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COMING TOMORROW:
The Man Who Could Revive the LibDems
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A Sunday Telegraph poll puts the Tories on 43%, Labour on 36% and the LibDems on 14%. This is the best ICM rating for the Conservatives for fifteen years.
I may feel forced to mention this on the News 24 paper review tonight at 11.45pm...
UPDATE: The same poll last week put both main parties on 38%. This would give the Conservatives a single figure majority and demonstartes how badly the electoral system is stacked against the Tories.
The Observer reports tomorrow that three former Blairite Ministers, Stephen Byers, Alan Milburn and Charles Clarke are "itching" to speak out. Courage, boys, courage!
UPDATE: The Mail on Sunday has a poll showing the Conservatives on 41% and Labour 37% and the LibDems (again) on 11%.
55 comments:
Pressure is being ramped up on gay gordo.
Seems that people aint stupid, and can easily see that this government has run out of ideas.
Lib Dems on 14 per cent, eh? Ming will be so relieved...
Excellent news!!!
Might also be worth mentioning that a quarter of people who voted LibDem at the last election now say they intend to vote Conservative. It will segue nicely into highlighting Ming's problems.
I do wonder how long it will be before the Blairites start to do to Brown what Simon Hughes has today done to Menzies Campbell.
Any bets on the most likely candidate to be their first to flash the knife? My money's on Alan Johnson. Of course, it would have been John Reid, had he not announced his retirement. Bet he's kicking himself now.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article2652829.ece
Tony Blair turns on Gordon Brown as ‘empty’
Tony Blair "was said to feel Brown’s speech to the Labour conference was “empty” and to be “concerned about what new Labour stands for”.
Aren't we all?
Good stuff Iain!
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article2652829.ece
'John Prescott was overheard warning members of Brown’s “kitchen cabinet”, including Douglas Alexander, the election co-ordinator: “For f***’s sake, get your head out of the polls."
Slightly of topic: Do you think Gordon Brown will be on the phone to congratulate England ?
There seems to be a general idea at the moment that public political opinion is more volatile than ever before.
And yet, from the Sunday Telegraph report (which is not far off other recent poll reports):
'The poll contains some crumbs of comfort for Mr Brown. Mr Brown still decisively beats Mr Cameron by 52 per cent to 32 per cent when voters are asked which is the strongest leader.'
OK, Brown is coming down from an initial display of, um, something successfully spun as competence. And Cameron is dragging himself up from a low of perception as a flimsy twit.
But, after the events of the previous week, is that evidence of quick public reaction? More like turning round an oil tanker, I would have thought. Much further pushing required.
I think the rugby will dominate don't you?
And according to the Telegraph today, in the marginals Labour were actually ahead - so the big yellow booby could have called an election anyway and still won.
Never mind, they're nicking the family policy now - are they outsourcing their thinking to Dave and Gideon or what?
Iain,
The egg chasers have reached the World Cup final.. Superb!
However, will the Scot Gordon Brown be present at the final. He is Prime Minister isnt he?
If he is there it will be an outrage!
The West Lothian question again because as far as I am concerned he isn't representative of England, especially in a tournament that Scotland played in.
Your thoughts would be interesting.
Congratulations, Tories!
There was a very astute comment over at pb (can't remember who posted it) to the effect that yer recent rise in the polls shows that electorally speaking the Conservative Party is no longer "toxic" and thus is again truly competative with Labour.
As Iain pointed out in his last Telegraph column, this does NOT mean that the next general election is in the bag for yez. Because, as I (if not Iain) would argue, Labour under Neil Kinnock's leadership became "non-toxic" a decade after going down to defeat in 1979.
NOTE that the present year 2007 marks a decade since it was the Tories turn to bite the big weenie in the 1997 election. An interesting coincidence.
No sensible person would or should denegrate the impact of Tony Blair on Labour's rising fortunes 1994-97, or the credit due to David Cameron for improving Tory prospects in (late) 2007.
