Gloomy news for Labour in Harris poll
June 23rd, 2009New data points to 158 Tory gains
While many Labour MPs might be celebrating that “their man” won yesterday’s election for the speaker there’s a sharp reminder of the challenge the party faces at the election in a new Harris poll for today’s Metro.
The pollster which used to be one of the main firms in the UK has hardly been seen for years. The firm seems to operate online and is a member of the British Polling Council which means that it should follow the transparency code.
I have not seen the data but the paper reports: “An exclusive Metro/Harris poll of 2,081 people reveals that 52 per cent of those who voted Labour in 2005 are considering backing another party, compared with only 15 per cent of Conservatives who are thinking of defecting. One in ten of those leaving Labour is planning to vote Conservative while one in five plans to support one of the minor parties.
Overall, 30 per cent of those polled said they would vote Conservative, 17 per cent Labour and 14 per cent Liberal Democrat. When the 15 per cent of undecided voters, or those who definitely will not vote, are removed, this puts the Tories on 35 per cent, Labour 20 per cent, the Lib Dems 16 per cent and other parties 29 per cent.”
The paper says this would result in 158 Tory gains and an overall majority of 62 which is precisely the figure you get if you put the shares into the UKPollingReport seat calculator.
Normally poll findings are reported after the won’t say/don’t knows have been excluded and I find the 29% for “others” quite astonishing. I look forward to examining the detailed data and other aspects of the survey before coming coming to a conclusion because I need to get a handle on why Harris is reporting that this segment is attracting so much greater support than other pollsters.
The survey was carried out from June 10 to 17 which seems quite a long time.
Let’s hope that this will be a regular addition to the polling scene and let’s hope as well that Harris is as open about its methodology and data as other members of the BPC.
Mike Smithson
MessageSpace Advertising
Harris polling again! since when!
Note the fieldwork dates: this poll was taken more than a week ago.
Let’s hope that this will be a regular addition to the polling scene and let’s hope as well that Harris is as open about its methodology and data as other members of the BPC.
Hear! Hear!
That sounds dodgy to me. Why is it worded in such a convoluted and long-winded confusing way? If the report is worded like that, what is the methodology like? When I read the headline, I thought it meant “lost half” since last month, not since 2005.
Despite all the lies, the wars, the waste, the bullying, the taxes, the debts, the nannying, the tribalism and all the rest of it - apparently one voter in five is still intending to give their vote to this most awful of governments. Why?
Please would some of the lefty PB regulars enlighten me. tim, Roger, Malcolm, wage slave et al. What are these 20% voting for? What is the vision they like? What do they think or hope or expect a Labour 4th term would deliver? I’m genuinely baffled.
The paper says this would result in 158 Tory gains and an overall majority of 62.
Those are Anthony Wells’ numbers. Baxter gives Con maj 50.
4. Patrick: What are these 20% voting for?
If you believe what lefties say, “stopping the Tories”. It’s all they seem to have left.
re 5. I don’t believe the “others” total. My guess is that it will be less than 10% at the election.
Always good to see extra polls. Hope it’s not a one off. Says it was done online.. I wonder how they selected the sample.. self-selecting metro readers ?
FPT - I’m still mulling over Bercow’s win. He would not have been my choice, however the deed is done so lets hope he makes a good job of it God knows we need a change for the better.
I do think the whole affair was too partisan but hey ho that’s life.
One thing that strikes me though is, what about the Buckingham constituents ? Given that he is not squeaky clean on expenses how do they register their disdain if he is re-elected unopposed ? This goes for any would-be speaker who had a case to answer. It makes me think there may well be an opportunity for an independent to stand against. This was always the risk with electing someone caught up in the expenses debacle.
From Metro article - Younger voters turn to BNP…
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?Younger_voters_to_turn_to_the_BNP&in_article_id=690150&in_page_id=34
7 Mike. Me neither. Which puts maybe up to 20% of the votes back into play for the main parties. HOw many of these can Labour hoover up? Not many I expect.
7. OGH: I don’t believe the “others” total. My guess is that it will be less than 10% at the election.
Well, it was about 8% last time. I was guessing it as going to 10% before the expenses scandal hit; now I reckon it might reach 12%.
I concur that 29% is beyond ridiculous.
Metro often has Voodoo polls of its readers or “urbanites” as it calls them. So its very exciting that it has gone into business with a “proper” poll. The article hints at proper demographic weighting, Mike says its BPC registered so I suppose the big question is past vote recall. The sampling period does look a little long. I was alsways told that most responses to a You Gov came in pretty quickly so why 7 days if it was on line ?
Its so exciting ! A new Star in the East ! I can’t wait for OGH to pronounce it Canonical, Apocraphal or Extra Canonical.
The gorilla in the corner of British politics is the unaffordable size of the state and our ever growing national debt. Sooner or later this is going to go pop one way or another (pretty spectacularly). Labour seem in denial or quite prepared to lie openly about it.
A super interactive graphic doodah in today’s FT helps explain the meteoric growth of the client state over the last decade:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8278a416-5f74-11de-93d1-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1
We cannot as a nation carry on as we have been. We need to chop tens of billions off the public sector.
The polls are going to end up being dominated in the run in to a GE by the party that lays it out clearly and honestly.
Patrick @ 13 re size of public sector.
You need to take into account that much public sector spending is in the private sector.
For instance, a good deal of money has been spent rebuilding schools and hospitals. This is public sector money being spent in the private sector. There is no British National Building Company: private builders and suppliers do the work.
And quite likely the whole lot is paid for using PFI money which in turn racks up huge fees to private sector bankers and management consultants.
Many on the left and right would agree this is scandalous. Private Eye complains about PFI contracts every week.
This private sector good, public sector bad approach is too simplistic. They are by no means independent.
14 Yes. This is mostly true so far on capital spending. I’m sure private building companies can put up a school for a better price than a state owned one would. I do, however, fully agree that the terms agreed to many PFI contracts by the Labour party are nothing short of scandalously non-commercial.
I would like to see alot more public spending on current / non-capital costs also going out to competitive tender. I see no reason for health services or teaching to be delivered by employees of the state. These should be competitively tendered and fixed term contracts awarded to the best bid. Such an approach would drive effficiency in public spending quite quickly through supplier competition.
4 — why vote Labour?
To protect us. The government keeps us safe by destroying our civil liberties and monitoring our phone calls using the same technology as the Iranians.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8112550.stm
[Nokia spokesman] added: “Western governments, including the UK, don’t allow you to build networks without having this functionality.”
Do the Iranian protestors have ID cards?
Congratulations to Andy Cooke (343, previous thread) who posted the 1,122,659th PB.com message. 1,122,659 is the first in a sequence of seven prime numbers, each being 1 more than twice the previous number. There are only three such chains of 7 prime numbers in which the smallest is less than 10,000,000.
