
418/420
419 Ted - Was that Zimbabwe? They used to have the most superb government-approved guides for walking safaris.
Not any more, I fear.
@407 (Nick Palmer MP)
Thanks, that doesn’t sound too unreasonable. Now get onto the case of the civil service and MEPs
BTW Biden in his Munich speech pretty much guaranteed that Obama will be coming here in April. It wasn’t as widely reported here, but as well as saying Gordon Brown’s fiscal stimulus was rubbish, Sarkozy also blamed the Americans (and dissed the Czechs again). I think Merkel is now clear favourite in the first-to-Obama race.
419.Ted, now that is what I called celebrating in style.
wot no posters???
Good job the Indians held their cricketers’ auction before the WI match. Can they sue anyone for a false prospectus? I wonder what their market value is to-day?
426 10p?
I still like Jessica Taylor tho’. It continues to be a good call for Pietersen…
Evening all
Fascinating to see all the Tory supporters running around rubbishing THIS ICM poll while they were quite happy to cheer and validate the one showing the LDs at 16% - no more than can be expected I suppose.
I’m only giving this poll two cheers because I can’t quite believe it either. My take on ICM is slightly different from Mike’s. ICM has been over time the most reliable pollster BUT it does throw out outlier figures for all parties from time to time. I no more believe 16 or 22% for the LDs than I did 44% for the Conservatives.
On the other hand, I didn’t think England would lose the test by an innings or that Denman would be beaten this afternoon….
426 - “You must remember that the value of cricketers may fall as well as rise”
422 no, Zambia, the best country for walking safaris (though most are astronomically expensive). We’ve got some friends who run a camp in the Kafue, MacBrides, which is more reasonable than most. Chris MacBride was the guy who discovered white lions on his dad’ farm in South Africa (now Timbavati private game park).
Go there once a year, one of my nephews did a two month stint working there. It’s fantastic but spoils you for alternatives - once you camp out in the bush, walk everywhere and find and see elephant, buffalo, glimpsing lions and leopards (they move fast) and all sorts of game and birds on foot, then a safari in a landie seems more like visiting a zoo.
Nearly went to Zim for the animal count at Mana Pools where you are given a set of GPS co-ordinates to walk morning and evening and count what you see, dangerous but fun, but the paperwork & bribery involved made it a non-goer (might try again this year if MDC manage to improve things)
President Blair?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1138757/President-Blair-Former-PM-set-EU-chief-Sarkozy-battles-win-post.html
430 Ted - Excellent. My wife and I have done many walking safaris, in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia and Tanzania. As you say, once hooked the rest all seems rather tame. Plus there are all the little things like the insects and birds which you don’t see from the vehicles.
One of our our best experiences was at the end of a long day when we’d seen very little. On the way back to camp, walking across a large, fairly empty plain, we suddenly had a Martial Eagle appear like an Exocet out of the sun, aimed at a group of Guinea fowl just in front of us. You’d never see that from a vehicle. (It missed!)
I fear that the Zimbabwe parks will have been wrecked. Tragic.
431. Maybe it would be smart politics for the Tories to support a President Blair of the EU. It would be like putting a wedge between any pre-cr£dit crunch Labour party when Blair was leader and at least he comptently managed the job and the one eyed Incomptent Idiot who currently occupies the post!
408. If Kadima got largest party though theyd get first shot at it, correct?
433 ooooh you musn’t say that.
You are being disablist.
Why dont you just call him a c**t instead?
435. I don’t know why he doesn’t have it surgically removed and the otherone moved onto his forehead!
Failing that he could have a Dick attached to his head!!!
Disastrous poll for the tories!
The last ICM had them with a 68 seat majority (according to UKPR). This poll has reduced that to 20 seats.
It would take only a 1% swing to Labour to create a NOM.
437 yes all about labour holding onto power on this poll!
2010: we win and then we start rounding up all Labour voters….
437 - Hmm 12 points in the lead is disastrous… yeah right!
432 Had a magical half hour last time - was only guest so Chris, I and a Government Game Ranger went down river, camped out and went to explore an area that hadn’t been visited before (had a Google Earth print out which showed some interesting features). 16km walk through the bush, animals amazingly unafraid.
I pointed to some vultures off an animal path we were following, there were four hyenas feeding, they dragged bits of carcass over in front of us (standing very still in the trees) only 10 metres away, looked at us, ignored us, looked again, came closer, went back to feed, kept checking us and eventually decided we might be a danger so after 30 minutes they sloped off, looking back, stopping, then off again. Wind was favourable but to stand feet away from predators, inquisitive but not afraid of us nor threatening, was a rare experience.
