New YouGov and Populus polls confirm double digit Labour lead
When YouGov gave Labour an eleven point lead in the week I think most people were somewhat sceptical, and rightly so - it was a snap poll with less than the normal sample size conducted in a hurry straight after Gordon Brown’s conference speech. A new YouGov poll in Saturday’s Telegraph however confirms the change and is backed up by a Populus poll showing a ten point lead.
The topline voting intention figures from YouGov, with changes from the mid week poll, are CON 32%(-1), LAB 43%(-1), LDEM 15%(+2). Compared to the last full YouGov poll from before the Labour party (probably a more sound comparison, given that the last poll was just a snapshot poll with less than the usual sample size) the changes are CON minus 1, Labour up 4 and the Liberal Democrats minus 1. The poll was conducted between Wednesday and Friday.
Populus’s poll has headline figures of CON 31%(-5), LAB 41%(+4), LDEM 17%(-1). Until now Populus had been showing slightly higher figures for the Conservatives than other pollsters, putting them in the mid thirties while everyone else had them down in the low thirties - this brings them into line with the sort of figures other companies have been showing.
Of course these polls are still likely to be showing a short term boost from Gordon Brown’s speech and the publicity given to it, but we can at least be confident now that it’s a real change, not just the random vagueries of a small poll conducted in a hurry.
A double point lead for Labour must make the pressure for an early poll almost irresistable for Gordon Brown - supposedly he is making the decision this weekend - and no doubt there will be more polls during the weekend for him to ponder over, at the very least a new Ipsos-MORI poll is due on Sunday.
While the polling evidence is strongly in Labour’s favour, the evidence in the other direction is from the local council by-election results mid-week which were very positive for the Conservatives, especially in marginal seats like Corby and Dover. How do we square opinion poll results showing a huge Labour lead with local council by-elections showing swings to the Conservatives?
Some people swear by local by-election results as a way of predicting elections, I have always been rather dismissive of them. They are on a much lower turnout, they are often skewed by particular local factors (a big Labour victory in Worcester a week ago was probably partially due to the revelation that the Tory candidate wrote ran a website devoted to erotic fiction, I’d warrant some of these by-elections had there own local causes too!), people vote differently at local elections to national elections (if nothing else, there is a tendency for the Lib Dems to do better and Labour worse) and to a large extent they are probably decided by local campaigning strength and ability, rather than the bigger national picture. Added to that there aren’t actually very many of them and the picture you get from week to week varies according to where happens to have had a by-election.
If, for the sake of argument, they are a pointer, then why the difference? Perhaps it is a sign that the Conservatives are indeed doing better in marginals, and the huge Labour leads in the polls are because of core Labour voters in the inner cities being enthused. Perhaps it is because the swing to Labour is largely amongst people who probably will not, in the event, vote. I’m sticking with the explanation that they actually just aren’t a very good predictor.
I don’t see any reason to think that the polls aren’t an accurate reflection of current public opinion. If you are a Conservative supporter, then I wouldn’t advise you to take succour from local by-election results. The only comfort I can offer is that these figures are from polls conducted immediately after the publicity boost of Labour conference, if the Conservatives have a good conference then may yet see their own boost in the polls.
Filed under: Populus, Voting Intention, YouGov
Populus apparently says Labour 41, Conservatives 31, Liberal Democrats 17 (according to Newsnight).
Populus figures:
Lab 41 (+4), Con 31 (-5), LD 17 (-1)
Anthony - Any polls due out Sunday.
If any more show a double digit lead,the election in the next few week is a certainty…surely?
Anthony - You mentioned the bye-elections.Am I wrong in saying the biggest two swings on Thursday were 11% and 9% from Conservative to Labour.The one seat they gained was short of a 4 % swing.Am I missing something…how is that good for the Conservatives.
The problem is: Brown only gains 2 extra years from holding an election now.
T Jones, I’m with Anthony in saying that looking at local byelections can be seriously misleading. An individually unpopular council, a local issue like the timing of bin collections, and an effective local campaign can produce an individual ward swing which is seriously out of line with how people feel in terms of national parties. If you want to look at local elections, then make sure you average a lot of them to get rid of these sort of factors.
