Can someone please answer me this question. Why is everyone in the media twittering on about how awfully the Conservatives are doing, but ignoring the fact that Labour is THIRD in every single poll, and tonight as low as 23%. This is worse than Michael Foot did. Why no speculation about the shambles of the Labour campaign and the fact that the Labour leadership has given up on a win and is settling for a hung parliament (witness Mandelson's remarks today)? If you needed further evidence of Labour's shambles, just look at Gordon Brown's visit to a school today - which had to be cancelled because no one had thought to get permission for the photocall to happen. Amateur night.
Yes, the polls have generally not been great in the last few days for the Conservatives, but please don't tell me they haven't been worse for Labour.
But tonight there is another poll which will put the cat among the pigeons showing a 9% Conservative lead, with both the LibDems and Labour on 26% and the Tories on 35%. Still not enough for an overall majority, but heading in the right direction. But Populus only shows a 1% lead, and Yougov shows a 3 point LibDem lead.
They can't all be right.
Well, Ian, I guess the assumption is that (once more) Labour will once again be proportionately over-represented thanks to your rather odd electoral system.
ReplyDeleteI do not know about winners, but Brown seemed to me to be the big looser in the Thursday debate.
ReplyDeleteThe phrase yesterdays man springs to mind.
But I do not understand how the LDs can be taken seriously on the deficit when they criticise the conservatives for not implementing Labour's 6 billion tax on jobs, but are happy to announce a 17 billion tax cut of their own. A cut out of which, as Paxman pointed out, only 1.5 billion goes to the poorest.
Still, LDs rising as labour sink does make sense. Not sure about the logic of the other polls.
Iain, I would be careful with the 35/26/26 - It's not fully out yet, and some of the rumours on it have been categorically denied by ComRes
ReplyDeleteBecause the media and much of the commentariat rightly regard the Liberal and Labour Party as basically the same thing.
ReplyDeleteIain, is it not time Tories accepted PR to start with ?
ReplyDeletePlus I would add that from a labour point of view and mine all that matters is that The Tories do not get a majority.
Brown leaves we rebuild whilst you guys have to take the hard calls with the LD's
we were not expected to win, a year ago you were 17 ahead and at 45% that is why all the pressure is on the Tories
Most Labour names have been busy commenting about the Tories, with constant criticism and mind games, while refusing to discuss the utterly abject performance of their own party so far. It accelerated sharply after the first debate with the likes of the odious Campbell harping on about Cameron in the hope of glossing over just how awful Brown was.
ReplyDeleteThe second debate will be the one to watch. They've all got their feet wet now and Clegg will be feeling confident while Cameron will be aware he has to get into a higher gear. And Brown? He'll be under orders to just hang on, argue and interrupt, and hope he can drag one of the other two into a slanging match - preferably Cameron. I predict another bad day for Brown, a small improvement for Cameron - but not a big one - and Clegg to get caught out badly within the first half of the debate which will see the Lib Dems progress begin to falter.
Here's a conspiracy theory for you though: Brown stands aside before the polls open on May 6th, and Labour attempt a dramatic sea change at the helm in a bid to drag voters back from the LibDems and BNP. Desperate, almost suicidal tactics perhaps, but if the Labour share of the predicted vote slides much further South then Labour will be facing oblivion and a lot of people in the party will be more than happy to hit the nuclear button as a last resort.
Why bother focusing on Labour? They're in third, and therefore irrelevant :D
ReplyDeleteEr, simple, we expected the Tories to do something, like win. Instead they have been next to useless. They had an open goal and up to now they don't look like scoring.
ReplyDeleteDaily Mail says, in Radio 1 Brown was ambused and it says"iobhan Randles, 25, who runs a travel marketing company in Uxbridge West London, demanded on nine separate occasions that Mr Brown explain why Labour had failed to introduce tougher immigration controls before he set up a points system in 2007"
ReplyDeleteInteresting rading in Daily Mail.
Iain. Nobody is commenting on Lab's terrible campaign because it's completely irrelevant. Labour are dead in the water, one might as well comment on the disastrous SWP campaign (I presume they have one?). You're right when you say that the Tories campaign has been bad though, although given a choice between a Conservative government and the complete destruction of Labour, I'd go for the later.
