Chancellor Gordon Brown's poll ratings have plummeted in the wake of new
revelations about his £5 billion tax raid on pension funds in his 1997 Budget,
according to two new surveys tonight. A YouGov poll for the Sunday Times
found that more than half of voters - 52% - now believe he has been a bad
Chancellor, as against 41% who thought he had done a good job running the
Treasury.
That represents an almost exact reversal of the position a month ago when
51% said that he had a good record in No 11 as against 41% who thought he had a
poor one. Asked whether he was fit to be Prime Minster in the light of the
disclosures over his handling of pensions, only 27% said that he was, as against
57% who said he was not.
Just 11% said they thought he would make a better Prime Minister than
Tony Blair, while 38% thought he would be worse. At the same time, an ICM
Research poll for the News of the World found that 57% hold him responsible for
the current shortfall in pension funds. That rises to 69% among voters aged 55
and older. Overall, 44% said Mr Brown's handling of the pensions issue would
harm his chances of winning the next election if, as expected, he succeeds Mr
Blair as Labour leader. Again that rises among older voters to 55%.
Overall the YouGov poll put the Conservatives on 39%, one point up on last
month and eight points ahead of Labour on 32% - down one on a month ago. The
Liberal Democrats are unchanged on 16%.
Saturday, April 07, 2007
Polls Bring More Bad News for Gordon Brown
Just out from the Press Association...
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9 comments:
I told you my wife thinks Gordon Brown is evil! She's not the only one it seems.
PS: Up the Hammers!
I saw you on TV today and you are much older than the photo suggests - such is the way of the internet.
even worse news for Labour in Scotland, getting further behind according to the last poll
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=447333&in_page_id=1770&ito=newsnow
He couldn't win an election even if he was running against himself.
Looks as though we, the electorate, are at last flexing our electoral muscles.
I voted for Cameron in this YouGov survey. However, I voted against him in the previous survey - and will do so again (even at the GE) if there's any more of the Polly Toynbee, Blair's heir, abuse of the grass roots, or 'sour little Englanders' games.
It's not only the new Conservatives who've learned some hard lessons during the past miserable 10 years. Many of us out here in the ether have learned some too. Above all else we've learned to distrust politicians as a breed.
One whiff of Blairism from any party in the two year run up to the next election and I believe the electorate will give all of our politicians the hung parliament that none of them want. So all parties had better start listening to the ones the power really belongs to.
Power to the people!
Auntie Flo'
Overall the YouGov poll put the Conservatives on 39%, one point up on last month and eight points ahead of Labour on 32%
Shame that YouGov can't do simple arithmetic!
What 'disclosures'? The pensions robbery was widely publicised - and its future effects analysed extensively in the press in 1998, 1999, then in 2000, 2001, 2002 etc etc. Do these people not read newspapers?
The real scandal is that when in 2003 pension schemes began to close one after the other, after being forced to sell off equities at the bottom of the market and invest in lousy bonds and useless 'low-risk' investments, forced to sell by new draconian accounting standards thrust on companies by - yes! - Gordon Brown, thereby making companies effectively worth less on the market, turning the pension schemes into a drag on company sales and reducing profit-making M&A activity, Brown did nothing to alleviate the decline in the pension schemes and the markets (by e.g. reducing the tax burden on company schemes) but on the contrary worsened the situation by raising further stealth taxes from business and throwing billions of the taxpayer's money at a) the terminally cancerous NHS, b) kids who can't be arsed to learn, and c) older kids who can't be arsed to work.
We should all be bloody, bloody angry.
5bn per year. 10 years. Compound interest PLUS the increase in the market. E.g. My funds were worth 15K in 2002. Now with my utterly amateur investment skills they're up to 80K. For the robbery from UK pensions funds we're talking £150bn and rising. Plus the drain on present and future taxes for all those who've been impoverished and will have to rely on state handouts, or be compensated by 'the state' (=you and me). When Gordo announces a generous increase in the compensation scheme for pensioners whose schemes recently collapsed under the burden, who do you think pays the compensation? Him? Whitehall? No - you, me, all those of us who pay taxes.
If you want to know how easy it's going to be for the taxpayers to pay for Brown's own pension, and the pensions of all 'public' employees, have a look at the straits the NHS is in - it's funded on the same basis as public service pensions, which is: spending as much as they can on the highest salaries and largest work-forces they can get away with, regardless of productivity, then leaving future generations to fund the resulting tidal wave of luxurious index-linked guaranteed final-salary pensions.
And if future generations of private sector workers don't prove profitable enough to subsidise them in their old age, guess what? They'll cut and tax private pension-schemes and pensioners even more, and if necessary de-franchise them.
We should be demonstrating about this, bloodily if necessary, every day. If this were France, we would.
The really horrible thing is, if the creature Brown wins the Labour leadership contest, he could be PM for THREE YEARS.
Ick.
Surely there must be more people than John Reid and former HJome Secretary Clarke in the Labour Party that realise their popularity is going to fall through the floor if they continue to insist that Brown walks into the PM's shoes unchallenged?
The Miliband campaign must start to get underway soon, he cannot say No for ever!
An election involving Cameron, Miliband, and old Ming would be very interesting, it might just provide those massive swings in marginals that we are looking for.
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