Labour down to just 18 with MORI
June 1st, 2009Ipsos-MORI WESTMINSTER:
CON 40(-1) LAB 18(-10) LD 18 (4)
The “others” break down:
* Scottish/Welsh national: 4%
* Greens: 6%
* UKIP: 7%
* BNP: 4%
* Other: 3%
It must be remembered that MORI have a very strict filter on their headline figures and ONLY include those who are 100% certain to vote. This can have the effect of the pollster showing quite turbulent findings. Clearly, at the moment, Labour supporters have little certainty to vote - hence the 18% poll share.
I stand to be corrected but the 18% Westminster share must be the lowest total ever for Labour and for a governing party. Confidence seems to have just collapsed.
Just 18% (compared to 23% last month) are satisfied with the way the Government is running the country, and more than three-quarters (77%, vs. 70% last month) are dissatisfied.
Dissatisfaction with the Government is now at the level it was during the Black Wednesday crisis. This is notable as the Government has now been in power a similar length of time as John Major’s government was at the time.
A quarter (26%) are satisfied with the way Gordon Brown is doing his job as Prime Minister and seven in ten (69%) are dissatisfied. This is a drop from last month’s ratings, which showed 32% satisfied and 60% dissatisfied.
David Cameron’s ratings have also declined since last month. While over half (51%, compared to 52% last month) remain satisfied with the way he is doing his job as leader of the Conservative Party, more than a third (35%) are now dissatisfied, up from 29% last month.
Nick Clegg is the only one of the three leaders to see improved satisfaction ratings this month. Nearing half (45%) are satisfied with the way he is doing his job as leader of the Liberal Democrats, and 23% are dissatisfied. This represents a real improvement for the Liberal Democrat leader, as last month 39% were satisfied and 25% dissatisfied with Clegg.
Mike Smithson
MessageSpace Advertising
holy crap!
(first)
Westminster or European?
What? 18%? and me First?
FPT: I actually think its quite amazing the Tory support is holding up..I would have though it would be down to mid 30s given the last few weeks.
Telfon Cam?
And the deets?
Looking at Baxter it seems that a hell of a large number of Labour MPs would only be holding on by virtue of 2 or 3 way splits in the opposition.
Holy sheeeeeeee-ite!
Removals van in Downing Street yet?
Does this make it more likely that Brown will be challenged?
Has a governing party ever dropped below 20% before? I can’t think of a time
Last week I suggested that at the General Election, Labour would get pounded like a dockside hooker. Looks like my prediction might come true.
RodCrosby, on these figures, how much swingback is needed to a HP?
stunning poll being reported on SKY News
It’s a suboptimal headshot from a .357 Magnum at the bottom of the Marianas trench.
Oh, and they’re dum-dum bullets too.
Less than 1 in 5 voters would vote Labour, just how low can Labour go?
Reasonable for the Lib Dems. They’d probably hope for low 20s. Tories holding steady, but they’ll need to build back into the mid-40s over the coming months.
Oh yes, I almost forgot. Hahahahahahaha.
Breathtaking Hold on Gordon you will be down to nothing shortly
Huzzah!
Hold a sec….40+18+18=76
Whats the other 24?
I wonder if this was taken before or after Gordos reappearance in the MSM.
Amusingly Baxter seems to be blown apart by the high “others” vote. Eg. In Gordon Brown’s seat “other” comes from nowhere to take second place on 20% (Brown on 38%).
Obviously the electorate agree Gordon Brown is getting on with the job. clearly though there is a difference as to what that job is.
Him “running the country”
Electorate him “running the country into the ground”
Lab and Lib Dems neck-and-neck, even at these levels, strikes me as more realistic than the ICM figures last week which had LD on 25 and Lab on 22. In some ways, this might be better for the Lib Dems, but the campaigning is going to be vicious. Real hand-to-hand combat stuff in the Northern cities, for example.
13, think of a gnome who is also a world class limbo dancer.
It is, frankly, a somewhat unwelcome occurrence for Labour.
14 - if Tory support is at 40% after the past month, they would be very unlucky not to see that climb back to mid-40s before the end of the year.
The message is clear to everyone other than Brown - the country is demanding change.
Not a new council for democracy
A new government
Is this why Tory still on 40%?
From the polling,
“David Cameron’s ratings have also declined since last month. While over half (51%, compared to 52% last month) remain satisfied with the way he is doing his job as leader of the Conservative Party, more than a third (35%) are now dissatisfied, up from 29% last month.”
All the muck that has been flying, and Cameron Brand really is just held in the same high regard. The report says down, but really, given all that has gone on and the general feeling about politicians in the country, if anything it is just noise.
16 - * Scottish/Welsh national: 4%
* Greens: 6%
* UKIP: 7%
* BNP: 4%
* Other: 3%
Satisfactory poll.
I guess that kills PR dead as a dodo then?!?!
Labour same number of seats as LibDems: not many.
Has SeanT popped up to comment yet?
Well, I did wonder last week when Labour would go under 20. The other puzzle are the LDs, which have seen ratings (GE) from 15 up to 25 in recent polls. This one has the LDs at 18.
Wonder if the BBC will mention this poll? Surely this is significant and important news? No? Labour’s lowest ever polling rating!
Or in the La La Land of Pravda, much more important to talk about BGT wannabe’s!
Good God
Labour are 0.5% lower than the Conservatives ever went in 92-97;
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/historical-polls/voting-intention-1992-1997
On the 9/1/95 a Gallup poll showed the Conservatives polling 18.5%.
How can Gordon, or some of his Cabinet colleagues hang on after this latest set of polls, its the same message for Labour right across the board?
Could the PLP really rebel against its own government this time?
26, does it?
Brown has a majority, the Lib Dems’ support and the Parliament Act. I don’t think it’ll happen, but I would be rather unsurprised if he tried it.
30/31, Major hung on. He was more likeable than his party, had a smaller majority but wasn’t as vicious as Brown.
FPT Re: Mike’s McNulty Bet:
32 Oh come on, that’s hair-splitting on a grand scale. Surely were he intending to repay monies of his own volition and without any “encouragement”, he would have done so immediately. Not good!
Con have 4 points more than Lab + Lib combined….clearly the country is calling out for PR
I see Mrs Sion Smith doing her job again, not!
http://news.sky.com/sky-news/content/StaticFile/jpg/2009/Jun/Week1/15292502.jpg
(Take) E - Not Hate!!!!
Incredible other showing, when were the greens last polling like that for westminster? 18% isn’t great for the Lib Dems but given recent Mori showings its enough to be satisfied. Total Labour collapse appears a universal view. Tories can remain happy.
Its unusual times, its going to be interesting to see how “others” is doing in August/September without a PR election in which they are viable to keep them up.
Reshuffle? The Cabinet or Gordo?
BBC Headline: Latest Poll Shows Labour Still Outpacing Hungarian Governing Party
http://www.politics.hu/20090527/fidesz-crush-socialists-7117-in-new-poll
(just kidding)
30.GIN, this is, I suspect worse for Labour. We had very different polling methodologies back then.
26 No, Marquee Mark, Labour would still have many more seats than the Lib Dems, because their vote is concentrated, not eveny dispersed across all constituencies.
Im looking forward to Friday and this resuffle,does anyone think Badger will go quietly, if anyone say`s they are not moving, what fun we will have, and thats what I think will happen.
I think I said sub 20 in the next month a week ago - booyah!
The rout of Labour is afoot.
Swingback? They need to gain 50% support to get back to Foot 83
And there is more to come on the downside.
Labour at 15 by September.
Labour Euro Election - 12% and fourth/fifth?
Labour council elections - single figures?
GE 2010 now a certainty - Labour need to double their vote to hang the parliament.
31. ChristinaD.
Handy that this poll is out just in time for the PLP meeting tonight. Blood on the carpet?
32 Yes, PR’s dead on these figures. When you take account of the bar being set at a certain height to stop the BNP getting seats, the Tories would probably still win a majority of seats, even on PR. And Labour would be crushed.
Hmmmmm - if anything like that poll actually happened at the General Election then I think Labour would be on course for a 1931 style result! :O
I suspect though that Labour won’t be polling 18% come GE day…
Has RodCrosby updated us on the swingback yet?
oh dear. sub-sub-optimal for Labour. hahahaha
41 - I would say, get some beers in, some popcorn, sit back and watch the action! I think it could be essential viewing, as the likes of the ChipMunk goes mental!
Surely the labour party needs to act before Thursday?
This is an utter disaster.
If Brown doesn’t go after the Euros, then when will he go? After the 2018 election?
The Cabinet need to stand up and be counted. Now.
Best thing is…this doesn’t even feel like a rogue. The polls have been going this way for weeks…
Is Brown hoping to play yet another sympathy card with his claim that there may be British victims of the AF air crash? The British press has already reported that there are 5 Italian casualties, so presumably the passenger list has been supplied to consular officials at the relevant embassies. There wasn’t any hint of any Britons aboard until Brown was crashing and burning on Sky this afternoon.
This is MORI. Extreme caution required. And it’s obvious that their strict turnout filter will hurt Labour the most.
But, with those caveats: WHOO-HOOOOO!
What a poll!
Is there a serious possiblity that the Labour party could die? Can a major political party cease to be? Has it happened in modern times in a western county? Or is it not a credible senario?
Remember this is certain to vote. Interesting to see what the 6-10 likelihood to vote splits are.
Other than that ROFLMAO LAB 18%
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Apologies but I couldn’t resist that…….
What a good job Gordon Brown is doing getting on with that job (of destroying Labour). And I mean that most sincerely!
50, and taint a new leader with an immediate defeat? Better to wait afew days, plan it properly then nuke Brown.
Don’t these figures give the lie to the figures from the previous thread ?
I am not having the best of days mental arithmetic-wise but if UKIP have 7% for Westminster that would imply only 11.5% for Thursday .
26 I guess that kills PR dead as a dodo then?
MM - PR was already dead, turkeys don’t vote for Christmas.
Hopefully we will now see far fewer of the seemingly interminable posts on this subject. Its supporters should just get used to the idea, it just ain’t going to happen.
To protect the server demand management is now on - 50 comments per page
If any bookies are reading this (& hopefully they are…!)
How about some markets for which party to finish second in votes at next GE (GB only)?
How would PB’ers price this up - I’d still make Lab favourite say 1/2 Lab 6/4 Lib Dems 20/1 Cons (25/1 UKIP?!)
56 - IMHO no they won’t but Lab will be seriously stress-tested over the next few years.
Italy early 90s - Christian Dems & Socialists disappeared after Mani Pulite.
The good news is that the Pound is soaring just in time for my holiday
Still nothing on the BBC ticker.
Whom the Gods destroy ….
A question though … where are all the people who have been saying that compared with 1997 the Tory leads are nothing like the Labour leads back then?
I think as well that not enough thought has been given to the electorates epiphany a couple of years back at party conference time. The polls swung, there was a sea change towards Cameron and the Conservatives and a swing away from brown. That has been maintained throughout all that has happened since.
That moment will be a talking point an analysis point for political ’scientists’ and commentators for as long as there is politics.
The Labour party must be feeling its been a victim of Paul McKenna - the way in which it sleepwalked into voting Brown in as leader.
55 - not really since Lab replaced Lib as the 2nd party in our political system - and that was 80+ years ago. Hard to think of another example…
55, Nothing lasts forever. Even the longest, the most glittering reign must come to an end someday.
Eletoral Calculus projection:
Con 421
Lab 140
LD 51
Con Majority 192
If Labour don’t act BEFORE the elections on Thursday they are toast. Our Glorious Leader could stagger his reshuffle - a third now, a third on Friday to distract from the locals, a third on Monday to distract from the Euros.
55 Canada.
It going to take more than Postman Pat to sort this mess out for the Labour Party, even superhero Captain America would being struggling!
So have MORI not done a euro election voting intention poll?
On the face of it, this poll may look like a good result for the Tories but with the Crosby patented swingback formula; we will only see modest gains by them leading to a hung parliament at best.
Oh, and mark Senior agrees so its official..
55 The Progressive Conservatives were the ruling party in Canada, were reduced to 2 seats in about 1992 from being in power and whilst they came back a little a few years later, are now evry much dead in the water.
It can happen. Especially when the party is not what it started out as, has abandoned its core and has made no attempt in 2 years and counting to set out any sort of vision.
Topline should be LDs DOWN 4, not up.
32 on PR: “Brown has a majority, the Lib Dems’ support and the Parliament Act. I don’t think it’ll happen, but I would be rather unsurprised if he tried it.”
The time for using the Parliament Act has passed: he doesn’t have twelve months left to pass after second reading in the House of Commons before Parliament is dissolved.
23. I suspect Cameron’s increased negative rating may be due to UKIP-leaning voters annoyed at his relative silence on EU issues approaching a Euro-election.
59 So Postie Johnson was backing the wrong horse on PR? Not a good start, eh?
*tries to wipe stupid grin off face, but fails*
UUP were wiped out in Northern Ireland.
failing an imminent attack by North Korea on a British warship lost somewhere in the North Pacific, it does look painfully like we are about to replace a bunch of useless privatising deregulating blind eye-turning self-interested Tories who helped get the country into the present mess with….. another set of er…..useless privatising deregulating blind eye-turning self-interested Tories who would dig the country deeper into the present mess.