The next target number is 1,175,265, which is the amicable number of 1,438,983 and was the first pair of odd amicable numbers to be discovered. Amicable numbers are a pair, each of which is equal to the sum of the divisors of the other. For example:
220 = 1 + 2 + 4 + 71 + 142 which are the divisors of 284
284 = 1 + 2 + 4 + 5 + 10 + 11 + 20 + 22 + 44 + 55 + 110 which are the divisors of 220
After that, the next target is 1,741,725 which is equal to the sum of the seventh powers of its digits.
Somewhat O/T, but just to assure other insomniac punters that Hills have finally paid up on winning bets as regards Speaker Martin leaving office.
My account is shown as having been credited about an hour ago at 3.46 am. Good to see Sydney and his backroom staff working through the night in settling bets, albeit belatedly.
Patrick @ 15 re competitive tendering.
You might fall into the same trap as Mrs Thatcher’s government when it introduced the internal market to the NHS. Long story short: the public sector will need to hire a lot of managers, accountants and lawyers to run the process.
As for hiving services off to the private sector, this is standard-issue Blairism. Already a lot of NHS services, typically for routine surgery, are provided by private companies (often American).
It turns out that despite competitive tendering, these are often more expensive than keeping things in-house.
I missed this news earlier, but no doubt it’ll have tim running to his database:
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/thetorydiary/2009/06/the-deal-is-done-new-conservative-grouping-in-the-european-parliament-to-be-launched-today.html
2.15pm Update:
Sources in Brussels bring me news that already today an MEP from a ninth country has indicated he wants to join the new European Conservatives and Reformists - Waldemar Tomaszewski, an MEP from Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania.
17 - JohnLoony, you have far too much time on your hands but interesting numerical factoids nevertheless.
19 - That might seem to be the case, JohnL, but the “cost” of keeping things in-house in the NHS and similar often hide a significant level of hidden, institutionalised costs which, if included, would certainly make the private supplier at the very least evenly priced.
The NHS, in particular, already has a significant number of managers who are underutilised or sub-optimally employed and could easily (unions and political posturing aside) reallocate/eliminate much of this waste.
Re 13/14 on capital spend/PFI - a misallocation of resources and overspending by government remains a misallocation/overspend/waste regardless of whether the activity is undertaken by government agencies or private sector companies. The spending levels of the current Labour administration have to fall wherever the axe might have to strike.
Hannan’s on the attack…
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/daniel_hannan/blog/2009/06/22/conservatives_and_the_epp_the_apology_you_wont_be_reading_in_tomorrows_press
Are we about to enter an exceptionally quiet period politically, with just a couple of by-elections 3 or 4 months down the line or perhaps instead a frenetic period with Brown being jettisoned,ahem sorry, deciding to leave on ill-health grounds, resulting in the Postie stepping manfully into the breach to call a late Autumnal General Election.
I don’t know about you but I’m not holding my breath.
Id @ 21 — it is not at all certain that private suppliers are cheaper. American health costs are notoriously higher than ours, for instance, despite a far larger private sector.
And as the Prime Minister points out, cutting spending in a recession, as proposed here and by the Conservatives, is generally considered dangerous, and to have exacerbated the Great Depression between the wars.
Patrick @ 15 re PFI. It is not that terms are “uncommercial” so much as that higher costs are necessarily built in because public sector can borrow money more cheaply than the private sector as the markets perceive there is a lower risk of default. Safe as the Bank of England is the saying, not safe as HBOS.
And that is without massive transaction costs (lawyers, consultants and so on all taking their cut).
The attraction of PFI for Brownites was that it kept spending “off the books”. Like Enron. For Blairites (like Thatcherites) it is that the private sector and “the market” are magically better than the dreary old state operatives.
PfP @ 23 — an Autumn general election?
There may be an element of Conservative wishful thinking in all these scenarios wherein Brown is deposed and the new, dagger-wielding Prime Minister, whomsoever he may be, or she, immediately calls and loses an election.
Like you, I am not holding my breath.
Completely O/T
From the BBC’s Website:
Michael Owen has confirmed he will leave relegated Newcastle when his contract expires at the end of June.
Owen is widely reported to be earning more than £100,000-a-week at St James’ Park after signing a four-year deal when he moved from Spanish side Real Madrid in August 2005 for a club record fee of £16m.
The forward has made 79 appearances for the Magpies and scored 30 goals in four seasons.
Wow! Include interest costs in funding his original transfer and subsequent earnings as well as NIC and other employment costs and each of his precious 30 goals must have cost Newcastle well in excess of £1,500,000 - truly incredible!
Here is the most recent previous Harris poll of Great Britain voting intention that I could find: 3 May 2005 ->
http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=564
24 - And yet, given the massive levels of borrowing now and planned as a direct result of the failure to balance a budget in the best part of a decade by the Labour government, the “safety” of UK government debt is being actively questioned by the rating agencies who have essentially said that, save a change of government in the UK, the UK’s rating will fall.
What a legacy for Brown.
As for the whole “don’t cut in a recession” line, that would be much more reasonable if a) we weren’t running a structural deficit built in to Labour’s spending plans and completely unconditional on the recessionary environment and b) the Labour government’s active over-spending wasn’t to a very large extent responsible for the misallocation of resources in both the public and private sectors which has left the UK bereft of sources of growth to bring the economy out of recession either as quickly or as effectively as other nations.
At the very least, the structural element of the deficit has to be cut away. Better would be to calculate the level of public spending which would be generated by 1997 spending levels growing solely by inflation/GDP growth over the intervening 12 years and trim public spending back to those, sustainable, levels.
23/25 Unfortunately, I have to agree that an election this side of next Spring is very unlikely whatever happens to Brown.
- “… I find the 29% for “others” quite astonishing.”
Join the club Mike.
I hope that we get a Scotland breakdown when the detailed datasheets come out.
The available data from their 3 May 2005 poll is very, very skimpy indeed. No other BPC member publishes so little detail.
- “Let’s hope that this will be a regular addition to the polling scene and let’s hope as well that Harris is as open about its methodology and data as other members of the BPC.”
Totally agree. Harris are a very welcome reintroduction to GB politics. Let’s hope this is not a one-off.
FPT - 401 - another richard:
- “Having Glasgow NE and Norwich N on the same day will divide Labour resources.
The Conservatives would make little more effort in Glasgow NE than the SNP will make in Norwich N.
The sensible thing for Labour to do would be to have Glasgow NE a couple of weeks after Norwich N so that a victory in Scotland would replace the narrative of defeat of a bad result (possibly 4th place) in England.”
Good point Richard. Although a Labour Hold is far from guaranteed in Glasgow NE, a Labour defeat (and a humiliatingly bad one) is guaranteed in Norwich N.
