YouGov give Tories a commanding lead
A YouGov poll in the Sunday Times has voting intentions with changes from their last poll of CON 45% (+2), LAB 32% (nc), LDEM 14% (nc).
The 13 point Conservative lead is the largest YouGov have ever given them, and matches that recorded by ComRes (who tend to produce larger Tory leads than other pollsters) last month. 45% is their highest level of support since 1992 and the highest for any party since MORI started filtering by likelihood to vote, removing some of the towering Labour leads they used to report as their topline figures. On a uniform swing it would produce a Conservative majority of almost 100.
If the trends in this poll are repeated elsewhere then it would suggest the Conservatives have advanced beyond the 40% or so level they’ve been at for the last few weeks. Meanwhile the Labour party remain at 32% – the same level of support as they recorded in the previous two YouGov polls – despite the immediate air of crisis around the government fading. To say the least, this is not going to help morale within the Labour party.
The Liberal Democrats too are static on 14%. YouGov always tend to show the lowest level of support for them, and much lower than ICM, but across the board the polls suggest the recovery they experienced after Ming Campbell’s resignation has stalled. Next week will see Nick Clegg or Chris Huhne elected as their new leader and Liberal Democrat supporters will be hoping that the attendent coverage boosts their profile and support.
Filed under: Conservatives, YouGov
For all those who say they need to be polling 45% to form a government here it is. Or is it now 50%?
Anthony,
Highest lead since 192…. Gee who’d have thought Cameron would get the best Tory poll rating in 1,800 years…..
Peter.
At this point Nulab were recording three digit leads blah blah blah….
Brown’s personal rating is -26 from +47 in August.
Cameron’s is +20 from -26 in August.
I suppose the Conservatives will feel that this vindicates their tactic of attacking GB personally in PMQs-the Lib-Dems too under Vince Cable.
But their aim must be to get Cameron’s ratings up to underpin their lead and make it sustainable.
“Gee who’d have thought Cameron would get the best Tory poll rating in 1,800 years…..”
Lol. We know what you mean Anthony.
Actually the Tories’ best rating was 56% by Gallup in May 1968, when they had a 28% lead over Labour.
Any info on the survey dates and sample sizes?
James, you make out as though those of us who haven’t been convinced by the Tories’ anaemic ratings are somehow picking on you for the sake of it, rather than highlighting an inconvenient truth: that you need comfortably in excess of 40% to win.
45% is convincing *IF* it’s maintained or exceeded through to the General Election as far as two years away. Given Gordon Brown’s utter incompetence and Labour MPs’ supineness that may indeed be what happens.
YouGov is IMO the most reliable pollster but remember this was taken in the run-up to Christmas where people aren’t too focussed on their General Election choices two years’ down the road and after a period of remarkable volatility.
Labour surely facing complete, panic stricken meltdown now? Even the most feverish Labour supporter would be hard pressed to put a positive spin on this poll!
I saud recently that 45% would come with the Tories, but I thought the would have to make a series of popular policy announcements to achieve it. And thats the most concering aspect of all of this for Labour. The Tories have reached 45% without really doing anything – What happens when they start announcing policies? Weknow that when Cameron is in the spotlight support tends to increase…. Conservatives on 50% by the local elections in the Spring?
Labour surely facing complete, panic stricken meltdown now? Even the most feverish Labour supporter would be hard pressed to put a positive spin on this poll!
I said recently that 45% would come for the Tories, but I thought they would have to make a series of popular policy announcements to achieve it. And thats the most concerning aspect of all of this for Labour. The Tories have reached 45% without really doing anything – What happens when they start announcing policies? We know that when Cameron is in the spotlight, support tends to increase. Conservatives on 50% by the local elections in the Spring?
*Re-Posted for spelling*
“Conservatives on 50% by the local elections in the Spring”
As long as he doesn’t mention supermarkets and parking, I see no reason why not.
Adam
Forget exact interim polling results other then for entertainment and debating purposes.
The tide turned before Blair left office. As Gin indicates Cameron has a 13% lead by doing virtually nothing and promising even less. Blair and Brown got elected by promising the world and delivered less then absolute zero.
We had a 50 billion surplus and a future to look forward to in 97.
We now have record personal and government debt and the most illiberal country in Europe.
We are committed to a middle east war that has lasted almost as long as WW2 and looks set to last another 10 years at least.
Add to that list of should be serious international capital crimes. A whole very long list of very British real ones including endemic government corruption on a vast scale.
As if that was not all bad enough. Brown has just signed OUR country over to an unaccountable unelected dictatorship that is the EU, in the most shifty and dishonest way imaginable.
It really is difficult to see how things could possibly get worse. However they will get worse, much much worse very quickly.
I predict a landslide to beat all landslides and some more on top. Maybe not in terms of seats, but in terms of popular vote the majority will be truly earth shattering.
However even if by some unforeseeable miracle this does not materialize, like for example wide spread postal ballot fraud. It matters not to much anyway.
Even a minority Conservative victory will return a Conservative government. All Cameron will do then is pull a few quick populist stunts, then call another election a few months or a year later. Which he will then win very easilly indeed.
Weighted Moving Average 42:32:16 and both the C Vote and CLead (9.6) are the highest in the last 186 polls. Furthermore the back-interpolation suggests that, as I suspected, the last I/Mori poll was indeed too kind to Labour by 3 pts. Given the general accuracy of yougov and the known tendency of I/Mori and Populus to overstate Lab support, I strongly suspect the real C Lead is over 10%.
How 32% of the electorate can still be supporting Labour is a mystery to me. But since Brown has given up answering Cameron at PMQs and just drones on about his wonderful economic record, it will be interesting to see what happens when this economic record starts coming visibly unstuck next year. Meanwhile The Economist compares Brown to “The Idiot”. Not great for morale, which from various sources does indeed appear to be in freefall.
Great news for the Tories but to win the next election the Tories need to keep their support at or close to this level.
Depending what happens with the economy Labour will probably rally at some point over the next couple of years. The problem is that its hard to find an economic commentator who doesn’t say that the economy is going to get worse over the next year or two. Things aren’t looking good for Mr Brown and I don’t expect the next election now until 2010. Governments who aren’t certain of winning or who know they will lose hang on until the last moment.
This is more like the poll number for the Tories we have been expecting given the recent run of news stories. Must correct a couple of observations from Atlas – we didn’t have a £50b surplus in 1997 – we had a deficit of over 3% of GDP and a record National Debt. No spin – just fact. As for endemic government corruption, I really think we need to get perspective here. Whoever we like or dislike in politics, we need to accept they are broadly speaking decent people trying to something they believe in – as a nation our systems are generally good in terms of corruption, although I can’t help observing a jailed former Minister now advises the Tories on prison policy, and another former Tory Lord will start his prison term shortly – that’s 3 imprisoned Tory Ministers and a Lord to Labours 2 Councillors. Let’s not talk about endemic corruption.
I’m interested in Gin’s point about Cameron not needed to float any policies and still being at 45%. If this rating continues they’ve got the next election, no problem, but the real point of interest will come when they have to float a set of policies – that’s when they can potentially be attacked. I’m also less convinced of the solidity of this lead, and I would expect a Labour recovery over time. The economy will have some influencee, but if Labour can rebalance and counter the notion of incompetence a poor economy doesn’t necessarily help oppositions – ask Neil Kinnock. Also of interest will be how the LDs perform – they won’t come out of the next election at 14% – what difference will that make? Please don’t think I’m spinning for Labour, but retaining 32% after all they’ve been through with 2 1/2 years to an election means its not over by any means.
Good post Alec.
GIN says ‘what happens when they start announcing policies?’. Well that of course is when their lead disappears as people realise they are an untested bunch of chancers and run back to the devil they know…
ChrisC
You already know what Conservative policies are & will be like.Read Balls’ ” Children’s Plan” and think of the opposite.
There will not be armies of teaching mentors, social workers, parenting advisers, sex educators etc etc ,micro-managing our children’s lives from birth & dawn till dusk at vast expense in order to compensate for the thousands of crap teachers , dummed down politically correct curriculums and “everyones a winner” so-called exams.
And I sincerely hope you will not hear from a Conservative Minister-”Britain the best place in the world for children to grow up” after 10 years of declining standards in education, child poverty, social mobility and an increase in family breakdown.
Chris C
Really non partisan remark there!
I will put it down to desperation.
GIN,
What will destroy Labour is if these poll results are seem by some as an excuse to attack Brown.
