ComRes has Labour just 11 points behind
June 29th, 2009
CON 36 (-3) LAB 25 (+3) LD 19 (+1)
But the Tories are most trusted when it comes to cuts
There’s a new poll tonight from ComRes for tomorrow’s Indy. The figures are above and although the changes are all within the margin of error they should provide a touch of encouragement for Labour supporters. For they have the party closer than in any poll since Labour’s June 4th elections disaster and if this indeed was the election outcome out then the Tories would barely have a majority.
The great challenge for those trying to bet and predict the next election is the huge variations in seats that relatively small polling shifts produce. The Tories need solid double digit leads to be sure of forming the next government and if other firms start producing figures like these then it could add to the jitters.
ComRes have a new approach to their past vote weighting calculation which regular visitors will know has caused me some concern in the past. I’ll wait to see until I’ve examined how the new process is working in practice before commenting.
In the non-voting findings the Conservatives were found to be trusted by more people than Labour to make the public spending cuts widely expected after the general election. This looks like good news for Cameron who has been making trust in Brown a campaign issue.
Asked which party they trusted most to decide where public spending cuts should be made, 31 per cent said the Tories, 21 per cent Labour and 14 per cent the Liberal Democrats. Some 16 per cent trusted no party, 10 per cent said don’t know and seven per cent named other parties.
UPDATE ComRes weightings
We’ve now got the numbers and the past vote weightings used in this poll were exactly the same as ICM’s. Where ComRes differs from ICM is it’s use of a forced question - “how would you vote if it were a legal requirement” and the fact that it allocates 100% of those saying don’t know in accordance with the party they say they most identify with.
The latter means that quite a number of “votes” are being allocated even though the respondees concerned did not offer a positive choice. Both the measures boost the Labour total more than other parties.
Mike Smithson
MessageSpace Advertising
First?
First?
Comedy Result again?
Oh yeah baby…
4-
“If this indeed was the election outcome out then the Tories would barely have a majority.”
What would an 11 point Labour lead give?!!
Repeated FPT (before the poll numbers came out…)
———————————————
Remember, Comres is a pathetic polling company.
They are to be distrusted, often ignored, and sneered at frequently.
———————————————
That said, if the past vote weightings aren’t fiddled, then this is a good poll for Labour.
Not so good - but lets see what the weightings say. Odd that 25% seems surprisingly high for Labour.
Any idea what the past vote weighting was this time?
Damn!
I mean the poll. Not not being first.
6. “What would an 11 point Labour lead give?”
Look around you.
8. 25% and 11 points behind is good for Labour. That says it all.
Tory lead above 10% - and Comres are still a joke.
Comres are useless w4nkers !
Comres are consistently the most pro lab, anti tory pollster and it surprises me that anyone takes them seriously.
How anyone is stupid enough to support the deluded ones is beyond me, let alone 25%
Man it is weird to be watching Live Wimbledon at this time!
Yeah right.
“ComRes weightings” seem to involve taking one quarter of all Tory voters - and hiding their responses under the carpet.
Easy peasy - Labour still in the game…
“What would an 11 point Labour lead give?”
Having to show your ID card every time you bought a packet of Toffos.
If Labour don’t lose by a massive margin I despair. Who on earth is considering voting for them? They have wrecked the economy, they are liars, and are led by a fool.
What has got better since the last poll?? Just bizarre that the tories are losing support to Labour. 36% is rubbish frankly, they should be in the high 40s with the state of the government.
Why?!
See what the past weightings are, I struggle to take Com Res seriously after that poll that had the Tories on 30. Still if it’s findings are enough to keep Brown as Labour leader then carry on polling.
19. No it’ll be ID cards to buy your re-congealed veggie snack, they’ll have banned Toffos for being bad for you health.
Just hold yer serve you stupid hairyfaced Scot.
Tories more trusted on cuts but their poll ratings dip and labours go up?
Hmmm…
Polls or rather the party ratings have taken a mighty whack since expensesgate. We have what, 21% on ‘others’. This has to unravel by the election you would think.
The other thing is that expensesgate must have affected the determination to vote factor and thus the headline figures.
What is interesting is that some think a labour poll of just 25% leaves tories with a ‘bare majority’.
Mike, in 2004 how long did it take for “Others” support to drop? Can we expect things to get back to normal over the summer? Or will it take longer?
23 - what has JackW done to upset you this time?
UK polling says Comres have changed their methodolgy again
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/index.php
Cameraman has found Bird with Big Jugs who is bouncing around with every point Murray wins.
Nation starts cheering on Murray !!
Get in, you stout-hearted Briton!
the relevant points from UK polling report as in 27
The topline figures would appear to show a swing back towards Labour - the 11 point lead is still enough for the Conservatives to secure an overall majority, but is the lowest Conservative lead since the end of last month. However, it’s important to note that ComRes have made a substantial change to their methodology this month.
Regular readers will know that ComRes used to use a method of past vote weighting that was quite confusing, and which seemed to result in them weighting to different targets each month. That’s now gone, and they are now weighting recalled past vote to a target made up 75% of the last general election result, and 25% the average of ComRes’s last 12 polls. My expectation is that this should result in some more consistent, less volatile figures.
ComRes’s new past vote weighting should on paper be almost identical to ICM’s method. Note that this doesn’t mean ComRes’s methodology is entirely comparable to ICM’s - there are still important differences. ComRes use a “squeeze question” to coax intentions out of people who don’t give a voting intention, ICM don’t. Secondly, ICM then rellocate 50% of don’t knows to the party they voted for in 2005. ComRes reallocate don’t knows to the party they identify with (and, as far as I can tell, they re-allocate all of them).
I see. I stop watching when Wawrinka takes the fourth set, check online and now Murray’s 3-0 up. Typical.
If they change their methods every time how can you compare ComRes even with its own previous results?
Here we go again, a ComRes poll out at the same time as another relaunch, and what do you know it`s good for liebour
Every time I see ‘first’ spammed at the top of PB threads I feel a surge of pity for the poor soul whose only contribution to an internet discussion, and possibly only chance at achieving anything in life, is to not be second at typing ‘first’.
Someone beat me to it above, but hey, here’s a reminder:
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/index.php
Comedy Results strike again.
29 Will the best wishes of HM the Queen overcome the dreaded curse of Gordon Brown - the titanic battle for Mr Murray’s chances goes on….
33- Don’t worry mate, you’ll be first one day
NEW HERD NARRATIVE ALERT.
Tories over 10% ahead - BUT - below 40%.
Comres are crap, Dave is still great but Comres are crap.
33. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it
ComRes must be in line for some government contracts, they seem to be able to give the result that an Editor of a Newspaper for instance pays for. No doubt Labour catching Torys is better for the ‘horse race’ than yet another poll saying Tory victory certain.
I’ll stick to ICM, YouGov and to a much lesser extent MORI.
Just give us an ace you ludicrous gangling Jocko.
why do they have to finish today at wimbledon. is it really necessary to go through the night just because they can? thought the roof was for rain, not for 24×7 matches!
Getting a bit fed up with this now.
“David Cameron orders Shadow Cabinet to give up their second jobs”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6605706.ece
39 chris_g00
For all their headline grabbing swings, at least Ipsos-MORI is honest and consistent.
I actually find Ipsos-MORI to be very useful. They pick up trends faster than the other pollsters because of their sensitivity.
37 hmmmmm, I think I should approach this one from a different angle.
Cracking poll for John Thurso, Henry Bellingham and Natasha Engel
Awful poll for Dr Richard Taylor and Ed Balls.
Isolated poll, isolated thoughts. Befriend the trend!
PS Comres are just a joke.
42. This is worse than Henman.
33 - I agree.
I accidentally got first on a thread about Manzanilla sherry the other night while all the Tory boys were trying to post “first”.
And boy did it feel good.
And raised the standards.
Deutschland ist Europameister!
http://www.stern.de/sport-motor/fussball/:U21-Europameisterschaft-Deutschland-England-EM-Titel/704899.html
Well done lads! The best team won, by a mile.
The English boys were ok, but fluked it through to the final on a penalty shootout against nervous hosts Sweden.
The Mike Smithson rule “If you don’t like the poll, rubbish the pollster” in operation on the thread, I see.
The pattern of Labour unpopularity but lack of enthusiasm for the Tories is becoming a recurrent theme. I think the primary voting intention drives the secondary questions, but the 31% figure for the Tories being most trusted is probably the correct measure for what proportion positively like them at the moment.
41 They will continue playing until the media has totally forgotten about Gordon’s Relaunch… I expect it will be 38-36 in the end…
43 - “David Cameron orders Shadow Cabinet to give up their second jobs”
Because he hasn’t got the bottle to order the corrupt ones to give up their first jobs.
I’m sure i can hear people in the the crowd shouting obscenities. its all very football match, wimbledon nowadays.
