Hung Parliament? Punters not convinced
March 10th, 2010
Come on you guys - follow the media narrative?
After doing my posting on the Populus marginals poll early yesterday I thought I’d try to make a quick buck by betting £257 on the “no overall majority” option in the Betfair overall majority market.
The price I got, was 1.9/1 and my reading was that this would tighten and then I’d be able to get out at a profit. With so many polls all pointing in one direction and the media reporting the election almost solely in these terms then I thought my view of what other gamblers would do would hold.
Since then two more polls have come out apparently reinforcing the point and what’s happened - the prices have barely moved. As I write the NOM price with Betfair has shifted a fraction to 1.84/1 - which in this context is almost no movement.
Ladbrokes which was offering 7/4 yesterday morning is still doing the same today.
The other bets I had early on Tuesday morning were on commons seat spreads with SportingIndex. I sold the Tories and bought Labour in the hope of making a quick few pounds when the markets shifted enough to close down the bets at a profit. What’s happened? The prices have moved by just two seats and the BUY level on SPIN reflects a Tory overall majority of 22 seats.
Whatever the polls might be saying the betting markets still believe that David Cameron is going to win with an overall majority and there’s very little money going against this.
And if you say well aren’t all gamblers Tories then you only have to look back to 2005 when the markets were much more pro-Labour than the eventual outcome.
Mike Smithson
MessageSpace Advertising
Hhmmmm
Us oldies only up Mike ??
2 - Sod off.
And TSE has gone to fetch his twins.
Didn’t understand Mikes logic on this betting by Mike.
The polls on monday hadn’t moved at all so why would the markets?
Ah …. a golden moment on PB …. None of the trolls present !!
At least the nightly PB Scottish discussion has come to an end. Why this only takes place in the wee hours I don’t know.
4 - correct.
Well I’m now off to bed.
4 tim. One spoke too soon …. Twas only a blessed momemt but twill be treasured among the pearls of PB tranquility !!
5 - They are also the same people who lobby for more daylight in the early morning, just when they’re going to bed.
7 Mike S. I think I’ll join you in that PB ether king sized …. and don’t hog the duvet Mike !!
On a betting note, there has been one big adjustment, mainly down to the bands they offer being wider than the other bookies.
Paddy Power have been taking a lot of money on their 250-300 band
now 6/4 Labour, 11/4 Tory
“The current state of affairs on BF indicates that you can Back a CON Overall at 1.71 and maybe do better (much better) and Lay CON Most Seats at 1.21. This all tallies with the Mike Smithson message.
What this pinpoints is CON Seats 275-324 inc. giving a double win at the very low end of that Spread. The problem lies in finding suitable liquidity on the Seat Bands in order to employ my favoured strategy of Backing a CON Overall and Backing LAB Most Seats.
The Line markets on BF are no help, as they moved yesterday in the direction I indicated. It would have been nice to be a Tory Seat Seller at 340.0 or a LAB Buyer at 225.0.”
I wrote that yesterday at 9.22 am. What I did was to Lay NOM at 2.80 and a LAB Overall at 14.0 and Layed a Conservative Most Seats at a rough 1.21. Alongside that I had a few desultory small bets on Party Seats.
5. If you want to talk Scottish politics Mike, just pipe up! Here I am.
Actually, since it was you that raised the topic, may I ask: why have you stopped reporting Scottish polls? You report every single GB-wide poll (even BPIX), often several a day, and every Welsh poll, but AFAIAA you have reported perhaps 1 out of the last 10 Scottih Westminster v.i. polls. (I mean the “full” Scottish polls, with approx 1000 respondents, by BPC members Ipsos MORI, TNS-BMRB and YouGov).
Any particular reason, or purely oversight?
“And if you say well aren’t all gamblers Tories then you only have to look back to 2005 when the markets were much more pro-Labour than the eventual outcome.”
So the side in the lead tend to (over?) confident and bet more?
I think most punters believe the polls at the moment reflect a rock bottom situation for the Tories and are expecting things to improve slightly over the next couple of weeks. Not totally convinced it will happen.
Between now and the actual day some things will inevitably happen that change the ‘mood music’:
A budget
A less blatantly one sided media slant on things
The debates
More airtime for Clegg
More airtime for Dave
Moer airtime for Brown (???)
The parties GE campaigns get going
etc
etc
I don’t think any of these things will tend to push the polling and result in Labour’s direction.
Factor in Andy Cooke, my observations on turnout, the uselessness of UNS, Tory outperformance in the 100 key marginals (both Lab and LD held now), etc and I think the betting markets have it about right.
As is always sensible - FOLLOW THE MONEY.
A result of about a 9 point lead for Dave leading to an adequate majority seems to be what the polling and various analyses are telling us now.
For those who like YouGov and UNS - well put your money where your mouth is.
5. Perhaps Scotland has moved to an independent timezone on the quiet.
That ‘Overall Majority’ market on Betfair is the best in the business. Whenever life is getting me down I just Lay some LAB Overall and then I don’t feel so bad.
What makes this market so fantastic is that you have two and a half types of fanatic. NOM is a cult dating back to 2006 and ConMaj is the favourite project of some decent sized punters. Even poor old LabMaj has its fans.
2.9 was a decent price to take,OGH and 2.8 was decent price to Lay.
Of such is the kingdome of heaven !
test
PB’s filter wins yet again. I was just trying to post a perfectly innocous (and short) comment, but the filter clearly detests it.
Ah well, it might appear in an hour or two.
Ah, he’s gone off to b*d! At 6:15! No wonder he’s often so grumpy. (It just makes him more l*ve*ble.)
If David Herdson, Double Carpet or some other PB high heid yin is about, perhaps they can answer my query?
Jack, nope - been up since 5.30.
Cameron in with a majority of about 5 will do nicely.
As Mike is not around, I just wonder if David Herdson, Double Carpet or some other PB high heid yin is about, can they answer my query?
I think I’ve just worked it out: the PB filter hates Scots words!
22 - Carbohydrate.
Nope, not that.
23 - didn’t he play at prop forward for Munster?
I’d hold on to the bet till the election. The turnaround in Labour’s organization is nothing short of miraculous. From a shambles to a well oiled machine in just a couple of months.
It’s no accident that the Tories are looking leaden footed. Everyones complaining about media bias but it’s just a question of controlling the narrative and it dates from the reappearance of Alastair Campbell. There is no one better
Cameron and co have lost their swagger. They hadn’t seen a labour Party who knew what they were doing for almost five years and their inexperience is leaving them vulnerable.
For NOM to take off in a big way it needs an ICM poll showing a Conservative lead of five points or less followed by a ‘helpful’ thread from Mr.Smithson.
That could see NOM rattling down to 2.50. As things stand, few are willing to take the plunge on the strength of the tracker polls.
I suspect the markets are not moving because the punters know it will be the marginals which decide the election, not the YouGov polls which are swinging more than a sixties groupie. People campaigning in the real constituencies are seeing the same thing, a hardening of attitudes and other than the LibDem vote, the main party votes are not budging.
Tories around 350 seats with Labour in the low 200s and the LibDems in the low 40s with around a dozen nationalists is looking more and more likely.
27 -
1.YouGov hasn’t been swinging, and sixties groupies generally weren’t married and therefore could not swing.
2.The other pollsters also show a similar direction of movement.
3.You were saying exactly the same when the Tories were 15 ahead
27 - And, will the Tories win Angus?
URW. What’s the best bet on either a hung parliament or a Labour majority? Or more simply the Tories not getting a majority
It does not say much for Kellner that the money just does not believe what he churns out day after day. Tories with a big majority (+60)for me. With liberals squashed in the west country.
There seems to a belief that if the voters don’t want a balanced parliament they can vote against it. Whether or not we get a parliament with no overall control will depend on a few votes in a few marginal seats.
8 — Funniest thread beginning ever?
30 - Roger.
Go to Ladbrokes and put
£100 on Tory seats 300-324 at 9/2
£50 on Tory seats 275-259 at 10/1
£30 on Tory seats 250-275 at 16/1
(Someone will be along to give exact amounts you should stake, but those figures should be good enough)
On topic, yes I think Tory majority is going to be the result.
Off topic, “best placed”????
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/7407663/Fitch-warns-Britain-and-questions-Greek-rescue-as-sovereign-risks-grow.html
“Fitch Ratings has delivered a serious blow to the credibility of the Government’s budget plans, warning that Britain risks a loss of investor confidence and erosion of its AAA rating unless it maps out clear austerity measures.”
and
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/7409166/New-credit-crunch-risk-as-banks-face-funding-crisis.html
“Britain is facing a second credit crunch as banks shrink their loan books to avoid a funding crisis, a leading analyst has warned.”
Perhaps punters are waiting for the budget before being prepared to accept the hung parliament narrative.
Tory majority of between 5-25 is still my prediction.
34. tim.
Will do! will it make me rich?
30 — Roger,
I think the best and safest bet for that is to lay Tory Overall Majority on Betfair.
There’s plenty of liquidity; and you’ll win in case of a hung parliament, and you win if there’s no overall majority.
It’s safer than betting with a bookie cause you can buy it back later on if you change your mind about that projection.
36 - It would if you lived in Burkina Fasso.
Anyhow, enough of the auditions for the CBBC betting programme, I have to take the kids to school.
25 Roger. The last few days have illustrated this well. First we had the Sam Cam votes Labour story or at the very least she isn’t a Tory. Good story for the weekend - one which women in particular will pick up om. Then yesterday an arcane story about the UUP, Bush and Cameron drowns out news of truly dismal trade figures. The budget date announcement made to the Beeb (!) last night will ensure the focus remains on Labour.
I’m very happy with the hung parliament narrative ; it gives us — backers of Tory Overall Majority — much better odds to wage on.
We should be grateful that the Sun is employing YouGov rather than, say, ICM, in that regard.
I’ll be happy as a pope if we can eventually bet at evens on this! — so I really do wish the narrative will snowball into a big speculative pro-hung-parliament bubble in the betting markets. Crawling against the crowd is always much more lucrative (when the crowd is wrong, of course).
28,29 Tim I will be saying the same thing 9 weeks from tomorrow when around midnight Marcus has been declared winner in Torbay and David Cameron is heading for Downing Street the following day.
As for Angus you will just have to wait and see.
When YouGov can reduce a Tory lead from 15 or more to 6, the are not reliable.
Whatever the polls are saying this far out from the election, I honestly don’t see Labour winning.
I think the current crop of polls are more a reflection of an ‘it’s tightening!’ narrative from the newspapers, heavily favourable coverage on the beeb and some sort of odd pre-election strategy from the blue camp that we aren’t aware of.
Case in point is the dog-tax story yesterday. Why on earth didn’t the Conservatives rush David Cameron to the end of his street to give a statement that Labour hates dogs and that this proposal is idiotic and unworkable - answer, it doesn’t fit in with their strategy.
A cowardly attack on Joanna Lumley in Independent this morning.Cross this malicious government at your peril.
34. Tim. Many thanks.
43 Richard I think you will find Cam knows exactly how he intends to fight the GE. He is waiting until it is too late for Labour to respond i.e. post manifesto launch. Labour is exhausting all their ideas trying to keep a media narrative going and it still cant close the polls.
Remember all the threads we had months ago comparing ICM polls and others 6,9,12 months out from a GE and how little the actual result varied from them. Those polls gave Dave around 350 seats and I am sure many who are betting hard cash haven’t forgotten that.
So we know the date for the budget,
How will the British public judge it?
Cuts or investment?
A tax reassessment?
Who cares? We know Labour will fudge it…
I’m just catching up on the news. Great to see the Scottish National Party at 3% (+1) of Great Britain v.i. in yesterday’s Harris/Metro poll. We only got 1.5% at the UK GE in 2005!
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/816707-minority-parties-win-big-after-donor-feud
Have the SNP doubled support since 2005?
No, probably not. But perhaps not that far off it.
48. Is there much trouble in those figures caused by absent Scots who want to vote SNP but are in English constituencies where they won’t have the chance?
POLL ALERT!
Harris Poll in
Metro this morning
Con 37 Lab 29 Lib 18
Another poll with Labour not above 31!
YouGov only pollster with them above 32
make your own minds up, don’t expect any comments from me though’
The problem is that so many of the polls are seriously flawed. They didn´t have to be. So as somebody said above, nobody really believes them, even though the Hung Parliament story keeps hitting the headlines.
I am beginning to suspect that there might be something in Tapestry´s Conspiracy Theory.
38. Phillipe. thanks but too late. I went with Tim’s suggestion. Now I just need a travel agent to get me to Burkina Fasso.
40. Rob.indeed. So far it’s been a masterclass. If only he could lock Gordon up for the next three months it would be a done deal.
44. Fr. What is it about you and ladies of a certain age. Do they all need your protective arm around them?
50. ‘Wayne. Your man in the know’
(Wayne. To be first on here with a poll you’d have to be sleeping with a compositor)
New Labour’s Poster attacking David Cameron : “Two Heads Are Not Always Better Than One:”
he poster splices together two profile images of Cameron’s face, so that each looks in the opposite direction. Ostensibly, he resembles the bicephalous [two-headed] Roman God Janus, who in the Renaissance came to signify Prudence, the ability to look forward and back at the same time. The word Prudence, was, of course, Gordon Brown’s favourite word for much of his time as Chancellor, and was repeated by him like a mantra. But the Cameron faces are not identical, and signify not so much Prudence as Machiavellian scheming, hypocrisy and brutality.
The head that faces to Cameron’s right (our left) is brightly lit and in full, healthy colour. He is animated, loquacious, cheerful and plentifully supplied with thick hair. The dazzling white caption reads:
DAVID CAMERA ON “we are committed to the NHS”
But the head that faces to Cameron’s left (our right) is in dark shadow, tight-lipped, silent, bald, sharp nosed, sinister. The grey caption reads:
DAVID CAMERA OFF wants to scrap your right to see a cancer specialist within two weeks
The two-headed David Cameron is constructed like a heraldic shield. In heraldry, when a shield is divided vertically down the middle, the side of the shield that faces us on our left is the ‘dexter’ side, and the side that is on our right is the ‘sinister’ side. Dexter is latin for right and sinister is latin (and old English) for left. Right is traditionally regarded as better than left, and the ‘dexter’ David Cameron is, on the face of it, better than the ‘sinister’ David Cameron.
http://blog.oup.com/2010/03/cameron-poster/
27 & 42 tim & Easterross
Bookies’ best prices - Angus (incumbent: Mike Weir, SNP maj over Con = 1,601)
SNP 4/7 (Bet365)
Con 6/4 (VC, WH)
Lab 100/1 (various)
LD 100/1 (various)
54. Thats a lo bto absorb at thirty miles an hour..
44 fr
I’ve just read the Indy article. The attack was led by that idiot Kevan Jones Head of Defence Smears. Now Lumley is asking to be called before the Select Committee. Prediction - this will go horribly wrong for the govt. and at the worse time. Ainsworth and Woolas v. Lumley this I’d pay to see.
30. Roger - “What’s the best bet on either a hung parliament or a Labour majority? Or more simply the Tories not getting a majority?”
There are two types of markets:
BlueSquare and 888Sport have this market:
CON MAJ 8/13
NOM 13/8
LAB MAJ 9/1
… whereas SkyBet, Victor Chandler and William Hill have the more straightforward - Hung Parliament?
No 4/7 (SkyBet)
Yes 11/8 (VC, WH)
As far as I can make out, NOM and HP-YES are precisely the same thing! So, you get a better price at 888Sport and BlueSquare than you do with VC or Hills.
Personally my bets are all based on a conservative majority. I just cannot see ‘Gordon Brown, five more years!’ as a slogan that can be sold to the public. I expected, and have arranged my betting to reflect, a small conservative majority. My view on that didn’t change when the polls were predicting a conservative landslide, and they have not changed now when they are showing a possible hung parliament. Of course I could be wrong, but having ignored all the calls about an early election and now being all green on the date because I could not see Gordon going early I’m fairly happy with sticking with my feelings on the final outcome as well.
Bit day for Labour today :
The Budget is to be announced by Darling this morning.