Good to see Red Roses advertised on pb.com
435.
http://delivernothinglabourparty.blogspot.com/2009/02/jeremy-clarkson-brown-is-one-eyed-idiot.html
442 LOL
Sssh dont let Mike see you with that nasty anti LD blog you had running the other day.
He is a bit sensitive to criticism of his favourite party…
443.
Yes this is a Labour one!
LDs =
L
O
L
O
L
444/445 just to clarify
LDs =
Russia looks quite dangerously volatile at the moment. Unsure of the political fallout. Here are some sobering articles…
Russians are converting savings into dollars and hoarding.
Economy driven assassinations.
Rise of the barter economy.
No budget agreed due to massive differences of opinion.
Lada halts car production.
Medvedev expects further unrest.
The trouble with Putinomics.
Hmmm for some reason that last comment (447) is awaiting moderation - maybe too many links?
447 No you need more
Times has an expenses slant in it’s latest on Lord Truscott - he claims overnight allowance to stay in his own London home.
As does non-dom Labour donor Lord Paul.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5683667.ece
Haven’t looked at Snowflake for a whule, but there’s a series of good pieces there - some for ken to get his teeth into.
Forgot the link! http://snowflake5.blogspot.com/
Express has front page on Jacqui porker Smith another New Labour snout in the trough.
450/1 give her the credit to front it out: ‘I’m Labour’!
Another poll
For an Independent Scotland Yes 38% No 40%
http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.2487786.0.scotland_on_a_knifeedge.php
Back home now so can post more than 260 characters at a time!
Seat calculators:
Baxter: Con maj 28
Wells: Con maj 20
Me: Con maj 50.
I’m picking up the same number of LD seats as Wells and 3 short of Baxter. My guess (without looking into the detailed data) is that my loss-of-incumbency adjustments are causing the Con/Lab difference.
This is the first poll for a long while that I’ve thought is a plausible GE result - and going back to yesterday’s discussion, Cameron would be certain to try to use a 20+ majority on a 12-point PV win to reform the system in some way.
454 yawn:
Question: if you get an independent scotland then london will turn off the benefits tap:
Yes: not much, No: loads
We ought to impose an additional 8% tax on Scotland for all the handouts they get!!!
450. Just out of interest Nick, when new Labour members join and they are in the younger bracket say under 30’s. What is the motivation these days? When I was at University The Tories were still in government and so it tended to be a case of Tory hating! It was no good trying to be friendly to the Labour lot as they hated Tories!
Anyway has Ideology made a comeback of the more Socialist kind or did it never go away? I just wondered because as I say when I was at University I don’t think some of the Labour members knew what the Labour parties ideological values were!
456 - double yawn
455 yes sensible as always Con maj 50 - 80 on 5.5% swing
When we get in we can simply abolish over representation in wales and slum northern and scotland areas.
Or we could go for the pre 1832 approach and scrap them altogether as they contribute nothing to the economy
458
Its
to the power of Nicola Sturgeon
457 everyone is voting Con now!
Apart from Mike and Mark Senior who support
party!!!
461. What amases me about Mark Senior is he defends Labour more then the LD’s and even uses Labour Slogans.
Mark Senior =
Front Pages
463. Martin Day.
Well, Mark Senior is much more anti-Tory than he is pro-Lib Dem.
Similarly, Gordon Brown is much more anti-Tory than he is pro-Labour.
I’m off to bed now!!!
But it will be more high level political analysis from me soon!
Ps LDs =
Another day, another set of really bad headlines.
UK government suppressed evidence on Binyam Mohamed torture because MI6 helped his interrogators
Gordon Brown’s bank boss Glen Moreno had links to tax cheats
Expenses row: ‘Lodger’ deal earns Jacqui Smith £100,000 as she claims sister’s house is main home
Gordon Brown’s been shamed and scorned - and upstaged by Tony Blair
‘Peer for hire’ Lord Truscott grabs £70,000 housing perk
Key Labour employment plan close to collapse
15 more months ???
456 LS
That’s what I was thinking. Funnily enough, it’s one of the few plausible results that I lose money on. A larger majority or a Hung Parliament would be just fine, but this altogether plausible outcome loses me a little.
Home Secretary claims over £100k second home allowance for lodging with sister.
When I was away on company business, I could claim for staying with relatives / friends. However, the amount was strictly limited by the Inland Revenue and was only a fraction of what Smith actually appears to be claiming.
I do think that these barstewards should be limited to what mere mortals can claim within the HMRC guidelines and not be a rule unto themselves.
Gudio claiming the following with regards Jacqui Smith,
Her SpAd claims “It has been cleared by the Commons Fees Office.” The Fees Office don’t clear anything, they take an “Honourable Member’s” word.