Murray going down, the idiot Caledonian.
Can I point out that the UK Polling Report ‘Poll of polls’ at 38 - 23 - 18 gives a Tory majority of 72?
And the last poll in Norwich gave the tories 4% lead with labour down`15%.
From what MTF says in 30, I wonder why we pay any attention to these polls at all.
Whats happened from what i see is that Lab and Tories have suffered from the expenses scandal whereas Libdems have not - but the lib dems have not benefited from it either.
This is the dog that did not bark in the night and is not very good news for libdems. which I think is good news for the tories.
The last 7 polls with all their fiddles and weightings have Labour moving between 20 and 25. Can this be regarded as good for them?
Indeed in the last 20 polls only 3 have them higher than 25.
33-
If you worry so much with poor souls like me and others who want to be first, I can only feel sorry for you.
Let’s play a game,
Do you trust a pollster that predicted labour to get 28% in the Euros?
50
In this instance Nick, it is fair to be suspicious, particularly since Comres have changed their methodology again. What to believe. It certainly needs other polls to confirm it before it has any credence.
Some of the posts in here attacking ComRes are a little bit embarassing. This poll is within the margin for error of most of the polls we’ve seen in recent days. Yes, its a little on the low side for the Tories (just as the last YouGov was a little on the high side for the Tories) but not outrageously so;
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/voting-intention
Fact is, the Conservatives have been hit badly by expensegate and the european elections. Whilst Others are as abnormally high as 20% (again not out of line compared to other pollters) the main parties will have comparatively low shares.
I wish things would get back normal as much as everyone, but at this point they are showing no signs of reverting back to a pre May 2009 scenario and theres no point blaming ComRes for that.
53 - Just how many languages is a Swiss born tennis player, of Polish parentage brought up in Switzerland going to be able to swear in?
Nick?
1.Government relaunch: delayed by tennis match news to follow.
2.Speaker loses his voice, one week into the job and John Bercow fails to even gently chastise the PM & various SofS for leaking statements before they were made to the HofC. In his 1st real test Mr Speaker stuck to the tried and tested method of instead ticking off bankbench MPs for shouting at the discredited PM.
3.Wimbledon looks fantastic with the new roof - just shows what private enterprise can achieve.
Even when looking at this poll the tories will win!
It is not really a GE poll! But the tories will win! The tory majority will be between 30 and 200! I think it will be 70 seats plus! So that means tories 350 seats ‘plus’ upto 450 seats! A huge tory majority if my feeling is right - which given Labour defeatism would be right!
Good point Nick.
So far the detailed data has not appeared on the ComRes website. What I’ll be looking for the the past vote weighting numbers. According to ComRes their new formula is very close to ICM’s and I would expecting their weightings to be similar.
I start my hols tomorrow and I’m going to bed.
52 - mhh you never did respond now to my (several) question(s) on the Labour cabinet and peers
Gordon hasn’t even got the bottle to make people give up their first job, Darling for instance
freaks in the crowd.
63 - Enjoy
58. A number of polls have now shown the Tories sub-40. They do seem to have taken a semi-permanent hit after Expensesgate.
Labour aren’t really gaining from it, though. 25% is still pretty dire, it’s just better than some previous lows.
Tories need to get Cameron on the telly a bit more.
60 Stanislas the young
PolishSwissplumbertennis player - I wonder what language he swears in over on Guidos blog??On the day when the First Minister of England - Gogsie Broon fae North Queensferry - announced his plans for English schools, back home in Scotchlandshire Parish…
‘Jim Murphy admits Labour allowed SNP to monopolise saltire’
But a leading politics expert dismissed the comments as “irrelevant to contemporary Scotland”. Professor James Mitchell, of Strathclyde University, said: “Scottish politics has moved well beyond flags. What Labour needs to do is decide what it believes in, not which flag it should be waving.” He attacked the claim that Labour had abandoned the saltire, saying that it was much used by the party during the 1997 devolution referendum campaign.
Since becoming Scottish Secretary, Mr Murphy has been keen to shed Labour’s image as a London-dominated party - the reason blamed by some for the loss of the Holyrood election in 2007. His speech on Britishness, a favourite theme of Gordon Brown, is part of Labour’s fightback as it continues to trail the SNP in the polls.
The SNP yesterday dimissed Mr Murphy’s claim that it had hijacked the saltire. A spokesman said: “If Labour has got an identity crisis in Scotland it is one of its own making with Gordon Brown having pursued his Britishness agenda for narrow political reasons south of the Border. Jim Murphy’s comments say more about Labour’s discomfort with that agenda than anything about the SNP. The saltire is Scotland’s national flag and open to anyone to use.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article6604951.ece
50.Why on Earth aren’t you in the Government? Quentin Davies, Shaun Woodward, heck even a former Sea Lord, yet men of your obvious good judgement are ignored and instead usurped by the ex-tories & the unelected Lords. Disgrace.
“Thank you” seems to have become a euphemism for “shut the f*ck up, this is taking all night as it is”.
54. Is Andy Murray Scotch again then Sean?
Are you Cornish today? Or English? British? European? Thai? Homo sapiens? All of ‘em?
68 - Born in Lausanne.
We all had “foreign names” once.
72. I think he may be of Borders stock.
Crosby Comres probabilistic
Con 320
Lab 221
LD 62
SNP 17
PC 5
Oth 7
NI 13
Hung Parliament: Con 3 short of a majority
I’m wondering if the BBC news coverage of the Labour relaunch that follows the tennis will inherit a vastly bigger audience than it would otherwise have had. Or will everyone go to bed, exhausted?
67. I’ve got a feeling things won’t really get back to normal with regards polling until after the party conferences. I expect the Tories to remain in the mid to high 30’s until October. Labour in the mid 20’s. Lib’s in the high teens. And frustratingly high “Others” totals to continue through-out the summer.
There will probably come another squeky bum time for the Tories just after the Labour conference, when Labour will get a boost into the low 30’s, and the Tories will appear to be still stalled in the mid to high 30’s. So the Con lead could well drop, briefly, down into low single figures. Of course after the Conservative conference, the Tories should get a boost to take them to 40%. Hopefully from there we’ll see the Tories sustaining a position around 40% and the situation of Con 40% Lab 30% will solidify as we move into the winter and people begin to think about the election.
Would a Murray Wimbledon win lead to a Brown bounce?
73 For all we know, you could be Timon of Athens…
Anyway, we are all African.
And before that, microbes blowm on the solar wind from Alpha Centauri. And those old Alpha Centaurian microbe names are damn-near unpronouncable…
57. Brilliant !
Great comedy entertainment once again from CONRES !
67. The media have an interest in keeping the contest alive until the close of the polls. I expect plenty more “close race” polls this year.
The reality is most Labour voters I know have no motivation to vote for them again next time, “probably won’t vote or might vote Green or something”.
It’s Cameron’s to lose now.
All about the Murray!!!!!!!
Ave it!!!!!
67. “A number of polls have now shown the Tories sub-40.”
Twelve out of the last sixteen.
Or 3/4 in old money….
murray breaks for 5-3 final set
I was pretty close….
Con 37
Lab 29
LD 19
Deborah Mattinson strikes again. She’s not known as Gordon Brown’s favourite pollster for nothing - or should I say Lady Mattinson?
O yeoman Britisher!
Another relaunch fails
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/29/gordon-brown-labour-vision-spending
Raiding the Home Office & Heath budgets is an open goal for PMQ’s.
78 - no
82
I reckon Murray’s from Northumberland.
Bird with Big Jugs is VERY HAPPY.
A nation rejoices…
Evening all
Norwich North by-election will be on 23 July.
78. habib butt - “Would a Murray Wimbledon win lead to a Brown bounce?”
Highly ironic if it did: Murray is a product of Dunblane, where Labour voters are as scarce as Lesser-spotted Avocets in downdown Leverburgh.
His mum looks like she’d rather take a crap in public than vote Labour.
83. And how many have shown Labour sub 25% Rod? Face it, we’re in an extremely abnormal time and whilst the media may have got fed up of expensegate, clearly the public aren’t ready to “move on” just yet.
I presume Mark is an immigrant Latin name.
And as for Marquee?
The first time I encountered a Marquee was in the 70’s.
Not as aesthetically pleasing as entering an Indian or coming across an Iranian, and worse food.
98. typo - “downtown Leverburgh”
What a British Hero
MURRAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
lol
Bit of a struggle towards the end, but a bl00dy marvellous match non the less, well done Andy Murray….. his bird is a bit of all right an all!
At last!
Murrayyyyyyyyyyyy!
Rule Britannia!!!!!
Andrew de Moray shows the English how it’s done!
Tim Henman! Lizzie Windsor! John Terry! Gordon Brown!(!!) David Starkey! Kelvin MacKenzie! Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson! Gideon Osborne! Nick ‘Neil Kinnock’ Clegg! Fabio Capello! John Bercow! Barbara Windsor! Hugh Laurie! Noel Gallagher! Maggie Thatcher! ANDY BURNHAM!!!