Alec,
Lords Black and Archer, and Aitken were convicted of things unrelated to their political roles.
Of the two PMs investigated by the police, both are Labour.
Peter [SNP]
I expect you may have already seen this story
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3056768.ece
Will Wendy have to go now!??
thepoliticaltipster: I went to the data for this poll via The Sunday Times Website. The address for the data appears to be:-
http://extras.timesonline.co.uk/results071214.pdf.
When you look at this data, the swing to the Conservatives appears to come from an unusually low Other figure in this poll. The data breaks this down as Green 2%, UKIP 2%, BNP 1%, Respect 1%, plus SNP/Plaid 32% in Scotland and Wales.
I have previously blogged on this website to point out difficulties that the Other category causes for opinion polls, and my concern that methodological problems distort the results for them. In any case, this poll may be an “Outlier” in its results for Others, and we will have to see how other polls in the near future compare.
I doubt whether, for instance, Green candidates would poll an average of 2% if there were a General Election tomorrow.
Of course, the bottom line is that the Tories are way ahead.
I don’t think there are more than 10 people in the House of Commons who don’t think that Brown has lost the next election. Even if there is a hung parliament (which is the best conceivable outcome for Labour) Brown will have lost all authority by then, and he will never be able to do a deal with the people he gratuitously insults every time he speaks of them by calling them “the Liberal Party”.
By definition the Opposition is “untested” in government, but it’s perfectly obvious that the Conservative front bench is generally of vastly higher calibre than the B-team. Consider: Darling v Osborne, Milliband v Hague, Smith v Davis, Browne v Fox. The only genuinely bright people in the B-team are the Millibands and Balls. But the fundamental problem for Labour is that Brown, whatever his merits as a Chancellor, is manifestly unsuited to the job of PM – as almost everybody in the last Cabinet knew.
Over the last 2 months the C Lead has been steadily increasing at a rate of 4.2 points per month. Obviously this can’t continue indefinitely, but if, as I suspect, we start seeing 15% C leads by the end of Feb then the voices of discontent in Labour will be highly audible.
I can understand Labour polling at 32% more than I can the Conservatives at 45%.
Can Labour recover? Yes. Even if I do admit things look rather daunting now. The question is how much of that Conservative support is ’soft’?
Just months ago Cameron was being written off but ‘events’ turned things around. He certainly hasn’t achieved it on his own merits. If anything, Brown and the government are making things pretty easy for Cameron right now and immensely difficult for themselves. And if this continues, the rot will only set in further.
Can anyone offer any reason why it is (and this is the second poll I’ve noticed this) that women are far more hostile than men to Labour at the moment (the Tory lead is 20% among women and 6% among men) BUT when asked about how good a job Brown is doing, men think he’s doing a worse job than women (-33 among men; -21 among women).
Of the two unappealing options, I’d much rather have people think I’m doing a crap job but still voting for me, than thinking I’m doing ok but determined to vote me out. But it doesn’t really make sense that people think like that, does it?
Dave Hawk
I have to dissagree with you about the Conservative recovery in the polls.
Sure the Tories have been helped by Mr Brown and his ministers putting their foot in it at every opportunity but for me the turning point was the Conservative Conference and David Cameron’s speech in particular.
The Tories came up with a number of popular policies that week and I’m sure they’ve got more up their sleeve. In addition David Cameron’s speech had a lot of coverage and even for a floating voter it was impressive.
That’s when things turned around for the Tories!
Dave,
Cameron was hit by a mix of events and silly mistakes but was rescued by Brown making bigger mistakes and being hit by bigger events.
Never has someone’s honeymoon gone so badly.
Ralph – Britney Spears was married for 55 hours
I’m guessing her honeymoon wasn’t all that great
If Labour loses the next election, it will be more down to the luckless events of the economy dwindling and this ever on-going events of data loss, which really isn’t the direct blame of Gordon Brown. Saying that, Gordon Brown’s abilities aren’t award winning either, or that false smile, lol.
I would say, it’s not in the bag for the Tories yet, Cameron still has to prove himself worthy, but his conference speech has helped the increasing support a little. I’m hoping the momentum of the tories will increase more, so much so, we’ll see a 2%-3% gain in vote share for the Tories in Scotland, being a Scot. That’ll make me happy!
Some grasping at straws by hard line Labour supporters on here since this latest mind blowing POLL by YouGov !! It is now too late for the Liberal leadership contest to make any difference now – thay have timed it badly to fall right on Christmas – no one will notice or even care !!
As for people on here suggesting that Cameron and the Tories have’nt talked policy – once again do most on here wear ear plugs or not read newspapers / all we here from the Tories is their policies and from Labour all we here are more spin tactics with no real policies !!
As for the doubters about a northern revival for the Tories – out of the 163 seat gain they would make from this latest YouGov POLL 41 seats would be in Northern England & Scotland – i remember perdicting at least an 11 seat gain in Scotland in a recent posting i did :-
Just look at these very highly likely Tory gains in Wales / Scotland & Northern England :-
WALES – 4 Seats
• Aberconwy
• Cardiff North
• Carmarthen West & Pembroke
• Ceredigion
SCOTLAND – 11 Seats
• Aberdeenshire West & Kincardine
• Angus
• Argyll & Bute
• Berwickshire , Roxburgh & Selkirk
• Dumfries & Galloway
• Edinburgh North & Leith
• Edinburgh South
• Edinburgh South West
• Ochil & South Perthshire
• Perth & North Perthshire
• Renfrewshire East
NORTHERN ENGLAND – 30 Seats
• Barrow In Furness
• Blackpool North
• Bolton North East
• Bolton West
• Bradford West
• Brigg & Goole
• Bury North
• Carlisle
• Cheadle
• Chester
• Cleethorpes
• Copeland
• Dewsbury
• Halifax
• Harrogate & Knaresborough
• Keighley
• Lancashire West
• Leeds North East
• Leeds North West
• Manchester Withington
• Morecambe & Lunsdale
• Pudsey
• Ribble South
• Sheffield Hallam
• Stockton South
• Tynemouth
• Wakefield
• Warrington South
• Westmorland & Lonsdale
• York Outer
I also recently said that i thought Brown was not having a good time in the press recently as suggested by some – but the daily press reports were steadily coming in against him / a different subject a day – just imagine in 2.5 years at this rate there will be about 900 bad media reports about Brown and his government – wow , the mind boggles !!
I would add Stirling to the list of potential Tory gains in Scotland
KTL,
When it comes to David Cameron, I’m in agreement with ChrisC, Cameron et al. are an untested bunch of chancers.
Those of us with mortgaged homes and jobs might as well hop, skip and jump along to the nearest casino and spin the wheel on them if they get in.
The Conservatives will be lucky to pick up 2 seats in Scotland. This is not representative of Scottish opinions and all you have done is transpose English voting intentions on the Scottish 4 party system, where the Conservatives are barely pulling mid-teen results in polls.
Many people in Scotland still consider it a shameful thing to think about voting Conservative.
Surely they should only be grasping at straws after a straw poll.
But if things continue as they are, Labour may well be grasping at Straw.
What would be interesting would be reginal breakdowns are they ahead in the North west of England or are they just building up large majorities in the south east of England.
A consolation for Brown is that he probably hasn’t visited any wife-swapping clubs or met any representatives of a multi-millionaire trying to build a golf course on an SSSI recently. Unfortunately everybody else appears to hate his guts including Rupert Murdoch,the trade unions, his fellow leaders in Europe and Harriet Harman his deputy.
The latest Scotrtish polls suggest tory support there is still at 1997levels.We must therefore assume thisextrasupport comes from elsewhere. Whether or not that is advantagous for the Tories I don’t know.
The regional results were :-
London 44/37/13
South 55/25/14
Mid/Wales 43/31/16
North 43/38/12
Scotland 16/31/16/SNP 32
Mike,
As Colin’s post of the regional breakdown shows your 11 seat prediction for the Tories in Scotland is still mince. They may be on 45% up 2% in this poll, they are 16% in Scotland. In November when you predicted 11 seats they were at 18% in Scotland.
I’d say you were making the same basic mistake again, using a UK swing and applying to a region where the swing is different, except that it’ clear that you are smarter than that and understand these things.
That leaves us with the sad conclusion that you know fine well that the 11 seats is nonsense and that you are just spinning, and not very effectively.
Peter.