And Brown will make a big speech on the economy:
”We are weathering the storm; now is no time to turn back,” he will say.
”We will hold to our course. And we will complete this mission. We have got through this storm together but there are still substantial risks ahead.
”There will be bumps in the road. And I believe the only way to overcome them is by displaying the same strength and resolve as we did during the crisis.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/7410892/Gordon-Brown-to-warn-economic-storm-not-yet-over.html
What about Cameron? He’ll play some tennis, have some tea and then take a beauty nap?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8558821.stm
Likelihood that Budget date of 24th March will be announced today ,giving timetable for GE on May 6th’
Suspicion that Brown Crew think that economic figures will be OK,to help boost camapaign.Brown must have his own spread sheets on this.I guess it still give shim potion of delaying by amonth for revised figures if neccessary.
If as it looks May 6th is GE and local date be intersting to see how people feel having Locals,London and GE together will affect the party performance locally and nationaly.
DO we have the YouGov tables yet?
Good morning roger. I see you remember me. Only time to recycle an old post this morning (no, not that one).
“funny how roger sees all politics through the prism of the shallow world he inhabits. He cannot forgive Cameron for escaping the world of television and becoming a major political leader and he cannot forgive Joanna Lumley for rising above his world of voice-overs and leading a campaign that has done more for a group of working class people than he could ever imagine.”
53 Roger
It’s on the front page of the metro with the headline;
“Labour loses a third of it’s voters”
Hard to miss that one!
60 - Right so we were in recession for longer, had a deeper recession than many of our neighbours and have a shallower recovery. THIS is something to crow about?
There are many ways in which being an opposition is an uphill or unfair fight against a government. The government has so many extra arrows in its quiver to shoot with. This Labour government have gone all out for over a decade to swing the whole system in their favour. Their efforts have covered the press, politicising the police, stuffing quangos, differential spending in their own seats, the choice of speaker, backing away from manifesto promises, simple lying about facts, stuffing the Lords, postal voting scams, etc, etc.
However, sooner or later the public unhappiness with any government will bring a change about. The effect of the ‘gerrymandering’ is to leave the unloved government in power longer than is good for them or for the country.
I still think Dave will get his majority (but I no longer believe it will be 100+ as I used to). I sincerely hope that Dave starts rigging the whole system from day 1 after he gets in – not necessarily to suit the Tories but to disenfranchise the spendaholic lefty tendency. I’d like to see the Office of Budget Responsibility, full salary and contract transparency, forcing to unions to direct political donations to all parties as their individual members select (in secret ballot), reducing the number of constituencies and harmonising their size, sorting out the BBC, stopping all advertising in the Guardian, a bonfire of the quangos, an English Parliament, rebalancing the Lords, etc, etc.
It’s not so much the Labour party I want to see crippled (although that would be a bonus feature) but the whole mindset of ‘something for nothing’ and self serving ‘generosity’ with other peoples’ money. Maybe we need a proper written constitution – because this government has exposed the fragility of our unwritten one. Somehow Dave needs to leave behind a system that will make it very much harder for a future Gordon Brown to ruin us again.
53. Roger - “To be first on here with a poll you’d have to be sleeping with a compositor”
… or Scottish!
I am frequently the first person to alert PB and UK Polling Report with the latest Scottish polls. Mind you, it is not hard, as very few people outwith Scotland seem to be remotely interested.
That in itself bodes ill for the Union.
63 Wayne, erm.. You seem to have missed a whole thread on it!
60 PM
given that Brown will drone on for 4 hours with tractor stats and still say nothing, Cameron’s approach is the only realistice response. Frankly most of the other 645 MPs wish they didn’t have to sit through the tedium either.
65. Patrick
You are expecting to see FM Dave re-establishing an English Parliament?!?
Porcines will be airborne before we see that day arrive.
60 very Churchillian. Surprised he doesn’t offer blood, sweat & tears.
62. Fr. Do you keep an archive of your better posts?
I think you’ll find Joanna Lumley is more than able to look after herself
65. The opposition has the ultimate weapon of not having a record to defend.
Don’t thnk the Lords needs rebalancing tbh (well I would prefer democratic reform) but for all the moaning about Labour stuffing it they were redressing longstanding Tory dominance.
Current figures are:
Labour 211
Tory 188
LD 72
Crossbench 182
Bishops 25
Other 26
Can’t say I find those proportions outrageous.
70. Ted. ‘Get ‘im!’ as Victoria Wood might say!!
As a matter of interest roger, as you cannot really classify Lumley as sh*tty working class, do you see her as “grubby Notting Hill” for causing problems for Gordon Brown ?
Hi Stuart. I can’t answer for Mike but for myself, it goes to the basic point of the site: political betting mixed with general political discussion and analysis.
Most betting markets for the general election are on a UK-wide basis (winner / hung parliament / number of seats / next PM etc), so it makes sense to report every GB poll. The UK-wide markets are even more dominant in terms of cash staked. That said, if there are there are to be ten companies operating during the election campaign with YouGov doing dailies for one client alone, balancing the reporting of polls with more general political analysis will require some careful thought.
There are of course some Scottish and Welsh markets - in particular the number of SNP and Plaid seats - and Scotland and Wales clearly affect the overall result so it’s worth looking at what’s going on in those areas. The key thing is balance. Another factor to throw into the mix in Scotland’s case is that the results there are unlikely to have a significant effect on the GE outcome: there just aren’t many marginals compared with the rest of the country and a lot of those that there are don’t involve the Tories meaning that the results in those seats has little impact on a lot of the betting markets.
Obviously, it’s always helpful to keep up to speed what’s going on in all parts of the country (which is one reason why I did my piece on Scottish matters a couple of Saturdays ago - I though the latest developments in the referendum debate worthy of coverage due to their significance), but also trying to keep things in proportion.
FWIW, I expect a much greater amount of coverage on Scottish matters after the GE, with the parliamentary votes on the referendum, the possible holding of the same and the Scottish election all then within the next year. The last of these will - short of another UKGE - probably be the biggest political betting event of 2011.
For Patrick:
‘David Cameron will have to finally address English resentment over devolution’
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/philipjohnston/7396040/David-Cameron-will-have-to-finally-address-English-resentment-over-devolution.html
It would be great if Kevan Jones could give plenty of interviews and get a lot of publicity, he’d soon put Balls and Woolas in the shade.
37 ‘Will do! will it make me rich?’
No richer than you already are Roger. Bear in mind with tim’s betting suggestions, that every other week he offers a new name for the next Labour Leader, so isn’t the most consistent of tipsters.
69. Stuart Dickson. Why do you always insist on referring to the Prime Minister of the UK as the “FM”? I accept that the official title of Mr Salmond (Peace be upon him) is “FM”, but do you have to see EVERYTHING through a Scottish prism?
:-)
72. The proportions aren’t all that bad though Labour will get another tranche with the majority that go in after retirements and defeats at the election.
However, there are far too many overall. I wouldn’t be opposed to no more than ten new peers being created for each of the next ten years.
Grew up in Angus in the 1960s when Jock Bruce-Gardyne’s wife got brownie points (if few votes) for canvassing on the Council Estates of Forfar (one cheerily called ‘Gallowshade’)….possibly apocryphal story of Bruce Gardyne in England, when a visiting Angus farmer asked an English farmer what Bruce-Gardyne’s majority was, and when told, shook his head and said ‘that’ll no be enough for Jock’…..Would be a major coup if it went Con again, after decades of SNP…..
75. Thanks David
Of course, it is almost universally acknowledged that the Great Britain-wide polls are, de facto England & Wales polls, as the political environment in Scotland is so dramatically different.
So PB reader get reports on English & Welsh polling about twice a day (on average). And they get reports on Scottish polling… err… never! Great “balance”, n’est ce pas?
Keep up the good work. It is exactly this kind of (ahem) “balance” within our Union of equals which makes an awful lot of Scots wonder just what the parcel of rogues were playing at in 1706/7.
79 Disraeli
I thought FM Dave was a radio station
76 Stuart. I agree. If I was based in Scotland I think I’d be a nit.
I don’t expect Dave to do it but I would like to see a Devolution Equalisation Act. This to give each of the 4 assemblies full and equal powers over ‘domestic’ policy (incl the ability to raise tax), and for Westminster to address only UK-wide matters (finance, defence, foreign policy, etc). The UK would effectively be much more federal than is the case today. Having a different bunch in power in the UK vs in England would be healthy for democracy. I also think this would be good for Scotland and would give all the advantages of independence with few of the negatives.
But because this would be good for the country, good for the people but limit the politicians’ power I don’t expect it to happen.
82 Stuart
since there are rarely NI polls and none taken within the GB polls the Scots are not quite at the bottom of the pile.
We should be due the NIESR GDP estimate for February later today (usually embargoed until 15:00).
50
Hmmm someones woken Wayne up! Eons (IIRC) ago Harris used to do the polls for the Observer, their reputation wasn’t particularly good, or course they could have improved since then.
Because of the scarcity of fourth term governments, and it being very unlikely that there would be two consecutive ones, it’ll be very difficult to convince punters of anything other than a Tory win.
However, a hung parliament is not only possible its looking probable, as we near the GE, and the polls start to point to that eventuality, punters will start to move.
I’m not surprised by the increase (?) in the Libdems share. By GE day, everyone will be so sick of the two main parties, that I fully expect the, ‘Plague on both your houses’ syndrome to be even higher than it is now.
79. Disraeli - Why do you always insist on referring to the Prime Minister of the UK as the “FM”?
Err… correct me if I’m wrong… but I don’t think that Dave actually is “Prime Minister of the UK” at the time of writing!
My “FM Dave” meme is as much a dig at The Herd’s presumption (until recently) that Dave was going to sail effortlessly into 10 Downing Street, as it is a dig at the fact that he will be, de facto, the First Minister of England.
Good cartoon of the Guardian’s new poster boy for peace and democracy:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00694/TTM102101CC-copy-14_694944a.jpg
PB’s filter wins yet again!
DH, another post stuck in moderation?
Mike I suspect you are seeing the huge influence of PB.com in the failure of the markets to move. This site now regularly trashes any poll showing labour above 30 (”can labour only be losing x of it’s 2005 vote?”) and Andy cooke’s analysis obv makes a hung parliament much less likely.
Assuming 90% of punters use this site to get polling information then the narrative on here makes it hard to see what poll could push punters towards NOM.
I suspect in betting terms the PB.com narrative is far more important now than the wider media narrative.
Well, just as I post a rant about fixed term Parliaments on the old blog, the budget date of 24th makes May 6th pretty much the racing certainty for the election date… about bl**dy time, most of us will be thinking!
My cup runneth over!
http://twitter.com/Mike_Fabricant/statuses/10262213372
The Toupee doth twitter, Mickey Fab walks amongs us.
Morning all,
Just a quick visit….
Well I hardly think it is a surprise that the markets are not moving. There is increasing evidence that Yougov are a ‘rogue’ pollster. I’ve been pondering how much their weighting problem would likely effect the Conservative lead and my guess is that if the weighting problems were resolved it would improve the Conservative lead by around 4-5 points.
I follow Mike’s lead on the ICM strain of polls in that they too (because of their weightings) marginally over-estimate Labour’s share. My guess is by 1-2 points.
So generally speaking my guess is that the Conservative lead is around 8-10 points.
Then we have the regional consideration and the fact that there is a considerable variance between England and Scotland and that that can lead to a 2-4 point better performance in England for the Conservatives. On top of that you have the evidence from the marginal polls and the excellent work by Andy Cooke.
At the moment the big poll for me was that 9 point ICM lead (supported pretty much by Populus). To me they (as standard bearer for traditional polls) for and Yougov (as standard bearer for new online pollsters) were the standard but as has been discussed here ad nauseum Yougov now has significant questions to answer about the origin and present validity of the Party ID Weightings. Given the new players in the online polling market, now was not the time for Yougov to drop the ball.
Consequently, if I was a betting man (and as I have said before I am not) I would still be reckoning on a Conservative victory and should the polls move a couple of points in their favour (or if Labour take the lead in the Yougov polls) I’d be reckoning on a substatntial win.
Toodle Pip!
97, aye, one of the pb.com fellows stated that, excepting YouGov, recent polls have been something like 7, 8, 8, 9, 10. An 8-9 point lead seems likely.
EdP. Talking of tips i don’t know whether you saw the thread the morning after the Oscars but I gave your prowess as a tipster a plug so big that it has to be worth at least a dozen ‘Hail Gordon’s’!
Labours new (and possible only, thanks to their limited budget) poster:
DAVID CAMERA ON “we are committed to the NHS”
But the head that faces to Cameron’s left (our right) is in dark shadow, tight-lipped, silent, bald, sharp nosed, sinister. The grey caption reads:
DAVID CAMERA OFF wants to scrap your right to see a cancer specialist within two weeks
Pretty lame, but hey, what’s good for the goose…
Next in long series of Conservative posters? a picture of Gordon giving one of his odd, Fankie Howardesque smiles: “Gordon Brown. Oddbod”
85. Alanbrooke - “since there are rarely NI polls and none taken within the GB polls the Scots are not quite at the bottom of the pile.”
A valid point.
97
Hmmm but weren’t the polls to remain static, they wouldn’t narrow at all, (even in the marginals)they seem to be there’s no reason they couldn’t narrow further.
Who’d have thought it!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2010/03/rock_recovery.html
92.SD. An excellent cartoon. One of the best for a while.
Brown really buttering up Darling.
93 - Cicero. On the topic of which, Betfair’s Month of the GE election now has May available at no more than 1.06 and last matched at a record low of 1.10.
That looks to me to be about right - June is still just about a possibility, especially if the budget runs into trouble.
87. Patrick - “a Devolution Equalisation Act”
Great suggestion. But it’ll never happen.
I could write an essay on why.
84. East Fife 4 Forfar 5.
Eric Morcambe
90. I presume it part of the “wisdom of crowds” theory that the wisdom of those who put their money on is greater than the wisdom of those who simply observe from the sidelines ….
We need to be careful when we say the polls pointing to a hung parliament implies the most likely outcome is a hung parliament.
If you look across at Baxster you will see he has his current prediction as Conservative short 11 of majority.
He then has model that takes the predicted votes share to simulate the GE many times and records the results to generate a probability.
Even with his prediction of Conservative short 11 of majority he still shows the most likely outcome being a Conservative majority at 47%, with hung parliament at 39% and a Labour majority at 14%.
90, ha. Amusing you’re knocking Harris. Their poll shows a smaller but similar lead to all others (save YouGov). YouGov show a much smaller lead than all other pollsters. It’s a daily outlier.
GB stumbling over his words quite a lot.
On topic: informed punters look at the facts.
One of my few gripes with this brilliant site is that too many people now read it! Were it not for PB, I suspect mug punters would have stampeded to NOM by now, thereby making some of us a fortune on Betfair.
Close down PB!
99 Roger, I did see you plug. Many thanks are definitely due to you; I’ll stand you a drink in the Groucho when you finally invite us all to pb.coms inaugural meeting of the Soho Chapter. SeanT can remain firmly outside the revolving door, since he was plugging Avatar for everything going. I trust you followed my suggestions?
The Peter Brookes cartoon which amused me most recently was this one:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/photo_galleries/article5845863.ece?slideshowPopup=true&articleId=5845863&nSlide=4§ionName=PhotoGalleries
‘kin hell, Brown’s gonna spit his teeth out! No wonder he looks like he’s being dubbed when he speaks, his jaw can’t keep up…
It’s the 24th
Protecting and advancing the recovery…. if Q4 shows an ultimate fall he’ll look like a damned fool.
102 coldstone, it’s ironic really considering Peston played a part in the run on NR, with his dramatic and doom laden reporting of their financial woes.
“I reject the lessey fayre approach” in favour of a fyooture fayre
Saying Britain seventeen times in a minute doesn’t make you a patriot after you’ve underfunded the army in war time.