David - I agree with both of you totally.There are too many local issues to actually draw any comparisons.What I did not understand is the way press and people on here are saying it was a good night for the Conservatives.Yes they gained a seat,however the two biggest swings of the night were away from the Conservatives.
Is it just because it has been so bad politically for the last too months,anything positive needs magnifying??
TJones - I think (and this is from looking at David’s comments on vote2007) that it’s been taken as a positive sign for the Conservatives because the swings to the Tories were in marginal areas while the swings to Labour were in their heartlands, or perhaps because the big swing to Labour in a district ward in Dover was outranked by the big swing to the Conservatives in the county ward. I’m not going to waste time looking at the details to much though, because I don’t think local by-elections really mean anything.
There is a MORI poll on Sunday, and I expect at least one more besides that.
Looking back at the polls.Surprisingly the Conservatives managed two double digit leads in a month February/March this year and Labour managed three June/July 2005 but neither has managed more than 3 in a month this parliament.Looking back since Labour came to power,I cannot find a time when either had more than three double digit leads within a month.Interesting if any of the other two go double digit this weekend.
For Conservatives feeling a bit glum,look on the bright side.The FT had a Mori poll in July 2002 giving Labour a 21% lead….at least it’s an improvement on that.
Peter Kellner of YouGov speaking on the BBC this morning criticised analysis of the council by election results - compared to results at a similar point prior to the 2005 GE, Labour are doing much better. At that point the Conservatives were winning many seats from Labour but still went on to lose.
Andy S - yes Gordon only gains two and a half years but then potentially goes into a 2012 GE with a much bigger majority, facing a Conservative Party which has suffered 4 defeats and seemingly cannot escape its inability to modernise/hold support on the centre ground. After Cameron where else is there to go?
The point about 2012 is a valid one. If (and it’s only an if) the Labour Party have a 100-seat majority going into THAT election, which could be held just after the excitement of the Olympics, then what price a fifth election victory?
I’m certain that Gordon Brown will certainly be thinking in those terms - he’ll want 10 more years as PM, not 5.
Incidentally, on a totally different topic, I’ve read some comments in some newspapers this week about how Labour are facing a walloping in Scotland from the SNP. I’m no expert, and not a Scot, but I can’t see how - as far as I can make out, even with a humungous swing the SNP only stand to gain two of Labour’s 40-odd Scottish seats… and in any case, instinct suggests that they would struggle to repeat their Holyrood success in a Westminster election. Or am I missing something?
…okay, after a late night clubbing, my stomach was volitle anyway, but when I saw this, I actually threw up on my keyboard. No, really I did. I wonder if I am the first to physically vomit upon seeing opinion polls.
Please! I don’t want to live in a one party state!!!!
Make the averages now (last 5) something like
Lab 41.8 Con 32.4 Ldem 15.6
Toby,
At the moment the opinion polls are forecasting a swing in Scotland large enough to topple quite a few Labour MPs - a swing something way over 10%.
There is a swing to the SNP but it is only big enough to take 2 or 3 seats from Labour who have majorities large enough in most seats to accommodate it, whereas the Lib Dems stand to lose quite a few to the SNP (unless, as with other Lib Dem seats which are almost all predicted to go under current polling, local factors and incumbency have an effect).
Any Labour losses north of the border would appear to be offset by predicted gains from the Lib Dems and the Conservatives there.
Warren,
I suspect that in most Scottish seats a large percentage of the Tory vote will vote SNP if it means they can unseat a Labour MP. That would make a lot more Labour seats de facto marginals.
Lukw
I am very sure you do already. Liberty and European democracy is dead, it has simply been educated/indoctrinated/ethnically cleansed out of the population. By the time this lot is finished only ever more Fascist governments can ever get elected again.
I think rather then throwing up, its best sometimes just to admit complete defeat Dr Sean Gab style and plan your own personal future. Try not to feel to sad for yourself, the ones that are going to suffer the most are our children.
If this helps. Generally the people that voted for this never ending nightmare in the first place are the ones who will suffer the most.
History’s lesson will be that ‘1984′ was inevitable. Orwell just got the date a little wrong. Thatcher messed up his calculations for a while thats all.
Thus ends the story of the British Nation.
I guess Tory supporters (and lovers of two party democracy in general) will have to wait for these other polls to come out. But I am just dumbstruck in disbelief at these figures, they are from a terrible nightmare. The prospect that a Government, whoich is already in a strong parliamentary position, has the prospect of wiping out the opposition still furtehr after a decade in power is very upsetting for for lovers of democracy.
