The Tories move back to 43% with ICM
November 11th, 2007
Cameron’s party now ahead on commons seats spread markets
The main polling news overnight is a new ICM survey for the Sunday Express which has the following shares compared with the last poll by the firm nearly two weeks ago - CON 43% (+3): LAB 35% (nc): LD 15% (-3)
So the main change is that three point shift from the Lib Dems to Cameron’s party reflecting, I would suggest, news coverage during the week following the Queen’s Speech. All the emphasis has been on the intense Brown-Cameron battle with the Lib Dems and their leadership contest being squeezed out.
There’s little doubt that this is a blow to Labour which had been looking to the Queen’s speech as a platform to regain some of the initiative that was lost with the aborted election decision at the start of October.
This has led to some movement overnight on the Commons seats’ spread-betting markets that operate 24/7. Here punters trade on the number of seats the parties will get as though they were stocks and shares. The spread quotes two levels - the higher one which you buy at and the lower one which you sell at. The great joy if your predictions are right is that you can often get out of your bet within a day or so and pocket the profits - irrespective of what the general election outcome actually is.
On Spreadfair, which is a betting exchange where punters and not the bookmaker sets the prices, the Tories have now squeezed past Labour but all the good bets seemed to have been snapped up.
I was fast asleep when the news of this latest poll came out but did manage to get a little bit on with SportingIndex when I woke. This still had a Tory spread of 276-282 with a Labour one of 286-292 seats. Alas all I was allowed to put on was £20 a seat. IGIndex does not operate 24/7.
For there are often good short-term profits to be made made when a poll like this comes out and you are able to get money on. ICM is normally the pollster that is most influential on the betting markets.
For putting today’s shares into the Anthony Wells seat calculator you get CON 328 seats, LAB 273 seats and the Lib Dems 21. Electoral Calculus, which operate on a different formula, gives CON 325 seat, LAB 277 seats and the Lib Dems 19.
Mike Smithson
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Don’t quite understand why the ‘headline’ odds on your site are quoting Labour at 23/25 (92/100), shortened from 19/20 (95/100), when the polls appear to be showing a steady shift the other way. Can one of the betting experts explain, please?
re 3. The rolling odds feed that we see in the “box” comes from traditional bookmakers where they set the prices. They don’t operate 24/7 and often take a little time to catch up.
To protect themselves against new developments overnight they often restrict the amounts that you can put on. I don’t usually bother with this form of betting for you are locking up your stake right until the general election which could be in 2010.
My gambling is almost exclusively on the spread markets where I can go in and out trying to anticipate changes.
7% for \’others\’. I simply don\’t believe it!
Do these pollsters only use people from Primrose Hill and leafy villages containing £1 million houses.
Dare they set foot on a council estate?
Do they \’name\’ smaller parties or just the old gang parties?
SNP + PC + BNP + GREENS + UKIP = 7%. No way.
The BNP alone have averaged 15% in local by-elections over the last 6 months.
If the \’big 3\’ rely on these polls they are going to be in for a huge shock come the general election
5. Extremist parties have been saying such things at every election for the last twenty years. Local by-elections are the perfect place for protesting with your vote without doing any actual harm to the country at large. It means nothing.
fantastic poll. all the gerrymandering in the world won’t save them. roll on the ge.
Good poll for the Tories, pretty much what you’d expect for a third term government, experiencing the usual problems. Labour should be relieved they are still holding 35%, (not much difference to their GE %) so no sign of a Tory type collapse pre ‘97. The Libdems must be hoping, that a new leader will give them a bounce.
On crime, the news today that 40% of crimes aren’t even investigated won’t help. Also, Labour’s continued association with Iain Blair - the Indie has a story that under him vast amounts of cash have been embezzeled by senior Met officers, and the Met has been tardy in investigating. i am actually astonished Brown doesn’t cut him loose.
They are making such a mistake backing this loser.
Few people say they support DC because of who he is and what he stands for. His support comes from those who don’t like GB.
How’s this going to change over the next couple of years? Will GB become more popular? Wike and I are betting that he won’t…..
Yes, great Tory poll, and I’m surprised - I didn’t think there had been anything speical to move support from LDs to Conservatives recently, rather the other way. Ah well, onward!
9
As much of a mistake as the Tories bringing back Aitken, a man who put his sixteen year old daughter into the witness box to commit perjury on his behalf?
Bringing back Aitken, (Archer/Hamilton/Tim Smith next) doesn’t that bring back memories of the Tories in the ’90’s
Been paid at 285 for the Tories on Spreadfair now so Mike is alreayd up. I don’t expect the Tories to break 300 in a real election though so will be time to get short soon.
10. Cameron performed very well on Parkinson, a programme watched by people who aren’t wildly political, but who will have the same number of votes (one each) as the political anoraks of pb.com
He seems to be developing “brand Cameron” quite effectively
This poll is far more in tune with what my Gut feel tells me about the way politics is developing. The Labour Party has had enough bad news for their % to drop to the core vote. Its not there yet, but I humbly submit that that is where it is going. Labour have lost just about every argument going over the last two months, they look indecisive, there is no vision apart from yet more central control. It wouldn’t surprise me if the two speeding convictions and you’re banned idea wont hurt them even more.
And then there is the economy. Hang on to your horses, its going to be a very rough ride. Gordo’s allusion to the 6 billion Tory black hole, is going to to look like pocket money in comparison to what Darling faces IMHO.
14
Amazing, when Blair snivelled around celebs, and name dropped like mad, Tory posters called that a, ‘bad thing’ when Cameron does it, (convicted coke head Kate Moss) its a, ‘good thing.’ hypocrisy ? surely not.
Good tip by SBS.
16
Yep, that’s the way it works.
16. Barry is usually dismissive of mainstream politicians in equal measure - not exactly an unbiased voice, but one I’d listen to when comparing between the main parties.
Sporting Index seems to be slow catching up with news. If you’ve an acount with them, that’s the place to cash in on this latest poll.
O/T, there’s been a big move away from the coalition on the Australian Federal election. Not obvious why.
On individual seats, ninemsn is suggesting Howard is in trouble in his Bennelong seat, whilst this article indicates Environment Minister Turnbull may have a problem in Wentworth.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/polls-take-on-a-green-hue/2007/09/15/1189277049555.html
19
The point is, that everyone complained that Blair turned politics into a branch of showbiz, and hoped with his demise, that would end. Cameron! is now being applauded, for being even more showbiz than Blair.
First Digby Jones, then Patrick Mercer, now Malloch-Brown…the ‘big tent’ is emptying rapidly…
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article2848065.ece
21
I hardly think that’s a fair comment. Blair did it unashamedly under the “Cool Brittania” slogan, and had tea and “crumpet” at NO 10 with all the panoply of the media. Slightly different scenario methinks.
17 - yes, I was wildly wrong. It is interesting that Cameron’s rather agressive ya-boo politics has played so well with the electorate.
And 7% for others is too low.
Well that’s a sight I hoped I’d never see-8 Daves!
And here’s my quandary; I don’t like Dave or his Party but neither at the moment do I like Gordon or his. Gordon doesn’t give the impression of knowing where he’s going and when he does it’s too often in a rightward authoritarian direction. Blunkett yesterday made Inky Dinky sound like a new age hippy!
Dave as he showed on Parky is Blair VERY light. Blair was the master of those phony self effacing interviews.Cameron looked like a poor imitation…. but the point is he shouldn’t be doing them. When the voters come to make up their minds I have no idea who they’ll choose but I can say for certain they wont want an insipid smarmy version of Blair.
It’s still Labour’s to lose and in the reflective atmosphere of a general election campaign the Tories will probably still have too much baggage for most voters to stomache. However the way Brown’s leading Labour there might be might be no choice.
25. Thank you for those piercing insights Roger.
Anyone know where I can find survey dates and sample sizes? ICM don’t seem to have it up on their website.
25 well roger, they certainly seem to be losing it!
23
We could be on the first rung of the escalator, don’t you think?
Just watched the paper review on the Marr show, when Self mentioned Aitken, dear Carol found something really interesting to read in one of the newspapers, obviously still stings!
A very counter intuitive poll. Cameron as SBS said didn’t look good after the Queens speech and Labour haven’t done anything since the Populus poll that they hadn’t done before it! I reckon one is a rogue.
re 27 Matthew - ICM tend not to publish the detail of their polls until 2-3 working days afterwards. My guess is that this would have been the standard 1,000 sample and that the fieldwork went on from Thursday until Friday. The Sunday Express says “polling was conducted just days after he outlined his “vision” for the country in last Tuesday’s Queen’s Speech.”
The poll is almost identical to this one which ICM did for the Sunday Telegraph exactly a month ago
http://www.icmresearch.co.uk/pdfs/2007_oct_sunday_telegraph_poll.pdf
Certainly ICM’s weightings are less favourable to Labour than Populus. Of the phone pollsters ComRes has the least favourable Labour weightings.
30 - Cameron did not look good to me or you Roger, but we’re not that impartial.
I think the public must have liked him for it. I’m not so sure it’s a rogue, but the polls are so volatile these days, that you never know!
32
Cameron demolished Gordo at the Queens speech in the HOC. Gordo did his best (and not a bad fist of it either), but IMHO, Gordo looked as he is, a leader Kremlin style. Im sure somwhere in NO 10 there are figures for Tractor production (in the 5 yr plan).
Blair did it unashamedly under the “Cool Brittania” slogan, and had tea and “crumpet” at NO 10 with all the panoply of the media. Slightly different scenario methinks.
But that was, in many ways, the culmination of the strategies he employed as Leader of the Opposition, when he became a bit of a fixture on the sleb circuit; after the No. 10 event (an evening reception with champagne), he grew more distant from the slebocracy. Cameron seems to want to take the same trajectory. As with many of Cameron’s current successful strategies, Hague tried it first in a more half-hearted manner and failed to make an impact.
Labour posters please note, (Tory posters too) when a poll produces a result you don’t like, don’t rubbish it. Accept the result with good grace, certainly if you are in your third term.
No political party has won every single GE, it obviously hasn’t happened in the past, it won’t happen in the future.
With over two years to go, anything can happen, but you’ve got to be realistic. Labour should now depart from the script, go for a year zero solution. Something that would throw politics into a spin.
Suggestions:-
1. Pre-empt Salmond in Scotland offer a referendum on the Union.
2. Another referendum on Europe, but in or out, lets put the fox in the coop.
If your going to lose, have fun for the next two years.
re 30 I agree Roger - this poll does not fit with what we saw from Populus last Tuesday which is a bit surprising given that ICM normally carries out the fieldwork for that as well.
Labour’s ratings are settling down to a fairly consistent mid-30s figure in most of the polls. Thus the last six have been 36, 37, 35, 35, 33, 38.
Re 32. I don’t think the polls are that volatile. Remember the Populus survey also showed a 2% improvement in the Tory position against Labour compared with their previous survey. Also Populus was the last of the polling firms to have found a Tory lead after Cameron became leader in December 2005. It had 3% Tory deficits in its following two polls when all the other firms had the Tories ahead.
25/26. On the contrary, I think that’s an excellent insight into the current Guardianista quandry. The only party that is apparently acceptable to them is the Lib Dems - sound (to use a not very liberal-ly word) on the War, civil liberties, public services and so on, but switching (or staying) with them runs the risk of ‘letting the Tories in’. At one time, this was something to be avoided at all costs but is that still the case?
Getting the right answer to that question (for him) is at the heart of the decontamination drive that Cameron has been persuing over the last couple of years: not only will it help people vote for the Conservatives, but will also assist with tactical voting considerations. After all, is a Conservative Party that is to the right of Labour on economic questions but to the liberal left on civil liberties and foreign policy better or worse than Labour?
The answer so far is inconclusive. The Lib Dems share of the vote has gone down, so if they have picked up more middle class liberal support, they’ve lost even more elsewhere - no doubt the detail of the polls will help to answer some of these questions.
25 “It’s still Labour’s to lose”
And a fine job they are doing of it too….
I still don’t see the polls yet reflecting the true extent of a sharp reduction in support for Labour. There is no case being made at the moment to vote for them - particularly by the Party itself. The Queen’s Speech was a non-event. Delivery by Ministers is feeble. Perception is growing apace in the media and the wider public that Brown’s sole driving force was to get the top job - but once he got it, he hasn’t any higher purpose than keeping the Tories out. By, er, nicking their policies.
The reducing number of Labour posters who come here to go through the motions isn’t a reflection of pb.com being over-run by Tories - it is reflection of Labour’s bankruptcy of authority. They just don’t have the points to make. You can’t run a party on the basis of “we’re not the Tories”. Especially when the Tories look to have credibility as a party of Govt. for the first time in a decade and a half - with policies so appealling to the public that Labour half-inch them. And you certainly can’t impugn the Tories on the trust issue whilst refusuing to honour arguably the single most important important commitment in the last Manifesto - to call a referendum.
Brown is perilously close to becoming more of a joke PM than John Major ever achieved. There was a reason Major couldn’t govern - he headed a party with little or no majority, but determined to steer a course for the rocks. Brown only has himself to blame if he cannot govern.