BUT the 10-year conincidence does tend to indicate that:
--ten years is a long time for ANY sustained goverance by ANY major party
--it takes a while for a major party to get over a bad defeat, but eventually it DOES so, because both its own core followers AND the mass of the electorate desire an opposition that is actually capable of winning the next election
-- 1992 demonstrates that simply being "non-toxic" does NOT mean that the opposition party is bound for glory UNLESS the governing party itself becomes "toxic" (as the Conservatives did after '92)
--which means that, like Labour in 1992, the Tories at the next election MIGHT still have some wandering to do in the desert; and that like Kinnock, Dave Cameron COULD prove to be a Moses who leads his people out of bondage, but himself never makes it to the Promised Land.
Labour's lead seems to have melted away in a matter of weeks. Surely, must be the fastest collapse of support for any party ever!
Gordon Brown will now come under the most intense pressure over the next few months from his own party. Strangely, a revolt by Lib Dems causing Ming Campbell to be replaced may well set the scene for a similar Labour revolt.
Surely the electoral calculus for many Labour MPs will be whether to stick with a leader who has delivered a slump in poll ratings since entering office or to cut and run now by going for a new leader and hope he/she can get it back for them. If they figure all is lost anyway, the second cut and run option will become more attractive by the day.
I predict a Millburn - Milliband showdown for the Labour leadership before the next election.
Come on - can't have it both ways.
Polls showing Brown with a big lead can't be dismissed and then those showine Cameron doing well lauded.
Actually just looking back at that sentence makes me realise how increasingly 'presidential'we are becoming.
What it spells, I think, is that we have two well-matched leaders and an interesting 18 months (rather than days) to the election.
Cameron looks good during PMQs and presentationally certainly has had the edge recently, still feel Brown has the edge in terms of politics and his knowledge of the minutae of government.
A close race should keep us glued to sites like yours though, Iain!
BPIX Poll for The Mail On Sunday
Con: 41%
Lab: 37%
LD : ??
Figures seem fairly consistent...
Think you should read this one in The Times today on News 24. Its not just Ming who needs a stab vest ....
There's a quote from a former Blair minister saying- “We’re not just policy lite; we are policy free.”
man in shed: you bet he will, and not only that it was actually him that scored the winning penalty.....then he rushed up to hampden park and knocked in a couple of goals for scotland. Very unfortunatley he couldnt get to Cyprus in time to score for Wales bit hey they were out of it when BLair was still PM.
I think Brown could be gone within six to eight months. He has neither the lightness of foot for skirmishes nor the intestinal fortitude or a long term series of bad knocks.
He's going to undergo some hard jabs to the ego and I think he can't take it.
Nevertheless, for the time-being, I'm holding off on the Schadenfreude.
doesn't surprise me, as GB seems to be going around shooting himself in both feet at the moment. long may it continue! :)
"This would give the Conservatives a single figure majority and demonstartes how badly the electoral system is stacked against the Tories."
Yes, it's a rotten system that sucks - but you Tories are the ones who love it so much.
just seen you on the box - bold choice of tie, hem-hem...but you are rite about a fortnight being a long time in politics. Two weeks ago the observer's headline ran "Cameron meltdown as public urge early vote."
i only buy it for the dvd's...
I agree with the Blairites (for once!)
'What a pathetic sight,' one ally of Blair said of the 'strange smirk' on the Prime Minister's face when the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, announced his plans in the last Tuesday's pre-budget report.'
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2190774,00.html
Did anyone else notice his ridiculously gratuitous leering? What statesman would ever behave in such a way ? So pathetically desperate to make a publicly display of their own conceit?
Iain - where did you get that shirt and tie combination from when you were on BBc News 24 tonight. Definitely eye-gauging.
Also, whole hearted agree with Verity, I see El Gordon gone in 6 to 8 months. It's the sheer speed of Labour's disintergration that surprises, which serves to help us all realise the void in policy and principle in New Labour.
I put this point up on Comment is Free last week. Dig up Matthew Paris's kicking of Brown from a few weeks ago in the The Times.
In summary, he said Brown hadn't an idea in his head, and never has had.