‘Scottish Lib Dem leader asked to leave shopping centre’
- Party plays down incident after security staff tell Tavish Scott to stop canvassing the public
http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1639222?UserKey=#ixzz0hlJZlOl3
Ho ho. John Sleigh seems to have a kneejerk “never admit the truth” problem there. Doesn’t bode well for his candidature.
Did Brown mean the £3 trillion he stumbled over? Or was it £3bn?
Some sort of carbon market he reckons will create 400k jobs.
107 Roger - not so much Eric Morecambe
Forfar 5 East Fife 4 - in a Division Two match on 22 April 1964
118: Of course what he only aludes to his is article is that NR is been stripped of its ‘toxic debts’ which will remain with the government. No suprise that the remaining bank is proving to be profitable.
sod Darling, Looks like Brown’s decided to deliver his budget this morning
“and I commend this budget to the media”
Speech just like one of his budgets.
126, aye. A lot of lists. Brown saying he is right and everybody else is wrong. Full of conviction, as well as piss and wind.
125: Which is the entire point of this speech no? To pre-empt and confine Darlings ability to do what he would want.
Just heard the words “living wills”. Puzzled.
91 Stuart Dickson. “…correct me if I’m wrong…”
OK then, since you insist!
No, Stuart, if David Cameron does become the next PRIME Minister, he will not merely be “de facto, the First Minister of England”, but have full authority over all of the UK, including the jewell that is Scotland.
Of course you know this, but just like winding Unionists up, you little Tinker!
Tobin tax. Frequent twitterer.
CNBC “Worldwide Exchange” have bailed out of the speech. Decided that speech nothing to do with the economy.
iaindale
Gordon Brown can’t even let Darling announce the date of his own budget. Don’t know why I am surprised
LOL
129: I beleive its a plan for a bank to be able to dismantle itself after a crisis so a problem won’t bring down the entire bank. Brings to mind planning for Known Unknowns, rather the Unknown Unknowns.
129, I thought it was a reference to Labour’s manifesto. Even if they lose, they’ll want their policies enacted
118
I was one of those who thought the government should have just let NR go to the wall to, ‘encourage the others’ in retrospect that may have not been the best solution.
I now see NR as a blueprint for what a future government will have to do to, ’save’ the UK’s energy industry, from the disaster that was privatisation.
Am i listening to the wrong speech?! Gordon is reading darlings
Thinking about yougov and not being able to find Labour 2005 voters - perhaps they are in hiding or have changed their identities for fear of being identified as being responsible for the worst PM ever - yougove might want to adjust for this - I suggest “the spiral of shame”
Chaaracter, courage - the courage to take the tough decisions - like borrowing more, printing money, putting off decisions till after election.
134 Yes i think that’s right. Although i’m not sure how it is significantly different from any insolvency administration process - if a bank is bust dismantling it into smaller units will not make it solvent again.
123. I bet even Stuart didn’t know that!
New global era = new world order
Very good post from luke at 8.35am and echoed by ray at 8.52am. You guys know the game.
Sorry not to have replied to your query,roger. I was unavailable for comment but tim filled the breach.
The point that luke and ray were making that it is this site alone holding back a torrent of cash for NOM.
I was musing the other day as to what percentage of the political betting turnover on Betfair is generated via pb.com. A pretty high one I would guess.
OMG, Brown saying it all again in “conversation” with moderator.
I’m not listening to it, but it’ll all be pretty predictable stuff. Tough decisions, tough times, made the right choices (tories made wrong ones). Future growth, future jobs, future fair for all. Investment in services and hard working families. Tories wrong choices, future at risk, front line services at risk.
Gordons speechs write themselves don’t they.
Gordon is talking total vacuous bollocks. His first answer contained nothing but unconnected cliches. Who is going to take this seriously? Poor Darling. What’s left to say other than fairyland projections now?
New York, London, Paris and other countries
144, the GORDO9000 has been programmed with today’s message.
145, he doesn’t really do speeches. He just reads out lists, then tells everyone he’s right and if you disagree you’re wrong. Consensus means agreeing with Gordon. Disagreeing with Gordon is divisiveness, unpatriotic, talking Britain down and/or defeatist.
143. I would say lurkers bet more than posters
NOM is a dam waiting to burst in favour of NOM - I greened out and am waiting for 1.9/flip flop to go back in massive on Con majority.
If only people had listened to me..
Gordon, “Have you learned from your mistakes ?”
“My greatest regret is that my great plan for global co-operation was not accepted”.
139 fr, on one level Gordon has been one lucky skunk, in that he has had an election looming - allowing him to undertake all possible short term measures to get him through to the election date - but with not a jot of financial responsibility for a minute later.
If the credit crunch had been in year 2 of a Govt., this would not have been available to him - and we would have seen the pain of 2011 addressed when it was required for the nation, not for the Party.
I still see the Budget as being a serious problem for Labour to take into the election. Tghe growth - and hence long term borrowing - forecasts will be void of credibility within 24 hours of his sitting down.
And I am expecting a very political bash-the-rich Budget.
146, isn’t the present prediction for 3% growth in 2011? Be fun to see what it is now. 7%, perhaps? 11%? 215%?
Not only the truth, but amusing too.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/matthew-norman/mathew-norman-a-very-stoppable-force-about-to-meet-a-very-moveable-object-1918866.html
149 NOM market on betfair I mean.
Given that YouGov a polling similar numbers of people, and getting a consistent percentage of Don’t knows/Won’t says, the differences between the unweighted and weighted figures seem to be all over the place. I calculate them as follows.
01/03
Con –3.09%
Lab +0.26%
LD +10.21%
02/03
Con –6.76%
Lab +8.13%
LD +0.54%
03/03
Con –2.12%
Lab +8.48%
LD –2.73%
04/03
Con –10.26%
Lab +19.72%
LD –1.37%
08/03
Con –12.77%
Lab +25%
LD +1.4%
Gordon admits he was a bit put off by the standing ovations he got from US Congress.
Is the pound on the slide? Is there a sea of red on the FTSE now that the self styled saviour of the world has shared his thoughts.
I think corporeal’s explanation at 14 is correct. The party that’s in the lead has by definition more punters in it and if they’ve been in the lead for some time, they feel it’s become the natural state of affairs and are reluctant to accept evidence to the contrary.
The reality is that all the polls except Angus Reid are now showing NOM on UNS, and the current evidence is that there is a Tory edge in marginals but it’s shrunk to under 2%. So even if you ignore YouGov (which seems risky since they’ve got a successful record and are doing separate polls every day), the rational position would be to predict either NOM or a very small Tory majority. If you take YouGov on board then NOM becomes the most likely outcome and a SPIN position of a Tory overall majority of 22 or more becomes quite exposed.
Good morning all , on topic post .
Why are the markets not moving ?
The answer lies in the mentality of most betters/gamblers .
They place a bet on what they think will happen say a Conservative majority . Events/polls move in their favour and they bet more money perhaps at shorter odds perhaps on a bigger Conservative majority/landslide . Polls/events go not so well , still being convinced their original position was correct they bet even more telling themselves they are getting even better value odds and they will win even more money . Polls get worse , they start to disbelieve them and to criticise the pollsters and continue to bet at longer odds .
The final stage of course is realising that they are going to lose a fortune and they scramble to lay off their positions at the best odds they can get . It is only at this stage that the market odds will really move substantially .
Most Conservative punters are not at this final stage - YET .
Mmm, NOM NOM NOM.
Currently I see the Tories’ seat range as 300-340, with slightly more chance of being outside that on the high side than on the low side.
I’m astonished at how willing people are to ignore inconvenient evidence. Even this week there have still been posters writing about 40/30/20/10 splits. When was the last poll where the Tories had a 10 point lead?
editing error should be
158.Is the pound on the slide? Is there a sea of red on the FTSE now that the self styled saviour of the world has shared his tractor output stats.
158. The pound is soaring against the dollar and euro - but my screen is upside down..
http://news.bbc.co.uk/news/business/market_data/currency/default.stm
“I blame Marcus Wood” (c) Mark Seniour
151, this is why labour will lose and badly. the tv debates will kill brown. he is as alistair campbell warned many moons ago. within those three debates he will just plough on, telling his half-truths and obfuscating, and it will be picked apart on the night and in the press.
161 - Er, Populus yesterday actually! But I take your general point.
The AAA question. Gordon says he doesn’t make comments on this or level of £.
Sky reporting Brown sees his personality as a plus for Labour !
Insanity.
Starting at the end of last year, there was a striking tendency by significant parts of the media to favour or construct a narrative around tightening polls and in particular a hung parliament. Exactly why this was their tendency I do not know for certain but to start with the polling numbers didn’t even suggest that notion. They have persisted with the narrative anyway and this alongside a smaller element, in what was the right wing press, who have pursued a strange agenda (including insisting there were no policies while the Conservative web site bulged and overflowed with policies the extent of which Thatcher never had prior to ‘79) has made for an odd pre-election run-up. Perhaps people that actually have to risk money by betting are not entirely convinced by all this but certainly the actual stakes for the country are scary. Do we really want 5 more years of Brown and a failed Labour approach tested to destruction?!
“152 I still see the Budget as being a serious problem for Labour to take into the election.”
No doubt the budget will be a problem for Labour but thanks to Osborne’s strategic positioning of the Tories it will be a problem for them as well.
He has set down a clear dividing line - the Tories will reduce the deficit mopre quickly than Labour.
So he will have to respond to the budget by promising the public more pain than Labour - either through higher taxes or greater cuts in public expenditure.
Whatever the economic background it is a highly risky strategy to go into an election as the party of more pain IMO.
This is reminiscent of the Labour position in 1992 - and we all know what happened to them.
I see the Brown Pound is Down.
167
The beginning of the speech was like a draft for a new chapter of his book on courage.How I had the character to make the tough decisions.
168. Kinnochio in a lightbulb factor is possible - voters go into the booths and cant bring themselves to vote Labour. In 2010 this will also mean lots of voters not leaving their sofa to vote for 5 more years of Brown.
The Sun front page on May 5/6th should be amusing if nothing else.
161. My assumption is that Labour is being about 2% overstated by most polls as usual. On the day the Conservatives will get the 2% back that they lost to UKIP in November and the Lib-Dems will go up 2% in the campaign. Hence the roughly 40/30/20/10 prediction.
Tony McNulty is getting a nasty shock this morning:
http://www.politics.co.uk/news/legal-and-constitutional/new-campaign-targets-expenses-mps-$1364490.htm
“This local campaign in Tony McNulty’s seat is just the beginning,” Power2010 director Pam Giddy said.
“No matter what your party, if you’re an MP who blocks democratic reform, attacks our civil liberties, cheats your expenses and shamelessly attempts to keep it secret, you’ll be hearing from us.
This is about ensuring we have a reforming parliament after the election. We’re going to keep up the pressure until election day to make sure the people who want to represent us in parliament take seriously the need for change.”
when is the ONS’s next Q409 GDP revision out?
175, 30th March, I think.
Weak pound not helping exports ? Ans. Its the rest of the world’s fault.
Funny how the fourth estate can’t ask Brown when the Budget is going to be held.
175. The same day as Q3 is revised down further
Poor production figures this morning - industrial production fell 0.4% and manufacturing production fell 0.9% month-on-month, against economists’ predictions of small rises. First contraction in 5 months.
GB has pushed the world from edge of catastrophe. See ! he did save the world.
Kristin that what I thought when I heard that Brown was going to announce the date. Do you think he’s going to let Darling give the actual budget speech?
Killer blow from Brown: Tories raised VAT in 1979.
183: Brown’s ruling out a VAT rise after the election from labour? Brave move…..
183.Killer blow from Brown: Tories raised VAT in 1979.
Sepating a political comment from the previous betting comment, two thoughts:
1. How important do we think the ground war is in the current climate? If it’s important, then there may be a significant difference between seats with a sitting MP and ones where they’ve not yet selected a candidate. It’s very hard to fight a ground war without a candidate! I currently have 200 volunteers putting out a different leaflet every two weeks; candidate X in neighbouring Ashfield is going to have to start from scatch. (On the other hand, Ashfield ought to be safe despite awful by-election results, as not only does Labour have a huge majority but it’s not clear who the main challenger is.) But do lots of local leaflets really change votes?
2. Isn’t the basic Tory problem that people aren’t convinced that they’re actually any good? It’s not that floating voters think they’re evil or corrupt, but that they seem to make a lot of unforced errors which don’t augur well if they were suddenly all Secretaries of State.
180 - Presumably the explanation for the pound falling below $1.49…it suddenly went into free fall a few minutes ago.
180: Thats really not good at all.
The £ reacts to Brown’s speech
http://news.bbc.co.uk/news/business/market_data/currency/11/12/intraday.stm
antifrank - Populus marginals at the weekend
If I recall correctly one of the mechanisms that Brown has been using to prop up UK Gilts, before he got the Bank of England to start printing money to pay for all those Scottish banks that is, was to force pension funds to buy increasing amounts of AAA rated bonds. Should the UK lose its AAA rating, and the markets have already indicated that they think it should, then suddenly Gordon’s trick will reverse itself and force the pension funds to sell UK Gilts. This will cost them a lot of money, but then Gordon hates pensioners and has always done what he can to attack pension funds, and will destory the UK’s ability to roll over the collosal debt that Gordon has saddled us with. Hopefully if it happens it will happen before the election so that the person that is to blame will get blamed for it. Not that he will appologise. Gordon never appologies for anything that he is actually responsible for.
ONS stats released today
Index of Production
January shows 1.5% annual fall
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nugget.asp?ID=198
Index of manufacturing up 0.2%
187: hush tim will be along to tell us not to be so silly in a minute.
Brown’s habitual implication that he’s the genius leading the world and the only thing that’s needed is for them to catch up with his ideas is sickening. His worries about European growth. His disappointment about world trade talks. Ghastly man.
@187 Production stats were released at 9.30.
93 He is taking the kids to school… In Zurich…
180.And instead of that news, we will be talking about Gordon and the budget.
I wonder how much of that Gordon speech Darling got to see or sign off on before hand, is he trying to put a straight jacket around the budget before Darling even gives it?
193.
Its back up now by a fraction
boing - meowwwww….
Goupillon March 10th, 2010 at 9:30 am
I read in that article that the “Rowntree Trusts” are providing £1m to fund this anti-MP activity. Presumably that is the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust Limited which does engage in political work?
The same Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust Limited that gave £1m to the Lib Dems to improve their selection of BME candidates? The same Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust Limited on which none of its Directors comes from a political party other than the Lib Dems?
What chance of the BBC or Guardian looking into this political funding? Hell.. Freezes… Over…..
Some truly thoughtful posts from Gosht of H.Flashman and antifrank. I am struggling to remember when either of you made a silly post.
GOHF has really got me thinking. He has been the strongest advocate of a CON Overall on the forum, with the possible exception of Phillipe Magnan. If Ghost thinks the NOM price has to shorten then it has to shorten !
Anecdote alert.
About 15mins ago, my son saw Gordon Brown on tv for the first time ever, and started crying.
Mark Senior - good summary And the great thing is, most of the dullards in the Tory fanzone are slow learners making them bigger losers.
210 - TSE, you have a young Tory in the making there.
You must be so proud.
165, 190 - I’m feeling generous, so I’ll give you that one (even though the 10% lead was inferred rather than directly calculated)!
202. Well at least the dullards know that on the slim chance they win a bet or two at least betfair pay up.
201
Perceptive child…
Reality and Gordon waving to each other over the vast gulf…
Is it another currency hysteria day?
Surely not.
167. “Sky reporting Brown sees his personality as a plus for Labour !”
Thank you Gordon!
204 - And don’t forget that ICM was also 40-31!!
How is a dental flosser a necessary expense for a Limp Dim MP?
http://order-order.com/2010/03/10/sticks-in-your-teeth/
re Luke @ 8.35 “PB setting the betting narrative?”
You might be right - but my betting as fully recorded here is going with the polls. I’m selling the Tories and buying Labour on the spreads.
I’m betting on NOM with Betfair.
84 Carlotta, a large part of the present Angus seat was in fact in North Tayside until it was abolished in 2005 and that seat was only won by the SNP in 1997 from the Tories. Angus has as a result of the boundary changes gone from being the relatively safe South Angus taken by the SNP in 1987 to the marginal Angus presently held by Mike Weir.
