Opinium publish their historic polls
March 9th, 2010
Notice how others are large - like Angus Reid
The new kid on the polling block, Opinium, has published its historic polls and it is interesting to track how it compares with everybody else.
The striking feature for me is that it consistently has a high share for others - very much in line with the PB/Angus Reid polls. Maybe it’s something about online polling?
A disappointment is that it makes no attempt to politically weight its samples. This probably explains the relative volatility in its headline numbers
Their arrival brings to ten the number of pollsters that will be covering this election - which must be a record by a long way.
Mike Smithson
MessageSpace Advertising
UKIP fantasy world again.
And crikey - Others are high.
Still great to get another methodology to pick over
Cameron is back out and about on the offensive.
Well if you ignore Ulster and
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23813504-cameron-should-have-seen-ashcroft-crisis-coming.do
I see yet another Labour MP for a Midlands seat has chickened out…
“Lord Paul is to be investigated by the House of Lords authorities over claims that he falsely claimed thousands of pounds in expenses.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7055243.ece
Interesting stuff but I do wonder about it considering that some of the best Conservative performances were during the Labour and Libdem Conferences and Labour’s ratings jumped during and just after the Conservative conference.
tim the thread is about the new pollster on the block. Or hadnt you bothered to read it, or are you just keen to get your distraction in first?
@2:
That would be a Theme Park from Hell.
5: 88 on the tories seat list…likely to fall, leaving it a bit late though isn’t she. A mad scramble to get someone else, and to get known though.
6 maybe the next ten days of the BBC news will headline this ? or maybe not
LD’s on 12%?? Sorry I don’t buy that!
re new pollster - they don’t use fancy weightings and Labour get sub 30% - what a surprise.
4 This is what you love Tim.. Cameron and your wee willy out and about.. be happy
12. I hadn’t seen that. Thats not good……
Mike
Are the data tables somewhere on their site? I couldn’t find them.
13 I’m looking forward to Mr Kellner’s response to the changing numbers on their last poll and the 25% ‘adjustment’ to the Labour respondants!
What time’s the NI assembly voting on policing and justice devolution?
If Opinium does not weight its samples along political affiliations, it’s hard to take them seriously, is it?
O/T. Reading the Rawnsley book, at the part were Robin Cook resigns. It seems others would have joined him, except it was believed it would bring down Blair and put Brown in No.10. So, the Cabinet as a whole thought going to war was preferable to having Brown as PM (Rawnsley’s words p.166).
Can’t understand that, he’s supposed to be such a warm and lovable character.
12/15 But look at Others - over 20%…
17. They were unlucky again - ok ?
>>>>>Breaking News>>>>>>
Tory discomfort over Aschroft funding hits PB.Com
Dear Tim
Ashcroft money? No.
http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2010/03/09/populus-marginals-poll-has-the-tories-just-short/#comment-1466075
But wait
TORBAY Tory Parliamentary hopeful Marcus Wood has benefited from the general election war-chest bankrolled by billionaire peer Lord Ashcroft.
The prospective parliamentary candidate (pictured above) has used ‘tens of thousands of pounds’ from the target seat campaign fund to pay for a survey, canvassing and newsletters sent to households in the Bay.
The fund is the brainchild of Lord Ashcroft, the peer and Conservative Party deputy chairman embroiled in controversy for holding a senior party role while not paying tax on his overseas earnings.
Mr Wood confirmed: “We are one of the seats in the target seat campaign who did get money.
“I don’t know the exact amount, but it is all in the public domain. I would say it was in the tens of thousands for the whole parliament (from 2005 to 2010).
“Last year we had a newspaper, we got a contribution to the wraparound in the Weekender newspaper (published by the Herald Express) in January and it would have been for things like that. There was also a survey this time last year.”
http://www.thisissouthdevon.co.uk/news/Bay-hopeful-used-cash-peer-s-war-chest/article-1891908-detail/article.html
So the non story in the marginals has no resonance at all.
Labour peer Lord Paul to be investigated by former MI5 chief in expenses probe
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23813503-labour-peer-lord-paul-ill-stop-being-a-non-dom-and-pay-full-tax-here.do
24. When will there be an investigation into Lord Ashcroft’s expenses ?
24, given Abrahams, Hain, Cash for Honours and even a convicted fraudster giving millions to the Lib Dems led to fck all action being taken, I find it very hard to believe anything at all will be done regarding Lord Paul, even if he has done anything wrong.
25. It’s very suspicious that he has claimed nothing, if you ask me
Greetings from Agra and the Taj Mahal….its hot here, so i go on holiday and the political map goes nuts…typical. Can’t wait to get back now on the 25th, had to sneak in for a look and catch up with you guys.
8. I told you, this is all we’ll here for days, every post will have ‘UUP’ or ‘Ulster mess’ or some such in it, don’t bother asking questions as tim won’t answer or will change the subject then return to Ulster later on when he thinks everyones forgotten. He’s so mind numbingly predictable I’ve started to ignore his existance in the hope that the universe will catch on and do the same.
re 16 Here
http://www.opinium.co.uk/surveyreports/opin-VotingIntention-banner.pdf
27. Whats he got to hide ? Its free money after all…
28, hope you have a nice time, Mr. Allen
23 Just because it was published doesn’t mean anyone cares - just look at the days of coverage on the BBC, and the effect is zilch.
If they don’t weight politically - do we know what (if anything) they do weight by to attempt to get a representative sample? (Newspaper readership, demographics, Favourite biscuit?)
Also - do we know if they have there own independant panel, or do they piggy-back off someone else’s (eg YouGov or AR)
Mike - when are we expecting to see the next Angus Reid poll?
“A disappointment is that it makes no attempt to politically weight its samples. This probably explains the relative volatility in its headline numbers ”
Except that these numbers are no more volatile than the headline numbers produced by pollsters who do using political weighting.
This looks fun.
http://waugh.standard.co.uk/2010/03/former-mi5-chief-to-probe-lord-paul.html
23
Tim …funny how you edited out the important bits of the story.. its a feature of how you operate though.
Thanks Morris, its great but its so hard to keep up with news out here, the internet cafes stink here, i need a hazmat suit, so i’m now bedded down in a lovely big palace hotel, taking some time out.
Thank god no election was called or i’d be going out of my mind.
28 I was on the first commercial flight into Agra a few yrs ago and it was hilariously badly organised with about 10 people passing the same biro attempting to create a job out of checking the passenger manifest
Hope you’re enjoying yourself - I thought the ox-drawn lawn mowers were the best bit at the Taj.
FPT Marcus Wood
I agree the economy is in dire straits
But you havent’t said what you would do differently and explain why this will make people’s lives better. Like it or not, a significant proportion of the electorate might opt for “better the devil you know” and also believe the “recovery” is happening.
You and your party need to do something to counter this, and to offer a positive alterntaive, or you wil not win the election, and million wil not forgive you.
I don’t seriously think you are enjoying the fact that the economy is in trouble, but I do think you and you party should have by now developed a slightly better set of political antennae.
“Labour are crap…vote for us we will cut public spending faster” will not win the election. Maybe it should, but it won’t, not on its own. Face up to this PLEASE!
23.
This is, of course, a deliberate obfuscation. The shorthand term ‘Ashcroft money’ meaning money from the target seats fund has been elided into ‘Money from Ashcroft’s bank accounts’.
When any Conservative candidate, Marcus included, is asked if he’s had any ‘Ashcroft money’ the questioner means the latter. The candidate answers for the former descriptor.
33 - The effect is that Cameron is still on the defensive now he’s broken cover, local tories are unsure of the stance to take and William Hague has been locked in a box somewhere.
38: You mean this bit?
A spokesman for prospective candidate Anne-Marie Morris said: “Newton Abbot Conservatives do not receive any funding directly from Lord Ashcroft. We do receive some financial support from our central office, however the overwhelming majority of the funds we raise and spend on local campaigning are raised through local fund raising activities and events and modest donations from our members and supporters.”
Oh look…no direct funding.
5, 10.
If you are a Labour MP, getting on in years or perhaps with other responsibilities, and you profoundly disagree with the direction the party and its leader are taking, maybe this is the easiest way to sabotage Gordon’s little red wagon…
28 “….so i go on holiday and the political map goes nuts…typical.”
Eh??
@42:
So the question you want to ask all target seats is “are you a target seat”?
USEFUL.
Opinium don’t do the political weighting and yet bring in results reasonably close to what the other pollsters are reporting. Another quick note is that the UKIP support is higher amongst the C2DE band than ABC1 - didn’t we see that effect at Norwich North with ex-Labour voters going to UKIP much more than ex-Tory voters?
10. Based on recent polling and Labour commentary you would have thought Labour would feel they had a decent chance of holding that seat…and yet the sitting MP chickens out nevertheless…
44 What a shock! ‘tim’ selectively editing ?
Who’d have thunk it.
Even Gabble doesn’t usually stoop that low.
Plato, loving it, but pickpockets galore, i have my wallet welded into my jeans……anyway i have to go now, i’m being dragged of to the restaurant.
I’m amazed though a week done so far and not one sign of delhi belly.
20 - I wouldn’t take too much notice of a pollster that doesn’t weight its samples and has Others in the high teens, would you?
I await your analysis.
On topic: If you follow Mike’s link, there’s a PDF with a graph:
http://www.opinium.co.uk/surveyreports/opin-VotingIntention-banner.pdf
You can see the lead narrowing from September to January, and then maybe widening again in February, with just the latest one showing a narrowing.
Not sure what to make of it, to be honest. I don’t think Mike is right when he says the results are particularly volatile, but the Others figure is indeed high. This is a bit surprising given that they do include certainty to vote as a filter.
But they sound a fairly serious outfit, so I guess we’ll have to factor them in to our overall view.
27. I think there should be a public enquiry:
“Lord Ashcroft whilst all of your peers in Parliament have been royally screwing the taxpayers for every single troughing penny of expenses they can, you have claimed no expenses at all, not a sausage, zero, nout, nil, none. How can you let the troughing political classes down so completely?”
For more info on the Opinium methodology, see Anthony:
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/2497
With all the problems the country has and with elections right around the corner, I can’t believe the so much of the political chatter is about Lord Ashcroft, Lord Paul, and other palace intrigue. This has a latter days of Rome feel about it, with petty insular fighting over trifles predominating while an unprecedented series of wall-shattering problems threatens the very fabric of the society.
And this all plays into the hands of Labour. Just as the expenses scandal diminished the Tories more than Labour by equalizing them in the eyes of voters, the Tories also end up with the worst of this battle merely by virtue of being dragged into it. The more the Tories are forced to defend Lord Ashcroft and then counterattack against opposing figures, the less they’re talking about the country’s real problems that they should be daily hanging around Labour’s neck. Of course, this explains why the anti-Tory media are doing their best to keep everybody talking about Lord Ashcroft, but the Tories need to force the debate onto the big issues and they need to do it now.
56 Absolutely - we’ve lost more than a week of news cycles on this pointless micro-issue stuff.
No one cares and yet this is what the media is serving up.
