On these figures the “others” should be up by one so it will be interesting for me to see what has changed in Scotland.

In January populus had the Tories very low on 11% and the Libdems on 13%, I think the only polster to have the Libdems ahead of the Tories in Scotland.

They also showed a big lead for the SNP over Labour ( although as I have said before I just don’t believe that we are ahead of labour in terms of Westminster voting intentions) . Even with small samples any increase in the SNP lead May well indicate greater disappointment with Labour at the moment that happiness with the Tories.

i.e. It’s not “we want the Tories” but ” Anyone but Labour” if that is the prevailing feeling, I’d expect the LibDems pretty soon to start emphasising the failing of Brown and Labour over the danger from the Tories and start swimming with the tide.

On another point I was sceptical about the poll showing Labour ahead so I feel that this is possibly more accurate, but it could be we are back in to one of those periods of rapid flux that have characterised much of this year.

Peter.

Doesn’t surprise me at all. WMA 39:32:18 indeed without the ICM and I/Mori polls which were clearly rogues the WMA is 40:32:17.

More Labour Disasters will simply amplify the trend. Wendy Alexander will have to go (see http://www.order-order.com) and Harriet Harman can’t be far behind. Anyway we’ll be overdue for a Ministerial Resignation by the end of the month.

This poll will put the fear of god into Labour. Its all unremittingly bad news. Infact, I can’t see anything positive for Labour at all, really?

Cameron/Osborne more trusted to run the economy than Brown/Darling.

Labour identified with sleeze more than the Conservatives (how times change)

Labour stuck on their core vote with the pollsters that perhaps favour Labour most.

Conservatives increasing their lead, even though they have been through the Conway affair.

I’ll admit, this poll (assuming its reflected over the month) is a complete vindication of Cameron’s straegy, and I have been calling it wrong by saying its time for the Tories to get out there, otherwise they will lose the initiative to Brown. It seem’s I was underestimating just how bad Labour’s fundamental position actually is….

THERE - I told you so again in my last entry !! The Tory lead is safe as houses - obviously it will move slightly - but the trends all show “a time for change” !!

So the last lot of cheering Labourites and Squealing Tories bickering and looking for reasons for a Tory demise are proved wrong again .

Political analysts and commentators can say what they like - they are paid to do just that - my predictions are free .

Anything showing less than a 6% lead for the Tories is incorrect. This gap will grow once the Liberal bounce has depleted - which it seems to be doing already .

To Messrs :- GIN / STEVEN WHEELER / ALEC / T.JONES / MARK SENIOR.

All wrong again as usual since the rogue Labour lead POLL - Steven Wheeler even had the genius to roll out one of my predictions from 17th December - he is good though , i did recommend people cut and paste em - not been wrong yet guys .

Sadly for you guys there is nothing Labour can do now to recover in the POLLS - they have had 6 years longer than their average stint in power - come on guys - admit defeat.

I can spot a rogue POLL miles away !!

[Mike - please don't try and score points off other pollsters, this is supposed to be a place for civilised conversation about the polls, not a competition! - AW]

Unlike you Mike - the other posters do not go missing when the polls go against their predictions or should that be POLLS?

Probably worth noting that Populus had the January figures of,

Labour 33% (+1%)
Conservative 37% (-3%)
Lib Dem 19% (+3%)
Others 11% (-)

So if You compare now the the poll before the Christmas period we get.

Feb
CON 40%, LAB 31%, LD 17%
Dec
CON 40%, LAB 32%, LD 16%.

So it could well be that it was the last Populus poll that was a outlier.

Peter.

Revelations that a Labour minister of the crown talks on a friendly basis to an alleged terrorist can only help the Tories,

The Daily Mirror seems to have changed the headline at
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/topstories/2008/02/04/poll-panic-for-tories-89520-20308843/

from “Poll panic for Tories”

to “Conservatives pledge to spend more on health and to cut txes (sic)”

LOL@MikeR. I should probably tell you I’m allied to no party, and enjoy politics for fun and competition of it. I don’t favour anybody (though at the mo I’m probably slightly biased to the Tories, because I don’t much like Brown) and call it the way I see it.

wolf - well, it could also have no effect whatsoever

I expected Conway to have a negative effect because it would re-emphasize a Conservative image of greed and corruption that they had in the 1990s and - to whatever degree - have managed to lessen.