73, rather reminds me of the Conservatives’ 1997 election broadcast about a tree without roots being unable to live. Feeble at the time, but prescient.
Is Our Glorious Leader’s Sky interview available? I can’t find it online.
63. Don’t think BBC report individual polls.
33 Mike - maybe you should ask Hills how many of those who have already agreed to repay some part of their expenses have come out and said - “Of course, I am only repaying this money because I have been ordered to do so by my party” or words to that effect. Hills’ contention is ridiculous, they should pay up with a smile!
59 - Puts a bit of a damper on Cameron’s plan to reduce the number of MPs without sacrificing more than a handful of Tory MPs though…
.
.
These threads are getting shorter -just ‘cos you missed a poll this morning, Mike!
From previous thread:
Hang on Tories at 40% with this Government - Why aren’t they on at least 50%?
Lib Dem performance is also very poor -we should be picking up disgruntled Labour voters. There may become a tipping point as the real diehard Labour supporters decide the game is up and that the Lib Dems are the answer - perhaps a few defections would help. Any one know any Labour MPs with reasonably clean expense records?
80, they report ones they want to and ones they must. This falls into the latter category (as did the Lib Dem 25 one).
They cannot ignore this , its too important with the local and Eoro elections. The website might but BBC radio will probably cover it.
ITN news should be fun…
83, there’s been a solid week of anti-Tory scandal stories and they’re on 4 points more than both their main rivals combined. The Lib Dems should be more disappointed than the Tories.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/benedict_brogan/blog/2009/06/01/gordon_brown_a_new_quango__and_a_purge
This is not the death of the Labour Party. The Tories were written off in 1997, but managed to come back, just as the Labour Party did after 1983. And the Liberals changed their name and never went away.
83 - I think that these polling levels would see the Conservatives pretty close to 50 in an election. An “other” vote of 24 isn’t realistic because most wouldn’t be able to vote for their favoured party.
This is of course THE main reason why FPTP makes it harder than PR for smaller parties to have an impact.
83 - You might not have noticed, but the last 2 weeks, rather a large number have Tories have been found on the make with their expenses. Also, I think it is mighty surprising, 40%, marred with expense scandal and still little on the policy front, as they say Cameron could sell ice to Eskimos!
50%, when did a political party get 50% of the vote in a GE?
83
The expenses mess is affecting all party vote shares, thats why others are so high.
73. Maybe then we are not only seeing the dieing throws of the Brown premiership, maybe this truly is the beginning of the end of the Labour party. What a fitting legacy for Brown.
86.
The Lib Dems should be more disappointed than the Tories.”
The people of Britain should be more disappointed than any politicians. Let’s face it, if Jerry Springer, Ester Rantzen, Jeremy Kyle and Joanna Lumley put up a slate they would wallop any present Party by a mile.
91 - I think it’s the Euros as well. Didn’t “other parties” get a boost in the run-up to and aftermath of the last Euro Elections?
Normally, I’d say this was improbable
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/3660868/has-charles-clarkes-moment-come.thtml
However with Labour on 18 (eighteen) %, who knows what might happen.
92 - Well he has broke most things he has got his hands on, so no reason the Labour Party won’t also be included!
Tory vote solid; Labour vote dispersing to the four winds (which makes it very much harder to round up the Labour diaspora again).
Labour lost 40% of its supporters between two polls. 2 out of 5 of its supporters folded their tents and went. Extraordinary. Brown’s attempt to hold the line on his miscreants until he could undertake a night of the long knives goes down as an EPIC FAIL.
Crosby probabilistic MORI
Con 394
Lab 133
LD 56
SNP 25
PC 6
Oth 18
NI 13
Con maj 143, 5.2% swingback to HP
79 seats would be won on less than 33.33% of the vote including a couple on as low as 23%…
The Conservatives are polling higher than Labour and Liberal Democrats combined!
88: And the Liberals changed their name and never went away.
To all intents and purposes, the Liberals were a dead party from 1922 to 1974.
44.ScottP, exactly! I think it was Me that posted a link to that The Mole article in the First Post earlier. And now that all the big polling firms have reported very similar dire polling figures for the Labour party under Brown, where next?
Brown’s young turks were behind that attempted coup to remove Blair the Autumn before he left, but this time, it might be a back bench rebellion like the one we saw last year?
It looks like the Cabinet might be pushed into acting? Didn’t the backbenchers play a role in removing Mrs Thatcher all those years ago? A vote of confidence in Brown’s leadership might beckon if the Cabinet don’t sort themselves out. Very messy…
79 http://blogs.news.sky.com/boultonandco
98 - Always nice to know the Swingback figure…
Brogan still bashing the same line,
“Best betting remains that however messy things get in the next few days, Mr Brown will lead Labour into the general election. Next year.”
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/benedict_brogan/blog/2009/06/01/gordon_brown_a_new_quango__and_a_purge
Is that direct from the top as usual then Ben?
Got to love the ignorant people who genuinely think the Labour Party are dying.
As I’ve said pretty much every day for the last couple of months, the problem is not the party, it’s Brown. If Labour finally get rid of him, we’ll return to the low 30s and lose in 2010 to a Tory majority of between 20-50. Hardly the death of the party.
July election anyone?
It’s a long time since we had one of those. Then we’d just won the War in Europe and Labour wouldn’t wait until Japan had gone the same way. Looks like this time Brown’s going to lose his on the same territory and can they wait until an Autumn win over….anyone?
47″Marquee Mark says:
1/6/2009 at 4:57 pm
Has RodCrosby updated us on the swingback yet?”
What ever the result for the Conservative party in Scotland in the next GE, there is a bottle of champagne that will be popped open in this household if there is a swing from labour to Conservative up here.
Traffic has gone through the roof. We are doing 400 page-loads a minute and I will keep the comments to 50 per page until things quieten down
104 - It is a lot more than Brown, it is pretty much the whole of the cabinet (and not just for expense fiddling, serial incompetents). When when you look around at the rest of the massive PLP, the vast majority are made up of ex-ministers with baggage like Clarke, Blunkett, etc or complete wets like NPMP.
90 - The Conservatives got 50% of the vote in 1959 under Harold Macmillan. Labour got 48% in 1966 under Harold Wilson. Heath’s Conservatives got 46% in 1970. No party since has got more than 45%, despite the big majorities Thatcher and Blair accrued in 83, 87, 97 and 01.
104 - That is true. However all bets are off if they DON’T replace him. There aren’t an obvious load of attractive alternatives, and what happened in Scotland shows it’s not ALL Brown.
This is ineffably bad for Labour, and I’m struggling to think of any obvious solutions. What might work would be to call a General Election now, get Brown and the trauma of defeat out the way and then elect a capable, intelligent leader on a we’re-determined-to-discover-where-it-all-went-wrong-over-the-last-decade ticket. Not Johnson! Labour is a political party not a stand-up comedy venue, and he isn’t going to make us giggle our way back to Labour. David Miliband should be given a go I think.
55 It certainly has. Canada provides several examples of once-dominant parties that were swept into oblivion in a couple of elections (Union Nationale, Progressive Conservative, Social Credit, BC Conservatives etc.)
In this country, the Liberals never recovered from their 1924 wipeout. Northern Ireland has seen the decimation of the UUP, and the disappearance of the Northern Ireland Labour Party.
Most of the pre-war German parties of the Right and Centre are long deceased or just tiny relics of once-successful parties.
Most of Italy’s post-war parties disappeared in 1992/93.
By contrast, one of the most durable political divides is Spain, where the current split between Popular Party/Socialists/regionalists is very similar to the split that existed pre-Franco.
104 In your opinion - we will see what happens. I think there is a chance that Labour will die a slow and painful death over the next 5-10 years and become a fringe party. In the early 1920s no-one would have credited the almost total wipeout of Liberalism.
When you move on the centre ground and abandon your roots, you better hope you don’t get evicted as you have nowhere left to go…. that is Labour’s actual and medium term problem, not Brown.
Re: 90 - Someone will contradict me but I think it was 1935. Labour got 49% in 1951 and lost. The Conservatives got 48% in 1951 and 46% in 1970.
Another interesting poll and the solid block of 40% Conservative support remains. That will be more than enough if the other 60% is so well spread around. I suspect perversely Labour will recover during the summer as UKIP for example gets less publicity.
104 - Oh please, I really think you need to wake up and see what a mess Labour are in. I really think they are getting to the point that nothing will save them. This poll is suggesting that Labour has lost half its vote in 4 years.
109 I think yopu ought to check those figures, Blue Alex - they don’t look right to me. I don’t have the figures to hand, but it is not as I remember them; I think 1950 was the only time any party came close to getting 50% of the votes cast, never mind 50% of the valid electorate.
I see Gordo was doing the Sky interview from a “new” school (I assume it is 12 months old, like all the ones he visits as “new”) and shock horror hiding at a school again. Every visit he has done since the expense scandal has broken is a school, nothing to do with not being able to be filmed with the kids in shot? Even the BBC have commented on him using them as a type of human shield from the media.
Someone rather presciently mentioned Sunderland Central as the signal on Election Night that viewers could turn off at this, probably the first result, and retire in the certain knowledge thsat a Tory landslide was in progress.
Well, Baxter says……..Go on have a look for yourselves
Bloody Hell!
There seems to be an unreal atmosphere at the minute, we all know something dramatic is going to happen on Friday, either Gordon is going to try a Night Of The Long Knives to crush the rebellion before it happens or it will be Labour’s equivalent of The Storming Of The Bastille as Brown gets deposed. The events of the next week will potentially be as momentous as November 1990. There’s now no way it can just fizzle out, something has to give.
Just to comment on GM’s bankruptcy, if any company has symbolized American economic power over the last 50 years then it was General Motors. At it’s height it was bigger than many countries and it’s only serious threat was anti-trust legislation. It has been through regular crises over the last 40 years but it always came back. In hindsight, the SUV boom of the last 15 years was the worst thing that could have happened to GM because it found to far easier and more profitable to produce gas guzzlers rather than address the underlying problems in it’s business. GM will bounce back and will be around for many more years ahead but it will never regain the position it once had.
Cameron on BBC
Difficult for Labour to swap leaders.
Darling - probably fatally undermined
Smith - probably fatally undermined
Johnson - record on caving into the trade unions will be used by the Conservatives
Straw - Not 100% free of expenses embarassment
Miliband (D) - Tried and failed
Blears - Ha, Ha, Ha
Of the younger generation Burnham and Purnell were not sqqueaky clean. Maybe Miliband (E) could be their best bet.
The next Labour leader could well be someone outside the Cabinet like Cruddas.
118 If the Conservatives finish, say, a couple of thousand votes behind Labour in Sunderland Central, you can turn off the TV.
Me posted this on an earlier thread, worth revisiting just now.
First Post, The Mole - Angry Labour MPs want Brown to go
” A vote of no confidence in Gordon Brown’s leadership is being demanded by some Labour MPs, in the face of his insistence that he will not stand down before the general election.
Having told Andrew Marr on BBC TV yesterday that he wouldn’t go, he reiterated it this morning on the Today programme, saying he will respond to public anger over the expenses scandal by setting up a National Council for Democratic Renewal.
But that hasn’t impressed Labour backbenchers who say they are heading for a catastrophic defeat at the next general election, unless they can force him out and replace him with Alan Johnson.
The Mole hears some Labour MPs are going to judge the mood at tonight’s Parliamentary Labour Party meeting before putting their heads above the parapet. But they are saying privately they have had enough excuses from Brown.
After the crop of weekend polls giving Labour its lowest showing since records began, they are furious that he is determined to cling to office, regardless of the disaster he will inflict on the party. Echoing Charles Clarke’s controversial remarks recently, one Labour MP said: “I feel ashamed to be a member of this party under Brown after the [Damian] McBride affair.
“Now he is riding rough-shod over the backbench. There’s one law for people like David Chaytor and Elliot Morley [among the 12 MPs who have announced they will step down] and another law for ministers. Why haven’t Tony McNulty and Jacqui Smith been told they have to step down?”"
Just watched Gordo interview with Labourite man Boulton, thought he was going to punch him! It is surely just a matter of time before he loses it.
Complete Crash Gordo as usual! Shouting at Boulton, evidence, have you got evidence?, show me evidence, you can’t prove it! clutching at straws! Doesn’t go down well when everybody knows that Darling, Hoon, Blears etc were flipping their homes!
114. If you include the National Liberals, yes, else 1931…
Darling on Sky on at 1730
Cammo on BBC News 24 right now.
104. You’re assuming they rid themselves of Brown. It was a lot easier for the Tories to do that to Thatcher than it nwould be for them to oust Brown, that’s even if they had the bottle, which I doubt this cabinet does.
Brown’s long coveted legacy might well be to go down in history as the man who destroyed the Labour party.
109. House of Commons gives 49.4% for Macmillans Conservatives across the UK. 47.9% for Wilson’s Labour in 1966 and 46.4% for Heath’s Conservatives. It also gives 49.6% for the Conservatives in 1955.
http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp2003/rp03-059.pdf
122 - turn off the TV, Sean? I’m going to be sat there with a case of vintage champagne savouring every last, delicious moment.