The Tories have managed to change the focus away from Aschroft by turning it on to….their Ulster Pact.
You have to laugh.
Dave goes from too weak to tackle Ashcroft to too weak to influence his Ulster partners.
58: UUP excerising their democratic right to vote which way they want shocker….
Tim, see how the story you keep going on and on and on about is, in fact, a bucket of nonsense invented by nasty creatures such as yourself:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/benedictbrogan/100029188/george-bush-reassured-by-david-cameron/
Not that this will stop you going on about it. But the fact that you seem so dedicated to it shows how bare the Labour ideas cupboard is.
OT BNP standing against Bercow - can’t see the point myself but hey-ho.
43: ‘The effect is that Cameron is still on the defensive’
Defensive? The Obama administration, with the help of former President George W, have thought it necessary to bring in Dave as a trouble shooter in Northern Ireland! (Brown and his butler Woodward are presumably considered impotent.) So Dave now fits being a freelance peace negotiator into his hectic schedule. Amazing. Peace process in Ulster, Dave’s called in to bolster!
60 - All very interesting if it wasn’t leading the news bulletins.
61 cont…
http://www.libdemvoice.org/bnp-candidate-buckingham-adam-worley-18259.html
62 - Brilliant Stark.
62. All this could have been avoided if Brown had fallen out of the golf buggy as Bush Jnr intended
63 And not mentioned at all in the BBC top read stories - and I seem to recall that it’s Labour’s Dog Tax that is actually leading the news
57- Labour will want to turn this election into a series of Lord Ashcroft-type episodes and prolong those episodes as much as possible, always taking the Tories’ and voters’ eyes off the ball. The Tories need to grab control of the election agenda or they will indeed lose. If Labour are particularly skilled and/or lucky, this election won’t be about Labour’s failures at all.
62. SD…..
Indeed it seems the US have more faith in the current incumbent in Witney constituency than his predecessor…
63
Only political geeks care about NI.
Float if off into the Atlantic and no-one would miss them..
It’s a non issue in mainland UK.
64– Re: BNP standing, probably to make the most of the media coverage created now that Farage is entering to battle zone.
TV Coverage should be err, ‘entertaining’
68, when the election’s called the Tories get equal media time. The broadcasters will have to report their attacks on Labour’s record and policies.
60. he’ll be repeating this for days, with as I said earlier, a few minor changes. The fact that this UUP thing is only being reported by the guardian as being somehow bad for Cameron doesn’t matter, it must constantly be repeated to give that idea credence! It will be repeated every few minutes, hour after hour, with no replies to any arguements against it, apart from a few snide remarks that don’t address the question or simply insult the person asking it. Tim is boring, predictable and worst of all, self important.
68
Correct.
And the last four weeks are key..
I expect teh Conservatives have something planned. If not, they deserve to lose.
61 publicity ,it will be one of the ‘followed ‘ seats
62 “On Monday, the party accused Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward of political and emotional blackmail.
UUP deputy leader Danny Kennedy said Mr Woodward had “disgracefully” linked the vote to the anniversary of the murder of Constable Stephen Carroll…”
73 - The fact that this UUP thing is only being reported by the guardia
I suggest you turn on your TV
is tim suggesting the Labour route of bending over and taking whatever SF ask for without vaseline ?
61 - Reduces the (already pretty slim) chance of UKIP getting a seat. Good news for UKIP is generally bad news for the BNP as a right wing competitor.
68. 72/74 Of course the simple fact that Labour will not be able to push a procession of Ministers onto the TV screen day after day as they have done in recent weeks will cause a noteable shift in the feel of the campaign and likely a shift in the narrative too.
78 Tim seems to think that we should do as George W Bush orders!!
Wonder how many votes ‘cameron defies dubya ‘ wins the tories ?
From Waugh
http://waugh.standard.co.uk/2010/03/former-mi5-chief-to-probe-lord-paul.html
77. Thanks for selectively quoting my post, you’ve just proved my point.
79 also tit for tat as I believe UKIP are putting up a celebrity (boxing promotor?) in Barking
Oh and PB gets a name check on ConHome
TimMontgomerie PoliticalBetting.com notes that TEN pollsters will be covering this General Election http://is.gd/a2oKS
43 ‘William Hague has been locked in a box somewhere’
tim, it would come as no surprise to discover the subject of your current crush in the cellar. Have you hobbled him yet, so that escape is impossible and you can have Wee Willie all to yourself?
83: tim, selective quoting and misrepresention? Never!!
Oh I notice you went quiet quickly on the Torbay thing on the last thread….
81. “Tim seems to think that we should do as George W Bush orders!!”
Well, Toni did and tim is a dedicated Toni fan.
He thinks that since Blair had no backbone no-one else should have one either.
81 I suppose its quite nostalgic though for labour in having to be ordered about by George W Bush again
Has anyone got hold of the Populus detailed data yet. It must be getting close to the 18 hour threshold…..
87 yes that was strange given how ’serious’ Tim thinks the allegation of an MP not declaring stuff in his Interests is .
79. Why do you say that? The BNP does best in the Labour heartlands, as you would expect from a party which has a manefesto based on old labour + racism. UKIP has its strongest presence in the sourthwest where the BNP have no presence at all and is normally a fight between the Liberals and Tories. This implies that they are fishing in different vote pools.
Chevron puts Welsh oil refinery up for sale - if no buyer found it’ll be shut down - 1200 jobs - just on Sky now.
81 Tim seems to think that we should do as George W Bush orders!!
Well it worked in Iraq, didn’t it? (Unless you mind about hundreds of thousands of brown civilian chaps dying and hundreds of our troops and billions of our pounds all to no end at all).
But look on the bright side, it would have cost a lot more if Gordon had given in to the military’s endless whining demands for helicopters and body armour. Troughers.
I seem to remember Bush, or rather, Bush’s brain Karl Rove banning Tory access to the White House. So the idea that Bush could somehow talk man to man with his Conservative friend Cameron doesn’t wash. Bush was and as far as i know is, a big spending New Labour man.
Still, nice of him to now see the benefits of a peace process in a region hit by strife. The words horse, stable door and bolted come to mind in his case.
92 i think its more revenge for UKIP ‘larging’ it in Barking. If UKIP are spoiling BNP’s chances of their only seat then BNP are going to do the same in UKIP’s only chance
93: Britain=best placed…Gordon said so.
86: Tim - was Hague “locked in a box” on Wednesday when he did PMQs, after Gordon managed to find some excuse for dropping out?
The more pollsters the better. Are Opinium BPC members?
I have to say, the company name and symbol is terrible. Atomic number 7 is nitrogen, which is most readily associated with fertiliser. I expect that they would rather not be associated with that.
If instead you see the symbol as atomic number 107, that is Bohrium. Also not a good association.
92. It’s probably the greatest nightmare for those on the left to face. That is that the BNP are undoubtably born of socialism (a particularly ominous and odious strain of socialism of course) but nevertheless a strain of socialism…..
O/T FPT Miss Nightshade Exeter 2.30 won at 6-4 ( 15-8 available at Betfair prior to the off ) . Hope Richard Dodds enjoyed my nap .
I personally think if labour /tim want to run with ‘cameron defies Bush’ for the next week then the tories should let them/him
UUP are grandstanding. But given they lost their leadership of the Unionist community over this issue, with the DUP then saying No, I can hardly blaming for making others sweat.
81. You have to love the Gurniad fuming because a British politician won’t do what the Americans tell him to do!!
92 - In Buckingham, do you think that the BNP will take votes from (a) the Speaker, a former Conservative MP with good links to the Labour party, very much an establishment figure or (b) UKIP, a party that prides itself on being outside the political establishment and whose candidate is fresh from having been fined by the EU Parliament for an abusive attack on the EU President?
I know which option I’d pick.
99 antifrank - According to Anthony Wells, their BPC membership is pending.
103 - UUP are p*ssing away their remaining credibility. Sad but true.
102. Just the other day the smearbots were frothing about the Tories’ ’secret talks’ with the ‘homophobic’ DUP..now they are screaming at the Tories to get into bed with them…
28 — LaurenceAllen,
You are holidaying in Agra?! Take a quickly plane and go to Kerala — much better. Agra must be one of the worst cities in India. Dirty, scammy and poisonous.
107 on the contrary, UUP are retaining credibility for not doing what americans want them to unlke labour who lost all theirs when they invaded iraq with Bush
109 I thought Jodphur was worse myself but not much to choose between them!
107.Every party is grandstanding. Each wants the credit for being the peacemaker. Even Bush, in retirement has an eye on his legacy. How much of his day do you presume he spent thinking about this issue?
How many on here just look at the posters name first before reading the posting?, and when they see that it is Tim, just move on.
I know Cameron is probably too polite to have done it but I wish he had told Bush (when he rang him) that he had no credibility after the Iraq mess he left and would not be influenced about an area of the UK by americans .
Cameron isn’t defying Bush or Clinton. He says he agrees
with them but has no influence over his allies.
Another unforced error.
88 tim and Tony. I wonder if that was the inspiration for the Sebastian and Prime Minister sketches in Little Britain.
113 Not very many judging by the number of posters who reply to Tim’s postings .
92 - You could say the same for the areas of Lib Dem and Labour historic strength. They tend to be different (bit less so now) but that doesn’t mean they aren’t very often after similar people.
You’re certainly right that there is a strong strain of socialism in Griffin’s platform, but that is hardly their USP which is just a rather more aggressive form of the UKIP’s pulling up the drawbridge agenda.
115 so he IS defying them by not influencing the UUP then surely?
115.Good to hear Cameron has no influnce over his allies.Would that be a reciprocal arrangement if the UU were a key part of a Hung parialment coalition -I think not.
112 - The UUP’s problem is that it is coming too late to grandstanding. It is never going to win over those impressed by such activities (and the TUV will outflank the DUP on that side anyway) while, in attempting to do so, it is only going to annoy the sensible strand of unionism that has stood by them all these years.
112 - “How much of his day do you presume he spent thinking about this issue?”
How much of his day do you presume Bush spent thinking at all?
The great strategy of the Tory-UUP alliance has managed to weaken both parties and has no upside.
121 He got re-elected which his dad didn’t manage
117 Mark Senior
pretty funny for you!
Personally I read tim’s posts for comedy value and to count my blessings. I do totally ignore BenM though, as he is a tool.
122 The great strategy of the George Bush-Labour alliance has managed to weaken both parties and has no upside.
122. How has it weakened them both? I fully expect no answer.
O/T does anyone know who the oldest and youngest candidates will be at the next election?
115. How exactly? Where has he said he no influence on them? What he’s said is “But Mr Cameron said: “The one thing we cannot do is force people to vote a particular way.”
He added: “We played a thoroughly constructive role, very, very supportive of what the government wants to do and what we all want to do, which is to see devolution work properly.”"
What I expected to happen is happening, you’ve started making claims with no backup, and will continue to do so for several days. Your so predictable.
107 - No they’re not.
They are giving themselves a chance of turning the tables on the DUP.
The DUP spent years accusing Trimble of backing down against Sinn Fein and made capital out of it. Then the Chuckle Brothers act came along and the DUP have backed down due in part to their leadership being in a mess.