Looks like he was right. What's more, Brown's close to having 'no more boom and bust' being thrown back in face. And it's dawning on the south of the country at least, that hosing the country down with money hasn't worked.
Now, if only the Tories could dig up the interview from 1990ish showing Gordo in full favour of entering the ERM....
Ohhhhhh Joy!
Exposed: How Alistair Darling (and Tony Benn) exploited death tax loophole
See the Sunday Mail website
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/
live/articles/news/
news.html?in_article_
id=487528&in_page_id=1770
The Blairites scent blood and they are coming for Brown.
I think he'll be out, probably on "health grounds" within 12 months.
Must be galling for the Blairites (i feel so sorry for them) to consider Gordon 's pathological disloyalty to Blair ; "Such men as he be never at heart's ease
Whiles they behold a greater than themselves" and to remember his purges against any rival or Blairite he considered a potential rival whilst he simultaneously promoted and protected his own stable of disastrous second raters: Des Browne, Dawn Primarolo, Douglas Alexander merely because they were loyal.
A little canary tells me that all Gordon's chickens are about to come home to roost IYKWIM
The shirt-tie-jacket combination is shocking - in theory - but actually sort of worked.
These polls are important to one man and one man only. David Cameron. He needed a decisive result at the Conference and his speech gave him a stay of execution. And now we have the very public meltdown of Captain Queeg (aka Gordon Brown)whose insecurity and paranoia has energised the Tory front bench, and consequently allowed approval to flow towards Dave.
Let's be clear. It's not really a vote for Dave - he doesn't figure that strongly in the poll on a personal rating. There is a long way to go and unity in the Conservative Party is a fragile commodity.
Brown's demise will be very public and very humiliating because he lacks the Machiavellian genius of Blair, who managed to turn his stage-managed exit into a series of self-deprecating encores. Brown has no coping mechanism. He either disappears or stutters and accuses and looks hideous.
This is nobody's finest hour. In a world of devalued politics run by second raters, what we need is a hero, a conviction politician, not a university debating society prize winner or a paranoid schizophrenic.
re carrow rd. canary
those "health grounds"...,well, this came up the other day, courtesy of verity (i ma be worng, i otfen am) so off i googled. trawling your's & guido's dives on various labels, nudges and winks, i ended up knowing far too much about a little wheeze called chloroprot..,no, ...hang on, ...chloroplasm, no that's not it, chloraprimazinotatebendybus... is that it...?
anewa, it could be described as 'helping to treat blindness', aswell as 'often used in traeatment of non-manic bi-polar conditions' to quote the range of it's applications.
sadly it also, unsurprisingly, have certain side-effects.
these include, we are told, involuntary jaw-grype, sudden weight gain & sustained palour.
obviouly i canot comment, but, poo er gosh! go & see matron at once!
I thought that Iain's attire was actually rather fetching. Leave him alone!
Weasel - I expect more from you!
Be more positive. There is loads of ammunition to fire at Brown and his shallow cohort.
They are weak, weak, weak! They have no vision and a very wonky leader. They need a good kicking - bit like Jonny Wilkinson and the rest of the England team did to the French last night!
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Just watched John Hutton on The Andrew Marr show. It was cringeworthy. The number of times he used the word 'vision' was staggering. But....he didn't say what that 'vision' was.
I don't want a vision. I want stuff to be done. It's more and more clear this government has run out of ideas
The electoral SYSTEM isn't biased against the Conservatives, Iain, it is merely the constituency boundaries that need to be changed to reflect population density changes.
As far as the Conservatives are concerned, I think it's whether these polls show a genuine shift in public opinion, not just in how they regard the Conservatives, but also, that Broon's thin veneer of electability has disappeared for good, with enough of the floating vote.
Brown's previous good poll showings, were probably faked-up, at conference season, to set-up the pro-Brown / anti-Cameron agenda in the MSM. The Conservatives were closing the gap and level, in some polls, before the Northern Wreck fiasco and very strangely, Labour leapt ahead during this debacle (a Guardian poll gave Labour an 8 point lead) a few days before the Labour conference, how convenient!