126.chris_g00 says:
1/6/2009 at 5:23 pm
Darling on Sky on at 1730
Any particular reason, or was this part of a preplanned government media blitz in the lead up to the Euro’s on Thursday??
116. No, Labour got 46.1% in 1950, and 48.8% in 1951.
129 Except it was Tony Blair who destroyed them, when he built New Labour on shifting sands - and insisted on moving everyone there.
121…ignore the posh bird HH at your peril!
112- Our political establishment in the U.S. of Republicans and Democrats has been the same for 150 years. Some systems clearly lend themselves more to party collapse than others. I would be very surprised to see Labour die or go into permanent third-party status, but it isn’t completely outside the realm of possibility.
What are the figures for all those naming a party? Do we know yet?
111
What went wrong in the last decade?
That’s pretty much while they were in power, then the question is what is the point of Labour?
Well that is the question regardless of the circumstances.
132 I wonder if Darling will refer to Brown as PM in the past tense
122. But why would we want to miss all that humiliation of defeat heaped on the likes of Smith, Darling and not to mention Brown himself? Also, the BBC will go into mourning, and no doubt Polly will turn up on a barge on the Thames, threatning to exile herself in her Tuskan Villa. Who’d want to miss such comedy?
121 - Re: Johnson - with Labour as low as 18% it’s dubious that there would be electoral mileage in creating clear dividing lines by putting Labour on the side of the Trades Unions and the Conservatives other.
140 - Oh yes, Polly better be on, she was having a breakdown when Boris won, if Tories win, oh I don’t think she will be able to take!
Only just seen this, I swear I double-taked and my eyes were on stalks. Such a result is just unprecedented, if someone had suggested six months ago we’d have laughed at them.
Wow.
Blue Alex and Rod Crosby - sorry, and thanks.
122 Sunderland Central. You didn’t look at Baxter did you.
On these figures they won’t be 2000 votes behind Labour in Sunderland Central but they’ll have won the seat by a 1.2% majority.
If Brown gets away with a reshuffle then its going to be really difficult to get rid of him. If he reshuffles and then he is deposed then there is ANOTHER reshuffle - is this really in the interests of the country.
The interests of the country (remember that labour?) demand an election ASAP.
55 - I believe the Italian Christian Democrats were wiped out in the early 1990s.
Like the mole earlier. Peter Hoskin’s has this interesting article at the Coffee House Blog - Has Charles Clarke’s moment come?
“Anyone who thinks that Cabinet members will immediately come out against Brown in the aftermath of this week’s elections had better take a look at this quote in today’s Mirror:
“One senior figure said pressure will ‘ratchet’ up on the PM if Labour slips to third or fourth place.
He added: ‘There is no person in the Cabinet ready to do the damage, it needs a stalking horse. But we are running out of time.’”
Like last summer, the signs are that none of the main candidates for the Labour leadership are willing to to bloody their hands over this. In which case, if Brown’s going to be ousted, then it will require an intervention from a prominent backbencher. But who would be up for the task? I refer you to Matt’s article from a few weeks ago, which suggested one probable name: Charles Clarke.”
Did I just watch BBC News 24 just give Cameron a free pass for basically a party political broadcast? Answering questions and the presenter didn’t but in! That must be a first!
You watch Cameron on News 24, taking unseen questions, batting them away, giving decent calm and collected answers, then you tune into McNut Job going mental at his own supporters in Marr and Boulton for daring to ask a “difficult” question. The Boulton one from this afternoon, is 3 minutes of Gordo ranting at him that he didn’t know, he didn’t do anything, show me the evidence…..
If we do get to a GE campaign with Gordo, how long will Labour go?
Darling drowning.
145 - Baxter’s formula has been broken completely by a high “others” vote - it has “other” winning seats with 30+% of the vote without realising that 30% would be made up of several parties.
Oh dear what can the matter be
labours vote share’s going down the lavatory
Will it be lower by Saturday
Knowbody seems to care!
Joey Jones: “Did you ever think this mistake, as you put it, would ever be a resigning issue…”
Darling: “no…”
£300 to be payed back
“Such a result is just unprecedented, if someone had suggested six months ago we’d have laughed at them.”
They did. Ave It 09’s “CONS WIN EVERYTHING”
And I think many did indeed laugh at him.
Ave It 09 - pb.com’s top tipster!
Darling looks like dead-man-walking
115 LOL they just dont get it do they. coming out with such great ideas as “oooh, let’s change the voting system” are simply crackers. the public have totally rumbled this corrupt bunch of criminals and want them out.
Isn’t this the lowest ever vote recorded for either Labour or Conservative? The previous lowest ever was 18.5% by the Tories in a Gallup poll in January 1995, the one which had Labour at something like 63%?
Cammo has a two-power standard again.
Astonishing how robust the Tory vote is after all the recent revelations.
The people are taking The Sun’s line: The Tories aren’t great but they’re better than Labour right now.
I do just wonder if the Conservatives are benefitting by the number of MPs announcing that they are standing down. The public may be getting a message that some Conservatives are “bad” but others are “good”, so as long as they are not casting their vote for a bad’un there is no problem.
Whereas Labour are being damaged across the board.
When is the PLP meeting planned, is it tonight, if so, what time?
Why is the Sky News TV feed only for subscribers?
I’d happily watch the same adverts on the net as I do on TV in return. I really want to watch Darling’s humiliation, and can’t!
158 “The people are taking The Sun’s line: The Tories aren’t great but they’re better than Labour right now.”
Because the Tories have acknowledged there was a problem and have done something about it - with Cameron getting rid of close aides and friends. That is what people want to see. Paying huge dividends.
Gordon has just dithered.
149.
Huw Edwards is a softy, though.
Cammo had an easy ride.
138.
“what is the point of Labour?”
To ensure that Britain has a series of hopeless conservative governments even when the people of Britain vote out the hopeless Conservatives!
I agree that the only real options right now for Labour are Harperson versus the pink Shrek from Norwich.
159 (con) - I suspect, however, that there is a big unseen movement happening in constituencies and the local press. Nobody really knows the treatment individual MPs could get from their own constituents. Will some Tories be unexpectedly punished? Will some Labour MPs suffer disproportionately? We simply won’t know until the General Election.
Nick Robinson “Do you regret flipping”
Alastair Darling: “I thought I was required to say I was living in London after Northern Rock, I was living ni London nearly all the time”
Robinson: “But you continued claiming for your mortgage in Scotland”
Darling: “I was paying council tax on Downing St residency”
Darling: “My recent claims have been a lot lower than they have been previously”
Darling looking uncomfortable, integrity being seriously questioned.
It’s starting to look as though Brown has purposely indicated that there were British casualties in the Air France crash when he knew that 5 Italians have been identified, and as the FT reports
Most of those on board were Brazilian, 40 to 60 were French and 25 German, according to Jean-Louis Borloo, the French transport minister who called the crash “an awful tragedy”.
which leaves little room for other nationalities. Lying about such matters is in extremely poor taste, and will earn him even more enemies.
161 - Search for Filmon, and see what you find!
With this poll, Labour will no longer be able to play down expectations of Friday.
Darling on the BBC “I always TRIED to correctly record which house I was living in”. How do you accidentaly record what house you live in?
167, saw on the Sky ticker that 1 Briton is thought to have been on the flight. Unconfirmed though.
The problem I think with these polls in guaging the picture is that I suspect that you cannot really apply a uniform approach from the last election because frankly in some seats Labour don’t have enough share to lose in a uniform manner. I think we are in the realm that actually using the polls is pointless as they are so bad that the seats situation is 100% unpredictable. Under figures like this it is feasible I suspect that the Conservatives could get 500 seats and Labour be sub 100 or almost any combination in between as there is no way of knowing where the votes are falling away.
169 - The real issue isn’t about if he recorded it correctly, it was the fact he never lived in the same bloody place for more than a year, before flipping it!
Adam Boulton nae happy with Brown today! - Boiling Brown
SPIN have just suspended their markets (having not moved since the first of these new polls)
If they want to get rid of Brown there will only be a small window of opportunity after the Euros, and I still cannot see them doing it. Who wants to go down in history as the worst PM ever? Better for the front runners to let Brown carry the can and concentrate on keeping their own seats so that they are one of the few left standing to walking into the role of leader of the opposition. Five years to fix their party rather than 6 months, and a much easier role. My bets where set up with a small Conservative majority in mind rather than the monster that is now predicted so I would personally be better off if they dump Brown its just that I don’t see them doing it. We have been over this ground too many times before.
Is Ben Wright the worst BBC political reporter, looks like a tory boy, but sounds like a Labour apologist.
93. Joanna Lumley has a slate. It’s called the Green Party.
Seriously this is a privilege to witness. Stick those numbers in Baxter and then look at the map. Labour have only one seat outside london, south of birmingham: Bristol South.
Also Labour would end up with NO seats in Cardiff!!!
The LDs would start nibbling away at Labour in the North East, Merseyside and Yorkshire. Labour get halved in Scotland.
It does make sense for governments not to panic when polls move mid-term, but this is getting seriously bad.
176 - Well might be cos daddy is a Labour MP (Tony Wright) and like his daddy went to a posh grammar school! Good old socialists and their comprehensive state education, no selection allowed!
If Darling goes so do Gordon Brown’s hopes of a comeback on the basis of economic competence.
If Darling goes, so does Gordon Brown’s last hope go.
But Gordon won’t go unless he’s pushed. I see two realistic scenarios. Charles Clarke runs as a stalking horse, easily gets 70 votes, the leadership campaign is on, Gordon Brown resigns. He would never have the courage for a leadership campaign. It is Michael Martin all over again - it’s the thought of defeat that sends them away, even though they would never do the decent thing for the right reason.
If not, Gordon will carry on until the GE. Labour wiped out. Blairites bitter, join the Lib Dems. Labour regroups as a much more left wing party (only the left wingers are left, after all), which helps it to hang on to its union funding. Union funding makes it indestructible.
Can a truly left wing Labour party survive and prosper? Maybe it can, since it offers a genuine alternative to a Tory party which will have to wade through years of public spending cuts and insufficient tax revenue. Maybe it can’t.
“GM’s bankruptcy,” - market conditions paid a part. But the US equivalent of red Robbo has as well. GM when compared to newer arrivals is hobbled by pensions payments and health care payments fpor mits workers and its retired workers.
We as a nation are in exactly the same boat.
Browns ‘prosperity’ of the last 12 years has been built on us all spending and not saving for our pensions, taking money out of property which is now devalued and as a nation we are spending money we do not have on health care.
So looking down on GM is not a very clever stance.
There are going to be huge job losses at Vauxhall and its associated suppliers. How else will any new owner make a viable company out of GM Europe? All the management, all the research, all the govt backing, all the jobs are based in Germany.
176: I think his father is a Labour MP.
175. The window of opportunity is for them to tell Gordo tonight he must announce a general election on Friday or Monday, or else.
178 - This isn’t mid-term, this is effectively injury time in this Parliament.
Apols if already posted - interesting discussion on LabourHome
Gordon places himself above Party…
http://www.labourhome.org/forum/?p=5192
173
You mean like a lobster/..
re-post
log on to Pb.com see a thread called “Is this bad news for Tories?” and shock - there is a poll showing Labour sub 20%.
Wow - 18%, less than the Conservative lead over them and only 5% more than the lead was in the Mori poll on Thursday of the 2007 Labour Conference.
Said on first thread that Labour at 22% wasn’t exciting any more, we needed Labour below 20% and in less than 12 hours we have that. I know its pre-EU, other parties are getting more publicity, have to wait until July for a clear picture but 18%!
re-post
log on to Pb.com see a thread called “Is this bad news for Tories?” and shock - there is a poll showing Labour sub 20%.
Wow - 18%, less than the Conservative lead over them and only 5% more than the lead was in the Mori poll on Thursday of the 2007 Labour Conference.
Said on first thread that Labour at 22% wasn’t exciting any more, we needed Labour below 20% and in less than 12 hours we have that. I know its pre-EU, other parties are getting more publicity, have to wait until July for a clear picture but 18%!
112 - Re Canadian example. I would be cautious as a Conservative supporter in hoping for a Canadian style party system to emerge in the UK, ie with a Liberal Party, a Conservative Party and a smaller social democratic/labour party. In Canada’s case it has led to the Liberals forming a clear majority of the governments formed over the past 100 years. A post Cameron Tory party might face a similar fate!
How can Brown possibly form a cabinet? There simply aren’t enough experienced and well-known Labour MPs who haven’t been SERIOUSLY troughing (seriously = flipping, tax evasion, tax avoidance, etc).
And of the clean backbenchers, who will want to be tainted by association with Our Glorious Leader’s dying days?
I suspect even Nick Palmer MP could quite easily get a pay rise very soon if he were willing to make the Faustian pact.
Who exactly are the 20 odd percent of people satisfied with Brown’s performance? Cameron is one of them I’m guessing…
Watching todays interviews with Brown, I just hope the Tories as soon as the polls close 10om thursday, swing into “Operation Save Brown”. They ought to point out he is 1 of the 3 best Prime Minister’s of the last decade. He had brilliant spending plans for the 1st 2 years of his Chancellorship. He has a lovely, warm, caring wife erm…and er, erm It could be worse Harman could be in charge!
