Monday, June 09, 2008

I Wouldn't Want to be a Mobile Phone in No 10 Tonight

Tomorrow's Times has a poll from Populus showing the Tories up five points at 45 per cent, Labour down four at 25 and the Libdems up one at 20. Gordon Brown's personal rating is now even lower than IDS's was just before he was knifed.

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

Andrew Rawnsley is also doing a pretty good demolition job at present in Channel 4 Dispatches - "Where did it all go wrong for Gordon Brown?" - ably assisted by contributions from Alistair Darling;Jack Straw;Nick Brown;Frank Field & Michael Gove.


I suspect the Downing Street TV has had the great "clunking fist" through the screen already and we're only halfway through

Anonymous said...

Iain,

That's astounding. But what is perhaps more worrying for Brown is that the polling took place on 6-8 June. So the MEP stuff and Spelman is all in full swing while these questions are being asked, and the Tories go up 5 points!

P.S. This Dispatches on C4 is the sort of thing you usually see after a politican has been removed from power - not during.

Anonymous said...

I do like it when the Lib Dems are up one, don't you?

@molesworth_1 said...

I expect his TV set will also be 'quaking in its boots', once he's read tomorrow's papers''Last Night's TV..." columns

Anonymous said...

When the Lib Dems overtake him he'll be finished!

Anonymous said...

Mrs Weasel has never seen Iain's blog but caught me on it just now. She says it has a calm look and feel. Very political is Mrs Weasel.

Anonymous said...

Do you think the 4% was made up of people who Gordon had recently telephoned?

Anonymous said...

In the 6.5 years that Populus have been polling this poll is record breaking in Populus terms.

The Conservative share is the highest share that any party have enjoyed.

The Conservative lead is the biggest lead that any party has enjoyed.

The Labour share is the lowest share ever received for either the Labour or Conservative Party.

Anonymous said...

And what about Rawnsley on tonight's C4 Despatches about Brown's slide into Hell? Can't think that would do much for Labour's ratings either.

Anonymous said...

E's been found 'e 'as asn't 'e. Nah it's time 'e gets it into 'is fick 'ead and facks orf aht ov it. The git

Armchair Sceptic said...

The poll is online here. It's overwhelmingly positive for Conservatives, with only three fifths of Labour voters in 2005 saying they will back Labour again. One fifth of Labour voters will vote Conservative.

One negative aspect is an increase in 17 points of the perception that the Tories have a 'sleaze' problem, but that's to be expected after the MEP headlines (and the BBC's Crick smear on Mrs Spelman). It will die down when Cameron deselects the offending MEPs.

Anonymous said...

Andrew Rawnsley didn't so much stick the knife in as drop a nuclear device on Gordon Brown. With many present and past cabinet members joining into press the button.

The whole program was written as a post-mortem, it was entirely in the past-tense, including any reference to Mr Brown.

It was written in the same, tone, tense and style of the what went wrong with Major and the ERM documentaries. Only Major was out of office when they were broadcast.

The question he didn't ask is where will Labour go next? surely not back to the cold-war/class-war struggle. Labour lost a grip on it's soul to get elected and in doing so let go of a touchstone from with to evolve social equality in the 21st century. The Tories have never made such a sacrifice.

Prodicus said...

Rawnsley's prog was like a combination of an obit combined with a denunciation of the not-quite-dead from the pulpit. Given that it's Rawnsley, wtf is going on?

Anonymous said...

I am certainly impressed with lola's incisive political libellus:

"E's been found 'e 'as asn't 'e. Nah it's time 'e gets it into 'is fick 'ead and facks orf aht ov it. The git."

Quite. What are you doing later, Lola?

Anonymous said...

Looks like the metro Left doesn't want its party to be obliterated by Gordo's presence.

(Personally, I fancy that as people retire 10 years after the great pensions robbery, Gordo is now widely regarded as the 'man who stole your future' - cRichard Littlejohn).

Anyway, Metro-types, wadda you going to do about it?

Man in a Shed said...

Oddly I took a different view of the Dispatches programme. It was no where near as damaging as it could have been. In some ways I thought it was trying to draw the poison.

It tried to make the argument that if only we knew Gordon and he didn't work so hard.

You have to ask yourself why Straw and Smith would appear in such a programme unless authorised to do so and seeing some advantage in doing so.

A inordinate amount of time was spent on Gordon's surprise party for his wife - though the conflicting memories of the event were perhaps a hint trying to break through some deal made.

We know its bad for Brown - the question is not how did it get so bad, but from Labour's viewpoint can it be fixed. I thought the programme was making the point that it could.

( No mentions of the English Question, or the voters rabid knee jerk hostility to Brown combined with credit / inflation / and economic crisis, the polyclinic extermination of GPs, road tax, road charging amd with added wars in Iraq, Afghanistan plus perhaps Iran by the year end ).

See it could have been far worse.

Man in a Shed said...

PS Vince Cable seems to be enjoying life these days. Perhaps he realises he had a narrow escape ?

Ted Foan said...

lola (9.08pm)- I think you've hit the nail on the head. Well, done. More pithy comments please.

Anonymous said...

I think thwe government can recover. Look at the way labour fought back from similiar ratings in the 68 to go into the 1970 election with a massive 10 point lead.

Anonymous said...

The PM may destroy mobile phones but who cares. Fergie used to break tea cups. It shows he has fire in his belly.

Anonymous said...

Fergie used to break tea cups. It shows he has fire in his belly.

and tea on his trousers

Anonymous said...

Two thoughts to Dirty European Socialist. 1: Labour lost the 1970 Election (but take your point!), and 2: Fergie is very good at what he does, commands enormous respect, and is effective. Brown is an appalling Prime Minister, any respect and credibility he had is draining away day by day, and he is not effective at all. Fergie also has world class players, Brown has Smith, Darling, Harman, Balls, Johnson, Kelly and all the other lightweights in his Cabinet. Oh, and if Brown was manager of Manchester United they'd probably have relegated.

Tapestry said...

IDS took party up to 35% in the polls at the Party Conference in 2003. His personal rating cannot have been that bad...until the knives were plunged.

Anonymous said...

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Anonymous said...

Can't see it mentioned on the BBC News website?

Does the BBC only print good news for McBean? (hence no news)

Anonymous said...

Just learned that the next Labour leader has survived a poisoning attempt at the hands of one of his local opponents.

Oh, well, Leader of the Opposition, he shall be!