So now the UUP want some voters back.
Credibility in NI politics is based on saying no as often as you can without actually bringing the system down. This issue is a free run for the UUP since they can say no without harming anyone.
127 is tony Benn’s grandaughter the youngest? 18 or 19 ish -nice work if you can get it btw
oldest -skinner?
129 - “They are giving themselves a chance of turning the tables on the DUP.”
Er, no. Not really. The TUV is positioned to take votes on that side of the DUP, the UUP cant credibly do it. People arent idiots you know.
How old is Skinner? And that chap in Swansea? Ken Clarke is what, 70?
132 I think Ken CLarke would not be too happy with you -he is 67 i think
Going back to the marginals poll I am assuming that they have looked at just the Labour-held Tory targets in the 51-150 band on Anthony’s list. This includes the following Scottish seats:
Dumfries and Galloway
Edinburgh South
Ochil and South Perthshire
Renfrewshire East
What are PBers thoughts on if these could fall? Secondly, based on the polling data, Labour are doing much better in Scotland than they are elsewhere vis-a-vis the lead. Remove these and does it alter the relative positions in a statistically significant manner do we think?
122 - Why?
I suggest you are totally, totally wrong. The UUP have already gained in organisation and momentum terms from the link up. Nicholson managed to increase his share of first preference in 2009, despite the addition of the TUV to the unionist battle.
132: Oldest will be Sir Peter Tapsell,
132. Skinner is 78 born 11 February 1932
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Skinner
131 - If the TUV take votes from the DUP in Unionists dominated seats that means the UUP can win.
People might not be idiots but they can vote like idiots.
136. Tapsell is 80
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Tapsell_%28UK_politician%29
131 - Also, look at the polling figures for 2009. UUP’s held up as I mentioned in my reply to Tim. It suggests who is harmed by the TUV and it isn’t the Ulster Unionists.
Alan Williams (Swansea West) is a few months younger than Tapsell and will be 80 in October.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Williams
137. 150 years ago that would have qualified him to be PM
127/130 - There is a young chap called Michael Castle who is 18 and apparently giving it a go as an Independent in Croydon Central.
131. The difference between TUV and the UUP is that TUV want to bring down Stormont and return to direct rule whereas the UUP believe that devolution of P&J should only happen when the Executive has proved itself capable of properly discharging it’s current functions. Devolution since 2007 has been a farce with regular logjams and hissy fits as the DUP and SF have spent most of the time scoring points off each other rather than governing properly. Most people are fed up with the whole pantomime and want them to get on with real issues.
The UUP will get a lot of votes back from it’s traditional moderate, middle class supporters fed up with the DUP’s posturing while TUV will take a bite out of the DUP’s traditional evangelical core vote. The 2 parties aren’t after the same people.
143 - Isn’t that John Loony’s seat?
141: But he’s not standing at the next election.
141 - I thought Frank Dobson was knocking on but hes “only” 70
Huzzah!
The detail from the Populus Marginals poll:
http://populuslimited.com/uploads/download_pdf-070310-The-Times-The-Times-Marginal-Seats-Poll—March-2010.pdf
148: Clearly wrong…the labour needs boosting by at least 25%, and the tory figure is way too high.
105. I would expect that both UKIP and the BNP would pick up votes in their normal places. UKIP from fed up Tories, the BNP from fed up Labour.
Since neither Labour nor the Tories are standing, at least not officially, I would expect there are a few votes floating around that normally end up with these parties that can be picked up by the fringe parties instead. I expect neither set of fed up voters to be big enough to unseat the speaker.
148 jsfl
Thanks for the link. Only 3% from Scotland, so presumably only 3 Scottish seats involved.
What is the point in having a governing body like the BPC if member firms are allowed to decide for themselves whether or not they include any element of weighting in their political polls?
151. Oldnat.
I’m not sure. I imagine it won’t be many given the polling figures in Scotland..
@152:
The BPC is there to ensure transparency and independence, not to bless any particular methodology. Which is as it should be, IMHO.
TORIES OPENING UP HUGE LEAD OVER LABOUR.
This just appears to show there has been no dramatic fall in the Tory lead over Labour.
In fact the most recent four polls show Labour an average of 10% behind the Tories. The next most recent four polls show Labour an average of 6% behind the Tories. At that rate the Tories will be 14% ahead of Labour by the beginning of April.
Labour leaders are today wondering why their challenge has failed so miserably. And political pundits and commentators are today wondering why they are so completely useless.
148 Interesting data , net small movement in the marginal seats from Conservative to LibDems with Conservative and LibDem 2005 voters not much evidence of a squeeze here .
FFS - how childish
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/mar/09/civil-servants-imitate-answering-machines
“Civil servants who continued working during yesterday’s national strike have revealed they were told to pretend to be answering machines to cope with an overload of calls from the public.
Staff at the Department for Work and Pensions in Carlisle said today they were given a brief script to read out before hanging up, in the style found on telephone answering machines.
The instruction by managers was initially leaked on Facebook after chitchat between strikers and colleagues who had stayed at work. One worker said: “To begin with, we all found it hard to keep a straight face, and occasionally, I slipped up and I ended up giving my name to the person who was calling.”
The staff said their fake-robot message was issued for peak lunchtime, between midday and 2pm. The script read: “Due to the high volume of enquiries we are currently experiencing we are unable to take your call. Please call back later.”
143: Sir Norfolk: Michael Castle standing in Croydon…
So that’s presumably a different Michael Castle from the Great Yarmouth Borough Councillor, who is standing for Labour in South Norfolk.
Interesting to look at the detailed Populus data.
75% think it’s time for a change from Labour, but still almost as many people are expecting an outright Labour victory as an outright Conservative win (25% vs 32%), and 33% expecting a hung parliament.
Fear of a hung parliament not obviously driving voters to the Conservatives then.
Booooo Hisssssss
BBC licence fee to increase by 2%
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/mar/09/licence-fee-rise
That really is taking the piss…..
77% in that marginals poll think that David Cameron is strong and determined. Tim, you need to put in some extra shifts trying to get your counter-meme out there.
Unless my eyes are deceiving me, those Populus tables don’t detail what the 100 constituencies were. Which is useful.
160 - So, in real terms, it’s actually going down.
Vanity Fair painted a portrait of Cameron : “a snob, a toff, and an upper-class twit”
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2010/04/david-cameron-201004?printable=true
…David Cameron—former P.R. man, Conservative aristocrat, and onetime member of the infamous secret society that is Oxford’s answer to Skull and Bones…
…David Cameron has “alchemized a position of more or less glutinous consensus,” says fellow Tory Boris Johnson.
…Cameron is a politician who quells, smooths, conflates, reassures.
…“I don’t believe for a minute he believes protecting the N.H.S. is a good idea,” says Fraser Nelson, editor of The Spectator, the Tory-leaning weekly, with some mixture of disdain and admiration.
…Cameron is appealing because he’s closer than most to Johnson’s re-invented toff.
Cameron could make plasticity and marketing technique a political virtue—that is, in a sense, what he’s running on.
After Oxford, Cameron becomes a Conservative Party apparatchik. He’s shortly a party favorite, renowned, even in his 20s, for his talents at preparing politicians for question time—when members of Parliament querulously question government ministers.
He meets Rachel Whetstone, a Tory aide and marketing prodigy, and her future husband, Steve Hilton, a Saatchi & Saatchi executive, who will become the pillars of the Cameron marketing and brand-development brain trust. (Whetstone is now a senior marketing executive at Google.)
And he meets his future wife, the personable Samantha Sheffield, who will become one of his greatest political assets and whose family is even more highborn and wealthy than his—her father is a descendant of King Charles II; her stepfather is William Astor.
It’s through her family that he exits politics in 1994, at the age of 28, and goes to work as a P.R. man for Carl ton, the television company. This is, it should be noted, not just the P.R. business, but the P.R. business to the media business, which is yet another layer on top of another layer of artifice.
In 2001 he’s awarded a safe Conservative seat and becomes a new-blood Conservative backbencher. He bonds with another young M.P. and eager political marketer, the 30-year-old George Osborne, also a former Bullingdon Club member—they become cyclists, which they will adopt as a symbol of Conservative vigor and eco-friendliness—and both soon become part of party leader Michael Howard’s inner circle.
In Conservative shorthand, Osborne, the brilliant tactician, will become the brains of the party; Boris Johnson, the party’s most charismatic figure, its soul; and Cameron, the most media-ready of the new blood, its face.
In 2005, after Howard goes down in the Conservative Party’s third consecutive overwhelming defeat, Cameron, with Osborne managing his run, makes a bid to become leader. Bookmakers put him last out of the field of candidates.
But then something happens at the party conference in Blackpool: Cameron, without lectern, teleprompter, or notes, delivers an address of such verve, spontaneity, and clarity that he sweeps the conference. …
Liberal columnist Bob Herbert of the NYT once again resumes his lonely battle to warn his fellow Democrats of the danger they’re courting by pursuing an endless healthcare agenda instead of a jobs agenda:
“The Obama administration and Democrats in general are in trouble because they are not urgently and effectively addressing the issue that most Americans want them to: the frightening economic insecurity that has put a chokehold on millions of American families… [O]nce you realize that it will take 11 million or more new jobs to get us back to where we were when the recession began, you begin to understand that we’re not really making any headway at all…
Instead of focusing with unwavering intensity on this increasingly tragic situation, making it their top domestic priority, President Obama and the Democrats on Capitol Hill have spent astonishing amounts of time and energy, and most of their political capital, on an obsessive quest to pass a health care bill… [W]hile the nation is desperate for jobs, jobs, jobs, the Democrats have spent most of the Obama era chanting health care, health care, health care.
The talk inside the Beltway, that super-incestuous, egomaniacal, reality-free zone, is that President Obama and the Democrats have a messaging or public relations problem. We’re being told — and even worse, Mr. Obama and the Democrats are being told — that their narrative is not getting through. In other words, the wonderfulness of all that they’ve done is somehow not being recognized by the slow-to-catch-on masses. That’s just silly. People are upset because they are mired in economic distress and are losing faith that their elected representatives are looking out for their best interests…
It’s not the message that’s a problem for Mr. Obama and the Democrats, it’s the all-too-clear reality. People know that the government that is supposed to be looking out for ordinary people — for working people and the poor — is not doing nearly enough about an employment crisis that is lowering standards of living and hollowing out the American dream… The many millions of new jobs needed to make a real dent in the employment crisis are not going to materialize by themselves. Mr. Obama and the Democrats don’t seem to understand that.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/09/opinion/09herbert.html
159. Nice bit of mixing your questions there.
So the first one…
Time for Change Yes but unsure about Conservatives 41%
Yes and time for Conservatives 34%
No its no time for a novice 19%
Now that doesn’t look good for Labour but gives plenty of opportunity for the Conservatives in the remaining few weeks.
Just come back from a fortnight in Australia.
Watching the TV news and reading the press about the economy there and coming back here, the difference couldnt be starker.
