In this morning's Independent, Andy Grice wrote a column asking why the Conservatives weren't further ahead in the polls. He said it was the main topic of conversation at the Spring Conference.
Well, as if by magic, a poll has just been released by the Sunday Times which shows the Conservatives 16 points ahead of Labour on 43%, with the LibDems on 16%. Let me repeat that - sixteen whole per centage points ahead. An ICM poll for the News of the World shows the Tories 9 points ahead of Labour on 40%, with the LibDems on 20%.
As always on these occasions, let's not go overboard, but we may well look back on Alistair Darling's budget as the day the electorate lost its patience with Labour.
For more details of the poll, click HERE. More on Political Betting.com HERE.
That's quite something!
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Matthew Parris still feels as strongly as he did in this morning's Times.
Thanks to the "So what" from Ed Balls perhaps.
ReplyDeleteGreat news.
ReplyDeleteAre you going to write anything about Tibet ?
This poll reflects the unease with the LibDem's current problems and, to get rid of this disaster of a gvt, the only way forward is to vote Conservative.
ReplyDeleteNot that the Tories yet deserve it on their own merit, but it may embolden them to finally come out of the closet.
At last. I really think that's the breakthrough, especially considering Tory poll numbers are always short of the votes actually counted
ReplyDeleteI'm privvy to the occasional info on what the public is saying to some of the most influential figures in the wider government.
I hear 'green taxes' and global warming hype are starting to become seen as a giant con. Nobody burns petrol, gas and electricity for fun and the older voters know more about waste not want not (many remember rationing) than any 12-year old green activist ever will.
So Dave, go easy on the green stuff (stick to waste-not-want-not), great stuff today on the broken society (see the Coffee House) and bash on about fnot ixing the roof when the sun was shining.
PS - Ken Leavingsoon must be crying into his 47 percent proof....
Only 16%? Just shows how much we have to do to improve education in this country.
ReplyDeleteDon't think it should be taken too seriously.
ReplyDeleteWHAT TOOK THEM SO LONG????
ReplyDeleteWhat strikes me from this poll is not just the Tories at 43 or the LDs at 16%, but Labour at 27% - the other two parties could be said to be within a normal range (although the Tories are at the top of theirs). Labour however, at 27, is VERY low, and out of their normal range of fluctuation.
ReplyDeleteI am certainly coming around to the view that Labour is now in the position that the Tories were in the mid-90s: the electorate has just stopped listening. It doesn't matter whether they come out with good ideas or bad ideas, voters have made their choice and they are just waiting for polling day. And, as John Major found out, it doesn't matter how long you wait, it won't change.
What if Brown had gone in late September and forced the cancellation of the Tory 'turnaround' conference?
Oh God please let it be true. No more Dave Sparks posting all over the internet telling us how Labour are winning the war against the 'toffs' by raising taxes on the poor, giving the country's sovereignty to a bunch of corrupt kleptocrats in the failed state of Belgium and storing all our DNA on a CD they then leave lying on the passenger's seat of their limo.
ReplyDeleteIain I told you that the budget was a crucial moment and I told you why. They are taxing family cars irrespective of how old they are and they took £500 or so straight out of everyone’s pocket with NI. Next day everyone noticed and remember for a lot of people living on their own budget that was their holiday. I was surprised you did not do more on it at the time . I do not think this is a blip , this is the first time Labour incompetence has been real for the majority and Conservatives must warn people of what they intend after the election , much worse . This is a vital time for top bloggers to be looking behind the Labour façade , the only way they can keep power is to erect a colossal fiction and I am relying on you to kick it down.
ReplyDeleteBTW can I suggest there is a minimum level of intelligence and informed-ness required fron anyone wishing to comment here and those who are consistently below it are banned.
