The Liberal Democrat leadership contest is still wide open, according to a YouGov poll commissioned exclusively for Sky News.The poll of 678 Lib Dem members finds Nick Clegg ahead with 56% of the vote among all those naming a candidate. However, the results show that Chris Huhne (44%) is still able to beat the front-runner as half the membership (52%) has not yet voted and many members remain undecided (24%).The general public, however, is unmoved by the Lib Dem race. Asked ‘who would make a better leader of the Liberal Democrats?’ 79% said they did not know (11% chose Nick Clegg, 10% Chris Huhne).
More than three-quarters of Lib Dem members (84%) want Charles Kennedy back on the front bench. And if neither Clegg nor Huhne were standing, Kennedy is considered the ‘best of the rest’ by a third of members (34%). Voter appeal, rather than competence or better policy programme, is key to Nick Clegg’s voting lead. Half of those polled (53%) think he has more voter-appeal than Chris Huhne who received nearly six times less votes in this area (9%). However, more members think Huhne has a better policy programme (28% to 19%). Asked if one of the candidates is ‘significantly more competent than the other’, 60% of members say there is not much difference on competence.
Paddy Ashdown is the best Liberal Democrat leader since the party was formed, according to over half of members polled (54%); followed by Charles Kennedy (37%). Most members think Ming Campbell is the worst (55%).Nearly half of members polled (49%) prefer Gordon Brown as Prime Minister than David Cameron (18%) and would prefer to side with Labour rather than the Conservatives in the event of a ‘hung parliament’. 44% would oppose a coalition with the Tories under any circumstances, while only 26% would oppose a similar deal with Labour.
The 'hung parliament' figures are very revealing and show that LibDem activists are well to the left of their MPs, This will give Chris Huhne heart, if more than half of them have still not voted.
29 comments:
Forget this.
There's another dodgy donor just popped out of the woodwork in the Daily Mail.
I hope this wasn't the 'exclusive' you promised us in the Wicksteed Park thread.
Is that it? Is that that what I've been waiting up for?
Interesting poll for sure - I had assumed Clegg had the thing locked up for quite some time. As a Conservative, I find it difficult to pick which one I'd prefer to win. It seems odd to try to come to a decision based on wanting the crapper person to win something, but there we go.
Huhne comes across as rather bland, but I think that if he worked on his presentation a bit he could turn that into something more statesmanlike. On the other hand, Clegg is perhaps the more photogenic, and the more likely to infringe upon David Cameron's territory (both in terms of personality and policy). And yet from what I have seen, he has this remarkably childish tendancy to behave like a little bitch when debating, or when he isn't getting his own way. I don't think the public would look kindly on a leader who sulks all the time. A tricky one...
Mike Smithson pipped you at the post, Iain! Though maybe not as it was on your rss earlier today anyway.
Iain,
If you going to be a tease about stories "embargoed until 10 pm", I was hoping it would be something substantially more salacious than the latest opinion poll about whichever political nonentity will be leading the Libdem party.
At this time of night on a Saturday, I was hoping for something much grubbier...
56:44 is not "wide open". If accurate it's "contest over".
Greg
Theres not really any suprise there. The Lib Dem membership has always been pretty left-wing. However this isn't reflected as much in who votes for them...especially in the south and south west of the UK.
This has always been one of its fundamental problems for the lib-dems, or any third party, and it'll be a issue for who is the new leader.
Personally, trying to be as neutral as possible, I would feel that Lib-Dems would be better off really targetting the left and labour. It'll cost them seats in the South West, but would really hit labour, and create a more solid power base for them, as they can't continue to try to be all things to all people.
PS Iain, why did you wait, this info was out way before 10pm...one problem with being out of the lopp this evening I guess
David Cameron is on Andrew Marr at 9:00 tomorrow morning.
You've been told. :)
Iain - take a look at Mail on sunday front page for tomorrow - on their website now. Kicks the donor story on.
"The 'hung parliament' figures....show that LibDem activists are well to the left of their MPs, "
or that Ian Dale knows nothing about Lib Dem MPs' politics?
First . . . no shame about the premature note, Iain. It happens. A million bots, crawlers and feed stealers descend on any blog transmission within nanoseconds. Google is irreversible Big Brother.