The real reason I’m depressed is becasue I like Cameron and think he is by far the best person to lead the Tories. If these results (or anything like them) are borne out he will have to go, and that will be a disaster for the Tories. I think Labour know this as well, and the opportunity to knock the enemies’ best man out when he as got briefly stuck in difficult terrain is too good to resist.
Lukw - try not to get too depressed - many people on the other side of the arguement had all your feelings during the Tories long run, and history often has a habit of evening things out. I remember after the ‘92 election eveyone said Labour was finished - I didn’t believe that then and I don’t believe another defeat for the Tories now would mean they are necessarily done for either.
However, there may have been a long term change in electoral politics in this country which could make life very difficult for the Tories under the current voting system, and that is essentially an internal issue. The Conservatives are in practice less of a party and more of a general denomination, made up of a very wide spread of views with no clear and distinct strategic position the voters can identify with. Historically they have relied on staying in power, and when not, regaining it through Labour disasters - if the voters don’t percieve a Labour disaster it’s very hard to see how the Tories will gain the necessary support to win again. (Remember Major had 11 seats in Scotland & Wales with 25 seat majority - what chance of Scottish Tory seats this time?)As I’ve said before, Cameron’s great failure has been to neglect to fashion such an identity over the last 15 months, but in truth he almost certainly couldn’t while the Tory party remains intact - the divisions are just too wide.
What I now find interesting is whether in the absence of a clear Tory path to outright power, and with working examples of PR in Scotland/Wales/Northern Ireland/London Assembly etc, the Tory party begins to think of PR for Westminster? It’s possible to envisage a split Tory party, with one element taking the core vote and challenging on UKIP territory, freeing up a more liberal wing to tackle the centrist position. Tactically, I wonder how that would stack up?
Of course for all the worries over another decade of Labour, or Labour supporters saying “we had that under Thatcher”, it’s probably worth noting that in policy terms there isn’t that much between the two parties these days.
Peter.
I confess that I am one of those who puts a bit more store in the real election results than the opinion polls .
That is not to say that I subscribe to the view that the Conservatives did that well in this weeks elections . The high swings quoted were in seats last contested on GE day with a much higher turnout . You have to make allowances for differential and lower turnout but so far this month some 50,000 people have voted in local elections and a trend is clear . Labour is doing a bit better and Conservatives a bit worse than in May this year and in 2006 but nowhere near the levels shown in the opinion polls . LibDems are usually slipping back where already weak but gaining slightly where already strong .
To those who mention local factors such as that in the Worcester byelection last week ( rather overstated as an excuse for losing a safe seat by Conservatives IMHO )yes that is true but what about opinion polls .
Outside of real elections they purport ( apart from Mori ) to show how people will actually vote in a GE , but the reality is that apart from a small percentage of the population such as us , the majority of people do not think about politics on a daily basis seriously if at all . How does a pollster telephoning and asking voting intentions of someone who may be in the middle of changing baby’s nappy or decorating a bedroom expect to get a considered response . I would agree with Mori here that the polls show an off the top of the head popularity or if you prefer lesser of the several evils contest rather than a real voting intention answer . This of course changes to a real voting intention as election day gets closer .
Lukw,
As the Conservative Party Conference approaches, the bottom-line for Cameron is this. He can either be, positively, proactive in articulating the Conservatives as an alternative to Brown and Labour or he can be, negatively, reactive towards Brown and Labour.
He needs to decide once and for all, whether he is a ‘moderniser’, who is not afraid to confront the reactionary right wing of his party, just as Blair and Brown have Labour’s left, or someone who merely capitulates to them the moment the going gets tough.
The Labour Party’s move to the centre ground was protracted and often painful. Although the modernisation began with Neil Kinnock and continued under John Smith, Tony Blair took Labour by the horns taking the party exactly where he wanted it to be, a progressive party for the 21st century. Much of the Thatcherite ‘Settlement’ was accepted, although Labour being pretty much ‘Third Way’ has subscibed to capitalism ‘with a conscience’ for want of better words.
This week will either be the making or the breaking of David Cameron. Part of his problem being that he expected to just walz in as party leader then ride a high wave on the back of Labour’s faults, which is why, thus far, Gordon Brown has sent him reeling.