20/22 London Statto. The news from Europe (The Prague Declaration) is far more important for the Conservatives than problems over the Speaker. I know a number of UKIP voters - they will find it difficult to quarrel with the aims of the Declaration. They are all past Con voters and I fully expect that, in a GE, they will now return to voting Conservative.Cameron now has a vital PR job to ensure the country understands what has happened - Hannan will be a key player and Cameron’s team has to make full use of him.
If you look at the first page of the FT guide it is clear that the killer spending growth which has taken us over the edge financially is in two key areas: Social Security and the NHS.
I suspect that the social security element is a clear reflection of the so called ‘benefits lifestyle’. Unemployment is high but quasi-unemployment cunningly renamed invalidity benefit is off the charts. I am sure many don’t want to be there. I am equally sure many do. We just have a very large number of people in the UK who are quite happy to do sweet FA and go to collect their giro once a week. We’ll not recover as a country unless that is somehow addressed in a significant way. How does an incoming administration separate the deserving from the undeserving poor? (Don’t fancy Dave and George’s job much!)
The NHS explosion came about when Blair decided one day live on telly to match the EU average spend on health. Gordon was not happy but politically snookered. GPs salaries more than doubled. Not sure if the health outcomes improved by anything like the spending growth. We used to pay NHS staff not much to do an OK job. Now we pay then loads more to do an OK job. The spending growth has not given value for money.
Id @ 28 — our current economic woes have nothing to do with rainy days or balanced budgets or even Gordon Brown.
The problem is that financial markets have become so interlinked that what would previously have been a little local difficulty in the American mortgage market led to a liquidity crisis in all markets and tanked the world economy.
Since we are all good monetarists now, the internationally favoured weapon is quantitative easing (aka printing money) to increase the money supply. Cutting spending now would be what Sir Humphrey might have described as courageous.
Public spending may well need to be cut in future, not because of Brown’s sins, but because the forecast tax take from the City has all but disappeared.
28 - Maintaining or even increasing Govt spending in a recession is fine as long as the spending is on one off items especially lasrge capital investments. The problem with Brown is he is funding a job creation scheme in the public sector which will be very hard to unwind once the economy recovers.
With regards to cutting costs, the unions had better be careful what they say. If they go on as they do demanding that “services” are not cut then there is only one possible way to cut spending and thats a big pay & benefit cut for the public sector.
Either way expect lots of industrial action as the public sector is still stuck in the 70’s with their unions!
Patrick @ 32 re benefits.
Even if there are lots of people happy on the dole, while unemployment is rising and millions are desperate for work, there is no immediate need to tackle the terminally idle.
And the political consequences of doing so right now (pace James Purnell) would be bad. The scroungers won’t like it. The desperate unemployed won’t like it because, first, they will be hassled too, and second, it will increase competition for what few jobs are vacant. Employers won’t like it because they will get lazy, ill-motivated and disruptive recruits rather than people who want to work.
33 Utter horseshit.
The UK position is precisely so bad because Brown ran a deficit of over 3% right through the boom years. Is Canada sinking in debt, for example? This is macroeconomics 101 he has failed quite miserably and represents the greatest policy failure of a generation. The tax take from the City has disappeared because of Brown’s sins not despite them.
Labour designed a champagne public sector but failed to realise we only have a ginger beer tax base. It is now and always was structural madness. Waiting to resolve the issue will only deepen the debt burden that we must ultimately pay for. If we let Gordon carry on the UK will lose its credit rating and then the market for its debt. The IMF or rampant inflation beckon.
I’m not a Tory but Osborne was quite right to say ‘Labour have done it - again’. They just need to learn to stop spending other people’s money.
33 - even worse is the crisis was caused by excess money supply. Trying to solve the problem by replacing the lost credit with more printed money in order to make the banks solvent and inflate away the debts.
Problem is we all know what they are up to and will take actions to offset it!
36 - 3% deficit would have been fine if it wasnt built on the revenues from the city. They were being driven purely by printing money so when the music stopped that 3% deficit suddenly became nearer 9%. Adding in typical recession spending and loss of revenue brings it to 12%.
The other issue is with Govt spending at 52% of GDP and 25% of spending being borrowed it is totally crowding out the private sector borrowing. At the moment the Govt is printing its spending money, it wont last more than another 6 months. Then interest rates rocket.
30. SD
“Good point Richard. Although a Labour Hold is far from guaranteed in Glasgow NE, a Labour defeat (and a humiliatingly bad one) is guaranteed in Norwich N.”
A Labour victory isn’t guaranteed in Glasgow NE but I would give them a 75% chance and have put a little of my own money on them to win.
I predict that if there is a Labour victory there, no matter how small the margin, the BBC will be in full Brown triumphant SNP humilated mode.
More from the poll: Best PM:
Scot Brown 23, Cameron 22
Nth/Mid C “at least a third”, B “just over 10%”
Sth C 43, B 13
Wal C 37, B 8
IJ. Totally agree. The real risk to the UK is not now GDP +/-% numbers, or unemployment, or house prices. It is debt driven macroeconomic meltdown. The political price needed to deal with that (through worse unemployment or slower recovery) will be painful. The price of ignoring it will send our living standards back to a level most simply fail to register. If the Treasury really lose it, if gilt sales dry up, if inflation goes wildly out of control we will no longer be a rich country. The failure we are heading towards will result in rioting at the very least. Our public sector is strangling the country.
9. So that explains the swing to Berclow.
Can we look forward to McBroon being reminded that it is not questions to the Leader of the Opposition?
27. Those figures look remarkably like the actual result. About as much as you can ask from an eve of poll poll !
32. What proportion of “Social Security” benefits are out of work benefits ? and what proportion of out of work benefits are unemployment benefits ?
40 Interesting, on that breakdown, about how Wales hates Brown. Could that be a special reason for Labour’s crushingly bad results there in the Euro’s? And another block of MP’s who might be pushing for a new PM this autumn?
Patrick et al. The gross state v private % split helps you v little. If the State did not provide the NHS, consumers would need to buy that service, ditto education.If the USA is a guide, the consumer base will pay more for that service than they are now were it to be in the private sector.
It is merely a matter of payment mechanism - transact for it directly via payment, or indirectly via taxes. Either way it is nott comparable to defence and so forth
The issue to be addressed is in three areas - pure “administration”, social costs like welfare programmes and the special case of defence, which we are not strictly “consuming”. This is clearly a much smaller figure than the 40% or so usually quoted (very anoyingly when it is intelligent people like Ken Clarke making the error)
This is a distinction charities work with all the time to identify their pure admin costs.
44. MM
Agreed.
It looks as though the Welsh have an even bigger distaste for Broon than the English do. They can spot a phoney a mile off.
<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>
Ladbrokes 4/1 on John Bercow leaving office by 2011 has not moved.
Oddly, PB opinion usually moves markets.
Perhaps the blowhards against Bercow are not representative of the serious, the knowledgable and the punter.
45 JW. I may have misread your post (if so forgive me) but you seem to be of the view that either:
A. State funds and delivers all by itself; or
B. Individual funds and buys service all by himself.
With no apparent alternatives.