CAN YOU HEAR ME ANDY BURNHAM!!??
YOU’RE BOYS WERE TAUGHT ONE HELL OF A LESSON!!!
Well he’s British tonight
yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Biggest moment in british tennis since the war!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Murray = Cameron!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Firm proof that Murray is not a posh boy from Oxfordshire.
102 whatever!
104 - Andy Cameron?
Even if you don’t like ComRes can still take note trend of its findings compared with its previous polling.
Plus its comfirming general trend of all polling, that Labour is behind, in large measure because Cameron’s Tories have broken through the credibility barrier.
In previous thred, Mike discussed Alan Johnson potential. For me, AJ’s greatest attribute is his surface resenblance to John Major.
Am serious about the above. Major had his flaws (for example overfondness for spicy Currie) but also his strengths. And clearly he was just what the doctor ordered, a calming presence after the non-stop Wagnerfest of Thatcherism.
Think that Johnson could do similar for Labour, though chance of an actual Labour win at next general election is less than it was for Major 1992 due to the economy (which is unlikely to recover sufficiently by next GE to save Labour’s bacon).
Another who might also fill this role: Hilary Benn.
And if I was NPMP, I’d be looking around for a good middle-level woman MP from a safeish seat with some (but not too much) experience as PPS or whip or junior ministers. In other words, go for a English Merkel.
102 all about preparing the post in advance!!!!!
103 LOL
Well after making such a meal of that, I think we can safetly assume Murrays chance of beating Federer have gone out the window?
Alec Salmond bounce.
Who the f is the stalker interviewer?! Leave the boy alone!
If he wins, he’s British, if he loses, he’s Scottish.
Also, poll feels wrong.
Notably in paper day after big Govt. announcement. Hmmm.
108 - I would like to see a breakdown of these ‘others’. These should peel off as we closer to General Election day.
Well done you exemplar of the British spirit. Noble north Briton, we salute you.
Anyone else having trouble with pb.com tonight. www2 didn’t work and I tried www3 which seems slow but working.
Also BBC1 seemed to be taken over by tennis - what happened to the news?
Thats it Andy, in you go for a good long p!ss and a Ginster’s
Get in!
111. Didn’t Brown send Murray his kisses, though? Looks like the Jonah hex has been lifted. Labour = 80 majority.
114 Comres = Labour Shill
I think it’s about time we all thanked Alex Salmond for inspiring Andy to this victory!
THANK YOU ALEX!
112 - Garry Richardson
93 - “His mum looks like she’d rather take a crap in public than vote Labour.”
Can somebody please ask her?
Several posts above apparently seriously arguing that ComRes have made the figures up. That’d be libellous if it wasn’t daft…
BTW, who was it on the last thread who said the Parliamentary standards bill was going to be rejected? We voted on it this evening. Votes against totalled… 1. Admittedly there will have been two tellers as well, so that’s three.
That said, there’s a degree of nervousness about it - do people have to declare that they’ve spent an hour helping in a charity shop or risk going to prison, etc. I think that some sort of de minimis rule would be widely appreciated by MPs and possibly accepted by the public.
108.Even if you don’t like ComRes can still take note trend of its findings compared with its previous polling
No, you can’t they have changed their methodology, I don’t expect Tory’s to win GE by more than 11% I just would put more faith in a certain contributers arse than in COMRES given their Euro performance.
121 coming out of the crowd with a microphone - creepy!
107. marcia
For those unfamiliar with Scottish popular culture:
http://www.tmcentertainment.co.uk/speaker-index.html?speakerid=6&speakertypeid=37
118 The Hex of Jonah Brown is playing the long game. Murray will be so knackered carrying Gordon’s Anvil around all match, he’ll collapse in three sets in the quarters…
re 61 what’s the point of a new roof if there’s no play on any other courts? If it rains all week the tournament is not going to get finished.
108 - Nice post from SSI - especially like the description of Thatcherism as “Wagnerfest”. Perfect.
126 - pleezze - it’s late.
87. This bit is interesting
Mandelson insisted that the last spending review had covered the years up to 2011, “beyond the next election, and therefore it is reasonable to review public spending at that time”. He added: “We are not in a position, in June 2009, to be able to forecast what growth will be and what the performance of the economy will be in 2011. That is why we have to wait.”
So, the economy is too unpredictable to make a sensible forecast, so we will carry on using the numbers we thought of 2 years ago because they will be more accurate… WTF???
BBC lead on Cameron calling Brown dishonest. Nice.
127 - Come on.
Even Forest fans on the North/South dividing line know that the posh boys from Oxfordshire always wimp out.
“Local Homes for Local People”!
LOL!!!!
Labour gain Royston Vasey…
15 “Well done you exemplar of the British spirit.”
– is “exemplar” Cornglish for “mass consumer”?
128.No more matches being replayed from 1974….great for TV…great for TV viewers & I think it looks superb. Wimbledon projects an image of GB around the world, & it’s all done with private money. First class.
129 Whats this government then Nick? Hardyesque? It does have the unremitting gloom of Jude the Obscure.
BTW, I do agree with MTF that we need another poll in support to verify this as more than an outlier.
BBC lead on Brown failed relaunch, then technical problems interrupt the report! conspiracy theorists..on your marks, set….
re 136 and as I said - no winner.
136 read that as “Wimbledon projects an image of Gordon Brown around the world…”
Horrible thought…
Oh, and costs of our 2 new warships are £1 billion overrun
138. Nick, its not an outlier. Its in-line with all other recent polls. Slightly at the low end of the Tories, but not outrageously so.
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/voting-intention
From Guardians report on Gordon Re-Launch
“Tonight it emerged that Brown was raiding other government departments including transport, the Home Office and health to triple the social housebuilding programme by £2.1bn over two years, one of the centrepieces of today’s announcements.
Just under half the extra £1.5bn housebuilding cash will come from reallocations inside the communities department, including funds previously set aside for a social housing refurbishment programme. Another £300m will come from the transport department.
The extra money is aimed at building 20,000 affordable homes over two years, including 3,000 council houses. More than 4 million people are on the waiting list. ”
So the NHS has been raided - how many doctors & nurses I wonder (that’s the NHS currency according to Labour).
Actually I assume its from NHS building programme like the cuts to road and social housing refurbishment - so moving construction/building from one pot to another. Not sure how this creates more employment as Brown claimed…..
140.It looks a winner to me, & it wasn’t built for 2 weeks of rain you numpty.
138 its not an outlier.
Tories - Upper mid 30s
Labour - Lower-Mid 20s
Lib Dems - Teenyboppers who can vote and buy alcohol
Its very much in line with Labour and the Tories at the outer markers up and down of recent polls.
“Brown takes cash from schools, roads and health to pay for 30,000 homes
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6605915.ece
Not really surprising. Lanour regrouping and enthusiasm for Cameron and the Tories falling well short of excitement. Mandelson was good this morning and showed more clearly than we’ve so far seen Labour’s strategy for the next election.
I think Labour could win.
Half an hour ago, I was able to get 4.5/1 against Murray outright - bigger odds than before the tournament started …….it’s a funny old game!
He’s now back to around 3/1.
147 plenty of money to be made Roger if you believe that.
Roger: “I think Labour could win”.
Cameron pops the champagne tonight…
ComRes have had the Conservatives on 40-30-38-39-36 since May. In the same time frame Labour have been on 21-22-22-22-25 and LibDems have been on 18-18-20-18-19. Others have been 19-8-16-17-20. So two figures stable, two all over the place. Really we need to see the tables to understand these reallocations better. Looking over recent polls, it does seem that Labour have recovered to the mid 20s, Conservatives are moving in the upper 30s low 40s and the LibDems have ground to a halt. The next major political event due is the Norwich By Election. We’ll get the feel of the mood in a Labour constituency which might us give us a better feel.
And whilst I’m at it:
FPT:
From the Spectator article:
At no point in the boom did the number on out-of-work benefits fall below five million souls. Almost half have been on welfare for five years or more – and are, therefore, statistically more likely to die than to work again
That is actually the most damming part of this. We have had a boom and that figure has not changed. That is disgraceful. We need to no why this has happened and fix the causes. I lost my job at the end of November and have been trying to find work ever since. I was very senior in an ad Agency and have not been able to get an interview for anything. My six month training options were offered to me - one course (all they had money for) in food. Useless for what I need. I would love to see the govt paying for recruitment agencies to be placing people (it would work out fairly cost neutral rapidly). Sorry - no money for that. Now if that is the scale of what the government is offering no wonder our skills base is a mess and people end up long term unemployed.