Alec- Thanks, but I fear that just depresses me further. That the Conservative party may be too loose a coalition to form an overall identity, and that moreover it is dependent on the failures of the left, may consign it simply to a permannent status as a debating society. I have always thought, actually, that post WW2 all things being equal, the British people have always wanted to vote Labour, but have been detered from doing so by the economic failures of previous administrations. Without that factor so visibly in place, it is harder to see Conservative victories.
However, all this points towards a one party state, and that’s depressing state of affairs in a mature democracy.
I think if there were PR then the Conservative would have to Converge to the centre to make deals with the Liberals. In that event, I think British politics would become so mushy it really would make little difference (even less so than now) who one voted for, the government would be similar.
I’m really depressed if these polls don’t even out
I am too young to remmber much politics before 1997 (although I know a lot about it through reading). Apparently, I’m told, it was much more interesting then. Unlike now, I don’t think in the 1980s things felt as monolithic as today. Labour were always ahead in the polls and were always in with a chance at least, unlike the last 10 years where it jsut feels like a one horse race 
“I’m really depressed if these polls don’t even out
I am too young to remmber much politics before 1997 (although I know a lot about it through reading). Apparently, I’m told, it was much more interesting then. Unlike now, I don’t think in the 1980s things felt as monolithic as today. Labour were always ahead in the polls and were always in with a chance at least, unlike the last 10 years where it jsut feels like a one horse race”
I suspect had today’s polling methology been used in the 80s and 90s Labour may not have been ahead much at all.As for it being more of a contest I betg to doffer, 4 stonking election defeats for Labour in which I ,for one, never thought we had much of a chance to start with.
I’m sure politics was more interesting in the 60s and 70s with see-sawing election results. It’s probably a symptom of the ;ast few decades that politics has become more monolithic in nature. When the Conservatives regain power, I think they also might be in for a long stint. That seems to be the way.
“see-sawing election results” can lead to paralysis - with neither side daring to do(and/or unable to rely on a parliamentary majority for) anything unpopular, even if it needs doing. This also happened in the 70s.
If (or when) the Cons regain power, it is likely to be by a small margin initially… could be another spell of ineffectual governments.
There is something almost surreal about these latest opinion polls but if they turn out to be anywhere near correct on election day whenever it is then the implications for British politics are far greater than for any general election held in living memory. I do not believe that morale in the Conservative Party can sustain another hammering at the polls and as it may take years to melt away in favour of a new continental style right of centre party we could indeed -barring an unwanted recession- be in for a long dreary period of one party rule with little or no serious opposition. Most Labour supporters may think this to be a dream come true but the more mature among them know -as did quite a number of Conservatives in 1997-that all parties need a period in opposition to refresh themselves.This government with its unwinnable wars, with the hopeless mess it has made of pensions, the overweening and arrogant burearacy,the endless stealth taxes and the failed public sector reforms has long since run out of ideas. For the appalling mess in Iraq alone it deserves to be booted out just like the US republican party in Congress was a year ago. Wake up Britain before it is too late and we find ourselves fighting another war in some distant land.
Could it be that (unlike wounded Tories) the rest of the country does not see the last ten years as an unmitigated disaster, but as at least fairly good government - with no better offers by alternative parties, or at least none that seem realistic.
Alec
The people who should be depressed are lovers of liberty not the Conservative Party, the rich always have enough liberty to go round. It will get elected one day, but by then liberty will be only a word whispered in private. We will very soon be a medium sized marginalized state of the United Fascist States of Europe so which party wins in 2009 2012 or 2017 is of no material importance to anyone other then potential Tory MP’s.
This is a Fascist government in all but name, which has the entire MSM and many powerful national and multi-national corporations backing it up. It is in power because a few very powerful people and too many of the voting public, obviously like Fascist governments. The only questions worth the answering are WHY and is this a permanent situation?
The battle ground of British politics has changed to one similar to a football match.
There is a important difference between the ownership, the managers methods and the players skill levels. But both teams are basically still playing the same liberty destroying game in different coloured T-shirts.
If the Conservative party could not be bothered to explain for 35 years anything about the moral justification for Conservatism to ordinary people (ie libertarianism). They cant now complain because nowhere near enough people in Britain know anything about it.