201, your son is wise, Mr. Eagles.
207. I see the Speccie has a currency hysteria issue out this week..
http://www.spectator.co.uk/buy-this-issue/5324661/buy-the-current-issue.thtml
paulwaugh
Brown refuses to answer James Kirkup’s excellent Q re will he use extra income from bank bonuses to cut deficit or boost spending
Answers on a postcard.
186: ‘…but that they seem to make a lot of unforced errors…’
Of course Nick, many of these ‘unforced errors’ are in actuality Labour Party smears. Most of us see nothing wrong with non-domiciled peers making party donations, but that didn’t stop Labour accusing Lord Ashcroft of political corruption; most of us saw nothing wrong with the UUP having doubts about devolved policing, but that didn’t stop Labour accusing Dave of ‘derailing the peace process’. Of course, you might be saying that the Tories should have avoided being vulnerable to Labour black propaganda in the first place, but that’s a different point entirely.
It is so blindingly obvious that the Govt are going to “fix” the first qtr GDP numbers that come out just before the election.
There is no way they will show us slipping back into recession.
The ONS will have a spook standing next to the man who releases the numbers with a gun at his head telling him to change the minus to a plus.
203 - Well the wife and I agreed last weekend, she could raise the kids as Catholics, if I could raise them as Tories.
I think Cameron really does have to go on the economy at PMQs today. It has to be the essential first step in his regaining the initiative, and he is hardly short of material with Brown’s delusional nonsense this morning, coupled with the manufacturing and trade deficit stats.
211. “I’m betting on NOM with Betfair.”
Me too, on the grounds that although Yougov’s methodology may be controversial their all-pervasive message has the power to become a self-fulfilling prophesy.
If NickMP you have 200 deliverers for 30,000+ houses you have an average load of 150 per deliverer. Way too high an average. Assuming your area is urban to semi urban I reckon you are probably at best delivering to just 2/3 of your voters. It could be as low as 1/2.
218 - seems fair, they’ll lapse soon enough.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/lizhunt/7410974/Our-troops-in-Afghanistan-have-been-betrayed.html
186 Re point 2 - IMO there are two main reasons for the decline in the Tory polling share. One is their stance as the party of more pain (see my post at 169). The other is the damage to Cameron’s personal image that has resulted from the debacle over marriage tax allowances, Ashcroft, the UUP etc etc.
The Tories have not exactly had a monopoly on unforced errors in the past few years - a distressingly large number have been made by “people close to No10.”
208
Backing up there for a second.
Has Brown just officially made his personality an election issue?
218. You do know that means they will become socialist wiccans as teenagers?
Morning all
On topic: I think the simple explanation is that the markets do not immediately move so that at any given time they simply reflect the latest polls. In 2008 and 2009, at the time when many polls were showing 17pt leads and Labour seemed to be in meltdown, the spreads were indicating a much more modest Tory majority than the polls indicated.
Punters, quite rightly, use poll movements to inform their judgement, but they are not the only factor.
Obviously if evidence of the narrowing lead builds up, punters will adjust their view and the markets will move. However, we are two months from the election; there’s the budget to come, and the media narrative could well shift.
As Labour supporters are keen to point out, there is still a lot to play for, but that works both ways.
For PMQs, assuming Brown has managed to find the time given he has a crucial high level meeting with the second assistant under secretary to the Bolivian finance minister’s wife, Cameron should have 2 on Afghanistan and 4 on the economy, or all 6 on the economy.
225 BP
according to Sky reporter on TV at around 9.25 Brown now sees his personality as a plus for Labour.
The Wunderwaffen are released !
228. “How much interest will the Uk taxpayer be paying to borrow our national debt this year ?”
Answer is £42Bn - Darling confirmed on Jeff Randall last week.
Ask that 6 times - Brown wont answer once.
220: History Boy @ 09:54
“Me too, on the grounds that although Yougov’s methodology may be controversial their all-pervasive message [that we are heading for NOM] has the power to become a self-fulfilling prophesy.”
Would you please explain specifically how the message can become a self-fulling prophesy of NOM?
So now we can say with a pretty high level of confidence, that Gordon Brown will be leading labour into the general election.
232. For a given value of ‘leading’.
229. Well with their record and their policies perhaps it is?
Let the games begin ! An insurgent has made a stand at 2.84 for NOM. I took £77 of that on the basis of this thread.
My stance for the long term is very much tilted towards a CON Overall but this is the short term. No ?
186.
Nick, in my case, the ground war will make no difference. I’ve already decided to switch from voting Labour in 1997 and 2005 to the Tory party this year.
Though the Conservatives have made gaffes this year, I just don’t want another 5 years of Gordon Brown.
231. HurstLlama - I was referring to the betting odds. I expect them to tighten in response to YouGov. Then someone will pop up on here and say ‘Yougov must be correct, the betting markets have moved”.
235. Flip flop here we come
Regarding a “No Overall Majority” result in the election….
Can anyone confirm that it is NOT mathematically possible (or at least virtually impossible) that there could be a Lib/Lab pact with an overall majority in the UK, whilst at the same time the Conservatives could have an overall majority in England & Wales?
This is not a combination of result that I’d like to see. This could get very nasty if Parliament was discussing legislation which only applied to England & Wales. I’d go as far as to say it would be a constiutional crisis.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/mar/10/bbc-gordon-brown-match-day
Let today’s pun competition commence…
231, 236 (continued)
On a broader electoral point, I do think that some voters are affected by the prospect of making a ‘fashionable’ decision, so the hung parliament narrative depresses the Tory vote to some extent.
238
I’d go as far as to say it would be a constiutional crisis.”
About time the shambles was sorted out.
238 - The Conservatives currently have one seat in Scotland and three in Wales. If they fail to improve on those numbers, that’s 95 seats against them before they start in England. So the short answer to your question is that it is mathematically possible to have exactly the result that you fear.
Gordon …….. contained nothing but unconnected cliches. Who is going to take this seriously?
by Plato March 10th, 2010 at 9:14 am
Plato, my apolitical wife who has the speech on tv in the kitchen just came to my study and said that Brown was going for the Guinness Book of Records highest number of cliches in one speech.
So it must have been bad.
207
Tim, if you’d been abroad recently you’d see how badly our currency has declined in value, how expensive it makes travel for UK citizens not only to traditionally dear places, but to supposedly poor countries too - we’ve fallen way, way down.
You’d also see how the foreign press is looking at the problems in the UK - its’ clear overseas we’re in a huge mess, face years of pain, more than other countries. the only saving grace is that we have our own currency rather than in the Euro. But trying to inflate your way out of a disasterous financial position by printing money and debasing the currency is desperate stuff and the British public won’t look back fondly on what Brown’s done, let me tell you.
This crazy government has to come to an end.
219 PMQ is an irrelevance to most people and furthermore Cameron will find it difficult to gain the upperhand in any economic discussion. He has managed to be on the wrong side of every decision re. the Recession.
Just matched NOM @ 2.9 = £49 worth.
Blew my all green but ah the value.
Election will be May 6th for sure.
I sent a comment last night twice onto here and it disappeared. Was it moderated? If so, it was a very mild comment not alleging any ballot-rigging or poll-rigging conspiracies. Perhaps that’s where it was going wrong. I was noting that there are rumours of coming interest rate rises in the US, clipping the gold price. If true this could send stock markets into a tailspin, and hurt Brown pre-election.
Why the poll frenzy?
After my donkeys’ years of political involvement the maxim never changes:
Don’t listen to the mouths, watch the eyes.
245..I love your incisive wit Lilly..
Nick Palmer MP: Isn’t the basic Tory problem that people aren’t convinced that they’re actually any good?
And weighing this against the certainty that Labour are absolutely useless (I won’t go on at length about lying - re. immigration [Andrew Neather] and other things - and the return of bust and bust, but I could.
As a recent letter to the Daily Telegraph put it: this time I’ll chose the Devil I don’t know to the Devil I do.
re 238. I think that that is entirely possible because all but 2 or 3 Tory targets are in England in Wales.
Incidentally - in answer to Stuart Dickson’s point at the top of the thread - I don’t give much coverage at the moment to Scotland only polling because the outcome north of the border is largely irrelevant to the General Election.
The big question is how many seats the Tories will get and they are likely to pick up as many in Sean Fear’s Luton as they are in the whole of Scotland.
Alas we don’t have Luton-only polls.
242. The conservatives will win a fair few seats in Wales.
#230 Answer is £42Bn - Darling confirmed on Jeff Randall last week.
To which you can around £9bn in PFI payments and £39bn in gilt redemptions.
That’s £90bn to find before we can pay for any services.
210 dr spyn
“How is a dental flosser a necessary expense for a Limp Dim MP?”
Because lying through your teeth is a necessary part of the job.
We could see a fully fledged Sterling crisis if the polls don’t move and the budget is , as expected, a disaster. A government with this little credibility but small chance of any certainty following an election could lead to mounting chaos.
The pound is devaluing against major currencies at around 1% per day at the moment. This can’t go on.
Betting news
LADBROKES has suspended betting on which month the General Election will happen after Gordon Brown said the budget will take place “in two weeks time”- indicating a May vote.
re GOHF so £42bn in interest payments. This means the poorest who pay less than £1000 per year in tax are paying tax solely to service Gordon’s debt.
254 - Won’t gilt redemptions largely be financed by new gilt issuance?
So Darling lost his battle with Brown. Which means Britain lost.
Someone made a point about Lib-Lab pacts with a tory majority in England. Entirely possible I’m afraid, but the range of outcomes that would make it possible are quite narrow. Also, the SNP and PC have said they will continue to abstain from reserve matters so it is even more unlikely.
256 JamesA
it can - see Zimbabwe.
254, 258.
I cannot see why DC doesn’t ram this point home in PMQs.
Brown would never utter the figures - he will avoid and not answer - open goal for Cam.
‘Sean Fear’s Luton’ sounds like the title of a horror film.
245 - Lily Allen: He has managed to be on the wrong side of every decision re. the Recession
Prove it.
Do you have some sort of device that lets you see into another dimension to see what would have happened if the Conservatives had their plans implemented? (I’ll gladly patent it on your behalf if you do.. :o) )
The labour party is one big logical fallacy.
My guess is that we will go into the election campaign with all the economic indicators continuing to head the wrong way, the currency plunging and mounting economic chaos, which the government will attempt to gloss over. I still think the Tories will win but the sense of crisis will remain for the rest of the year as the mess is sorted out. Brown has deferred the necessary measures far too long and the markets are giving their verdict.
264 - Luton is a horror isn’t it?
Wow this is a very nasty electioneering video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXKtjJ0srUA
A small divergence on Betfair.
The 6 May GE is 1.08. May GE is 1.12.
266 - Don’t forget the moment in the election campaign, when everyone realises that if Labour does win the election, the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be Ed Balls.
259: Thats roughly £700per year for every man woman and child.
264 If it weren’t for that damn apostrophe…
“Everyone Fears Luton”
even
“Zombies Horde Fears Luton”…
271 - Well if you take out the economic inactive people.
I wonder what the figure is for every man and woman who works.
265 RecentRunes
“Prove it”
Good luck getting an answer on this one. I’ve asked for evidence on this one the last few times its come up and never had any advantage.
Labour are all about saying anything to get political advantage. Its a good way to win and stay in power but a terrible way to govern as we’re now seeing
Before we were officially out of recession the Polls leads for the Conservatives were in double figures so surely negative growth reports in April two weeks before the election will give the Tories the final push to victory.
273 - If Labour get back in you will probably have to add children to the list of workers.
@270 TSE, speaking of Balls
Gordon Brown’s controversial former spin chief has been accused of packing Labour with cronies in order to ’stitch up’ a leadership bid for Ed Balls.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1256799/Gordon-Browns-spin-chief-Charlie-Whelan-accused-succession-stitch-Ed-Balls.html#ixzz0hlj3Ajy8
268 Very interesting, good twist.
258. I can’t help feeling Gord will regret his decision not to go for Mar 25 or Apr 8. There have been some very nasty economic indicators appearing this week and Cameron’s Tories will now have a decent period of time to regroup. He really should have gone for a short sharp campaign with a minimal focus on the three party leaders.
Has Gordon been to Switzerland?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/large-hadron-collider/7411707/Large-Hadron-Collider-to-shut-down-for-a-year.html
After matching 2.84 for NOM, I also got matched for £76 at 2.90,Ghost. I am now equally green on NOM and a CON Overall with a massive red on a LAB Overall.
Very good 2way action this morning.
8.2 Million economic inactive. over 20% of the working population do not work well done Labour.
69 - Except when you post rubbish accusing The Sun of posting ‘voodoo’ polls after I have linked to one
221 TC - yes, there are 40K homes but you’re right that it’s inefficient to break down deliveries into tiny parcels - on the other hand, it helps make people feel part of the team, which has other benefits. Also, it’s more complicated than simply a leaflet to every house. You should target the deliveries to address what you think will interest the recipients - e.g. no point in delivering a leaflet on student fees to a sheltered housing complex.
277: No suprise there. If the conditions for a lib/lab pact are the removal of gordon, then theres a real risk unite will have enough clout in the labour party to put Ed Balls in the PM spot…
Ed Balls PM….*shudder*
281. Spreads are wide now
2.84-2.92
1.68-1.73
285. Ha ha - good one - the PLP couldn’t remove Gordo - dya really think Clegg and his 50 silver foxes can do it ?
Not a chance.
280 - According to ppl in the know this is a routine shut down, nothing alarmist unlike the reporting.
284 - NPMP, a question for you, if you wouldn’t mind answering it.
During your canvass and campaigning, are you mentioning the tightening in the polls? And is it making more voters come back to the fold now it appears the result could well be positive for Labour?
#260 Yes, of course but the liability still exists - in the [unlikely] event that the gilt market becomes disfunctional we will have still have to meet the payment or default.
287: The leadership of labour after the election, especially in the event of a hung parliment is very murky and uncertain I feel. Depends on how Clegg can sell himself over to Labour and the negotiations between the two. (Also very, very much depends on the seat allocation).
Tim thinks Darling. I think Balls with Unite behind him. We’ll see.
284. “e.g. no point in delivering a leaflet on student fees to a sheltered housing complex.”
Why not? They’re very likely to be grandparents. Do you think they’re not going to be interested in the welfare of their grandchildren?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/news/business/market_data/currency/default.stm
Just a bit of fun, as Mr Snow would say. But here’s Brown’s currency swingometer,
As you can see, these are all the red seats.
May 6th could see all these turn green.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1256863/BBC-turns-Gordon-Browns-request-appear-Match-Day-2.html
“I think we are moving away from a time when, if you like, celebrity matters…”
291 - Unite behind Balls, sounds like one of my chat up lines.
284 NickMP thank you for responding. But you avoided the point where I doubted that you were actually delivering to half your houses and that in essence you only have half a network.
Of interest what % of your 200 deliverers are also activists who canvass? The ideal % is 0, to provide room for absences. My area is 7%.
275. Which is precisely why I don’t think May 6th is a foregone conclusion.
Far better to go into an election 6 weeks after those expected bad economic figures than two weeks after. Labour have done an excellent job of subliminally implanting May 6th into the minds of the masses. Conservatives will be planning posters on hoardng across the country to be in place over Easter, ahead of the official launch of am expected May 6th election immediately after Easter and a non-announcement of a May election will spike their guns and use up a lot of their advertising advantage.
All they need is a justification, which is sellable to the public, to delay.
I think they have that justification already lined up.
297 - But the tactic if it is to make the Tories waste money will backfire and the Tories will almost certainly be able to raise enough cash to just mean a 2 month billboard blitz. And there will be no good news between May and June to make it worthwhile.
Have we had the figures yet showing Labour wheezing on 25 before being airbrushed?
Stark Dawning “…Most of us see nothing wrong with non-domiciled peers making party donations, but that didn’t stop Labour accusing Lord Ashcroft of political corruption;”
Is that true? That ‘most of us’ see nothing wrong with this? Oh I think that ‘most of us’ do see something wrong with this, and don’t need the Labour Party to tell us.