Operation save Brown!
I do wonder whether the low switching back of UKIP to the Conservatives at a general election is an indicator that in fact these are not ex-Conservative UKIP supporters but ex-Labour UKIP identifiers. It would explain why the Conservative poll rating is holding up relatively well, while Labour’s is collapsing.
As for this poll, if Labour poll 18% at a general election, I shall eat my cyber-hat.
191 - BBC staffers?
‘Can a truly left wing Labour party survive and prosper?’
No.
I told you. Mention the possibility even of a Brown/Balls ‘dream team’ and Labour go into meltdown.
18% is just funny. Even if it is an outlier it is HILARIOUS!
Labour’s base is not 25% or even 20%.
This is an ex Government. It has ceased to be.
[satire]Stock market tip - BUY Nokia…..[/satire]
FPT: “Is there a serious possiblity that the Labour party could die? Can a major political party cease to be?”
The country’s slowly balkanizing along ethnic lines - even in the worst possible case Labour will survive representing one or more of the ethnic divisions.
196. Are the Sun planning on using that one again David?
190. “How can Brown possibly form a cabinet? There simply aren’t enough experienced and well-known Labour MPs who haven’t been SERIOUSLY troughing (seriously = flipping, tax evasion, tax avoidance, etc).”
At the moment I don’t think he cares about that. It will simply be who he has to get in there for his personal survival.
199 - You know, I was just thinking of a resurrection of the Hague dead parrot front page with Gordon Brown as a rare Norwegian red!
You must watch the 3 min interview of boulton vs brown on the flipping rules coming in - its on that link on 173.
Brown’s defence is the change made had nothing to do with him… is he pointing the finger at Blair?
Another poll tonight - COMRes
200 - Maybe all this time hidden in the bunker has been spent cloning himself, and the big reveal will be on Friday when he sacks the rest of the cabinet and installs Gordo #1, Gordo #2, Gordo #3, etc in all positions!
Why do I imagine Brown pacing up and down the bunker screaming “RIGHT DECISIONS” at the top of his voice?
203. Like buses.
Any odds on Brown joining Susan Boyle at the priory this week?
I think in the end Sara Brown, will be the one to tell Gordon it is time to step down, for his own sake and the sake of his family. Let’s face it if Labour Mp’s were any good they would not have elected him in the first place.
I do feel sorry for Sara Brown, she will be the one who has to rebuild their lives when its all over whatever happens.
FPT: “How can Brown possibly form a cabinet?”
Government of all the goblins. All his loyal backroom boys brought into cabinet to at least get a ministerial pension and a bigger bite of the EUSSR cherry when they finally go under.
Darn it I’m heading off out electioneering in a minute so won’t see the poll first hand. Grr.
He’s got to go. He’s in danger of making the next Parliament so one-sided that good government (of the non-totalitarian kind) will be impossible. There won’t BE an opposition at this rate.
Whisper it, but with the big numbers for UKIP and BNP, the real Tory lead is probably…. bigger!
Labour are probably ‘really’ still at about 20 but the true Tory figure is equally probably 45+.
207. If they stay married afterwards.
205. I bet it is fun in there today. Boiling hot, Brown effing and blinding, Nokias flying in formation, McBride skulking, and the rest of the Cabinet have p*ssed off to wherever the plotting is going on.
18% you berks!
204. There was a sketch on Headcases about Gordon replacing everyone in Britain with clones of himself. The outcome was that the Tories polled 70% at the GE!!
Next poll says Labour 24% and our headline will be ‘Good news for Gordon’
ROFLMFAO
203. Any poll after this one will be a let down!
181- Correct. The future of GM doesn’t look much rosier than it’s past, except for the fact that it now has reason to hope/expect that it can suckle at the public teat for a while. The bankruptcy/bailout is highly ideologically driven, with the Obama administration bending over backwards to help the unions (and, ultimately, help themselves to the mighty river of political support from the unions) and pushing government-inspired (as opposed to market-driven) green cars. Meanwhile, the credit markets are being permanently harmed by the realization that secured credit given to risky, politically important businesses may be worth no more than the paper it’s written on. This isn’t the end of GM’s problems, but rather the dawning of a whole new era of problems.
208 - I think if Gordon want’s a loyal government he is going to have to get into human cloning!! Goron I will be PM Gordon II Chancellor, Gordon III will be Foreign Secretary… etc.
213, didn’t see that. Headcases (assuming it’s the CGI prog) could’ve been brilliant, but was mostly rubbish.
207: Yes, if they stay married but she does seem loyal to him.
Con 40% (-5)
Lab 21% (-5)
LD 18% (-)
Others 21% (+9)
that was the last ComRes that I can find
any predictions as to where we might be later?
217, hugely flawed plan. All the other Gordons would scheme and brief against the PM, eventually forcing him from office.
Labour MPs (we know you lurk, not just Nick) hang your heads in shame. Your coronation of this fool could be the last meaningful act in Labour Party history.
221 - Imagine how many unpleasant trolls would hang around Whitehall if the entire cabinet was made of scheming Gordons!
Didn’t get around to commenting on the last thread, but I’d be amazed if less than half of UKIP voters at the Euros vote Tory at the next GE. When it comes down to it, and there’s a real chance to turf out this Government, they’ll do what they have to do, even if they don’t totally agree with the direction Cameron’s taken the party.
220 - All other polls recently have shown Tories holding, Labour down and Lib Dems mainly equal or down a touch too. So I would go with something like
Con 41 Lab 19 LD 18 Others 22
I could be a zillion miles wrong.
210.
Most if not all of that BNP vote is disenfranchised working class Labour.
38 - Stars & Stripes, of course the Prime Minister of Hungary is also called Gordon.
198
Interesting idea. Given the Labour party is just a bit broke, the British Muslim Council could buy it from Co-op/Unite for not very much.
Mr pred:
Con 38 Lab 20 Ld 20 Others 20
re Gordon cloning himself - see Red Dwarf and Rimmer on his own planet. Held prisoner by all of his own clones
214. If the poll is anything in the 20s then it will be good news for Gordon! I expect it will be, but low 20s, 21-22 or there abouts.
So Brown said it three times
Brown: Darling “has been a very good Chancellor”
Brown: Darling “has been a very”
Brown: Darling “has been”
Low 20s=Good….lol
may we live in interesting times
Right, I’ve been playing with Baxter. I made the assumption that the 3 main parties will get 90% between them and LDs will get at least 18%.
On anything less or equal to 30%, Labour get wiped out in the South and East and I mean wiped out. What saves them is their vote in the urban North, Welsh Valleys and Scotland.
If you then give the SNP/PC regional shares based on latest polling, Labour are in deep doodoo.
Think the Tories may be down quite a bit on Comres.
Least reliable of the main pollsters but still…
224. BJ4BW changed a lot of people’s attitudes to the EU. A lot of those UKIP voters now aren’t ex-Tories. People *think* they’re mostly anti-EU Tories playing away to make a point which is why it won’t hurt Cameron if the UKIP vote is very high and the Tory vote not so good, but in reality it’s more complicated.
The future for Labour is to become a sort of eco-Muslim feminazi niche party, for strident women with bushy beards who obsess about recycling. They could then recover from this to poll about 18%.
Oh, they already did.
235 is that a theory, or is it with a little bit of ‘inside’ knowledge?
re 235 The data from ComRes is embargoed until 10pm when I will publish.
I hate being given embargoed polls because I feel bound to honour it.
2 Brits and 2 Irish on plane - confirmed by Brazilian TV on R5.
I see that the BBC are reporting that Darling is ‘very sorry’ over claim!
235.Don, in light of all the other pollsters we have seen over the last week, it will be the one that stands out if it does.
Don, you are a very reliable source when it comes to polls, is that just a guess, or have you heard what the figures are?
226. What a stupid generalisation.
Based on Don’s info my guess for Comres:
Con 37 Lab 20 LD 20.
239 - Do you avoid betting when you have that sort of embargoed information, Mike? I assume so, although suspect you’d be “within the letter of the rules as they existed at the time” (to use a well-worn phrase) not to do so.
239 Mike, Westminster only or is it Westminster and Euros?
re 244. I have always refrained from betting in this situation.
As regular readers will know there are methodological issues which I have with ComRes. Having the data early means that I can refer to this in a more reflective way.
NU Prediction:-
Tories 36 Lab 17 Lib 22
Labour at 18%?
Good God, the worst the Tories ever managed was 18.5% (Sept ‘95).
Still, you can’t feel sorry for them, not after 300+ MPs voted Brown in. Seriously, why would anyone (cough, Alan Johnson) actually WANT to be Labour leader this side of the election?
So please, all your Labourites out there - don’t tarnish a credible potential Leader of the Opposition, just let Brown lead you into slaughter, and rebuild from there. Why waste a talent like Johnson now?
248 - Johnson is not a talent
that is part of the problem
How much worse can it get for Labour? Is their core vote now ten percent lol:)?
18% for Labour is good. I expect a low of c15% and then a bounce (to 20-25%)
i predict
con 45
lab 15
LD 28
No mention from Toe-nails.
Calamity makes my skin crawl whenever he speaks - he is such a prat. Why must they always give the Lib Dems and Tories equal air-time on TV? Who decided this? They should get 10% of the air time just like their parliament make-up.
At least their absence from This Week is a welcome relief. They are an infernal distraction to every debate. Debates should be of two halves not thirds.
250 - The irreducible core left in June 2007….
254. Double figures then:)?
I’d say the “New” Labour core is 17-19% with bounces possible around that. Question is can they recover to get back to the 28-30% “Old” Labour core.
256 - Possible but unlikely.
If embargoed polls were going to be a real shock, then the betting markets will probably reflect that. By shock, I mean something like the 2007 polls post tory conference, not the current ones, which whilst a disaster for Labour aren’t really a shock.
Thought history nerds would appreciate this little step back in time to 1997…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/politics97/
Is ComRes a Euro poll or a GE one?
257. Agree.
203 Polls are like buses!
I have been astounded at how well the Conservative rating has held up. If it does fall now, I wonder if that is because David Cameron himself has been brought into the expenses scandal? Dates of fieldwork will be important.
someone has done well out of labour going below 20%.
263. That would be my guess if the dates are right - Tories need to swarm to protect the Queen (so to speak).
The ITV news has just claimed that Gordon Brown referred to Alistair Darling “in the past tense” but then immediately quoted him as saying “has been”.
Duh!
The present perfect simple is not a past tense!
Dur!
Didn’t these journalists go to school?
266 - Few of their viewers will notice the difference.
About 29,996,224,275,833 threads ago, someone asked me if I lived above a printer. I don’t, but I don’t know why I was being asked either. (btw 29,996,224,275,833 has taken over from 8,537 as my new favourite number)
Can Gordon Brown bring in voting at 16 without a referendum?
And why would he want to? I seem to recall the innards of a recent poll showing young people (who are instinctively anti-incumbent) splitting largely to the Conservatives…
Tremendous poll.
I want to see Labour not just defeated, but crushed, smashed, crippled, bloody, mangled, deformed and screaming in agony from their gaping wounds.
Next weekend is going to be a Schadenfreude festival of epic proportions.
Come on, Darling! Do a Howe and knife that sanctimonious b*stard! Do him before he does you.
266 - actually that is the pluperfect tense.
265; Well the Mori poll finished yesterday which would have caught the David Cameron Story. I would bet the comres one will be older.
270
Me to!
O/T - I’ve registered to vote by proxy in England as I’m living overseas. I returned all my forms months ago (Sept 08) and didn’t receive any acknowledgement - I assumed this was normal. My proxy received all the other polling cards for her address, but not my proxy card. I phoned the local council last Tuesday, who assured me that the card would arrive by today at the latest. (They didn’t take my name, so there’s no way they could have checked whether the proxy request form was received.) It still hasn’t arrived - does this mean that I’m not registered to vote on Thursday? Does my proxy need a proxy polling card to vote on my behalf?
I know this isn’t strictly relevant, but I thought if anyone knows the answer, it would be the commenters on here. Thanks!
269 - Wilson lowered from 21 to 18 without. He promptly lost the subsequent election in 1970.
235.
“Don says:
1/6/2009 at 6:11 pm
Think the Tories may be down quite a bit on Comres.
Least reliable of the main pollsters but still…”
Regular readers will know that when Don speaks we all sit up and listen. To the best of my knowledge he has been right every time he has made a serious call. The only ambiguity this time is the fact he says “Think” rather than simply stating what the ComRes poll will show.
263 and 265 - Don’t you think the public can differentiate between the bad cases and those like DC’s where it’s v hard to find fault with what he did?
I see Gordon Brown has said Alistair Darling made an “inadvertent mistake” in falsely claiming for thousands of pounds, ceaselessly flipping his properties etc etc.
Meanwhile the Chancellor himself, while admitting his “mistakes”, says he is “upset” that his integrity has been “impugned”.
This defence could be adopted by other major characters in our national life. Like, say, Jack the Ripper.