About Chris Huhne. The same blog that upstaged your story - Political Betting - also carried an earlier story about the volatility of polls.
The same poll mechanism got the Labour Deputy Leadership wrong.
As they say, a week is a long time in politics and the last few days is probably not fully accounted for in poll mechanisms.
It would not be wrong to imagine that the gap between Nick and Chris is narrower and that the gap between Labour and Conservative is wider than reported at this time.
Iain, it was interesting the Clegg/Hulme position on waste incineration, a hated Labour EfW policy common to local folks in Newhaven, Norfolk, Cornwall, Hampshire, Suffolk and many other places of government abuse.
see http://www.st-ig.co.uk/clegg&huhnehi.html
It was also very interesting to hear what toxicologist/industrial emissions expert DR Dick van Steenis MBBS had to say about incinerator fine particulate at Public Enquiry last week. John Prescott takes a hammering from DVS
http://www.dove2000.org.uk/
REPORT for PUBLIC INQUIRY regarding NEWHAVEN proposed incinerator site.
Dr. Dick van Steenis MBBS
6 Oak View, SARN, Newtown, Powys.
SY16 4DQ Tel 01686 670688
19 November 2007 & amended 24 November at inspector’s request.
PRESENTATION 23 November 2007
As a retired NHS GP, I have been involved in research into health damage resulting from industrial air pollution since January 1995, have spoken at 4 international medical conferences (2 USA, 2 UK) and been published in 4 peer-reviewed medical literature. I have spoken at public inquiries and public meetings leading to withdrawal/cancellation of incinerators, co-incinerators, badly sited opencasting & waste sites. I have no conflicts of interests unlike relevant government agents. I was asked for advice by the Canadian Department of Health who acted on my advice concerning a power station health problem. I have spoken with key UK & USA researchers including Professor Dockery, Joel Schwartz, Dr. Spengler, Dr.D. Costa, Dr. Perera and many others.
Along with my colleague Michael Ryan, we have been mapping out childhood asthma incidence, infant mortality, suicides, cancer incidence, age-standardised mortality, low birth weight and other parameters mostly at electoral ward level using data from ONS, PCTs and individually obtained. These prove that downwind of PM2.5 emitting sites incidence of a large list of diseases and premature deaths at all ages are very much higher than upwind. Our findings plus surveys in USA, France, Belgium & Scotland back up proof by the Health Effects Institute report of May 2000 that it is PM2.5 inhalation that causes this health damage and deaths NOT deprivation, passive smoking or other wild unsubstantiated allegations (“spin”) made by the UK government spokespeople. The HEI comprises 4 USA/Canada universities plus USEPA. Following that May 2000 report the USEPA successfully prosecuted 10 power companies, 6 oil companies & a steel company to install more abatement &/or new plant to reduce PM2.5 exposure. A Harvard follow-up report in 2006 proved there was a reduction of 3% of total deaths for every 1ug/m3 reduction in ambient PM2.5 levels. In 2000 in the UK in stark contrast Mr. Prescott downgraded IPPC to “anything will do” effectively removing air pollution & health damage from the agenda. As would be expected the relevant disease rates and premature deaths downwind have soared.
Ryan’s investigations reveal ONS data proves infant mortality in London in zones of wards downwind was 9.0/1000 births in 2003/5 compared with 1.3 upwind. No incinerator was exempt. There were 40 wards in 2003/6 with zero infant deaths–all of them clear of incinerators. Outside London the same pattern appears even the Veolia Basingstoke incinerator with a block of 11 zero infant mortality wards upwind with a block of 8 wards downwind typically 7.8/1000 births The infant deaths extend some 15 miles as predicted by my findings. Childhood asthma incidence from a co-incinerator in Telford was 2% upwind & 25 to 100% downwind. Most suicides were downwind. Clinical depression was 900% higher downwind compared with upwind of the oil complex in Milford Haven waterway & also was up downwind in Telford & beyond. Heart attack deaths around Tower Hamlets in East London were recorded as 240% of the national average, downwind of Lewisham SELCHP and Edmonton incinerators. Of the London infant mortality 7 of the highest wards are downwind of Edmonton. Harrow had worst infant mortality in London 2003/5 being downwind of 3 incinerators. My 2 page summary with the map lists the consequences on health clearly.