This is not a party political point, but I think most people recognise that if someone really wants to have as much influence in the affairs of state as Ashcroft obviously does, then he ought to consider that place his home in all senses of the word.
However, the Conservatives failure on this issue was twofold. Firstly, that despite all Dave’s recent pieces about ‘ethical societies’ being more than just ‘operating in the rules’ they were willing to put up with this ‘ethical failure’ for 10 years because of the money.
Secondly, when they were caught, instead of throwing crap around, they should have shown a measure of contriteness. They could have then gone after the Labour non-doms etc. later on in the piece from a much more secure situation. Instead they looked like children.
In other words - in the long-term they were wrong to let this happen. In the short-term they were very amateurish in their media management. But that is conservative failure.
A final point. I think it is somewhat funny that the defence of Conservative campaigning here seems to go along the lines of - it is not Conservative failures it is that the nasty Labour Party had the temerity to fight back. That the Conservative campaign team do not seem to be able to sustain a coherent set of messages and strategies in the face of a real campaign situation surely must count as failure?
297, a delay past 6 May would leave Labour and Brown very open to charges of being frit and using the election date in an opportunistic and partisan way.
294 ‘But Downing Street advisers believe that by opening himself up to the public, the Prime Minister will be able to convince ordinary people that he understands their problems.
Comedy Gold.
If we do get a hung parliament that would also spell the end for Brown becuase the Lib Dems have stated that they could not work with Brown. How quickly would Labour be able to appoint a new Leader? It would surely be a contested contest as the Milliband2 vs Balls vs Harman factions seem irreconcilable.
We would then have a temporary Harman premiership, whilst an internal election campaign started. The currency and debt markets would be very very spooked by that.
Clegg & Cable are wrong, a “balanced” parliament with a Labour+ Lib Dem govt would create further instability in the short term.
113.
Not true. I only made three explicit predictions for the Oscars:
Avatar Best Film
Bigelow Best Director
Up Best Animation
These were hardly the most exciting advisories (all three were favourites or close) but nonetheless I got two out of three correct. So you’d probably have made a profit if you’d followed my advice.
I believe I have worked out why Avatar lost Best Film. Monsieur Magnan was right to point to the new PR system in Oscar voting.
This meant that the movie which was “least hated” was more likely to win: so a worthy, mediocre, hard-to-despise movie like Hurt Locker was bound to prosper against an epic film which wiped out the opposition making people jealous, a film which, moreover, was made by a man apparently loathed in large sections of LA.
Memo for future Oscar punters: listen to Magnan, and remember that PR system.
I see UK debt as % of GDP has overtaken Germany, so how come I don’t have a German standard of living ?
http://www.faz.net/s/Rub0E9EEF84AC1E4A389A8DC6C23161FE44/Doc~E7DC694E68D184748A8BFF6D5522CD2AD~ATpl~Ecommon~Sspezial.html#11319D21DD9646198E15ECDE917A6970
274
Its could almost be very good satire - complete cobblers, but sounds like it could just be true - except replacing fun & amusement with anger and vitriol.
301 - I think the problem when you have to resort to that kind of patronisation of “ordinary people” you have pretty much lost it.
300. Indeed Mr Dancer, which is why I added the rider that they need a justification for delay, which is acceptable to the public.
302. Not true - I imagine the following
NC “We want Brown out”
EB “No - Brown stays and you get PR”
NC “Er”
EB “Look its that or you get wiped out in a 2nd GE”
NC “Ok deal”
EB ” Did I mention its a referendum on PR after the next GE ?”
NC “Doh !”
Repeat for next 100 years…
299 Paul L It is not Conservative failures it is that the nasty Labour Party had the temerity to fight back.
You’re right in a sense, but the complaint is that Labour had the temerity to fight back entirely dishonestly, and that the media have given them a virtually free ride.
It is certainly true though that Labour’s vicious, personalised, mendacious, irresponsible and completely negative campaigning (assisted by the LibDems) has been very effective since the beginning of the year. I’m not sure that that is anything for Labour and the LibDems to be proud of, however. I would have thought honourable people on the left should be horrified by it.
302, not so sure. Brown might well hold on.
307, but what justification would be acceptable? Plus, it would lose them the advantage of having all the electioneering and campaigning for the locals on the same day.
@298 David Roe, not yet. Not sure if it has been discussed here but there is a first time Con VI datasheet
http://www.yougov.co.uk/extranets/ygarchives/content/pdf/TheSun%20results_1st-time-con-voters.pdf
307 - They could always advance the “chaos” theory again.
Paul Lloyd, what defence of Conservative campaigning? It is cr&p. End of. OK?
That does not mean that the election is lost. “You cannot fatten a pig on market day”, is the saying that Labour need to realise. 100 of their MPs do.
299. “Is that true? That ‘most of us’ see nothing wrong with this? Oh I think that ‘most of us’ do see something wrong with this, and don’t need the Labour Party to tell us.”
Evidence, please? Because it certainly seems to be the case that for all the sound and fury from the likes of the Guardian (registered in the Cayman Islands for tax purposes) and the Labour Party (kept afloat by non-doms who they appoint to the privy council) that this has gained virtually no traction with the general public. So long as Ashcroft is obeying the law and paying the taxes he is required to (under a tax regime GORDON BROWN set up, remember) then yes, he is doing nothing wrong. Why on earth should he pay taxes in the UK on money he earns in Belize? It seems blindingly obvious to me that Belize is the appropriate place to pay tax on that money.
In any case, can I ask you and all the other lefties who are having self righteous paroxysms of indignation a question in response to all the ones you have been asking - have you voluntarily entered into an agreement with the Inland Revenue to pay more tax than you are legally required to? If not, wny not? Because if you haven’t you’re a hypocrite for getting shocked that Michael Ashcroft hasn’t.
303 ‘an epic film which wiped out the opposition making people jealous’
What does that description have to do with ‘Avatar’?
291 - Slackbladder Tim thinks Darling. I think Balls with Unite behind him.
I think I understand now why you are so confused by this politics and betting lark.
298. If they could raise enough money for a 2 month billboard blitz, why has it not already started, as everyone expects a May 6th election?
Do the Conservatives think the polls are showing them so far ahead that the extra advertising is not needed?
Budget 24th March
299: ‘I think most people recognise that if someone really wants to have as much influence in the affairs of state as Ashcroft obviously does…’
Let’s cut to the nub - by ‘affairs of state’ you mean ‘the critical marginals’. If non-doms can give Labour millions to spend as they see fit, then Ashcroft can give the Tories millions to spend as they see fit. The rest is just hypocrisy and cant!
311 - Vaguely interesting but I’m not sure what that tells us tbh.
316 tim, so far you’ve tipped Johnson and Darling. Who’s next weeks choice?
It won’t be in the budget but in reality June 2010 will start to look like this.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704486504575097672075207734.html?mod=WSJEUROPE_hpp_LEFTTopStories
309 - Richard.
Most of the Tory wounds have been entirely self inflicted.
Pension Ages
Dannatt/Grayling
Europe Referendum
Airbrushed poster
Marriage Tax
Davos Deficit Dithering
Crime stats
Pregnancy stats
Ashcroft
UUP
Sun Letter and Christine Pratt are the only two curve balls and with the latter Cameron just couldn’t help himself.
321 - And someone else confusing odds and predictions pops up.
315 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films
I think Avatar matches the description Sean gives
323 - The thing is that these are less important than
‘No More Boom and Bust’
323, ex-YouGov the polls show an 8-9pt lead. Mr. Smithson’s Golden Rule suggests they’re more likely to be right than the daily outlier. Mr. Cooke’s analysis suggests an 8-9pt lead is tasty for the Tories. Marginal polls show the Tories doing well in the key battlegrounds.
Cameron didn’t leap on the NBH story, he responded to a straight question with a straight answer. But don’t let accuracy get in the way of your silly posting.
Gordon has seen the Tories bathing and walked away in their clothes
315. There’s a very good explanation of Avatar’s defeat here:
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1970502-2,00.html#ixzz0hlrIkA2Q
Basically it was too big, weird, daring and science-fictiony, also a lot of Academy members are at least 80 years old so won’t have made it to a 3D cinema, they’ll have watched it at home on DVD with an oxygen tank next to the armchair, not the ideal circumstances.
And then there’s this:
“Maybe the Oscar voters simply hate Cameron; apparently that’s an easy and widespread feeling in Hollywood. The evening provided ample evidence that some categories were a popularity contest — not among the mass of viewers but the 5,000-plus Academy voters”
QED.
310. The locals can be moved to June 3rd, it’s not that difficult to do.
As for the justification, I refer you to the article by the much maligned Polly Toynbee.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/09/bill-define-election-brown-legacy
In particular:
“Soon after the election is called, the “wash-up” decides which of these bills will be sped through the Lords on the nod from all parties. Uncontentious bills can whisk through. But the government can decide to fight for a bill to the bitter end, its one utmost priority. Only one bill presses hard for the political future, a now-or-never, once-in-a-political-generation chance – the constitutional reform and governance bill.”
The Lords will reject at least part of this Bill and send it back to the HOC. It contains a lot of stuff that the electorate would be in favour of, such as measures leading to the phasing out of hereditary peers and and measures designed to increase the transparency of financial reporting to parliament. It also offers the public a rare opportunity to have a rare referendum on voting reform.
It could easily be spun that by preventing this Bill becoming law, the Conservatives and the Lords are seeking to dent the public their say on voting reform and that Lords are blocking the Bill to protect their own interests.
That argument could gain traction and provide Brown with justification for hanging on.
326.
£42 Billion in interest payments per annum
Snatch Landrovers
Helicopter cuts
44% rise in violent crime
Sell gold low
€1 = £1
Pension apartheid
etc etc
186 Nick at least the voters now realise your lot are crap and have shafted us over the past 13 years.
329 dent = deny
323 tim - I agree with some of those. That doesn’t alter the fact that Labour’s campaign has been entirely vicious and negative, nor that the media give Labour an easy ride. Ashcroft was a perfect example where the coverage has been incredibly biased, although luckily it’s not very important outside the Westminster bubble.
It’s certainly true that Labour have been extremely good at picking away at the slightest real or perceived weakness, but they are making absolutely no attempt whatsoever to provide a positive reason to vote Labour. It may, if the country is very unlucky or very stupid, be effective in the short term. In the longer term, it is storing up problems, which the saner Labour ministers must realise.
402
If Labour are the largest party then Brown will stay and form a minority government, daring the Lib/Dems to vote it down.
The problem is, as always, Brown.
Labour could not get rid of him during the past 30 months and a Labour party with a good tranche of the old guard replaced would be in no fit state to resist the Brown Machine.
As for the Lib/Dems - are they going to stand full square behind Clegg and risk the ‘wicked Tory proposals’ or will they go with Cable (who could be looking at No.11s doorway)
326: ‘The thing is that these are less important than
‘No More Boom and Bust’’
Ah yes, ‘No more boom and bust’ and ‘weapons of mass destruction’. Yes, the Tories really are rank amateurs in comparison! (And I suspect ‘We did the right things’ will soon be joining them in the Bumper Book.)
333 Richard you’re just plain wrong.
http://www.labour.org.uk/future-fair-for-all
All positive as far as I can see.
330. Talking of € = £, the £ is on a downward path again today. Now under $1.49 and under €1.10.
The steepest declines seem to have occurred as Brown made his speech.
Has Richie Rich been speculating on Sterling doing well today?
It’s the only explanation.
336. Ah yes -standing up for the many - what a policy.
Next week : “ensuring apple pie is still delicious”
323.
1. Matters.
2. Doesn’t matter.
3. Matters.
4. Doesn’t matter.
5. Matters
6. Doesn’t matter.
7. Doesn’t matter.
8. Doesn’t matter.
9. Doesn’t matter.
10. Doesn’t matter.
Honestly Tim, you really do think voters are watching politics far more than they actually are.
315 - I know you didn’t like Avatar, Ed, but if there are three true things about it they are: it’s an epic film, it absolutely crushed everything else at the box office, and that that probably annoyed a lot of people
337 - I have to convert what the old Irish pound would be worth in Sterling now to get a truely clear picture of how low Sterling has fallen. It is remarkable.
340 - The whole package adds up to “not ready for Government” and that has moved the polls.
328 ‘a lot of Academy members are at least 80 years old’
Pure garbage. SeanT, you do yourself no favours by simply inventing facts to suit your argument. It takes you down to tim’s level.
‘Basically it was too big, weird, daring and science-fictiony’
You said yourself that watching it in 2D doesn’t do the film justice; that’s true. Take away the 3D novelty, for which it did win a rightly deserved technical Oscar, and it’s a rehashed version of an older story.
343 Tim, this is so sad.You are usually sharper than this. Can we have the Tim we had yesterday…
343 - Labour has lowered the bar so much that the criteria “ready for government” doesnt mean what it used to mean.
We should bear in mind that voting is now our single biggest national hobby (Britain’s Got Talent, Strictly Come Dancing, the other Cowell thing, everything else on telly) and that the GE looks to those at the shallower end of the gene pool like “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Into No. 10″. So Brown is actually wrong about moving away from celebrity culture. He himself is in fact benefiting hugely from the SuBo effect.
This will delight tim because it gives us a brand new tory explanation as to why the polls don’t matter: people will wake up before the GE to the fact that more is riding on this than the question whether Dave or Gord gets to contest being no.1 at Christmas with RATM. And when they wake up they will vote tory.
Labour’s best hope is that they don’t wake up. They should therefore insist that the TV debates are compered by Simon Cowell and that voting in the GE will be by text message or the red button on Sky.
343, er, no. The daily outlier is moved by weighting.
Other polls have narrowed from an enormous landslide victory to a nice, workable majority.
344 “You said yourself that watching it in 2D doesn’t do the film justice; that’s true. Take away the 3D novelty, for which it did win a rightly deserved technical Oscar, and it’s a rehashed version of an older story.”
But that’s an unfair argument to make. The 3D isn’t a gimmick it was conceived as a 3D film a decade ago and has taken this long to get it made. It’s not like that upcoming Clash of the Titans film where they’ve shoved some 3D on it to make more money.
Denying Avatar’s 3D as a positive trait, and denying it as a something that you have to consider when considering the film as a whole, is a bit like saying The Godfather would be rubbish if you took out all that really great acting.
Gideon’s Track record (for the record)
As Northern Rock’s 1.4m savers and 800,000 mortgage customers worry anxiously about their future, George Osborne announces he has decided not to step in. “I am not in favour of nationalisation, full stop,” he announces in the Commons. Instead his decision is to allow the bank to collapse.
Source: George Osborne, Hansard, 19 February 2008
Determined to oppose “big government”, George Osborne leads the vote against the Banking (Special Provisions) Bill to deny the government the power it needs to tackle failing banks.
Source: Second and Third Reading of the Banking (Special Provision) Bill, 19 February 2008
2.7 million customers face an uncertain future as George Osborne opposes the part-nationalisation of Bradford and Bingley, saying “I don’t think that’s the right thing to do”.
Source: George Osborne, Sky News, 29 September 2008
George Osborne’s leader sets out Conservative opposition “to just react to this by getting out there and whacking bonuses, that’s not sensible”
Source: David Cameron Meets the Experts, Sky News, 26 September 2008
Paul Ruddock, whose company reportedly short-sold Northern Rock, shown to have donated £259,500 to the Conservatives.
Source: Sunday Times, 28 September 2008
As the rest of the world takes action to stimulate their economies, George Osborne’s party rules out giving any boost to the economy.
Source: “We were against the fiscal stimulus”. David Cameron, Speech to Conservative Spring Forum, 26 April 2009
As concern grows about the 3.5 million jobs that depend on our good working relationship with Europe, the manufacturers’ body EEF warns George Osborne that the direction the Conservatives are taking on Europe is “not helpful to business”.
Source: Financial Times, 3 June 2009
The British Chambers of Commerce warns against the Conservative direction in Europe and says that “having so many UK MEPs outside the mainstream groupings is a worry for business”.