I agree with Peter Cairns, despite being a Conservative myself. I believe that the Conservatives will likely pick up ‘Dumfries & Galloway’, ‘Berwickshire, Roxburgh & Selkirk’ almost indefinitely. However, more moderate chances would be the others on the ‘list of 11′
I’d like to point out that the Conservatives’ share of the vote in Scotland has actually fallen since the last Yougov poll, despite such a large swing overall in the United Kingdom.
What is interesting is that the Conservatives are now leading in every other UK region in the yougov poll, even in the North which is very encouraging for the Conservative Target North group.
I just think things are interesting now, after years of being frankly very dull. If you supported the Tories since 97, you knew you had no chance, and for Labour followers it was ‘Four More Years’. Liberals always hoped, but they always will.
Now things have changed, but are much more like ‘normal’ politics were, and possibly should be – there is a real chance of a change of government. That’s not to say it it’s in the bag for either side. I think the most interesting thing is the volatility, and I suspect this will be a permanent feature of polling now in a way that wasn’t so evident in the past.
Couple of points to pick up;
Ralph – I seem to recall Aitken was in bother due to his dealing with Saudi arms deals, while Hamilton (and other Tory MPs) were taking wads in return for asking Parliamentary Questions – pretty central to their roles? Meanwhile 2 current Tory Lords & donors who promised to become UK residents have failed to honour their promises. It’s not one way traffic.
Mike Richardson- don’t extrapolate negative media reports. remember that the media was inexplicably utterly pro Brown for three months this summer, and then turned. Things can easily turn again. I’d rather be a pollster than a politician.
Other people have already slapped down Mike Richardson’s crazy Scottish predictions (there’s more chance of Wendy Alexander turning down £950 than the Tories ever winning Edinburgh North & Leith), so I won’t bother.
What is worth pointing out is the divergence between the politics of Scotland and England. I know we should take the regional breakdowns with a pinch of salt, but across every English region the Tories were ahead of Labour in this latest poll, whereas in Scotland they’re stuck in the teens and the SNP are the leaders. This small sample is broadly in line with the Yougov poll of Scottish voters released at the start of the month.
I can’t see anything changing this in the near future. Maybe we’ll never go back to sharing the same politics, now that there’s an alternative seat of power in Edinburgh.
It’s a shame the regional breakdowns don’t separate Wales from the Midlands. Quite insulting really – what does Llanelli have in commin with Lincoln?
DAVE HAWK SAYS :-
“When it comes to David Cameron, I’m in agreement with ChrisC, Cameron et al. are an untested bunch of chancers.”
My response to that would be that apart from Brown all of his cabinet are untested too in managemnet of the country – who knows who most of them are – the country recognises more of the Tory opposite numbers ! Could they be worse than what we have at the moment ??
STUART SAYS :-
“The Conservatives will be lucky to pick up 2 seats in Scotland. Many people in Scotland still consider it a shameful thing to think about voting Conservative.”
My response would be that you need to widen your circle of friends – it does’nt matter what the regional POLLS for Scotland are saying – they just like the English want change , they won’t get it by voting Liberal , Labour or SNP – if by your comment you are suggesting that the Scots are 84% socialist then it is yourself that does’nt know your own people . Watch this space – watch the seats come falling down !
Cllr PETER CAIRNS Said :-
“I’d say you were making the same basic mistake again, using a UK swing and applying to a region where the swing is different, except that it’ clear that you are smarter than that and understand these things.
That leaves us with the sad conclusion that you know fine well that the 11 seats is nonsense and that you are just spinning, and not very effectively”
My response would be that it is actually yourself that is spinning events Councillor – you may feel very content in the SNP POLL ratings at the moment , as i have said to you before – complacency is a dangerous thing / if as suggested that the 45% for the Tories does include the 16% in Scotland – then the Tories are probably on about 50%+ in the rest of the UK . I stand by my figures of at least 11 new Tory seats at the next GE in Scotland – i have’nt been wrong yet !
ALEC Said :-
“don’t extrapolate negative media reports. remember that the media was inexplicably utterly pro Brown for three months this summer, and then turned. Things can easily turn again. I’d rather be a pollster than a politician.”
My response would be – show me any real good comments about Brown during his honeymoon / the media were just waiting to pounce , and thy got just what they were waiting for the day his ego pushed him to talk of an election – ever since Brown has just handing bad headlines to the media on a plate – the flood gates are open and all is being revealed at last after 10.5 years of secrecy and spin .
The media can’t even get any senior Labour politicians to debate anything on TV – they hide away . Even today Andrew Marr called on John Major to talk – what a breath of fresh air after 10.5 years of lies and spin (what do they say – come back all is forgiven)
The one saving thing for Labour now is Christmas – that will give them a rest for 2 weeks from the POLLS and the backlash from them – i make a new prediction !!
By February the POLLS will be showing regular figures like :-
Con. 44% – 47% / Lab. 27% – 30% / Lib. 14% – 18% as regular averages and between those figures . Watch this space ! This gap will continue no matter what now.
For all my doubters and critics – please feel free to cut and paste this comment for future use !
Ok Mike, fair enough.
Just to be sure this time, does “by February” mean the first of February, the end of february or does it in fact mean March?
STEVEN WHEELER :-
I was actually being fairly kind with February – take it how you like (it’s gonna get a lot worse for Labour in the POLLS and subsequent elections after February). I recommended doubters cut and paste my comments because they were inaccurately quoted by other posters when i got the first drop in Browns popularity right way back in September – i seemed to be the only one in the UK never mind this site who saw a Tory recovery and a Labour slump / the only thing i did’nt get right was how quick the gap would widen .
Mike
Trust me, I will be cut and pasting your 11 seats prediction for the Conservatives in Scotland (off 16% in the polls!). Its hilarious.
Mike: I foresaw the Tory recovery, but didn’t put it in a silly “ticking clock” with the date wrong. The recovery happened after the Tory Conference which happened after your rather arbitrary deadline. I said all along “wait until after the conferences” – you put a date in which was before the Tory Conference, which was a bit silly really.
You were right as it happened, just got the timing wrong by a week. Though that week was inevitable, the Tory recovery would never have happened in-between the Labour and Tory conferences.
However don’t get high and mighty because a prediction goes right, everyone makes many predictions “and even a broken clock is right twice a day”.
[...] Brief against him Won’t reject him He’s just so keen to keep the keys To number ten The polls just don’t look good for him Could he be heading for the bin? And when you put it all together There’s the model [...]
Steven F,
One possible explanation for the current form of the Scots/English divide might well be, “It’s Time for a Change”, where what the polls are showing is who people think can replace Labour and do better.
In England and to a lesser extent Wales, that seems to be the Tories on the basis that people want a new government and don’t think the LibDems can form one, so that only leaves the Tories.
It can also be argued that this fits in well with rising Tory support even though many see the Tories as “policy lite”.
If the public feel it’s time to change because the government is tired then the Tories can move ahead without really pushing themselves as radical, with the simple Cameron message, “It’s us or them and they are crap”, actually giving them mid term momentum without having to make risky policy announcements that Brown can attack or mirror.
Ironically this means that while Cameron doesn’t have to push the vision think although he’s quite good at it, Brown doe, even tough he’s not good at t at all.
In Scotland it looks like it’s the SNP that are the peoples choice as “Not New Labour”, but we aren’t ahead like the Tories (although it is a four party system and we had a lot more ground to make up).
I remember the Dunfermline By-Election and the fact that after the first week it was clear that there was a mood to kick Labour. For most of the campaign it was a clear battle to see who would be the beneficiary, the LibDems or the SNP.
As it was the LibDems fought the better campaign (yet again with mass leafleting and dodgy graphs) and convinced the voters that they could win it, and went on to do so.
Nationally ( North and South) I think New Labour renewal has stalled, and that “Time for change” has taken root.
What Brown needs to do to turn that around, is calm and steady things in the short term and then bring forward some of his constitutional ideas and get them through parliament to show that he is different and changing things before the election.
Given that it’s probably close to two years to an election, he probably has time to do it, but that doesn’t mean he’ll pull it off.
Peter.
‘Suspicion torments my heart,suspicion keeps us apart,suspicion why torture me?’…so sang Elvis Presley in one of his classic hits of yonks ago.That line pretty well sums up the fraught relationship that many feel exists between the English-whoops sorry I mean the Tories….and the Scots or at least those Scots represented by the SNP. If true then the question is will current events and the changes in political fortunes alter that perception.