True? Cos if it is, a) somebody has told porkies and b) wait for it, investigation by standards after complaint by backbench Tory MP ahead.
455. Marcia - “Another poll. For an Independent Scotland Yes 38% No 40%”
Interesting. Mike might be worth a post. Almost two weeks ago it was headlines of “humiliation” and “crisis” for the SNP.
Yet by the end of that week there was a poll showing the SNP solid and Labour losing ground. By this week was it was budget triumph and opposition folding.
Could this poll be a reflection of confidence and trust strengthening for the SNP as it drops for Labour?
Are we heading back into Summer 2008 territory quick style?
Talk of “LibDems overtaking Labour”, whilst exciting, ignores the favourable distribution of Labour’s core votes. The LibDem/Labour votes could be reversed 28-22 in the Lib Dems favour and, according to the Wells seat predictor, Labour would still lead the LibDems 170 seats to 89.
You have to get to a 32-18 split in the Lib Dems favour before they take the lead [With the Tories on 40%]. It’s not going to happen at one election, unless the Labour party actually splits in a big, and fairly even, way before that election.
As to whether this is a rogue, we simply can’t tell until there are further polls. Whilst I trust ICM to get the Lib Dem score correctly, it’s worth bearing in mind that there previous poll was on the low side for the Lib Dems. It’s possible this is a similar statistical outlier in the opposite direction.
If it were a real move then it looks as though there is money to be made on the Lib Dem spreads, if you are willing to bet now before it becomes obvious to everyone. Personally, I’d find the explanation that the snow changed the sample too persuasive to bet that this was a real shift in public support.
@451 (Nick Palmer MP)
Let us assume that people (generally) won’t spend the money because they are scared. I am a neophyte when it comes to handling money, but if I was lucky enough to own a mortgaged house with a regular income, this would be my algorithm:
Calculate the net present value of the interest payments + principal of the amount you are considering repaying (using your own expectations of the future interest rate curve which is applicable to your mortgage).
Compare that to the net present value of expected returns on savings in a bank account tracking its own interest rate curve.
I suspect they are not too different at the moment - but I can’t be bothered to look up sample interest rate curves to check.
Of course, you have to bear in mind that there’s going to be quantitative easing coming our way pretty soon - effectively, negative interest rates.
This may make snowflake5’s argument more plausible. It is quite possible that savings interest rates will go negative at this point (by charging for bank accounts, etc) but unthinkable that mortgage
interest rates go less than zero.
468. PtP: this altogether plausible outcome loses me a little.
That’s a shame. Take heart that I don’t think it reflects the current position, which is probably something like 42-31-19 - I call it a plausible result because I expect the LDs to gain during the election campaign.
P.S. Thank you moderator for freeing my comment at 447 from the Siberian gulag.
458: idealism, mostly. Some were brought up in Labour families and have been waiting for years to get into the cause; others are reacting against reactionary parents. We used to get some obvious careerists, but they’re thin on the ground now, for some odd reason.
472. Timothy zebras: The LibDem/Labour votes could be reversed 28-22 in the Lib Dems favour and, according to the Wells seat predictor, Labour would still lead the LibDems 170 seats to 89.
That’s true, but I would think that the LDs overtaking Labour would result from a paradigm shift that would cause UNS to break down entirely.
Whilst I trust ICM to get the Lib Dem score correctly, it’s worth bearing in mind that there previous poll was on the low side for the Lib Dems. It’s possible this is a similar statistical outlier in the opposite direction.
I felt at the time that the LD score of 16 didn’t make sense.
Changes from the ICM before last:
Con +2
Lab -5
LD +3
474 Not losing sleep over it, LS! It’s just an oddity of my GE portfolio that a small Con majority is a loser. Any majority over 20 is good, as is NOM. I’d be unlucky if the result fell in that narrow band and I can always adjust nearer the date.
Clarkson is condemned for calling Brown an idiot, but I have just received a book through Amazon called ‘Gordon is a Moron’. First published in 2007 and updated last year before the events of October it’s author, Vernon Coleman, gives us this”
Gordon Brown and his Labour party colleagues have massaged figure, changed economic cycles, redefined basic terms such as public borrowing, announced and re-announced spending in order to convince the public they were spending wore than they were on worthwhile projects, and concealed taxes. We’ve been betrayed by a government of institutionally racist Bushlovers, supported by a compliant state-controlled broadcaster and an electoral system that doesn’t even nod in the direction of genuine democracy.
Well as a summary that is a good starter for ten.