As for today’s re-heat? There are a few populist initiatives in there, which will appeal to the disenfranchised Labour supporter. I don’t think the middle class Labour voter that Blair brought in will be attracted by anything in though. I think though that as GB thinks everything he is doing is right, we will not see anything different. Why change the perfect programme? For Cameron & Clegg there is a real opportunity now to fill that policy vacumn. Don’t need full details, but some real themes and the next election looks interesting for all three parties.
Moving on to tax/spend. Did you notice when Brown went down the 10% route? He thought it was funny. Noone else seemed to laugh with him. As to the Conservatives, they have said from what I can tell:
- Inheritance Tax cut funded through non dom charges
- First priority to cut taxes is the NI increase - “a tax on work” as they call it
- 50% to stay in the short term due to the state of the public finances
- Value for money test on all existing spending (I don’t think this will be enough but we’ll have to see where the finances are)
On public sector pay/pensions, I’ve worked in both private & public, so the pension issue does come to mind. I think they could look at a system of say every one over £30,000 goes into a money purchase scheme with X% deductions, below could be 50% final salary or money purchase Buy One Get One Free scheme. That way a private fund could be out there investing in new businesses and deriving an income. It would require more spending up front, but would be more realistic. It also means other programmes having to be cut. It is time for hard choices - what do we want the state to do and what should it withdraw from?
Tax Credits could be reconfigured so that they are only for low income families. Raise the tax threshold and restrict tax credits. Plus fix the way they are awarded. My sister is constantly having to deal with their screw ups - it causes budgeting nightmares.
For this desperate attempt to give the Government a sense of purpose had all too clearly been cobbled together from Peter’s Epistles, but without any of the richness and subtlety which the author of those works would have been able to convey.
Again and again, Mr Brown was challenged on points which only Lord Mandelson can answer. Julia Goldsworthy (Lib Dem, Falmouth and Camborne) posed a good, simple question: “What is the difference between a target and an entitlement?” Mr Brown could offer no intelligible reply, for entitlements are one of Lord Mandelson’s favourite subjects: he having gathered a magnificent array of titles for himself and now wishing in his generous way to spread this kind of happiness around a bit, by giving the rest of us entitlements instead of dreary old targets.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/5688989/Commons-sketch-Gordon-Browns-vision.html
Anthony’s rolling average is:
Con 38% Lab 23% Lib-Dem 18% Con Lead 15%
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/
This poll is within the margin for error of the polling average. Which is what makes all the posts here attacking ComRes kind of silly.
122. SSI - “Can somebody please ask her?”
Each to their own…
143 - Ted.
I think the biggest mistake that this Lbour Government made was not enabling Councils to build more housing.
They should have raided other departments cash years ago.
Polly says,
“Giving citizens rights to the last decade’s improvements in public services reminds them of what they too easily take for granted”
And HuffingJenkem replies:
“It attempts to bind the next Parliament to Labour policies. Are you so naive that you can’t see the implications of this, or are you so blindly arrogant and smug in your comfortable fu<king chattering class security that you think democracy should take a second place to what you and all your enlightened friends think is right?”
The Guardian gets more like Guido every day…. But not quite so profitable of course
The BBC News were just about to show a negative piece on Brown’s 3021st relaunch, so someone pulled the plug…
Update ComRes weightings
We’ve now got the numbers and the past vote weightings used in this poll were exactly the same as ICM’s.
95 - I didn’t think that a gentleman of the left would approve of double entendres. I stand corrected.
Did the draft Queen’s Speech mention surfball at all? If so that could explain the bounce.
153 - it would be interesting if there was a poll of marginals to see what movement there has been since 2005.
Andrew Hawkins on Comres on newsnight now
147. And frankly Roger, any Labour supporter that thinks this poll is in any way good news for them is just as silly as all the Conservative supporters dissing ComRes. Once you re-allocate the 20% for Others, the Conservatives are very, very much still in the driving seat.
153 GIN
It’s perfectly legitimate to criticize the methodology (or lack of transparency/consistency therein) even if the poll is within the margin of error of other polls.
I did it tonight (before the poll results came out) and I did it last time (before the poll results came out) even though both are MoE.
Comres need to settle on a reasonable methodology and use it, consistently, for many months on end before I trust them.
BTW the Andrew Hawkins of Comres (he of the non-answer answer) is on Newsnight as we speak, putting his own spin on this poll…
158 - So I can stop calling them Comedy Results then?
Can Brown the builder fix it? No, he can’t
Labour has spent 12 years constructing Britain’s future but nothing has gone up – and we don’t have a quote for the costs
Rachel Sylvester
In 1997, Tony Blair promised it would be “New Labour, New Life for Britain”. By 2001 the party was offering to fulfil “Britain’s Great Potential”. In 2005, it was “Britain: Forward not Back”. Yesterday Gordon Brown published “Building Britain’s Future”.
If it sounded familiar, that’s because it was. It was a relaunch made up of rehashed policy announcements and repackaged spending commitments, less a national plan than a national repeat. More affordable housing, health checks, one-to-one tuition, docking benefits, Lords reform — these are all things that have been promised for months, in some cases years, by the Government. It is only three months since the last relaunch, a “strategic plan” called “Building Britain’s Future”. Clearly not much building has gone on since then.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/rachel_sylvester/article6605167.ece
It looks like Labour is guaranteed to make a major comeback, unless Brown makes some sort of mistake.
161. I think Politics Home are conducting another mega poll of the marginals this summer, which will be very interesting.
167. What makes you say that?
Others
Green 7 UKIP 6 SNP 4 PC 1 BNP 1 Other 1
http://www.comres.co.uk/resources/7/Political%20Polls/Independent%20Political%20Poll%2029June%202009.pdf
Mandelson was a bloody disgrace this morning on Today. He is now lying as much as his boss, Labour have lost the plot on the economy, don’t like the figures? Then just ignore them. You’d get the boot from any business for acting like that. How soon until the public can give Brown the same?
168 - If it shows 20% voting for “others” it will be meaningless.
Applying my usual adjustment (moving half the “others” to not voting):
C 40, Lab 28, LD 21, Oth 11.
56 - the Guidian?
Paxman is oozing contempt for Liam Byrne.
169- Sorry, a bit of sarcasm. OF COURSE BROWN WILL MAKE A MISTAKE!!!
Front Pages,
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/The-National-Newspaper-Front-Pages-Tuesday-June-30-2009/Media-Gallery/200906415323793?lpos=UK_News_Left_Promo_Region_0&lid=GALLERY_15323793_The_National_Newspaper_Front_Pages_Tuesday_June_30%2C_2009
UPDATE I’ve added an update to the main piece above.
170.
OK, so take the 6% of the UKIP vote and put it back to the Tories take 6% of the Greens and split them between Labour and the Libs you end up with;
Con 42% Lab 28% Lib-Dem 22% Con Lead 14%
And suddenly everything looks very differant.
Gordo relaunch no. 276 hasn’t got any good headlines, even the Guardian have “torpedoed” it and the Telegraph basically call him a liar!
H1N1 ‘claims’ its first politician scalp?
BUENOS AIRES, June 29 (Reuters) - Argentina’s health minister resigned on Monday amid an outbreak of the deadly H1N1 flu strain that has killed 26 people in the country, the government’s cabinet chief said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/asiaCrisis/idUSN29504833
Hey Andy are you feeling lucky?
169- I should add, though, that I continually find it remarkable that, in spite of absolutely everything that Labour have done to sabotage themselves (if you tried to make a list, it would turn into a book), they still lurk within striking range of the Tories. Absolutely amazing.
171 - I think you do have a point.
I’d like to see Labour introduce a radical series of cost savings as I’ve said before.
But we’re dealing with flaky forecasts at the moment.
George Osborne claimed we would have the worst recession in the world, in the history of the world at any time in world history, ever.
Working on his forecasts we would have a heal budget of six shillings.
183 -Working on his forecasts we would have a health budget of six shillings.
177. Indy hedline looks grim for Brown if correct.
Of the front pages so far, only the Guardian have covered the relaunch of the relaunch. And even the Guardian say it’s overshadowed by a spending row.
A good poll for the Tories - as usual.
Isn’t the Post Office a mess. Got really fed up waiting for ages today to post a small package to Germany. Finally I was served. Lady asked if there was a letter in the package. I told the truth. A half page note.
She weighs it and says 7.10; adding that without a letter it was 2.30.
Told her what to do with it. Got a complaints leaflet from the manager. Went down the road to a local Post Office/shop in town; the clerk asked no questions and charged me 1.70.
What a load of garbage. Post Office should be a service, not a con.
NubloodyLabour messing up the country again. Why in God’s name does anyone from eastern europe want to come into this awful mess of a country. God help us.
147. Roger - “I think Labour could win.”
Oh, how we will larf…
Has the party leading in the polls ever been as low as 35%? I think there is some mileage in the government suggesting that the moonlighters in the shadow cabinet might think of returning to the taxpayers the money they were appropriating while working elsewhere.