You could call it the Asquith line
Worried about your taxes going up ? So what
ReplyDeleteWorried that you can't afford your mortgage ? So what
Worried that you cant get your kids into the first choice of school ? So what
Worried that your pension is worthless ? So what
Worried that your grown up kids are saddled with debt and can't get on the housing ladder ? So what
Can't afford to run your car ? So what
Public Transport is a joke ? So what
Low level crime is up ? So what
Binge Drinking is on the increase ? So what
Our borders aren't secure ? So what
Immigration is out of control? So what
The government won't honour it's Manifesto promise for a referendum ? So what
The Tories must go for the economy when they tackle Labour.
ReplyDeleteThe happy feely tone is all very well (and it works with me - I like this One Nation Tory stuff) but stick to money in your pocket, competence and law and order and then the election's in the bag.
Gee...at this rate even Ian Dale could hold on to a Tory seat! LOL! :)
ReplyDeleteI've just had a look on Betfair (1030pm Saturday) and the favourite there is 'No Overall Majority'
ReplyDeleteMoney talks?
(thinks: I hope this is ok for newmaniac. By the way I'd ban people in beards from appearing in public - no offence.)
We may well look back on Alistair Darling's budget as the day the electorate lost interest in Labour.
ReplyDeleteThe only poll that counts is the one on election day and where that little X goes...
ReplyDeleteIn March 1990 (about the same point in the electoral cycle as we are now) Labour was 24 points ahead in the MORI poll (30% to 54%) but still went on to lose in 1992.
ReplyDeleteYou've had as many comments in the past week as Guido has had in the past day.
ReplyDeleteDo you think that comment moderation might have something to do with it?
Thanks for telling us about this poll. The BBC website of course headlines 6 stories, and this isn't one of them.
ReplyDeleteI know the BBC have rules about reporting polls, but, hey, imagine if YouGov had found Labour 16 points ahead, does anyone really believe the BBC wouldn't have headlined it?
A party pooper - fair point, but a number of things mean that Labour won't recover the way the Tories did between 1990 and 1992. Firstly, the Tories changed their leader. Labour won't do that: not only would they look bloody stupid, but they've nobody obvious to replace Broon with. Secondly, the Tories ditched their most unpopular policy, the Community Charge. Labour has no obvious policy to ditch - there are a large number of reasons why they are unpopular, not one overarching one. Thirdly, the first Gulf War restored some of the Tories' popularity - Labour is unlikely to benefit from a favourable foreign policy shock. Also, the Tories before Black Wednesday were seen as unpleasant but competent. Labour does not have the same reputation of confidence to fall back on. For all those reasons, if the finding in this poll are confirmed in subsequent ones, I think that the Socialists today are much more like the Tories in 1995 than in 1990, though of course history never repeats itself exactly.
ReplyDeleteAnd if New Labour, whose sole reason for existence was to be elected, self-destructs after a convincing election defeat, the Labour Party could well take itself to the left, in which case the next Labour leader might now be studying for his A-levels.
I am not sure about Party Pooper’s view. The late 1980s recession really began in 1989. This downturn is just beginning and is not yet even a recession, so I believe that a 16% difference is unsurprising and that it will increase, as economic conditions get worse.
ReplyDeleteBrown’s team is obviously useless and the important point is “obviously”. Blair hid the incompetence of his ministers quite well. You cannot imagine Blair (and more, importantly, Alistair Campbell) allowing Balls comment (“so what”) to be reported in the way it was. Balls would have been “bounced” for such a “faux pas” under Blair. Wealthy people who respected Blair deride Darling. This will greatly increase the % gap at the time of the election. A number of these incompetent ministers are bound to make major mistakes during the election campaign and the Labour Party will not be able to keep all of them out of the limelight. Conversely, naturally arrogant Conservative’s , such as George Osborne or Greg Barker, will have to keep themselves under strict control during the campaign but I think the hunger for power will ensure that they do.