Mori Observer Poll has Lab 41 -1 Con 34 N/C LibDem 16 +2 Others 9 -1
Lukw - Cheer up - go out clubbing again, enjoy life, and be thankful you don’t remember the 80s. Back then, if you were told interest rates would peak at 6% and thousands of immigrants actually wanted to come here because it was a good place you’d have wet yourself laughing. ‘Negative equity’ - two words that have disappeared from the English language in recent years. The idea of ordinary people having to post their house keys back to the building society because they couldn’t pay the mortgage and the house was worth less than they owed the bank is incredible, but it happened to thousands.
I know this site is apolitical, and I won’t claim to be a big Brown supporter, but I do genuinely wonder what impact these memories have on current voters. I think they still play strongly in the north, Scotland etc, and I think Cameron reminds them of the posh southern type that got them into such a mess before. Until the conservative party can claim some level of support in these areas they don’t have a chance, and you’re right - having the major opposition party restricted to one part of the country is not good for democracy. PR is a mush, but if it’s a mush that works then maybe we should support it.
Mori Observer Poll has Lab 41 -1 Con 34 N/C LibDem 16 +2 Others 9 -1
That’s interesting Mark.For Mori that sort of net Lab/Con gap has been fairly consistent since all the polls moved negative for Con last July.
The same is true for ICM broadly speaking.
Only Populus & You Gov have shifted into double digits-and indeed Populus moved to near even stevens for Con/Lab in August & early September before the latest -10.
Can someone please enlighten me:-
Are these Pollsters results comparable-or do their samples represent different sections of the electorate?
Are all the samples constructed to be representative of the overall national vote?
Given the key ( ? defining) importance of the actual results in certain marginals on election day-how do these samples reflect opinion in those marginals?
Sorry to be ignorant of these facts-but I just don’t understand what the polls are saying at present.
Colin
What the polls may well be saying is that the summer has changed the national mood. Going in to the summer with Blair stepping down Labour looked tired and people felt it was time for a change.
Over the last three months there have been a series of events from foot and Mouth through the floods to the Northern Rock which seem to make people think that experience counts and that stivking with Brown might be the thing to do.
Brown has been good and talking up the minicrisis to make him look effective, and has been fortunate that none of them has blown up in his face. Moving his tanks on to Tory territory on crime and immigration has also helped.
Cameron has been hampered by both underestimating Brown and the right of his own party which has made him seem to be pulled right, so ceeding some of the middle ground to Brown.
So that change from tired Blair to safe Brown pretty much explains it.
Peter.
Looks to me that for some time now the polls have been showing a fairly steady picture, with most of their variations being within “experimental error”. It will probably take a major “event” to make any real difference in the political weather for some time.
I still think a seven point gap is very good for Labour, even if not quite up to the dizzy heights of 11 points.
I don’t doubt I am lucky to be young in the times I do from a quality of life perspective. But, I do not like these times politically. For one thing, because of the relative ideological vacuum and general wealthyness people feel, being angry about politics is not fashionable. I get furious about things like ID cards, smoking bans, high taxes, wasted resources, and moreover, the profligate inefficiency and self-justifying nature of the public sector, where I worked for a short time. But being an angry young man is definately out of fashion. Amongst young people, the level of engaement with politics beyond single issues like the war in Iraq is low, and engagement with political parties is virtually nill. The best discussions I have about politics are with people from the continent, where there is a more polar clash bewteen left and right. Part of me yearns to cross a picket line in the face of furious abuse, see some riots in the street, or see my electicity supply fail due to miner strikes or the 3 day week!
Colin , Yougov polls are uniquely different as they are an Internet poll from a large panel whereas all other pollsters use random telephone sampling . Populus and ICM should in fact be the closest as both use the ICM Call Centre for contacting voters . The main difference between Populus and ICM is in their weighting for past vote which I calculate leads to Populus LibDem figures being around 1-2% lower than ICM would give from the same data and Labour the same % higher .
Colin - all the pollsters are attempting to measure the opinions of the same electorate, so in a perfect world they would all be comparable. However, it isn’t a perfect world and they all have their own ideas as to which is the *right* way of doing things, so in practice you should never try nad draw trends by looking at polls from different companies. For example, you should never look at an ICM poll and then a Populus poll and think, “oh look, the Lib Dems have lost support” - it’s just because, as Mark says in his example, the slight differences in their methodologies means ICM nearly always give a higher rating to the Lib Dems.