The papers there are full of stories of economic growth, no deficits, an economy that looks like it will grow strongly for years to come, rising wages, and Oz being the envy of the developed world.
What a come down to return to filthy old London, strain etched into the population’s miserable faces, and Brown’s broken Britain.
I can’t wait to leave.
Sadly the house can’t be sold here to get a better one there - there’s no point moving pounds into Aus dollars now, after Brown’s 40% devaluation of our currency - Australia is as expensive as Switzerland now, for pauperised UK residents - renting will have to do, at least for a while.
Yet another Ashcroft story. Lots of these hitting local papers all over. Still, nothing to worry about, isn’t that right Tories?
http://www.thisiswesternmorningnews.co.uk/mattchorley/MyConservatives-com-raises-1-West-target/article-1897566-detail/article.html
156. Mark - very interesting indeed!
164 - ‘”Boris Johnson, the party’s most charismatic figure, its soul”‘
I think it’s a touch romantic to suggest that Boris was the Tory Party’s ’soul’ at that time.
169 - More accurate to describe him as the loins of the Tory party, I’d have thought.
165 — Spot on, methinks.
On the eve of the Obama Administration, quite high on the massive dose of Cool-Obama Stuff I had drunk, I was dreamily imagining the Prez starting huge, state-sponsored construction projects : new roads, new highways, new schools, new hospitals, new everything — in order to create jobs, jobs, jobs.
None of it happened.
It is apparently because of the Obamacare obsession?
159 As to the election outcome
32% Conservative Victory
25% Labour Victory
33% Hung Parliament
Now reading the question it doesn’t ask what they want. It asks what they think will happen. So it seems to me that all it proves is that 33% of the electorate in these marginals have bought into the questionable media narrative about a hung parliament.
Of course there is a significant swing to the Conservatives in these seats and who knows what the motivation behind that swing is? However, without detailed questioning that the poll failed to do we have no idea whether the hung parliament narrative is a motive for voting any particular way or not…..
The oldest MP I can find is Dennis Skinner born in 1932, followed by Glenda Jackson Born 1936(Well apart from the retiring Sir Ian Paisley born 1926). I think the youngest MP at the moment is Cloe Smith who is 27 or 28.
164: ““I don’t believe for a minute he believes protecting the N.H.S. is a good idea,” says Fraser Nelson, editor of The Spectator, the Tory-leaning weekly, with some mixture of disdain and admiration.”
Either Fraser has been badly misquoted, he’s a fool or Vanity Fair doesn’t know anything about anything to do with British politics.
I suspect the latter.
169 — Author wrote the BoJo will become the Conservative Party’s soul, and Cammo it’s leader.
173. Paul B See 137, 139 & 141
Tapsell and Williams are older than Skinner…..
OT Urgh.
Tonight’s Newsnight
Former priest Bill Carney was named as one of the worst cases in Dublin’s Catholic diocese in the Murphy report into clerical abuse there. However, for the last 10 years he has been free to live quietly in Britain.
Newsnight’s Olenka Frenkiel has investigated his case and tracked him down in the Canary Islands.
167 Australians blowing their own trumpet? Surely not!
Osborne, the brilliant tactician, will become the brains of the party; Boris Johnson, the party’s most charismatic figure, its soul; and Cameron, the most media-ready of the new blood, its face.
Meantime IDS, Grayling and Hague become its back, sack and crack.
79 And what are you Tim…
James “insert nickname here” MacIntyre has this:
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/public-accounts/2010/03/recent-blitzes-160-despite
If you wade through his prediction of doom, the gist is that the Tories are planning a new poster campaign.
173 - Blimey, Glenda is as old as my dad! Isn’t she the next door MP to Frank Dobson?
171- I think Obama originally imagined he could do it all, passing a stimulus bill on Monday, Obamacare on Wednesday (all of Tuesday was wasted in wrangling over the details of the bill), Cap and Trade on Thursday, and then immigration reform on Friday, just in time for a weekend spent on the golf course. But he and his party have been completely derailed by healthcare reform, never imagining the thing could drag on past September or October, let alone to March. But unable to move forward and unwilling to move on, the Democrats are forced on in a nightmarish march that causes all other issues to go ignored and feeds public anger.
I mentioned immigration, since that’s one other area where complaints are rising by the day. But unlike the jobs issue, which has resonance across the political spectrum, it’s Obama’s base that is becoming enraged over neglected immigration issues:
“Leaders of nearly a dozen grass-roots immigrant rights groups excoriated President Obama and congressional Democrats on Monday, accusing them of moving too slowly to legalize the status of undocumented immigrants and citing a record number of deportations in 2009. “Our community is angry. Our members feel betrayed,” said Brent Wilkes, executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens. “We never believed in our wildest dreams that President Obama would have a record like this”…
Advocates have promised to bring tens of thousands of demonstrators to Washington for a March 21 protest and to punish Democrats at the polls in November if an immigration bill is not brought to a vote. “No legalization. No reelection,” Emma Lozano, executive director of the Chicago-based Centro Sin Fronteras, told reporters…
Immigration advocates in Washington and lobbyists working [on immigration reform] said privately that the [Democrats'] effort amounts to political damage control. We just don’t see how this can happen in 2010. The best we can do is to get an outline [of a bill] out and have a couple of hearings,” said one lobbyist, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing talks. “This is a way for everyone to say, ‘We are doing something, and we are committed to getting something through Congress after the election.’” That may not be enough, said Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum. “A legislative show is not going to be acceptable,” he said. “The necessity here is a bipartisan piece of legislation that gets to the Senate floor, and that will be the marker that immigrant voters and others will use in November 2010 and November 2012 and beyond”…
The outcry reflects the growing disillusionment on the ground in Latino and immigrant communities. “People are suffering. Millions and millions of people cannot drive, cannot go to school, live in fear,” said Dae Joong Yoon, the executive director of the Korean Resource Center in Los Angeles. “In 2008 many of our community members voted for change. . . . We’ve been waiting, waiting, waiting. But since then our president, our Congress members, have been in a deep sleep. So now we’re saying, ‘We can’t take it anymore! Wake up! Do something!’”"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/08/AR2010030804898.html
181, Bedpans!
I’m going to keep using that name until it catches on.
MacIntyre is a twit. Can be entertaining though, in a Draperesque, Bizarro world sort of way.
Table 7:
If you concluded that … had no chance of winning in the constituency where you live, and it was clearly a two-horse race between Labour and the Conservatives, would you…?
Vote Tory to stop Labour - 13%
Vote Labour to stop Tory - 11%
Vote for preferred party - 57%
Table 9:
Which party do you think is most likely to win locally, in the constituency where you live?
Conservative - 29%
Labour - 48%
LibDem - 6%
Other - 2%
Don’t Know - 14%
185 - That table 7 suggests that tactical voting is going to be less prevalent than some would like to believe.
173/176 Gerald Kaufmann was born in 1930 . AFAIK he is standing again .
179 Mike Smithson
Please anticipate legislation on Dangerous Dogs by identifying, microchipping and insuring tim.
Be assured that I am not holding you personally to account. As a Tory, I do not blame ownership but prefer to attach blame to poor breeding and inadequate schooling.
185 SL Nick
I find table 9 intriguing in that people don’t seem to be aware how feasible that the seat might change hands. There is a clear disparity in the voting intentions and the result outcome expectations.
Clearly the Conservative candidates need to work on getting the message that change is achievable out there.
@185: Those are very interesting figures. So there’s a built-in 6 point tactical bonus for the Tories; but, the second figures imply some more potential upside for them, too.
Over half of people think that Labour are going to win, so, perhaps, rather more of those “Stop labour” votes would be realized than the “stop Tory”.
Or, alternately, peering at the details of the polls causes psephological blindness and I should go and have a lie down.
186, it may be that some people who would otherwise vote tactically are disgusted by expenses and will go for the BNP, or UKIP or the Greens as a protest vote.
When are they going to announce the bloody Budget? I grow tired of waiting.
185 SthLondon - A very interesting result in Table 9. Could this perhaps be a cause of Andy Cooke’s differential swing? If voters in so-called marginals predominantly think the incumbent will win (which is not surprising: in this case, most of these seats having been Labour since at least 1997), then that might dampen down pro-incumbent tactical voting, and fire up anti-incumbent tactical voting.
186 Not necessarily, antifrank: bear in mind we are interested in the change in tactical voting since 2005.
158 - I think we can safely say that there are two Michael Castles, if not more!
The Croydon Michael Castle is a possibly somewhat eccentric college student from Croydon (but bless him for giving the democratic process a spin and good luck to the young fellow).
185. As the poll predicts that the Tories will win half of the seats, the Labour figure in Table 9 is almost spot on (if they all live in targets 51-100.
Interesting that the expectation on the ground is less of a seat grab by the Tories than the figures suggest. By implication, this suggests that many voters do not fully appreciate that they live in a marginal “been Labour for ages” (i.e. since 1997) “don’t expect the Tories to win round here”. That is a perception that the Tories will need to overcome.
184: ‘MacIntyre is a twit.’
Yes, and I was appalled to read his and Draper’s email exchanges of homophobia and schoolboy sexist smut!
http://order-order.com/2010/03/08/absolutely-brilliant-feminists/
188. Seth. Is there any point? I thought once the symptoms of rabies had become evident there was no cure. If that’s the case there really is only one option…..
You’ll never pin down my bloodline.
Unlike
http://static.gotpetsonline.com/pictures-gallery/dog-pictures-breeders-puppies-rescue/afghan-hound-pictures-breeders-puppies-rescue/pictures/afghan-hound-0016.jpg
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01360/Jacob_rees-Mogg_1360625c.jpg
195 sandy That is a perception that the Tories will need to overcome.
Not quite. Ideally they need to overcome it amongst Tory-leaning voters, but encourage it amongst Labour-leaning voters.
Hard to do the latter, of course, but the former can be done with telephone canvassing and a well-organised GOTV operation
199 ‘You’ll never pin down my bloodline.’
That’s true. Interbred mongrel is probably a pain to analyse.
201. EdP
???????
http://www.biopix.com/Temp/JCS%20Rattus%20norvegicus%2035122.jpg
200. Richard, I take your point. Differential turnout could be make or break in these seats.
This one’s already in the doghouse, unchipped.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5828668/vaizey-drops-cameron-in-it-again.thtml
‘Unlawful killing’ verdict in the case of four soldiers in Afghanistan.
Justine Greening to run Tory GE campaign in London
http://waugh.standard.co.uk/2010/03/justine-greening-to-run-tory-ge-campaign-in-london.html
187 - Tapsell is a shade older than Kaufman. I also query whether Kaufman might retire at the last minute. Betting markets suggest he is in a little trouble and the expenses scandal was pretty bad for him, even though the straightforward figures suggest he’ll be okay.
187/190//191/193/196 - It does strike me as coming down to a GOTV operation. The downsides is that Tory leaning voters can’t be bothered because Labour are going to win here and Labour leaning don’t bother as they will win anyway. The upside is that the Tory candidates are really going to have to make sure that they get their vote out and Labour are going to need to get their vote out.