In addition, there is great difference between 1992 and now. Nationalism could decimate Labour’s seats North of The Border. In addition, there seems to be a natural confluence between the aims of the SNP and The Conservative Party, the destruction of the Labour Party. An SNP/Conservative coalition is not impossible.
In short, 2008 is not 1990.
I'd like to think that this poll reflects the public's anger over Labour's betrayal of the people. I still want a referendum.
ReplyDeleteDarlings budget,blinkys"so what" and Browns weirdness have finally tipped this shower over the edge.
ReplyDeleteWatch for the wrecking spree and scorched earth policy from brown.
Party Pooper `s point is a good one of course but those polling results are a legend for wrongness and it was largely due the strange phenomenon of people who voted Conservative denying it when asked . Everything changed when interest rates hit 15% and the Conservative Party lost that safety vote .
ReplyDeleteThis was also in the era when the BBC were fighting for Labour 24 hours a day which reached its peak in the 90s when Polly Toynbee and her network of supporters were actually setting the agenda for the country in an act of treachery to the public they will rightly never be forgiven for .
This is not complicated Alistair Darling took £500 from everyone earning £40,000 and above , now an average salary in the South and the same family got clobbered for the car as well. Until now it has been talk , now it is the bathroom that cannot be decorated , the holiday w you cannot taken and treats you had planed shelved .
The British are not very political and they will happily ignore a great deal. When you stick your hand in their wallet and get caught however,…
surprise, surprise, no mention on the BBC of the Tories extended lead in the polls. Story on Teletex last night but not Ceefax, no mention on BBC website. Who runs BBC new? The Beeb itself or the Government? Or are they both one? Silly questions cos we all know the answers. Anyway, nice one Dave, but how any regular non-partisan voter can give this bunch of nonentities (the Government, not BBC news) another 4/5 years, I do not know. Brown, Balls, et all loathe me, and people like me: honest, law abiding, aspirational, hardworking, wanting to bring my children up to be decent human beings. Brown's an odious man, and a horrible Prime Minister. I'm ashamed to live in a country run by him. Sorry for the rant, but that's how i feel in Brown's Britain.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
ReplyDelete"Oh God please let it be true. No more Dave Sparks posting all over the internet telling us how Labour are winning the war against the 'toffs' by raising taxes on the poor, giving the country's sovereignty to a bunch of corrupt kleptocrats in the failed state of Belgium and storing all our DNA on a CD they then leave lying on the passenger's seat of their limo."
You might be right about Dave Sparks. As for the rest, a Tory government would do just the same. They're all the same.
Hold the front page "2008 is not 1990" ! Labour was also ahead for most of 1991 and lost in 1992.
ReplyDeleteIf you feed the current NotW figures into Baxter's electoral calculus site it shows NOC. The Conservatives would have to do a deal with the SNP and/or the Libs. Not a recipe for a stable government, just wait for the first serious vote about Europe...
"So what!"
ReplyDeleteGood polling for the Tories. But Iain. Are you happy that the Conservatives should win at any cost? Even if that cost is that you are no longer the Conservatives? Even if you wake up the day after the election to find that you have yet another nu-labour government but this time with David Cameron at the helm?
ReplyDeleteI won't believe any poll until we have a few marginal by-elections. I wouldn't mind a new Scottish Parliament election right now- anything to reduce the number of crap Labour MSP's!
ReplyDeleteThis is the reward for Labour's remorseless tax increases to fund their profligate spending.
ReplyDeleteTax increases which, according to Philip Hammond, Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the Tories will NOT REVERSE, at least for their first parliamentary term. FFS!
I've just poured myself a glass of bubbly.
ReplyDeleteIt's raining outside, but the church bells are ringing and people are dancing in the streets outside my luxurious Surrey home.
Life is good. How are things in Hartlepool?
I hear the YouGuv figures have cast a pall of gloom in the Downing Street bunker. Yvette has already poisoned the kids and Ed is steeling himself to do the necessary. Meanwhile Gordon is making his way up Ben Nevis.
