political commentator * author * publisher * bookseller * radio presenter * blogger * Conservative candidate * former lobbyist * Jack Russell owner * West Ham United fanatic * Email iain AT iaindale DOT com
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Are the Tories Becoming a National Party Again?
The ComRes poll in today's Independent is of interest for two reasons. It gives the Conservatives an 11 point lead (41-30), the largest ever in a ComRes poll. But more importantly it shows the Tories ahead in every region of England for the first time. Even the North East seems now to be warming to the Cameron message. This may be incredibly significant if it proves to be a longer term trend rather than a one off flash in the pan. However, Scotland still seems impervious to David Cameron's charms.
No they ain't. I can't see them doing much in Scotland except MAYBE gaining 2 seats. It wholly depends on WHERE the anti-Labour vote goes (more than likely to the SNP). No idea about Taff-Land. How the Lab/Plaid coalition is doing will impact on 't vote there. It's the variance of the swings in the English marginal seats which bothers me- i don't believe there will be a uniform swing at the next election so what will happen f'k knows. I would not be surprised if the Libbies to badly and lose up to 20-30 seats. We need a constant stream of by-elections in MARGINALS like the 92-97 period to get a real indicator of what will happen with a year (or two) to go before next GenElec- that ain't going to happen.
ReplyDeleteAn English national party perhaps. That should make things interesting.
ReplyDeleteSorry, Iain, your comments don't hold up to analysis. There is no evidence of a Cameron effect in the North East. The Com Res figure is for "North England" not the North East, and the Tory lead in "North England" is negligible. Indeed, the Tory handling of Northern Rock has gone done rather badly in the NE region, as it harked back to the old Tory approach to the North East - let it go under.
ReplyDeleteIf Cameron ever formed a government, his policies would be closer to me than to the far-right blogosphere :)
ReplyDeleteDon't get too excited, at a similar point in the electoral cycle, Feb 1990, Labour was on 51% in the polls but still lost in 1992...
ReplyDeleteRe Scotland angle.
ReplyDeleteFolk memory of Thatcher era--not a heroine here.
Tories doing OK in Scottish Parliament due to PR system, apart from getting lured into GB's downgraded "review" of SP powers (which started out as a Comstitutional Commission). However at Westminster elections no chance of significant increase in MPs.
So when you say "a National Party",
it's not a UK Party.
Well, Scotland is doing rather well, comparatively speaking, under the SNP, their own National Party. Scots recall the "harm" done under previous Tory governments, and being mindful of that why should they want a return to it? On the other hand, we English are more "conservative", some of us wanting our own parliament are even 'sour little Englanders" according to DC!!
ReplyDeleteThe key moment will be when the Tories are above 40 and Labour are below 30. That moment is close.
ReplyDeleteNationally, the Labour heartlands will implode as the economy continues to falter. I doubt there is little goodwill left there in any case.
The Tories will have to wait a little longer in Scotland, until the SNP lose favour.
As with all polls, it's trend that matters rather than an individual reading. What is interesting is that 'a national party' seems to be the English nation rather than any British nation.
ReplyDeleteFreudian slip?
Oddly to get a Conservative revival the money supply needs to be cut - so they start to think like the canny business people they really are, and enjoy real success.
ReplyDeleteCut the subsidy that allows the various flavours of Scottish Socialism to flourish ( Scots Lib Dem, Scots Labour, Scots Nats, and various other form of left wing parasitical parties ).
A Scottish friend of mine, who is himself a Tory (at least while in England) has told me that it will take the Conservatives at least another decade to have any chance in Scotland. The bitterness left over fron the 80's is too great. Having returned to Scotland recently he now votes scot Nat I believe.
ReplyDeleteAnswer to your question Iain: NO. However conducted these polls are not all that reliable really. Now are they? And ComRes is an outlier. There is still no real Tory activity in Manchester Withington which had a stonking Tory majority until 1983 and a Tory MP until 1987.
ReplyDeleteAs Anon 8:49 am points out re the NE the figures are not acute enough to suggest a Tory lead in every region. The NW is similarly resilient to Cam's charms. I'd be interested to see the sample structure to even give you a whiff of a lead in the North, never mind any of the three or four sub regions. Perhaps shire Yorks and Notts ... but then that is no change from previous.
What is the problem with the Conservative Party being an English Nationalist Party? As the majority of its members are increasingly English. They form a vast majority of English voters currently being de-frauded by the unfair devolutionary settlement . At 11% ahead it is important however that the North of England is starting to come our way and the Conservative Party can clearly make a far greater claim to be a national party than can the Labour Party which is all but extinct in the South of England . The Scottish problem must be resolved as we all know.