“I am sorry that I inadvertently ripped six prostitutes in Whitechapel. The ripping was a mistake for which I apologise. I did try my best not to rip half a dozen women, though not ripping women has never been my strong suit. I’d just like to add, on behalf of all rippers, that I am upset that our integrity has been impugned.”
271. No it isn’t, you deranged and insane maniac. The pluperfect is “had been”.
Although we had a Yougov poll this morning, as I reported yesterday evening I also filled out a Yougv Euro-intentions poll with lots of supplementary questions on attitues to immigration, race and the EU.
It wasn’t the poll that was in the Telegraph this morning so I would expect another Yougov poll before Thursday.
With posts coming in almost as fast as polls I’m not sure if this has been highlighted before. Waugh in the Standard follows up on the Lib Dem “Greasy haired tw*t” leaflet.
Apparently in 2006 Lib Dem Cllr Jeff Collins criticised the GHT Mr Cullimore for missing a meeting, claiming he was leafleting at the time, and a motion of no confidence in Mr Cullimore was put forward. It was passed on votes of two Lib Dem and 1 Labour Councillor (1 Lib Dem councillor abstained, so there was one with some idea of reason and honour). What was Mr Cullimore’s excuse
“I have always been a hardworking councillor. I have a 95% attendance record on this Council, though I have missed a couple of meetings around the time of my mother’s death and funeral. I apologise that I missed the Planning meeting on Thursday 22nd June and did not send my apologies.
“My mother had been cremated on the Monday (in Bristol) and I did not get back to Cornwall until late Tuesday evening. As a family, we had also been having a hard time sorting out a nursing home for my elderly father who needs 24hr a day care. Only in the last few days have we been able to get him moved from Southmead Hospital in Bristol to a nursing unit in Cornwall.
“In the week ending the 23rd June, I did do a couple of hours of leafleting on both the Wednesday and Thursday. In truth, my mind “was all over the place” and I was trying to keep myself busy by doing a bit of ‘brainless’ leafleting and certainly do not think that this should be held against me. It saddens me that some councillors wish to play politics at this time.”
http://waugh.standard.co.uk/2009/06/will-nick-clegg-show-the-smack-of-firm-leadership-in-cornwall.html
Brown can now easily replace Darling, any capital Darling had, went with the latest bit of sleaze. So Brown must be looking through the party to see who has the weight, the respect, the gravitas to hold such an important position in a time of recession…step forward…Ed Balls, cometh the hour, cometh the man.
277: I think it is too soon for the David Cameron story to affect the polls. The weather has been very good cant see people sitting in side by the telephone.
282. If the answer is Ed Balls you are asking the wrong questions.
My thought is that Mr. Brown will resign in the spring so as to give Labour a chance (in their view) of not being dragged down by his personal unpopularity. Harriet Harman will take over as a caretaker for the runup to the election with the new leader being elected in April to give him/her the honeymoon period and the assumption of a clean pair of hands for the election.
A lot of people just have mobile phones now, It must affect the polling companies.
284 - who is Nick Griffin’s long lost brother?
283 - The Cameron story is non-story
It will not register.
The story of the week is who has the Balls? Brown or the rest of the cabinet
test, part one
test, part two
test, part three
test, part four
279 - touché
286 AnnaK
I am in that situation. I haven’t used a landline for over 6 or 7 years.
I’ve never been polled. Quite disappointing really.
It seems to be italics which cause the lower part of the number to disappear
294: So, do the polling people ring the same people all the time?
295 When Patrick the West Ham Fan posts, the whole number disappears.
And isn’t “has been” the perfect and therefore a past tense?
Gordon Brown was ringing Piers Morgan last night about Susan Doyle. How odd.
296 AnnaK
I have no idea. I don’t know anything about how the polling companies select their samples - I seem to recall them picking a geographical area and then randomizing the last few digits of the phone number?
Although this is the one place where people will definitely know.
Down from 28% to 18%? We’re heading into flat-earther territory. But still I must say I’m bitterly disappointed that 18% will still vote Labour in the teeth of the storm of idiocy that has typified every breath and action of this government since 1997.
Even now you still get neo-Nazis in Germany despite how well that worked out last time they tried it. Do these 18% represent the same obtuse view of reality as their National Socialist chums in Germany?
298: Just because he said he did, doesn’t actully mean he did IMHO
NickPMP should be on in a minute to tell us how the PLP went!
298 - I think you mean Boyle, not Doyle - she’s another one who’s never been polled, apparently…
300 - I like the linking of Labour voters to Nazis.
297 - “has been” is past tense but it doesn’t cancel out the future.
You can’t say “Darling was a great Chancellor and will continue to be”
You can say “Darling has been a great Chancellor and will continue to be”
“has been” is a noun, meaning a formerly popular or influential person whose popularity or effectiveness has peaked and is now in decline. Darling to a T, don’t you think?
The polling on this MORI poll was carried out between the 29th-31st May, BTW.
297. And isn’t “has been” the perfect and therefore a past tense?
No. It is the perfect, and therefore a present tense. The perfect tense started in the past, continues, and is continuing in and through the present into the future.
The pluperfect (”had been”) started in the past, and continued up to and until a time which was also in the past. The pluperfect is therefore the past-tense equivalent of the perfect, which is present-tense.
From Tom Harris’s blog
Pollwatch: Things can only get better, right? Right?!
Monday, June 1st, 2009
THE following is a genuine exchange of texts in the last few minutes between a colleague and me:
Colleague: Have you seen the new poll?
Me: Tell me.
Colleague: Con 40 Lab 18
Me: So you’re saying it’s not as good as others, right?
Colleague: I can see why you are regarded as one of the most perceptive political commentators around.
- I had to laugh at that one ..at least he has a sense of humour!
#304
Why do you think Labour is filling it’s trousers with the rise of the BNP in traditional Labour areas? It’s not Tories defecting to the BNP.
It’s ex-Labour voters.
Looking better and better, I just hope that Clegg and senior lib dems know how to profit from this.
I think Darlin’s history, whether Brown’s let it slip or not. The writing is on the wall. The only question is whether Brown will promote his accolite Balls to Number 11 or whether he will attempt to tie one of his enemies hands by making them Chancellor - A TRUE Brownian move would be to make Postie Chancellor and try to ensure he and Al either thrive together or go down together!
Where’s Timmy - taken the strychnine yet, the prat?
Darling interview on C4, was he about to cry. Not convincing, trying to pretend that he is innocent of flipping.
Surely Labour will get more than 18%? They deserve far less based on their abysmal record but given the ‘tribal’ nature of their vote??? Maybe we are seeing the demise of one of the major parties - it has happened before to the Liberals so there is no immutability to this
311 Doubt it. Do you?
***Betting Post***
Balls next Chancellor 1.91 on Betfair
What’s the betting that if the next poll tonight is much worse for the Tories (as Don predicts), the BBC will suddenly find a way of mentioning it? Something along the lines of bad news for both leading parties in new polls today?
I never thought Labour could sink as low as 18%.
The disappearance of Labour as a potential party of government must now be considered a possibility - and we’d be a better country for it.
311. UKPaul: I thought the Libdems disapproved of making a profit?
;o)
312: Wouldn’t the postie just decline it? Theres no way Brown could just drop him. I have the feeling people will dictate to Brown more than he dictates at the moment.
Just been canvassed by a UKIP EU candidate “well we are all going to vote Conservative at the General Election but if ….”, was amused by immediate recognition that people in my village and/or me are naturally Tories.
Even the Tories did not go as low as this IIRC pre-1997. I know the lead was bigger 30 points etc but i think the Tories never went below 20%? Maybe different polling methodolegies etc?
Comres from the Indy
A remarkable result in the latest monthly poll by ComRes for The Independent. It provides the most striking evidence to date that the voters have turned their backs on the three main parties after the scandal over MPs’ expenses. “Other parties” are on 30 per cent, neck and neck with the Tories, whose rating has slumped by a spectacular 15 points since our last montly survey.
Labour is on 22 per cent (down four points) and the Liberal Democrats up one point. The “others” are up by a massive 18 points. Although people were asked how they would vote in a general election, the findings suggest the smaller parties could make gains in Thursday’s local and European elections — and that independents could do well in an early general election.
No wonder Gordon Brown doesn’t want one. Our poll suggests David Cameron may have to temper his demands for one. Full details on which of the minor parties are reaping the benefit from the expenses controversy in tomorrow’s paper and at http://www.comres.co.uk
http://todayinpolitics.independentminds.livejournal.com/26096.html
324 - Hmm. Sounds extra-ordinarily dubious. Did they chuck in a load of other questions beforehand?
BTW, why embargo a poll if you’re going to release the results early yourselves?
313 - Good evening sir.
No surprise in this poll as labour voters and activists are on strike.
I hear that an enterprising journalist has picked up the Cameron family IHT avoidance story and estimates that they are to avoid over £5 Million in tax.
Wow.
277 “Don’t you think the public can differentiate between the bad cases and those like DC’s where it’s v hard to find fault with what he did?”
Yes, if they weren’t reacting emotionally and if (in my view anyway) he didn’t have both the telly and the more socially conservative sections of the press trying to trip him up.
Also Cameron’s a special case in that he was getting a personal Mr Clean boost which was holding up the Tory vote so any shine taken off him has more effect than if it was anyone else.
On the other hand I think people are looking for some senior figure who seems serious about cleaning this mess up so I think if he plays his cards right he should be able to come out ahead no matter what.
At the worst he could say something like the system was set up to lead newbies astray, a few people realised it was dodgy straight away and refrained, but some, including him, took a while longer for it to click, but now it’s out there’s a perfect opportunity to blah blah..
I was out in my car enjoying the sun this afternoon and saw somebody from a political party canvassing and being shouted out!
No it was not Ian Gibson in a supermarket but someone from the same party! 
I also noticed earlier Nick Clegg doing a soundbite in front of LibDem posters winning here (They looked very red those posters!) - Do LD have different hue of colour for Labour or Tory seats?
.
.
I wrote to my MP (Conservative) the other day questioning his expenses. He has left a message on my answer phone asking to come and see me later this week!
Extraordinary indeed - but with Comres the question is always weighting but rather stands as an outlier if it has Conservatives 9-10% lower than three other recent polls.
280 - With regard to YouGov poll - I also received this, this afternoon. Deadline for completion is 3 June (didn’t say time). I don’t know how long it takes to crunch the numbers but that implies it won’t be out until Wed night.
324. OMG! 30% for the Tories would be their worst rating in a poll since Cameron took over, I’d have thought? :O
Channel 4 saying Geoff Hoon phoned by the telegraph this afternoon, has been doing the same as Darling, has paid back the money
Gordon`s going to struggle to find a clean cabinet
Huh? Con 30? Completely out of line with everything else we’ve seen.
.
I’ve been having commputer trouble; I hope to have a brand new iMac by end of July.
The question of the moment is: can the PLP resort to a ‘Night of the Long Knives’ if the results are so dire on Thursday? Have they the nerve (I won’t say balls) to confront Gordo and oust him?
Probably not; anyway Labour is DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED
BTW got to love Baxter exploding on the ComRes numbers!
He gives “Other” about 100 seats!
Sounds more like a Euro poll result?
#327
Good for Dave. Paying taxes unneccesarily only encourages the imbeciles to invent more use for your money. Wish my mum had paid a bit more attention when I tried to explain it to her.
333. Sounds to me like a euro election poll.
324 - That just doesn’t stack up with anything that we have had so far.
341, agree, it’s either a euro poll or wholly inaccurate. A ten point divergence from everyone else is just mad.
324 - if it was a poll about EU voting intentions, then it is line with other similar polls
They are trying to spin a line to make it stand out from the noise generated by the MORI
It does sound like a Euro poll, but it specifically says in the blog post that it is not. Very strange.
Wow, Com Res is a political earthquake if any poll comes anywhere close to replicating it!
Can’t see how the Tories have lost 33% of their vote in a month when they have lost perhaps 10% with the other pollsters…. but hey, you can’t argue with the figures!!!!
338 Maybe they asked the Euro poll question first? Or prompted people on the minor parties?
Unfortunately it always takes ages for them to get the tables up.
324. That isn’t even in the same town, let alone the same ballpark as anything else we’ve seen recently! We’re in an unreal situation, primarily because of expenses gate, and the Euros give the smaller parties more exposure anyway. It will be the end of the month at the earliest before we can tell what the real picture is.
Darling today, Hoon tomorrow, wed= Balls/Cooper?
345 - Of course you can and I’m sure we will.
Be interesting to see how ComRes’ 30% for “Others” breaks down.
That’s quite plausible if it’s Euro voting intentions, but a complete outlier for Westminster ones.
Have ComRes explicitly said it is a GE poll - sounds to me as though it is sensationalising things!
If not they are all doomed!
324. Must be euro, would be ludicrous if not.
351, I think there’s room for jiggery-pokery.
“Although people were asked how they would vote in a general election, the findings suggest the smaller parties could make gains in Thursday’s local and European elections”
The findings could refer to the euro results which may be the main figures given. It doesn’t seem to read like that but it’s the only way to fit this poll with every other one.
347 - I would agree, although I think the others will be doing well for a while and slowly drift down. It is just so far wide of any other poll.
351, I think there’s room for manoeuvre.