Occassionally, these pollsters actually produce "genuine" polls.
ReplyDeleteBut, I'm sure Kellner and Worcester will come up with convenient "Labour closing the gap" polls, in the coming months and will have Labour ahead by conference season in the Autumn. None of which will reflect reality, but will keep pressure off Brown, when he needs it.
The BBC does actually mention the poll, although it doesn't appear to be in a headline. And of course at this very moment David Cameron is on the Politics Show. In fact, the BBC is generally quite favourable to the Tories.
ReplyDeletePolls are funny buggers. If they go your way they're spot on, if they don't they don't mean very much.
ReplyDeleteBesides, I 'm sure any poll taken directly after a budget will reflect badly on the incumbents. Budgets are rarely, if ever, popular, particularly with us drinkers and smokers!
Cameron's in a bit of a fix. I think he's a smart man (although Hague is much smarter), but if he announces a raft of policy ideas then Brown will just poach them. If Cameron keeps schtum people say he has no ideas and lacks direction.
The problem is a lot of people just don't know what the Conservatives believe in, let alone what they might do.
At the moment they seem more like New Labour: a drip drip of announcements that don't amount to much and then disappear. People are sick of it.
The Swedish education idea is excellent though. I hope they don't let that one drop!
Polls are funny buggers. If they go your way they're spot on, if they don't they don't mean very much.
ReplyDeleteBesides, I 'm sure any poll taken directly after a budget will reflect badly on the incumbents. Budgets are rarely, if ever, popular, particularly with us drinkers and smokers!
Cameron's in a bit of a fix. I think he's a smart man (although Hague is much smarter), but if he announces a raft of policy ideas then Brown will just poach them. If Cameron keeps schtum people say he has no ideas and lacks direction.
The problem is a lot of people just don't know what the Conservatives believe in, let alone what they might do.
At the moment they seem more like New Labour: a drip drip of announcements that don't amount to much and then disappear. People are sick of it.
The Swedish education idea is excellent though. I hope they don't let that one drop!
In my youthful naivety I voted for these morons three times. Never again. Churchill was right, If you're not a Tory by the time you're 30, you're a fool.
ReplyDeleteI've still got my problems with Cameron, in a way, he's not committing to go far enough to reverse the damage done to our economy and society by these idiots, but anything (lord, anything) is better than Labour.
The latest madness from the Socialist Control Freaks scared the crap outta me this morning over my cornflakes.
http://tinyurl.com/2j8unt
"...lets have a mature public debate about how we tackle crime [before] it's taken place..."
What the Flip?
Minority Report here we come.
The Times' poll puts Labour at their lowest point since the 1983 election. Rejoice. Rejoice. Rejoice.
Question From the Poll:
ReplyDeleteThe government wastes large amounts of taxpayers' money and is not trying seriously to reduce the level of waste.
Answers from those with Labour voting intentions:
53% agree with that statement
35% Disagree
13% Don't Know.
I suspect the large numbers of Labour voters working in the public sector have first hand knowledge of the mismanagement of public funds by the govt.
Let me please try to help some people with their understandable confusion?
ReplyDeleteThe BBC as we can see clearly has an agenda all of its own. It claims that this is somewhere in the middle of the two main parties.
This is broadly correct. But never the less, is just as likely to be NOT what the British people want or is good for them, as any other position.
In my own personal opinion being in the middle is more likely to NOT be either of these things, almost all of the time.
Although internationalists such as Marxists and Fascists like the BBC don't care about the interests of their particular electorate or their customers anyway. Therefore have little problem with this. They also find it impossible to understand why we the people of Britain very often do have a very big problem with it.
They only really care about their own personal rampant internationalism, and their own personal status and Swiss bank accounts.
This of course explains very well why only real nationalism is a complete NO NO with not just the BBC but all main stream political parties.