Wonder what Dennis Skinner has to say about the Tory, oh cross that one out, Labour Fat Cat Tax Dodging Bankers?
Gordon Brown’s bank boss Glen Moreno had links to tax cheats
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5683675.ece
471 - Last weeks YouGov survey and this weeks S3 independence poll indicate that the Nats are moving back into the ascendency in Scotland.
Labour are on the way down and out north and south of the border with a defeat which might well be of epic proportions. However much of the future will be determined by who picks up the seats in Scotland.
Right now Salmond has positioned the SNP in exactly the right place.
ps UP the bridies tomorrow against the mighty Rangers.
Don’t imagine there’s anyone sensible around at the moment, but the poll is no big deal - simply an (over) correction from the previous 16% Lib Dem rating (which is looking like it might be the rogue). ICM has had the Lib Dems in the 18-20% band for almost every poll since Cameron became Tory leader - this is simply within the margin of error.
I can’ believe that the Guardian hasn’t had fingers pointed at by the likes of the right wing press over their own tax avoidance practices, given their new hypocritical campaign.
476.
477 - quite.
458
According to the Guardian, they’re just on the make.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/18/labour
479. Clarkson was in the soup for calling Gordon ‘one-eyed’ and imlpying being Scottish was a bad thing, but I don’t think anyone took issue with the ‘idiot’ bit.
464. That is an ugly set of front pages for Labour.
I’m hopeful of an obvious disparity between % and seat numbers in the next election in someway (ideally Lib Dems higher than Labour on % but lower on seats, but anything along those lines really) to kickstart voting reform.
If we got a throwback election to one where the party with the most seats got the 2nd most total votes it’d be a major event and outrage in modern times (how did the public/papers react at the time?).
LibDems are quite entertaining on this thread, mostly seeming to be saying that they trust the ICM LibDem score because, I assume, it is more generous to the LibDems.
That should be a reason for them to distrust it, so they keep the stars out of their eyes and the water out of their craniums.
See if there is a trend and then celebrate as you have so often told the Tories to do.
And please remember that past performance is most unlikely to be a guide to the next general election. There are so many changes politically that it will be an entertaining affair with lots of disappointment and false dawns all around.
Re: my 473.
Of course, this analysis also completely neglects the cost of falling house prices. An extra £200 might be a lot to most people, but if the value of their house has fallen by £20000?
The interaction between finance (at all scales), transmission mechanisms and macroeconomic indicators is far too subtle for the likes of myself…
This caught my eye about unemployment:
http://blogs.notw.co.uk/politics/2009/02/a-record-35m-on.html
THE GOVERNMENT secretly believes unemployment is set to hit 3.5 million - its highest EVER level.
RECORD numbers of jobs are going to foreign workers.
ROCKETING repossessions will throw 145,000 families out of their homes this year.
But new figures show record numbers of foreign workers are filling UK jobs, with the number of Eastern European workers ballooning by 3,500 per cent since 1999.
A truely dreadful environment for the next election - that sort of scenerio could see BNP members returned IMO in 4 way contests.
Sally C well that is odd as the two things Clarkson said which are factual and provable are the Brown has one eye and is Scottish. The idiot bit is judgmental. Although true.
Rather than simply saying this is a good / bad / indifferent set of front pages for Labour, maybe we should introduce a rating system. I suggest the Nokia Dell Destruction Scale
Oracle at 470: No, Guido is wrong as usual. I’ve no knowledge of JS’s arrangements, but it’s common to check what one’s doing with the Department of Finance (formerly known as the Fees Office), and they often say no, you can’t do that. I remember once asking about something that would have been useful for work but was also of private interest (an expensive Danish newspaper subscription: I was on the European Select Committee at the time, but having grown up in Denmark it would have been interesting anyway) - they said no, it wasn’t sufficiently clear that it was for work purposes. They were probably right, but I thought it fairly austere that the fact that I’d admitted thinking it interesting in itself debarred me.
I don’t think Mike S wants to let go of this thread. It is too warming for the LibDem cockles.
464. Me. Thanks for posting the Front Pages. The Mail on Sunday headline reads “LODGER” DEAL EARNS JACQUI SMITH £100,000.
For those of us who have backed the Tories to win Redditch at 4/6, I think the odds have just shortened again. For those of us who followed Mike and backed David Blunkett to be Home Secretary on 31/12/09 at 100/1, there is cause to be more hopeful.
In other news, Villa are now as short as 14/1 with Ladbrokes to win the Premiership. Best price in the village and also with Betfair is 33/1. Extrabet were going 40/1 but their market has been pulled. Alan Hansen on MOTD admitted, through gritted teeth, that Villa were fantastic today. Praise indeed from him. I think Vila may yet do the treble; Premiership, FA Cup and UEFA Cup. Not many agree with this prediction yet…
494 - Fair enough, hence why I checked on here
489. You post this on the blog of a Lib Dem that has (in detail and often) justified his preference for ICM based on past accuracy?