Research based on hard measurements published by Harvard & USEPA in journals & a book reveals coal burning emits PM5 particles but only those below PM3 enter the lungs. Research was complete on PM2.5s in USA by 1996 hence the USEPA PM2.5 law under the Clean Air Act in 1997 and tightening of a limit in 2006. The UK only measures PM10 down to PM4 (called PM10), NONE of which enters the lungs while instruments are also adjusted downwards to deceive the public. In Brighton at the Hollingdean site in June 2007 PM2.5s must have been adjusted to read MINUS 106ug.m3 and PM1s also to read minus 160ug/m3 . In USA reduction in PM2.5s by 2003 had saved $193billion in just hospital costs and days off work, seven times the cost of the abatement/new equipment. As there will not be any PM2.5 monitoring downwind of a Newhaven incinerator, levels could be extremely high where grounding occurs. Burning of coal with waste produces PM2.2 emissions but burning oils PM2.0 and burning of bitumen mixes PM1 emissions. It is the varied very toxic content of PM2.5s from incinerators that makes the effects of inhalation worse. PM2.5s & PM1s get through the abatement equipment, which include vaporised heavy metals, PAHs, dioxins etc. etc. many of which cause mutations leading to birth defects & cancers. The evidence of my colleague & myself prove that these modern incinerator emissions are very deadly causing maiming and killing. The St. Niklaas Belgian incinerator operating under the same EC directives reduced lifespan by 12 years including a rise in cancers over a 20 year span of 470% above the national rise. In Slough PCT area the SMR rose from 88 to 121 during the first 11 years of the Colnbrook incinerator while asthma, heart deaths, lung cancer & probably diabetes soared to highest incidence in the south-east.
A letter from the Sussex Downs & Weald PCT dated 10 February 2006 gave consent for this Newhaven incinerator to the Environment Agency. Neither that letter, nor the 2 relevant Health Protection Agency reports, nor the DEFRA statement (challenged by Royal Society for lack of data) has a single proper journal reference or any health or PM2.5 data. They comprise SPIN!!!! Even DEFRA now admit in their 16 July 2007 report that PM2.5s cause premature deaths and illnesses including cardiovascular & respiratory. On 12 September 2003 I was present as observer at a meeting of 5 public health directors plus 2 HPA doctors. Not a single one knew the subject or had tried to be up to date. My report has 338 journal references in stark contrast with health & PM2.5 data. The HPA who gives advice to public health doctors had a document in 2003 in use until late 2005, which said to pass everything as long as forms had been filled in to councils WITHOUT A SINGLE MENTION OF HEALTH. In April 2005 HPA had a meeting where R. Harrison advised them not to do any new health study of incinerators but to keep the Elliott one (not in a proper journal). It compared some of those affected with others affected in a circular manner instead of downwind compared with upwind. It looked for cancers diagnosed within 10 years (instead of 20) to keep numbers down & then adjusted fraudulently for deprivation to reduce residual effect. I would call it deception. They only looked at incinerators of 1960s vintage when coal would have been fuel with content being less hazardous. So in late 2005 HPA issued their current guidance still without data, proper references or distance at risk. Harvard studies published in 1996 and others at St. Helens and a Porton Down study, all based on measurements, revealed that for every 100 foot of chimney height PM2.5s ground at enough concentration to have health effects within 7 miles. Hence those downwind of Newhaven are at real risk of being maimed or killed at up to 15 miles. My map is in my summary report. The highest risk is halfway namely Lewes with a frequent SE wind. In Dyfed the worst asthma incidence was at Whitland with 38% of children aged 4 to 5 years diagnosed chronic asthmatic compared with only 1% along upwind Cardigan Bay. Modelling must be based on these proven measurements, confirmed by the London infant death pattern. Examination of the recent Olympic site fire photograph attached reveals that particles can be seen on the underneath of the plume grounding at several miles from the site.