Source: Financial Times, 24 June 2009
George Osborne sets out plans for “reducing complex reliefs and allowances” – scrapping £4bn worth of tax reliefs for companies investing in new machinery and technology.
Source: George Osborne, “A different vision for the economy”, Birmingham, 6 March 2009
329 That’s not a bad theory. It would explain why that bill has been introduced - some plausible way to go beyond may. Personally I don’t think they’ve decided yet, but having the option to go for june would certainly be a reasonable thing to strive for.
I wonder when the forms for the locals go to the printers?
342, 337 There seems to be one constant in exchange rates. Whatever rate the pound happens to be at people whinge. It effects all parties, political tribes and organisations. There is always someone to complain it is too low/high whatever the rate.
336 Jonathan - But that is unimportant. What matters is the interviews, placed articles/quotes, and panel appearances on TV and radio. Almost every media opportunity is used by Labour (and the LibDems) to attack the Tories, almost invariably about trivialities or attacking non-existent policies. You never hear anything about Labour’s plans.
This is hardly a surprise; it’s exactly what Mandelson said they were going to do, back in October, when he made those comments about fighting the election as ‘insurgents’; they are acting like a particularly irresponsible opposition rather than a government or a party which expects to be in government. To give them their due, they have a plan, they are sticking to it, and Labour MPs and ministers implement it ruthlessly and with discipline (CCHQ and, particularly, Conservative MPs please note!).
Where this will all fall apart is, ironically, if it is successful. I wouldn’t like to be in Labour’s shoes if they end up as a weak government having to do what Ireland has had to do. It is for that reason that my personal view is that Cameron and Osborne should not try to form a minority or coalition government in the event of a hung parliament.
328. SeanT.
Alternatively, this year Academy members decided that a $300 million budget and a lot of hype does not equate to the best film of the year.
Perhaps, in part, they decided they got it wrong in 1997-8.
I’m still surprised that you, of all people, confuse “most popular” with “best”.
352. I just looked up the exchange rate from exactly a year ago, to see how far the pound has actually fallen in the past twelve months.
I was amazed to see it was down at around 1.38. I can’t remember it being that low, just twelve short months ago. It has actually shows a 7% increase year on year.
350, you missed out Osborne calling for recapitalisation before Brown did it, Labour prevaricating for six months over whether or not to nationalise Northern Rock and the fact that the fiscal stimulus has done sod all and the VAT cut has been removed by Labour. Presumably this is not because the VAT cut actually worked.
Oh, and Osborne called for cuts long before Brown got over Labour investment Vs Tory cuts.
343. I’m not convinced. I think the polls would have moved somewhat towards Labour anyway (swingback) but the extra 2% Cameron lost to UKIP in November has been quite pivitol.
352 Jonathan
The only constant in exchange rates is that as Gordon Brown said,
“a weak currency arises from a weak economy which in turn is the result of a weak Government. A Government unwilling to introduce an industry strategy and unwilling to take the measures necessary to bring us out of recession will leave our economy, and our currency, weak.”
341 I enjoyed Avatar in 3D; technically it was superb, and rewarded accordingly by both Bafta and the Academy. It’s simply not a great or original story.
Am I right to be worried?
Had a quick look at the PBR and the gilt redemption figures for future years based on existing issuance.
Taken together they imply a cash requirement of close to £1 trillion over the next 5 years [to 2015].
If we roll that requirement forward so that in future years we have no more than £50bn for redemption in a single year that takes us out to 2042/43. [Some years already have gilt redemptions scheduled e.g. 2049/50 £20bn.]
350. “Saving NRK” meant keeping the branches open and placating the NE of England. NRK should have been broken up and sold - no savers would have lost money and the taxpayer would have saved a billion or two.
from todays results :
“The bank lost £257.4m last year, compared with £1.36bn in 2008″
Thanks taxpayers !
“borrowers more than three months in arrears with mortgages payments had risen to 4.28% by the end of the year - the equivalent of nearly 23,000 borrowers - compared with 2.25% a year earlier. ”
Thanks future taxpayers !
Just cos Vince said so don’t make it right.
353 Your ears only prick up when the Tories are mentioned, perhaps understandably. Nevertheless, your obvious feelings of hurt are unfounded.
357. Pivitol in that if the Tories were still reguarly polling 40-41% people would be far less worried about Labour getting towards 32 than they are now the Tories are around 38%.
Lovely picture of the Dear Leader:
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01593/brown_1593780c.jpg
In particular the area of creased and slightly damp shirt near the belt line - caused by a chubby stomach and big legs crushing together when seated. As a former chubster, I know of what I speak.
[16] - I think the betting markets have it about right.
As is always sensible - FOLLOW THE MONEY.
There are two ways to look at this:
1. People making a bet are risking their own money, so take it more seriously. You rely on the wisdom of crowds to filter all the polling data, and to also aggregate the whispers from the ground that might not reach the ears of an “expert”.
On the other hand, despite all this, the betting markets have had some notable failures in by-elections during the last Parliament and at the 2005 GE [go look at the threads on polling day].
2. Political betting is a fringe activity, with a large component of people betting with their hearts, rather than their heads. This provides rich pickings for the sober punter who can look at the data and identify when the wisdom of the crowd is bunk.
I think Mike’s record is pretty good in this regard. I thought that this latter interpretation was more of a guiding principle for the site than the former. It’s a bit more subtle.
My opinion is that the markets have probably over-reacted to the recent opinion poll movements, when you put them in their historical context of the sort of opinion poll variation we have seen in the months leading up to a GE in previous years.
I also suspect that, in general, the spread seat betting will tend to underestimate any change in seats, because of a sort of Bayesian inertia in people’s expectations of the result being influenced by the previous result.
364. unfit fot government ?
362. Richard is quite right. Labour have been behaving like an opposition for a long time now.
344, 354. Edp etc.
I find people’s evaluation of Avatar a very good proxy for an IQ test. People with an IQ under 90 or over 130 love it. The stupid masses love it because it is a f*cking amazing film with these weird blue people and floating mountains and everything wow! The latter group like it for the same reason.
By contrast, middlebrow people like you and Statto, for example (no offence, your views are shared by many), find the movie unnerving, and its popularity scares them, because if they admit to liking it themselves - then they might admit to being as stupid as the gullible masses.
You therefore like to parade your preference for an apparently subtler film to show that you are cleverer than the stupid people; the irony is that in doing so you reveal your own petit bourgeois mediocrity.
Disliking Avatar is the intellectual equivalent of saying “serviette”: discuss.
368 - It’s like we’re stuck in a time warp. Yes, SeanT likes Avatar and EdP doesnt. We all know. Cant we just accept the difference and move on?
368: How about if you were never moved to see it in the first place. (In fact I can’t think of the last time I went to cinema..its not been for ages).
368. SeanT.
As maybe. I haven’t seen it and have carefully refrained from commenting on its artistic merit.
[358] - The only constant in exchange rates is that as Gordon Brown said
Don’t you think it is a problem that you have to recite an old Gordon Brown soundbite about this, rather than having a kick-ass soundbite from George Osborne or David Cameron to use instead?
Unfortunately for the Tories, what maters is that they haven’t been able to make the killer soundbite that will encapsulate what people are thinking right now - this is why Tory attack lines always seem to revolve around what Brown said, whether it be “saving the world”, “no more boom and bust”, “best placed”, or whatever.
Where’s the Tory rallying call?
[Admittedly, "we can't go on like this" does look as though it is being picked up a bit]
367 No Richard is being a bit precious.
IMO Labour haven’t got close yet to the “Tax Bombshell”, “Double Whammy”, “Will the last one to leave turn the lights out” Tory campaign of the 1992 election. Meanwhile that recent Tory RIP tombstone was oh so positive.
Labour simply aren’t rolling over in quite the way Richard would have liked. That’s about it.
“Disliking Avatar is the intellectual equivalent of saying “serviette”: discuss.”
SeanT is to ‘Avatar’ as tim is to Polish h*m*ph*bes: all parties are equally strident and cr*p.
360
The country has paid off (and also failed to pay off) bigger debts over timescales just as long. The problem is the deficit - we can’t pay anything back at all…
364
The bodyguard doesn’t look happy…
360 Yes you are right to be worried. Although the average maturity of the UK debt is quite long there is still a substantial ongoing refinancing need, and then we have the new borrowing to finance the deficit.
The gilt markets are in a rather strange place at the moment as they are being pulled in opposite directions. Primarily there is the massive issuance but that is counterbalanced by the QE program and also by the change in the requirements for bank capital - basically the government has told the banks they have to buy up lots of gilts. At some point QE will go away (possibly has gone), and the banks will have all the gilts they need. Then the market won’t be so stable. Additionally there has to be some worry that this printing of money via QE has been inflationary - and fixed rate bonds do very badly indeed when there is a fear of inflation.
Of course if the gilt market does catch a cold and sells off it means the effective cost of refinancing debt is much higher, and therefore the ability to even think about one day trying to pay some off looks further and further away.
Growth can help us out but it has to be quite a lot of growth and it will take a very long time indeed.
369. lol. But miss! Miss! He started it Miss, at comment 113!
I am quite content to stop talking about movies, its absurdly off topic. On the other hand, I find it too depressing to talk about politics and economics, right now - so maybe we should carry on…
Shock headline: Writer of simpleminded, flashy airport paperbacks defends simpleminded, flashy movie!
373. Jonathan: “Will the last one to leave turn the lights out” Tory campaign of the 1992 election
Erm…?
Fact is, Jonathan, Labour people never have anything positive to say about voting for Labour. Ever. On the media or here. Not once.
And that’s obvious - this is to be a change election and, if Labour say how they’ll change things the obvious reply is “why didn’t you do that already?”
‘Avatar’ is the Sarah Palin of movies: Strident in its anti-intellectualism.
368. Sean I love it when you show your Marxist analysis roots every now and then. You renegade you…
97 jsfl 156 Gadfly
The YouGov adjustments listed by Gadfly are, on the whole, increasing as time goes by. The overall change to the raw results in favour of Labour has moved as follows:
3.35%, 14.89%, 10.6%, 29.98%, 37.77%
The trend extends over a just a few days, and may (or may not) be sustained. Please keep an eye on this situation. At what size of overall adjustment does the YouGov approach become untenable?
YouGov’s main finding from its raw data - that Labour voters are hard to identify - coupled with this being a ‘change’ election, makes me wonder if a sizeable fraction of those with Labour IDs are finding it difficult to make up their minds. This would presumably have the effect of making the completion of a YouGov survey a low priority. On this interpretation, YouGov’s final results (after adjustments) assume that those with Labour IDs will largely vote Labour this time, albeit reluctantly.
One cannot discount this happening, but I would suggest that the probability associated with this view of the future is low - 10-20%?
It’s more likely that these votes will be distributed between the three main parties and abstention.
So I don’t go along with either YouGov’s final results or its raw data, but with something in between. Probably not out of line with Populus and ICM.
373/377 - Seems to me that whenever a party is attacked, they scream “negative campaigning”, and whenever they do the attacking then they’re “telling it like it is”.
Same for all parties, all the time. But it does get tiresome.
Who ever said films need original stories? Examples please of films whic are great because of the originality of their plot.
380 Exactly.
More schools are failing Ofsted checks
“More schools are being judged inadequate under a new inspection regime, figures from England’s schools watchdog Ofsted show.
Half of the 2140 schools inspected in the autumn were found to be either satisfactory or inadequate.
The proportion of schools classed as inadequate has more than doubled to 10%, compared with 4% in the 2008/2009 inspection period
The watchdog says its new-style inspections, the first of which were carried out between September and December last year, are part of a drive to raise expectations.
Only 9% of schools have been given the top rating of outstanding - compared with 19% of those inspected in the academic year of 2008/9.
Autumn inspections 2009
Outstanding - 9%
Good - 40%
Satisfactory - 40%
Inadequate - 10%”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8559402.stm
A nice fact for Tim 2009 was the worst year for growth since 1921. It was worse than any year of the great depression. Then Tim will still somehow say Brown has been so great and prudent with the economy. Brown has no economic qualification (Fact) Brown sold Gold at a 20 year low losing us £9 Billion pounds (Fact). Brown introduced the Tripatite financial system of Bank of England, Treasury and FSA which acording to many economists made the recession worse (Fact). I think the question is are Labour and were Labour ever fit to govern and the answer is no. The growth in recent years has been due to excessive borrowing and over inflated house prices which have been totally unsustainable.
The discrepancy on the Betfair GE date markets is now gone. 1.06 and 1.07.
Vanity Fair article on Cameron
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2010/04/david-cameron-201004
361 Saving NRK, stopped the panic on the banks. Look what happened when George Bush and the Republicans in the US failed to save Lehman Bros?
As I remember there were two rumours doing the rounds one was NRK the other was Barclays - HBOS joined them later. Saving NRK effectively saved Barclays - a bank which was actually in fairly good shape.
Osborne and Cameron admitted they were wrong on this during the Conference in 2008 when they backed the Governments actions.
364. Don’t you think he looks tired?
Toenails now stroking himself [figuratively] and pretending Brown’s Churchill.
376 I enjoyed watching Fern Gully and now they’ve reshot it and put it in 3D I enjoyed it even more - not sure why they changed the name to Avatar though.
my son quite rightly asked after we came out whether he could get an action figure of the colonel!
389 - Churchill the dog?
381: Being John Malkovich, Momento. Both highly original plots.
391, no, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he started saying “Ohhh, yes” when thinking of Brown.
389 re Toenails (Morris Dancer)
Itym Former and maybe current Conservative Robinson derides Labour for pretending Brown is Churchill.
383 More schools are failing due to a stricter inspection regime aimed at raising standards further
(from the article you quote)
Children’s Secretary Ed Balls said the government made “no apology” for Ofsted “raising the bar,” but said a single term’s figures were not a reliable indicator of performance for the year.
Every time an inspection framework is revised, expectations are raised and it is right for Ofsted to hold higher expectations on behalf of pupils and parents
Christine Gilbert, Ofsted chief inspector
“It is absolutely no surprise that there is a higher rate of inadequate schools at the start of the inspection cycle - exactly the same happened when a tougher inspection regime was introduced in 2005,” he said.
“Weaker schools are being specifically inspected more regularly and earlier in the inspection cycle to turn them around - while outstanding and good schools are now inspected every five years and satisfactory schools every three years.”
The House looks empty today.
368 SeanT, since you’re such a 3D addict, you’ll be pleased to hear that every studio is scouring it’s back catalogue for films to be reworked and re-released. Hollywood loves the new medium - it’s a great marketing gimmick, and you’ll be spoiled for choice over the next 5 years.
OT, I’m starting to think the UK pollsters claiming to represent Angus Reid are a practical joke.
First they wanted to know my opinion of the government of Afghanistan, with no “don’t know” option, and then they asked me if found inspiration shopping at Tesco’s.
Treasury bench just gave Cameron an open goal.
Wow Cameron is a bit pissed off there.
Jesus Christ…
Nooo, I’m missing the festivities! What’s going on?
Cameron watching it all ebb away………..
First time I can recall Dave losing it at PMQ’s.
402 - Cameron was raising the criticisms of Brown from Former Defence Chiefs.
Labour backbenches shout they’re Tory stooges, which upset Cameron
I wonder whether that Cameron outburst was planned?
Very clever if it was.
Good response on the cold war/peace dividend by Cameron.
397
Some of the really old comedies that used a lot of slapstick might be retreaded.
But saying that, the recent ‘Pearl Harbour’ could offer opportunities, or Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’…
381. Quite. There are only about seven plots, as we all know.
Shakespeare stole nearly all of his, including Hamlet.
No doubt there were moaning minnie middlebrows down at the Globe in 1601, tutting at Hamlet’s soliloquy, saying “Yes the verbal pyrotechnics are all very well, but the plot is clearly derivative of Saxo Grammaticus’s History of Denmark”
Ouch! Pwned!
Bloody wonderful attack.
406 - It’s very reminiscent of the Baby P question time, when Brown’s stupidity allowed Cameron an open goal
Interesting that both sides’ backbenchers think their man is ahead on points.