When the UK wide recovery in Tory poll ratings began exactly 2 years ago it was greeted by the SNP with much glee and rubbing of hands – they saw it as an opportunity ripe for exploitation and a chance to put a spanner in the works of the then dominant party -Labour. But now that a weak and uncertain Tory lead is being replaced by one that could-and I stress the word could-result in the election of an equally dominant Tory government the SNP’s smiles and chuckles are giving way to frowns and knotted brows. Suppose they now privately say to themselves the Tory tide does not stop at Hadrian’s wall after all. Indeed a lot of people probably the same people forecast it would never reach the North of England ( Tory lead 5%) but it has. No doubt the Tory haters in their ranks will deny that it could ever progress up to the Firth of Forth but the way the tide is running at the moment there is no reason why it cannot reach the Tay-which still leaves Peter Cairns safe in his Inverness redoubt but then no one who enjoys Peter’s contributions to this site would want to lose Peter….
The louder some folk scream that the Tories can never win one or other of the Scottish marginals the more I reckon they are running scared…’coming soon to a constituency near you the return of the Tories starring Peter Cushing’. Oh yes when it comes to a bit of leg pulling it is indeed pay back time.
Cllr Peter Cairns (SNP), you suggest Brown could improve Labour’s prospects by concentrating upon sensible [sic] constitutional reforms (an English Parliament?) between now an the next election. However he has instead chosen to hamstrung his first full Parliament with unpopular legislation.
Between now and the summer he will have to fight, in both Houses, to pass detention-without-charge, the EU Constitution Bill (for that is what it is) and ID-cards. [One awaits Ms Kelly's Transport Data-Security statement...!] And come May/June we have local and European elections.
That leaves Rusty will his second (final?) full parliamentary term. Assuming the three anchors mentioned are not still chained to his neck then he could introduce these reforms [sic]. Doing so, as one of his ministers recently mentioned, would require a constitutional-referendum. [Here one may be naive, as one remembers the governing-party saying that somewhere before.] This would eat into Parliamentary time.
Finally there would be the final parliamentary session – assuming the Government survives that far – and an election. Note also one has not factored in other elements of the mine-field; the military-settlements, public-sector pay, immigration, or the economy.
So, according to this analysis, Brown has little time to pull things around. One wonders if, by then, a growing number of New Labour back-benchers will be mumbling that famous saying of Scotland’s greatest soldier: “We’re doomed, doomed I tell yah…!”
Fluffy -
If thewre’s any chance of Brown losing in 2009, the election will be 2010. Same as the Tory uears included two four-year terms, followed by a five year term leading to an election they didn’t think they could win until the soap-box came out, and a final five-year term which ended with an election they couldn’t possibly have won even if they’d been able to solve Middle-East, Ireland and give us all a tax cut at the same time!
Which in effect means three budgets and two Queen’s speeches.
As a conservative,I think alot of you are either naive or young.Saying we will get 50% of the vote and the election is in the bag is nothing short of stupid and should be heeded against.
Also alot of you where saying that Yougov underestimates our vote and overcook the Labour one.One poll in our favour and they are back in vogue.If David needs any spin doctors,he has them aplenty to pick from on here.
I would also note that many on here were questioning Daves and Georges ability to win the next election not too long ago.
Just like your opinions on Conservative politicians voters can change their minds and all this triuphalism is really too early.
I hope most of you do not end up with egg on your faces from the very few non-conservatives who post here.
Nick Keene,
At no point that I can recall have I ever claimed that a Tory revival in Scotland isn’t possible. What I have been clear on and still maintain is that there is currently no evidence to support it.
Mike’s 12 seat prediction (1 +11 gains) was based on a poll that showed the Tories ont 43% (+11%) and ahead of Labour.
However that poll showed the Tories in Scotland on only 18%, with both Labour and the SNP in the low 30’s. To suggest that the Tories could under FPTP get 20% of the seats with 18% of the vote just didn’t stack up, particularly when you looked at the actual votes in each of his 11 target seats.
However, I did say that they might get 3 or 4.
What has happened since is that he has repeated the claim because the Tories are now at 45% (+13%), but the poll that gives that figure apparently has the Tories in Scotland falling to 16%, and if they can’t get 12 seats on 18%, they won’t get it on 16%.
Could there be a Tory revival in Scotland ? Yes.
Is there any evidence to suggest that one is developing ? No.
Peter.
Interesting article on pb.com cross-posting from here the “Brown named leader” polls from early in the year saying ‘they were right all along’, which is something I posted here about a month ago. So obviously I agree with Smithson’s proposition.
I am not any more convinced we’re seeing huge volatility this year, instead there’s a much simpler explanation: That Cameron’s Conservatives have been ahead of Brown’s Labour consistently now for two years since Dec 2005 (basically Cameron’s election), but there was a temporary Brown bounce while parliament was in recess after Brown took over this summer.
It’s all very well to criticise the Lib Dems for putting out “dodgy” bar charts – though I’ve never yet seen one that didn’t accurately depict exactly what it claimed to depict – but surely all the moaning amounts to is an admission that, far from being unpopular and awful, when people are persuaded that Liberal Democrats CAN win a seat, they come out of the woodwork in large numbers and vote for them.
CLLR PETER CAIRNS :-
I admire your standing up for your party and in actual fact i admire what your party has achieved votes wise in Scotland over the years – not that i agree with your parties policies .
Peter – the SNP for all they are doing well , and they will continue to do so at the expense of Labour (because the SNP are the socialist alternative to Labour in Scotland) – i cannot stress enough that you cannot be complacent and ignore the Tories in Scotland – they were once the biggest party there many moons ago – the Liberals are weak and cannot form a government of any kind – it just takes a shift across from them alone to let the Tories into at least 11 marginal Scottish constituencies / when i say marginal , it really is a 3 or 4 horse race in all of them .
John tt. My point is this.
2007/8 is tied up, so constitutional reform will not occur in this session. The chances of at least one of the three “anchors” weighing-down the legislation is great. [Lord 'Flatmate' Falconer has just announced his opposition to further detention-without-charge.]
2008/9 is the last full session that any constitutional reform can occur if a referendum [sic] is to be held for the public to approve. Will probably tie-up the majority of the session, and we are assuming the public is in the mood to support it!
2009/10 will be – at best – a low-key session in the run-up to the next election (which must be held by June 2010).
This is a simple analysis of the next few-years which ignores all the slip-ups of the past few months. One other object in the mine-field is potential criminal activity against the governing-party. Whether such actions occur or not, the outcome will damage the publics’ perception of Labour’s trustworthiness.
So, John, if you were Rusty Brown would you risk constitutional reform this side of an election? With no mandate and all…?
If the election is June 2010, I doubt whether the preceding parliamentary session will be low-key.
I don’t like the term “Rusty Brown” as it sounds pejorative – like “Mirror” Cameron. Can we keep that out please?
Yes, please can we be impartial and use a term that can be accepted by people in all parties, I think Macavity Brown will do quite nicely
Thank-you!
This is really getting me in the mood for all the Festive Hostilities to come!
See you in the New Year – thanks Anthony for an entertaining and informative site.
John T
I thought that a good supply of oxygen is always welcome in the debate of politics. That given what has our “Iron Chancellor” evolved into…?
Or maybe I should offer something more “high-brow”. Does anyone know any references from Dostoyevshy…?
My god,that Mike Richarson is an embarrasment if he is a Conservative.I hope any floaters reading this,please don’t think we are all like that,if they are,we are defintely not.
Re Mike Richardson’s predictions:
Wales:
• Aberconwy
• Cardiff North
• Carmarthen West & Pembroke
• Ceredigion
The first three are quite likely. No chance in Ceredigion though. Vale of Glamorgan, Delyn and Vale of Clwyd are possibilities though.
SCOTLAND – 11 Seats
• Aberdeenshire West & Kincardine
• Angus
• Argyll & Bute
• Berwickshire , Roxburgh & Selkirk
• Dumfries & Galloway
• Edinburgh North & Leith
• Edinburgh South
• Edinburgh South West
• Ochil & South Perthshire
• Perth & North Perthshire
• Renfrewshire East
Edinburgh North & Leith is an impossibility and the three seats listed below are highly unlikely to say the least. The others could all conceivably be won though some would require a lot of luck with the Tories winning on a relatively low vote share – especially Argyll & Bute. Stirling would be another possibility. A net gain of six overall would be a pretty good result for the Scottish Conservatives.