Table 2 has the figures Tory 38%, Labour 36% which I think is the certainty to vote adjusted figures before the spiral of silence. Now look at Table 6:
If you do end up voting differently, which party are you most likely to vote for instead of …?
Conservative - 14%
Labour - 17%
LibDem - 28%
There is more potential switching to Labour than Tory but there is a lot of potential switching to the LibDems…
Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t MPs who are defeated get an extra severance pay? Or has that changed? There was a famous case of Willie Hamilton in the 1980s, who announced his retirement from his safe Scottish seat, only to head south to fight the hopeless prospect of South Hams, so he could “collect” the extra payment.
It seems odd to characterize Labour MPs in marginals who are standing down as “chicken”, since they seem to be passing up a nice little bonus.
Or am I missing something?
Interesting that Opinium does not show any increase at all in Labour’s share of the vote since Christmas - in contrast to most other pollsters.
209 - I have heard from a couple of source that the position has changed, although I can’t give you chapter and verse.
207 Sir Norfolk
Perhaps Kaufman is waiting for Brown to offer him a peerage. He has after all bought the grapefruit dishes to match the station.
November 2010 will be interesting!
The unfortunate state of America — declining cities, violent Metropolis, the generalized contempt for Washington DC, the widespread nihilism, the slavish relation vis-à-vis everything technological, the rampant isolation of individuals and couples, the formation of huge networks of criminal gangs and wealthy private militias– points toward a post-national disintegration of America into a multiplicity of antagonistic factions, with terrorism and ubiquitous continuous police-monitoring as a way of life.
I’m sticking with my prediction : a second Civil War in the US before 2022.
This coming new war might bring a New America, informed by social Darwinism in action, ie the death and violence against the weaks.
Sad but natural, we might add.
As Nietzsche wrote, at some point, the strong has to defend himself against the weak.
Obama is becoming the symbol of a weak “democracy”, aimed at protecting the average man, the Man of the Masses, the one with the demographic strength and good clean-cut “morality” for him. The gregarious. The inane. The typical leftie. The strongs — the aristocrats–, they form a minority in nature, and they are now directly threatened by the accelerated gregarization of politcs in the US.
America is falling; it is being kicked out Eden.
American cities are “disappearing”, they are fragmenting; and this process opens the space for a civil war, where citizens have to become soldiers — not part of the federal state, but of semi-private, highly localised militias, in order to survive and build something new. A New America.
It’s now on a quest for the promised land.
184. Stars, a quick question. Even UK commentators are now picking up on how the US is likely to be looking for an “anti-Obama” candidate in 2012. e.g. Someone with a track record of getting things done, most likely a Governor.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/7386131/Wanted-short-fat-white-man-to-succeed-Barack-Obama.html
Do you think that a likely scenario, and if so, who do think might be a good bet? I will declare at this point a number of long odds bets on Mitch Daniels of Indiana.
206. Nice, she could do a very good job.
212. my feeling is also that surely kaufman will stand down at the last minute, collect a peerage and allow for a favoured brownite to be parachuted in to what is still i think in reality a safe seat at that stage.
209 - I believe that’s changed, Rod, in the interests of discouraging bed-blocking. A major reason why your by-election sample size has been decreasing over the years
If anybody needed confirmation of how little interest people have in politics, Dispatches last night on David Cameron had an audience of 910,000.
Just watched the first ever edition of Question Time. How very different life was then, the questions discussed were the Pope visiting these islands, employment rights, charges for public libraries, animal welfare, trades union reform.
The programme had only 4 panellists, was expertly hosted by the late great Robin Day, fast moving, audience heckling and involved, Teddy Taylor clashing with Michael Foot. The programme today is a shadow of it’s former self.
215, I agree. Although she has little competition, I think Greening is amongst the best women in politics. Not a screeching harridan like Hatemen, nor a useless mumsy twit like May.
209: They probably just don’t want to have to face the campaign and work involved (and personal expense!) in a fight they’ll probably lose.
194 - I take your point. However, in this sample, 24% say that they aren’t going to vote Tory or Labour. 57% of that 24% say that they wouldn’t ever vote tactically. They may of course be lying.
Since these voters include the 14% of Lib Dem voters who are, I would have thought, more flexible in their voting allegiances than most, my conclusion seems fair enough.
Caveman — FWIW, I’d say only one thing : the Republican Presidential candidate in 2012 will be someone perceived a *new*, fresh, very remote from CD.
There’s a LOT of anger out there, and the mass wants new blood; someone able to canalise the ferocious anger against the political and financial establishment.
It won’t be Palin nor Huckabee nor Romney; that I’m sure off — for they are not new blood, not fresh faces anymore.
220. She’s fairly good, can look a little serious when doing interviews, but she’s a future minister.
Interesting article/ comment on the Conservative/UUP alliance http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8557888.stm
I would question one assumption “{the alliance] had, Mr Cameron said today, the thoroughly noble aim of helping to end sectarian divides.”
Given that the absolute fault line in NI politics is whether NI is in the UK or not, how could he possibly think that fielding mainland Tory candidates dressed up as Unionists would help? Ever since Thatcher signed the Anglo Irish agreement the UK government has tried to present itself as an honest broker above internal NI politics (although the Nationalists would disagree). An alliance with one of the NI parties will strengthen Nationalist feelings that the UK government is biased towards the Unionists.
And the proposed name - the Ulster Conservatives and Unionists New Force or UCUNF, shame they spotted that!!!
208. SL Nick
I think you will find its pretty much 6 of one and half a dozen of the other when you look at the numbers who might switch to who (the voting intention columns):
Con 79 (23% of the Conservative vote) might switch
Lab 81 (25% of the Labour vote) might switch
LD 45 (34% of the Libdem vote) might switch
Now the direct switcher figures for the two main parties are almost identical (32 & 31 respectively) but the main area of variance is where Libdem voters might switch. There Labour have the advantage of 3 to 2. So in tight contests it may be Labour’s ability to woo Libdems (or Conservatives ability to put Libdems off Labour) that proves decisive…..
218. A pity. Osborne’s masterful delivery of the line “you misunderstand the importance of the Office for Budget Responsibility” really deserved to be seen by a wider audience.
What odds did you get on Mitch Daniels?
212 - Don’t mock poor old Kaufman and his “self-diagnosed OCD”. Just be thankful that his line of work meant his illness didn’t bankrupt him and only played a small part in bankrupting the rest of us!
209: the current position is exactly the same (typically about 6 months’ pay) whether you stand down voluntarily or get defeated. It was changed to avoid ‘fake candidacies’. One reform proposal (Kelly) is to reduce this to two months’ pay. Another (IPSA) is to abolish it altogether, or only to have it for those who are defeated. IPSA is still reflecting on this.
Bookies’ best prices - Hung Parliament?
No 4/7 (SkyBet)
Yes 11/8 (VC)
225. The problem is that the Tory/UUP link won’t have the effect of making NI politics less sectarian, it’ll just bring a British party into (or back into) the heart of that sectarian divide.
In any case, the purpose for the Tories was not to combat sectarianism, it was to be able to say “look, we’ve got some MPs outside England”.
218 Mike L, do you know what the viewing figures for Panorama ‘Trust Us, We’re an NHS Hospital’, broadcast at the same time on BBC1 were please?
Ladbrokes are offering Evens that Labour will get a GB vote share of under 30%.
The reason the others are so high on this is because the Lib Dems are so bloody low. The Con/Lab numbers seem normal, but like AR with Labour, the Lib Dems are under represented.
218 Correction, you mean, ‘how little interest people have in David Cameron.’ That would be my interpretation of the viewing figures.
231 - There’s plenty of 13/8 about No Overall Majority, Stuart, and Ladbrokes are 7/4. In fact that 4/7 with Skybet can be arbed on betfair who are 2.84 NOM.
Minor (or is it?) Defection alert (John Kampfner - new Statesman) Lab to LD
http://blogs.news.sky.com/boultonandco/Post:492779e0-e797-4cbc-9261-8e463bf06ca4
236.That would be my interpretation of the viewing figures.
Well bully for you Lilly. You never know, one day, someone might agree with you…….
209 Rod, MPs get Resettlement Grant if they stand down or lose at a general election.
Severance pay is three months salary paid to ministers if they lose their job and don’t get appointed to another paid post within three weeks. Doesn’t go to those who resign only those sacked / re-shuffled out to back benches or presumably to the 106 (excl PM, Lord Chancellor) who lose their jobs after an election (as ministers hold their jobs irrespective of whether a Parliament is sitting until HMQ appoints a new lot).
227 I think Osborne and his proposed adviser are at odds. One thinks that the other is setting the policy, muddle, muddle, muddle. Typical Osborne gaff.
235. On what basis do you base that. What figures are you using to make that assumption?
“Every year, the problem gets worse. Every year, insurance companies deny more people coverage because they’ve got preexisting conditions. Every year, they drop more people’s coverage when they get sick right when they need it most. Every year, they raise premiums higher and higher and higher.
Just last month, Anthem Blue Cross in California tried to jack up rates by nearly 40 percent — 40 percent. Anybody’s paycheck gone up 40 percent?”
QED.
Republicans are in their own alternative universe where they didn’t screw things up be supporting the unfunded Medicare D. Nice to let them show their hypocrisy but don’t for one minute trust a single word they say.
I could have posted about Liz Cheney acting like McCarthy, about the way that a moderate like Crist is now getting only 28% support from his party whereas the more extreme Rubio gets double, that we are finding out more and more as to how the previous Republican administration promoted and supported torture but really what’s the point? They are destroying American conservatism and they appear to be quite happy with that.
214- Caveman, I’ve commented on this here before, suggesting that Mitch Daniels was in fact a guy worth keeping an eye on. I don’t really think he’ll be the nominee because 1) he’s said himself that he doesn’t intend to run or at least that it’s very unlikely he’ll run, 2) he’s not terribly telegenic or well-spoken, and 3) he has close ties to the Bush White House. However, it’s good to be thinking along these lines to ferret out the next GOP nominee.
I don’t know if you were keeping your eye on the gubernatorial primary election in Texas last week, but it was instructive re: the 2012 GOP presidential nomination. In that race, the incumbent governor was in a close race with popular Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. Governor Perry ended up handily defeating Hutchison, in no small part because he was able to portray her as part of the Washington establishment. Being identified with Washington these days is toxic, and it played a big role in his ability to defeat her.
So I’d say you’re right: in 2012, look for a GOP nominee who is not tied to the Washington establishment and is not a discredited or stale retread from past campaigns. Rather, he/she should ideally be a governor or former governor who has personality, energy, and a credible platform from which to excoriate all that is wrong with Washington. That kind of candidate and message will resonate well with GOP primary voters.
238 jsfl - From Boulton’s article: Under this scenario the Lib Dems would be taking seats from Labour in the North and Scotland…
Has he seen recent polls for Scotland, I wonder?
Chris Huhne has been elevated to the Son of God…
http://waugh.standard.co.uk/2010/03/chris-huhne-offers-a-route-to-heaven.html
245. “Has he seen recent polls for Scotland, I wonder?”