So why does the BBC have an agenda when they are not, by their charter, supposed to have any such thing, you may well ask?
Also where does it get this obvious agenda from?
The answers to these questions are far more simple then the majority of the people of the world think. Mainly because people like the BBC never tell them the real truth under any circumstances. Doing so is quite literally, more then their lives are worth.
The agenda of the BBC is a New World Order establishment agenda. This is formulated at a level of world government well above our own domestic party political system.
The party that most closely follows the correct New World Order agenda is the one that gets the most of the BBC's support. This whether a majority of the employees like it or not. Simply massive Top down CORPORATIONS of all types are never, repeat never, run by the blind idiots at or anywhere near the bottom of the corporate pyramid.
The agenda is largely formulated and decided on, inside inter governmental organizations such as the Bilderberg Group, The council for Foreign Relations, and The Tri Lateral Commission. Among others at a higher more select level, and others at a less select level such as The EU and UN.
The more select bodies meet in secret and the contents of discussion are also highly secret.
The people that run and control these groups are the big banking and industrial corporations financed by mainly the Rothschild's and the Rockafella's. The people that attend them are by invitation only. Although they normally involve the attendance of high representatives of both political parties from both right and left. Labour and Conservative, Republican and Democrat, radical and reactionary.
Also INVITED if they are lucky, are leaders in the MEDIA scientific, industrial, financial, educational, environmental, and military fields in all of the major industrialized countries.
This of course should explain just about all you need to know about why British American and world politics seems so often not to make any type of logical sense. Also why it so often seems to work in the long term interests of no one at all. However if you can get the above firmly in your mind EVERYTHING makes sense.
Not always nice sense but sense all the same.
What national political parties do is deal with the details. But the real agenda is either followed or all hell breaks out within the respective countries economy and or civil cohesion, sooner or later. As both left wing protest groups and the Central Banks are controlled and financed by the same people.
Our political parties are not run by stupid idiots or fools or even always bad people, you may be reassured to know. Its just the way it has long since been. More now then ever before
My advice is to vote for the political party that most closely represents your personal priorities. You never know your luck, things may get better for you and your family, if you do.
But do not keep thinking it will change anything very significant, and you will not be disappointed. Also understand that by definition all top politicians are lying though their teeth. Otherwise they will never be allowed to get elected in the first place. Or will generally only stay in power long enough to change the curtains. Our top politicians KNOW this, and so now do you.
Atlas shrugged
The budget was a thoroughgoing disaster in political terms. What were they thinking of taxing ordinary family cars in that way? What were they thinking of raising taxes for ordinary people just as many families are coming under financial pressure? Both were bound be be very unpopular with a very wide group of people and there were no counterbalancing measures to reassure the electorate that the government had any conception of the financial worries that many of them have. That phrase 'so what?' sums it up perfectly and that utterance may come to be seen as the exact point that Labour were irretrievably lost. Their incompetence has opened the door for change. Cameron's challenge is to walk through it.
ReplyDeleteInteresting breakdown from the YouGov poll for Scotland.
ReplyDeleteYouGov breakdown for Scotland
SNP 37% (+19%)
Labour 30% (-9%)
Conservative 18% (+2%)
Liberals 11% (-11%)
Reflects the MRUK poll the Scottish edition of the Sunday Times ran for Scottish elections.
Scottish Parliament constituency vote:
SNP: 39% (+6)
Lab: 31% (-1)
Con: 15% (-2)
Lib: 12% (-4)
Oth: 3% (+1)
Scottish Parliament regional vote:
SNP: 40% (+9)
Lab: 30% (+1)
Con: 13% (-1)
Lib: 11% (-)
Oth: 5% (-10)
Projected seats:
SNP: 57
Lab: 44
Con: 16
Lib: 12
And Labour was spinning this was supposedly a bad week for the SNP and Salmond on fair local taxes and the Donald Trump report.