I would like to see the state still responsible for ensuring health services are available free or very cheap at the point of use for all, BUT for these services actually to be provided 100% privately. Individuals could choose to pay if they wanted (maybe to queue jump or get a particular doctor, etc) but could always go the state funded route if they chose also.
Governments can fund. Governments can regulate. Governments can deliver - but they’re just not very good at it for some services.
Fully agree that defence is different and should probably remain wholly within the state (although I don’t actually see what would be wrong with paying mercenaries to engage the enemy / civvies to fly the UAVs).
I don’t think the state should have any role at all in education beyond providing vouchers.
Yet more evidence that when Brown can gerrymander a result he does well, and when he can’t the electorate delight in giving him a kicking.
As for Bercow, not so despondent as yesterday. He proves himself decent in the year ahead or gets axed. And it’s not as if his predecessor was any bloody good.
I had a good day yesterday here in rural Hungary. It rained heavily yesterday, so after sampling my newly-made cherry jam (fantastic, I can give you the recipe if you like), I went for a long swim. We picked up supplies of wine from a local cellar - the whites are very good round here, but the climate in this particular region doesn’t produce good reds, so we need to get those from outside the region. Later, we started a batch of walnut brandy, and though yours truly looked fairly stupid cutting green walnuts wearing a pair of marigolds, better to look stupid than to get your hands stained with walnut juice. Yesterday evening, we had osso buco and went to bed early - it’s amazing how tiring country air is.
Imagine my disappointment, therefore, when I log on this morning to find that I’d missed out on the politicalbetting acid party. I would have thought that this was the absolute ideal result for David Cameron, at a stroke ensuring that a perennial thorn in the flesh is kept studiously neutral. And as Stars & Stripes notes, this looks bipartisan. Finally, it simply isn’t that important a role, when all is said and done. I wonder how many of even the pb political junkies can name all (or even most) of the Speakers of the 20th century?
So quite why the Tories on this site regard this result as the greatest calamity since Accrington Stanley got expelled from the Football League is beyond me. And if there really was an attempt to replace John Bercow after the next election, the Tories would be out of their tiny minds.
With hindsight I don’t know why anyone is surprised that Bercow won. Labour has a large majority and wanted to stick it to the Tories… therefore Bercow was always going to win. Labour can never get past tribal party political machinations.
50, does it? Evidently not seen the papers. The Telegraph and Mail are not friends of Mr. Bercow.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to remove a Speaker who doesn’t have the confidence of one of the two large parties in the Commons.
And the reason people are pissed off is that Bercow’s victory was delivered due to blind tribalism. It’s petty, it’s not what the Commons or the country needs and it didn’t work very well last time.
Extract from Nadine Dorries blog
If John Bercow is elected Speaker tomorrow, then Parliament is lost.
IMHO the lady is barking and needs help,for it is she who is lost,not Parliament.
52 - On this occasion, the dangerous tribalism might be among the minority in the House.
54, Bercow won because the PLP knows the Tory hate him. You can hardly blame the Tories for the PLP deciding to vote not on the basis of merit but on the basis of who would piss off the Tories more.
Glasgow North East by-election - best prices (excluding William Hill, who have not got out of bed yet… as per usual… )
Lab 4/6 Paddy Power
SNP 5/4 Victor Chandler
Ind 16/1 Ladbrokes and Victor Chandler
Con 100/1 Ladbrokes and Victor Chandler
LD 100/1 Ladbrokes and Victor Chandler
Is anyone aware of any other bookies offering Glasgow NE prices, apart from Ladbrokes, Paddy Power, Victor Chandler and William Hill?
Tim - nobody in their right minds would take the Ladbrokes bet. There’s no way that Berkow is going to be opposed.
PB opinion only moves markets when punters like me are ready to risk cash.
48 - Patrick, I’ve just finished reading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. You’d love it.
55 - The danger is that the Tories won’t move on. If another tribal Labour hack had been installed, the Tories might have a case for reserving judgement over his/her performance. In relation to a Speaker drawn from their own ranks, it would be ludicrous to do so.
59, why? There are serious doubts from day 1. Not just the fact that the Labour party’s brilliant scorched earth policy applies to the EU, the economy and now the Commons, but his expenses are not exactly clean as a whistle.
I can’t see why they don’t vote in a new speaker every time there is a new Government?
60 - The case against John Bercow comes down ultimately to the fact that a lot of Tories didn’t like him. There is not the slightest evidence that he will not be fine in the job and such evidence as there is suggests that he might actually be good at it. When your preferred candidate doesn’t win (for whatever reason) and someone else has won fair and square, then unless you are given new grounds for concern by subsequent actions, you grit your teeth, applaud the victor and get on with it. Does that really need saying? Sadly, it appears that it does.
45 JW - good points. The administrative costs of the NHS are low compared to those of private medicine in the US but not particularly lower compared to the Bismarkian model used in Germany and copied more widely across Europe, with mix of insurance & state funding, greater choice and diversity of delivery and higher outcomes in terms of survival rates.
Experience in de facto privatisation of opticians and denstistry has been mixed but from point of view of public spending costs for both from public purse are lower, though unavailability of NHS dentistry for those eligible is an issue.
The question though isn’t efficiency and quality but also affordability. There are, as Yasmin Alibhai-Brown recognised yesterday, universal benefits that need to be re-examined, activities that while they may be nice to have are not necessary and some things the state needs to stop doing. When it comes to a choice between specialist nurses for serious illnesses and tattoo removal (187,000 cases in 2006), breast reduction and other cosmetic operations and other such procedures should there be universal rights of free surgery, should it be means tested or stopped altogether?
Are the inspections and other audits of local authorities mentioned on thread earlier yesterday really cost effective & necessary? What shouldn’t the state do anymore? Its better usually to stop something rather than top slice across everything.
57. Mike - “There’s no way that Berkow is going to be opposed.”
Well, he will be opposed Mike, but just not by any of the 3 main parties.
He will almost certainly be challenged by the BNP (they stood against Michael Martin in Glasgow NE at the 2005 UK GE, getting 920 votes = 3.2%), and perhaps also by UKIP, the English Democrats, the Greens and/or Independents.
61 Exactly. The Speaker should be drawn from - and voted upon - by all MP’s (and not be a relic from a previous intake foisted upon them in a seat no-one else contested).
One of Cameron’s inovations on day one
Absolutely.
All serious people on here will agree with that 100%
64 Will the Loonies stand against the Speaker…or are they just a cowed part of the Establishment too? We need to know!
Perhaps they could put up a mime artist for Speaker…
In the “beyond satire” category, David Aaronovitch writes today:
“Some of the most exalted and popular opponents of the war are implacable in their interior knowledge of the wrongness of the conflict and of the perfidy that led up to it. No facts or interpretations that they could possibly hear would ever change their minds.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/david_aaronovitch/article6557269.ece
Would this be the same David Aaronovitch who wrote:
“At the United Nations in February, the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, presented evidence claiming that there were mobile laboratories and showing clear signs that the Iraqis had moved material to escape inspection from UN teams. Put together, all this was argued as constituting a clear breach of UN resolutions that therefore required urgent action.