ReplyDeleteCameron must resist the temptation to overplay his hand he has got the tactics right and there will be plenty of time for moving the country in a sensible way once in power .With the results in the marginals even more pro Conservative Brown will panic and the question will be how far right can he take his Party and will anyone believe him.
Imagine waking to a Conservative Government imagine the bright hopeful dawn , a feeling that we might actually start to make things better .
I wish I was younger
Keep on kidding yourself Iain.
ReplyDeleteComRes ( your are joking aren’t you )
Funny how ComRes always seem to come Cambos rescue.
That word " national ". British or English ?
ReplyDeleteThe UK is composed of several nations . Scotland has a national pariament and government. Why can't England have the same ? The steady decline in respect for Westminster - Martin's only a part of this - could be corrected by having an English parliament and government take over the governance of England and Westminster being slimmed down and be for British affairs only .
If the Tories came out for this they would win by a landslide
( in England )
and the celts wouldn't mind .
Scotland may be impervious, but making a serious dent in Labour's support base in the north of the country could be a sign of things to come.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget England is 85% of the UK by population and generates over 90% of the non-public sector GDP. Its seats in parliament where England gets only an 81% share.
ReplyDeleteWords like representation taxation Boston party no without and tea keep going round my head every time I look at these numbers.
It's still social suicide to admit you're a Tory.
ReplyDeletejessthedog said:
ReplyDelete"The Tories will have to wait a little longer in Scotland, until the SNP lose favour."
No. The Tories will never again be an electoral force in Scotland.
You can dream on about the NE.
ReplyDeleteBad though Labour are, there is not a single reason for working class constituencies to vote Tory.
Lord Grey speaks truly. I remember as a child, growing up in a terraced house in Stoke, being told that Labour were for us and the Tories were for the others. My first political memory is of the jubilation when Major was finally kicked out (I was 12).
ReplyDeleteAfter years of the vicar and clunking fist I've realised that my parents were wrong to support Labour. But nothing has ever made me change my mind about Dave Snooty and his pals. However much Labour have taken their core vote for granted and done little for them, there's no reason on earth to vote Conservative.
In Scotland the SNP's prioritising economic growth & calling for the power to cut Corporation Tax has outflanked the Tories. Whether the SNP will live up to their promises or not is still up in the air & it is possible the Tories will regain the initiative by becoming seen to be the party actually doing the pushing on this policy, as they did recently on cutting business rates to improve the economy.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting to see Labour leading in the Westminster poll in Scotland. And it is a decent lead over the SNP.
ReplyDeleteAlways amusing to see the Tories playing fast and loose with the union because it doesn't suit them.
ReplyDeleteMiddlesbrough always had a Tory and a Labour MP for the two wards.
ReplyDeleteThey will return to that at the next election. Look for real shocks in the County Durham and Northumberland wards. I can tell you from the many contacts I have up't north that things they are a changin!
The Northern Rock debacle has done for broon up there!
Whatever the labour paid blog watchers write- believe me I am right THINGS are achanging in the North East and North West.
jessthedog said:
ReplyDelete"The Tories will have to wait a little longer in Scotland, until the SNP lose favour."
No. The Tories will never again be an electoral force in Scotland.
Once the gloss comes off the SNP (inevitable, although it may take some time) then there will be no alternative. It is Labour doomed to oblivion for the next 30 years, in the same way that the Tories were, due to the staggering collapse in their class-based (working classes and chattering classes) support, now shifted to the SNP.
Always amusing to see the Tories playing fast and loose with the union because it doesn't suit them.
ReplyDeleteYou have that arse about face. The devolution of Scotland and Wales was the act of playing fast and loose with the Union and it was deplored by the Conservative Party 200 of which rebelled over an amendment to put the referendum to the UK not just to Scotland. The Labour Party has benefited for years form the Celtic fringe being determined to remove themselves form the Union and as the Party of the aforesaid the Conservatives declined . The current situation is that the English are not only ruled by their own votes but also by two other countries who have their own Parliaments and are over represented in seats. The Conservative’s have made no decision its just that the Party that is left is predominantly English and they are faced with an absurd imposture of 69 fraudulent MPs . It is the Labour party that have brought this about for transparently cynical motives.
Gordon Brown is currently ceding more powers to Scotland as was predicted in as clandestine way as he possible can although these changes, to tax raising powers are trumpeted North of the border and have no doubt done much to improve Labour’s position .
In fact there is great reluctance in Conservative ranks to say goodbye to the UK but this principled support has only been used against us time and time again and I think we are only representative of the English majority in being sick of being ruled by a Scottish Raj and paying for the privilege as well.