Obviously they've picked the wrong issues this week and only reminded voters why the SNP are a better option than themselves.
They've reminded voters of how they used council tax as another means to raise taxes off the Whitehall books and why they are seen as bad for investment.
And they are also heading towards eclipse as an active force in Scottish politics.
Iain,
ReplyDeletePerhaps on your next jolly to Sky or the Beeb you could ask why they are being so quiet about this poll.
anonymous [2.17 PM] Brevity! Brevity!
ReplyDeleteanonymous @ 2.17pm
ReplyDeleteCOMMON PURPOSE!!!!
A few weeks ago I put forward and argument that when Brand cameron is in trouble YouGov and ComRes pollsters always seem to come to his rescue.
ReplyDeleteThis week’s polls are no different.
Cambo has had another bad week. Spring conference has had little or no publicity, so the Tories start a spat with the BBC. No one was interested in the conference.
Darling delivered a dull budget, but the increases in tax on booze was universally welcomed, as was more cash for the young and old. So it wasn’t that bad a budget. The Tories are in disarray….quick get a good poll out to steady the nerves of the Tory troops.
Sorry, but the next election is over 2 years away.
TL
ReplyDeleteSorry about the lack of such.
However somethings, like summing up as best as you personally can, the way the whole world works. Simply can not be done in one or two paragraphs.
Although I am comforted to note that no one has so far claimed it to be all just a mad paranoid conspiracy theory.
Very much like they used to, over the last ten years I have been coming out with this stuff.
I think the oh so clear realities of life are now hitting all of us.
What difference it makes to anything, of course is another question.
I could not possibly quantify how much, although I guess very little indeed.
BTW
The name is Atlas, and he is getting very bored with shrugging so much and for so long.
Anon at 4.34 - "but the increases in tax on booze was universally welcomed, as was more cash for the young and old......."
ReplyDeleteNo it wasn't - the increase in tax on booze will affect only the adult, law-abiding drinker - no doubt the intention - and certainly won't stop yobs and children binge drinking, virtually no increase in tax on alcopops or cheap cider remember.
More cash for the old - where's that then? Oh yes, I forgot, the extra £50 on the winter fuel payment which won't get to pensioners until next winter, so no immediate help there. There is, of course, the comfort of knowing that when one gets to be 80 years old there will be an extra TWENTY-FIVE PENCE a week to look forward to - but that sum hasn't been increased for years and wasn't this time, either.
More cash for the young - child benefit increased, that's only of help if you're on benefits in the first place, otherwise it all disappears in tax.
There is the joy for the low-paid and pensioners of paying much more tax come April, when the 10% tax band is abolished, so no doubt those groups are all thinking fondly of the goverment.......
Take more tax from those least able to afford it - no doubt that's just why all those Labour MPs went into politics.......
But in the immortal words of Ed Balls - SO WHAT? Someone's got to pay for his second home and huge expenses.
The 16% lead is very heartening, but we've got to get to the next election before it can be realised.
ReplyDeleteWhat does worry me is that NuLabour is a one man party - and that man was Tony Blair. If Gordon Brown implodes under the weight of his own shortcomings, who else is there who can act as catretaker of the nation until the next election?
Gordon Brown has surrounded himself with a cabinet of half way personable but incompetent comrades to make himself look good in comparison. Of course he has forgotten the old adage "you can't polish a turd".
I'm torn between letting Gordon continue (for fear of a worse replacement) or dusting off the "impeachment" papers over the Lisbon Treaty.
On balance I favour action now, to limit the continuing destruction of our nation.
ANONYMOUS SAID A few weeks ago I put forward and argument that when Brand cameron is in trouble YouGov and ComRes pollsters always seem to come to his rescue.
ReplyDeleteWell done, anonymous. You must admit that you're not the most consistent contibutor. Rofl
To all those going on about Labour losing in 1992 despite their massive poll lead I have just two words - Neil Kinnock.
ReplyDelete