Severe tw@tting of Brown by Cameron there.
Gordon at his worst.
Brown hasn’t got a leg to stand on. Banging on about Ashcroft when Cameron is talking about war.
Brilliant.
Easy win for DC
404, he did over Baby P too, when Brown claimed Cameron was playing politics with it.
Brown still going on about Ashcroft. Labour loving it, but he’s showing contempt for the soldiers.
413. Agree
Fact is troops went in to Iraq without body armour, dozens of soldiers have been blown up in inadequately armoured land rovers. Brown is lying or the Forces chiefs are lying. Who would you put money on.
A very old skool exchange. Highly amusing but rather silly.
Labour still think Brown came across well there. What are they on?
406 - No idea Mike, but he’s made a right dick of himself with the Cold War comment.
And Brown’s only response is Ashcroft, Ashcroft, Ashcroft.
Oh dear.
412 - careful, or you’ll have Gabble and the motley crew on here telling us Cameron is the greatest actor since Olivier.
Brown seems to think questions about British soldiers dying in the desert with a jibe about Lord Ashcroft. His smugness as he sat down must be very comforting for their bereaved families.
YES
Sure Start
This is a win win PMQs for the Tories. And I don’t often say that.
Even Clegg is firing at the PM.
421, er, no. The Tories won the Cold War, Labour were supporting the Soviet Union.
421..Talking about right dicks and up pops Tim..
Clegg pretty strong too, and Brown just rolls out the tractor stats.
423 - The fact that PMQ’s was such a clusterfcuk for Brown that Ed Balls changed government policy about 2hrs later, and did what Cameron asked Brown to do, which Brown refused too.
For me, a good guide as to who won is whether Brown gets rattled or not.
He looked pretty confortable there and I have to disagree with OGH and give it to Brown. He spoiled it by bringing Ashcroft into it though.
Brown seems to think questions about British soldiers dying in the desert can be answered with a jibe about Lord Ashcroft. His smugness as he sat down must be very comforting for their bereaved families.
For those not watching, Cameron claimed the tories didn’t need to increase defence spending because they won the cold-war.
Uncontrollable laughter from the Labour backbenches.
There is now growing evidence that the only way the Conservatives can win big (majority of 30+) is if they can get back the voters that are right-of-centre but have drifted off to not voting, voting UKIP, other small parties, etc.
The Conservatives have gone too far to the left and are alienating the right-wing majority of the country. They want low taxes, low government, tough policies on law & order, low immigration and a highly open, fair and democratic system of government and culture.
The consensus from many experts on the last 3 elections is that the Conservatives lost because several million of their voters did not turn out to vote.
The Labour government has had a negative rating of more than -40% for more than 5 years. It is astonishing that they got a majority at the last election (especially given Labour lost the popular vote in England by a decisive margin).
The Conservatives have to enthuse and motivate the right-wing majority. How are they going to do this? Take newspapers like the Mail and the Times - these should be 100% behind the Conservatives given the views of their readers and most of their journalists. The Conservatives need to reach out more because this election is no longer about tinkering around, it is about the basic economic survival of the country, removing the most Stalinist PM we have ever had, and repairing the damage done by Labour.
There are two steps - let the people know that it is ok to feel angry about the state of the country. Second give them hope that things can get better, and will get better under a Conservative government.
There are 3 million voters that have sat on their hands for the last decade. It is time that they were given a reason to turn out and vote.
The Conservatives need to offer a referendum on the EU.
Well done Clegg
The more I see of this man (Brown), the more I am certain he will be a disaster in the debates. The expectations of Brown are low, but I actually feel people may see what a nasty and petty individual he is too. Not just incompetent.
Darling looks a bit grim.
Brown’s inability to answer a straight question without resorting to one of his pre-planned lines, doesn’t bode well for his performance in the TV debates.
And a thrid step. The Conservatives need to offer a referendum on the EU to recover the damage done by reneging on the referendum on the Lisbon treaty, which caused many potential voters to defect to UKIP, etc.
From BBC News Online summary of PMQs
“Mr Cameron, who also says Mr Brown was wearing a CND badge during the Cold War,… Mr Brown jokes that Mr Cameron was “at school at the time” the Cold War was being won. ”
Was Brown’s school joke as hillarious as it reads?
That was the biggest win for Cameron for months.
Ashcroft as a response to questions about defence spending just doesn’t cut it for anyone other than Tim and the Labour backbenches.
432: ‘For those not watching, Cameron claimed the tories didn’t need to increase defence spending because they won the cold-war.’
Quite right too! Haven’t you ever heard of the Peace Dividend.
432: “For those not watching, Cameron claimed the tories didn’t need to increase defence spending because they won the cold-war”
Well, he actually said “in the ten years before 1997, they didn’t need to increase defence spending…”, in response to Brown’s specific comment.
436. He’s seen The Budget!
Clegg is having a good run at PMQs - a good pointer for the debates.
439 - Well Labour MP’s liked it.
And there judgement is flawless isnt it? I mean, they allowed Brown to be elected unopposed as Leader, and that shows great judgement does it not?
439 - And schoolboy Cameron was miles ahead of MP Brown in terms of being right on UND. That’s not a positive Gordy.
426. Let’s be honest, the UK was fairly peripheral in the Cold War, “won” suggests a more active role than we really had.
442
“at a time when Labour MPs were wearing CND badges”.
444 - Do you see the trend, he criticises Brown and he does well. Makes a change from attacking Cameron.
will l, I have said almost the same thing; that EU demand is a gamechanger and pulls UKIP 3 or 4% back into line and even 1% BNP, maybe an extra 5% in total, effectively a landslide.
Announce it at the first debate. That would shock everyone.
440 - Brown shoehorning the Ashcroft stuff in was unnecessary, there’s plenty of time for that.
Although “we were winning the Cold War” from the schoolboy at the time was just laughable.
Clegg by far the best, and if they’d all just stand up and say they were tackling short prison sentences and the £10Billion cost they may have more respect outside the house.
446 Dave’s claims to have won the cold war were rather silly. His raising CND was rather ill-judged after the tributes to the “heroic” Michael Foot.
432. Gabble.
It was a “laugh or else you’ll cry” moment, since Cameron reminded both them and the viewers who was on the wrong side in the Cold War.
447. still bitter that we won, Corporeal?
The Uk was fairly central, Thatcher and Reagan tag teaming and keeping up the defence spending- the USSR could not keep up and blew up their economy.
Now we have socialists in charge here, it is our economy that has blown up…..
Reuters : “Brown says UK to maintain triple AAA credit rating”
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE6290L020100310?type=usDollarRpt
444 - If Gordon Brown is just going to keep using the word Ashcroft through three debates, he’s going to get monstered.
455 PM
that’s it were screwed.
455 lol
“…Mr Brown says the defence budget has risen under Labour and fallen under the Tories. But Mr Cameron says this was because the Conservatives “won the cold war”.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8559714.stm
Big gaffe by Cameron. Similar to Brown’s ‘we saved the world’.
Again from BBC News Online
“In response, the prime minister wanted to talk about finding common ground and avoiding division.
This inhabiting of the moral high ground was slightly undermined by five prime ministerial references to Lord Ashcroft’s tax status. “
If nothing else, today’s session demonstrated Gordon’s stubborn bloody-mindedness in refusing to be seen to give ground on anything - I’m sure Tony Blair wouldn’t have fallen into Cameron’s trap in refusing to disassociate himself with Labour backbench slurs. TB would have immediately diffused that one, come out smelling of roses, and put Cameron on the back foot. Instead, by answering a question that was never asked, Brown just looked evasive and bloody-minded.
Darling won’t be raising VAT in his budget now!
Is the York MP drunk?
Missed PMQs. Can I assume it goes along the lines of Q:Will the Prime Minister confirm the sky is blue?, A:Lord Ashcroft ad nauseum?
452 - A lot of Labour MPs and supporters appear to think that we lost the cold war.
I doubt very much whether Cameron wants his activities with pro Apartheid sanction busters brought up, so I suggest his youthful political activities may not be the wisest move.
Am I right in thinking that Denis Healey said before the 1987 election that the Soviet Union was praying for a Labour Victory?
Why did he say that?
452. Tiresomely predictable and tedious pb lefty in tiresomely predictable and tedious criticism of Cameron??!!!
Can this be right?????
454. Hardly, I was only a couple of years old when it happened.
I just rolled my eyes at the “we [tories] won the cold war”. Our contribution was easily dwarfed by the US and was hardly decisive.
454. Hardly, I was only a couple of years old when it happened.
I just rolled my eyes at the “we [tories] won the cold war”. Our contribution was easily dwarfed by the US and was hardly decisive.
454. Hardly, I was only a couple of years old when it happened.
I just rolled my eyes at the “we [tories] won the cold war”. Our contribution was easily dwarfed by the US and was hardly decisive.
I was surprised at how angry Cameron got. Not often you see it from him.
455 The only problem is that the UK’s credit rating isn’t determined by Brown, rather the various agencies.
Haha, Brown now claiming Tories are putting broadband at risk.
468 Coming from SeanT, pb’s very own stuck record, I’ll take that as a compliment.
459 - Not really. The Tories could cut defence budgets due to not starting too many open-ended military campaigns.
And if the Treasury predictions for the cost of Afghanistan were what Cameron said in the House, someone at HMT and the MoD wants sacking.
464 re missed PMQs (SthLondon Nick)
Both sets of backbenchers think their man won.
Both sets of cheerleaders on here think their man won.
My own view is that Cameron was doing well till he lost his rag; Brown was doing well till the Ascroft stuff.
Has Fabbers’ wig grown? It looks absolutely resplendent today. Bravo.
477 - He’s under pressure and his mistake over Dannatt haunts him.
Daily Politics, Jaqui Smith couldn’t even defend GB bringing up Ashcroft at PMQ’s.
It’s quite hilarious how the Labour usuals are trying to pretend that kicking lefties over their pathetic cowering to the forces of Communism is somehow a mistake.
484 BINGO!
re 471. Source please Tim?
Looking at Jacqui Smith on the Daily Politics, I am reminded that she had a role in Arnie’s movie Total Recall:
http://unrealitymag.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/total_recall_large_03.jpg
Well, I was planning to watch PMQs later but it sounds as if Brown’s behaviour over Ashcroft was disgusting, so I won’t bother.
481. or indeed by stopping military campaigns, such as afghanistan, doomed to failure, and which far more important than wasting money is wasting ever growing numbers of soldiers lives for no obvious purpose. i can understand not saying that now, don’t get me wrong, but it may need a Tory government with their more natural link to the military, to extract us from this mess, in due course.
484, wrong again, tim. Cameron was outraged during the Baby P PMQs similarly. Unlike Brown he isn’t a soulless creature of lists, he actually cares about some matters.
Joey Jones
Brown took heat out of the early exchanges. House had to listen to him. Cameron: “…under the Conservatives, we won the cold-war” - Rather simplistic writing of history.
489 - the woman is hilarious. If you saw that Great Offices of State thing on BBC4, she clearly thought she was the knees of various bees, and thought all her exchanges with the Sir Humphreys of the Home Office were the tip of the wit iceberg.
Corporeal,
How old are you?
Andrew Neil: The US marines have 1,200 helicopters for 8,000 men. We have 20 helicopters for 8,000 men.
Smith: Isn’t it wonderful we can combine them.
US Marines 120 helicopters
I scored it as basically a Cameron win against Brown, but he shouldn’t have used the Cold War line as it sounded as if it was straight out of sixth form debating society.
Clegg had a good session and, as Mike says, he might do rather well in the debates on that sort of form.
488. Perhaps tim was referring to this, Mike.
“In his mid-twenties Cameron went on a week long “jolly” to white supremacist South Africa, breaking sanctions against the regime, paid for by a shadowy pro-Aparthied lobbying group. But he says he regrets that and the party now abhors racism.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-ignore-the-propaganda-and-spin-ndash-the-tory-party-hasnt-changed-1903987.html
“…Mr Cameron said defence spending had fallen in the 1990s because “the Conservatives won the Cold War”.
Sky’s political editor Adam Boulton said the comment might be considered boastful and an “own goal” by the Tory leader.”
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Politics/Prime-Ministers-Questions-Live-Updates-And-Twitter-Analysis-Of-Gordon-Brown-At-PMQs/Article/201003215570971?lpos=Politics_First_UK_News_Article_Teaser_Region_3&lid=ARTICLE_15570971_Prime_Ministers_Questions%3A_Live_Updates_And_Twitter_Analysis_Of_Gordon_Brown_At_PMQs_
500, hahahahaha.
So Brown claiming he’s got everything about the economy right isn’t boastful?
Sky’s been Labour leaning since conference season.
488 -Mike.
But it emerged in a biography last year that he visited the country as the guest of anti-sanctions lobbyists in 1989, when Mr Mandela was still in jail.
Senior Labour MP Richard Caborn and ex-TUC general secretary Norman Willis, who campaigned against apartheid, have written to the Tory leader to demand he make a public apology.
“Your trip, paid for by lobbyists against sanctions, was a long time ago,” they wrote.
“But it was then, and is now, a question of values and judgment.
“Since the details of this trip became public, you have refused to comment on it, refused to explain why you had to keep it quiet and refused to apologise for your actions.
http://tinyurl.com/yjp3b8w
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/revealed-camerons-freebie-to-apartheid-south-africa-1674367.html
The traditional Labour attack on Tories used to be “Cold war warrior”
YouGov Data Up
http://www.yougov.co.uk/extranets/ygarchives/content/pdf/TheSun-results_09.03-trackers.pdf
Weighting data for Newspaper type shows large emphasis for Mirror/Record at 72% of the circulation of Sun/Star when it is only 40%.
Daily Politics - now has a spot on kidney donating….
WTF has this to do with politics?
Just programme filler.
Cam poor for going on not the economy again.
Brown poor for Ashcrofting on a question on army equipment.
Labour MPs - no pit is deep enough.
No score draw this week IMHO.
490 - Disgusting is a strong word. Pathetic it certainly was but that’s only because he couldn’t actually answer the questions he was asked.
500 - Cameron is right though, isn’t he? You had the parties of the right united against the evils of Communism, and you had the Labour party and other variou lefties thinking it was all wonderful and that if we could all become Communist too the Cold War would end that way.
Labour Party would never say “we” won the cold war because they regarded the Soviet Union and the USA as being “morally equivalent”.
492 - Yeah, Cameron cares about things and Brown doesnt. The scarey thing is some people are so blindly partisan they have no difficulty convincing themselves that this kind of b/s is completely true.
510. A totally vacuous statement Neil..
title says it all
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/leftwatch/2010/03/labour-lurches-leftwards-as-key-union-leaders-including-convicted-football-hooligan-become-candidate.html
Brown presents himself as a modern-day Churchill?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2010/03/brown_presents_himself_as_a.html
Coffee House verdict
VERDICT: A noisy and childish spectatcle throughout, the exchanges about Michael Foot being or not being a supporter of the USSR particularly. Brown is at his most vulnerable on defence and Cameron won the exchange. But the victory was pyrric - for instance the Cold War jibe was chirlish. Nick Clegg was more direct and incisive. The whole event will likely put people off Westminster.
508. No, you arent allowed to say that. Gordon is allowed to boast about increasing the defence budget year on year by small amounts when we are at war and contrast to it a time of peace in the 1990s when the defence budget fell but when (finally) Cameron reminds us that the reson for the fall in the defence budget then was the peace dividend, it is Tory “boasting”.
It is all part of the Brownian juggernaught. he says the same thing so often that jorunalists no longer both to even try to correct him and his version becomes the new reality.
511 - Believing that your side “cares” and the other side doesnt is worse.
510 - so you think it appropriate that brown sits down laughing after a question on Afghanistan because he thinks he’s scored a point re Ashcroft? Personally I find it abhorrent. Brown has no empathy. The only skin he’s worried about is his own.
502. An interesting contrast with Labour Defense Secretary Bob Ainsworth, who, at the ghastly end of the Cold War - AFTER the Khmer Rouge, AFTER Stalin’s Terror, AFTER the Cultural Revolution, was a candidate member of…. the International Marxist Group.