I fully expect to see Labour support fall to the high-twenties within six months.
30: Roger you can’t go calling every poll that puts Labour well behind a ‘rogue’. However you look at it Brown turned a labour lead of 5% or 6% to a Tory one of the same scale.
His often dire Commons performances, coupled with his odd attempts to smile, and his game playing are turning people off Labour.
GBP6m goes missing from the Met. Funnily enough Livingstone didnt mention it during his defence of Blair on Marrs show. Move along, nothing to see here………
25 Roger - the “Cameron is lightweight” is so last year.
Labour and Brown need to change their strategy. As D’Ancona points out Cameron has filled the Blair shaped hole in Brown’s world view - he sees him as a libertarian dilettante, Disreali to his Gladstone. That rage blinds Brown. What happened with the Conservative Conference and then the following couple of weeks was that Cameron beat Brown and in doing so gained credence and stature. He looks the more comfortable at the despatch box, while Brown fumes “you aren’t listening to me”,”you might be good at telling jokes” - which make him look smaller.
The polls in Spring which showed Cameron doing better against Brown than Blair were because public perceived Brown as a bitter figure, more interested in private battles. Brown’s reaction to his mistakes has been to fulfil those views. He needs to stop framing everything in terms of trying to destroy the Conservatives and concentrate on competence (difficult as stories of incompetence abound)- a period of quiet focus on delivery not another Brown re-launch.
Will not happen though because the Queen’s Speech has set in train a period of turbulence, with legislation that is either opposed by majority of voters, opposed by a section on his back benches or really inconsequential to voters (outside of the Westminster bubble who cares about his constitutional reforms?).
There is a danger to Cameron of seeming to be a bully - but then public see him on Parkinson and he’s not. Self deprecating jokes like the Kate Moss story have dangers if used too often but play against the Flashman persona Labour is trying to sell( mixed message there : he’s a lightweight v he’s a bully).
39
The biggest problem Gordo has its trying to defend the indefensible. Its risible. The attempt to suggest he wasn’t influenced by the polls and the IHT fiasco defence have been very damaging. It has the look of being in office but not in Govt, a charge I fully expect to be laid at the door of No 10 on a regular basis.
Re Parkinson.
We live in a Celebrity Culture. Blair is the most significcant manifestation of this. He was not a politician. He was an actor, pretending to be a politician. He was not a serious man. He was an chat-show host, masquerading as a serious man. He was a celebrity, with his Richard-And-Judy appearances, his fake tan, and his slogans.
Cameron has drawn the correct lesson for the Blair Phenomenon (which is why Cameron will be the next PM, and will probably win multiple elections).
The public tired of Blair. But, the public have not tired of celebrities. When a celebrity bores us, we stop watching his show.His ratings plummet. We switch channels.
That’s showbusiness.
42: It’s odd how he’s gone from Not flash just Gordon, to Trying to be flash, not Gordon. People like Gordon the bank manager but loath Gordon the spinner, yet the keep spinning.
Now we have Nick Palmer getting obsessed with Ashcroft, not for some great moral or ethical reason but because now it looks like he will lose his seat.
43 I see the LDs have picked their Assembly man as their PPC in Swansea West. Is this a good move by them
BTW Guido comparing Huhne to IDS seemed a bit strong. Huhne may look like the Uni professor you really want to avoid in the Pub but that’s a bit much I thought
Rentoul in the Independent in an article on Education aso summarises well the weaknesses of Brown’s approach and its amateurness.
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/john_rentoul/article3149967.ece
Again, we are forced to ask: “What did they think they were doing?” Gordon Brown gave one of his better speeches a few days ago on the subject of education. …. Two days later, though, it was all undone in the Yeovil home of David Laws, …. When he got back to his Commons office on Monday it did not take long to discover that the school in his constituency was not the only one not to be mentioned in the speech. … This supposedly clever wheeze was bound to come apart in the way that it did. One of Tony Blair’s entourage told me recently: “GB’s people don’t realise that you can’t get away with the same things in No 10. They just carried on in the same way as they had when they were in internal opposition.”.. … The result is that, instead of the afterglow of chin-stroking about the good ideas in Brown’s speech, we have been distracted by the spectacle of a man hoist by his own petard.
42 - “The biggest problem Gordo has is trying to defend the indefensible.”
The problem is that he tries to defend it so BADLY. His addiction to second rate spin is just such a bad strategy. But it seems to be all he knows. Blair went through the motions, but there was always that suggestion in his eye that he knew it was an act, that he knew that you knew that it was an act, but that everyone went along with it anyway. It was like those two Hollywood producers, where one shouts “You”re lying to me! You’re lying to me!!” and the other shouts back “Yeah - but hear me out…”. Brown on the hand seems to believe his own spin - but he’s the only person who does.
All that rubbish about LibDems voters being turned off Camerons anti-mass migration stance has (and will be) proved wrong.
Many LibDem voters from the South west of England for example are very right wing, and come the next election you will see many of them return to the Tories, as they will be turned off by Nick ‘give ileagels an amnesty’ Clegg.
It reminds me of a football team, that having been pre-eminent suddenly start losing games they should have won, The Manager stolidly defends the tactics, the team keep on losing (the players nor the Manager are up to it any more), and the tipping point is eventually reached. Unfortunately the Chairman of this particular Club cannot sack the Manager ( without a constitutional crisis) and as the end of the season approaches, the team are in the bottom three with no way out of the mess they are in . Worse still, their last three matches are away to Chelsea, Man Utd and Arsenal…………..
30. Ralph. I didn’t say this poll was a rogue but one of the two. Infact more likely Populus.
38. M. Mark. I agree it is difficult to find mich that’s positive to say about Labour at the moment. The other day a friend of mine described Brown as ‘Lacklustre unimaginative indecisive and fake’. Other than that she might have missed a few I couldn’t think of any serious argument.
41. Ted. I can only think you wisely skipped Parky last night! I come accross more ‘Daves’ than you could swing a cat at working with ad agencies. He’s a classic ‘account director’ and as well known agency founder pointed out ‘they think of themselves as chef’s when in reality they’re waiters’. He is without philosophy which is for a politician to be lightweight.
35-”If your going to lose, have fun for the next two years.”
Good Idea!
This ICM poll is actually more in line with what the polls said would happen when Brown took over. After all the criticism of them, maybe they were a good post-honeymoon indicator?
43 (ICM) is Joint highest for Conservatives in 15 years. The other 43 was 10th October 07.
Largest ICM gap with 8 over Brown’s Labour.
35 is the joint lowest ICM point for Labour under Brown.
LDs 15 is near the lowest ICM level for the LDs in recent yrs, which was 14 (11th Oct 07). Even in the awful Kennedy Jan 06 period the LDs ICM only dropped to 19.
The poll ratings with ICM are starting to look similar to those in the April-July 1992 period.
30. Ah Roger I sympathise - it’s very hard to come to terms with the fact that the population as a whole doesn’t share your prejudices. But you had better get used to it - otherwise you will be facing many years crying into your cocktails at Chez Licher de Derriere
46 Ted, yes and this Times article (Martin Ivens) sums up the dearth of talent supporting Brown. Partly the inevitable outcome of a long period of Govt but also some of the casualties caused by Brown’s inability to share power with colleagues.
“Alistair Darling has not proved that he is up to the job.”
“But Jacqui Smith, the first woman to become home secretary, has yet to show authority. She has the bedside manner of a speaking clock.
“Browne, like Darling, is treated like a doormat by No 10. The defence secretary seemed to be the last to know about troop cuts..”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article2848085.ece
50: Not just two pollsters using different methodologies?
51 Fun! A son of the Kirk doesn’t do fun.
Gordon Brown’s views of fun are exemplifies by his (too often used) story about Mark Twain comparing the Edinburgh of 67-72 with Wild West depravity - and whose key lieutenant dared taste babycham at Christmas. This is a man who took a couple of hours summer holiday and spent those hours in a suit visiting Weymouth to see how the Olympic preparations were coming along.
41: If Cameron does come across as a bully at times, I think it’s still more of a positive than a negative. If the Prime Minister is at the stage where he can’t stand up to the Leader of the Opposition, then that’s an incredibly compelling line of attack for the media.
I don’t think people are going to vote so much on sympathy for a leader who’s up against it.
57 - Camo does come across as a bully. He’s not as good as PMQs as Hague - but then he’s not up against Blair, so he does not need to be.
When I said the polls are volatile, I probably meant the public are fickle. We did see a Brown bounce, which came late, and at times Labour had a huge lead. It soon melted, and we now have a period of Tory leads. They could melt away in a couple of weeks (though I am not sure they will).
The LDs need to generate some publicity as the leader is announced, and the new leader will need to hit the ground running. Trouble is Xmas is coming.
In the betting Sporting Index have adjusted their spreads by four in response to the poll so it is now LAB 282-288 seats with CON 280-286.
Spreadfair is 280-287 for Labour and the Tories.
IG Index has still not moved and is at 286-292 seats with Labour. I’ve just sold a bit at the 286 level.
56-You forgot that one about President Nixon(the one that he was in Africa, and asks “how does it feel to be free”) and the other about President Reagan(that the Scandinavian leader was some kind of communist). As you see, Brown has many jokes, and they are GREAT!!!!!!!!
Ted. Interesting article by Rentoul. A great admirer of Blair but nonetheless he seems to be telling it like it is.
Back to ‘Dave’….Perhaps I’m easily impressed but the fact that Gordon had written umpteen political manuals by the time he was twenty and read just about every book on political thought written impresses me.
Cameron has by contrast appointed as his political advisor Steve Hilton who knows less about politics than Martin Day. I’m not sure enough Conservatives have pondered the absurdity of appointing at £275,000 a year a part time ad man in this role but it tells me that he’s not only lightweight but doesn’t even understand the job.
I think a lot of Browns frustration is the knowledge of Cameron’s ignorance and when he stops spluttering with anger about it and starts dealing with it we’ll have a completely different political landscape.
48, 601 wrote “Many LibDem voters from the South west of England for example are very right wing, and come the next election you will see many of them return to the Tories, as they will be turned off by Nick ‘give illegals an amnesty’ Clegg.”
Logical, but it depends on the Conservative candidates ability to get that message across. If they punch it through a leaflet each month between now and May 09 then they may inform the voters. Are they doing one leaflet per month?
The smart move would be to adopt BOO and hammer the point in every leaflet. Which South West Conservative PPCs are smart enough?
It’s worth remembering that Brown was scared off holding an election by a poll showing the Tories doing well in the marginals, while Labour still commanded a considerable lead nationally.
I wonder what the picture in the marginals is now that the Tories have a headline lead? I suspect a national lead like this would give Cameron a *relatively* comfortable double-digit majority.
Think Cameron needs to be careful about using his family.
I thought he did well on Parkinson.
However was with a group of friends having dinner mostly conservatives, when after eating, some were watching him and stated they found his constant referalls to his severly disabled son sickning.
I was suprised by there reaction
64 to be fair to him the subject came up because of lewis hamilton brother.
Sorry to say this, but I thought that Cam was very good on Parky last night. The Kate Moss story was obviously rehearsed but he delivered it well. He absorbed the Rory Bremner pisstake and it’s clear that Cam like Blair has a genuine sense of humour.
All this might seem trivial but when people are confused about the difference between the parties’ policies then the superficial appeal of the leader is the thing that makes the difference.
The last thing that Brown should do is to try to emulate this because is does not come naturally to him (to wit his excruciating “Countdown” broadcast).
Brown is a serious guy with plenty of ideas and his new thinking about Afghanistan is a case in point. Housing policy should be played up more because it addresses worried electors’ concerns directly and because the Tories by contrast have no housing policy. Likewise the climate change bill. Likewise, higher education where Labour wants more, the Tories want to cut it. So there is loads of good stuff but Labour needs to re-establish its confidence and resolve after the November election fiasco. It would also help if key ministers like David Miliband were allowed to find their own voices and make major speeches.
63 - It’s very difficult to see that, as yet. One problem is that the marginal polls (quite apart from their basic reliability problems) also cover current Conservative marginals, where the Conservative position might well strengthen disproportionately compared to other seats, particularly in 2005 gains. Once you make allowances for LD incumbent strength, and good Conservative performance in targets, these figures would plausibly translate to either a single-figure Tory majority or a situation where the Conservatives are the largest party, with Labour in the 265-275 range and the LDs on about forty.
62 Given that signing up to BOO plays both straight into Brown’s arms and means the immediate forswearing of any frontbench career (Cameron has made this explicit) one might say any Tory PPC doing that is either the most courageous politician or the dumbest ***** muppet ever to put on a rosette in public. You may think it would help but the history of the Southwest indicates a sharp disconnect between their own views and the MPs they elect. It would avail you nothing, you must out cornish the Lib Dem MP not out eurosceptic them
The U K Economy !!!
HSBC will this week reveal a further $1bn (£475m) of bad debts stemming from its American mortgage business, amid mounting fears that the full impact of the global credit crunch has yet to wash up on British shores.