I see Chris Paul going through the usual contortions whereby if you look through the prism of your own sphincter an 11% deficit is actually a strong position . My question is this . Suppose Culpability Brown does manage to scrape home perhaps with an opportunistic deal with the Liberals . He will then be voted in almost exclusively by elements of the country who are recipients of state hand outs and double votes . He will be excluded from the South and South West entirely and it will be like being ruled by a foreign country. This is a direct result of the Labour Policy of favouring their own. For how long can such a government continue to rule ? What possible legitimacy is left after ten years of gerrymandering and lies
It is the Labour Party who are not only breaking the Union but the country and as they are currently selling it off to the EU in bits this is no doubt exactly what they mean to do. This is why the encourage floods of immigrants to occupy the 3,000,000 houses they are carpet bombing the South with . It stops short of ethnic cleansing but it is certainly an undeclared war on the independent English of the South particularly.
Their hard left allies have conspired to build the English out of Inner London and they mean to do the same the rest of the Country.
The Conservative Party are the only Party that care about the country for the others its just a set of names that people infinitely ‘inferior’ to them use
I HATE THEM ALL SO VERY DEARLY !
in short its lucky for cameron that salmond does not bother with england :-)
ReplyDeleteBelieve in it when you see it. All voting in Britain is now regional. Things like class and age no longer matter much, if at all.
ReplyDeleteDemographically identical areas in different parts of the country now vote in completely different ways.
Working and lower-middle-class parts of the South East that would be safely Labour in Scotland, Wales, the North, the Midlands or London are in theory marginally, but in fact permanently, Tory.
The posh bits of Newcastle and Manchester are posh indeed, but cannot even produce a single Tory Councillor, never mind a Tory MP. Even Aberdeen, one of the richest cities in Europe, offers no hope to the Tories. Nor, oddly enough, does Oxford, which has not returned a Tory Councillor for a good number of years now, raising the question of whether the South Midlands still exist.
Even in farming areas, much of the West Country (including the whole of Cornwall), almost all of rural Scotland, and almost all of rural Wales show no sign of ever sending another Tory to Westminster.
In the North, Selby has not been won back, Westmorland and Lonsdale has gone to the Lib Dems, Beverley and Holderness has almost gone (to Labour, not even to the Lib Dems), and even Hexham is now a three-way marginal.
So there we are. The Labour part of the country is simply larger than the Tory part, especially now that the West Country has been ceded to the Lib Dems. And there will not be national parties again until there is electoral reform. Speed the day!
The council elections in May should be interesting. Of course the BBC will still spin for Labour to the effect that the Tories don't have enough councillors oop north, etc, but the fact remains that Labour is being wiped out year by year in local government.
ReplyDeleteBetween the Tories and LibDhimms driving them out of the south and the SNP driving them out of the Soviet Republic of Scotland, Labour could find itself the third party.
Time for Labour to get itself a new south ASAFP! When does the boat set off for Bangladesh?
Labour never did have much of a following in the South, Broon's Talking Bawgie. As for the SNP winning Westminster seats, don't bet on that. And when is there going to be a Tory Councillor at either level in Oxford again? There has been none for some years now.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, who needs to go to Bangladesh? The Tories are determined to bring Bangaldesh, and Pakistan, and India, to us.
The Tories are affiliated to the European People's Party, as is Turkey's ruling AKP, the leaders of which are in no sense "former Islamists" and would not have been elected if they were.
Indeed, the Turkish Tories are now in the process of re-writing the Hadith, indicating that they see themselves as not just the Calipahte, but as even more than that.
In Derby, a large number of Labour Councillors and other members of Indian origin has just defected to the Tories on a specifically communal basis, and been welcomed with open arms on that very basis.
And the Tories' vehicles toured Ealing Southall proclaiming in various South Asian languages that Muslim, Hindu and Sikh festivals were to be made public holidays by the Tories.
Then that party's "Quality of Life Commission" (don't laugh, it's real) published a report advocating that "local communities" be given the power to designate three public holidays in their respective localities.
In other words, the Tories are going to go around Asian areas at the next Election making this same promise all over again, adjusted according to how Muslim, Hindu or Sikh the particular constituency, ward or addressee happens to be.
After this, what else are these unspecified "local communities" going to decide? Who are they, exactly? I think we all know that they are the great and the good of the local mosque, mandir or gurdwara.
Getting to decide this, and then a whole lot more, is to be their price for getting out the vote for the Bullingdon Boys, sometimes consisting of nothing more than reminding their mates to fill in postal ballot papers the right way on behalf of their entire households.
These situations will easily perpetuate themselves, since people will move - not just from around the country, but from around the world - to live in Cameron's Caliphates, Hindutvas and Khalistans.