The PCT admit not undertaking a detailed health impact assessment as I have done in my summary. That failure is a very serious matter. The project contract is for 27 years plus extra time for cancers to be diagnosed so the PCT would be liable for consequential health costs for up to 47 years by signing consent. Owing to higher illness rates there will be lower productivity per worker & higher social security payments making inward investment very unattractive. Furthermore childrens’ IQ will drop up to 3 years in the affected wards (Perera report) leading to education blackspots seen elsewhere already. The so-called assessment is just wild assumptions devoid of fact when the PCT could have obtained health data from other PCTs affected by incinerators eg Edmonton, Slough & Newham (from SELCHP & Edmonton). Waltham forest PCT has already publicised excess ill health unrelated to income/deprivation. The London deprivation map is not remotely the same as the infant deaths or low birth weight (caused by PAHs etc). It is useless using COMEAP who are years out of date still believing in PM10s for political reasons, having conflicts of interest also no PM2.5 data. The PCT claims of no rise in grounding must refer to only PM10s, which would be removed in the abatement equipment, but PM10s do not get into the lungs and so are not the issue. It is nothing but deception to say emissions will contribute little to monitored (PM10) when the entire problem is unmonitored PM2.5s, totally unregulated, which have been proven to kill infants etc. downwind for 15 miles in London. The PCT do not have a clue. Guidelines are irrelevant as the UK has refused to follow the USEPA and the EC does not propose to enforce PM2.5 limits until 2015. The only accurate comment in the whole PCT report is that not only SW winds affect Newhaven while NW and SE are common in England. As the Environment Agency have written they know nothing about health and do not monitor PM2.5 or PM1 particulates, how can the PCT consent letter ask the EA to do these two things?? It is up to the PCT to check out the truth themselves. If the plant was erected I anticipate it would not be shut down for excess PM2.5s or maiming & killing. Instead, the PCT could cover it up as they did in Telford with secret meetings with the company to protect company profits while maiming and killing those the PCT doctors are ordered to protect by the General Medical Council. Even the BMA in 1999 ordered public health doctors to learn about these matters, but they have not. These PCT public health doctors could be struck off the register by the GMC for misleading the councils and Environment Agency while aiding and abetting indiscriminate killing and maiming. Who will pay the extra PCT cost of illnesses caused by an incinerator? In conclusion, the discredited PCT consent must be declared invalid and withdrawn which would then prevent the EA allowing the incinerator to proceed. In these circumstances of wilful deception by the PCT it would be criminal to allow the land requisition to proceed.
In addition an incinerator is not Best Available Technique or BATNEEC as mandated in IPPC. A plasma gasification plant as found in Ottawa & to be built in Michigan (by Veolia), Florida & Panama costs less to erect with a running cost of c.£23 per ton nett compared with incineration £63/ton plus £67/ton (EC quotes 100 euros) health/days off work bill to the taxpayer. Hence it is the economics of the madhouse to build this incinerator.
Was Vince Cable mentioned in that poll?
I know a lot of Lib Dems are bitterly regretting his decision not to run. His showings in the Commons recently have been outstanding. Clegg and Huhne are all very well, but they seem kind of bland to me.
Ark's Ark
Whoops.
But let's see, this means Tories should definitely not vote for Lib Dems where they are in contest with Labour for main honours? Might as well stay pure and have Labour than have some false hope of Tory-lite.
In Tory Lib struggles Labour supporters should definitely back the Libs rather than the Tories?
Doing voter iD today I had a tribal Tory who told me he had voted Labour in LG elections because council were doing well and would do same in GE if Tories did not campaign properly.
I don’t agree that the Lib Dem activists are “well to the left of their MPs” - and they certainly aren’t where I live in the Twickenham constituency [headed by “Brutus” Cable]. We have a neo-Loony Left council in Richmond [with Lib Dems at the helm] who are tax-guzzling, and act as if they are running a banana republic. They should be concentrating on running a council cheaply and efficiently – especially as their previous tenure left a £60m ‘black hole’ – but they are more concerned with ‘saving the world’ – and grandstanding on their own behalf. [As a reminder this neo-Loony Left council aim to tax 4x4s when they are stationary – although their leader happily was chauffeured around in a 4x4 whilst in the States! And – yes – they are total hypocrites – and vile political opponents.]