“Although people were asked how they would vote in a general election, the findings suggest the smaller parties could make gains in Thursday’s local and European elections”
The findings could refer to the euro results which may be the main figures given. It doesn’t seem to read like that but it’s the only way to fit this poll with every other one.
I think that pollsters weightings must be being blown out of the water. The past-vote weightings must be going haywire, and god knows what the shy voter adjustments are doing. Labour must be getting a huge amount of it’s apparent vote from “don’t knows”.
349 well, yes you can, you’re right! I meant the figures are what they are, lets see what happens at the ballot box on Thursday.
30% for others!!! hahahaha thats outrageous - ComRes must have named the parties, I cannot imagine 30% of people coming up with BNP, UKIP, Greens without prompting.
I wonder if they did a Euro Poll first and carried on to Westminster so people carried over their answer?
Labour can be very happy indeed if this is a Euro poll. 22 is great news for them.
In fact, it’s not bad for a GE poll right now either (snicker).
352 - It says the tories have dropped from 45%, how can it be a Euro.
If Mr Cameron starts to look like a greedy young man avoiding millions in tax while milking the taxpayer on his mortgage,then the Tories could take a bad hit.
But it would be early for the polls to show that.
When was their fieldwork done?
354 - Agreed it’s somewhat cryptic. Others scoring 30% in a GE election poll would suggest they’d be making gains in a GE let alone a local/Euro!
Sky say hoon is paying back a few quid, less than a grand IIRC
352 - From that blogpost on the Independent you can only assume that by referencing a 15% drop in Conservative support and suggesting that Cameron might want to drop his calls for an election that it is a GE voting intention survey, in which case it is a pile of sh1te.
357. Indeed. 22% and there was much rejoicing !!
352 Read the blog post “…although people were asked how they would vote in a general election”
just got in - Loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool
Labour continue to be destroyed and Gordon will not go.
sweet
What’s the chances of New Labour changing their name again post general election?
Frankly anyone paying £5m in IHT would be leaving the country if they couldn’t avoid it.
Of course the last Comres poll was for the IoS on the 16th May and was:
Con 40% (-5)
Lab 21% (-5)
LD 18% (-)
Others 21% (+9)
http://www.comres.co.uk/page190865623.aspx
If it is their normal question then it is astonishing but it sounds more like another Euro Poll (logical considering the election on Thursday).
358. Tim the Tories are doomed - DOOMED! You must be jacking yourself off and wiping it onto the screen as we speak!
Last ComRes/Independent poll had Con 45% Lab 26% Lib-Dem 17%
This poll IS a westminster voting intention poll and the Tories have lost 15% to be at 30%! Incredible!
361, vielleicht. Sky was comparing GE with euro polls. Maybe the Independent’s doing the same. If not, the poll is a rogue.
It’s quite possible that an ambiguously worded GE poll could produce a Euro election type result. And anyway the others always shoot up in GE polls during the Euros and then recede pretty quickly afterwards.
Surely Mike can break the embargo now the Independent have?
OK lets see how much of the Others is UKIP. If it looks very large, in the teens, I think that we can guess they asked the Euro intention question before the Westminster and prompted the Euro one with UKIP. That 30% is just too out of line for a Westminster poll. The Indy may like it, because it shows the Conservatives in a bad light, but I doubt they will like it next month when the Con number shoots up again by 10-15 points.
363. If so, then Com Res need to have a word with themselves. Way out of line.
369, then it’s a crock. I eagerly await Mister Smithson’s dissection of the detail.
Comres = People being asked about Westminster but they’re thinking about the Euros.
imo
358. Crawl back into the swamp. He has not been ‘milking’ the taxpayer.
We need the PB equivalent of the village green stocks here. Tim needs a few rotten cabbages and some humiliation thrown at him.
Three disastrous days for Brown
James Forsyth 7:29pm
It is worth thinking for a second about how bad the past few days have been for Brown. We have had a poll showing Labour in third and then one with Labour recording the worst rating ever for one of the two major parties. What has, perhaps, caused equal damage to Brown is that he has done four major broadcast interviews—Marr, GMTV, Today and Sky News—and not generated a single positive headline for either himself or the government. Instead, they have all been about whether there are any circumstances under which he would go, emphasising how divided the Labour party is, or about the ethical problems of members of the Cabinet, linking the expenses scandal to Labour. If Brown thought his announcement of National Council for Democratic Renewal would capture the country’s imagination then he must be even more deluded than his critics claim. (This is one case where Brown definitely should have listened to Harriet Harman).
Brown’s reported strategy of challenging the plotters by reshuffling on Friday is probably the best thing he could do in the circumstances. It means that the plotters have to decide whether to go for it before they know what the results are: whether Labour has been beaten by UKIP, come third or worse or if the BNP has won a seat. But these polls and Brown’s failed attempt to turn the page might well have decided the minds of some wavering Labour MPs.
Someone asked me earlier what I thought the percentage chance of Brown being forced out was. At the moment, I’d say 30 and rising: Brown is more vulnerable now than he has been at any time during his premiership.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/3661408/three-disastrous-days-for-brown.thtml
It is a rogue. Labour at 18% is duff, but it comes striaght after a 22 and a 22. For the Tories to be on 30 is just silly. It will be interesting to see when the fieldwork was done.
Interesting article in the Telegraph 48 hours to save the
NHSLabour Party…http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/maryriddell/5424046/The-Labour-Party-has-48-hours-to-prove-it-is-still-a-going-concern.html
Re ComRes POLL
379, be more interesting to see the Labour reaction. This would be an 8pt Tory lead, right? Might it not weaken those hesitant about killing Brown?
381, cheers for that. I look forward to reading a more comprehensive analysis.
I wonder how loudly the BBC will trumpet this. “Polls say Tories lose 15pts to Labour’s 4″?
Polly Toynbee says vote Lib Dem.
ROFL
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/01/euro-elections-cameron-ukip-labour
381. Mike Smithson. A good Com-Res poll for the Conservatives. It will make Brown more difficult to move. Hurrah.
With being so close to the election is it possible that people are answering as though it’s a Euro poll, even if it’s not meant to be?
381 Mike Smithson
Thanks, that helps explain a big chunk of the change.
So the LDs are probably actually about even or slightly down.
Labour are down, even with the weighting moving in their favour.
Conservatives are ‘genuinely’ down quite a bit but certainly not 15%.
376 Well, we’ll see. It reads like a Euro poll (although a tad optimistic for Labour IMO).
If it’s a Westminster poll, we must assume that UKIP are on something like 15%, which would not concern Conservatives overmuch. Most of that vote will return to them in a general election.
381. Just out of interest why would they change it?
I thought they were the pollster who got pretty close to the London result last year? I maybe wrong as some stuff gets hazy, particularly if it was late at night!!!
381- Still, the enormous 15 point dropoff can’t be explained by that retooling of the numbers, which can only account for a few points. It looks like the needle is flying off the compass.
381: Past voting weight change….surely it means the comparatives are suspect?
But the real effect of this poll might be to save Brown for a few more days.
It will give Labour hope and leave the ranks uncertain as to what to do.
Baxter site down?
(Sorry if someone else already asked - I just got here)
“Gordon Brown was ringing Piers Morgan last night about Susan Doyle. How odd.”
On that subject it’s sad to see a Scot, so clearly ill at ease in front of the cameras wilting under the pressure of global exposure, shouting at the press, coming across as borderline crazy on national TV, exhibiting bizarre body language and then, finally, getting beaten in a national vote.
How he had the cheek to ask after Susan Boyle god only knows….
383
Polly Toynbee should go back to her villa and retire, She is beyond a joke
From their blurb, it seems ComRes have confused everyone, including themselves.
Right now, pollsters would be wiser asking voting intentions twice - GE, Euros - and being very clear as to which is which. By ComRes’s own admission, they have allowed the two to become conflated.
381 - ComRes are just a complete joke the amount of times they fiddle with their weighting. Past vote weighting is a bit dubious at the best of times, but if you keep changing the numbers then you might as well stop wasting money on actually interviewing people. The Indy do afterall also use their “poll of polls” every so often which is just a rip-off of all the other pollsters.
Hypothetically if Labour thought that the Tories really were on 30% and fancied a Lib-Lab pact again with a new Labour leader and GOATs, when could a general election practically be called?
Com Res, seem to change their weightings too often, if they cant get them right they will go out of business. I suppose the figures are not that important but how it is reported in the press will be.
392. I went on it 20 minutes ago and it was alright!
388- Also, why change it on the eve of an important election (although not a Westminster election, it’s true)? Shifting the numbers now could give an inaccurate impression that could demoralize Tory supporters later this week.
389. SaS. The joy of polling during the expenses debacle. If they phoned electors in Bromsgrove or Totnes, the Tories are going to say they are not voting for the Tories. Just as Labour supporters in Luton South or Scunthorpe will not be voting Labour. It’s also possible that Conservatives in Scunthorpe or Luton South will be saying that they wont vote for the Conservatives, because they are “all at it”. It makes the variance in the population much higher than normal.
397 He could call it on Monday for Thursday 2 July
So we have had it from Bunker Central via Fiddling Farmer Tupac, we are going to get Cameron Smear #2 about his IHT asap.
30% for the Tories, absolute bulls##t! What did they do ring up all the Daily Mail readers on Sunday morning and tell them the Cameron headline, then ask them who they were going to vote for?
Anthony’s site has gone down so I can’t see when the last poll was that had the Conservatives on 30%.
394 Without agreeing with her, I thought it an interesting article.
There is a golden opportunity now to marginalise the British left.
399
Martin. its down now
406 - No it’s not. And it doesn’t work at all with high “others” scores anyway, because it thinks that “others” is a party in its own right.
All Mp’s know how to read polls. They know the good polling companies from the bad. Labour wont base any decision on this poll.
OK
I make the figures using the old weightings to be:
Con 33
Lab 21
LD 17
calculated (taking, for example, the Conservatives) by:
19/(19+23+10) * (18+25+12)/18 * 30
Subject to huge rounding errors, etc. And I’m not sure if a linear extrapolation is even vaguely valid.
Still a very bad poll for the Conservatives…
Odd question - who gets to decide who is the “official opposition”? Suppose Tories landslide and Labour and Lib Dem are roughly equal - a wipe out for Labour and a good LD result - who gets to say who gets the ‘official opposition slot’ - not just in terms of who sits where in Parliament but in terms of BBC access; privy council positions etc etc. Ideas?
405
Sean Fear
I meant it from the point of view that Polly has given Gordo so many chances, reached the point of no return, then gone back, then had another fit, then given Gordo another chance…recurring….. then lost patience completely and told people to vote LD.
Now given that, how long before she gets fed up with the LD’s and tells everyone to vote Conservative…..
410 - Official opposition is opposition party with most seats.
“Anthony’s site has gone down so I can’t see when the last poll was that had the Conservatives on 30%.”
Two polls in Sept 2007 had 31% - MORI and Populus. Before that was Oct 2006, 29% with ICM.
401- One does have to proceed with due caution in the middle of an unfolding crisis of confidence in government, but that kind of a dropoff is still unnerving.
409, if, as suggested earlier, it involved a single conflated question or similar issues then it’s not good or bad, it’s meaningless.
All other pollsters have been remarkably consistent about the Con and Lab figures.
410 - Whoever has most seats.
400. S & S True and that would be a story in its self - the press/media are no longer ideological beasts that have a solid readership. I was late cottoning on to this until a year or two where i think i read it here first but the British Media are like Hookers trying to get/lure in the best paying clients (Or in their case the largest readership).
Who they support or do not support changes very quickly.
379. Afleitch.
Labour’s 18% is not duff. Its a presentation issue as Mori quote 100% certain to vote figures as their headline figures. They also provide 6-10 likelihood to vote figures that will probably show Labour at 20-21%.
Whats the split of the minor parties….do ComRes really think they’re going to be 30% at a general election?
The simple truth is, that if Cameron takes a hit then the Tories will suffer badly.
366 - Thats a killer argument for Dave to use.
Without engaging in a tax avoidance scheme my family would only inherit £20 Million and be forced to leave the country
413. Thanks UKPaul.
The tone of Don’s post suggests that he genuinely knows something (notice how he’s now gone very quiet) and that it’s far from good for the Tories. So I’m going :
Tories…..35%
Lab……..22%
LibDems….18%
Others…..25%
Of course, the polls at present are being heavily influence by how people intend to vote in the Euros, so a 35% vote for the Tories, probably equates to circa 40% in a conventionally timed poll, so need for Dave & Co to panic, yet!
418.
As a Tory I would very much like it to be the real deal, but I tend to hold to Labour at 22ish right now, and the Tories at 40.
Can’t anyone else get into ukpollingreport.co.uk or is it just me?
420 Tim. Tax avoidance is legal and it’s not as if the conservative party is for high taxation is it? So there is hardly an issue except for old lefties with a chip on their shoulder.
421 - MORI has a page which has most polls here -
http://www.ipsos-mori.com/content/voting-intentions-westminster-all-companies-polls-.ashx
420 But the ComRes was done at the same time as Mori.
But if it gives you hope - it works for me.
FPT: 400 “Also, why change it on the eve of an important election”
The timing is a bit off but as tectonic shifts are happening (imo) a lot of polling assumptions may be getting less and less valid.