The HSBC figures will begin to reveal the true extent of the losses being nursed by Britain’s major banks
Britain’s biggest bank will reveal the additional provisions alongside third-quarter results from its US business this week. The bad debt charges follow last year’s $10.6bn hit, which forced HSBC into the first profits warning in its history.
The new provisions also come in spite of expectations that the bank had already come through the worst of its problems linked to American sub-prime mortgage lending.
Many have thought the problems lie elsewhere. They lie at the door of the First Lord of the Treasury and former Chancellor of the Exchequer with responsibility to guide and direct the economy on a safe path: Rt. Hon. Gordon Hamish Brown, M.P.
All the poisons that have been lying in the mud are slowly starting to hatch out. They pop up to the surface in the form of little bubbles and then they pop releasing foul smelling gasses that sicken all around them.
68 There is though, quite a big UKIP vote which the Tories could squeeze in some South West marginals. It may be that that vote will come back anyway, though, if the Tories are seen to have a real chance of winning.
64. I think it’s one of those situations where you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t. If Cameron never referred to his son then it would be easy to assume that he was ashamed of him.
I have a disabled son and it makes a major impact on your life which it often difficult to understand for those not in a similar situation.
Cameron has said often he wants to improve the situation for those who are careers. If he does become PM and does no such thing, then I will be first in line to expose him as a phoney. At present, I am very cautiously optimistic that he will put his experience into action.
70 Indeed. And from the Polling evidence you are squeezing them. But BOO is massive overkill that you know Brown would dearly love you to do, and the LDs would then look credible on their in or out referendum and be off the hook on the Constitution. Letting your hearts rule your political heads is the surest way to political difficulty
71. Sorry. Last paragraph should read “carers” - not “Careers”.
mea culpa for being thick, but what is BOO?
32 - Cameron comes across much better than Brown to the average voter, I doubt that the Queen’s speech debate had much to do with it but things like Parkinson definitely will. You have to divorce politics from it, the poorest betters in any field are incapable of making that separation, they always believe that their views are right so are easy to make money off!
Brown just hasn’t got the ability to present himself effectively - never has - I still find it amazing that, despite knowing this, the labour party let him sneak in unopposed.
Taking that further onto the LD leadership, Clegg is too clearly a less effective communicator in the same style as Cameron, it’s crazy to elect someone who will pale against the man who has already cornered the market. With Clegg I can see the tories racing away in terms of vote share and that would be bad for the chances of a hung parliament (which I would prefer).
74 - BOO = “Better Off Out”
76 Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!/ty
(O/T I see from ConHome that (Admiral) Stuart Penketh, who was once a pbc regular below deck with JackW, and who still occasionally drops in, has been selected as candidate for Ellesmere Port and Neston. Congratulations if he’s lurking.)
68 Punter, Would BOO kill of a career? Well only from the front bench in the 1st term. Candidates need to first get elected. They will be at the back of a long queue for the front bench anyway.
70 Sean, Would Conservatives get the vote anyway? Unlikely to see the UKIP vote in 09 drop by 3/4. Bear in mind that the vote for “Others” Forecast on Electoral Calculus to often be in the 7% to 13% range.
72 Punter, this is about a battle in the region, not a national one.
LDs in the South West have won through down playing their europhilism, that can only be overcome by some very eurosceptic Conservative candidates in each monthly leaflet. But do they understand that?
79 Certainly, I think the Conservatives should play up the issue of the EU to the maximum in that region.
I think much will depend on whether UKIP will have any sort of future. If they just fade away, then the Conservatives’ job in places like Plymouth Drake and Sutton, Totnes, Torbay, North Devon is going to be made significantly easier.
80, yes easier Sean, but BOO would be the great leap forward that the Conservatives need in the South West. Attract the UKIP vote and undermine the LDs who have pretended to be eurosceptic.
The problem with disillusioned UKIPPERS is that without BOO, they may not bother to vote at all or still vote for a UKIP candidate.
Interesting discussion on this one. But I think you Tories are on the point of being smoked out on your attitudes towards Europe:
http://www.libdemvoice.org/vince-cable-on-european-referendum-1609.html#comments
Not just Cameron, but the entire Tory Party, are going to have to decide whether they really WANT to be in Europe or not.
Cameron has already clearly demonstrated with his two-faced dithering over identification with similar European parties (and then again, not) that on the issue of Europe, as on so much else, he is trying to ride two horses heading in divergent directions.
So well done Vince Cable! Tories lose Cities of London and Westminster! (Ave TM).
80, Sean, UKIP only need to keep going another 18 months and then we are in the run in to a GE followed/at same time, with the Euros. A GE in 09 is going to have a heavy European element with the Euros and the “no referendum”.
81. “..BOO would be the great leap forward that the Conservatives need in the South West.”
yay, go for the great leap backward, I mean forward, HF!
81. Only problem being that it could possibly give Brown a national narrative of “Oh look, the Tories are obsessing with Europe again.” Probably wouldn’t go down well with CCHQ either.
54. Indeed it worries me how little figures of stature there are in this government. In part it is because they were purged in the Blair years in an attempt to create an unbending Blairite agenda, and there’s very little of them left, in part it is Brown’s control freakery playing up again.
Although Major’s government could hardly be said to be perfect, at least there were statesmen - Clarke, Howard to some extent - in the upper echelons of the government. At the moment all we have is hideously overpromoted Jacqui Smith, the boy Millipede and puppet- Chancellor Darling filling the rest of the Great Offices of State. Makes one cringe somewhat, doesn’t it? Gets even more depressing when we look further than the top table - Blears, Harman, Balls…
85, Matt1 how does a few south west BOO adoptions make the national news?
Re Brown’s lack of quality in the cabinet, the headline by Ivens sums it up.
“Brown badly needs big beasts in his menagerie of the lame”
75 ukpaul: “Cameron comes across much better than Brown to the average voter” - to what do you attribute Brown’s personal lead over Cameron in every poll since he took over? We all tend to extrapolate from ourselves and the people we know to the average voter…
87 surely the trends suggest the more they see of Brown the less they like him and vice versa for Cameron
87. I’m sure Mike or someone will be able to cler this up, but isn’t it a regular feature that the PM has a personal lead over the opposition leader even when the opposition leads in the opinion polls?
87 - Better the devil you know, nobody knows about Cameron and how he would appear in the job, with Brown they do. People just extrapolate from what they know, more important is the direction of flow.
85 - It’s a general problem, I think, although accentuated in Labour by Blair and Brown’s domination, which effectively prevented any other really big beasts emerging, with the partial exception of Jack Straw and Prescott (although there’s not much obvious neglected talent on the Labour backbenches, with the exception of a couple of MPs). Some of the current Cabinet might well become big beasts; but it’ll take time.
The problem is that fast-tracked MPs on both sides, have much less experience of really fighting to persuade people, from fellow MPs, activists, to the public. Election campaigns are much less dependent on events of hustings. Great conference battles, or crucial parliamentary debates, happen much less frequently. So MPs with talent, who’ve rarely had to face anything more stressful than the occasional basting by Paxman or Humphrys or a bolshie voter on a phone-in, have had much less opportunity to develop a strong, independent persona that the politicos of previous generations.
O/T. Australian Federal Election. A new Newspoll has just been reported, showing the TPP forecast at Labor 55%, Coalition 45%. Basically, this just confirms that it really is all over for Howard. He has thrown everything at the next Aussie PM, Kevin Rudd, ever since Rudd gained leadership of the ALP last December, all to no avail. Voting is on Saturday 24th November and the result will be known some time in the evening, probably by noon on that day in the UK.
35 Labour posters please note, (Tory posters too) when a poll produces a result you don’t like, don’t rubbish it. Accept the result with good grace
Like Nick Palmer in #11, I have to say.
re 87. Two factors here Nick. One is that non-voting questions are not weighted by how likely it is that someone will turn out. So there are the views of a lot of non or unlikely to vote people in those numbers.
Secondly there is an incumbency element about the guy who holds the job. That is declining quite rapidly with Brown.
It was a collective act of madness by the PLP not to have a proper contest for leader of which you Nick were part and are probably very vulnerable as a result. Brown should have been tested by running for office against realistic contenders. Just like when he got his safe seat Brown managed to move forward without proper fights.
PMQ’s this week could be very interesting.
Is it rare for a three line whip for PMQ’s ?
Tories take aim at shaky Alistair Darling
Neither Brown nor Darling are looking forward to Wednesday.
Gordon Brown is battening down the hatches for Big Wednesday when he and his Chancellor, Alistair Darling, will be in the eye of the storm.
Brown faces Prime Minister’s Questions for the first time since Tuesday’s Queen’s Speech clash with David Cameron, when his hand visibly shook with tension. Darling will then face an onslaught from the Tories on the concluding day of the Queen’s Speech debate when MPs discuss the economy.
The Tories are targeting Darling as part of a long-term strategy to destroy Brown’s claims to economic competence for Labour. After the Northern Rock debacle, the CGT retreat and the row over ‘who was first to think of cuts in inheritance tax’, Darling - once rated a ’safe pair of hands’ - is looking shaky.
The Tories see it as a sign of further weakness that column Brown and Darling have been panicked into publishing secret Treasury documents to show they were thinking of cutting inheritance tax before the Tories.
As a result, Labour MPs are on a heavy three-line whip for PMQs. Brown and Darling will need maximum support to see off the expected Tory onslaught.
Labour MPs looked glum when Brown bulldozed through his speech on Tuesday, setting out the list of legislation for the coming session. This was mainly down to discontent over the anti-terror legislation. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith will meet Labour MPs privately on Monday to try to thrash out a compromise on extending detention without charge to 56 days for terror suspects.
Yet the Labour whips are telling Brown that the troops are overwhelmingly behind him. Which could be why Brown looked on top form, relaxed and smiling, when he spoke at a private party for Harriet Harman, the deputy leader, to celebrate her 25 years at Westminster. It will be rough, but he is confident of survival!!!!!
Last night I posted the following question on this site. Nobody attempted to answer it and the conclusion of a number of other posters was that nobody had a clue. As there are different people on here today (and Nick P is also around) I’ll ask it again:
Re Brown’s “vision” - can anybody tell me what Brown is ACTUALLY going to DO in office that ordinary people are going to ACTUALLY notice and that people are going to think has ACTUALLY made a difference to them?
95 Which could be why Brown looked on top form, relaxed and smiling, when he spoke at a private party for Harriet Harman
So Brown was on “top form” at a private party with his own mates …. everything must be OK then after all.
96 - I’m still waiting for Brown to cut the civil service by 100,000 as he said he would.
95 what paper is that from HPS?
96: Can’t speak for Brown, but getting through the next few years without screwing up the economy or declaring war on anybody would be something people would find fairly compelling. Would probably be enough to get him another term, I’d have thought.
I _hope_ that’s the vision, anyway. Encouragingly, I haven’t heard much else, although I admit I haven’t been listening very carefully.
92 - The next fortnight or so will be interesting. Will Howard succeed in keeping enough traction going to try and limit the losses to Labor, or will he run out of ideas, with the campaign starting to go off the rails, and Liberal/National leaders positioning themselves for the aftermath? This could be the difference between a comfortable landslide for Labor and an absolute thrashing.
98 Didn’t he make that statement 2 or 3 years ago and does anyone know what the net rduction has been since? Having taken more than 800,000 people onto the State payroll since 1997 (what in God’s name are they all doing?), one might have thought it would not have been that difficult.
I think the dilemna with Labour is that by and large they go along with Brown’s agenda. they know that the recent “lurch to the right” has been mood music for middle england and that Brown is at heart redistributive. In reality he is about spending money on public services things like tax credits for the poor. This has been his and the treasury’s modus operandi for some time. However, he is an awful communicator. He cannot get this message across to people, and instead clumsy messages come across, no real vision or narrative is articulated, instead gestures here and there are thrown out with largely no long term impact.
If Labour want to be get back in the lead in the polls they seriously need to work on finding a message and communicating it clearly and getting some people other than Brown out there doing it. unfortunately as PM he is the main man spokesman. Catch 22
86. Of course they would. The media looks for a story, the opponents dig for a story, the story comes out, it makes the national press… it gives Labour the huge opportunity of saying the Tories are still unsure about their position on Europe.
95. PMQs is going to be hugely, hugely important for Brown this week. He must show some kind of improvement, force it to a draw… if Cameron is seen to best him again the momentum and morale is well and truly with the Tories…
Far be it for me, but I think Brown would appear more impressive at PMQs if he addressed Cameron face to face, instead of replying to the Speaker - this looks cowardly IMO.
O/T UDA just announced it wil dissove “all its avctive units” tonight at midnight.
103 - Just what is going on with the labour backroom team? They used to be spot on in terms of organisation and media control now it’s all over the place. Blair was undoubtedly the necessary frontman to humanise their iron grip but surely people with a strong plan A can come up with a decent plan B. Is it just that the old guard have gone and the new lot aren’t up to it? I don’t know the ins and outs of it, can anyone illuminate?