LukW: Well it’s a pity that you are not old enough and from a background where you would have had to deal with the difficulties most people suffered during the last 18 years of Tory government!
You would have had plenty of experience of picket lines, homelessness, desperation and a doubling of crime rates. You would not have needed miners strikes to to cut your power, it would have been cut off by the privatised utilities because you could’t afford to pay the bill and a 3 day week would have been a dream come true for the millions who had no job at all because of the destruction wreaked upon the country by massive interest rates of 16.5% and the closure of industry and dismantling of everything British not to mention inflation soaring from 10% when the Tories came into power in May 1979 to over 26% two years later!
As for waste, the amounts wasted in the public services now pale into insignificance when you compare it with the BILLIONS the Tories raised in privatisations and the massive income from North Sea Oil that ALL went to pay the dole money for the millions of unemployed that the Tories created. The Tories said ‘it was a price worth paying’. That price was billion upon billion of wasted money so your views on waste do not sit too neatly with the Tory way.
Ignorance can sometimes be a blessing but unfortunately for the Tories the majority of the electorate remember those days very well and associate it with the likes of Cameron who stood at the side of Norman Lamont on Black Wednesday when people’s mortgages were increased twice in one day - on one of the occasions that day by 2%! In those days people didn’t moan about their private pension - they had no job in the first place.
The things that seem to get you annoyed are obviously from the same train of thought as the Tories and they are in the minority - sorry but most people,smokers or not, do not want to come home from a night out stinking like an ashtray, as for high taxes the taxes during the last 10 years have been no different than during the Tories 18 years in office so please do some research other than read the telegraph or the express. I really can’t square the Tory philosophy about supposedly wanting to crack down on crime but we musn’t take people’s DNA and as for I.D cards to try to control imigration and terrorism well thats just terrible for the poor old illegal’s isn’t it! Please understand that I.D cards would make it almost impossible for illegal immigrants and external terrorists to exist in this country because they would most likely come up against officialdom at some stage when identification would be easy and how easy it would be to verify that they should not be here and get rid of them. I.D cards are not about the British public being watched by big brother, although I suppose if one had something to hide then a worry it would be of course and rightly so.
If only the Tories would see sense and realise that these old fashioned ways and ideas do not work. Cameron will never convince them and the reason behind it is because most Tory sympathisers live in a world cocooned from reality and just do not realise how harmful their opinions are on the efficient running of the country. One day when the Tories realise that everything they believed or most of it was not good for Britain, then we can have a party that represents the views of the majority of the population - then they can all join Labour and live happily ever after, with the perceived harsh right wing views of the remaining Tories sidelined in the same way the Lefties of the old Labour party are!
Cameron has no chance with the Tory party, he is trying to turn it into Labour and the 30% or so of real Tory sympathisers will never see it any other way than how they were brought up with their strong beliefs that are just so detached from the real world. Cameron’s attempts to change the Tory party are laudable but he will not suceed because his views are so much New Labour that anyone following his path might as well just join Labour anyway and the rump of the Conservative party just do not agree with anything that Cameron says so it’s a no win situation for him.
This is why the traditional Tories are saying they need to dump Cameron’s modernising route and keep to traditional Tory values and they are right because this is what they believe in and one day the rest of the public might just change their minds and decide it wants something different and vote Tory again.
The reason the polls are as they are is simple - the government is not doing ‘badly’ in the eyes of most people and there is no alternative policies that seem credible.
Luk, It’s great to see someone young with conviction and of a differnt type associated with the Tories of the past :), whatever your politics are, get in there and put yourself forward for election!
All interesting times!
If I were Brown I’d get my press conference called for Monday but I bet he will wait to see how the Tory conference goes and decide after next weekend, if the polls show the lead down to say 5% he will forget it,( and IMO there will probably a couple of polls showing a 5% lead by next weekend) above 7% and he will call it - get ready for fireworks Guy Fawkes! 
Richard- I enjoyed your humour, although sometimes I could not tell which parts were a joke and which were serious!
I do wonder though, exactly how much better it was before the terrible Tories in the good ol’ 60s and 70s when we had such an efficient industirial base and world class services like GPO.