These claims cannot be wished away in the light of a successful war. If nothing is eventually found, I - as a supporter of the war - will never believe another thing that I am told by our government, or that of the US ever again. And, more to the point, neither will anyone else. Those weapons had better be there somewhere.”
and who still seems implacable in his interior knowledge? Do you know, I think it might.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,945551,00.html
O/T Had a good week on the tennis last week. DANCEVIC won the first set against Santoro at 6/5, BECKER beat Schuettler to win at 8/11, GARCIA-LOPEZ beat Tipsarevic at 7/4, Dancevic lost to Mayer at 7/5 and BOGDANOVIC won on the handicap against Tursunov at 5/6.
Today I am backing STEPANEK to beat Falla 3-0 in sets @ 7/4 with bluesq.com. If you’d like to get free Wimbledon tips by text message or email, send me a message with your details to henrygmanson@hotmail.com.
26, Also incredible is that for 79 appearances, he has been paid over £250,000 per game, considering he has pocketed over £20M in wages.
51 55 Just about all those who voted for Bercow yesterday could be described as ‘fair weather friends’. In contrast, his enemies seem to be ‘for life’. So his position doesn’t look very stable. (I don’t fall into either camp, by the way.)
Antifrank, my concerns actually have little to do with Bercow the man and more with the means that Speaker Bercow got himself elected.
IMHO the best candidate yesterday was Sir George Young, in Conservative terms a wet leftie, but experienced and trusted and someone who could do unpopular things without accusation of partisanship. A reforming Speaker is going to have to sell some unpopular changes and that means the HoC as a whole must accept and believe his legitimacy as Speaker. Reform isn’t about cosmetic changes, calling MPs by their names, wearing a tie or not. It’s about making MPs take responsibility again (recognise its not the system to blame but themselves), take back power from the Executive and the party Whips. It means becoming unpopular with Brown, Cameron and Clegg.
Problem is that anything he does which could be perceived as against Cameron will support those who want him out, even if he does it in an even handed manner by challenging Brown at same time. Bercow has a difficult 10 months ahead to settle Conservative doubts and not lose Labour support.
I worry that in June 2010 when the question is put in the election for Speaker there will be cries of No and a new precedent, re-election every Parliament will become the norm, with the job politicised (more than it already is).
32. Patrick, don’t think they even need to go and collect nowadays, its paid into the bank account direct, so only a matter of getting it out of an ATM.
On topic, it’s good to see the return of Harris but I find it difficult to give their result much credulity while their figures are so out of line with other pollsters and aren’t corroborated by a real election. Someone’s wrong somewhere.
29% for others is extraordinary. There has just been the Euroelection, which always boosts the shares for minor parties, and the expenses scandal has undoubtedly hurt faith in - and consequently support for - the mainstream but even so? The SNP and Plaid surely can’t have much more than 5% between them given their geographic limits (and that they’re mainstream themselves), so it must be getting on for 25% for Greens, UKIP, BNP and tiddlers.
If there was this support for ‘minor’ parties, shouldn’t it be showing up in local by-elections? True, not all parties stand everywhere but if there was a pool of 29% outside Tory/Lab/LD, I’d still expect to see (a) gains by minor parties in areas favourable to them and (b) more minor parties standing for the first time and polling well. To my knowledge, that’s not been the case.
I’m not going to dismiss the survey - we are in unusual times - but not long ago, 15% would have been a very high score for Others. As was mentioned upthread, at the last general election, the GB share outside the big three was in single figures. Has it really trebled since then?
Listening to the Conservative Party view on Bercow (Alan Duncan excepted), you can see why they are known as the nasty party.
I’m wondering when the selection of the Deputy Speakers is going to be made. Surely this has to be done almost instantly? Bercow can’t possibly sit in the Chair all day, no matter how much he’s coveted the post!
Could we be in line for a clear out? We’re definitely going to get an extra Labour deputy; and maybe Sylvia Heal will decide she’s had enough. Come on Frank Field!
Meanwhile - what will happen to Michael Lord and Alan Haselhurst. Only one will survive. Maybe neither will?
Prediction: tomorrow, Bercow viciously slaps down Gordon at PMQ’s, makes him answer questions, leaves him floundering - Labour realise they have been sold a pup, pb.com full of “I knew he was a good’un all along” Tories….
72 Ted
Easy way around that, is to introduce the requirement of a double majority, where a candidate for speaker has to win a majority of votes on both sides of the house and receive at least 7 of the 15 nominations from opposition benches. That will stop the partisan nonsense and might even result in Speakers from smaller parties, especially the LDs, becoming a regular feature.
* * * BETTING POST * * *New market at Paddy Power -> the “Dole Derby”
“First world leader to go” - “Applies to the first world leader listed to leave their position as leader of their government”
Brown 10/11
Cowen 7/4
Berlusconi 5/1
Merkel 6/1
Rudd 6/1
Zapatero 10/1
Sarkozy 33/1
Obama 100/1
Bercow: I’ve refrained from celebrating the outcome here as I don’t want to wind people up about it, but for those of us who voted Bercow because we think he’ll be good at the job, it is really not our problem that so many Tories seem to have a seething dislike of (hitherto) one of their number. If you hated him that much, you’ve had ages to get rid of him; now, the only sensible course of action is to reserve judgment and see what he’s like in practice. It is very unlikely that he’ll be hostile; whether he’ll be as good as I hope in improving the Commons’ image only time will tell.
By the way, the process for chosing the new Labour *deputy* Speaker are obscure (to me anyway), but I think the idea mooted here by someone that Dhanda could get it sounds plausible. He’s a modernised who had the guts to put his head above the parapet and got almost universally favourable coverage. He’s also the only candidate who yesterday spoke for the people out there who think we’ve not yet ‘got it’, and they might be glad to see that rewarded. He’s not a close friend, but I think it’d strike the right note, whereas picking an establishment figure (whether Beckett or another veteran colleague) would not.
The poll numbers are not wildly out of line with other recent polls, but the report is oddly vague on the wording. That may be just because the Metro is a rubbish paper unused to reporting polls, but did the poll really ask “Are you considering voting for a different party?” I considered having Rice Krispies for breakfast, but in the end I didn’t. One should be cautious about treating that as a decisive swing to Rice Krispies.
To reply to Patrick - the positive reasons were in my article here a month or so ago about why the Labour vote was persisting at 30%. Currently it’s below that, but the last few weeks have been pretty exceptional, and I’d expect it to return over 30% by the election. That, of course, is not enough to win: whether we do significantly better than that depends on further developments.