That’s a very revealing slip on his part.
225 RE UUP.
In opinion polls the people of Ulster have indicated that they want politicians to stop bickering and get on with the peace process.The only aprty still looking to the past today are the UUP.
I hope the voters of NI put their money where their mouth is and make sure that the UUP dont get a single seat at GE.
That will have the advantage of keeping the Tories out of Northern IReland politics and the UUP out of any hung parlaiment coalition.
Dave you need to choose your freinds more carefully!
Betting post…
Just thought I’d mention, for anyone so inclined, that on Betfair one can back an April election at 11 and lay ‘before 6 May’ at 9.6. There’s a free fiver there for anyone who can be bothered.
192. - The favourite budget dates are 17th and 24th of March, given that it’s normally done after PMQs, and is likely to be before Easter.
I’m not sure how far in advance it has to be announced though?
246 - Might just have reflected the caption writer’s immediate reaction, “Christ, Huhne”!
248. I haven’t seen the figures, but apparently there’s a poll out showing a substantial lead for the DUP over the UUP? If so, then not only have the Tories made a tactical mistake with their alliance, it’s also another small blow to their hopes of winning an overall majority at the GE.
The Budget.Some questions.
1)If there is no budget called before the financial year end, is the Govt’s ability to keep levelling taxes in anyway affected?
2) If an election and or budget called is there some mechanism that automatically allows the Govt to keep levelling taxes during an election campaign and in the period leading upto a budget?
233. Yes - Panorama last night (on the NHS) had an audience of 2.52 million.
Chris Huhne is Jesus Christ
http://waugh.standard.co.uk/2010/03/chris-huhne-offers-a-route-to-heaven.html
246 Actually, it is “Christ….Huhne….”
followed by the chorus from all of:
“What a tw@”
and then a
of the eyes heavenwards….
255 - Judging by the picture on that screengrab, he’s passing a camel through the eye of a needle.
255 - He really is holier than thou.
Lib Dem own goal in Gloucester.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7405255/Lib-Dem-candidate-caught-writing-his-own-fan-mail.html
NPMP
6 months salary??!! Even if you’ve lost after one term?! That’s amazing. Standard redundancy is something like 2 weeks per year, even striking civil servants only get about 5 weeks per year of service who h is generous enough!
re 115even if he didn’t agree with them the correct response to Bush and Clinton would be to tell them to get stuffed, so yes I’d agree with you an unforced error.
214- Oh, and I also agree that the next GOP nominee ought to be someone with substantial political experience, preferably as a governor. After the Obama experience, the last thing GOP primary voters will want is someone perceived as having too little experience to govern effectively.
245. Richard N
Clearly Boulton doesn’t look at the regional breaks……
228. 40-50/1 for the nomination and 100-150/1 for President.
His price tightened a fair bit on intrade last week on the back of some friendly press here
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/33561.html
and here
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704231304575091600470293066.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion#articleTabs_comments
and I sold a bit off, since when it’s eased back a bit.
Labour : Cameron is “criminal’s friend”
Alan Johnson…joked that prisoners would be more likely to back the Conservatives if they had the vote.
…he signalled hundreds of rapists could go free under the Tory plans to cut the length of time the DNA of innocents is kept on the national database.
… “I am urging people today to take a long hard look at the Tories’ policies on crime and particularly the fact that they would make it harder for the police to use DNA to catch criminals.
“The Conservatives have campaigned against the use of CCTV, which the evidence shows reduces the fear of crime and anti-social behaviour.
“They have made clear they would water down the police’s ability to use DNA evidence – making it harder to convict the most dangerous criminals.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/7407326/Cameron-accused-of-being-criminals-friend.html
re 225 RedRiding why not engage brain. And exactly why is the in/out question so prevalent in Northern Ireland? Because that’s all they have to vote for. It would be like there were only unionist or nationalist candidates in Scotland who define themselves solely on that basis and no other.
265 - “hundreds of rapists could go free under the Tory plans to cut the length of time the DNA of innocents is kept on the national database”.
It’s nice to see that Alan Johnson has such a high opinion of us all. Guilty till proven innocent, that’s his motto.
Not sure that one can see much, if any, systematic trend in this Opinium data. So perhaps things haven’t in fact changed a great deal over the last 6 months.
Eliminating extreme ratings that occur only once (i.e. ones that clearly do not represent a trend), the ranges are:
Conservatives 37 - 41% (42% eliminated)
Labour 27 - 32% (26% eliminated)
LD 12 - 18%
Others 13 - 19%
Taking the mid-points of these ranges gives:
Conservatives 39%
Labour 29.5%
LD 15%
Others 16%
This doesn’t look materially different from the general drift of recent polls, Conservatives with a 10% lead. The LD figure is a little low perhaps. The Electoral Calculus model gives a Conservative majority of 30. Presumably the Populus marginals’ survey and Andy Cooke would argue for 20-30 additional Conservative seats, giving them a majority of 70 - 90.
72.
I like your optimism!
266. Chris, there’s been the option of voting Tory in NI for two decades. Clearly the Tory brand wasn’t much of a draw without the sectarian add-on of the UUP (and it still may not be that much of a draw now).
265. Alan Johnson is contemptible.
265 Philippe Magnan
I wonder if that message will really resonate with C2s, as Labour would like?
I think we need polling evidence before passing judgment, though I doubt it.
“CCTV, which the evidence shows reduces the fear of crime”
but not crime per se?
C4 Factcheck says Balls did mislead Parliament on free school meals and Oxbridge
http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/2010/03/09/balls-statistical-failing-on-free-school-meals/
One more bit from the marginals poll:
89% of the Tory 2005 vote is staying loyal. 16% of Labour 2005 and 6% LibDems 2005 vote is going Tory.
73% of the Labour 2005 vote is staying loyal. 1% of Tory 2005 and 15% LibDems 2005 is voting Labour.
70% of the LibDem 2005 vote is staying loyal. 6% of the Tory 2005 and 4% Labour 2005 is voting LibDem.
(Figures from Table 2)
Compare this with the Feb national poll:
90% of the Tory 2005 vote is staying loyal. 14% of Labour 2005 and 14% LibDem 2005 is voting Tory.
70% of the Labour 2005 vote is staying loyal. 1% Tory 2005 and 8% LibDems 2005 is voting Labour.
76% of the LibDem 2005 vote is staying loyal. 3% Tory 2005 and 10% Labour 2005 is voting LibDem.
(Figures from Table 2)
So Labour is doing much better in the marginals in squeezing the LibDem vote (Iraq returners?) whilst the Tories are pulling in more LibDem 2005 voters nationally than they are in the Lab-Con contests. Nationally the LibDems seem to be getting Labour voters than they are in the Lab-Con contests. Really we could do with a Con-Lib contest survey on the same methodology to give us more insight.
On a side note for the Others, UKIP have picked up 2% of Tory, 3% of Lab and 5% of LibDem 2005 voters (though the raw figures at 17 people are very small so may be statistically irrelevant). For the BNP it is 1% from Tory and 2% from Labour but this is based on 5 people.
Looking at the voting certainty figures from Table 4 we get this:
Certain: Conservative 63%, Labour 58%, LibDem 34%
Likely but may switch: Conservative 25%, Labour 32%, LibDem 51%
Leaning but likely to switch: Conservative 11%, Labour 9%, LibDem 14%
So the LibDem vote looks very squeezable (even if it is not happening hugely at the moment). The least squeezable looks like the Tory vote with Labour having more “might” switchers than the Tories but less “likely” switchers.
Just filled in an Angus Reid survey.
Voting intention, certainty to vote etc
Views on social networking sites : Facebook etc.
Rasmussen: 57% think ObamaCare will damage economy
Eighty-one percent (81%) believe it is at least somewhat likely that the health care reform plan will cost more than official estimates. That number includes 66% who say it is very likely that the official projections understate the true cost of the plan.
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/03/09/rasmussen-57-think-obamacare-will-damage-economy/
Intrade contract now trading around 60%.
re 270 but James it’s not just the Tories. We need every seat to have Lab, LD and Tory candidates in May then we can see if they’re stuck in the past and want to consider sectarian matters only, or want to move into the future. At least the Tories are trying, new Labour wants to leave the NI voters stuck in the past and tribalism.
Vaizey Headed for the Salt Mines
http://blogs.wsj.com/iainmartin/2010/03/09/vaizey-headed-for-the-salt-mines/
252. BBC NI’s political editor Mark Devenport was given some “unofficial” figures by the NIO and put them on his blog. NI polls have a very poor track record and these figures look very questionable, they showed the SDLP well clear of SF which has been greeted with incredulity!!
BenM if you’re lurking and not getting ready being programmed for the night shift.
I managed in the end to ask 35 people at work today about whether crime has gone up or down in the last 5 years. The result was 30 up and 5 down. A few perceptive ones answered by saying that the fear of crime has gone up but the statistics say its gone down. As I mentioned earlier it’s the A,B,C1 voters who were more likely to say it’s gone down but these are hardly likely to be Labour voters are they? The C2,D,E voters almost without equivocation replied that it’s gone up. So feel free to keep banging on about the British Crime Survey; it’s not going to do you any good apart from cementing the idea that the government lies.
279, nonsense. Vaizey is hurtling towards the heart of the sun.
He does need to learn the art of silence, methinks.
A MASSIVE INDICTMENT OF BROWN.
And shows up our Great Leader to be the barefaced liar that he is.
The coroner at an inquest into the death of four British soldiers in a blast in Afghanistan has pointed to “inadequacies” in their bomb training.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8558359.stm
I understand and agree with those above (such as James Kelly I believe?) of whatever political persuasion who correctly identify that the Conservative involvement with the UUP is not likely to make things better in NI and may well make things worse.
Unfortunately the Tories are caught in a trap they cannot avoid for as long as they claim to be a unionist party who believes that NI is a full and involved member of the United Kingdom.
For as long as they hold to that position then it is a logical inevitability that they should have either direct candidates or closely tied allies standing in all constintuencies electing to the Westminster Parliament. To do otherwise would be to appear to accept that NI is not a full and involved member of the United Kingdom, something that they cannot do as long as they hold to their unionist principles.
Personally I think they are wrong and should drop the ‘unionist’ stance in favour of a position of neutrality on the issue. A position whereby it would be entirely up to the people of Northern Ireland whether or not they wished to continue with the current arrangements and one where the Tory party has no overt vested interest in one outcome or another.
Of course it isn’t going to happen but as long as they continue with their staunch unionist position then the mess they are currently vis a vis the UUP in will only continue.
283, I’m sure this is entirely unrelated to the Government trying to gag coroners and now trying the same with journalists regarding Afghanistan.
John Kampfner has written a piece in the Guardian about his decision to switch to the LDs:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/09/labour-lib-dems-left-cookites
275 Re last paragraph , if everyone who is likely to switch actually did switch the gainers would be the LibDems as they would only lose 14% of a 14% vote share which is 2% and would gain say 1/2 of Conservative and Labour switchers which total 11% and 9% of their 38% vote shares which would be 3.8%
faisalislam
Big Gordon Brown speech on the economy tomorrow morning, clearly have to announce the Budget aswell … almost certainly 24th March.