105. Indeed I think if the MP at the dispatch box can face the opposition benches full on it gives them a bit more power, makes them look a bit stronger. Brown always tilts towards looking at the Speaker and responding to him. He should be advised that’s not the best thing to do - it looks like he can’t stand confident in front of the Tory benches and also looks like he’s appealing to a Labour speaker who has never been seen as a glowing beacon of impartiality…
I’m thinking largely of Thatcher in this respect who I always seem to recall looked like she was taking the Labour benches square on. Cameron, too, has got the knack of it, though he has adopted the Blair-esque ‘leaning’ over the dispatch box, looking down at the Prime Minister as if belittling him, a very pugnacious pose (Cameron reminded me of both Blair and Thatcher’s PMQs styles in the Queens Speech debate - particularly the latter when he was dealing with interventions).
It has to be said that I think Cameron’s adopted better to PMQs than I thought he would do, being as I think a legal background must certainly help (it definitely helped Blair, I think, as once he got into the swing of things he treated it as an overly dramatic, court-room-esque scenario). Though I must say I was always shocked that Howard never seemed to consistantly better Blair - he had put his QC credentials well into being Shadow Chancellor, but somehow didn’t cut the mustard in front of Blair when Party Leader. Maybe it was because Blair had simply improved so much by this point, or maybe it was because Howard had been advised to look less ‘nasty’, who can say?
I see we are mentioned in Atticus in the Sunday Times today, re - Ruth Kelly having a shot at the leadership if Brown falls under a bus. I can’t see that she’d be much different to Miliband (either) or Straw etc. but they didn’t seem too impressed!
108. I’ve heard it suggested that it may be something to do with his false eye? He needs to turn his head full to the left to see the speaker.
82 Tressage - we hear a lot about the Liberal Democrats supporting reform of the EU and about devolution of power. When it comes down to it though they won’t support a referendum on further centralisation of power and in fact try a petty partisan political spoiler amendment. Either you trust the people or you don’t - this isn’t about membership of the EU it’s about ratifying changes to existing treaties that your MPs promised in their election manifestos. Dishonest isn’t it?
109, What they actually said was:
“As long shots go isn’t this one you have to measure in light years?”
110. In that case should we expect Brown to be more effective in opposition?
I watched Cameron last night and thought he was very good. He came across as a fully signed up member of the human race, whereas Brown seems to only be interested in politics.
I was with a friend who was a previous Labour voter in Leeds who surprised me by telling me how much he liked Cameron and would now support the Tories because he likes him and Brown is a boring fake (or words to that effect). To be honest knowing his Leeds background etc I was expecting to have to be defending Cameron and was very pleasantly surprised. My friend is a 29 yo gay man who in the past would probably instinctively have voted Labour or Lib Dem.
One person he maybe but he seems to be typical of quite a lot of people at the moment!
The LD and Labour stance on the EU treaty is debated at length here daily. It may be that the treaty is 99% the same as the Constitution was.
We share 99% of our DNA with chimps. But it is that 1% that makes all the difference.
Hugo Rifkind’s fake Jack straw’s Week column
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article2843580.ece
Does Des Browne wear a wig?
115 - Now it is a matter of debate whether that 1% does make all the difference on the EU matter.
But whether this political leader says the similarity is 99% or another says it is 75%, or 50% is not the issue.
115 SBS, your post made me cough on my bananas and cream, but then I realised that Chimps don’t cough.
79 Err yes but it is still a national campaign. You can’t hermetically seal the South West from the rest of the UK. If Tory candidates do something in one region do something Labour may exploit elsewhere exploit it they will. Ergo you will pay a heavier price elsewhere than you can possibly gain in the SouthWest.
Yes it will kill a career. It is inconceivable that the Tory leadership will advocate withdrawal. Therefore it is instantly impossible permanently for Cameron or any likely successor to have a Minister who departs from him on such fundamental policy. If the Tory PPC is happy to be like Philip Davies then that is their call. They shouldn’t be dumb enough to think that it is temporary
I think a large number of BOO candidates could do Cameron a lot of good in the short term. But, assuming Cameron does not back BOO, it could lead him in real trouble if the Tories win the next election, and something big on Europe comes to a vote in Parliament.
Labour would have been similarly stuffed over Maastricht had they won narrowly in 1992.
119 - I agree. BOO would sound dramatic and simple, and might play at a local level, but a strong minority of candidates committed to this position would cause endless problems for Cameron both in Opposition and Government, and really limit his options. He can’t afford to hamper Conservative policy in this way. It’d be almost like allowing certain candidates to take a Hastilow line on immigration in particular areas - a local, immediate political gain is neutralised by the wider consequences.
121 - it would also give him a diminished pool of MPs to draw from to fill a government.
The South west needs to be put into perspective. Of the 31 seats Electoral Calculus lists for the South West the numbers are currently 4 Lab, 14 LD and 13 C.
The LD seats Conservatives could gain are 12. All would require a strong leaflet based campaign and messages that resonate on the door step.
A eurosceptic campaign done in individual constituencies through individual leaflets will NOT resonate in the London media.
Another 12 eurosceptic candidates would have little impact on Cameron. It might even lead to the incoming Conservative Govt having a referendum on the type of Europe we want to be signed up to and then after it the party moves on with the issue settled.
Also not all candidates would sign up to it but half might and could change the political make up in the area.
4 of the LD 14 seats have no incumbent.
39: “However you look at it Brown turned a labour lead of 5% or 6% to a Tory one of the same scale.” There really is some tripe posted on here these days. When Brown came in Labour were 10 points behind!
The key factor is that most of the LD’s do not want their european position exposed locally.
A eurosceptic campaign done in individual constituencies through individual leaflets will NOT resonate in the London media.
I’d disagree. Thirty or forty years ago, it would have possible to run a disconnected campaign of that sort. Here, it’s only a matter of time before the London media pick up on what’s happening, just as they did with the EMU pledges in electoral addresses in 1997.
124 Tories haven’t had a 10 point lead since March, months before Brown.
127 - Blair seemed to spearhead a recovery in the polls in his last months, probably a case of people responding to his well handled departure, reminding people of why they’d voted for him in the first place.
“A eurosceptic campaign done in individual constituencies through individual leaflets will NOT resonate in the London media.”
Spot on, HF. “Localised euroscepticism” is just what we need to squeeze UKIP and target the LDs. That’s certainly what the keenest Conservative lemmings, I mean activists in the SW tell me. Go for it!
123. I think what you might find in the South West is the Conservatives will focus their EU comments re the Libdems on the facts that the Libdems are unashamedly pro-European and will have as leader a product of the EU Gravy Train.
Back that up with the general ethos that the Conservatives want to repatriate powers and hold referendums for giving up any further powers and I suspect that could persuade a large proportion of the eurosceptic Libdem vote.
I wouldn’t discount the possibility that the Conservatives might offer some sort of more moderate referendum on the current situation as well challenging the Libdem Yes/No referendum proposal.
On a lighter note, does the 3 point drop for the Libdems indicate the end of the ‘Cable bounce’?
;o)
“On a lighter note, does the 3 point drop for the Libdems indicate the end of the ‘Cable bounce’?”
Perhaps, but we’ll get out next bounce next month with a new new leader.
1. Excellent and surprising poll, but tantalisingly shy of a “full Roger” again; come on, we’ve got to see 10 Daves soon, surely?
2. I thought Dave appearing on Parky was a duff decision. He must have known the Old Barnsley Socialist would go straight for the jugular with his toff upbringing, Eton, stockbroker family, and then make him talk about his disabled son which some people will have found uncomfortable to see a politican going on about (even though he was asked to talk about it). I thought he was well stitched up, and hardly had any chance to redeem himself. The Kate Moss story was good and well delivered, but had been reported verbatim in all yesterday’s papers thus spoiling the effect. A couple of good gags, but nothing that let him shine. Interesting that in an unscripted appearance (contrast with PMQs and Conference Speeches) I felt Dave was awkward, stumbling about and “umming” all the time. (I see Parky attracted a slightly higher than usual tv audience last night, no doubt the Moss anecdote in the papers yesterday drew extra viewers to the programme…) (Or was it down to Lewis?)
3. With the Tories at 43% and Labour at 35%, shouldn’t Gordon have been wearing a donkey jacket at the Remembrance Service this morning?
I suppose that metaphorically he currently is. I’m surprised that with his current form he didn’t trip over his shoelaces whilst placing his wreath and chin the Cenotaph as he went down…
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHAR!
Con gain everything!
Told you they would!!
129. Certain Labour posters are, apparently, attempting to be funny.
They merely demonstrate their pathetic ignorance of conservative party structures. The constitutional independence of the Associations within the Party is our lifeblood and what distinguishes us from the Labour metropolitan centralist Stalinist spin-doctor elite.
Eurosceptics in most constituencies - maybe one or two pro-Europeans elsewhere - a pick-and-mix approach is entirely feasible.
130: But there is a problem here. The disjunct between the views of most LDs and most Conservatives is old news. Apart from anything else, it’ll will be difficult to make potential voters switch unless EU becomes much more important in voting factors than it currently is, even in the West Country. A dramatic, and clear, divide with a position like BOO might do that - but then, adopting such a policy leads to other problems. The Conservative line will play with the core voters. To some extent, it might also help shore up support in areas where there are already signs of significant Conservative recovery, as in parts of Devon. But it’s not going to convert voters by itself, and is probably the wrong choice as a primary campaign issue.
124. And now they’re eight points behind. Way to go, Gordon.
AVE IT’s SUNDAY AFTERNOON ENTERTAINMENT SPECIAL
———————————————–
Q How do you turn a small Tory poll lead into a large one!
A Keep Gordon Brown as PM!
Q What do you call Gordon Brown PM 2011
A Unlikely!
HEHAHEHAHEHAHEHA!!!!!!
132: Dont agree re Parky. Parky said Dave was likely to be PM - a long time since a Tory leader was referred to in those terms. Dave was on form. Rory B spent his slot laughing at Brown. Higher audience due to Lewis H - the only reason I watched.
135 tangent, to inform voters about an issue you have to make it one of your core messages and repeat it on more then 6 leaflets (ideally 10+) in each constituency prior to the election. Otherwise not enough voters in the particular south west constituency will see it.
HF,
very quick post but BOO would be a disaster in the SW.
1. Most Tories don’t agree - we are for a free trade EU and repatriating powers
2. Most Britons don’t agree - see above
3. Crucially, LibDems *are* offering BOO with their scare tactic in or out referendum. Sign up to it, and you are asking SW voters to go LibDem. What the Tories offer that no other political party does is the majority (80% +) position of Britons - remain in, but have a referendum on further integration and on repatriation of powers.
4. Cameron states no BOO, so you sign up for endless Tory split stories - only Gordon Henderson has betrayed him amongst ppcs so far
I think that’s enough reasons not to go BOO. It’s possible to be a highly sceptic Tory as I am and not be BOO!
is the Parky interview online? the bbc clip I saw of it they were in stiches, like to see the whole thing
135. I agree the EU is not going to change the way people vote on its own. It is only going to tick one of a number of boxes. Neither do I think it is going to be the primary issue. Health, Immigration, Education, Crime and the Economy will likely dominate as ever.
I don’t think BOO will attract any voters because if it did UKIP would be doing a lot better. It is true that in the SW their vote is approximately double of that elsewhere in the South, but at the last election they still only polled around 2,000 a seat. The current Conservative policy might well return some of these UKIP voters back to the fold.
In general terms (not necessarily detailed policy) there is a lot of overlap between the Conservatives and the Libdems (environment,
civil liberties, localism, defence etc.) So it is where the Conservatives take an alternative stance to the Libdems that they might gather votes from them. Issues such as Immigration, Crime and Education is where the battle will be.
A consistent moderate message on immigration (and therefore by association the EU) and Crime is likely to be where the votes can be gained. Whether there is a desire in the Conservative leadership to link immigration and repatriating powers from the EU is another matter?
135. Defence is in the wrong list - it should have been in the list where the COnservatives and the Libdems differ significantly!
61. Of course Oxford University just gives away firsts in PPE to any old toff who shows up.
137.
Whats the difference between the Labour Party and the Borg Collective?
Ah well,even as a Labourite (who does have his doubts from time to time),perhaps narrowly losing next time would be the best thing long-term for Labour (remembering how the Tories winning a fourth term in 1992 is now acknowledged by many Tories as a mis-fortune)
Test, of the 10 incumbent LD MPs in SW standing again, 8 are Conservative targets. Next year we will have many weeks of focus on the Treaty. These MPs will have to vote or abstain. So their voting record will become a matter for local public focus and local concern.
Yes, pbr streetgang (144), you are right when you say…
“Of course Oxford University just gives away firsts in PPE to any old toff who shows up.”
I fear it does, if Cameron is anything to go by. It’s being a member of the Bullingdon Club that wins it for them… That, or being an Old Etonian… Or being in the Masons… Or…. enough…..
132.
Thought on balance doing parky was the right thing to do.
Nevertheless think he needs to be careful with the family stuff.