As for trends every pollster except Populus has us up in their latest poll. Mostly due to our very low previous scores with them. But I think I can safely suggest that we are on an upwards trend.
476
Mr Palmer any comments on Jacqui Smith’s expense claims,bit hard for your government to now lecture bankers about bonus’s?
494. Well that’s alright then.
“Disastrous poll for the tories!”
Disastrous statement for Gabble’s grasp of reality!
501. RBH.
Hey, if that’s all he can say about it, you know that no matter how bad it is for the Tories, it’s worse for Labour…
I hope there’s a central HoC repository of newspapers and magazines from around the world. I don’t like the idea of taxpayer funded individual subscriptions, except maybe for local constituency papers.
The annual cost would probably be less than a million pounds a year for a very sizeable library; the gain in terms of ‘general awareness’ and ‘exposure to different ideas’ of MPs and their staff would be far greater.
Witan - don’t talk tosh.
The few remaining Lib Dems on this site have treated this poll with the same indifference to the last one - it’s simply a correction from the low rating last month.
Most ICM polls have the Lib Dems in the 18-20 range - this one is as moch on the high side as last months was on the low side.
Last two ICM polls give a mean of 19%…
494
Do you think it’s acceptable that Jacqui Smith can refuse a grace and favour home and then slap the taxpayer with £ 300,000 in expenses instead?
Dan you seem hard of reading.
Corporeal, Mike likes to point out the ICM polling way out from the last election as an indication of how it is more accurate for the LibDems. I don’t buy that because polling has changed and the polling environment has changed and political tides are changing, so to make a claim that past performance is a guide to the future seems fairly futile to me when dealing with minute changes inside a sample of 600.
If there is a trend and, say, YouGov back it up, then you can cheer for now, but for all parties the election might be more than a year off and a lot can happen in that time.
I have, by the way, said the same thing to my fellow Tories when they have been carried away by one poll. The trend and the changes in the trend are what are most indicative and YouGov and ICM are the most important in this as ComRes has serious doubts over its methodology, MORI seems no less volatile with its new methodology than it was with its old, and Populus is still on probation with me, although I know other are more taken with them.
These last two polls seem to have the same dynamic as some of the Guardian ICM versus non-Guardian ICM polls used to have.
So let us wait and see and hold the glee. And certainly bear in mind that if a rogue is a poll you don’t agree with then a poll that you believe because it supports your prejudice but is not supported by other polls is not something to risk money on.
By the way, the first significant measurable test of the pollsters will probably be the European Parliamentary elections in June and I hope we get some polls on those in April at the latest so we can take a stab at the long range accuracy of the pollsters in the current environment.
YouGov are still the overall champs if the last year or so.
What with that Sunday Herald poll combined with this story.
Labour split as MPs urge cut in Holyrood powers
It looks like Labour’s little rally was short term.
Anyway are their MPs completely barmy? It was this sort of behaviour in the 70’s when a number scuppered devolution that effectively left Labour neutered in Scotland in the 1980’s.
Have they learnt nothing from the past?
506. Witan earlier you said if there was a trend then we could celebrate. We are generally up in the last month or so. Our last yougov was +2. So allow us a very small parade in an open topped pantone 1235 taxi ;).
You were somewhat disingenuous saying “LibDems are quite entertaining on this thread, mostly seeming to be saying that they trust the ICM LibDem score because, I assume, it is more generous to the LibDems.” when you clearly knew why Mike for example backs it. I’d suggest that GEs are very different beasts from other types of elections.
I agree with Mike that ICM are still the best pollster for a GE until a GE comes out with evidence to the contrary. My own bias noted.
This is no reflection on the LibDems, the Invisible Men of the last two months of politicking. Rather, it’s a drift of Labour drones to what they perceive Labour ought to be were it not for the New Labour disaster of Blair and Brown. Cameron’s slump is bad news. He’s got forty or so percent, but there’s no enthusiasm there. Anybody But Brown, the Tories must realise, might just as easily direct voters to consider Legover and Doctor Cable.
Electoral manipulation might make use of the Lib Dems if Labour’s vote collapses. A little advance pollster rigging would be handy prior to rigging postal voting and tampering with ballot boxes. You can’t only rig elections. Common Purpose are up to the job.
See THIS.
http://the-tap.blogspot.com/2006/09/did-labour-win-by-postal-vote-fraud.html