Saturday, February 14, 2009
It's Not Back to the 70s, It's Back to 1986
Tonight's ComRes poll is fascinating. It shows a 16 point Tory lead, the largest for six months. But more interestingly it is the third poll in a row showing a large increase in the LibDem vote. They are on 22%, up 6. Even more interestingly, the Labour vote has collapsed to 25%. These two figures are great news for the Tories as they hark back to the giddy days of the mid 1980s when there was a split opposition vote. That enabled Margaret Thatcher to win two landslides in 1983 and 1987.
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27 comments:
I hope you're right Iain, but let's wait for the detail, to see where the Libs have actually picked up.
Thanks Droopy Draper.
Iain. the banks did not fail in 1986 or the 70s. This is much worse...much much worse. Probably the WORST ever.
And tribute is labour.
Iain. the banks did not fail in 1986 or the 70s. This is much worse...much much worse. Probably the WORST ever.
Oh you really want to believe it, you really do.
However the point of globalization is that they have at the same time buggered up the ENTIRE WORLDS economy and human society, at the same time. So this time there is no where to run to, and nowhere to hide, and our RULING ELITES know it. This because they did it all for a COMMON PURPOSE, on purpose.
Unless you can suddenly find a whole heap of Gold you did not know you had. In which case you may even have a chance of feeding your family in the coming years. Otherwise you are well and truly stuffed.
I had to register to do labourlist. I fXXXXF UP
It's back to the 80s in more ways than you might think...
In Northern England there is, as I surmised earlier in the week, a Conservative lead: in fact, an 8 point Tory lead C 37, L 29, LD 25, BNP 2.
The Tories are also 39 points ahead in Southern England (C 56, L 17, LD 17, Green 6) and do well everywhere else apart from Scotland.
Although they have a tie among the C2s (which is a blip, considering other polling evidence), ComRes also find a 21 point Tory lead in the DE social group (C 48, L 27, LD 18).
Never mind Crewe. If there was a by-election in some of Labour's Northern seats that have bigger majorities than even the late Mrs Dunwoody did, Labour would be in trouble there too.
Crumbs - but people don't like to mention the 1980s, do they? The times I've seen something on a TV pop culture show or the news hailed or blagarded as "70s" and thought "But surely that was 80s?"
NO! We want LD's on 12, Labour 25 and Tories on 48%!
Then it will mean yellow Taxi time for the LD's!
I still think Labour should do better than the greens and BNP.
But you never know
Iain
Stop thinking of the 80's
None of us have EVER experienced what is about to hit the fan. Every contact I have in the banking/investment sector I know is WHITE with fear. REAL terror.
If we are lucky, we will escape totalitarianism. If we are not, it's Europe during the 30's again.
That cost 50 million their lives last time around.
I think we are near to a Lib Dem tipping point
..and then again...
CONSERVATIVES 44% (+1)
LABOUR 32% (nc)
LIB DEMS 14% (-2)
And the online pollster has the LDs going down
So the second of tonight’s polls is now out - YouGov for the Sunday Times - and is showing a very different picture from the ComRes survey announced earlier and the previous ICM and Populus polls.
Iain> "But more interestingly it is the third poll in a row showing a large increase in the LibDem vote. They are on 22%, up 6. "
told you so... a hung parliament is very likely...
"Britain's most senior civil servants are to hold formal talks with the Liberal Democrats on their plans for government as Whitehall prepares for a hung parliament in which Nick Clegg could hold the balance of power after the next election."
I predicted a hung parliament many months ago. Mind you, the Yougov poll shows them on 14%.
Iain >
"I predicted a hung parliament many months ago."
keep your money on that one...good call.
*yawn reaches for Ovaltine*
there have been predictions of a hung parliament since I was revising for my O levels in the mid-80s, at the same time there were predictions in the Torygraph and freshly launched Indie of the Tories becoming the permanent HMG party too.
hohohohohoo
Sorry Canvas - but YouGov out tomorrow has LibDems back on 14%.
Iain Dale blogged: “These two figures are great news for the Tories as they hark back to the giddy days of the mid 1980s when there was a split opposition vote. That enabled Margaret Thatcher to win two landslides in 1983 and 1987.”