I actually consider myself to be Libertarian first and foremost and have a liberal view on immigration, drugs, and prison, and have not enjoyed it when conservatives obsess over these things . I am economically I think before the SDP merger I might have been a Liberal, but not any more. I like Cameron though, he called himself a ‘Liberal Conservative’ and the revival of this term (which is an old fashioned but well establkished one)pleases me.
Weighted Moving Average 33:41:16 but the balloon will burst. Already the media are admitting how phoney and boring the “triumphant” Labour conference was. It may be that he can keep up this act for a few more weeks - but I doubt it.
NBeale,
Whether you like it or not, Brown seems to have been a hit, thus far, as PM. His speech to the Labour Party Conference was positive, optimistic and visionary designed to build on the success of the last 10 years.
The fact that he didn’t ‘go to town’ on the opposition leaders and their parties SHOULD resonate very well with voters who aren’t strongly partisan one way or another.
The Labour Party is a “big tent”. Why shouldn’t Brown be reaching out?
Lukw,
“. I like Cameron though, he called himself a ‘Liberal Conservative’”
and a “true blue conservative” and that the Conservatives should look more to Polly Toynbee and be a “social conservative” party. There’s something for everyone isn’t there? :o)
*apologies for partisan comment but it’s late (and they started it :oP)*
On a less partisan note, Richard mentioned something about the “30% or so of real Tory sympathisers”. Do we have any polls/evidence to show what the political views within each party are? Are there more Labour supporters to the left of Brown or Conservatives to the right of Cameron. The usual polls don’t really show us what peoples actual political views are, just who they’d vote for out of the available candidates.
If we had a PR system this question would be much more important. I’d really like to know if the majority of opinion was centre ground or at the left/right extremes.
Steven - MORI sometimes ask a question that asks if people are “old labour”, “new labour”, “liberal”, “social democratic”, “thatherite” or “one nation tory” - last time I can find it was 2006, results here
Anthony’s link re. range of opinions within parties is interesting (even if out of date). On the whole it looks as though both main parties are fairly evenly divided between their (relative) left and right wings.
But “loyalty” is more than agreement with party policy. I am old enough to remember the struggle of many Labour supporters, between their loyalty and their despair at the direction of the party, at the time the SDP broke away. Fortunately for Labour many swallowed their distaste for the hard left and remained members/supporters - leaving enough base support for the party to be able to pull back from the edge of disaster with Kinnock.
On the issue of party makeup, for decades, the Tory Party encompassed several broad threads:
- economic liberals (the crucial and proven claim to competence up to 1992)
- paternalists (both social and economic - the position of most party “grandees”)
- social conservatives (albeit authoritarian)
- nationalists (harking back to Empire - strong on our global defence role, anti-immigration )
- internationalists (the heirs to the free-trade movement, and the main reason Heath led us into the EEC)
- libertarians (support for individual freedom)
- environmentalists (”green” in terms of protecting the country-side, hence the poweful rural support)
It is evident that several of these positions are inherently contradictory, hence the percepion that “conservatism” has no clear ideology. The Tory party was able to hold these strands together mainly because:
(a) - the Labour party took an opposing position on most of these issues; and
(b) - there were no other credible parties strong in any of these areas.
In the 1990s two things happened to change both (a) and (b), while the disaster of the ERM undid the party’s reputation for economic competence. It is no coincidence that the EU lies at the heart of internal tension within the party, or the emergence of UKIP as a credible alterntive for many conservatives in a way that BNP is not. On the other hand, the genius of Tony Blair was to re-position Labour so that it was no longer inimical to most economic liberals and to extend its appeal to social conservatives.
Nonetheless, 1997 proved that the absolute core support for the Tory Party is 30%. The issue for Cameron is whether he can recover sufficient of the “centre” to out-poll Labour. The question is how many such votes are needed ? is it 5%, 8% or 12% ? My guess is that the figure is probably in the region of 7-9%. At that point, the position of UKIP becomes totally untenable, and hence the 2-4% they might take would quickly flow back to the Tories.
That is why Cameron needs to keep an olive branch out to the right while concentrating his appeal to the centre.
It will be interesting to see how he handles that on Wednesday, but Hague’s speach today gives an indication that this is understood.