I suspect that any genuine shift in the polls toward Brown, in the first few months, was down to the constant Brownite agenda that TV and newspapers were forcing down the electorate's throat. The polls were reflecting fashionable media (especially BBC) anti-Conservative / pro-Labour opinion, as they often did with Mrs T. mid-term, and in 1970 and 1992. But when it actually came to voting, it was a different story. The polls will still shift around, but the Brown love-in, in the Murdoch media at least, has been severely dented, and his credibility badly damaged with the electorate and with EU Treaty referendum, economy failing etc. Brown will not find it any easier.
As for the Lib Dumbs, they have benefited greatly form protest voting in recent elections, if there is a mood for change at the next election, it won't matter if Ming is leader or not. A shift to a younger leader, will show up more positively in the polls and probably damage the Conservative standing for a while, but voting for the Lib Dems is a cop-out or protest (unless it is tactical) and will help to keep Labour in power, the floating vote may just be aware enough of that come the next election.
I think Charlie Falconer speaks for all of us when he descibes Brown's "peculiar smirk" during Darling's pre budget statement as "a pathetic sight".
Just a few days later though and Brown's creepy cat-like smirk has disappeared to be replaced by raging tantrums, depressive episodes, and howls of anguish as he hides in his Downing Street bunker surrounded by his talentless clique of useless muppets: the Tufty Club.
Poor old Gordon will need more than nonentities like Ed Balls, Ed Miliband, and Doulas Alexander to dig him out of this one.
molesworth1
The medication is chorpromazine aka largactil. Powerful stuff!
If Brown's really on that then it's even worse than we thought. For all of us!
Talking of the Blairites putting the knife in, Alastair Cambell uses his Rugby column in the Sunday Times to kick the man on the floor:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/rugby/article2652366.ece
To quote:
"There has been much talk of hubris and schadenfreude of late in both politics and sport. I will draw the veil on the hubris of colleagues of the prime minister who talked their way into an election scenario that gift-wrapped schadenfreude to the Tories, ...."
And in case we need to know just what he means when he says schadenfreude:
"The schadenfreude belongs to all those who like to see the arrogant brought crashing down to earth."
So there we have it from the Spinmeister himself, the arrogant shits around Brown screwed up big time and are now getting their dues...
"Beginning of the end."
John Hutton on this morning's Andrew Marr show.
Diablo. Yes of course, there is plenty of ammunition; they had 24 hours to save the health service and over ten years later hospitals are a disgrace. Etc.
But I would have thought that the fact that the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is severely Radio Rental, is ammunition enough.
Even if you collected all the not-very-veiled hints from within Labour ranks, it paints a picture of a morose loner who holds grudges and cannot deal with critism. As Frank Field said,
"Allowing Gordon Brown into No 10 would be like letting Mrs Rochester out of the attic"
Reading the body language at question time you see Brown grinning or glowering, quite repulsively, and Cameron and Osborne looking askance, as well they might do.
David Cameron no longer has to prove himself. He merely has to carry on doing what he has been doing all along and then watch as a very damaged man undergoes a very public breakdown.
What I am saying is, its time to raise the bar. It's time to say goodbye to expediency politics and hello to principle politics.
I notice that the latest ICM poll means it would be a two horse race for the Lib Dem leadership - 'cos only two of them would still get back in.
(Blogged here)
Wrinled W - I wonder whether the bar-raising might encouraage further tax-cutting policies? (I for one,as a potential "swinger" would aim next at the increasing of income tax thresholds).
On IHT, it was a risk by Osborne that has paid off. I had thought that it would be regarded as help for the relativey wealthy (it's effectively a £2m threshold for couples with accountants), and therefore lose middle-ground support, but it hasn't.
I reckon it's worked for the tories in the same way the minimum wage worked for Labour - seen as wrong / risky by those at the end of the wealth spectrum that wouldn't be affected, and yet regarded by them as fair.
Come on England! I refer you to ED's mate's T-Shirt - "we only win World Cups under Labour!"
Anon at 9:51 last night:
"And according to the Telegraph today, in the marginals Labour were actually ahead - so the big yellow booby could have called an election anyway and still won."