Peter Cairn
Peter old fruit where in my last mail did I mention your views? And God forbid that I should ever attempt to align myself with those of Mike Richardson. If I do then by all means someone two men in white coats to come and take me gently away.There is a world of difference between saying some of the Scottish marginals are vulnerable to a Tory revival if Labour are still this unpopular come the General Election and claiming as Mike does that these seats are likely to go Tory.
The Tory tide to which I referred to in my previous mail is probably somewhere in the Borders by now-and since polls always underestimate the Tory vote in Scotland by about 3% then a revival may well have started. If it does it will be modest-as I said before 20-23% max but IF it happens it will be more pronounced south of the Forth than North of it.Because that’s where Tory votes are concentrated.
Less sure about Mike’s predictions for Northern England but I would have thought that Manchester Withington and Sheffield Hallam are impossibilities.
Peter (or Cllr Cairns, if you prefer!):
I agree with your assessment about the electorate’s desire for change, north and south of the border. Brown is well aware of it too – he mentioned change often enough during his conference speech. My point is that voters in Scotland have identified a different vehicle for change from voters in England.
I also agree that there isn’t any evidence of a Tory revival in Scotland. And while I wouldn’t rule one out either, I can’t see where one would come from. I can’t see why Scots voters would get behind the Tories in the numbers required to deliver a recovery to 1992 levels.
As the UK polls swing back from Labour to Conservative, the Scottish polls haven’t – if they had, we’d be seeing the Tories on 26% of the vote. Indeed, in the Scottish subset of Yougov UK polls, the Tories are doing less well than they were in the first half of this year (all the usual caveats apply, obviously).
I see more chance of Scots voters swinging back behind Brown in a close fought election to keep out the Tories, than swinging behind the Tories to hurt Labour. Hopefully they will continue to swing behind the SNP as we win their confidence from running the country!
Philip:
I think you’ve picked a couple of seats in Scotland that the Tories would be smart to target, but in both the local MPs are quite popular and hardworking and will have had 4 years to dig in under the new boundaries.
Mike Richardson:
If the Tories win 11 new seats in Scotland at the next UK election, that would put them on 12 – their highest total since the 1983 election! In that time we’ve had the Miners Strike, the Poll Tax, the constitutional convention, a Togone from 72 to 49 constituencies, making beating Labour in any seat that bit harder. 1 gain would be progress for the Tories – doubling the current total. 11 would be a miracle!
Or a catastrophe, depending on one’s viewpoint
Manchester Withington is impossible, but Sheffield Hallam isn’t, it was a Tory seat from 1885-1997
The Conservative Party in Hallam is moribund , their last councillor in the constituency will bite the dust next May and they haven’t got round to selecting a PPC – perhaps they have given up the ghost and are leaving this seat to UKIP .
Firstly Polls indicate where we are now not where we will all be when there is an election. Which will not be until this country is in much the same state as it was in 79.
Secondly Cameron is not responsible for a 13% lead The governments criminal incompetence is. Which indicates that during an election campaign when Cameron will still look sharp youthful and fresh. Brown will look even worse then he does now. Which is bad enough already.
To me the above is plane as a whole army of noses on 20 foot tall faces.
What Scotland does therefore is very largely irrelevant. As whatever happens the Scottish people will give Labour the shafting it most surely deserves. Scotland is the place New Labour socialism promised the most prosperity and delivered the most poverty. A fact that I am sure the SNP The Conservatives and The Lib/Dems will waste no energy reminding the Scottish people about daily when it matters.
Mick Richardson; Remember that although the SNP talks like a socialist party a majority of its voters are not really socialists at all. They are simply Scottish or even sometimes British nationalists. That distrust and despise socialism every bit as much as we both do. So if the SNP ever did obtain independence the party would split in two. A fact that the SNP leadership I know are very well aware of.
The Conservative Party does not really need Scotland anymore. Which is just as well because they are very unlikely to get much of it.
Sometimes more than one embaressment comes though per day for the government – that messes my projected 900 gaffs (1 per day till the next election i predicted)
3 Today :-
* Amnesty for 165,000 asylum seekers
* 3 million “L” Drivers details lost in the USA of all places
* 100,000 Brits lose out to migrant workers
How will this latest loss of info affect their POLL ratings
If the Tories are on 45% in the whole of the UK, but only about 12% in Scotland and about 20% in Wales, then they must be very close to 50% in England itself, which is pretty amazing.
Nick Keene,
Although you didn’t site me by name, the question is still valid, as you talked about the Tory tide moving North in to Scotland. Where is the evidence that there is any kind of Tory revival in Scotland?
Since Feb. 2006 YouGov has put the Tories in Scotland between 14% and 19%, averaging about 16.5% just above the most recent poll.
My contention is that people aren’t so much looking to the Tories as looking for an alternative to Labour.
To all intents and purposes that is the Tories and no one else in England, but in Scotland that is not the case. That doesn’t mean there won’t be a Tory revival of sorts, I think 20% is possible, but for most Scots particular Labour voters who didn’t even vote Tory in the seventies the SNP are a more likely option.
In addition even for core Tory voters in most Scottish seats switching to the SNP is a far more likely way to beat a sitting labour MP that voting Tory.
Oh and most Tories only live South of Perth because most Scots live South of Perth, over 80% of the population at the last count…..
Peter.
I’ve said this time and time again- Anne Smith will not lose her seat in Dore- she is very well known and has survived election twice now, in 2004 coming first place in the whole-council elections by a long way.
As a Labour supporter it’s good to see there are a few reasonably objective Tories posting here but disapponting that so few Labour supporters of any sort seem to post. Trying to be objective I’d simply reiterate that in political terms the next election is very distant and anything could happen. I’d just say to some of the more outspoken Tories posting here that if you talk to the undecided (any they are the people who win or lose elections) there’s no great upswing of deep-seated support for Cameron who seems to be regarded (quite rightly) as a smoothy PR man. The Labour party isn’t going to relinquish power without a fight and the old sentimentalism which in the past made the Party reluctant to ditch failing leaders has gone. If Brown is still perceived as a failure next autumn the knives will be out and there’ll be a new broom. As a final thought I’m sorry to see Vince Cable disappear as I thought he was very good value and the antidote to one or two of those ageists out there who slagged off Ming so relentlesly.
Andy Stidwell: Agreed entirely.
I agree with Peter, no serious analysis or polling is putting the Conservatives in a position to be making sweeping gains north of the border. Fact is though: We don’t need to. The Tories can win in England alone, it is Labour that would really struggle to do so.
We are so far behind in Scotland that gained votes are likely to be wasted votes, to reach the tipping point that we’re gaining lots of seats under the current situation in Scotland then we’d already be well past the tipping point that we’ve won England.
Wales provides brighter prospects, but come June 2010 I’ll be hoping for a Conservative Commons majority made up of realistically-speaking English MPs with hopefully the SNP depriving the new Labour opposition of their Scottish platform too.
Given that Scotland makes up less than 10% of the UK there’s no reason the Conservatives can’t win a majority without it.
A Conservative Commons majority is far from guaranteed but its more likely than making lots of Scottish gains.
David Bowtell
If David Cameron is seen as you describe then surly that makes Labours position in the polls even worse.
I am trying to be unpartizan in claiming the Tories will get elected by a landslide.
however if you what real partisan read on.
There is no other way of looking at a 13% lead when the leader of your party has not even got started yet. Gordon Brown and his party on the other hand have had 10 whole years and buggered up a country that in 1997, to quote a famous Tory leader of the fifties.
“Had never had it so good.”
What is even more serious for the survival of your party as a future governing force, believe me or your parties propaganda channel the BBC or not, it will make no difference in the end.
The chickens have only just started to come home.
Wait until they have make nest on the sitting room carpet and have their feet on just about every hard working voters table, and by then you will just be praying to come in second.
The news that 166,500 illegal immigrants are likely to be allowed leave-to-stay could add to Labour’s woes. The cynical could suggest that it is an attempt to hold-on to another 20-odd marginals.
I feel that this is a shame. There is nothing wrong with migration per se. What is wrong is blatant gerrymandering – as many of these illegals will work in-or-around the public-sector – and will “thank” Labour for “letting them get away with it”. [This is an accelerating theme to non-trivial breeches of the law under our current administration.] Why can politicians not treat migration as a bi-partisan control on socio-economic requirements?
The right of these people to stay in the UK will not change my views on migration, nor the way one votes. Those who lose out may not show so much compassion. One does dispare with the calibre of our political masters….