260 JonC, you are ill informed about the Civil Service pension scheme.
Once you are over 35 with 5 years’ service, each successive year’s service entitles you to 3 months redundancy pay. It is capped at 3 years’ pay but some lucky people in post for just over 20 years will retain grandfather rights to an uncapped payment.
If you are over 50, you can go for early retirement where on compulsory terms you get a 6.67 years enhancement and an immediate un-actuarially-reduced pension and lump sum.
If you joined the CS before 1997, I think, transferred-in pension contributions count towards both redundancy payments and early retirement pensions.
It is getting harder to get severance terms, as they just put you on the transfer list, but it’s pretty easy if you work in a quango as they are not part of the core civil service employment arrangements (ie you are not a Crown Servant) and basically can’t force you to take a transfer as other departments and agencies count as separate employers.
So you can see why it needs to be trimmed a bit!!!
http://twitter.com/hwallop/status/10230268743
277- Philippe: “Eighty-one percent (81%) believe it is at least somewhat likely that the health care reform plan will cost more than official estimates.”
David Brooks of the NYT explained today why people would think Obamacare won’t be nearly as cheap as Obama claims. Here are a few examples:
“[The Democrats have] stuffed the legislation with gimmicks and dodges designed to get a good score from the Congressional Budget Office but don’t genuinely control runaway spending.
There is the doc fix dodge. The legislation pretends that Congress is about to cut Medicare reimbursements by 21 percent. Everyone knows that will never happen, so over the next decade actual spending will be $300 billion higher than paper projections…
There is the excise tax dodge. The primary cost-control mechanism and long-term revenue source for the program is the tax on high-cost plans. But Democrats aren’t willing to levy this tax for eight years. The fiscal sustainability of the whole bill rests on the naïve hope that a future Congress will have the guts to accept a trillion-dollar tax when the current Congress wouldn’t accept an increase of a few billion.
There is the 10-6 dodge. One of the reasons the bill appears deficit-neutral in the first decade is that it begins collecting revenue right away but doesn’t have to pay for most benefits until 2014. That’s 10 years of revenues to pay for 6 years of benefits, something unlikely to happen again unless the country agrees to go without health care for four years every decade.
There is the pilot program dodge. Admirably, the bill includes pilot programs designed to help find ways to control costs. But it’s not clear that the bill includes mechanisms to actually implement the results. This is exactly what happened to undermine previous pilot program efforts.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/09/opinion/09brooks.html
Obama himself is becoming increasingly desperate in his efforts to sell his plan, now resorting to bald-faced lies. Today, he falsely claimed during a speech in Philadelphia that the Congressional Budget Office says Obamacare will save $1 trillion in its first ten years. The actual number from the CBO is $132 billion (which, as Brooks explains above, is still an implausibly optimistic estimate).
Was Cameron’s NI pact worth it?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8557888.stm
Am I the only person who doesn’t give a f4ck whether NI gets devolved Police & Justice or not? I’m happy for the UUP to support it or not as they wish.
Personally, and from a distance, the NI system of devolved government seems so clunky, over-staffed and wasteful, that I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
More on Friday counts:
http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2010/03/election-night-counts-electoral.html
iaindale
Blogpost: Election Night Counts: The Electoral Commission Drags Its Feet http://tinyurl.com/yhwce7g
2 page feature article on political betting (and why pb.com is so good) in the Evening Standard tonight - by Andrew Neather.
296.Got a link to the article?
297- http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23813338-all-bets-are-on-in-the-race-to-number-10.do
296. It’s online
The reason politicalbetting.com has become a must-read website in the Westminster village is not because the commentariat trust Ladbrokes or William Hill: it’s because Smithson’s blog contains some of the sharpest analysis around of polling and electoral trends.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23813338-all-bets-are-on-in-the-race-to-number-10.do
291 — Wow. Just wow.
I’m tempted to sell back the Obamacare contract now… to cash a profit now.
This bill appears to be pure political and financial poison.
Can’t wait to bet on the GOP in November.
btw, it seems that Charlie Crist will not be the next Republican candidate for the Florida’s Senate seat…
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34125.html
Do you think he has a chance if he runs as an independent?
Lord Paul’s announcement that he is following Ashcrofts lead on giving up his non-dom status suggests the Tory counter attack has been more effective that the original Labour hysteria.
298. S&S Snap!
297. ChristinaD
There you go!
302.S&S & jsfl, thank you kindly.
Great article on PB.
302- It was a photo finish! That line you quoted was my favorite too… very laudatory.
265: ‘Labour : Cameron is “criminal’s friend”’
Seems as if the formidable Grayling has Alan Johnson utterly rattled. The cheeky-chappie mask has slipped!
From that Es article
Yet Kellner concedes that in the past, pollsters have sometimes got it wrong. Indeed, he says he made money spread betting on both the 1997 and 2001 elections against Labour — and advised others to do the same in his Racing Post column — because he felt there was an anti-Tory bias in many pollsters’ sampling techniques (he has no bets on this year’s result as he is effectively barred from doing so by YouGov’s rules for its own directors).
because he felt there was an anti-Tory bias in many pollsters’ sampling techniques - really
mike, this is usually a good and intelligent site. Do we really need to read garbage like post 180. Can you not allow us to put the trolls of all sides on ignore ?
Hehe, fun to read Kellner and Ashley being a bit defensive and snippy.
Even though I only play with almost worthless sums, I do like gambling. There’s an evolutionary element to it. The weak are unable to continue, the well-suited go from strength to strength. Every decision and opinion is backed up with cash. Journalists are mere typists. They’re paid for words, not accuracy.
Indeed, this blog has led the way questioning the dubious YouGov polls of 2010, and Mr. Cooke’s excellent statistical analysis has even filtered through to the mainstream.
I must confess disappointment that neither I nor my enormo-haddock got a mention. Mr. Neather must rectify this in the future, or he may find himself attacked by a giant land-walking fish.
Just listened to Conservative MP Graham Stuart on Victoria Derbyshire Radio5live. Well done to him, what an excellent defence he put up, let’s hope other conservatives get some fire in their bellies. It was also noticeable that VD didn’t interrupt him once, so therefore it was a much better interview because of this. Notice how many interviews conservatives give where they are constantly talked over.
This made a refreshing change.
* * * BETTING QUERY * * *
Greg Dyke is 20/1 to be the editor of the Indepedent on 1st May with PP.
http://www.paddypower.com/bet/novelty-betting/current-affairs/the-independent-specials?ev_oc_grp_ids=238730
Given all the media reports (even if he is reportedly uninterested in a frontline role) does this seem like good value?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/mar/03/greg-dyke-lebedev-independent-editor
296 — from the article : Betting follows polls rather than the other way around.
Er, it would be strange where polls would follow betting, wouldn’t be?
As for Peter Kellner being shocked by BoJo’s “daft” remark about trusting more punters than journos regarding predictions, I say : even when you guys shows us a 2 point lead poll, I for one keep on betting on a Tory Overall Majority!
To TSE : [Mr Kellner] has no bets on this year’s result as he is effectively barred from doing so by YouGov’s rules for its own directors).
300- Philippe was asked directly, about a week ago, whether the rumors that he might turn independent were true. He flatly denied it. It would be a big deal for him to now turn around and prove himself a liar.
Staying in this race as a Republican guarantees he’ll lose in the primary; however, he would live to fight again another day if that’s what he wants to do. But if he turns independent, he’ll not only lose this race in the general election but he’ll also burn all of his intraparty political bridges. Thus, even if he is mad as hell at Rubio and some other Republicans, it doesn’t make sense for him to run as an independent.
313- Meant to say “Philippe, Crist was asked directly…”
300 - Polls show a three way tie if he runs as an independent. I think if he runs as one he’ll win as he will pick up enough democrats as the race goes on.
He may also be worth a punt on a third party white house run in 2012 or 16 (although he would probably steer clear if there was a string tea party third party challenge)
Great but misleading pull quote from the ES article - pb.com “remarkably polite”…
306 Just choked with laughter, please don’t use the adjective ‘formidable’ in the context of Grayling unless it was meant as irony.
315. UKPaul
Great but misleading pull quote from the ES article - pb.com “remarkably polite”…
Why misleading? Considering the quality of the responses from Kellner and the normal way such responses would be dealt with it was ‘remarkably polite’ IMO.
Is there any certainty re -the Leader Debates yet? Will UKIP and/or the SNP seek to stop them via the courts?
Re 316.
‘Lilly’ things please ‘Lilly’ minds…
Was Camerons Ulster policy worth it?
http://blogs.channel4.com/snowblog/2010/03/09/northern-ireland-where-does-cameron-go-now/
I suppose it looks adept compared to his Europe policy
306 Need a picture of johnson with that labour lord who did time or those labour mps under indictment or even Harman and her mobile phone.
316
Lily anything you say isnt formidable, its spin.
299 & 300
Thanks, I’m on my blackberry at the moment on my home so can’t link to the webpage. Dead wood press still has some uses.
316 OK Lilly: in your own words (and no conferring with tim) please describe something Grayling has done which was one-fifth as inept as the great Ed Balls bullying czar incident - where, just to remind you, the czar used his position to send genuine and credible death threats to a member of the public whose number he had illegally acquired from the BBC.
Grayling’s ineptitude is legendary so I am sure you will have no shortage of mirthsome anecdotes to regale us with.
4 million people watched Morgan/Brown interview. Under a million watched Sham Cam and Rawnsley last night, yawn, yawn. Cameron Hairgate doing the rounds on You Tube, silly vain man.
Conservatives ‘winning’ in Batley and Spen apparently. A PPC’s view (apologies if previously posted):
The battle for a Yorkshire marginal
As the Conservative candidate in a marginal seat, I see that while BNP support is a threat, the Labour vote has collapsed
http://aggbot.com/docs/link.php?id=8816522&t=co
Well if Nick Palmer can do it why not everyone else?
322 - Although, from the least substantial poster on here that comment may be an attempt at irony.
Is it?
Congratulations all, not least OGH, on the Evening Standard article. A 2 page spread.
Re 325.
‘Lilly’ things please ‘Lilly’ minds…
jonC at 260: no, not after onlym one term - it’s a sliding scale based on age and length of service. I can’t remember exactly but I think it peaks after 15 years and 60.
Nick at 275: really useful analysis showing what’s happening with the LD tactical vote - worth an qarticle by itself.
326 jsfl
A truly awful article. Why on earth did the Grauniad commission it?
What exactly do they expect a PPC to say?
316: ‘Just choked with laughter, please don’t use the adjective ‘formidable’ in the context of Grayling unless it was meant as irony.’
Hah! Grayling is proving more than a match for Labour’s in-house ‘funny man’ Alan Johnson. Wasn’t he going to be the great Dave antidote, getting us to chuckle all the way to voting Labour? Instead Jolly Al is reduced to calling the Tories the rapists’ friend. Unpleasant.