This is in 1982 and 1983. When the Soviet Union was threatening us all with nuclear obliteration.
http://www.politics.co.uk/mps/party-politics/labour/ainsworth-bob-$451964.htm
The collapse of the Soviet Union under the Regan and Thatcher administrations is one of the things the Tories can quite rightly be proud of and its undeniable that the end of the Cold War was one of the reasons defence spending was able to be reduced in the 90’s - Another reason was that we didn’t have a warm mongering government that seemed to constantly want to wage war on other people, but we’ll let that one hang.
513. Worth watching the embedded clip re Sir Stuart Rose coming out for team sane.
504: Interesting oversample of scotland in the last yougov.
514 “Cold War jibe was chirlish. “
Cameron is talking to voters rather than Spectator journalists.
Good effort from Cameron. Time to rouse the troops.
514 Pyrric sounds about right. The cold war/CND jibe was a mistake. Brown should have got off the Ashcroft script and demolished him. Blair certainly would have.
warm = war, obvously.
516. Thats why the statement was totally vacuous…geddit…
Oversampling of Scotland and Mirror readers and Labour are still behind.
518 - Are you stuck on repeat or something or are you just rehashing your greatest hits today?
523 - How?
What argument does Brown have now other than A*******?
506
The problem with PMQs is the punch-and-judy aspect. It can be dismissed, in the minds of the public, as a he-said-she-said business with both sides as bad as each other. What is far better is to let the public come round to their own opinion and make sure you’re standing on the right side of that opinion.
The Conservatives know that Labour are going to have to perform a dance of the seven veils as more and more figures are released, they are hoping that when it’s over the voters are going to run screaming into the streets in horror.
I believe that this will not happen. I think the media now has too much invested in Labour and will, in turn, draw the curtains over the economy.
526. They found 50 Labour voters from the ether - perhaps NPMP could borrow them for May 6th.
Is there any obvious reason on those YG breakdowns for why the Lib-Dems went up 4% in 24 hours?
525 - When you have been around long enough you will realise that there are a number of posters who need this kind of stuff pointed out to them.
Did everyone see oily Ed Balls, smirking in the corner next to Burnham?
Beat Balls:
http://www.beatballs.co.uk/main/
523. Jonathan: The cold war/CND jibe was a mistake.
Don’t like being reminded that your side lost?
500: ‘Sky’s political editor Adam Boulton said the comment might be considered boastful and an “own goal” by the Tory leader.”’
Boulton was probably living in a mud igloo and vandalizing fences at Greenham Common during the cold war anyway. He looks the type.
527. You were a Trot as well, weren’t you, you nasty little Irish cold sore? Mm?
Nothing else explains your bleatings on this subject.
532. I have been around for a very long time and have formed the opinion that you are an arrogant, presumptous opinionated prat.
So Cameron got angry, hey? Good.
I wish him to get visibly angrier and angrier; he has plenty of reasons to be.
It’s time he begins to show some fiery passion.
If the sample has to be adjusted the same way every time there is something wrong.
In Great Britain, pretend people don’t vote.
539 - Actually, perhaps with so many ‘postal’ votes I should say shouldn’t vote.
CAMERON LOOKED AND SOUNDED RATTLED,WHATS UP WITH HIM?
Ah Johann Hari. The Tories like the royal family is one area where he writes complete and utter bollocks
539. You missed the Glenrothes bye election ?
541. Shh - we dont shout on here.
538 PM, exactly right and this is what a lot of people on the right thinking side of Politics want to see at the moment. We need the passion and anger against this vapid government to be shown rather than a traditional British reserve.
That’s the difference with the angry exchanges and why Cameron needs to do it more often (not too often, but selectively).
When Cameron gets angry, it’s because Brown has harmed the country.
When Brown gets angry, it’s because he’s been caught harming the country.
Cameron looked assured and deeply caring. Good on him.
541.
First off theres no reason to shout.
Secondly Cameron did not look rattled he looked angry - And thats a surprise because you don’t expect it from him, but for once he had genuinely been annoyed by the jibe from the Labour backbencher about the military commanders being Tory supporters.
536 - By definition I cant point out that your “lefty group membership = some form of support for Khmer Rouge” argument is bogus more often than you raise it so who is bleating more?
537 - I love your work too.
548.Good.. you will get to see more of it.
Also PMQs was a massive failure for the Speaker.He made no attempt to stop Brown launching into irrelevant attacks on opposition, regardless of the questions.
@544 Fitaloon, exactly, the thing is Brown can’t afford to get angry back due to the bullying claims.
Classic Beeb ticker comment - sums up the media/PMQs..
“1256 On the Guardian website , Andrew Sparrow says that Mr Brown does not have to answer every question directly to be seen as “winning” prime minister’s questions.”
504, magic. A 130 individual respondent lead becomes 3 after weighting.
510, Brown underfunds war efforts then writes books about war time courage. He’s a hypocritical piece of shit.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0747596077?ie=UTF8&tag=globalgrowtho-21&linkCode=xm2&camp=1634&creativeASIN=0747596077
So with the official anouncement of the Budget date, today, the Electoral Campaign has officially started, right? The starting gun has been shot and heard, hmm?
To all you school boys at the time of the Cold war.
At the end of the Cold War ask the Germans and the Poles who won it for them.
Some Lady with her handbag, I think comes to mind.
The Labour parties last 4 leaders all were in the CND. Including most of their present MPs.
553 - Magic … or conspiracy??? Dont hold back.
547 “Labour backbencher about the military commanders being Tory supporters”
Perhaps that’s why Labour starves Defence of funds and gives so much to the Unions.
The military dont serve the Conservatives, they serve Britain and her People.
556. What do you think Neil …you normally have an opinion.
It’s not just Alistair Darling, Peter Mandelson, Stephen Byers, Charles Clarke, John Reid and Bob Ainsworth who were disgusting communists, supporting the baby-smashers of the Khmer Rouge, so was… Andrew Marr:
http://blogs.dailyrecord.co.uk/georgegalloway/2010/02/how-bbc-took-the-marr-out-of-m.html
Now we know why he gives the Chancellor and Lord Peter Fondlebot such an easy ride. They once handed out pro-Soviet pamphlets together.
550, aye, Speaker Frodo was very poor today. No point replacing Michael Martin if his successor lets the Government smear/attack the Opposition rather than answering the questions.
552 maybe not but cameron owned Brown today
542. “Ah Johann Hari. The Tories like the royal family is one area where he writes complete and utter bollocks”
“The invaluable Tax Justice Network has calculated that rich individuals “avoid” £13bn a year and rich corporations £12bn. (Indeed, a third of Britain’s top 700 companies haven’t paid any tax at all.) That’s enough to double the education budget – or to pay off Britain’s entire deficit in seven years without a single dent in public spending.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-the-worst-thing-about-ashcroft-is-that-his-behaviour-is-legal-1916391.html
I assume he got paid for writing that rubbish. If he did so it says a lot about the competence of the editors at the Independent as well.
“Some Lady with her handbag, I think comes to mind.”
…As well as the Pope, Ronald Reagan and some intrepid bearded islamic fighters in Afghanistan.
Didn’t see or hear PMQ’s but Brown definitely made a mistake in staying regarding himself” What you see it what you get”. The voters know this and will reject it.
Reminder: Cameron on Titchmarsh this afternoon at 5
Labour MP’s and Communism: to borrow Gordon’s mantra, “they were wrong…wrong…wrong.”
I’m sure it still stabs them in their icy hearts that the Soviets got their assess whooped.
556 - To be fair, it can’t be a conspiracy as it can only help the Tories really.
If Labour start believing they can actually win and shift their resources to the seats they need to win the election, they are going to have to divert them away from their electoral Hindenburg Line. That would be a catastrophic error.
559 - You need new material.
I can’t believe the dead horse that is Ashcroft is STILL being flogged.
No one cares, yet you could be forgiven for thinking Labour’s entire election strategy is built on the one issue. An issue that probably wouldn’t rank in the top ten of 99% of voters.
People who aren’t that interested in politics have never heard of him and don’t care about party funding. People that are interested in politics know about Lord Paul, Michael Brown etc and, therefore, won’t change their view because of it. Yet I can’t remember when I last saw any prominent Labour talk about anything else.
Utter madness IMHO
558: Neil doesn’t have opinions..he just snipes about others.
568. I am fully confident that you will provide it..
Judging by the number of comments above, PMQs was a bit lively today?
554. PM.
Not really. The war might get a little less phoney but I don’t expect outright campaigning until Budget day itself.
555 “The Labour parties last 4 leaders all were in the CND. Including most of their present MPs.”
For the post of EU foreign minister, Gordon Brown appointed Baroness Ashton. Aside from being made a peer by Tony Blair, the most noticable item on her thin cv was a seior CND commander.
Baroness Ashton, is of course, married to ‘the’ Peter Kellner.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6945940.ece
perhaps it is all coming together now
567 - “To be fair, it can’t be a conspiracy as it can only help the Tories really.”
Well, that’s not the main reason why it cant be a conspiracy but, defintitely, why people even get upset at the thought of dodgy polls is surprising seeing as it’s the election that counts. Not one company’s polls.
Iain Dale is going to do the LBC election night coverage:
http://twitter.com/iaindale/statuses/10270200722
562 - Hari will still be writing Juvenilia when he’s 70.
The tragedy of getting a job as a national newspaper columnist straight from writing ‘I’m gay and fat’ pieces in Varsity.
I quite enjoyed his writing at Cambridge to be fair, I just wish he’d grow up. Maybe when the Indy disappears he will have to.
I’m blowed if I can see why Cam’s remark on the cold war was an own goal.I lived though those times and remember vividly the way Maggie and Reagan were hated by Labour for standing up to the USSR. I thinkl the Conervatives have evey right to be proud of the part they played in that victory especially remembering the agreement to stage cruise misssiles at Greenham which was one (only one) of the factors which in the end changed the attitude of the USSR.A good thing to remind the electorate of.
One of the greatest ever presidents in the history of the united states, giving one of the most important foreign policy speech in the young nations history:
It brings a tear to my eye
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtYdjbpBk6A
Indeed Mike - one of the huge strengths of this site is the PM.com narrative is not dictated by you, but rather comes out of the interplay between your posts, the comments on the threads and the input from other posters like andy cooke.
The PM.com narrative is absolutely distinct from your own views. But I think it does explain the creepingly slow move to NOM.
The first question in PMQs was about the fear that the vast majority of soldiers serving in Iraq and Afg. would not be able to vote in forthcoming election. Brown promised that they would. We’ll see.
578. Old people vote - its a good line.
572, very. It started as standard Defence fare but then some Labour twonks started shouting that the ex-Defence chiefs were all Tory stooges. Cameron got pissed, and Brown thought that instead of admitting he’d thought the war Afghanistan war would cost hundreds of millions (cost for this year is £4bn) he decided Lord Ashcroft was the right answer.
Late to join the party but what an amazing PMQs - boy was Cameron angry! I felt the hairs on my neck go up
And Brown on Ashcroft again - URGH what sort of person links army deaths and issues with an irrelevent partisan jibe about party funding?
URGH again.
519. The peace dividend…. Is what i seem to remember it been called, is the level of sustained active engagement, that we are having now, the longest engagement of the past two hundred years?
581 ‘Brown promised that they would.’
Another Brownie. Considering how the armed forces have been treated by this government, soldiers are hardly likely to vote Labour. Same reason Brown chooses to bring up Ashcroft rather than answer the question - he’s not bothered about them dying.
They were all in with the reds.
Baroness Ashton, is of course, married to ‘the’ Peter Kellner.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6945940.ece
perhaps it is all coming together now
by Betsy March 10th, 2010 at 1:23 pm
THE husband of Europe’s new foreign minister has disclosed that he was targeted by the KGB as a source in the 1980s.
Peter Kellner, the pollster and political commentator who is married to Baroness Ashton, spoke about the encounter as his wife faces scrutiny over her previous role at the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). Kellner said intelligence documents from the 1960s showed that the British police as well as the KGB had incorrectly fingered him as a communist sympathiser.
Kellner said he was cultivated as a contact by Yuri Kudimov more than two decades ago. The Russian was subsequently expelled from Britain for alleged spying.
“He approached me at the Labour party conference in 1984,” said Kellner, a Labour supporter, who was then working at the New Statesman, the political magazine. “I was known to be quite close to [Neil] Kinnock and expect he was after some insight into Labour’s thinking. He never asked me for any documents or anything and I wouldn’t have given him anything if he had.”
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Kellner said the two men dined in a Blackpool steak house and met again on at least two other occasions. He declined more regular contact. “I actually found him quite tedious,” Kellner said.
I’ve just watched some the exchange about Afghanistan. Astonishing how many Labour MPs are laughing and smirking including Harriet Harman.
Labour are truly scum
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8560029.stm
588 Peter Kellner’s left wing views are well known.
I’ve just realised that “we won the Cold War stuff” ISN’T ironic
The UK only played one role in the Cold War after we had been put firmly in our place by the US after Suez, and that was as “Airstrip One”
Our military contribution was negligible, and given we can’t operate our ‘independent’ nuclear deterrent without the say so of the US, I don’t think the Soviets even gave us a second thought.
Oh by the way the empire has gone as well.
I don’t think the Soviets even gave us a second thought.
Oh by the way the empire has gone as well.
by RedRiding March 10th, 2010 at 1:46 pm
So why did they have plans laid out on the roads, and places in our major cities?.
Called Plans to invade.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/08/27/come-on-your-reds-115875-21627193/
http://www.europe.bg/en/htmls/page.php?id=8686&category=223
Just incase Tim and his Red mates say there were no Russian Plans to invade the UK in the cold war.
It would be an early Christmas present if the defence ministry smear-goblins got verily smitten by Lady Yumley.
592 John
the interesting aspect of the denial on the Cold War is how lefties just can’t admit they got things wrong - 21 years after the Berlin wall fell. It tells any 18 year old bloggers on this site they’ll still be debating the economic disaster created by Brown when they’re nearly 40 and when the debt still hasn’t been paid off.
591, 592 I don’t doubt they had palns to invade the UK as i said we were “airstrip one” and has Hitler found out, the US would have needed us to re-invade mainland europe.
What I am saying is that UK military spending was such an insignificant amount that it had no impact on the Arms race between the US and USSR that finally broke the Soviet system. The UK was a minor partner of the US and as I pointed out the only time we tried to go it alone without the blessing of the US, when we invaded Suez. The Americans put us in our place.
595 RR
but it’s not just about military spending. Thatcher and Kohl were the bedrock of Europe facing the USSR. The USA could not just have outspent the USSR and won. It needed allies to stand along side it. The UK and FRG held the whole of Europe together when the peace at any price brigade wanted to hoist the white flag.
Lots of people wanting to portray Labour as the party of the Soviet Union.
So be it, I doubt many of them have heard of Ernest Bevin or know much about Denis Healey.
But hey, what is good for the goose is good for the gander.
As a Healeyite, Anti Apartheid activist from the Eighties I’d like to know what David Cameron was doing on a sanctions busting trip paid for by apartheid apologists.
And we all know what that “I went to see for myself” crap meant.
A quick meeting with a PAC guy and an Inkatha tribalist in the middle of a weeks aryan cocktail heaven.
So come on Dave apologists, get some answers from yer man.
David Cameron has questions to answer about his support in the past for pro-apartheid groups. His fox hunting activities and membership of The Bullingdon make him out to be a very unsavory character. Furthermore his inability to control his temper in parliament today makes me dread the very idea of him having anything to do with pressing a defence button.
Keep going Gordon, at least we have a strong man in charge who has real principles.
Brown isn’t strong, his own party doesn’t even want him, let alone the rest of the country. Brown has stumbled along from week to week, not knowing from when or where the next leadership coup is coming. Is government has been remarkable for its ineptitude, the “Mr. Bean” tag is one that sticks in most people’s minds.
A strong PM would not be hanging on until the last possible moment to call an election, desperately praying for a hung parliament.