As you say people do and can feel uncomfortable with politicians going on about it.
I know from my own experience of my daughter, being seriously injured in a road accident.
People especially at work don`t like to approach the subject.
And I imagine some can be very cynical of politicians motives, so the balance is a difficult one.
139 - Yes, I agree; the question is whether it’s better to focus on the EU as a primary issue - the best bet might be to ensure its dovetailed with a connecting local issue, like agricultural or fisheries policy. The key is to be EU-sceptic without seeming too focused on the subject.
142 - Getting the line focused is the real problem. Realistic pledges in certain areas which sound feasible are difficult. It’s one thing campaigning against new developments in the EU like the Reform Treaty or the Euro - dramatic change in the EU as it currently exists is more difficult to sell, because the actual policy would be contingent on a lot of other factors.
Sound familiar? “When is the Government going to get this message: democracy is not a device to keep the Labour Party in power.” (hat tip Nick MacLean on CHome)
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/466/story.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10475416
Another Labour Party ‘concerned’ about ‘unfair’ donations. think the NZ Herald has it right for both UK & New Zealand that the “supposed advantages were of less urgent concern to Labour when it was polling well. Now in desperation it wants to screw the scrum. It has succumbed to the old conceit of the Left that the interests of the people are identical with its own.
The interests of any healthy democracy lie in unrestricted debate, not laws that favour incumbents with public finance and suppression of free speech.”
148. You are clueless about what it takes in terms of intelligence and hard work to achieve at that level at that age, however privileged one’s educational background.
Oh, good, HF (147). Lib Dems are in favour of being in the European Union, though they criticise details (or perhaps a bit more than just details) and want to improve the way it is run.
Labour: nobody has any idea of what they stand for, except that - whatever it is - they have to be in power to support it.
Tories (under Cameron): simultaneously for being in Europe and against it: allying with pro-Europe parties and being against them: renegotiating everything (which is impossible) and then flaunting out completely, or caving in to everything, depending on the focus group of the month.
I think there is only one main party and UKIP that will benefit if Europe moves up the agenda. And the decision date is moving closer - Vince Cable and Team are bringing it on! Great!!!!
145 jsfl writes “Whats the difference between the Labour Party and the Borg Collective?”
One is a group with a collective mindset acting to the orders of their Leader and who work to eliminate all rivals to their empire.
The other are some aliens from Star Trek.
132. Bob Sykes:
“2. I thought Dave appearing on Parky was a duff decision. He must have known the Old Barnsley Socialist would go straight for the jugular with his toff upbringing, Eton, stockbroker family, and then make him talk about his disabled son which some people will have found uncomfortable to see a politican going on about (even though he was asked to talk about it). I thought he was well stitched up, and hardly had any chance to redeem himself. The Kate Moss story was good and well delivered, but had been reported verbatim in all yesterday’s papers thus spoiling the effect. A couple of good gags, but nothing that let him shine. Interesting that in an unscripted appearance (contrast with PMQs and Conference Speeches) I felt Dave was awkward, stumbling about and “umming” all the time. (I see Parky attracted a slightly higher than usual tv audience last night, no doubt the Moss anecdote in the papers yesterday drew extra viewers to the programme…) (Or was it down to Lewis?)”
EXACTLY what I thought. We speak the same language
Although, at the very least, I thought Cameron came across as human - but he was a bit nervous, that was easy to see.
(has anyone else noticed how Cameron defly licks his upper lip ever-so quickly when he’s under pressure? And how come Bremner hasn’t picked up on it?! It’s almost as noticeable as Hagues humming)
No, Streetgang (152) - Corruption and favouritism are everywhere - even at the highest levels of Academia.
Brown’s Chicken is coming home to roost, his rape of the Armed forces, the private sector, the english taxpayer and endless waste of money has come back to tronce him! Labour are in terminal defeat!
:lol: 
156. What basis do you have for asserting that DC’s degree was corruptly obtained or the result of favouritism.
153 Tressage, meanwhile in the real world the LDs poll lower than under the last days of Kennedy.
87. I attribute this to Brown being PM and Cameron being L of O. If Brown was leader of the opposition and Cameron was PM, i am sure Cameron would be streets ahead.
Before Brown became leader you (or certainly some Labour posters) rubbished polls that said Brown would trail by margins by saying Brown was not PM or leader. Surely the same should be said about Cameron at this time because he does not hold the office of PM, at least until the next GE.
I didn’t say that, Streetgang (158). I said that Cameron’s degree is not necessarily proof of his ability.
I judge people by what they do, and think, and say. For me, on that basis, Cameron is a failure.
Are you wishing to sustain that ALL degrees are an objective assessment of a person’s ability?
Meanwhile in the land of Labourg, the collective have decided that smoking whilst driving becomes an offence.
“Bernard Lawson, acting deputy chief constable of Merseyside police, has told his officers they will be expected “to be on the lookout” for smoking motorists.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2848105.ece
as well as eating, drinking anything, changing the CD…..
162, it is not as if the Merseyside police have anything important to do like catching the person who shot a young boy.
I think the Split in the foriegn office between government ministers is a very significant development.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,,2209279,00.html
Gordon Brown has very bad judgement
:lol: 
, does he think he can push people round like he did Tony Blair and get away from it. The only reason Blair put up with GB was he would have been a bigger pain in the arse on the backbenchers than government.
It cannot be long before Brown has to sack Brown, if i were the FO Brown i would make it very hard for the PM! The Tories should be trying to court this guy, big style. Not to get a defection (Although, is mallach Brown a Labour peer?) But to inflame the splits between the peer and the PM!
161. If your judgment tells you that Cameron is a failure then I would suggest that it is your judgment which is questionable and not Cameron’s educational credentials.
161. No, but on what basis do you say Cameron is a failure?
Is it because it took him 4 years in parliament to become the leader of the opposition? Or is it because he managed to panick Labour into getting rid of their most electorally successful (Cricket Score majorities) leader early? Indeed, could it be the fact that Cameron will be soon on his forth LD leader since becoming leader of the opposition less than 2 years ago?
61.
:lol: 
If only you knew the real story!
:lol: 
Cameron could get up in the world only by pulling strings and using contacts (eg. Buckingham Palace), not on the basis of his ability…. ?
As a political leader, I consider him a failure. In academic terms, I have no idea really.
Depends what standards are like at Oxford these days. Probably half of the dons there ought to be sacked, since they cannot teach…. This seems to be the official opinion of the education system in general (talking about anybody under the age of 45).
By the way Politicalbetting.com made it into the Sunday Times gossip column on political stories again - they say the posters are political experts collectively!
How can Cameron be judged to be a failure? He is the first Tory leader in years that has recorded consistent leads in the opinion polls, some putting the Tories in the best position since 1992. He is the longest serving leader of the Big Three parties. His election panicked the Lib Dems to axe Kennedy, his recovery in the polls and the calling off of the general election panicked the Lib Dems to axe Ming as well (and are now looking likely to elect a ‘Cameron-esque’ leader). His election panicked Labour so much they had to bring forward the Blair succession. He has continued to build upon recent Tory council gains, made gains in Wales, has forced Labour to adopt some of the Tory agenda and has been seen as the most likely Tory leader to be PM for years.
A failure? Oh, no. Cameron’s election as leader has caused possibly the most dramatic shifts in UK Politics for years.
170 - “His election panicked the Lib Dems to axe Kennedy” This is very wide of the mark. I don’t think it was Cameron who caused CK to be drunk at Shadow Cabinet meetings and public function. If Cameron had not won, CK would have been ditched at exactly the same time.
Cameron did, however, bring about the demise of Ming.
168. If that is the case he must have a bloody impressive set of contacts to get him elected as Tory leader? Is this why Brown, Chickened out of a leadership election? Because he did not think he could get as many of his contacts to pull strings and vote for him?
It is a poor argument, that you advocate. Cameron was elected leader because he was seen as having the qualities that may enable him to take his party to victory at the polls. Politics is the biggest old boy club and networking enterprise left in Britain - they don’t call the H of C: the most exclusive club in Britain for nothing.
If Cameron could not string a sentence together or had an IQ of 70, under your interpretation of things he would still become leader. I think you are wrong mate and your argument is the poor personality driven opposition Labour and Liberals implement, when they have nothing else to oppose.
The biggest laugh of the last two weeks was Brown saying the tories had no substance but smiled like a chesire cat when announcing similar plansd to the tories? I think mate your IQ must be defective if you believe Brown!
:lol: 
170. I would argue it was a factor. Remember that the pressure built on Kennedy after the election of Cameron. Cameron was suddenly seen as a popular leader capable of leading the Tories to power, something that had eluded Hague, IDS and Howard and therefore strengthened the Lib Dem’s claim to be the “Real Opposition” to Labour. Once the Tory vacuum had been filled by Cameron, a lot of Lib Dems realised that they wouldn’t have it as easy as they had for the past 8 or more years, and suddenly that cast Kennedy as a man incapable of upping his game, *accentuated* by his alcohol issues.
If the Tories had elected a dud as leader I think there would still have been some grumblings in the Lib Dems, but provided Kennedy sorted his alcohol problems out I firmly believe he would still be leader now.
Could Brown be another Eden? He waited several years for a long standing PM to stand down and then it all fell apart. Eden’s expertise was foreign affairs but Suez was his downfall. Could the economy be Brown’s.
170. Cameron, as with Brown, seems unable to put forward a cohesive narrative as to what his party are about.
If the Tories are to sweep to power like Thatcher and Blair, they will need to give the public a better reason to vote for them than the odd tax cut.
175 - “Cameron, as with Brown, seems unable to put forward a cohesive narrative as to what his party are about.” - so, rather like Labour in 1997.
174. Quite possibly, Brown is over-confident on the economy and he sees it as a reason he will be returned. He is wrong, the electrate do not seem to be so sensitive on the economy anymore. If the econmy goes then Labour will have absolutly failed. Hopefully the economy will carry on growing but society is convulsing at the moment through the distortion of inward migration. It could turn very rough in a few years!
Rawnsley was interesting today. To save you reading he thought Cameron and Brown were both useless on the Queens speech and Vince Cable showed the baying Cameron how classy insults should be delivered.
78. JohnO. Bravo to Admiral Penketh otherwise known as Stuart! Probably the only poster on this site I’ve had a drink with. He’ll make a fine candidate.
Highly esteemed Martin (172), I did not say that Cameron had an IQ of 70 nor that he was incapable of stringing a sentence together. That is what you are saying.
All I am saying is that he is not half as brilliant as some of you Tories are claiming - and even so he could still be nowhere near a fool - and that a degree from Oxford is not in itself a guarantee that Cameron is destined to be a brilliant national leader, or even that he is brilliant full stop.
As for his set of contacts, well, yes. It does help. That is why he was educated at Eton, wasn’t it?
And Martin, “they don’t call the H of C: the most exclusive club in Britain for nothing.” Indeed they don’t. It’s full of ex-public school boys and Oxbridge types in all parties - pure extension of Bullingdon Club, but a bit older and just a bit more subdued.
176 exactly correct. All Cameron has to do is keep the ship on an even keel and the total failure of Labour will sweep him to power. 10+ years of profligate spending as their only achievement will determine the election result. that is the sad reality for labour, abject failure.
179 - what do you mean by “Oxbridge types”? Do you honestly think that everybody who went to Oxbridge is the same type? There may be a lot of Etonians there, and too few state school pupils, but there is no such thing as an Oxbridge type. They have nothing in common other than where they studied.
180. That sounds like the arguments put forward in the 2005 GE - and we know what happened then.
The BBC has two stories side by side and the tell a sad tale:
“Immigrants who are in the UK illegally have been cleared for jobs as security staff, the Home Office confirms.
and
Ken Livingstone says he “cannot allow” Met Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair to be forced from his job”
182 well you might be right but the difference is that DC is electable……howard wasnt. oh and hes up against a loser
115. A curious argument. Could please tell me what the key difference(s) between the Constitution and the Reform treaty is? It needs more than an analogy to make a strong argument.
156. I don’t know when you last went to university, but Oxford, like all major universities, judges all examinations and coursework anonymously. The only reference to the student a marker would see would be a lengthy number.
Indeed, SBS (181), you are right. I do exaggerate. There are entirely decent people who go to Oxford from state schools, and others who go from private schools (”public schools”) but who nevertheless emerge as perfectly normal.
When I said “Oxbridge types”, I really meant those who clearly demonstrate the supposed “effortless superiority” of the Oxford man.
That I believe that they are in any way superior, of course not. When they give the impression that think that they are, then yes, that is precisely what I mean.
168. Oxford and Cambridge have just been rated as two of the top four universities in the world (along with Harvard and Yale). On what evidence do half the dons there need to be sacked? And why is it a problem that many of our MPs have graduated from excellent universities?
A long time ago I fear, Oh Socrates (185). As did Cameron. I am very glad to hear that things are different at Oxford nowadays.
186 - many people who went to Oxbridge play down the fact that they did, as there is a lot of prejudice out there against Oxbridge - as yourself have so brilliantly demonstrated.