ReplyDelete"Why is everyone in the media twittering on about how awfully the Conservatives are doing".
ReplyDeleteBecause before they were doing the same for how well the Tories were doing.
Ride the media tiger...
It’s been fun to see all Iain’s far right drones with their years of offensively expressed sense of entitlement fall on their backsides. It may not last but it’s still been fun.
ReplyDeleteWhy on earth do people who only ever represented a minority feel they somehow deserve a buggins “turn” ruling over the majority?
The same MSM people ( especially the BBC ) who invested so much in New Labour now see a chance of avoiding change and reform with the Lib Dems.
ReplyDeleteHence we have vague BBC reports on the Lib Dems which focus on how well they are doing and avoid any actual Lib Dem policies or subjecting them to scrutiny like the plague.
The establishment thinks the Lib Dems might save them ... that's why the fire is turned on the Tories.
'They can't all be right'
ReplyDeleteActually they can - just look at the polling errors - especially on small surveys
Anybody who wants to know why Gordo is a disaster, only needs to remind themselves of Gordo's main failings. An example of which is his shoot from the hip statements. Brownies as they are know, or lies to you and me. When the 1/4M cancer cards was an embarrassment he stated the 90% cure rate. Now the evacuation of Madrid is needed he said 100 coaches has been organised, many hours later they had not materialised. Brown is a congenital liar.
ReplyDeleteBecause Brown was expected to do badly and the campaign organisers all hate each other with a vengeance.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, Mandelscum would happily settle for a hung Parliament and alliance with the LimpDims if it meant he could get rid of Brown (and Balls) in favour of Milipillock as the new Party Leader.
The media's story of the week - to try and boost a boring campaign and sell newspapers - is to talk up Clegg and the LimpDims. I wonder, though, how many of the young supporters he is supposedly attracting will actually bother to go out and vote. Young people are the least likely to do so; those most likely are 50+ and a large proportion of these are Conservative.
This is a FUBAR election Iain. Can any of us call it? Perhaps we need a National Government for a while. To be non-partisan for a moment, there are just about enough people with ability across the three parties to form an effective cabinet and government. I'm not sure any of them can pull off strong government on their own. This is not something I thought I would be writing BTW. At least a National Government would be more principled than a beer and sandwiches deal. Am I alone on this one?
ReplyDeleteI would like to say it's because Labour's campaigning is matching the quality of its governance so the fact that it is a disaster is no news - dog bites man.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, it's probably just as much a product of broadcast media bias - we all witnessed the glee with which Nick Robinson declared Clegg the winner of last week's debate when, in objective terms, he certainly had not out-performed Cameron.
However, it is a bit of a story that the Conservative Party appears not to be heading for a landslide and 400 seats after 13 years of the worst government in this nation's history.
Well it's just a guess, but the fact that we weren't the ones coasting with a 26 point lead 18 months ago may have something to do with it.
ReplyDeleteThis was supposed to be Lightweight's to lose.
Polls apart,
ReplyDeleteFrom each other.
I should have listened to my mother.
Who said Jedward were the new Ant'n'Dec.
And that she really liked Nick Clegg.
I never knew the power of Cowell.
Until his format. Surreptitiously.
Made the commentariat. Throw in the towel.
The National Press have effectively been banned from following Labour Candidates, relying on "Local Newspapers only" which is convenient as a lot of them have been killed off.
ReplyDeleteSo basically Labour's awful campaign isn't being followed because there isn't one. Even locally in South Derbyshire there's been one Labour leaflet and there's no Labour posters anywhere.
It's because the tories should be walking this election and they're not, the campaign has been a complete shambles.
ReplyDeleteI was prepared for this election to be both predictable and depressing (as a labour supporter who's not a fan of brown) - it's turnned out to be a hoot.
@Jonforest said...
ReplyDelete...after 13 years of the worst government in this nation's history.
The worst and by far the most destructive government in the nation’s history was of course the Thatcher Government. It seems pretty clear that most people have no intention of going back there.
If the Labour campaign has been a shambles then the Consersative campaign can't be that far behind...
ReplyDelete