69. Henry, It was indeed a good week , many thanks for your tips , they are much appreciated.
80 “whether we do significantly better than that depends on further developments”
Like dumping the PM???
I’ve just been watching the closing minutes of last night’s sitting of the Commons.
Two immediate thoughts:
(1) Harman really hurried through the motion on the Humble Address; don’t think she really believed in it!
(2) I think I can get used to Bercow in the Chair. He sounds right.
77, that would be amusing. But it wouldn’t shift my opinion. Just because Bercow might change whose arse he kisses it doesn’t alter the fact that he stinks.
councilhouse tory “….will stop the partisan nonsense…”
FFS they have just elected a speaker from a minority party - one with less than a third of the MPs.
Well done Mike and Robert and the thousands of PB support staff (in Mumbai?) - suspect the old string and sealing wax system with its McCain chip would not have coped with yesterday. Thanks also to the contributors -I am sorry that I am not in a position to help at the moment - Incidently, I notice that the donate button has gone .
I hope that now things are likely to calm down (until the election in October) we can restore the large numbers and short term edit feature.
80 Nick you really miss the fundamental 1st requirement of a Speaker that they must be able to command respect (not love) across all the HoC.
Bercow clearly only has the support of Labour, Lib Dems and half a dozen Conservatives. There are about 190 Conservatives that do not support him. A significant number. Just as Speaker Martin was also chosen by partisan groups and it ended in tears.
It is a very common mistake in recruitment that people make a decision without looking at the main requirement/s in the JD. You chose the personality rather than the person that best fitted the JD.
80. NPMP: I think the idea mooted here by someone that Dhanda could get it sounds plausible.
That was me!
http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2009/06/22/so-now-its-down-to-six/#comment-1122114
If memory serves, Harris used to do the Observer’s polls. I seem to remember they had a tendency to be out of line, but I couldn’t swear to it.
Others seem to be 8-9 % for UKIP, 5% for Green, 4% for BNP. No others mentioned (figures taken from Metro on my lap)
Alex Smith on Labour List:
”But what we’ve got in the circumstances as they’ve played out is a speaker who has been elected on a tired adversarial two party system: the anti-Tory choice of an anti-government moment.”
http://www.labourlist.org/bercow-average-speaker-average-house-alex-smith
Others seem to be 8-9 % for UKIP, 5% for Green, 4% for BNP. No others mentioned (figures taken from Metro on my lap). Figures are not excluding don’t knows/ won’t says.
NPMP. I missed your post a month ago on why Labour didn’t suck - but appreciate the reply nonetheless. Whatever you said I am sure it was laughable twaddle as no party or government in the history of this country has sucked more than Labour do right now. I do respect, however, your loyalty and sticking to your evil party’s guns even as it slips beneath the waves. You will get a posthumous VC for that no doubt.
‘further developments’ Now that’s cryptic!
Can only assume you refer to casting Sauron back into Mount Doom and crowning Postman Pat.
On the face of it Berlusconi at 5/1 seems like good value there? Can anyone advise?
BBC doing their bit to make political mischief this morning, bringing in Nadine Dorries onto the Today programme, no doubt hoping they could get a juicy quote to discredit the Tories. In the event I think she did rather well. No suprise that yesterday’s disinformation about the whipping operation for Beckett has been buried. It never happened and those who think it did are suffering from false memory syndrome. Job Done - BBC swing it for Brown’s department of dirty tricks. And now they’ve got the long-running story of their dreams which they will no doubt watch like a hawk - Tory splits with Bercow.
Italian journalist on Today: “Berlusconi like having Benny Hill as PM”
Brilliant!
95, hmm. Is that better or worse than having Mr. Bean as PM?
Regarding last night, and the new Speaker’s speech:
1. He actually can speak.
2. My impression is that he is full of himself and I wonder if that will translate to him becoming very self important and therefore more independent minded than his Labour supporters are hoping. I guess that PMQs over the next few will indicate how this will go.
69 - Thanks for the tips Henry. I do need to get paid before I can deposit at all the bookmakers you use though! The girlfriend might have a fit if she saw me open three new bookies’ accounts the month I get laid off
94. Mad Nad is becoming a Conservative MILF version of Bob Marshall-Andrews.
Bercow’s first Question Time today: Health.
Good Morning To My Bookmakers Worldwide …. the Ba**ards
Meanwhile ….
And firstly congratulations to John Bercow. I wish him well …. and also to his small band of punters here on PB. My ARSE has been well and truly spanked - I hate you !!
Congratulations are also due to Mike and Robert who it would appear have found enough string and sticky tape to keep the whole show on the road yesterday. I don’t know the traffic levels but I’m sure PB might have imploded in earlier times. Well done chaps.
98,
Betting tip for David RoeLay your girlfriend.
100 - Pb’s Max Moseley
80
Nick Palmer
“The poll numbers are not wildly out of line with other recent polls, but the report is oddly vague on the wording. That may be just because the Metro is a rubbish paper unused to reporting polls”
Good one Nick, if you can’t rubbish the poll effectively, rubbish the newspaper.
100 John O.
…. yes but my uniform is cheeky and tasteful !!
http://www.msgr.ca/msgr-9/kilt%20clear.gif
104 - It’s as I thought. You ARE Andy Stewart of the White Feather Club. Jacko, where’s your troooosers….
101 - **is shocked**
“If nothing is eventually found, I - as a supporter of the war - will never believe another thing that I am told by our government, or that of the US ever again. And, more to the point, neither will anyone else. Those weapons had better be there somewhere.”
That should be on David Aaronovitch’s gravestone.
And Mark Steyn’s would read, “The Iraqi insurgency will peter out by spring 2004. That sounds about right.”
57 How can you be so sure? You’re absolutely right the Tory Leadership will do nothing but can you really be sure they can control all their MPs. It would be almost without precedent but then so was Martin. Such is the anti Bercow mood that the Tory whips would absolutely have to work overtime to prevent not even one MP shouting no and forcing a vote. I’m not sure that while they will not move against Bercow themselves, that they wish to go to the mattresses to protect him either.
104.Jack, you are still a cheeky boy.
14. You make an important point. Private sector competition can be used to massively improve public sector provision, but the gains have been all but lost due to the way that contracts are now handed out, and the associated bureaucracy. I hate to sound like a dog with a bone, but it is issues like the Equality Standard that are responsible. They impose values and obligations on private contractors. And only contractors that conform to the values can successfully bid for the work.
What we end up with is the very antitheses of efficient vigorous capitalism, what we get is flabby corporate crony capitalism.
The essence of all that is wrong with private sector organisations can be expressed in one single word ‘Capita’.
93 -agree re Berlisconi, just taken 5/1
He’s now got the Vatican after him and, shock horror, some of the Escorts are immigrants.
Hilarious.
77
Doubt it.