Peter Cairns
I see I need to be more precise.Firstly any swing to the Tories across Scotland will obviously not be uniform. Secondly by south of the Forth I clearly don’t mean Glasgow or any of the central belt urban conurbations outside Edinburgh.3 of the 4 first past the post seats held by the Tories at Holyrood are located in the area I am referring to-and I could almost add to that Ayr in the South West. Now if my aging memory serves me well and apologies if it does’nt- as I type this with a heavy cold- back in 1999 the Tories had no first past the post in these or any other area in Scotland but despite no increase in their overall Scottish vote in national or local contests held since 1997/9 and indeed no discernable revival at UK level until relatively recently they have nevertheless clawed their way back to win 4 seats.
What does this tell you? I think that it should tell you that in those seats formerly Tory but where the Tory organisation managed to hold together through the bad times and even reinvigorate themselves they can in a climate which is after all far more favourable to their fortunes than for 16 years mount a sustained challenge.
As for Perth in 2005 with no wind in their sails the Tories still managed to cut the SNP majority down to 1500 from 5000. If the SNP want to campaign in this seat on the basis that it is safe I am sure that will make the local Tories very happy. Pride often comes before a fall Peter!
While there are many voices here saying that the Conservatives do not need to make inroads in Scotland to win an election (which is true), they do need seats in Scotland and Wales if they are to regain credibility as a truly national party, and strengthen their Unionist credentials.
Also, Cllr Cairns suggests that many Tory voters in Scotland are dissatisfied Labour supporters. While this may be happening, I think that the SNP have been the real beneficiaries of the revolt against entrenched Scottish Labour. It is this revolt, more than an upsurge in Independence sentiment, which has propelled the SNP to power.
Just to throw in an interesting scenario – lets say Cameron wins the next election with a slim majority and he depends on a small number of Scottish and Welsh Tory seats for his majority. Would he still favour English votes for English issues….?
Labour has next-to-no councillors or MPs in vast swathes of the South-East . . . which I believe has a far higher proportion of the population than Scotland does. Does that mean we’re governed by a non-national party in your logic Alasdair?
As for your second paragraph, I think that is exactly Peter’s point. He’s saying that across the UK people are going away from Labour: In England to the Conservatives, in Scotland to the SNP.
Hello. The only point I was trying to make was that it will be more difficult for the Tories to portray themselves as a credible UK-wide party without at least some seats in all of the main constituent parts of the UK (NI is slightly different with the UU). While I accept the point about Labour in the South East (although not London) – I think it is safe to say that contuing failure to win seats in Scotland will further damage the image of the Tories (and the UK), and the longer this goes on the harder it will be for the Tories to play the role of the Unionist party in Scotland.
I’m not saying I approve, but the Tories have become something of a pariah paty in Scotland, and it is their interests to address this, not simply ingore it because they can win elsewhere.
Cheers!
Alasdair – a tactical point for the Tories might be to go the whole hog and support separation? Cameron’s got nothing to lose, and I think probably cares only about English votes. It cuts against the grain of the entire Tory history, but devolution has changed the landscape and until all the issues are fully resolved there are opportunities and threats for all the main parties.
Hi Alec – It’s possible that the Tories might decide they want to go that way, and there are probably some English (and Scottish!) nationalists who would be happy to see that happen. It could definately make things harder for labour.
So far though, Cameron has so far gone the other way and is flying the union flag, and has also rejected the concept of two separate Conservative parties.
Phillip Thompson – as a Labour councillor in the South East I would like to point out for the record that there are 19 Labour MPs in the South East (Berkshire, Buckinghamshire,
Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire,
Surrey, East and West Sussex). It would be churlish to deny that many of these seats will be at risk if the next General Election is fought under current levels of polling, but it is a valid point that parties do need to spread their vote enough to win seats on a UK wide basis, not just build up massive majorities in safe seats/regions.
Government has to be by consent, and that is difficult if the UK Government does not have at least a significant minority representation on a regional or national (i.e. Scotland/Wales) basis.
Nick Keene,
broadly, the point you make about the Tories doing better in areas where they’ve kept their organisation is surely correct. But, it’s not as if they didn’t try to win Perth last time – they flung plenty of resources (DVD’s, for crying out loud!) at their tragets, such as neighbouring Angus, thanks to the largesse of their tax-exile sugar-daddy, Lord Laidlaw. All this effort surely helped motivate their supporters, but it must also have helped motivate those who want to keep them out.
I’m pretty sure no-one will be treating Perth as a safe seat! As with Dumfries & Galloway and the Border seat, the incumbent will have had 4 years to work the new boundaries, which should help. the same would apply to Tory David Mundell in the the DCT seat. So many of the big rural seats were carved up and sewn together in new ways that it was harder than usual for incumbents in 2005.
How long before we get a poll showing how Nick Clegg’s election has played, I wonder?
should have read “if the UK governing Party does not have…”
As said, it’s important for the Tories to not ignore Wales and Scotland, Northern Ireand to stay loyal to their Unionist roots. I say they should spend (Cameron and co.)at least a quarter of their election campaign in Scotland and Wales, slightly more in Wales, as there’s more potential gains to be made. As for a Scottish Tory revival, Scotland’s voting patterns, being so reluctlant to vote Tory, it would have to take a Tory landslide to even gain 2 seats in Scotland in my view.
So – Nick Clegg becomes the Liberals leader – this will help the Tories no end .
As a lookilike to Cameron any exposure he gets (as long as it’s good exposure) the public will mix him up with Cameron and add to Camerons media coverage .
Secondly – because “Calamity” Clegg is now in charge and is half the politician either Menzies or Cable was – and they have taken a bashing in the POLLS – this new guy with all his schoolboy charm will barely raise an eyelid for the electorate / i see very little movement up the POLLS for the Liberals now that they made their choice & over Xmas too.
For all the ramblings above about whether the Scots will vote Tory or not at the next election and why the POLLS are showing them at 16 – 18% is irrelevant / if anyone believes that 84% of Scots are socialist is kidding themselves – the odds are that like most western countries socialism accounts for about 40 to 50% of the electorate – given that figure – there is a 20 to 30% extra moderate centre right vote still to be had in Scotland – who’s been getting it at the moment – i reckon the Liberals have conned their way into that bit & some SNP voters who are voting on passion for the SNP and not on left or right policies !!
Mike,
Maybe I’ve picked you up wrong, but you seem to be arguing from the point of view that there is some set statistical Right/Left divide in to which populations can be divided.
Thus the Tories can (and in your view should) get at least 25% of the Scottish vote because statistically 25% should be right of centre and vote accordingly.
I see no logical basis for this as a contention. It may be the Tories can get to that kind of figure but not because of any natural propensity for the population to distribute itself neatly by ideology.
As far as I can see you are the only person to even have suggested that the propensity of nearly 17 out of 20 Scots to vote for someone other than the Tories means that they might be all socialists.
On this site, I’ve on more than one occasion, pointed out the danger of any party (including my own) believing that those who vote for it actually support it.
If we look at the US, we see a two party system where elections can be quite close, but no one realistically believes that 50% of Americans are Rednecks and 50% Pinko’s.
What’s more most people in the UK tend to think that even those on the US left are close to what most people in the UK would term Tories.
In that context I don’t think that it is strange to take the view that, like the North of England compared to the South or cosmopolitan London compared to the more homogenous shire around it, different parts of the UK and Scotland in particular can have a different and distinct political cultures.
In short just as I can’t agree with translating a UK Tory lead to Scottish Tory gains, I can’t see that you can apply an untested notion of UK ideological balance directly to Scotland or indeed any other part of the UK.
So if I may to wide this out a bit;
” Who thinks different parts of the UK ( including NI if that doesn’t load it too much) have distinct political cultures”?
Peter.
Alec – your scenario only has relevence if the Tories have a majority of Scottish and Welsh seats (an unlikely prospect, we may get somewhere near 10 in Wales if we win an overall majority in the UK, in Scotland probably 4 or 5 would be a fantastic result) – so 15 seats out of 110 or so in those 2 countires? If Cameron goes down the EVEL route, NONE of those 110 MPs would be able to vote, the Tories losing 15 to the “opposition”’s 95
Paul D – your quite right, but it on any UK wide issues Cameron may yet depend on Scottish & Welsh Tory MP’s. This would obviously include confidence motions.
Slightly weird posting from Mike Richardson – coverage for Nick Clegg will “add to Cameron’s media coverage”. Really Mike – you’re 13 points up in the polls and clearly supremely confident of victory – this is no time to clutch at straws, surely?