To be fair, Cameron is beginning to build up a narrative of what he believes in - the ‘rolling back’ of the state, decision making at a community level, the end to targets and top-down tinkering. He’s contradicted himself, however, on certain issues (how can he say the state shouldn’t get involved in citizen’s choices if he plans to support marriage through the tax system? How can he impose limits on immigration if he wants people to have command of their own lives?) meaning that he’s some kind of very qualified libertarian-come-populist, by the looks of things.
However, out of the two big parties at the moment, his ideas, (though too cloudy and vague at present) appeal to me far more than the statist and scaremongering Brown.
Busy day so just catching up:
- There is no 3-line whip for PMQs, Herbert - not this or any other week. Nobody has asked me to attend or take any particular line.
- John L’s question on what Brown will do - I try not to get into policy debates here (too much like the day job and nobody here is open to persuasion), but I think people will look back on his period as PM much as they do on his period as Chancellor - one of solid but unflashy progress on most of the obvious fronts.
- Marquee Mark thinks Labour’s rating will continue to fall to the 20s within 6 months. The felines (fortified by an excellent canvass session by a large team in a Tory ward (Chilwell East) today) don’t agree, and offer a charity bet. Waiting 6 months is boring, so how about this: £10 that no ICM poll before the end of the year will show Labour below 34%. If it does, I pay your chosen charity £10. If it doesn’t, the cats get £10.
You are quite right, Oh Socrates (187). But a Government Expert has recently said that a large percentage of teachers are quite useless and ought to be sacked.
Are all teachers at Oxford and Cambridge good at teaching?
And what are The Times criteria for placing Oxford and Cambridge among the top ten universities at world level? Was it the quality of the teaching? I doubt it.
A quick question to the PB knowledge base!
Do polling organisations include any questions to screen out respondents who haven’t registered to vote??
Not at all, SBS (189). I could produce a lengthy list of Oxford and Cambridge graduates that I like and admire, starting with Clegg and Huhne of course, and others of other parties, and of other walks of life.
What I dislike is the arrogance that some of them display.
Oh, and Mike S - ukpaul was making an assertion about how most people felt, not about how most people who are sure to vote felt, which is the point you’re raising. The general poll questions which I was citing do, I think, prove him mistaken up to now. ukpaul just doesn’t like GB himself, any more than you do.
190. It makes me shudder when I hear the Tories boasting about scrapping targets. They didn’t have targets last time they were in power and the NHS was a virtual basket case.
194. Certainly some are arrogant but it is important to note that they have gone to one of the most prestigious universities in the world. Hence there is likely to be a certain level of inbuilt confidence.
I am very glad that the distinction between Oxbridge and “the other universities” has narrowed sharply. In the 60s and 70s (and in many cases, the 80s), if you went to Oxbridge you were destined for the law, for the City, for politics, for the finance sector, for management. If you went to one of the other ‘established’ institutions you were going into business, usually middle-management, and anywhere else you were destined to be the wage slave. That’s a fairly crude assessment, not true in all cases and there were certainly exceptions.
Nowadays, things are far more fluid. Oxbridge still tends to dominate at the top but a wide range of candidates from a wide range of universites (probably classed as the ’second tier’ - Durham, London, Bristol, Warwick, Birmingham, Manchester, Nottingham etc) AND beyond are breaking into the ‘elitist’ sectors at a rapid rate. There is still an inbuilt advantage, but there is far more of an emphasis on meritocracy now and as the years pass, the distinction between the universities is becoming blurred. Would say a chronic problem still present however is the distinction between the “established” and the “ex-poly” universities, which probably needs looking at as I feel there’s a bit of a self-induced segregation between the two.
196. You’ve got to have a compromise, I think. On one hand targets could be argued to impair patient care as matters are rushed to meet said target. On the other you could say the lack of targets could make institutions complacent and lazy and thus increase waiting times and, again, impair patient care.
I would say there needs to be oversight and scrutiny of all doctors and healthcare workers to ensure that they’re doing their job properly and providing high standards of care and efficiency. The question is - who is best placed to provide that scrutiny?
196. Targets came to the NHS through a “health guru” called Alan Einthoven. He originally cut his teeth as an advisor to Robert MacNamara in the Dept of Defence in the dark days of the Vietnam war. He came up with the concept of performance management, and platoon commanders were given kill targets; the result was that in order to “achieve” their targets, the officers either lied about how many enemy they had killed (and who was going to disprove them) or they killed random innocent civilians,in order to achieve their target.
NHS targets, blindly followed, literally kill people (as a consequence of distorting of clinical priorities); as any practicing clinician and they will give you specific examples from their own practice.
The application of NHS targets is resulting in needless deaths, people dying to satisfy the vanity of ignorant politicians.
(As a footnote, Einthoven learned his craft at the Rand Institute, where his guru was John Forbes Nash, a man with paranoid schizophrenia; so if anyone tells you that the NHS reforms must have been designed by a lunatic, they are just telling the truth)
199. Sorry : para 2 “ask” not “as”
195 - On the contrary, I refer you again to the incumbency factor and that the movement is the key.
OT. Looks like Obama is back in business!
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/11/obama-at-jeffer.html
I’ve just watched his speech and put a few more quid on…..
Anyone who thinks Cameron will get any sort of boost from his time on Parkinson forgets what a sore bum Blair got on from being on dozen’s of ‘Parkinsons’.
Ironically Cameron’s personal ratings as Nick says are well down on Brown’s but were above Blair’s which considering the party lead shows that party popularity isn’t about the leader.
Nonetheless this could be the perfect time for Clegg. As long as he sounds radical he’ll have more than a head start on the other two who seem to be competing to be the most pedestrian
197 - “In the 60s and 70s (and in many cases, the 80s), if you went to Oxbridge you were destined for the law, for the City, for politics, for the finance sector, for management.”
I suspect that more became schoolteachers than any of the above professions.
“but there is far more of an emphasis on meritocracy now” - and those who go to Oxbridge get there on merit, apparently, so may get better jobs afterwards.
“Would say a chronic problem still present however is the distinction between the “established” and the “ex-poly” universities, which probably needs looking at as I feel there’s a bit of a self-induced segregation between the two.”
Is there much of a difference in entry requirements between the two types? I ask as I genuinely don’t know.
OT: Clinton’s lead is dropping in New Hampshire This is a very notable poll as its the first in an early state since the poor equivocation over illegal immigrants driving licences by Clinton in the recent debate. It should be remembered that this is New Hampshire, the second primary state, where Clinton had a huge lead. This means that in Iowa, the first state which has had a much closer level pegging, Obama may well have jumped ahead. For betters out there, you might want to start laying Clinton and buying Obama before the next Iowa poll comes out.
The media coverage of the JJ dinner last night has also been very pro-Obama. The press narrative for the next period looks like it will be trying to knock Clinton and shake up the Democrat race a bit more. It is quite possible that an Iowa win for Obama could cause enough momentum for him to take New Hampshire with Clinton’s now reduced lead. This is especially the case as most Democrats I talk to seem to be backing Clinton on the inevitability basis. Should the first two states go to Obama the race would be wide open.
Of course, its a long time until the primaries start, but if you’re a short-term trader I’d start buying Obama now.
199. Patient care is the top priority and overrides any targets. Everyone in the NHS knows this.
Conservative (small ‘c’) elements within the NHS workforce use targets as a scapegoat for mal-practice to cut down their workload and slow up reform.
Regarding the SW and BOO I have considered BOO quite carefully, clearly as some of you will know the UKIP vote lost the Torbay seat in 1997 and again cost me the seat in’05.
I don’t agree that signing up to BOO would necessarily be a career finisher, in my case I am sure that if the party felt that it was the price to pay for winning the seat having an anti EU MP would be a price worth paying.
But I think the thesis is wrong. Yes there are lots of anti-Europe votes here, but if the Lib Dems can win the seats down here on so a pro-European platform why should we need to be vehemently anti Europe to win them back?
We didn’t lose Torbay because of the 3000 who voted UKIP we lost because of the 10,000 who didn’t vote at all (extra from 1992); many of these people are what I call ‘Clarke Tories’ right of centre but moderately pro Europe.
I am not plugging my blog but I have commented only yesterday on our current canvassing here:
http://www.marcuswood.blogspot.com
In one quite long road on Saturday I had the unique experience of finding 100% Tory voters, every home was in and all of them gave clear support.
I don’t *need* UKIP voters to win and in any case the evidence so far is that those who were Tory before 1997 are coming back in droves, but their number are dwarfed by the numbers of moderate, modern but slightly right-of-centre, liberal minded voters who used to like Blair, like Cameron; and hate Brown.
204: Well a much lower percent of entrants are now from state schools then forty years ago.
On the Oxbridge debate. It’s a double edge sword. For some it was a great time and a gateway to great friendships and networks that served them well throughout their lives. For others it was hard slog, the pinnicle of their achievement and nothing since quite lived up to it.
In the former case they have a signifcant advantage in life, the latter are miserable souls.
One unifying thought though is that people who bang on about their univesity decades hence can be very very dull indeed and IMO are kind of missing the point.
207:
Conservatives gain everywhere!!!!
Interesting about mid year canvassing, how do you approach the issue, its kind of hard to ask someone if they will be supporting you in one/two/three/undetermined future date…..
From a non Tory or Labour perspective what strikes me about the Tory 8 point lead is that when Labour had an 8 point lead all those months ago - oh no, weeks (days?) ago - the reports were that GB was walking on water whereas the Tory 8 point lead doesn’t have that impression, it feels like there’s more in the tank to come.
If I may briefly give a quick couple of comments on the LD MEP candidate selections that I’d be intrigued to hear others’ views on (data from http://www.libdems.org.uk/news/liberal-democrats-select-european-parliament-candidates-for-england.13440.html) :
1) While I myself in the South East region actually voted for the people who ended up 1st 2nd 3rd in exactly that order, and for the one who ended up 4th also somewhere around 4th (so I do believe (or hope) their positions are on merit) nevertheless I am struck by the fact that the people who finished in the top 4 for SE region were the first four names listed on the ballot paper (they were listed alphabetically).
2) In fact, following that up, I note rather worriedly that of the 51 names so far listed for the whole of England, only 13 names start with a letter later than N. Should I be campaigning under my first name in the future (Alex)?
3) Good luck to Justine McGuinness but intrigued to see that she seems to have been able to put herself on the ballot paper both for the South West and for the South East.
4) Congrats to Linda Jack who I see visits pb.com occasionally. We’ve got 1 in Eastern, what’s the likelihood of getting you in?
209. Judging by your spelling, the letters you added after your name are presumably false.
210 - nothing strange about mid year canvassing. Most of the LDs elected for the first time in 1997 had been canvassing all year for years.
test.
we must be all really lazy in our district, out of election canvassing is non existant, but then we must be the only Council (tory in charge, but noc) that hasnt gained a single seat in seven years. I wonder if thats a pattern………………..
207: People put Brown on probation he confused that with genuine support, like the Lib Dems are with tactical voters, and he got arrogent. That is something you Tories have to be careful of.
208 There was a public schoolboy studying modern history with my sister at Keble College, he got a first class degree, entered academe then journalism, job at No 10, was enobled and now is Under-Secretary of State in Department for Children, Schools and Families. Statistics would show him as a non-state entrant and some would claim he had privileged access. He is a bete noire for Fiona Millar and her ilk.
He was in care for much of his young life and his public school education was a result of the LEA giving him a grant to a boarding school that specialised in helping disadvantaged boys. I met him once or twice but doubt he’d remember. I do though because he is an example of both personal strength, application and of the benefits of choice, of LEA independence and of the part charitable institutions can play in helping the disadvantaged. Doubt that three decades or so later a child in his position could or would have the opportunities he had.
I think Andrew Adonis recognises that and has tried to address and change Labour educational policy for the better. It’s a shame that from what I’ve seen from Brown & Balls’s ideas that his best ideas will be stillborn.
211 CFL. L followed the link that you supplied, and stumbled upon the LibDem “European Consultation Paper” from the summer.
When the Conservatives talk about taking some powers back from Brussels, it is nice to know that the Lib Dems agree with the principle. The LibDem paper contains this gem:
“… there are plainly some objectives which can most effectively be achieved by action at the European level. We remain however determined that no action should be taken at that level which can better be dealt with at the national or local level, and insistent on the importance of democratic accountability at all levels.”
Now, I am not a LibDem, but I support these sentiments completely. Some things are better done by pooling our collective sovereignty, but others are better done at local level. This isn’t the view of Brussels, however.
But can anyone tell me of any significant power that has been devolved FROM Brussels to a National Parliament or Local Region so that it can be dealt with better? No - the trend is even worse centralisation.
Come on LibDems, join with the Conservatives to actually get something DONE about it. Help improve the EU, then fewer people will be so sceptical about it.