Most likely an anodyne PMqs with much tractor stats and Brown in a bullish mood because he thinks he’s got one over the ‘Evil Tories’.
Bercow, if he is going to challenge the PM, will need time to work up to it.
Cameron, on the other hand, had better not make any faux pas because Bercow will be looking for easy targets to emphasise his authority and ‘new found’ distance from the Conservatives.
No surprise that NPMP rubbishes Metro.
Metro’s editorial line is subtly but consistently pro-civil liberties and anti-ID cards.
19. My limited experience of dealing with private firms taking on public works is mixed. Some organisations need a contract which specifies in great detail all aspects of the agreement, the problem is, their legal advisors are normally a lot better then the governments. It almost always results in the taxpayer getting fleeced.
112 - Personally I would have thought Speaker Bercow will want to tread very carefully around the Tories - IMHO the last thing he will want to do is reinforce his reputation as New Labour’s “useful idiot”. I expect scrupulous impartiality, and although I think the man is a t*t I hope he will prove to be a decent speaker given time.
114 Gaz - Two other reasons why the public sector is so appallingly bad at commissioning work are that (a) Specifications are done by committee, and (b) Political considerations and irrelevant objectives get mixed in to the specs.
112. Bono
Bercow, if he is going to challenge the PM, will need time to work up to it.
I disagree.
‘Start as he means to go on’. If he is going to put his foot down he has to immmediately. If he doesn’t he never will succeed.
112. The election of Bercow shows MPs still have no idea in what contempt they are held by most of the public.
The expenses scandal has opened the eyes of many previously apathetic people as to what a bunch of self-interested, petty mediocrities represent them.
By choosing a figure with real gravitas and ability, MPs could have started to improve their image. Instead, Labour and Lib Dem MPs have voted en masse for ‘one of their own’, a man who most resembles the troughing careerist nobodies they are.
Their response to the outrage of the voters is to stick two fingers up to them and continue their little games. Pathetic.
Another “Balls” up.
http://www.teletext.co.uk/news/national/c3131d471ab33e3146304f7f7c0f61bf/Sats+replacement+test+hits+problem.aspx
112 - Bercow would be absolutely crazy to in any way target Cameron. That would surely seal his fate after 2010. And so he won’t. Instead, I imagine he will give the Tory leader and the Opposition quite a lot of slack these next few months. Nothing obviously so, but sufficient for there to be reassurance.
Telegraph reporting that Shahid Malik has overclaimed for his council tax by more than £1000. Also reported on local radio news.
He really is the gift that keeps on giving for the Yorkshire Conservatives. Not to mention the BNP.
118. Thank God that many of the bastards will be out of a job in less than a years time.
121, I wonder if he thinks the money was ‘legitimately’ his.
118. Runnymede.
Well said.
Bercow getting a major thumbs down on R5 phone-in.
* * * BETTING POST * * *You can get Con 13/8 for Edinburgh SW (Alistair Darling) over at Victor Chandler. Looks like decent value.
Labour 1/2
Conservatives 13/8
Lib Dems 18/1
SNP 18/1
115. Bercow is a Trojan horse. He is a new labour candidate in all but name - there is plenty of evidence for the subterfuge at work. Bercow will be there to keep his masters in the Labour party in power. We can rely on the media to talk up any splits between Bercow and the Tories, playing it as Tories resentment at Bercow’s ‘progressive’ outlook. The BBC made an excellent start this morning, emphasising his leftward journey as the reason the nasty Tories can’t accept him, and getting Nadine Dorries into the studios, to establish the point. They are now quoting Nadine in all the news bulletins. This is a stitch up, unusually executed with professionalism by No.10, right down to getting Pound out at the pivotal moment to skewer the Beckett vote. This is all about keeping Brown in power. Bercow seems set to play a pivotal role in the coming charade.
126. SD
It’s a constituency you know and its also one where the SNP topped the poll at the Euros but surely have no chance at a general election.
Is it likely that some SNP voters will vote tactically and if so for Conservatives or for Labour?
Say what you want about Martin as speaker but I reckon he would have won a vote of confidence after each GE he was speaker for.
Bercow has a lot of work to do to get to that position after the next GE when the make up of the house will be very different.
127. Anything which keeps Brown in power until the election is very good news for the Conservatives and indeed the other parties.
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/celebrity/flood-warning-as-peter-andre%27s-tears-form-pathetic-lake-of-sorrow-200906231847/
130 - Precisely.
O/T
The Mercury Music Prize nominations list is announced in a month’s time and only odds I’ve seen for it are from Ladbrokes from last week and containing many artists who do not have albums out during the voting period.(Blur, Foals, Arctic Monkeys, Laura Marling, Keane and others)
The Quietus is tipping The Horrors, at 20/1 on the list, with their 2nd album and I agree that they look a good bet and are near certs to be on the list. Doves are favourites at 4/1 but that would be too much like Elbow’s win last year for me. Bat for Lashes are second favourites at 6/1 which is probably as good a price as you’ll get for them.
As it’s been guitar dominated in the past few years with only Antony & The Johnsons (who should also make the list, won’t win though) and Klaxons varying from that it could be a year for something slightly different, The Bug at 20/1 could be a good shout. Elsewhere I think that Friendly Fires at 20’s as well and Manics at 50/1 are surefire nominations and could both be worth a couple of quid.
http://thequietus.com/articles/01936-doves-and-little-boots-mercury-favourites
120. John O
Bercow has a major problem in that he is just too contentious a figure. If he acts as perhaps he should and stamp down on many things he is going to be open to all sorts of accusations (traitor, ingrate etc.).
He is already compromised on expenses and given his expenses record now he has attained a major payrise if he goes hard on expenses (as he should) he will be labelled a hypocrite.
Basically, I do not expect him to do much of anything except maintain the status quo and whilst that will allow him some breathing space it will inevitably result in the same sort of coverage as Martin received (however eloquent Bercow is).
And so the desperately dull conspiracy theories start. It was Brown. It was the BBC. It was Nadine Dorries (somehow).
Bercow wouldn’t have been my choice - final ballot I personally would have gone for Young and not just because I stood to make a few quid. But Bercow won and he’ll do a reasonable job. Get over it - none of you do yourselves any favours.
115,117,120
I echo what Runnymede has said in 118. “The election of Bercow shows MPs still have no idea in what contempt they are held by most of the public.”
I would go further, the MPs have no idea: period.
I believe the disconnect is almost total. Westminster has been described as a bubble and the people inside it play out their lives and behave with no regard as to what the public thinks. All that matters is how they appear to each other.
130. True - I’m not saying that this plot won’t backfire. It almost certainly will. Brown’s malicious tactics rarely hold up for long. And if the wind changes Bercow will change with it. He’s done it before and he’ll do it again. But in the short-term I think you’ll see Bercow aggressively batting for Labour and out to embarrass the Tories. This will no doubt be dressed up as pushing a ‘reform’ programme in the public interest.