It is early days and as politics are about to be suspended for the festive season let me congratulate Nick Clegg on being elected-albeit by a very narrow margin-the new leader of the Liberal Democrats. After only two and a half years in Parliament that is quite an achievement. Plenty of people will be using up columns of newsprint telling him what he should do but my advice to him is to keep his own counsel, follow his instincts and above all don’t become a slave to opinion polls. In fact if he can take a sanguine relaxed view of it all he may even enjoy himself. And Nick has one thing going for him none of the other leaders have -his christian name of course!
Nick Keene,
“And Nick has one thing going for him none of the other leaders have -his christian name of course!”
Yeah, You, Clegg and Lucifer…….
Peter.
I’ve just seen on the BBC website that Nick Clegg has apparently said he doesn’t believe in God.
Just in case anyone thought the above post was some kind of religious attack at him it wasn’t, it was just a bit of fun at NK’s expense….
Peter.
Peter/Mike,
On the subject of differing political cultures in different areas I’d say it was undeniable that Scotland had a significantly higher leftwing/socialist proportion of voters than certain other parts of the UK, say South East England. But in my wildest dreams I would never guess that 40% of any part of the UK (certainly not in the Midlands where I live) was Socialist, nevermind 80%(!).
In fact, even among Labour voters I doubt anything like 40% are really socialists. Amongst Labour MP’s I’d hope the number would be a lot higher but it wouldn’t be 100%. It all depends on what you mean by Socialist I guess. Some people seem to think it means anybody who believes in having some sort of welfare state while for others it means you’re practically a communist.
“In that context I don’t think that it is strange to take the view that, like the North of England compared to the South or cosmopolitan London compared to the more homogenous shire around it, different parts of the UK and Scotland in particular can have a different and distinct political cultures.”
Indeed Peter, or even different political cultures within those regions. It always slightly grates on me to hear that ‘nobody in the north votes Tory’ when I live in North Yorkshire with its many towering Conservative majorities.
I wonder if Clegg won the leadership battle because he had a safer seat. Would enough members voted for him, solely because of the risk of Huhne losing his seat at the next election thus causing another leadership contest, have made the difference? What do you think?
I doubt that very many Lib Dem members voted for that reason, but because the vote was so close it may have had an effect.
Adrian
His small majority was supposed to rule out a Hulne victory altogether. There can be no doubt who ‘won’ the campaign. Peter commented on this site some weeks ago that a close leadership result is the last result a party wants. This one couldn’t get much closer. If Clegg does well, it won’t matter but if he wobbles the Lib Dems and the media will bring up the closeness of the contest and it is bound to undermine him. 511 votes for the clear front runner is a poor show.
I think you both miss the real point.
Why did so many vote for Huhne knowing his seat is less safe then an ice cube floating in the The Gulf of Mexico?
I do not know either, but it does ask some SERIOUS questions as to the true validity of this so called free election in the first place.
Unless the plan was for Huhne to be transfered to a rock solid seat if he had won. However I did not hear about such a plan, and I guess no members of the Lib/Dems did either.
Polls are interesting, so are by election results, which involve people actually voting. When the Tories last turfed out a Labout government in 1979, they did so on the back of seven seats gained in by elections against a weak government with a tiny or no majority. Four of those gains were in the first two and half years, which is four more than the Tories have managed this time.
Peter Cairns
‘Yeah,You, Clegg and Lucifer’
Nice one Peter. I have sort of figured out from this that I am supposed to be representing the Tories, Clegg obviously the Liberal Democrats but who does Lucifer represent ? As I live in Scotland there are two remaining options: is it the Labour party or is it the Nationalists? Can anyone out there advise ?
I like Clegg, but he has been weak so far, really unbelivably empty. I want to see him being less critical about the Tories. They are more natural coalition bedfellows for him and share the Lib Dem respect for civil liberties and are more economically liberal than they themselves are. The social conservatism that has been the traditional stumbling block to Tories and genuine Liberals workjing together has been toned down considerabl under Cameron. The most illiberal authoritatian party is Labour by some distance- it’s time for the Liberals and Conservatives to unite around a magical coalisiton of Gladstonian and one nation conservative values and restore liberalism to British politics.
Nick Griffin maybe?
Graham, that is largely because there are far fewer by-elections these days, coupled with the fact that almost all the seats Labour have had to defend in by-elections since 1997 have been in that party’s hands since the 1960s.
Graham – there’s only been one by-election which the Cameron’s Tories had a real chance of winning in this Parliament in Enfield – and that took place in the middle of the Tory 2007 early summer dip (grammar schools row etc). To do true comparison between Cameron and Thatcher in the 70s it would require a number of winnable Labour seats to become vacant which the Tories can then target. I think we can excuse David Cameron’s poor by-election record to date on the basis of the unusually robust health of Labour MPs.
Re the Lib Dem Leadership election.
The first thing to observe is that they have not made a clear cut decision at all-it was as near as damit 50/50
On LibDem Voice a LD Councillor asserts that “We all know that our real power base is in local government”. ( I just checked the May 07 results-some power base!-but more councillors than Labour though)
This contributor urges Clegg to concentrate on “local issues”.To the extent that this person’s assertions reflect LD membership opinion, perhaps the role of the LD MPs is seen more as a shop window for LD councillors than an influence on Government?
Interestingly one of the areas which David Cameron suggested as potential for Con/LD co-operation was exactly what the LD Councillor mentioned-decentralisation of power and local autonomy-but this was rejected by Cable.
Also on Lib Dem Voice is a Poll asking where the party should be positioned Socially & Economically.
The results to date show Socially Liberal as an overwhelming choice…but for Economically it’s a pretty even three way split-liberal/centrist/left of centre.
I remain totally confused as to the objectives and purpose of the Lib Dem Party.
Steven,
Old Nick “Griffin” works fine with me…..Bang on the nail.
Peter.
It’s always interesting when you talk to hard line lifelong Labour voters especially in the North East where i live – ask them what they stand for & amazingly the tick goes under the Tory or even far right wing banner of political standpoint without them realising – the only anti Tory thing they ever say is – i did’nt like Margaret Thatcher & the Poll Tax – all the freedoms the Tories stand for they agree with but don’t realise that voting Labour or Liberal their freedoms are taken away from them and their choice to choose .
The real party of the working man who stands for everybodies rights & freedom to choose are the Tories – Labour are very good at smearing the Tories as they did with the perfectly reasonable and fair (Community Charge) or as Labour marketed it ,the “Poll Tax” . And smearing the last Tory government under John Major as “Sleazy” over one or two personal (not party) minor misconducts . It certainly worked for 10 years – but it’s coming back to bite both the Liberals and Labour on the ass & the POLLS and subsequent elections will see a change of government for another 18 years.
Incidently – i am not being partisan here – just stating the obvious / i have yet to state my political persuasion !! Though many have tried to guess – lol
Scotland, Wales and northern England are irrelevant to a possible Tory victory. The Tories need to win back seats in the Midlands and the South which they lost to New Labour (”Essex man”). Thatcher got a three-figure majority in 1987 with barely any Tory seats in Scotland, Wales and the Northern cities, however she obliterated Labour in the South almost completely.
Steven Wheeler
Nick Griffin maybe?
How did I miss that one? Yes he is Lucifer writ large. And there was I thinking it might be Nic-ola Sturgeon. Shame on me!
Nick
I know I shouldn’t respond to Trolls but Mike, really? Are you really arrogant enough to think that all Labour voters in the NE are really Tories but are too stupid to realise it? I’m not going to get into a huge argument about why Labour is better for the working class as that isn’t what this site is about but I could at least mention the minimum wage, maternity/paternity leave and Child tax credits.
Everybody has there own political view and there are legitimate arguments to be made on all sides – including for the poll tax – but to delude yourself in the manner you do doesn’t help you or your argument. Are you actually taking this site seriously or are your posts designed purely to bait people like me into replying?
Sorry, rant over now. Happy Christmas everyone
These are quotes from Nick Clegg after winning the LD leadership:-
“Our civil liberties have been casually cast aside, our public services are run by giant, faceless and often incompetent government bureaucracies, and our poorest communities suffer with security and opportunity in short supply.
Government must learn to trust people.
I want our party to look at new ways in which parents, pupils and patients can take charge of the schools and hospitals that they rely on.