Marcus at 207: interesting that you write that you’ve thought about endorsing BOO for tactical reasons but have decided against. I don’t want to discourage this frankness by criticising you, but I wouldn’t personally decide a policy of this magnitude that way round - I’d argue for first deciding what you actually favour, and then how to put it to voters. If I could win an election by supporting or opposing a traffic light, sure, but leaving or not leaving the EU? I wonder sometimes whether British politics isn’t too readily moving to a blurred position where any party might take any position for tactical advantage.
Cnavassing: can’t speak for anyone else, but I have a team canvassing twice a week, once on the doorstep and once by phone, and we routinely compare with previous canvasses to (try to) gauge the trends. People are mostly quite relaxed about opinion surveys - they see them in the paper all the time, and are often mildly pleased to be asked, even by a party representative. Phone canvassing is much faster but it’s nice to be able to deliver localised leaflets while you’re at it - there’s an inquiry in progress on the tram through Chilwell, so it seemed natural to do a Chilwell canvass and do a leaflet about the inquiry.
Nick, how do you motivate your troops for the canvass? You are asking an awful lot from them, to canvass on that scale.
175. Though they haven’t done it yet, it will be much easier for the Conservatives to develop a coherant narrative, simply because they are not in government. Be it FREEDOM or REFORM the Tories have still go plenty of time to develop this “vision”
For Labour the concern is far more pressing. Because they have been in power for a decade Brown has got to develop a narrative that unique and differant, without trashing everything Labour have already done. And he needs to do it quickly, because he cancelled the general election, supposedly so that he could set out this “vision”
Cameron has 2008 to develop his narrative, Brown has to get on now or have his reputation forever damaged.
Fuel protests set to come back;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7089933.stm
How would the Clunking Fist deal with a petrol crisis?
217 - adonis is no visionary. He is personally responsible for some incredibly muddled thinking. Often because he is so keen to extend religious control over community schools. His desire to put his faith above good policy led to car crashes like reg vardy
218. Indeed you highlight an interesting contradiction in Libdem policy. How can a localist democratic party at the same time promote a remote Centralist undemocratic body?
At least the ethos of repatriating powers and localism are consistent….
206. and the evidence for this deranged assertion is…
223. The creeping extension of religion within our schools has been a worrying development. The new city academies are much more likely to be religious than existing schools, and one in the Northeast actually teaches a creationist outlook.
222. Ooh, another COBRA meeting for Gord!
217 I think 223 shows why Adonis should seriously consider providing his radical thinking to a party that is interested.
Adonis would be a great asset to the tory education team and it’s a shame he won’t cross the floor
227 There will be rubbish on the streets, green fire engines etc as this totally inept government collapses inside a year! hurrah!
re 162 well at least he hasn’t declared sitting on a tube minding your own business a capital offence yet.
228 - if creationist car dealers is your idea of a winning education policy for the tories…please, please go ahead
re 163 and do you remember one of the first thing Gordon said straight afterwards was that the killers would be caught. Not, we will put every effort into catching the killers, but that they WOULD be caught. I hope that this stupid soundbite doesn’t come to haunt him, but it’s looking likely hat the police will ever have the evidence. But still in NewLabour Britain what ’s the lack of a bit of evidence matter when banging peopel up.
re 182 not often that I agree with Gabble, but this latest poll would give the Tories a single figures majority.
228 - he probably will. He’s already gone Labour - SDP - LD - Labour.
227: And if you haven’t got an excuse invent one, a tidal surge anyone?
re 199 and those of us working in the NHS can give examples of managers who have fiddled the figures to show that targets have been met as well.
re 206 Gabble consensus didn’t last very long as I’m afraid that comment is rubbish. Most Trust boards know that meeting the targets and improving their health score is the priority
231 As long as there are other schools teaching real science what’s the problem? No-one should be forced to go to a school teaching creationism but I think it should be up to parents to decide which school and what ethos the school they pick has. If its no good as a school then it will fail; schools should be allowed to fail.
That’s the problem with much traditional Labour policy, one set of targets, one type of school, no parental choice - in fact fear of parental choice.
236, 237. I hope you’re not trying to argue that there is no role for targets in the NHS.
If you accept there is a role, there will always be a danger that the system will be abused. This is true of any system of measurement and control. The answer is to tackle the abuse - not ditch the system.
239
Throwing money at the problem isnt the answer either, paying GP’s 250,000 a year wont get a single extra patient seen. Thats for sure. You can’t even get to see your own GP out of hours these days.
238 I am aghast at that post
Science isn’t a matter of parental choice. You can’t have parents “choosing” whether they want science taught or some kind of “alternative” view.
I believe pupils have the right to receive a rigorous academic education. You can’t have a situation where this can be undermined purely on the basis of someone having enough money to subvert the curriculum to their own extreme beliefs.
And exactly how many schools is it ok for them not to be teaching “real science”. A flippant disregard for the quality of education for children, especially if there are no other local schools for many miles.
I hadn’t realised how far cultural relativism had infected tory ranks!
241
10 yrs of New Labour and more kids than ever a leaving with no qualifications at all,I dont think we need any lectures from Labour about the education system in this country.
238. Ted. So what does a parent do faced with this choice? Two local schools. An academy school which is thriving and is achieving good exam results but which is controlled by a private backer with daft ideas such as creationism, which form part of the curriculum? Or a state school with no private interference or influence which is failing academically and/or otherwise? Why should parents have to make such a choice? Children should not be taught such nonsense.
239. Of course the NHS needs targets. I suggest simply one - scrap it!
Socialists all over Europe had the same aims as regards health provision after the Second World War. Only we in the UK opted for a centralised system that has turned into the nightmare that we now have.
What I am saying is that Socialists in other countries have achieved the objective of “high quality health care for all” much better than we have, but we cling to this dinosaur because there are too many vested interests and we dare not admit that Johnny Foreigner may know best.
FAIR MINDED LATE NIGHT OPINION
——————————
Lab crushed into oblivion.
Lab no longer a political force.
Con to govern for next 200 years.
Lab = Natural Law Party
re 239 no, but set by clinicians and not by ministers in Whitehall who wouldn’t know one end of the GI tract from the other - after all several of them talk from the wrong end.
242 - “more kids than ever a leaving with no qualifications”
More than EVER? Where did that come from?
re 238 that’s complete nonsense and akin to saying that schools can teach pupils to knock each other about the head as long as there are other ones that teach otherwise. Creationism is complete and utter bunkum and any one who believes in it and certainly anyone who forces such nonsense on kids needs their head examining.
220: The helpers who like doorstep work are different from the ones who like phone work, so there’s only me and one other guy doing twice a week, and I’m not talking huge teams - a very good day is 20 people, a very bad day is 4! Motivation - well, er, I just tell them we need to keep at it if we want to win. Most of them were around in 1997 when Broxtowe turned Labour for the first time ever: they don’t want to lose it any more than I do.
Ralph and others tease me about being annoyed by the Ashcroft thing, but what we see here is one side regularly doing the work on the ground, and the other side (who - I’m told - on a good day get a handful of people for a leaflet drop with no voter contact) ordering a chequebook. You’d think it unfair too.
249. Nick. Is your level of canvassing and campaigning typical? I suspect that you put far more effort in than the avearge MP? I have no facts to back up my opinion. Would I be correct?
246. I agree there should be more involvement from the clinicians and future targets should be set at a more local level.
The Tories left the NHS in a dreadful state. The national targets have had a role in turning that situation around but now need to be reviewed and refined - not ditched.
245.
07/05/2009 = Labour landslide
Ad it 09 = boo hoo
On the subect of private education there are some home truths to be told - most people sending their children to private schools would rather not do it , not just becasue of the cost of it but from a general belief that it would be much better if the the state provided good local schooling across the board . However , the state provison is weak and is felt by many who have the choice does not provide what is required to suceed in todays global economy . School financing may play a part but is not the most important aspect - it is a focus on excellence from academic and social development to sport and it is these areas that the state is found wanting . The solution is not to criticise the private sector or force it to conform to the state system but to learn from it and apply best practices in the state system . To do this will require jettisoning some of the failed ideology of the left which has so disadvantaged so many in the last decades . From the lefts perspective it is much easier to avoid this painful truth and attack the private sector and bring it down so that there is no beacon by which the failed left wing ideology can be compared . The middle classes know a good education when they see it , the challenge for any politican is to improve the state system -but to attack the private sector should not be the way forward - for without it we would be in even worse trouble
252 HAHAHAHAHA - dont think Gordon will call it in 09 when Lab are 15% behind!
Gordon = frit = useless = worst politicain since Neville ‘heres a white flag’ Chamberlain!!
Labour = c****!
243 Start another school - that’s what people did at beginning of twentieth century. Not being flippant. Otherwise have no problem with State declaring Creationism a Religious subject, not a science one, and therefore one that parents can withdraw their children from. I went to a school run by a religious order but we had Buddhists, Muslims, Jews and even one or two protestants - they just didn’t attend the RC lessons. Many muslims went to British CoE schools, RC Convents - Jinnah went to a Christian School in Karachi.
Academies are a start but really I prefer the Swedish model.
re 255 that’s the problem parents should not have the right to withdraw the child from any lesson.
If David Cameron is a failure then the bar for being considered succesful in politics must be set pretty high!
Good evening.
It is 11 November and I would like to post to remember our Servicemen, those young who sacrifice their lives without knowing life, for those who never see their loved ones again.
Watch & Listen to “A Pittance of Time” by Terry Kelly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYlrrAWCTRg
Look at his little child; there’s no fear in her eyes.
Could he not show respect for other dads who have died?
257 - i agree.
David is the greatest politician since maggie and churchill! (who won us the war)
Con gain world War II
Gabble - you gone to bed yet.
256 Why ever not? Parents should absolutely have the right - the state has no rights in this matter only duties of care.
249.”but what we see here is one side regularly doing the work on the ground, and the other side (who - I’m told - on a good day get a handful of people for a leaflet drop with no voter contact) ordering a chequebook. You’d think it unfair too.”
Nick, that is tosh and you know it! Your obsession with Ashcroft is getting a bit silly, you have homed in on him as the possible reason you might lose your seat. But to be fair all the canvassing in the world will not save that seat for Labour if the leadership team you and the rest of the PLP voted in without a contest fail to convince the voters they deserve to be re-elected to government.
If you have done your job as an MP, have a good team around you locally who campaign well and your government have a credible record and message to sell between now and the next election, all the money in the world from Ashcroft’s team will not win that seat for the Conservatives.
You and other MP’s would in a similar position would be better off tackling the deficiencies within your own party higher up rather than trying nobble the oppositions local campaigns.
255. I would have much less issue with a fully private school teaching creationism, but why should taxpayer’s money being spent propagating evidentially false ideology?
Sorry if someone posted:
“THE RACE: The presidential race for the Republican, Democratic nominations in Florida”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-7069003,00.html
260. Every child has a long established right to get an education in this country. This is why parents who home school their children have to show they are doing their job. If a parent wishes their child not to be taught and the state allows that to happen, then we are allowing the parent’s parental rights ahead of a child’s right to be educated.
262 - “why should taxpayer’s money being spent propagating evidentially false ideology?” Governments do enough of that without schools doing it too.
261. A large part of that “convincing”, i.e. getting the message across, comes down to the funds available however. Thus clearly the Conservatives this time around have an unfair advantage. (Although this is not to say the government does not have unfair advantages in other areas.)
But I feel there is a much more concerning issue with Michael Ashcroft. His money will mean he has a lot of leverage over Cameron as long as he can make the difference between success and failure in marginal seats. This gives one unelected rich man far more influence over the government of this country than the average voters.
266 - I don’t think Ashcroft is like that. Stanley Kalms and Stuart Wheeler may be, however.
262 Creationism is bunkum IMHO, but some think all religion is bunkum, others that climate science as expressed in the climate change agenda is rubbish.
I don’t really believe there should be “state” schools as such - like Tom Paine I believe in universal education but prefer LEAs at borough/county level to be enablers of school foundations supplemented with private provision with cash following the pupil. The damage to education since the 1960’s IMO follows increasing central control of education under successive Education Secretaries. We have fewer and larger schools, increasing discipline problems and poorer levels of attainment (disguised by inflation of exam pass rates). Proposals have been made to break our supersized schools into smaller ones (though on same campus - how does that work?) because there is a realisation bigger doesn’t mean better.
Lets have more schools, smaller schools, more choice. It will cost more but with more likelihood of success than current “lets raise spending to same level as private schools” inane targets.
At the end of the day, an unelected rich man cannot force the people of this country to march down to the ballot box and vote for his preference. That is not to say that the rich do not have *influence* - because they do. But this is nothing new and depends where you draw the line. Rupert Murdoch is an unelected rich man, yet arguably has influenced the outcomes of elections.
There is a problem with the Ashcroft money. But there’s a problem with many of the methods of party funding and election financing, that all parties seek to exploit. I don’t think any one party can attack and seek to restrict another on this. It’s all give and take. Consensus is the way forward. Nick Palmer is beginning to get a bit obsessive.
267. Perhaps, but the fact that he “hand picks” which marginals he funds suggests that he picks candidates whose views he agrees with. He is thus significantly affecting the ideological makeup of the Conservative intake to parliament at the next election.