That was an out-of-date poll, held before the one after the Tory conference putting them 6% ahead in the marginals.
The seats' boundaries' arithmetic won't necessarily work against the Tories - the poll I mention indicates that the swings will be bigger in marginal seats, which means we could have a return to the 1980s when the system "worked against" Labour.
When Gordon Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a giant turkey.
Could Blair come back as Liebour leader?
If not, why not?
They only got rid of him because Gay Gordon wanted him out. The polls were bad but no worse than now...
What is the point of complaining that the electoral system is stacked against the Tories if you don't want a proportional one.
Come to that a system which gives them a bare majority on 43% of the vote is not stacked against the Tories, quite the reverse, it is merely that it is even more stacked in favour of Labour. What we have is a joint conspiracy against democracy.
Maybe the people of England do not have a death wish after all!, because one things for sure, if McLabour get in again this country, or "regions" as Broon says, will never ever recover and that is a fact!.
http://tinyurl.com/2phpaz
Man in a Shed: I thought that the British Rugby Union team did very well last night didn't you?
Consult your doctor immediately if you experience abnormal movements, particularly of the face, lips, jaw and tongue, while taking this medicine. These symptoms may be indicative of a rare side effect known as tardive dyskinesia, and your doctor may ask you to stop taking this medicine, or decrease your dose.
nuff said eh? google largactil and its effects.
xChris Paul said...
Man in a Shed: I thought that the British Rugby Union team did very well last night didn't you?
That is the first sensible thing I have ever heard Chris Paul say.Must be an impersonator
This wouldn't give the Tories a majority at all. UNS would give 320 Tories. You can't win with FPTP any more, how long will it take you to come round to STV?
Could it be that Andrew Marr has been spoken to by the BBC topnobs about his partial interviewing. He was quite polite to David Davis this morning.....or was it that the little Gnome realised that if he tried his usual bullying tactics, that he uses when interviewing Tories, DD would have eaten him for breakfast.
However,Marr even started to challenge Hutton, but it was a mere token challenge which quickly petered out.No doubt he felt he couldn't really persue his challenge because Hutton was talking.
Hutton referred to the hugely negative public opinion on Brown as mere hubris. Approximate quote was 'Everybody knows how well off we all are, everybody knows that the economy is in a good state' and Marr, Brown's Government Spokesman didn't even challenge that piece of blatent Nuspeak!
Marr has lost all credibility and should go.
As to Brown's vision, that apparently is gradually becoming clearer to Hutton after a mere 10 years of working in the dark, I would like to ask just how much is this vision going to cost?
Does Brown want 60% of our money, 70%..80%...90%...or perhaps we shouldn't have any money at all. He could feed and clothe us. If we all wore the same little uniforms it would be much cheaper. We could all live in huge concrete blockhouses. Ration heat and light....that would be green. Everything would be free at point of source. Gordon could then use the money to save the world. Forget cash for honours,that was Blair...he just didn't reach high enough. Cash for Sainthood. Saint Gordon had a vision. Go Gordon, Go...
Just Fucking Go!
Yes Chris,
You could call them the Conservative party of the Rugby World Cup.
yes if England wins the world rugby cup then Conservative Party should win the next election. Mmmm. Am I alone in thinking this logic is flawed? Future governments should be putting forward their policies for taxation and funding of the public services. By the way - I think one thing that is often overlooked in the London v. Northern funding is that a lot of people who live and work and pay taxes in London actually come from the north of England so probably are less fussed than you imagine about their tax dollars heading northwards to their families. It may not be as big an issue as you think.
"This wouldn't give the Tories a majority at all. UNS would give 320 Tories. You can't win with FPTP any more, how long will it take you to come round to STV?"
Clearly, I'm afraid chris is working on the flawed logic of uniform swings, as are too many others who analyse implications of polls.
Swings tend to be higher in marginal seats at election time, especially when there is a change of government. This poll result is very similar to the shares of the vote at the 1979 general election. I think you will find this would lead to a comfortable Conservative overall majority.
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