147 Roger - Rachel Sylvester in the article linked at 166 captures the Labour campaign very well: “The next election campaign is going to be a cynical and dirty fight. Now it is clear why: the party has no really substantial positive plans for the future.”
..Labour intends to fight on a platform of fear, not hope. Already it is fuelling the fear of Conservative spending cuts, executed by “Mr Ten Per Cent”, fear that the “nasty party” still lurks behind David Cameron, fear of Tory toffs and job losses and negative equity. To this can be added fear of immigrants who jump the housing queue and welfare “scroungers”.
Fear of immigrants taking Jobs from British Workers, fear of immigrants jumping queues, attacks on “scroungers”. Fears and Lies (Mike Leigh could film that). That’s Brown’s Labour Party.
Oh and she points out this re-launch has the same title “Building Britain’s Future” as the one three months ago. So easy to forget that they can re-cycle the name as well as the policies because no-one remebers them a day after the launch.
182 - The further Cameron divorces himself from the Tory brand the better the opinion poll ratings.
Expenses has tied him back to it.
As has the European stuff.
Now I’m watching the two idiot politicians from NuLabour and the Toryboy Party. Neither of them wants to talk about their own party’s programme just to mumble dross at Packman about the other side. No wonder that Mr and Mrs Joe Public hate our politicians.
Poor old Jeremy has to sit and listen to this nonsense day after day; lucky he’s probably earning a million a year.
51 - thanks for the analysis. Would suggest that flux in both Conservative and Other numbers may be due to voters who:
1. Have some “buyer’s remorse” over new look Cameron Tories but who don’t see Lib Dems as option, but do have some attraction to UKIP, independents, BNP and even SNP.
2. Are base Tories or strong leaners (if that makes any sense) who want to register displeasure with Cameron and/or Conservative “moat dredging”.
My fearless prediction is that, depending on specific constituencies, most of this occilating vote ends up going Conservative at the next GE, or voting tactically to help Tories. By same token, defections among this group to UKIP, etc will tend to be in either very safe or no-hope seats.
Just a theory.
191 The “European stuff” has had an impact on just one person.
You.
And you weren’t voting for them anyway.
67 - at last someone has spotted what was an obvious medium term outcome of the expenses scandal.
I mentioned this on election day when it was clear from talking to people on the doorstep that older people were most angry about expenses (and to the extent that they were not engaging with anyone). Given older people are both more conservative and more likely to vote - the Tories were always going to see a tail off in their support. I predicted then they would fall from low 40s to high 30s. The question is - what events are now going to shift this pattern to a new ‘default’ setting?
I wonder how much the new website cost for Gordo’s re-re-launch (sounds like Craig David when I put it like that!)? It isn’t that long ago that we all forked out for the “real help now” propaganda site!
182. Labour are only within striking distance because of Britain’s biassed electoral system.
And even then, they are only within striking distance if you believe the same bias will continue in the next election, and there will be no change to voting patterns (e.g. anti-Tory tactical voting)
I am far from sure the latter premise is true. I reckon if the Tories are 11 points ahead at the GE, and Labour are on 25, then the Tories will romp home with a very solid majority.
194 - Anything that ties Cameron to the Tory brand has a bad effect on him.
The bile over Bercow won’t have helped either.
190: ‘Fear of immigrants taking Jobs from British Workers, fear of immigrants jumping queues…’
Absolutely! Brown’s Griffinite rhetoric linking immigrants and housing has brought shame on the Labour Party and the office of Prime Minister. I hope all fair-minded, intelligent Labour people such as Mr Nick Palmer MP, Roger and tim will condemn Brown’s vile attempt to turn Labour into BNP-lite!
198 - Haven’t you got kids to feed, crops to dust or homework to mark Tim?
Given that Birmingham is a hot bed of swine ‘flu we’re more worried about the heat this week than the ‘flu. Of course whatever your “entitlement” we haven’t got the beds to put dozens of elderly affected by the heat.
200 (cont) - Or Tupac to worship?
Mr Brown is likely to be dealt a further blow today when official figures show that the economy has shrunk even more than thought this year. The Office for National Statistics is expected to revise its figure for the drop in GDP in the first three months of the year to 4.4 per cent.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/5690836/Deceit-over-cuts-wil-lead-to-riots-says-David-Cameron.html
I see ComRes are continuing with their recent policy of trying to create volatility in an attempt to get noticed…
151. We have had a boom and that figure has not changed. That is disgraceful. We need to no why this has happened and fix the causes.
The causes probably include the fact that we have not had a boom at all. We had a credit bubble. When you look at what people typically put on credit when it gets cheap - kitchens, bathrooms, holidays, cars, and nights on the p!ss - it’s plain that none of it is conducive to sustainable economic growth.
Well, not in the UK, anyway, although the kitchen-fitting, house-cleaning, bartending and car-assembling jobs are pretty good for countries like Poland and Germany.
code ***** Betting Post *****
Fact - unless the dour unsmiling Scottish Murray wins Wimbledon outright, which he won’t, he has no chance of overcoming the charismatic English surely Formula 1 Champion-elect Jenson Button to win SPOTY.
Therefore back Murray to win Wimbledon at 3/1 and lay him against winning SPOTY at 1.9/1, both with Betfair.
This way you would still win if, against all the odds, a British winner emerges to win the Open golf and goes on to win SPOTY.
200 - I’m having a bottle of wine tonight, to celebrate that rich people like Dave and I will not be “sharing the pain”.
As a wealthy married man like Dave I shall see out the recession comfortably if Dave is elected.
Let the Middle Classes take the pain.
Particularly the unmarried but especially the unmarried with children.
204.,,,,I wonder if this pollster will cease to operate soon after the GE?
206 Sorry for messing up the italics et - it’s been a while since I wrote a **** Betting Post ****
It would be interesting to hear the background on this relaunch, it was originally planned to be Ball’s new spending plan until Brown fluffed the reshuffle.
Wonder how much Darling chopped out of it when he finally got to see the draft?
Also wonder why Mandelson didn’t put more glitter on this … bit suspect from a presentational point-of-view.
198- As you suggest, it does seem to have a lot more to do with something that the Tories are doing wrong rather than something that Labour are doing right.
206 - You may like to include the Ashes.
If England win against the odds you may get a contender.
I wouldn’t touch that market yet.
190. Ted. I think she’s right. Cameron is either unaware or making some very odd strategic decision. However much voters might think public spending cuts will have to happen to advertise yourself as cutter-in-chief is odd to say the least.
Also the IHT pledge is going to hang round his neck like an albatross. What is his answer to the Labour charge that they want to cut public services by 10% to finance increasing the IHT threshold to £1,000,000? Nonsense perhaps but it’ll work.
I hate that ghastly creep Murray and I want him to lose. Then, when he does, I want him to lose it so completely that he literally poos himself and then cries on national television.
Very much what I wish for Broon, in fact.
203 As its unlikely the fall for second quarter will be as deep there is an advantage to the Government of the first quarter’s figures being downgraded, they can claim the recession is bottoming out. Green shoots will be spotted, any figure less worse than the most dire forecasters will be trumpeted as showing that “real help now” is working.
Jaysus it’s hot. I am sheened with sweat. I feel like I have been f*cking a warthog for fifty minutes.
Brown to ditch Trident upgrade?
http://subrosa-blonde.blogspot.com/
Another £1 billion extra to find,
Navy carriers ‘£1bn over budget’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8125449.stm
Utterly off thread, but has anybody noticed that the 8 Wimbledon Quarter finalists are from eight different countries? Has this ever happened before?
In fact, it’s nine if you count Murray as Scottish and British…
(Sorry Stuart…couldn’t resist that one
)
211 - It hints at an interesting point.
This countries default position now is socially liberal, as I suspect David Cameron is, but they perceive the Conservative Party to be socially illiberal so events that tie Cameron to the Conservative Party hurt his ratings.
Nasty party over Europe.Nasty Party over Bercow.
For Labour, they have a different problem.
On tax and spend,the centre of gravity has moved, as people grasp the scale of the debt (that was necessary to save Western Capitalism)
If Labour were to grasp the nettle of debt this could still be an interesting election.
Evening all.
How should we react to a poll where the methodology has changed so much since last time?
Clearly, in statistical analysis terms, we should start again from scratch on the basis that this is effectively a new and untested poll methodology. It is therefore meaningless to compare the results with previous polls. So, overall, not very useful.
However, we do have some additional information. This is ComRes. Remember their last poll, which made a crashing mistake by giving respondents three possible answers, two of which were then aggregated to form the conclusion that the respondents preferred one particular option? A schoolboy howler, in polling terms.
Not one to take very seriously.
212 I don’t think you quite understand the bet I am suggesting which involves LAYING Murray against the World in winning SPOTY. Your recompense, were he to do so, would be to have taken comfortably greater odds against his winning Wimbledon.