266.The government of the day and incumbent MP’s have the platform everyday in the news both nationally and locally. The Conservative party have finally become more effective at running campaigns in marginal seats, this simple provides a level playing field rather than an advantage. At the end of the day if your message does not resonate then you will not win no matter how many leaflets you deliver.
Nick Palmer I see your posts mentioning Ashcroft are still and Sainsbury-Cohen free Zone.
Ashcroft sounds like the beginning of something bad for the Tories. If he becomes the story, he will become a liability for them.
There’s already a bit of a smell around him with regards to promises he has made about his tax status.
268. While I would certainly agree that there has been too much centralisation and uniformity in schools, I do think that the government has a basic duty to make sure the “education” a child is getting is actually educating them. Your parallels in the first paragraph are misleading and based on the assumption that all scientific views are equal, when they are not. The science taught to children in science classes, whether its about the shape of the Earth, the biology of the human race, the history of the universe or the state of the environment should be based on the findings of the leading scientific institutions in each field.
If a school wishes to teach creationism in religion class, fine, but they should do it as “This is what evangelicals believe…” not “This is the spoken word of God”. What certainly should not happen is mentioning Jesus in maths class as is done at that creationist school in the North East.
re 270 what about those of us not living in marginals don’t we have a a say either? Marginal sets are one of the many ways FPTP stinks.
271. “At the end of the day if your message does not resonate then you will not win no matter how many leaflets you deliver.”
That is akin to saying “If your F1 driver is not good at his job, you will not win no matter the quality of the car.” In the current era of centrist, image-driven politics the level of access to the voters matters. And that means money matters. You can’t pretend that important matter doesn’t exist because policies are also important.
I was reading the thread, and when I got to Ted @238 I thought I had to challenge what he was saying - but then I got to ChrisA @ 248 which is far far worse.
He’s saying that any school which teaches one part of the curriculum but not another should be seen as a loony bin, and instead all schools should, er, teach only the parts of the curriculum which fit his prejudices.
There is a place for creationism - not in the science classroom but in the RE curriculum as it’s primarily a religious outlook on humanity which is not taken seriously by many in the scientific community.
But as for myself, I’ll not be told that what I believe is bunkum from people who think that life came about when a bolt of lightning zapped some stuff and it all mutated upwards until it ended up with us
Once upon a time education was meant to be about allowing people to make informed judgements and form their opinions. Chris A & the secular champions now want to make it more and more an exercise in PC propaganda. Thankfully this dangerous outlook has not yet taken hold.
Socrates No-one individually hand picks candidates to support, the process is too businesslike for that. And that is precisely why Nick Palmer and his Labour colleagues are trying to attack the man to destroy the system. They fear it.
Fear often creates an obsession and NP seems to be getting there, as a real attempt to debate individual donations and their effect must involve a consideration of all individual donors to all parties.
And so far he has not tried to do this.
Indeed, reading his posts one would assume that only the evil Ashcroft is in this category. Cash for Coronets didn’t happen, Sainsbury and Cohen do not exist, the 1.38 million to support Labour candidates from the trades unions is illusion.
And the last one of these is more determined, perhaps, than any other in trying to influence government through their financial support.
275. Indeed, an STV system is the only real way to make voters in every constituency matter.
re 277 but tpfkar I’m a church goer and creationism IS bunkum and plays no part in any education system apart from a historical overview of what used to be believed but scientific advance showed otherwise. I take it that there’s no-one on the site who believes that the sun goes round the earth as the evidence points otherwise.
278. And let’s not forget the MPs publicity allowance that isn’t supposed to be used for party-political-purposes but does seem (I choose my words carefully) to have been given a very liberal interpretation by some MPs.
Of course that is an issue that affects all MPs, but let’s remember that the majority of MPs are Labour.
279. I pray for the day this country introduces STV, I honestly do…
Labour whip Tom Watson on Aitken’s appointment:
“This is a return to the disgraced, scandal-ridden Tory past.”
Sometimes I really dispair at this type of tribal knee-jerk reaction.
What sort of message does it send out to ex-offenders who have served their time? - “Rehabilitation? - Forget it!”
283 - Can we look forward to Michael Brown advising the LDs on penal reform?
Shame John Stonehouse is dead.
280 Chris A “I take it that there’s no-one on the site who believes that the sun goes round the earth as the evidence points otherwise.”
No, but there are some Tories who believe that the Sun goes round David Cameron.
And some Labour supporters who think that the Sun revolves round the planet-sized brain of Gordon Brown!
277. Children are generally too young to pick up on when they are being presented with a fallacious argument. Scientific views - as represented by the views of the scientific community - should be taught in science class and the various religious views should be taught in religious eductation. Incidentally, how is mainstream science a “PC agenda”, precisely?
280. Yet it is also important to teach children the views of others. Evangelical creationism, as false as it is, is a major force in the politics of the world’s only super power. Thus children should be taught that some people believe such a thing in RE - along with the views of all the major religions of course.
The gravy train continues:
“Peers help themselves to £300 a day tax free”
“Hundreds of peers are exploiting a loophole on expenses to give themselves a tax free income of up to £48,000 a year, The Times has found.
Rules agreed by Parliament allow members of the House of Lords to claim up to £308 a day to pay for meals, hotels, taxis and other travel expenses associated with their role.
But peers do not have to submit receipts and an analysis of their expenses shows that nearly two thirds automatically claim the maximum almost every time they visit the Lords.
Several Lords have told The Times that they see the expense payments as an allowance and that routinely claiming the maximum amount is common practice.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article2852992.ece
283. I agree, Gabble. It is beginning to show how illiberal this government is. (And hypocritical, too - Mandelson, anyone?)
I can’t say I like Aitken but I believe that everyone has a second chance to contribute provided they show remorse for what they have done. If we believe in rehabilitation we must allow this.
287. Over £300 a day? Crazy. I fear it will only get worse when we get salaried elected representatives in the Upper House (although at least they will be elected - though I believe the model the government proposes means we’d be unable to remove them!)
£300 for lawmakers seems a pretty reasonable amount, a good tradesman will earn that no problem.
280 - ChrisA, if you’re so confident about creationism being ‘bunkum’ then you’ll have no objection to it being covered in RE as it would clearly be immediately discredited
286 - I agree that the strands should be separated into Science/RE as you suggest, but it’s patronising to suggest that children are too naive to make up their own minds, and that they will accept anything they are told. As a failed teacher, I only wish that had been the case!
And I’m not suggesting that mainstream science is a ‘PC agenda’ - I was getting at the attitiude which I challenged in the earlier post that there was no place at all in schools for anything except evolutionary theory, because of the drive to secularise our classrooms. I’d agree fully with your second paragraph.
Please supply names and addresses to Revenue & Customs of tradesmen who are paid £300 tax free, or anyone amount for that matter.
290. Note that the above amounts are for expenses. They are also paid a fixed amount for each day they attend.
282. The best thing about STV is that it would allow people to enter a race without splitting the votes from someone ideologically similar. It would be great seeing candidates from various wings of the same party up against each other in a safe seat.
283. I think Tom Watson is one of the nastiest, double standards, partisan MPs there is. It seems harsh to judge the entire Labour party in the same light.
287, 289. I think part of the problem with a lot of issues like this is the ceremonial evolving nature of parliament. For example, you technically “join the Chiltern Hundreds” to resign from the Commons. I can imagine Lords seeing you “take expense payments” to claim your salary (as they are otherwise unsalaried I believe) in the same light. It’s the sort of way things
291. As long as it is made clear that evolutionary theory is the only one taken seriously by scientists, and the various religious cration myths are based ultimately on scripture/personal revelation it sounds good.
While I don’t agree with the Labour reaction, it’s natural - the party’s going to naturally try and resurrect the dead spectres of the 1990s, just as Conservatives were still speaking about beer and sandwiches, the IMF crisis, and the Winter of Discontent in 1979. It’s not going to work, but it’s probably worth a try, at least to bolster the core vote.
Speaking of which, one very dangerous iceberg looming for the government this winter will be the capacity constraints on electricity generation. Long-term maintenance programmes and other factors have seriously reduced the amount of spare capacity the National Grid can rely on. An unexpected outage, or a cold snap, could lead to emergency measures such as power cuts. The government might be well advised to warn people now - if a situation arises without people being prepared for it, and the government is seen to react slowly, the political consequences for Brown could be major. The criticisms of Gray Davis in California during the electrcity crisis there started the long road to recall.
250: I don’t know what marginal MPs in general do. They all keep pretty busy, but some emphasise other things like visits to local companies to speak to the workforce (not very practical here as we have gew large employers).
Ashcroft: we’ve been told by Conservative MPs that they feel that Ashcroft has bought himself the decisive word on which candidates get most help, and that they regard it as malign and arbitrary in its effects - there are candidates who they think work hard but fail to get the anointment of the chosen one so don’t get the same help. They didn’t claim he has so far attempted to dictate policy, but they did say that ’sensible’ spending limits would be welcome to them, since it would reduce Ashcroft’s ’stranglehold’ over the internal process.
As for the supposed obsession, I write about lots of things, but it’s just a foretaste of a wider national debate. Allowing a very rich man of unclear residential tax status to take effective control of a marginal seats operation and use it to outspend rivals in chosen seats by several hundred percent is something that no party has done before (Lord Sainsbury’s national donations do not compare in significance), partly there is a political price to be paid in terms of the party’s image. My comments are a small part of that price; I’ll continue to make them. Conservatives who feel there is no problem should see nothing to worry them in this.
I do agree that it’s not necessarily possible to buy seats in this fashion if the party is seen as unattractive in this and other ways. We’ll see!
Getting the Ashcroft money is not easy. Speaking to a candidate who has recieved (or is hoping to) a small amount of ashcroft money, is, that it isnt even the money itself that is of huge importance, in the scheme of things, but to get the money you have to have a very sharp plan of action, it forces the candidate to focus on what they need to do to win the seat.
If your plan of action is sharp enough to get Ashcroft money, it is sharp enough to get big donations from local business men as well.
Well, we all end up having to pay tax on earned income, but any self employed plumber/heating engineer/locksmith/builder worth his salt will be pulling £300 a day on average, of which about 1/3rd of it he will declare.
Re 294, Just doing a quick smash and grab sort of comment, but:
“291. As long as it is made clear that evolutionary theory is the only one taken seriously by scientists, and the various religious cration myths are based ultimately on scripture/personal revelation it sounds good.”
If you accept God as all knowing, omnipotent and mysterious etc. and therefor we do not know the length of his days then there is little disagreement between the 7 day creation story and the Bible, and what scientists believe. It is only when you get exceedingly arrogant so as to assume that God has linear days that are the same as ours that you get the problem.
However, the schism between the Roman Catholic church and the protestant ones happened because fundamentally they wanted to be far more literal than the original texts obviously intended they should be. Parable of the mustard seed anyone? Is it the smallest seed? No, but at the time the parable was told, to the audience at hand, it was.
296. Nice try, Nick, but you probably haven’t heard anything of the sort. You have relapsed again into that classic Palmerite spin tactic: you have enunciated a viewpoint which in your more upbeat moments you would like to think a “reasonable” Tory *might* think, then cite unverifiable sources. But actually no-one has. I would challenge you to name and shame, but of course its all a bit pointless and brings into focus those benefits that you uniquely possess in posting on this site, in the context of your position - you are unquestionable!
Suffice to say that I have literally never, at any level of the party from high to low, come across a single person who has expressed disapprobation about Ashcroft’s involvement. no-one thinks he subverts anything - he’s just a rich guy who is willing to help his side given little else to do. Tribal, yes; unduly powerful, no.
But as I said, good attempt.
And as for you, Gabble, I think you know full well there is more chance of the Union-funding issue making the running with the electorate than there is of Ashcroft alone. So why the continued trolling?
Re 296, Nick palmer, “but it’s just a foretaste of a wider national debate. Allowing a very rich man of unclear residential tax status to take effective control of a marginal seats operation and use it to outspend rivals in chosen seats by several hundred percent is something that no party has done before”
And looking at the spending figures, it is not being done now. In fact Lord Ashcorft’s money is frequently less than is being spent by the encumbant.
What he does demand is professionalism. That turns a lackluster organisation into a proper fighting machine if it wants the money, and that is where the benefit lies.
299. The “evenings”, “mornings” and “days” in the first chapter of Genesis are not the only things in the Bible that need to be taken symbolically/with a skip load of salt for its history to match up with the scientific record. But regardless, we’re here to discuss politics not religion and as long as we can agree that only the findings of scientists should be taught in science class we have no problem.
302 Genesis is remarkably accurate.
In recent years we have had Evolution and Big Bang. “Let there be Light” sounds like Big Bang to me. Genesis describes how the fish were created in the sea, then the creatures that crawl and finally, Man (and Woman) - Just as described by Evolution.
The nonsense is that the Evolution, Creationism and Intelligent design don’t contradict each other. They compliment eachother.
Not bad for a book written thousands of years ago.
Well done David Cameron for still keeping the momentum going. Long may it continue!
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