134.120. John O
Bercow has a major problem in that he is just too contentious a figure. If he acts as perhaps he should and stamp down on many things he is going to be open to all sorts of accusations (turncoat, ingrate etc.).
He is already compromised on expenses and given his expenses record now he has attained a major payrise if he goes hard on expenses (as he should) he will be labelled a hypocrite.
Basically, I do not expect him to do much of anything except maintain the status quo and whilst that will allow him some breathing space it will inevitably result in the same sort of coverage as Martin received (however eloquent Bercow is).
127. Fortunately no-one is paying attention to Labour’s petty games anymore. Their cover has been blown, their credibility is zero. The more they continue with these futile tactics, the bigger their eventual GE defeat will be.
Mike S
If you are there can you delete the comment in moderation (134).
134. Dorries is being used. Why do you think the BBC is so keen to interview her?
From yesterday’s Hansard - it looks like Martin’s getting his peerage then. Incidentally if Jack Straw can sit in the HoL to fulfill his constitutional duties there, why cannot Lords Mandelson and Adonis do the reverse?
Resolved, nemine contradicente,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying Her Majesty that she will be most graciously pleased to confer some signal mark of Her Royal favour upon the Right honourable Mr. Michael J. Martin for his eminent services during the important period in which he presided with such distinguished ability and dignity in the Chair of this House.—
F1:
Decided to lay Button and Brawn a little. I still think they’ll win but the next circuit has only medium tyre wear (Brawn prefer high wear because their tyres last better but require more work to get up to temperature, unlike the Red Bulls which work better in cold conditions).
High wear particularly helps Button, who can somehow make his tyres last very well due to his smooth driving style.
Anyway, I’ll be definitely down on the Constructors due to a rather inept £10 bet on Ferrari pre-season, but green for all realistic drivers’ contenders.
Great sketch in the Times
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6558285.ece
140 I don’t understand why Cameron doesn’t reel her in - she really has a reputation for guaranteed OTT comment.
re 23 PfP weren’t the rumour mills saying during the febrile spring when news of the leaked disk was spreading that the relevations would necessitate at least 4 by elections. Well we’ve got 2 - where do you think the other two might be?
140. Because she loves the attention?
Patrick: if you’re curious, my piece on reasons why people vote Labour other than keeping the Tories out was here:
http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2009/04/18/guest-slot-nick-palmer-mp-the-case-for-labour/
Glad to see Oscar accepts that the “Labour whips operation for Beckett” was a fantasy, as I said here at the time, though oddly he seems to think it was a Labour fantasy. It was a typical media story, based on the activities of one whip on behalf of Beckett, and spiced with one quote from Steve Pound. On this occasion, the whips just didn’t get engaged. They’re taking more interest in tomorrow’s vote on Iraq.
New thread: Was Bercow’s move leftwards just a ploy?
re 25 well that notorious Brown tweet was that Speaker Bercow will only have a few weeks in the Chair.
140. Oscar
I don’t understand why the Conservatives allow her to keep going on TV. Dorries is the Edwina Currie of this generation, an annoying Scouse emigre who loses the Conservatives votes with every appearance.
128. another richard - “It’s a constituency you know… “
Indeed. I was brought up in Edinburgh Pentlands (Norman Wylie and Malcolm Rifkind were my MPs as a kid) and know these areas pretty well (although I am unfamiliar with the precise boundaries of the new(-ish) seat.
- “Is it likely that some SNP voters will vote tactically and if so for Conservatives or for Labour?”
Mmmm… this is the great unknown in thisw particular seat: the SNP have massive strength and depth throughout Edinburgh now, so it is highly questionable just how many SNPers will vote tactically, and indeed in which direction.
This is the big difference between Edin SW and East Renfrewshire (Scots Secretary Jim Murphy) -> in the southern Glasgow suburbs the SNP vote (which is substantial) is likely to be much softer round the edges -> a significant chunk of it could go Tory to get rid of Murphy.
Whereas in Edinburgh’s southern bourgeois districts it is the Lib Dem vote which is soft as hell.
One assumption: that the Tories win the next two elections (really so unlikely?)
Then Bercow is in the strange position of being more dependent on his enemies than his friends.
If by the next GE in 11 months or so(?!) the Tories really hate him, they could present the need for a new Speaker after each GE as part of a programme of continued reform, and point out that it would be a Tory who would need to seek re-election!
So Bercow’s fate actually lies for the next decade or so in Tory hands. After the next GE, Labour opinion won’t count for much I suspect. Labour should have got Frank Field in - respected by the Tories, Labour - so harder for the Tories to remove, and still then an ‘Opposition Speaker’ with a likely (be honest) Tory Government.
As others have pointed out however, Labour are just so bloody tribal that they can’t think strategically…
147. The whips for Beckett story was clearly planted by Pound in a good old fashioned bit of politics to wreck Beckett’s chances. It was taken up eagerly by Sky and the BBC and it worked. I wasn’t a fantasy it was an invention (or maybe more precisely a deliberate piece of hype) with a clear political purpose.
128 - from the Euro elections, it depends where the ‘others’ go, the Greens polled over 2000. I would not try and translate the vote at a European election to a General Election. Wait and see what electoral wind blows then. It does suggest though Labour are vunerable if the others vote against them.
A complete list of the votes cast in the Edinburgh constituencies from Calum Cashley’s blog is below
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_g05rcQEz–I/Sj-790h4tKI/AAAAAAAABc8/qkZVQvth1oM/s1600-h/euroresult1.BMP
150. I’m in the minority of people who like Dorries. I find her refreshing and I like her directness. But there’s no doubt she’s wide open to be used by wiley media operators. No wonder they love her. Not sure what Cameron can or should do about her. Has it been proved she loses votes? I’m not so sure.
morning all anda s I couldnt get the broadband relay to work last night you were all deprived of my pearls of wisdom (thank goodness I hear some of you say).
I am ashamed of my fellow Tories today for criticising Bercow’s election. He might be an arrogant little sh1t, he might be a turncoat or all the other things people have accused him of.
HOWEVER, if the majority of Tories had wanted to stop him then they should have persuaded someone like Sir Malcolm Rifkind or another Tory popular throughout the House of Commons to stand. They didnt and by getting Bercow we avoided Margaret Beckett.
Frankly given that at present there are 440 MPs who are not Tories and there were some 50 MPs missing (were they mainly the retiring and disgraced does anyone know)Bercow clearly got support from ALL parties even if he only received support from a small minority of tories. Alan Duncan and David Cameron had the right idea in looking forward. Speaker Bercow now needs to prove himself and frankly that will include holding Gordon Brown to account.
As for the summer, I am not so sure it will be quiet politically. I suspect lots of little things will happen which added together will make things look pretty interesting come Party conference season in September. For the record I expect Brown to lead Labour into the GE unless he is knocked down by the proverbial London (Boris’ bendy) bus.