219. Scotland’s not a country, it’s a region. It’s like saying the Isle of Wight is a country, or that sandy bit of Surrey.
In fact it’s barely a region, as it lacks identity and coherence. Scotland is more a residential outlier of Lancashire. They should call it Northern England (subdivision B).
197- Sean, I’m sure I’m warped by spending way too much time on PB, but it “feels” like Labour should be around 20% and the Tories should be at 45% or so. The fact that this isn’t the case suggests that the Tories need to be doing something they aren’t doing, but I’m not sure what that is.
216 - Jaysus it’s hot. I am sheened with sweat. I feel like I have been f*cking a warthog for fifty minutes.
I presume warthogs charge by the hour, so hurry up.
Its not hot is bloody humid.
Heat in Johannesburg is easy cause its dry.
In Spain the crashing 10.30 pm rain freshens everything up.
This is just humid.
190.”147 Roger - Rachel Sylvester in the article linked at 166 captures the Labour campaign very well: “The next election campaign is going to be a cynical and dirty fight. Now it is clear why: the party has no really substantial positive plans for the future.””
Ted, that was a nailed on certainty as the main strategy the moment Brown moved into No10. And up until now, its been a very successful one, especially when dealing with those that Brown saw as threat from within his own party.
On the idea that Brown is again trying to fight 1992 all over again, he made one fatal error, Cameron and Osborne are now using the very tactics that he and New Labour deployed against the Tories in the last 3 GE’s to nail them for their very own gigantic black hole in the public finances. When Lansley let the cat out of the bag about cuts to public services, it was no accident that the Tories were using Brown and Darling’s own figures. Hoist by their own petard.
224 - But it is only a couple of weeks ago, Labour were polling 18-22% range.
227 - And a few weeks before that they scored 15% in a national election!
220. tim, do you really believe that millions of ordinary voters are outraged by opaque Tory squabbles over the appointment of the Speaker, or the movement of Tories from one party they’ve never heard of in Brussels to a new party they’ve never heard of?
The Tory share is down because of Expensesgate, is all. As you will surely acknowledge once you have romoved your tiny head from your distended colon.
There may also be minor movements because of increased economic confidence, and cause Cameron has been off the telly.
But Bercow and the EPP? Pllllllease.
Let the Middle Classes take the pain.
Particularly the unmarried but especially the unmarried with children
Remind me which party brought in a me-too knee-jerk IHT change of spousal transferability of IHT allowance and which puts unmarried couples with (or indeed without) kids at a huge disadvantage should one of the adults die?
IHT is not paid by Tim’s alleged fellow toffs but by the unexpecting and unaware thrifty.
I’m pretty sure Gordon’s kids won’t find themselves paying out IHT when he finally shuffles off…
226 - Christina, you might like to read this article for tommorrow’s Herald. The list ine is amusing
http://www.theherald.co.uk/politics/news/display.var.2517250.0.Beleaguered_Brown_provides_easy_target_for_Opposition.php
From a foggy and cool Dundee - goodnight.
231 - list ine = last line
231.Hi Marcia, it was like that here last night, but very hot and humid now, even as it finally starts to get dark.
I wonder if someone could explain how Brown’s plan to give housing priorities to ‘locals’ will work? I take it one will have to submit a family history to the authorities or undergo a medical examination to establish origin and race. What will happen to people who are pronounced ‘insufficiently indigenous’? Presumably they’ll be housed in some sort of ghetto.
229 - Of course I don’t believe that.
What I believe is that anything that ties Cameron to the Tory brand is bad news for “their” opinion poll rating.
The stuff over expenses,Europe and Bercow ties Cameron to that brand.
Thats why I think he’s mad a big error not dealing with the expense cheats in the Shadow Cabinet.
It ties Dave to the moats and the troughers.
tim, I’m a f*cking travel writer. I go to hot places for a living. I have heard of “humidity”.
In central London tonight it is HOT. Weather Underground reports that it is 21 degrees C at 11pm (and actually not that humid: 60%); it is probably hotter than that in the micromicroclimate of central Fitzrovia.
21 degrees C at midnight, in a city whose flats generally lack air conditioning, is HOT.
224 That would probably be by coming clean and telling the British people just how desperately serious is the state of the nation’s finances, that is to say we’re bust and what it intends to do to at least start getting things back on an even keel.
There’s a huge element of the electorate who knows we’re deep in the brown stuff but needs the Tories to assure them that there is some workable way out of this dreadful mess which Labour has created, no matter how severe the pain might be and however long it might take.
So far Cameron & Co have singularly failed to spell this out. This they must now do, otherwise they will continue appear to be an Ostrich in the sand party, just like Labour.
151 SLN
Good comment but you made a big error:
“We have had a boom”
NO WE DIDN’T
We had an economic bubble.
During a boom you have genuine economic growth all this country had during this decade was the illusion of growth caused by debt fuelled wealth consumption and the fools gold of rising house prices. Where are the equivalents of Docklands, the M25, the Channel Tunnel and the Japanese car factories of Sunderland, Derby and Swindon?
It is very revealing that both the stock market and industrial production both peaked as long ago as 2000 ie a year after Gordon Brown abandoned the economic policies he had inherited from the previous Conservative government.
It is indeed effing hot, but I am going to try and sleep anyway.
Nite everybody, including all warthogs.
One thing the detailed data from Comres shows is that the increased support for the Greens and perhaps more surprisingly UKIp has NOT come mostly from the Conservatives . If that support went back to it’s original party the figures would have been the Conservatives would benefit least and the LibDems most .
234 - It has legal challenge written all over it!
Human rights of single mother with 4 kids being placed lower down the list then a load of single males who have lived in the area all their lives.
206. But Murray has two more chances, at the US and Australian Opens, to win a title that would also deliver him the SPOTY.
Good night, Prince Peter the Punter. I too am going to try and sleep, or at least I am going to remain supine for several hours on top of the bed with all the windows open ineffectually.
Manana.
220: ‘Nasty party over Europe.Nasty Party over Bercow.’
tim, I hardly think you should be chucking insults about the Tories’ nastiness on the same day that your leader has proposed a housing policy for non-aliens that could come straight from the Nick Griffin handbook. Of course, I imagine you deplore this dangerous and divisive scheme, but you must also accept that the Latvian SS stuff you peddle pales into ludicrous insignificance by comparison.
Why do you bother to say anything runnymede? It seems like a perfectly reasonable poll. The Government are in deep trouble, but people are very suspicious over the Tories over the twin concerns over ’same old Tories, trotters in the trough’ and ‘if they’re the same in that way, are we going to also have the swingeing cuts that we had in the 80s and 90s?’
So it sems like the same story as all the pollsters have been telling us for weeks. As Mike points out at the top - all the changes are within the margin of error - actually well within, because as with all polls these days the margin of error is actually larger than stated as the effective sample size is less than 800 and therefore around +/- 3.5. And as GIN points out, this poll is not really that different from any of the other polls in the last few weeks. So what is with all the bile about ComRes? There is after all a fair old chance that this may be the way it really is.
236 - Forgive me I forgot you were a travel writer, but compared to a hot night in Durban or Singapore, this is nothing.
(saying that I’ve probably got both daughters in my bed tonight because they can’t get comfy)
One thing I do love about Britain, and its something that new immigrants adapt to very quickly, is the whining about the weather.
Heat.Rain.Wind.Snow.Humidity.
The first day of that weather the British talk to each other in supermarket queues.
In the Seventies it was power cuts.
We hated them, but we really miss them.
And now for something completely different..
The atheistic “Imagine” played on the highest and heaviest peal of bells in the world - in the composer’s home town.
Only in Liverpool
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp-ZGDDrn68
A bit “ropey” to begin with :), but they get there eventually….
206. The Aussie Open is in January, so that would be too late for this year.
I think Gordo has been watching too much of this kind of stuff,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOGAAlHzF4o
Local jobs for local people
Local houses for local people
Local shops for local people!
Tim = Doting Dad
248 was meant for 242!
The Scottish sub-samples from the last two polls are as follows -
YouGov :
SNP 35% (+3)
Labour 29% (+1)
Liberal Democrats 15% (-1)
Conservatives 14% (-1)
Others 9% (-)
ComRes :
SNP 45% (+21)
Labour 29% (+5)
Liberal Democrats 12% (-1)
Conservatives 8% (-16)
Others 5% (-9)
249 - Is that what he said?
F###
I’ve been watching Wimbledon and haven’t seen the news.
Councils always favour local people, particularly those who try to stop houses being built
Double dip dowturn from the Indy http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/warning-britain-faces-new-recession-1724447.html Oh dear.
251 - even I don’t believe the result from ComRes for Scotland will happen next year as too small a sample but it will make Stuart crow on the morning thread and annoy a few! Goodnight all.
Sky: Norwich North by-election will be on July 23rd.