MSPs fail to turn up for work during strike
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/scotland/7407787/MSPs-fail-to-turn-up-for-work-during-strike.html
327 Pots and kettles there tim, you are a useless waste of space day in day out.
313- Also, third-party candidacies tend to take off when it’s a popular non-establishment figure. Crist is neither popular nor non-establishment; his job approval rating is at 52% in a recent Rasmussen poll and at 50% in a recent Quinnipiac poll, representing an Obama-like collapse in approval since early last year.
Plus, insiders describe him as a classic ambitious political climber but with relatively little interest in policy or the actual work of governing. It’s just tough to see what people would gravitate around if he really tried to generate enthusiasm for an independent candidacy. My guess is that he would fade down the stretch if he really went for it.
324 So many to select, well the gaff over Dannatt’s appointment is one, the inept mistakes over crime figures which was challenged by the office of statistics is another one etc etc Just type in the words gaff and Grayling and you will find out for yourself.
331. Did they commission or does Comment Is Free have an open access policy? I don’t know?
336: ‘…the inept mistakes over crime figures…’
Rubbish. Grayling has been vindicated and is owed apologies:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/7402232/Full-scale-of-violent-crime-revealed.html
336 Nope. These were real death threats to a real live person, arising out of risible Balls’s desire to look down wiv ver yoof. Epic fail.
Well done naming yourself after a tampon though. Very ironic and post modern. Respect.
TNS-BMRB data tables are here very fully detailed and interesting
http://www.tnsgolbal.com/news/news-6733669E11654B96A79715EEBBC6FEC5.aspx
Thanks to Sean Fear for rhe link
327 tim. I am quite happy to be the least substantial from your viewpoint. It speaks volumes and I am therefore content.
Perhaps one day you will actually answer a question instead of obsessingover any given subject and continual thread derailing.
TNS-BMRB data tables are here very fully detailed and interesting
http://www.tnsglobal.com/news/news-6733669E11654B96A79715EEBBC6FEC5.aspx
Thanks to Sean Fear for rhe link
oops typo corrected
275 South London Nick - again the behaviour of 2005 voters doesn’t inspire confidence in YouGov Labour figures unless there are a surprising number of non-voters in 2005 deciding to support Labour but not Conservatives/Lib Dems in anything like same proportions.
Labour retaining 7 out of 10 voters with little gained in replacement of lost 30% in transfers from Cons or Lib Dems yet YouGov shows them dropping by less than 1 in 10 from 2005.
I suppose there are Conservative trolls, but I have yet to see anywhere anything equivalent to the peurile rubbish spouted out by tim and his fellow gutterbots on this site.
Those non establishment Lieberman types I suppose. Anyway, Rasmussen skew the job approval ratings which, without them, are +17 for Crist which would do him just fine (it’s pretty amusing if you just look at Ras’ figures isolated in comparison, where he’s +1).
Be honest, you tories would miss tim heaps if he did not post.
Lilly Allen,….just type the words crap and up pops your name amazing Its usually tim..
That ES article is pretty cool. Its funny to think a lot of The Village are watching us.
346
I wouldn’t, this site is an enjoyable and informative read, on the rare occasions he isn’t on it.
I am on your case Lilly Better sharpen up.
346 - He did go AWOL for a couple of days and the site was a delight.
348. Oh if they only knew who we were or actually who we weren’t…..
344 Stan: I suppose there are Conservative trolls, but I have yet to see anywhere anything equivalent to the peurile rubbish spouted out by tim and his fellow gutterbots on this site.
Perhaps I can point you in the general direction of the Daily Mirror?
The Funky Gibbon on C4 News reporting that Labour is stirring the hornets nest of Ulster politics to get at the Tories. Brown’s butler Woodward is apparently the chief suspect. How irresponsible is that!
stan 349, i believe you stan. stan 1 tim nil there.
perhaps tim needs to show a bit more deference and humour, instead of just staying on party message, then he would inform as well.
351. IIRC When he came back lot of nasty little baby bots suddenly started turning up as well. Do you think he might have been replicating?
342 Mark Senior
Fascinating. There are some rather strange looking results there.
For one, contrary to pretty much all other recent surveys, more women seem to prefer the Tories than men (41% to 36%).
Also seems to suggest that the Tories and Labour are pretty much neck and neck on C2s.
Also Labour’s bedrock seems to be the young - they are actually ahead of the Tories amongst 18-24 and 25-34 year olds. This doesn’t square with my preconceptions about the state of the electorate, but is genuinely interesting.
Finally, Lib Dem vote is concentrated amongst 55-64 year olds, not the young, as I naively expected. This too I find strange.
353
I draw the line at reading that, so I take your word for it!
349 Nope , it would become an endless stream of Conservative posters all agreeing Cameron/Osborne were wonderful and the Conservatives were heading for a landslide victory .
Slightly tongue in cheek, and after the hornets nest in NI mentioned above, will we see the Ulster unionist party (Glasgow branch) asking the ibrox faithful to vote tory as they are our “brothers”?
Stranger things might happen. The orange Lodge has already chipped in against the SNP so this would be the next logical step.
If the tories were just not so on the nose north of Carlisle.
355
tim has a lot of good information to pass on re betting opportunities and therefore adds considerable value to the site.
As for the other 99% of the time, form your own judgement.
345- Lieberman is very much outside the Democratic establishment; he has been an independent-minded legislator for many years, was an outspoken supporter of President Bush over the Iraq war, and even endorsed McCain over Obama in 2008! If that doesn’t make him non-establishment, I don’t know what would.
Furthermore, Lieberman was the incumbent in the seat he was running for (which gave him a big advantage in the general election), and took virtually all of the GOP vote after the state and national GOP worked together to encourage their voters to vote Lieberman. How would Crist take the Democratic vote from the bona fide Democratic candidate? Are you suggesting the Dems would abandon their own candidate (an African-American, at that) to benefit Crist? Highly implausible.
And why do you ignore Quinnipiac’s job approval numbers for Crist, which put his approval even lower than Rasmussen’s numbers?
marl senior 359#, that is my view as well.
I’m sorry if I’m missing the point, but why is it an issue for one democratically elected party to team up with another?
Besides, its not like Labour haven’t done deals with the Unionist parties when it suits them.
354 Not exactly a shock though, this lot would sink to anything in order to stay in power. Lets just hope they haven’t watched V for Vendetta.
The TNS survey has really interesting second choices too
L: C 8 LD 25
C: L 8 LD 23
LD: C 13 L 23
341 - Do you think PB would be in the papers if you were the standard poster.
I suppose if the ES did a piece on dog owning Fulham fans it might be, but not otherwise.
It relies on analysis from across the spectrum, to which you are incapable of contributing.
361 MTF
actually I found him rather sad. Last Friday was meant to be a family b’day yet he kept popping back to tell us sorry he couldn’t post or something similar. He couldn’t accept PB goes on without him. I think he has no life outside PB - tragic.
The second choice data suggests that appealing to anti-Tory LDs might still help Labour, but not very much.
Mark, in the few years I’ve been reading your comments here, I have yet to see you mention ‘Clegg’ – LD policy - or hold the Government to account.
Just an endless moan at Tories – try contributing a LibDem’s perspective of things instead of your usual snide comments and you will go some way to redressing the balance.
364 Indeed I am sure just yesterday we were being told coalitions are the way forward in the 21st century.
343 - Ted - There does appear to be a net 11% of LibDem 2005 return to Labour (if you will) so I do think there is some methodological justification for the split and I do know quite hard-core Labourites who went AWOL over Iraq.
330 - NPMP. Thanks. Actually what stood out was how little tactical LibDem vote there was and that it was actually breaking differently nationally and locally. On a national level it is much more shifting Tory than it is in the marginals surveyed by Populus. Once you strip out the Iraq protestors I actually do think they are going a little more Tory than Labour in the marginals, but with the Iraq War voters in there I do think it is hard to determine. What would be nice is if a pollster actually asked the darn question!
357 Labour usually do well in the 18-24 age range but I agree the LibDems doing well in the over 55’s is unusual . Perhaps just a quirk of the subsamples as often happens .
Very interesting post on the FT Westminster blog on Clegg’s debate strateagy, analyzing why Perot was such a success
http://blogs.ft.com/westminster/2010/03/perot-clegg-and-the-election-debates/
Includes footage of the 1992 debates
New thread
367
lol
352. If that gains widespread coverage surely that would cause some damage to Brown/Labour? If Labour are really do nasty and desperate as to use Northern Ireland against the Tories then words really do fail….
359
“it would become an endless stream of Conservative posters all agreeing Cameron/Osborne were wonderful and the Conservatives were heading for a landslide victory”
Mark, amongst the many and varied stupid things you have said on this site in the past that one is a really beauty.
I find it unbelieveable that someone who has been around so long can still fall into the trap of thinking that everyone - or even most of those - who want to see the back of Brown adn his cromnies is either a Cameron fan or even a Tory.
Such an attitude from you simply highlights how partial and ill infomed your comments always are.
do = so
367 “It relies on analysis from across the spectrum”
The one thing you never ever provide is analysis. I think you should change it to:-
“It relies on excellent analysis from people like Andy Cooke and is besmerched by smears and innuendo from Labour posters like tim.”
Which would be much closer to reality.
Crist is very much outside the Republican establishment too(moreso given the way it’s going). Crist is also governor running for senate, not an unknown, and is putting himself before the same electorate.
Lieberman became the de facto Republican candidate, polling suggests that Crist would be much more balanced in where he got his support. It’s a risk but the upside is high for him.
Last Quinnipiac was +14, last Ras. was +7, that’s quite a difference (and ratings will fluctuate as more Republicans see him as not being their man).
And his response to a question over his lack of experience:
“Well, they’ve got a point. I don’t have any experience in running up a $4 trillion debt. (Laughter.) I don’t have any experience in gridlock government where nobody takes responsibility for anything and everybody blames everybody else. I don’t have any experience in creating the worst school system in the industrialized world, but I do have a lot of experience in getting things done.”
359. Mark Senior “Nope , it would become an endless stream of Conservative posters all agreeing Cameron/Osborne were wonderful and the Conservatives were heading for a landslide victory.”
What a strange thing to say. Are there any conservative posters who are in fact saying anything remotely suggesting they think C/O are wonderful, or that the tories are heading for a landslide victory - if so, link please. If you aren’t suggesting that, do you think we would like to be posting that sort of stuff but are so in awe of tim’s legendary powers of satire and invective that we are cowed into silence?
One reason I could not vote Labour,
Was Michael Foot a national treasure or the KGB’s useful idiot?
Why did the former Labour leader take money from Moscow for years, asks Charles Moore .
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/charlesmoore/7377111/Was-Foot-a-national-treasure-or-the-KGBs-useful-idiot.html
366. Just shows how dangerous it would be for AV to get voted in.
383 - a near approximation is any time Richard Nabavi says anything about C/O.
OT, Stupak “says he is getting more optimistic that a compromise can be reached” on healthcare.
http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/03/08/bart-stupak-has-hope/
Amazing what seeing your supporters destroyed in sex scandals and watching people come after you for receiving unreported in-kind donations from a shadowy religious cult can do to make you optimistic.