We must plan to break down the barriers to social mobility,”
If he really wants to see these principles enacted by Government I wonder why he doesn’t just join Cameron’s Conservative Party?
And why would people like me who want to see these things, decide that a LD vote is a better way to bring them about than a Conservative vote?
As for Labour voters-if they don’t want these things -what do they want-and why?
Nicholas: We can win it without many Scotland and Wales MPs really, but not without the North. That’s far too general, there already are lots of Tory MPs in the North and there could be many, many more after the next election in the event of a Tory victory.
As the possibility of a Conservative government becomes more and more apparent, the Libdems are going to be squeezed, Clegg or no Clegg. At the election which probably won’t be till 2010, the choice will be between carrying on as we are with Labour, or changing and having a Conservative Government. There will actually be no appetite for having a hung parliament with all the uncertainty that would bring. I personally believe that there will be the desire for change, though that will depend on how Labour perform over the next cvouple of years, and on whether the Conservatives continue to look more and more like a party which is ready for Government.
But the choice will be between Brown and Cameron; anything else is a wasted vote and so the big squeeze on the Libdems has already started as people begin to see this.
Libdems will be lucky to end up with more than 15% of the vote, which could be little more than a dozen seats as tactical voting unwinds.
Clegg has been handed the poisoned chalice.
As for the Tories appealing to working class areas, there is a certain element of appeal, such as the areas they’re strongest in, immigration and crime, but when it comes right down to it, there are more factors which make them lean towards Labour through topics that more directly affect them like jobs and child benefits. The Tories would have to isolate their core middle/upper class voters to appeal more to the poorest, which is too much of a risk.
As for the Libdems, they are in trouble if polls don’t pick up an increase in percentages, now that Clegg is the breath of fresh air or in other people’s eyes “David Cameron Mark 2″. If they can’t gather support now, then it’s going to be one uphill struggle for them. I feel Clegg is too soft, just because he was youthful and the better communicator. They’ve missed out on Huhne and Cable who i preferred. In the interests of democracy, i hope they don’t get obliterated. In England they’ve got to worry about the Tories, in Scotland it’s the SNP, in Wales, the Tories and Plaid. I wouldn’t wish to see Huhne lose his seat, since i thought he’s been so unlucky in 2 previous leader elections and the Libdems need someone who has authority.
As for a hung parliament, i’m absolutely sure the Libdems with leader Clegg will vouch for the Tories, for the reason he looks up to David Cameron and he has been accused of Tory sympathies in the past. Not only that, the government is tired and most people do not want to see more of Gordon Brown and “New Labour”.
Also, the fact that Huhne has a seat in the middle of a Tory heartland doesn’t help him much either.
Mike Richardson
The Labour Party were not good at discrediting the last Conservative government. They were more then useless at that, as they are at governing the UK for the benefit of ordinary people.
I think with hind sight you will understand that the real experts at disinformation and government manipulation was and still is the BBC and several other Fascist financed media propagandists like the Guardian and the Daily Mirror.
The Guardian financed by fascists must rank, along with everyone north of Watford who votes Labour is really a Tory, as nutty comment of the Month.
Peter.
STEVEN WHEELER (Lab) Wrote :-
“I know I shouldn’t respond to Trolls but Mike, really? Are you really arrogant enough to think that all Labour voters in the NE are really Tories but are too stupid to realise it? I’m not going to get into a huge argument about why Labour is better for the working class as that isn’t what this site is about but I could at least mention the minimum wage, maternity/paternity leave and Child tax credits.
Everybody has there own political view and there are legitimate arguments to be made on all sides – including for the poll tax – but to delude yourself in the manner you do doesn’t help you or your argument. Are you actually taking this site seriously or are your posts designed purely to bait people like me into replying?”
____________________________________________________
MY REPSONSE :- The mere fact that a labour supporter like Mr Wheeler calls me a TROLL because i highlight some of the facts about Labour mismanagement and double standards actually confirms the low level of argument that they can sustain – perhaps that’s why it’s so hard to get a senior Labour politician to appear on TV !! You don’t see me using personal insults to anyone on here .
[edited out partisan tirade - AW]
Two of the contributors’ comments to this site are so outrageously bizarre that they must have been made by closet Socialists/Liberals, for their very content makes one abhor the cause they pretend to seek to promote.
Mike,
A “Troll” is a message deliberately designed to antagonise other users, which I think is what you are doing. I didn’t mean that you yourself are a troll, like the ones that live under bridges and eat billy goats. It wasn’t a “personal insult”, it was a reprimand!
Back on the topic of Nick Clegg’s victory. I don’t see that he is necessarily doomed to be squeezed by the Tory party. All it takes is a few gaffes from the Tory party between now and the election and people might start to really go for the “new politics” talk. After all The Lib Dems are the only one of the top three parties to really stand up for things like proportional representation etc which makes a real difference to the fairness of the system. I think that kind of real change might appeal to voters who are sick of Labour and the Conservatives and who simply don’t believe the “whiter than white” talk from anybody.
OK – I’m back online full time, thanks to those of you who kept discussion from descending into pointless partisan squabbling in my absence.
Mike – as Steven says, a troll is someone who posts in a way to deliberately cause an argument or otherwise bugger up a discussion. Even if you don’t mean to, that’s what posting partisan comments here does. It’s not the place for that.
Whittingham – Huhne has a seat in the middle of a Tory heartland ???? with seats nearby Romsey , Winchester , Portsmouth South all LibDem and Portsmouth North and the two Southampton seats all Labour . Eastleigh itself is down to just 5 Conservative councllors and heading down to 4 next May . As I have said before Eastleigh Conservative Association is a basket case with falling membership and no accounts filed this year and has had to be taken in hand by CCHQ .
A new YouGov poll has come out, with Tory – 43%, Labour 31%.
That would certainly be consistent with the data: WMA 42:32 C Lead 10.2 up from 9.6 last time. Remember it’s steadily rising at 4% per month. But where is the poll (ch 4??) and why not posted here?
I see from Sky News that it’s the Telegraph (but not on Telegraph website yet). WMA= 42:32:16 increase in C Lead exactly as per a 4% per month. And the WMA C vote is another new high (42.2 up from 41.9 if you want 3 sig figs). It’s also clear that the last Populus poll was out by 2.2 points and I/Mori by 3
Poll is in tomorrow’s Telegraph Con 43 Lab 31 LibDem 16 presumably Others 10
At 4% a month increase in Tory support we can predict two things…..
Either by this time next year we will all be voting Tory, or that 4% a month is a meaningless statistic. I am for the latter.
I think the line that the Brown bounce is over and that it’s back to what we saw in the spring with a general public mood for a change after 11 years is realistic and probably right.
That means in UK terms 40%, 30%, 15%, with 15% up for grabs. So we could see 45% to 30% for the Tories but we could also see 40% to 35%.
The LibDems won’t go much below 15% but they won’t go over 205 either.
We are therefore on course for a small minority Tory Government on current polls, but all that could change due to the dreaded “Events” or things coalescing closer to the election.
In Scotland you need to account for the SNP ( Look Anthony even though it’s getting very partisan I didn’t put GLORIOUS in front of the name), so I’d currently go for 30%, 30%, 15% 15% and 10% up for grabs.
When I don’t mention other it’s not that I dismiss them but rather that they do tend to get squeezed when a FPTP election is close.
Anthony,
Just in passing when I pull up the YouGov results as PDF’s and click on full details, nothing happens, so I can’t access the full tables. As I use a Mac it might be an issue just for me.
Peter.
ANTHONY :-
I object to your EDITING of my comments as a form of censorship ! You allow any partisan rantings by Labour supporters against anything i say including personal insults towards me – like Steven Wheeler (Lab) without any censorship !!
If you are wanting to run a site based on POLLS and peoples reaction to them – and you want to stop any partisan talk – i suggest you take an UNBIASED view when CENSORING comments and stop looking for mine in particular !
Perhaps spme of the abusive personal commenst should be looked at first ?
I intend to highlight any partisan discussion on here from any political direction for future censorship !
Mike,
Just how do you know that Anthony doesn’t edit other peoples posts?
I’ve seen a fair number of partisan posts here from all sides but few are as blatant as yours. I think you might just be particularly thin skinned while others are perhaps less easily irked by partisan posts.
Me, I’ve got a hide like a rhino so I can take most things in my stride. For the record I think I’ve only been edited once, although if Anthony was willing to fix spelling mistakes I am sure I’d get a lot more.
Peter.