Apologies if already posted.
223. “Scotland is more a residential outlier of Lancashire. They should call it Northern England (subdivision B).”
I’m not going to rise to it this time, except to say that it reminds me of the final episode of ‘Survivors’ (the original 70s version) when it turns out that the vast majority of the surviving population are in the Scottish Highlands, and they start musing about the possibilities of governing the UK from Inverness and appointing a Secretary of State for England. Now that’s what I call ‘a strong Scotland in partnership with the rest of the United Kingdom’ (© Jim Murphy).
242 In the unlikely event that Murray were to win the US Open, this would have nothing approaching the impact of his winning Wimbledon and imho not sufficient to deliver SPOTY.
Never forget that 87% of SPOTY voters are English and will vote for the charasmatic Button over Murray every time.
Whether or not you believe Murray’s alleged anti anti-English outburst during the last World Cup, the fact is that mud sticks. Personally, I doubt he will ever win SPOTY - certainly I’ve bet significantly against him winning it this year, covering my potential loss in the manner described.
255. Interesting tactical decision. Hardly closes down the pressure on Brown for the duration of the summer if there’s a 30% anti-Labour swing in the latter part of July.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8125466.stm
BBC reports that the Institute of Puplic Policy Research recommends that “The UK should slash defence spending by £24bn and revisit plans to renew its Trident nuclear deterrent”…”the aim should be to eradicate nuclear weapons, and there should be renewed debate about the Trident submarine-based missile system.”…”Given the new fiscal restraints, it concludes, Britain can no longer afford to play the same world role as before”
BBC states that “Its authors including a former defence secretary and head of Nato, a former Chief of the Defence Staff and a former chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee” to give added weight to the report, leading the sheeple to believe that military experts are recommending that this is what Britain should do.
Of course…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_Public_Policy_Research
“The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) is a left-wing UK think-tank with strong ties to the Labour party that claims to produce progressive ideas committed to upholding values of social justice, democratic reform and environmental sustainability.”
… but oh no… no mention of anything related to this in the BBC report…more smoke and mirrors from Pravda…
253. Wow! That sounds seriously grim!
257. I think we’ve had this discussion before, but a) Andy Murray’s ‘anti-English outburst’ was a figment of the papers’ imagination (he actually seems to have been a strong Anglophile all his life), b) if he wins Wimbledon he’ll certainly win SPOTY, and c) if he wins the US Open it’ll be borderline between him and Button. (Assuming Button actually becomes World Champion which isn’t certain.)
I think it was mentioned on the commentary tonight that if Murray has a good Wimbledon he could close in on Nadal in the rankings. I’m not sure if there’s any real chance of Murray becoming world number one without winning a Grand Slam, but if so that’s another possibility to put into the mix.
http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2009/05/16/comres-piles-the-gloom-on-gord/
I started reading this evening’s thread and saw what my fellow Tories thought of ComRes; then saw the other side’s replies. I decided to check the thread above (from a month and a bit ago, showing the Tories 19 points ahead with ComRes) so I could demonstrate to tim et al. that us Tories are balanced in our views and would remember to be critical of a dodgy pollster even when they show us ahead…
Alas, not one of the 681 comments backs my ideal up (unless they do it without mentioning comres by name). Please can regular Tory posters on here try and think about this next time ComRes put us in front?
Hope tim’s gone to bed and won’t be using this to back up any of his usual, ridiculous points…
re 233 Christina I thought it never got dark up there this time of the year.
255.”Sky: Norwich North by-election will be on July 23rd.”
Another by election smack in the school holidays, postal votes anyone?
re 246 I’ll consider it practice for Delhi where I’ll be in 3 weeks. It was 49 deg C there over the weekend. Hopefully the monsoon will have arrived by the time I get there.
262 - I meant “show us way ahead”
An autumn 2009 GE is the last major surprise Brown has left in his armoury, plus he would probably save around 30-40 seats, maybe more, compared with soldiering on until next May in the hope that “something will turn up”. Plenty of things will turn up, but sadly for Labour most of these will be damaging to their prospects.
I am very comfortable indeed with my 25/1 bet against an October poll. Ladbrokes current odds of 10/1 still look like value to me, bearing in mind that realistically there are only two available dates now available, October ‘09 and May ‘10, the latter being the hot favourite but worth the best available odds of 0.5/1? …. I don’t think so somehow.
263.ChrisA, it does get dark, but its weird, almost like there is a light on, sitting tucked away behind the hills lighting up the sky in the distance. You can still wonder around the garden without any lights on, and I live in a rural area, so not a lot of street lights anyway.
259- I read once upon a time a journalist frankly and honestly describing this technique. To paraphrase, ‘you’re not allowed to state your own opinions in a news article, but you can do the next best thing: find someone else who agrees with you and print THEIR opinions in place of your own views.’ Then do what you can to give them credibility, such as was done in the BBC article you reference.
261 Red Meteor - you have your opinion and I have mine. As I say, mud sticks whatever and I think you are also ignoring the predominance of English SPOTY voters and the charisma differential between the two contenders. I just couldn’t believe how dull Murray sounded in his BBC TV interview last week, really, really poor.
269. “I thought Stars and Stripes’ comment was utterly laughable,” commented my neighbour Lucy Jones. “After all, isn’t he the one that’s always quoting from right-wing American news sources?”
271- Tell your neighbor Lucy that she’s full of sh*t, and that if she actually read anything I wrote, she’d know that I’m always quoting from not quite right-wing sources such as the New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, AP, Reuters, etc.
Reassure her that it’s just a figment of her imagination, as you described above.
270. I totally disagree with you there as well, he’s actually come across really well in interviews recently. Tonight’s was the first one in a long while he hadn’t smiled, and after four hours of play that was totally understandable. As for your ‘mud sticks’ point, I think middle England has the same approach to Murray that SeanT does - if he loses he’s an anti-English bigot ‘cos the tabloid press told them so, but if he wins…well, Scotland’s not so far from Buckinghamshire after all, is it?
272. “Bollocks,” Lucy retorted. “Stars and Stripes seems to feel that by quoting from the occasional neutral or centre-left mainstream news source, he’s somehow balancing out the constant quotes from rabid right-wing sources, like that blog post about Honduras last night.”
“Whatever he might think, he’s really not kidding anyone,” she added with a knowing smile.
270 - Murray comments this evening straight after the match weren’t very interesting or “popularist” either.
Now, obviously he had just finished an incredibly hard match, and this isn’t meant as a huge criticism or anything. However, there on prime time BBC 1, we got at times a very anger Murray and then in the interview nothing to say.
You know that some of the popular names in sport have that ability just to switch on to media charm and rev the crowd up. Murray had 2-3 clear setup questions to say THANK YOU WIMBELDON, and only at the last minute did he say it.
As I have said before, I think that is just him, he is a fighter and wants to win desperately. That his is absolute focus, being a media charmer doesn’t seem to enter into his sights.
However, in terms of popularity as the SPOTY obviously is, the post-match interview doesn’t do Murray any favours in gaining real popularity for such things.
Say Murray wins this week (which I don’t think he will) and Button wins F1, IMO it will be Button hands down to win SPOTY. Big F1 following, great back-story to Button win, and Button does seem to have the smiley smiley charmer media appeal.
274 Lucy Jones! She can get online. She can read. But she can’t type?
Rusedski won SPOTY after being runner-up in the US Open.
A close friend of Tim’s was heard to say, “He owns a farm, don’t you know.”
276. “Jonny Jimmy is displaying typical prejudice against the partially illiterate,” commented Lucy, 39, who is considering attending an adult education course in September. “We have to put up with that kind of ignorance all the time.”
277 - Who was also in the hunt though?
I mean it wasn’t that long ago that Walliams was in the running to win it for swimming the channel!
275. Disagree. If Murray wins Wimbledon he wins SPOTY by a landslide over Button. 2 main reasons:
1) No British Wimbledon winner since 1936. Numerous British F1 winners.
2) Wimbledon is a far bigger media event, bigger TV audiences etc.
279 Of course if someone is accurately given the label “partially literate” the I would prejudge that person as one who can’t properly write and/or can’t properly read. Which is all I did. Would you not?
the —> then ☻
281 - I’m not so sure, for the following reasons.
No doubt it will be a huge achievement, but as said it is a popularity contest. Wimbledon might have massive audiences, albeit for two weeks, but means even more people see Murray not exactly making himself hugely popular on a personal level with his general manner.
F1 is on the BBC again, getting plenty of hype and on every 2 weeks. Also, in previous SPOTFY the F1 lot they have always come out big. Hamilton beat Ricky Hatton for 2nd, when he didn’t even win F1 championship, then Hamilton came 2nd again last year. even though Hamilton can hardly be described as overflowing with personality, especially not in comparison to Button.