If so they once again show that the electoral system is badly broken. It caused the Thatcher terror contrary to the democratic wishes of the electorate. It needs reform as always. It’s high time the British saw actual real democracy instead of this worthless sham.
canvas said... “a hung parliament is very likely...”
A hung parliament is never at all likely. And it’s impossible to vote for.
And just to labour [sic] a point I have made before that despite Tory paranoia displayed in some quarters here [posts passim], Clegg and his Liberal Democrats in this highly improbable eventuality would not do any deal to keep a minority Labour government in power:
(1) The Lib Dems would not want to sustain a Labour government seen to have been rejected by the electorate;
(2) Clegg himself is far too right-wing anyway and much prefers the Tories (unlike his party membership).
Since neither the Tories (ha-ha) nor Labour would do any deal on electoral reform in any case, what would actually happen is a minority government followed fairly rapidly by another general election. (OK a promise of a Speaker’s Conference is an outside possibility but I don’t buy it.)
But notwithstanding the above wild speculation, don’t expect a hung parliament anyway. It’s probability is realistically vanishingly small. But do expect further advances by the ‘minor’ parties.
Very interesting analysis, Simon.
So the present circumstances are the worst EVER? So not merely worse than the early seventies when we couldn't afford to run power stations 24/7, or worse than the late forties when we couldn't properly afford to feed ourselves, but worse than the black death when a third of the population died? Really? People: get a sense of proportion and we can start to deal with this. It's bad enough having the headless chickens in Downing Street without the rest of us panicking as well.
So the present circumstances are the worst EVER eh Mr Mr? So not merely worse than the early seventies when we couldn't afford to run power stations 24/7, or worse than the late forties when we couldn't properly afford to feed ourselves, but worse than the black death when a third of the population died? Really? People: get a sense of proportion and we can start to deal with this. It's bad enough having the headless chickens in Downing Street without the rest of us panicking as well.
Lets hope that the LibDem rise is limited to Tory - LibDem marginals
Canvas, if we want to get really far-fetched, then what happens if there’s a hung parliament, an interregnum minority government, then another hung parliament. How very naughty of the voters. Now we get to really interesting territory:
Would electoral reform become unstoppable? Or would Labour and the Tories decide it was now suddenly such a grave economic national emergency it was time for them to join forces in a National Government. My money would be on the latter. They really don’t want a democratic electoral system - neither of them. The very idea of giving power to the actual voters terrifies them. More to the point they all consist entirely of beneficiaries of FPTP.
But this is armchair speculation. The possibility of one hung parliament is really very remote; it requires an extraordinary knife-edge situation given the present bogus and biased electoral system - albeit it grows more possible as third party representation increases (as it has).
The possibility (as Labour and the Tories know full well) of consecutive hung parliaments is very tiny indeed. The possibility of even one remains very small.
However if the Labour vote is collapsing, deservedly, & going to the Lib Dims, undeservedly the Tories should be a bit worried about that. Some of it must be the very gentle treatment given the LDs by the BBC (see Marr's questioning of Cable today). The BBC regularly do that which gives pompous LD's an air of gravitas which they can't maintain under pressure - this is exactly what happened to Menzies campbell.
Nonetheless it also shows the Tories have failed to convince the public of their case & impracticability of the LD's. At the very least their commitment to depending on windmills & the currently non-existent carbon capture to stop the lights going out makes them clinically insane. Unfortunately Cameron is not well placed to say so.
Rog T said... “Lets hope that the LibDem rise is limited to Tory - LibDem marginals.”
What Tory high command would be astonished about is if they don’t make large advances (and indeed gains) in those marginal constituencies they lost to the Lib Dems - for instance in the west country and in South West London.
There’d be some seriously pissed-off Tory candidates if that happened.
But as Iain Dale has publicly noted (after Norfolk North), Lib Dems MPs are difficult to shift once they have had time to dig in. They do often lose by-election gains at general elections, but they also frequently keep them too. They also tend to do well in seats they have fought hard for years and eventually gained at a general election.
Notwithstanding, if they were to make any gains (along with the losses) at the next GE, it would probably be at the expense of Labour. Look at all those failed de-fenestration hopes at the last GE.
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