Ever since the Labour Party nearly killed off the Liberals the latter have become the arch-opportunists of politics. They pretend to be ‘local’ in order to take Labour votes in Labour areas, and - in order to justify their volte face in Conservative areas – they play down their Lefty credentials – until elected.
I would guess the Labour Party think they’ll win a fourth successive term, and the Liberals think they can powerbroker this – and get some real power for the first time in a hundred years. After all the Scottish Labour Party only ruled in Holyrood with Liberal help.
Cash for Ministers, Northern Rock , missing CDs etc.
Any story about the Lib Dems has as much importance as the weather bulletin from the Moon .. even were SuperVince suddenly to be made leader.
Forget the Liberals, the electorate did some time ago.
The Sky figures on turnout are, in my opinion, wide of the mark. Virtually all members I have spoken to have already voted.
Vote LD get Labour
Don't agree Nich. I am phone canvassing and there is still a significant number who haven't voted.
any idea of what the margin of error/degree of confidence is on a poll of this type?
I dont realy care who wins. Clegg looks lazy and laid back but more trustworthy.
Huhne looks hungry for it and far less trustworthy so he will probably win.
"I don't think the public would look kindly on a leader who sulks all the time. " [Clegg]
Gordon's been finding the truth of this out all by himself. The thought of having two of them throwing hissy fits at each other in PMQs is not attractive. At least Cameron doesn't sulk in public.
any idea of what the margin of error/degree of confidence is on a poll of this type?
I see someone is concerned abiou the Newhaven Generator . Norman Baker the Liberal sitting MP gets a lot of , no doubt , gratitfying press from his hobbies which include anti monarhism , animal rights and prying into abuses of tax Payers money. he is also to eb found whining about this project
Sadly as his party is a always in favour of yet more bureaucrcay and more coercion he acheives nothing in his political life except to grandstand on trivia. He does not understand that such abuse is not the exception , it is the rule in all such ungoverned systems. Of course as a sitting MP for a Party with no say in anyhting he has to keep busy
Doing voter iD today I had a tribal Tory who told me he had voted Labour in LG elections because council were doing well and would do same in GE if Tories did not campaign properly.
Samples not much larger than this have been used by Brown`s friendly Pollsers and then put in the Sun which is quite cheap as I know . I would suggest this important fidning is published as a 100 % of tribal Tory voters would consider voting Labour.NHS contracts will follow and who knows what else in the slush fund addicted world of NewLabour
The message has to be quite clear though. A vote Liberal is a vote Labour and all those who wish to remove this dreadful Government have to come together in the broad church of the Conservative Party.
As ever the difference is between the the lib-dem candidates and the populace at large. There's a good (if slighly absurd) argument for saying that party leaders shouldn't be chosen by the party because they are not there to appeal to their own party members but to the electorate. The only people that new Lib Dem leader won't need to win round are lib dem leaders. I found this on an instant polling site which puts Clegg far further ahead. http://www.thisonethatone.com/?v=432 . 63%-37% when I looked. You have to remember that Ian Duncan Smith was chosen by the Conservative Party and then rejected by everyone else.
Looks like Clegg is going to it...
Maybe Huhne is the new David Davis?
Iain, hope you don't bet on the horses too often.
I see that Newmania is in the insurance sector. Strange how the Newhaven incinerator is being given an extremely wide berth by all the insurance sector on future health claims.
Basically no insurance company will touch Veolia for any future health claims with regard to public health linked to PM2.5 emissions. ESCC conservatives have just sucked themselves into the worst waste deal in the UK. One doesn't have to be a liberal (I'm definately not Iain) to comprehend the absolute stupidity of incinerators. As a personal who voted this time conservative (not in ES) and has visited a modern Plasma Gasification facility, as well as an MBT+AD facility [cheaper better modern alternative to EfW incinerators]; ESCC has followed the mindset of General Hague, continue the great waste EfW burner push, mindlessly, unthinking, stubbornly and without to much realisation of the future human health costs.
Iain, you should dedicate a whole Blogg on the UK incinerator policy. ES conservatives do come out badly, but the Brown government and Labour come out worst, and Nick Clegg from Sheffield [incinerator city] is still a fence sitter on the issue. Lets open this one up.
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