I don’t want to sound like I have a massive downer on him, cos I don’t. I do however find it hard to warm to him from what we see on the court and from media stuff. And I think if that felt by others (which anecdotally speaking to friends and family, it is) could really effect his chances of winning SPOTFY. Amongst people I know he is often referred to as Miserable Murray.
Jonny Jimmy = partially literate
282. That’s done it, Lucy’s gone off in a huff now. I hope you’re satisfied.
I think her point was that just because she could get online and read, you were suggesting there was something suspicious about her not being able to type. Incredibly hurtful.
If you want to complain about a BBC News story, you can do so here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ukfs/hi/newsid_3990000/newsid_3993900/3993909.stm
Be factual reasonable however. If you go on about “socialism” or sound like a right-wing partisan it will just be ignored.
Evening all - SeanT hits nail on head re: Murray and this blasted heat. I am living in a flat with a lot of Kenyans and even one of them recognised that it was a little humid today.
Love the new PB.com format of having non-typing commenters: Lucy Jones is very welcome and thanked for her innovative contribution via Red Meteor, even if I couldn’t possibly share her impugning of the centrist credentials of our beloved Stars & Stripes.
Nonetheless - I think there’s a future in this, though I suspect that future Lucy Joneses might be rather more fictitious than Roger’s Dutch friends, in what is sure to become a new lo-tec sockpuppetry epidemic.
And so to not-quite-sleep-but-trying-to-find-the-cool-half-of-the-pillow-for-a-few-hours
Just looking at SPOTY from the past, and how strong F1 votes are,
1) Mansell beat Christie and Gunnell (when they both won Gold at Olympics)
2) Hill beat Gunnell and Colin Jackson when they won big in athletics
3) Hill beat Redgrave (Olympic Gold) and Frankie Dettori
So 3 years of F1 winners have beat incredibly popluar Olymipic winners and the biggest name in horse racing.
I’m suspicious of all second hand opinions. What do you think about it all?
“Public spending, lies and a party that is now beneath contempt”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1196427/Public-spending-lies-party-beneath-contempt.html
289. That’s true, which makes it all the more surprising Hamilton didn’t win in either of the last two years. But I remember being absolutely flabbergasted when Mansell beat Linford Christie in 1992. It might not rank quite as high in the absurdity league as the victories of Princess Anne and Zara Phillips, but it still felt distinctly odd.
289.Mansell beat Senna, and Hill beat Shuamacher during the golden era for us Brits in athletics. Chris Hoy’s three gold medals trumped Lewis’s first F1 title, and Andy Murray as the first Briton to win Wimbledon in donkey’s years would trump a F1 title for Button.
292 - I see it slightly different, Hamilton managed those two 2nd places, despite little to no personality. He doesn’t have the negative effects Murray has on some, but he isn’t hugely appealing.
Button however, much more a charmer and it is the whole back story. The career that was failing, Honda pulling out, Brawn coming to life at the last minute. Combine that with the big F1 vote that seems to turn out when British F1 drivers go well, means I just don’t see Murray win Wimbledon equals nailed on SPOTY winner.
274- The ugly face of schizophrenia…
Anyway a lot of this is academic, because I just can’t see Murray winning Wimbledon, unless Roger Federer trips in the shower.
294.Oracle, Button has passed me by to be honest. And like Lewis, he doesn’t have that awe inspiring nemesis who is regarded as one of the worlds greatest ever drivers. Both Mansell and Hill did.
Murray on the other hand, has defied all the odds in a sport we have singularly failed to shine at for many years. And this despite a huge hunger by Brits to see one of their own lift that trophy after a centre court final. He really does epitomise that single minded focus that drowns out all need for charisma or X factor charm. If he doesn’t win at Wimbledon, his critics will shout loudly about these traits, if he wins, he will be a national hero.
For Murray to win, he will have to beat his tennis equivalent of Senna or Schumacher.
I remember whinging about my son’s lack of good natured charm on the football field in a game when he was younger, but as the dads beside me pointed out, who cares. He scored the teams 5 goals, and they won handsomely. They reckoned they preferred him to be totally focussed on the job in hand. But what do I know, I am just a girl.
295. See what happens? Lucy sticks her head above the parapet, and within just one hour she’s had her literacy skills cruelly mocked, been told she has an ugly face, and had it suggested she’s suffering from a psychotic illness.
No wonder we have this ‘Shy Female Lurker Syndrome’ that Mike’s identified so often. Frankly, I’m feeling a little ashamed, and on behalf of us all I’d like to apologise to Lucy for the reception she’s received tonight. Time to raise our standards, guys.
298- I’m more concerned about her reasoning skills. She starts off claiming I only cite to right-wing sources, and then on losing that argument tries to start a new one about me being a closet right-winger, something about which I’ve never been in the closet. Poor, poor thing… Please see that she receives proper care, Red Meteor.
If Murray wins Wimbledon we’re going to have mass media hype for several weeks like when we won the Rugby World Cup in 2003, The Ashes in 2005 and the Olympic success in 2008. The only difference is that unlike all of these events, it will be focussed entirely on one person.
Wimbledon is a bizarre event in that it attracts collosal numbers of people who in all honesty have no interest in tennis. Tonight Murray played in just the 4th Round - 3 hours of BBC1 schedules were cleared for him and a TV audience of maybe 10 million.
In 2 months he could play in the 4th round of the US Open and literally 90% of the people cheering tonight would not even know the match was taking place, let alone watch it.
299. I’m afraid she’s gone back to her own house, S&S, and after what’s happened I may not see her again for some time. But I did just hear a scream through the wall, it sounded something like - “Lost the argument? If he really thinks that, he’s the one that needs to see a shrink. Delusional e****k.”
It just sounded like that, mind.
Rachel Sylvester in the Times - Can Brown the builder fix it? No, he can’t
“The problem is that Labour has already spent 12 years on this construction project and the voters are getting sick of the number of tea breaks. It’s not that nothing has been built so far — there have been real improvements in primary schools and the NHS. But if this building firm wants to be rehired it needs some attractive new plans — a loft conversion, say, or a conservatory — it can’t just offer to repaint the walls. The Government seems to have run out of money as well as ideas. Even the current refurbishment is, as Lord Mandelson has now confirmed, uncosted. And everyone knows you don’t hire builders without a written quotation, particularly when money is tight.
Privately, many ministers are in despair. “There is nothing there,” says one. “We’re going to be out of power for years.” One of Mr Brown’s longest-standing supporters in the Cabinet admitted to a colleague recently that he had made a mistake. “I knew Gordon’s weaknesses but I thought they would be lessened by becoming Prime Minister, and that his strengths would increase,” he told his fellow minister. “I was wrong.””
I’m feeling sorry for the alien blancmanges from Andromeda who wasted such a lot of money in buying and transporting 48,000,000 kilts on the basis of a flawed and misguided theory.
216. It doesn’t surprise me that you have enough life experience to know what it feels like to have done so, and are therefore able to make the comparison.
304 - LOL post of the day!
The media narrative on Brown is becoming very clear. What will ultimately make all the difference at the GE is not so much what we see in the DT or Times or Guardian but what we see in the tabloids and on telly.
Here’s today’s Sun:
WORLD class schools, super health care, better policing and “British homes for British people”… Oh, and 1.5million brand new jobs.
That’s Gordon Brown’s latest recipe for motherhood and apple pie. Or is it just pie in the sky?
Remember “Education, Education, Education”? Well, after a school lifetime under Labour, four out of 10 children aged 12 are still unable to read and write properly.
Despite a shedload of taxpayers’ cash, the NHS still isn’t world class.
As for putting locals top of the queue for council homes, what will town halls do when a destitute migrant family of six lands on their doorstep?
And how will we pay for these grandiose daydreams?
The PM grandly sprays hundreds of millions of pounds on his new “vision”, but is the money real or imagined?
If it’s real money, where is it coming from?
Efficiency savings? Pull the other one, Gordon.
Tory leader David Cameron accused Mr Brown of living in “a dream world” and asked: “When is someone going to tell him that he’s run out of money?”
Britain is already borrowed to the eyeballs and facing a £1.3TRILLION tsunami of debt.
That’s as much as the entire national economy is worth in a good year.
Yesterday the OECD think tank voiced alarm over the UK’s rocky finances and demanded evidence of plans to cut back.
Instead, Business supremo Lord Mandelson arrogantly went on radio to demand a blank cheque from British voters.
Without telling Parliament - or even the Chancellor - he cancelled the Treasury’s autumn spending bulletin and kicked everything into touch until after the election.
This ramshackle, paralysed and incompetent Government is now either utterly delusional about the frightening scale of our economic crisis.
Or it is taking the entire nation for fools
The BBC does not yet seem to be covering this story, although I guess in the end it will have to. It’s beginning to look as if Brown’s la-la-la approach to dealing with debt and outright lies on spending are not going to be nodded through unchallenged.