422 Peter from Putney
You’re a little late - and it’s far worse for the Conservatives than that. See 324.
Why change the weightings now if no other polling company feels the need too?
422. Sorry I’ve missed “Don’s” post whats he said?
The Labour Party has 48 hours to prove it is still a going concern:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/maryriddell/5424046/The-Labour-Party-has-48-hours-to-prove-it-is-still-a-going-concern.html
422
its already out look back..
Mike posted this a while ago upthread
381Mike Smithson says:
1/6/2009 at 7:42 pm
Re ComRes POLL
There has been a massive past vote weighting change - in Labour’s favour and to Tory’s disadvantage - with this survey which is the biggest driver of the change. I’m writing a piece for later.
The fieldwork took place at the same time as MORI.
Thus in March the past weighting were: CON 19: LAB 23: LD 10
This poll has CON 18: LAB 25: LD 12.
The result is that the proportions of the sample are adjusted in line with these numbers.
ICM, by contrast, has had precisely the same weightings for more than a year. I’ve been trying since last year to get an explanation from ComRes about why this is so.
422, a 13 point lead outlier would be a step down but no disaster given the other polls.
Not sure what the p value of polls are, but in psychometrics they try to make them so that 1:20 is invalid. This could just be because of a wonky sample.
The problem for Comres is that if it is a rogue and the figures on Thursday resemble those of the other pollsters then they may find they suffer the same fate as Mori did after their London Mayoral elections debacle and lose their newspaper sponsorship?
Incidentally could a pollster get thrown out of the BPC?
ComRes always come out after good poll results for the Torys, past polls tend to be an earlier date, than the current results at the time What date was this poll done
420. “The simple truth is, that if Cameron takes a hit then the Tories will suffer badly”
So *THATS* why you spend all day every day on here smearing Cameron?
410 - Whoever has most seats. James: This stacks up in terms of Parliament but in terms of the BBC etc - why should Labour who have crashed (in my scenario) from 300 to 100 seats still maintain the moral kudos of ‘official opposition’ compared to the LDs who have actually improved their position? To put the question a different way, what result would be required for the LDs to be able to ‘morally’ demand equal representation to Labour in a scenario where they polled more or less equally?
Admittedly I don’t want to believe the ComRes poll, but they do have form. ComRes put Labour one point behind the Tories last December - when all the other polls had them nearer 7 to 10 points behind. That proved to be a rogue and I believe this one is too.
Given the two polls presenting us with a mystery, those wanting light relief might enjoy a Mystery Song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__DrJI7mTHQ
420 - Tim, Cameron knows what smears are planned. GB & friends should be worried about their own reputations.
434 If they haven’t done a Euro - then it will be hard to say that they cocked -up.
423. Afleitch and I suspect that’s exactly what the detail of the Mori poll will show. As I said it’s just presentation. If other pollsters presented in the same manner as Mori, I wouldn’t be surprised if they showed similar vote shares to Mori……
431. I still think the Tory pro-euro wing (Pattern etc) may actually help the tories with UKIP/Tory waverers!
If you ask me this is actually a good poll for the Tories. If the message is that all parties have been badly hit by expensegate, then this may take the immediate pressure off of Tory Asset Number One for creating the precipitous drop in Labour ratings we saw earlier.
The detailed data tables for the last ICM poll are on their website . The strange thing is that they too have useddifferent past vote weightings in this poll to usual . They normally use Con 19 Lab 22 LD 13 but in those poll they have used Con 20 Lab 23 LD 11 . The very high LibDem figure in this poll would have been even higher 27/28 with Con and Lab each1% lower if they had used their standard weightings .
437 - They would demand it anyway whether they had moral justification or not.
La Tonybee’s handing giving her orders to the great unwashed:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/01/euro-elections-cameron-ukip-labour
Everyone has to vote Lib-Dem in the Euro’s and ABC in the councils! Failure to do as instructed will see the end of civilisation as we know it and Polly b*ggering off to her Tuskan Villa until everyone see’s sense with her and votes Labour!
It would be very strange if ComRes haven’t done a Euro Poll as well as a GE poll.
And if they have then it would be ludicrous for the Conservatives to be polling the same in both, considering all we know about what UKIP voters have been telling pollsters.
So if Cons were genuinely at 30% in a GE poll then UKIP would probably be in the lead in a Euro poll. The whole thing’s nonsense.
The data from British pollsters is currently all over the place and does not give me any confidence to bet in large sums. I still can not believe UKIP will get more than Labour in the European Election and I have bet £500 with William Hill at 11/8 accordingly. I thought this was “free money” at the time and now only regard it as a reasonable value bet. I will not be making any further bets on this election!
They will be calling for David Cameron to go on ConHome!!!
444. Nevermind - lets see what happens this week!
No doubt you will scoop out regional variation etc for the LD winning a 500 seat majority!
I’m always a little suspicious of polls during a time of, ‘ferment’ things have to settle down a little before we get a true picture.
However the Comres poll, (if it is as reported) would tally with my own feelings, there is a general desire, to stuff the two main parties, (Labour being the incumbent, will get the real rough end of the pineapple) so Comres could be the more accurate.
449 - Nah they will call it a rogue. On a related point no prizes which of tonights polls the Beeb will mention.
the ComRes poll is a godsend. Just like Boyle might have lost because so many thought it was a done-deal, in-the-bag, might-as-well-save-the-cost-of-a-phonecall, then this acts as a spur to those of us who want to make Labour history to go out and vote early and often.
No sign of NickPMP to tell what happened at the PLP. Maybe they have all killed each other?
449.AnnaK Yes to spend more time riding horses and eating babies!
451. Why would ComRes be the more accurate when since ‘Expensesgate’ erupted, the Tories have been bouncing between 39-41% with very little variation?
454 - Maybe they are being bored into submission by Gordo the Magnificent!
456, because it’s in line with what coldstone wants to believe. If that’s true of other Labour people then it might help save Brown’s bacon.
456 - Because it is the story he wants to hear.
SallyC:
It depends what question they have asked and that you can look at. As Mike has pointed out they are already manipulating their weightings almost on a monthly basis in anycase so they are already losing credibility and that’s not even thinking about some of the bizarre figures they have produced over the last few months.
Imagine if they say it is a Westminster poll and then in the local government elections the Conservatives poll 43% (which even under the current circumstances is still feasible) then they will look like fools and they would have some serious questions to answer (IMO they already have.)
It may well be a Euro poll in which case shame on the Indy for trailing it as anything else and not observing like for like and in such a case Comres are probably OK.
Two polls by reputable companies have the data collected at the same time and yet produce such an enormous difference in the Conservative Party’s score. One or both are giving a false reading.
458. Then in that case, some members are insane.
456. I suppose its possible yesterdays Mail front page has caused a collapse in Conservative support? Seems far-fetched though.
463, one front page wouldn’t lose them 15 points/a third of their support. And if it had, why is ComRes the only one to notice it?
454. GIN, I would laugh if NP said Gordo in his speech said he was “Getting on with the job!”
463. I do think nobbling Cameron would have a big impact but I can’t believe it would be anywhere near as dramatic or as quick.
456: It would be too soon to show up in this poll , I think
464
Only more polls will tell us….
468, Cameron’s defence is watertight. It might lose the Tories a handful of points, but 15? It’s balderdash.
461. Don’t forget the Yougov at 39%. Comres is very much on its own with this finding. The odds are very much that comres is rogue.
The thing about the Mail front page is that is where the story stayed; it didn’t really go anywhere else, barring a brief mention in the NoTW. If that has caused a 15 point fall, then the Mail on Sunday must be read by about 20 million people
We need more polls.
424 - Tax avoidance is legal
Its within the rules, you are correct.
If Dave is involved a multi million tax avoidance scheme, its perfectly within the rules.
But perhaps he should ease back on the high ground morality lectures.
427- I would imagine that the pollsters themselves become less and less confident with their numbers as they start reaching into uncharted territory. I’m sure most, if not all, of them will be sweating bullets at the next general election.
463
so 1/3rd of all Conservative voters:
1. Read the Mail
and
2. decided to switch away from Conservatives?
Pull the other one!
Oh well, there might be another poll tomorrow, What about internal party polling, does anyone know anything about that?
424 - Tim, IHT management is something most people do who have estates over the tax free limit. You need to do better if this is your best effort.
463. Gin - Get a grip: The Tories i know have not even seen it (The Daily Mail report)!
If you believe a poll that has been massively rigged in Labours favour at the time in the political cycle that is turbulent anyway due to the Euro’s that is massively out of line with everything else then that is your perogative.
But i can say the Tory vote for a GE is pretty firm IMO and this poll of Tory 30% is not fit as arse wipe!
We’ve had headline after headline of Labour sleaze/incompetence/recession month in, month out. I can’t believe a single Cameron hatchet job in the MoS that was barely picked up in the rest of the MSM would cause such a drop in the Tory ratings in one single poll.
One poll at 40%, one at 30% at almost the same time = margin of error each way + one or other (or both) being an outlier. You cannot logically reconcile the two things - they are mutually exclusive.
476
Labour’s is shocking….
473- Do you know of anybody who goes out of their way to pay higher taxes? You ought to, since nobody knows better than lefties how important it is to fund the government as much as possible. This IHT argument against Cameron, to the extent that it has taken form here, just seems like the same old “Tory Toffs” song played in a different key.
The fact is that Con at 30 in GE election survey = Con at close to 20 in Euro poll. Absolute nonsense.
Tory = 40%, or 30% + 10% UKIP
472. Wibbler
No we need consistent Poll Methodologies.
478 - You can easily reconcile the two because they use different weighting to produce their final numbers. Mori don’t use past vote weighting and they only include people saying they are “certain” to vote (10/10). Probably a few other things as well. Then you factor in that it is much harder to find a representative sample because conditions are different dependent on which constituency and therefore MP the voter has, and the whole thing becomes extremely volatile.
480 - Its an interesting question.
Will Hilary Benn be involved in an IHT avoidance scheme for instance?
Some of the conversation on here today is laughable.
It takes us into the realms of the fantastic.
The real polls are only 3 days away and the people will speak, or perhaps, remain silent.
Afterall they are only the Hoi Poloi.
I tend to think that both tonight’s polls are rogueish - Yougov seems a fair bit more plausible.
478 We had a 10% variance on Lib Dem share last week, and today we have YouGov & Mori 10% different from Comres. Until July the polls really aren’t going to give us a view uncontaminated by EU election and immediacy of Expenses.
Do we have figures for the Others on this comres poll?
473
Tim, it must really pain you having to sign on, it’ll take all your life to get anywhere near the IHT threshold, asuming that is you live on rat droppings.
Worst poll for labour in history!!!!!
489 Not broken down. According to Grice they total 30%
480. S & S - When Gordon goes on about reforming the Gentlemans club of westminister and other such things i think he is trying to politise individuals background or when he goes on about MPs privelege etc.
Brown is useless and everything he does is so shallow that you can see through it. Frankly i would rather have a prince as PM than Brown- Brown is not fit to be a MP nevermind PM.
489. 30%
491 - ComRes or Mori?
492: I’d love to see that….if ukip are on say 15ish % then its surely a euro/euro influenced poll…Theres no way they’ll get that on a general election
I posted this little reminder earlier today - how to step down in favour of your party.
Will Our Glorious Leader ever learn?
456
Why shouldn’t it be! Comres may have picked up a real and dramatic political seachange, the politics of the 21st century have just started, the age of uncertainty has begun.
Our Glorious Leader’s Sky interview in full
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/video/sky-news-video/Video/200906115292962?lpos=Politics_2&lid=VIDEO_1920438_Brown%3A+System+Must+Be+Cleaned+Up&videoCategory=Politics
Labour Labour Labour - Out Out Out!
No doubt Michael Portillo will write a column saying that Brown can turn it round from 18%
Portillo seems sound on economics and government but seems to have lost his bottle in politics since Enfield Southgate and the Leadership loss! Get a grip Michael FFS!
Labour = Doomed!
490 -MTF - Signing on?
I’ve been investigating your claims from last night that Tony Blair tried to join the Conservative Party in the early 90s.
Took it to a publishing house, but they told me my source must be Susan Boyle.
I explained to them it was from someone who claimed to have been interested in politics.
“Are they on acid” came the reply.
No. I said.
They just no nowt about politics or betting or wine or…..
498, because every other poll is completely different?
Thats weird, Indy website, front and centre,
Report on Mori Poll
http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/tories-open-up-22-lead-in-new-poll-1694430.html
So the Indy are reporting the other poll, then what are they going to say about their own poll? The other one is wrong / rubbish (even though it fits the pattern of all other recent polls) and the one done exclusively for us is right?
1.91 taken on Balls for Chancellor.
498. Oh please Coldstone give over. If you want to live in your own little fantasy world fine…….
503 - Not weird. If you read Private Eye you will know that a large proportion of newspaper output these days comes direct from the Press Association. The Independent are so hard up they can’t even afford to cover it up with a fake name.
ComRes. Surely the BBC will be reporting this poll?
501. Tim - You are Nuts defending Labour. I can only think you are on acid or something like that for your comments most of the time!
Brown needs shooting! Ironically Labour would benifit from it! But you need to come to terms with the fact that Labour have failed the economic test big time! The plans will need to go back to the drawing board for Labour as they are likely to leave office with government spending accounting for well over 50% of GDP! That is serious economic failure! If you are on the dole, you will know how scarce jobs have become!
507 Flashback
The BBC should report both polls. Both are extremely newsworthy (though contradictory).
Surely the poll results have some influence on people’s voting choices, whether from a Bandwagon or Yuck point of view. Is there any recognised pattern?
Using Okams razor the answer is straightforward. It’s a Euro poll and Grice’s blog post is misleading.
Alan Meale claimed £20K on second home!
DT!
509 - Agree with that.
Although the herd view on here seems to be that any poll showing a tory hit, or god forbid, a Cameron hit, must be rigged.
Taking the mori polls, and the comres poll, and looking at others:
From Mori
The “others” break down:
* Scottish/Welsh national: 4%
* Greens: 6%
* UKIP: 7%
* BNP: 4%
* Other: 3%
That adds to 24%….to get the ComRes others at 30% you need another 6% on the above…I can’t see that at a general election.
501
Tim, you have been investigating jack shite, you havent the intelligence..
For the record, I have e mailed John Rentoul, and I have had a very pleasant reply. He quoted two possible reasons why I might have thought as I did, one of which was pointed out by Sally C
Is that Indy poll right? if it is then how come the really bug differences in the last few polls?
So. We’ve had Labour gerrymandering real polls through postal votes, boundary rigging (yes, that’s effectively what they got up to with the Boundary Commission between 92 and 97).
Now we have gerrymandering of the next election with proposals for PR brought in quickly to stave off defeat.
Now we have ComRes consistently gerrymandering its figures to favour Labour.
511. JSFL - its a shit poll and not really worthy of much comment not the mood i get round and about! I do not go canvassing but take in what i here around and about! The bloke i saw shouting at a Labour chap today does not fit in with this poll as it was in Halifax/Calder Valley both of which are Marginal!
Con Home have the figures 30 22 18
BTW - did anyone pick up on the YouGov poll saying that 61% were happy with the Constitution (and by implication are seeing straight through all this talk from politicians of Constitutional Reform)?
513 - You do come up with the most ridiculous comments. Nobody would have a problem with the polling here if all the polls were showing a similar picture. The picture thoug is of the Conservatives taking a modest hit from before expenses dropping from mid-40’s to high-30’s/low-40’s. Until we see other polls showing similar trends then we are right to question this particular poll.
517. Indeed, as I say I think it is a Euro poll and if so is in line with the rest.
The lunatic fringe are certainly out in force this evening.
514 - For the record, anyone who thinks Tony Blair attempted to join the Conservative Party knows very little about much at all.
I’m sure Rentoul was nice to you, in the same way Piers Morgan was nice to Susan Boyle.
Poor wee lamb.
517- Given the dramatic nature of the shift and the simultaneous tweaking of their methodology, it would be nice if ComRes themselves had something to say about their poll.
Tim, as a farmer, you’re largely exempt from IHT. Will you expect your heirs to volunteer to pay IHT on your estate, even if they have no legal obligation to do so?
Evening all
The day’s second extraordinary poll if it is a GE intention poll - rather less exciting if it’s a Euro elections poll.
Re: 498 - Responses to Coldstone’s comments have of course been dismissive from the Tory-inclined but I wonder. The back end of last week was dominated by the whole Kirkbride issue and I just wonder if it has had a delayed impact on the Conservative vote.
I very much doubt we are seeing the final implosion of the Labour-Conservative duopoly though the current events are arguably the greatest challenge to that duopoly since the emergence of the SDP.
According to the Indy it is NOT a Euro poll but a Westminister one
http://todayinpolitics.independentminds.livejournal.com/26096.html
And while we were distracted the Telegraph has written about Alan Meale and his bark to keep the weeds down.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5424425/Labour-MP-Alan-Meale-spends-more-than-13000-on-gardening-including-gates-storage-building.html
Is Alistair Darling about to have a Geoffrey Howe moment if he gets the boot?
It strikes me he has it in him.
521. Yes - the interesting thing is the euro sceptic vote may well be 55% plus this time. In that i say Tories plus Ukip. I think it likely.
520 - It may indeed be a rogue.
But look at the herd on here claiming its all rigged.
Look at post 516 for instance.
513: Com res mess about too much with the weightings, the tories might be down a bit but not that much without it being picked up by other pollsters, anyway lets wait to read what Mike thinks.
527 - I know they are saying that, but it does rather beg the question of what a Euro Poll would be saying considering the clear evidence of large numbers of UKIP voters saying that they are “lending” their vote to UKIP for the Euros.
495 james - not the one where we are on 30%
Everyone knows thats rubbish!
We are on 45% minimum!!!
531 - there have been almost no posts saying it is “rigged”. A lot saying it is rubbish but that’s not the same thing.
Ave It,
“We are on 45% minimum!!!”
Glad to see you have finished your little flirtation with UKIP! Welcome home….
525 - When I achieve David Camerons vast wealth I promise not to engage in any tax avoidance,even if it is within the rules.
Particularly when I am lecturing people on moralty and attempting to become Prime Minister.
520/531 It speaks books that 22% should be considered *encouraging* for Labour.
It a poll puts the Conservatives on 30%, it’s only because it puts UKIP on 15%, and that’s something most of us can live with.
ComRes wording must be dodgy - many people must have answered as if it were the Euros.
Conservative share in line with the other Euro polls, way OUT of line with the other Westminster polls.
Can someone list the last 5 Westminster and Euro numbers for the tories?
All 28-32% and 38-41% IIRC, except this ComRes one
536 yes bored with UKIP!
I’m glad everyone wants me to stay with Con!!!
531. Tim - Labour are f*cked!
What do you think of Gordon Browns personal financial matters
512:
Meale is an exemplary hard left man.
Wiki: started out as a seaman in the Merchant Navy, then from 1977-80 was National Employment Development Officer of NACRO. From 1980-4, he was assistant to the General Secretary of ASLEF. He had previously been an officer of the Socialist Campaign Group. From 1984-7, he was a political researcher for MPs including Dennis Skinner and Tony Benn.
IOW apparatchik who’s never had a proper job. Got a nice house though. Lots of trees etc.
537
Tim, You’ll never achieve it, signing on as you do every fortnight.
537 So, you’ll pay *extra* tax. How very public-spirited of you.
From what I can gather, you and Cameron seem to be both haute-bourgeiosie.
SPIN have suspended its GE market. I assume while Comres try to explain how on earth they got the figures they did. Perhaps they polled 10 Downing St 1000 times.
531: Tim, you do an awful lot of moaning about stuff….whats your opinion?
542 oi palmer - whats your view on neale - his seat is next to yours!!!! (roughly)
528 jsfl
The most boneheaded line in all of that for me is
Exactly the pathetic excuse Our Glorious Leader used. What a complete prat.
537. Tim - You are not fit to wipe Gordon Browns arse nevermind be anything elected! Gordon Brown is not fit to even be an MP!
What a waste of public funding.
Late comers to the thread should note that Mr Smithson says that ComRes have changed their past vote weightings such that it favours Labour.
So why? We await Mr S’s comments, but since the story is out of embargo then why wait.
Do ComRes do internal polling for labour. Are they afraid of biting the hand that feeds them?
Wonder if the likes of the BBC are going to get aerial shots of Meale’s place? From the report sounds like a “Mansion” (that is going by NPMP description i.e a detached property in the countryside).
548. Wibbler. I agree its annoying but it’s what the Telegraph doesn’t say that gets me.
Meale is 13th in the Labour list of top troughers - £144,396.00 in 7 years.
540 - Of course we need you to stay Con!
The only fair poll is one where Con are 20% ahead min!!!
537- There is nothing immoral about tax avoidance since it is the government itself that designed the rules by which taxes are to be paid. As a taxpayer, Cameron ought to be expected to follow the tax rules in the same way any other prudent taxpayer, guided by competent tax advisors, would do. So far, I haven’t seen even an accusation that he has done anything other than that.
There was a fund set up in the state of Virginia, I believe, for people to pay greater taxes to the state than they were required by law to pay. Given that it is an Obama state, one would expect that thousands, if not millions, of good Democrats who want to increase the centralization of wealth would have gladly paid into the fund, since they believe their taxes are too low and their financial obligations to the state are too light. But, wonder of wonders, only a few thousand dollars was ever sent to the fund! Moral of the story: the lefties are the real hypocrites, since they complain about taxes being too low but they refuse to pay any more than they are required to pay by law. Another moral of the story: EVERYBODY seeks to pay the least in taxes that is allowed by law. Therefore, the Cameron tax avoidance story can only have the purpose of either misleading or playing on the Tory toff theme.
550 Are ComRes trying to manufacture the pretence that the next election is still competitive?
It does them no credit to try and slide this past everyone. Except…unfortunately for them, Mr. Smithson was on the case!
55: Ssshh don’t try to use reason or common sense..he’s not interested in that…only smears and attacks…
555. avoidance is legal - what i think many of the Labour cabinet have done is Tax evasion, which is of course illegal.
Tim - its everymans duty to avoid paying tax. Its the govt that make the rules. Rules to be followed and the results accordingly. The govt will be happy to twist the same rules to skewer every one of us.
Cameron is well off, from a wealthy family. Big deal - ever heard of aspiration? But not in the league of Labour supporting Mittal or Sainsbury who we can be assured do all they can to avoid paying tax.
553 dont worry i’m take that! (back for good)!!!
556 - Well, actually from the report I took it they were trying to infer that Cameron was stupid to call for a GE as things were too close to call!
I think Cameron would still call for an election if he was level pegging with Gordo, a) he thinks he will wooph ass in a GE campaign and b) why wait another year, I genuinely believe he is absolutely sick (as most of us are) with the serial troughing smearing dishonest incompetents currently supposedly running the country.
Very embarrassing indeed for the Independent should they have to admit that this is in fact a Euro poll - the way they are still concentrating on today’s earlier MORI poll, certainly suggests either very muddled thinking or genuine cincern about their own poll.
546 - I think that the polls are all over the place and volatile, that Labour voters are effectively on strike.
As for the Tories dropping, I think Stodge may have a point that the Kirkbride stuff was all over the papers when Comres were in the field.Camerons personal greed was perhaps exposed too late to have much of an effect.
But then again it could be a rogue
Now remind me what is Lord Myners financial arrangements, I hear he is very keen on certain Caribbean tax havens (even though he is the minister supposedly stopping such things).
Now remind me what are Lord Myners financial arrangements, I hear he is very keen on certain Caribbean tax havens (even though he is the minister supposedly stopping UK citizens from benefiting from such things).
My article on ComRes is just up
562 UK polling is down, been trying to find out what he says about Comres.
561. Cameron should plough on calling for an election! The Sun Newspaper have just backed the tories for the first time in 12 years! The Independent is a sack of shit anyway! Laughable!
Cameron and the Tories are unlikely not to win a working majority given the fact Labour will be spending 53% of GDP in 2010!
The independent is fighting for its life, not Labour or LD - The Independent will die under the tories IMO.
563 Tim - Are you pauli98 on the Digital Spy Forums?
551 Yesterday, along with many others I put a comment, on the Cameron story in the Sunday Mail, of course it never appeared
In the interests of fairness, I take it you will be publishing Gordon Browns expenses
What was wrong with that
Is there a photo of Gordon Brown`s Mansion anywhere, like they have on Hoon`s and Cameron`s
tim says:
1/6/2009 at 8:57 pm
525 - When I achieve David Camerons vast wealth I promise not to engage in any tax avoidance,even if it is within the rules.
Particularly when I am lecturing people on moralty and attempting to become Prime Minister.
When I was only 10 years old I lectured my grandmother on her gambling and drinking habits. She ended up calling me a ‘jumped up pompous ass.’
At the time I had no idea what either pompous, ass, or jumped-up actually meant.
Now I have finally worked it out. It means being exactly like a chap who calls himself TIM.
The above statement really is the most pompous product of a jumped-up ass, I have ever read. As others have indicated, very few who pay taxes, thinks they pay too little. Those that do have every right and moral obligation to give more to a charity of their choosing if they believe they do.
Government is not a charity. Government is EVIL, and potentially extremely so. The government that TIM is so very pleased for OTHER people to pay even more taxes to, buys nuclear bombs with a large amount of it. Much of the rest gets ‘invested’ in keeping an ever more closer eye on US, more tax free perks for THEM, and a countless number of Winston Smiths to administer the whole wasteful pile of incredibly nasty rubbish.
People like TIM should do THEMselves and US a favor.
They should stop considering relative London Bridge dwelling tramps like Cameron as our collective problem. For it is not relative paupers like Cameron or Bill Gates who are our problem.
Socialism and Marxism were invented by the SUPER SUPER rich and all powerful class, simply to keep us ALL in the place they have allotted US, and THEM where they believe it is their god given right to stay.
Most charities, especially the very big ones run under the UN, are not charities, they are establishment rackets and con-jobs for the boys.
548 - freeview has 24 hour news channels……
580 Couldn’t agree with you any more. Perfect