The chap who is doing work for a constituent who the US are trying to extradite on terrorist charges doesn’t really chime with any existing Labour image of being in league with terrorists (if anything Labour are more at the other end of the scale - they risk losing some liberal supporters alientated by responses to terrorism like 90-day-detention). I can quite imagine that it won’t do Sadiq Khan any favours in Tooting, but beyond that?

I have to say this comes as a complete surprise to me. Like you, Anthony, I’d have expected *some* damage from Conway, and, given that Populus usually mark the Conservatives down a bit, I’d have expectd a Conservative lead of 0-2% in this this poll.

The danger for the Conservatives may lie in complacency. A small poll lead is likely to lead to much more hard work on their part, while a big lead may encourage them to coast along.

I’m a bit confused over the whole hoo-ha about bugging an MP. The only thing I found scandolous about it was the fact that there’s a rule saying you can’t do it. I don’t think for a minute Sadiq Khan has any sympathy for terrorism but it is possible. Senior politicians have betrayed our country before - surely the police should be able to use what ever powers they feel necessary. The guy is in police custody after all.

Anyway back to the polls. I’ll try not to rise to Mike’s bait except to patiently point out that his prediction was “regular” polls of “above 50%” for the Tories. I presuime from past form he will not try to defend his position but simply pretend it isn’t so.

I’ve been wondering about these “blips” and “rogue” polls. I’ve kind of assumed that they are due to random sampling errors but I guess another possibility is that people really do change their mind that frequently. If theres a positive Labour story in the morning and a negative one in the evening then two pollsters could get different results on the same day simply from the time of day they phoned and still both be “correct”.

Public opinion probably does fluctuate a lot in the very short term, while being more stable over the slightly longer term, particularly when people aren’t actually having to decide who to vote for.

This is a really good result (or total disaster if you ‘read’ the Mirror) for the Tories which might be evidence that we are in the ‘it doesn’t matter what the Opposition do we just hate the Government’ stage of the cycle.

As always it will be interesting to see the detailed data . . That from the ICM and Mori polls is now on their websites . To highlight the lack of importance we should pay to individual polls and subsamples , look at the Mori Scotland subsample which purports to show SNP in 3rd place behind Labour and the Conservatives .
Lab 41 Con 24 SNP 19 LibDem 11 .
The ICM comparison with how people voterd in 2005 shows LibDems only lose net 6 people to Conservatives and gaining net 9 from Labour . These are good figures and reflected in the 21% LibDem figure in this poll . Strangely the Comres figures were even better for the LibDems but were not reflected in the published figure of 17% , it will be interesting to see what Populus have
here .

Not that I wish any harm on MPs , but we’ve had relatively few Parliamentary by-elections since 2005 (only 7, excluding Sth Staffs). A good close contest would liven the debate - I don’t think I can wait until May!

This opinion result is Bull shit. The Labour party were 6 behind in the published article then they “revised” it to 9. What a load of Bull shit. Does anyone fall for this? Are you lot seriously suggesting that people want their MPs to be corrupt and to take money from the trough. Wow Wel i advise Dennis skinner to steal 50,000 grand from the public till, send out results shooting up. What a pile of BS. Thuis is voter fraud preperartilon. I have never heard of a company publishing an result then revising it. This company is a load of bull shit. It What load of utter bull shit.

Such insight! Preperartilon?

(While there seems little point actually engaging. Firstly, it’s not unusual for figures to be revised for media polls. The newspapers get interim figures so they can plan articles, then they get the actual figures when the poll is completed.

In this case though, I don’t think the figures were revised - when people originally put them up in Mike Smithson’s comments it was based on google news searches that had picked up excepts from a Times article that wasn’t fully available. The article also referenced the ICM figures from the weekend, and the Tory score in the ICM poll was mistaken for the Tory score in the Populus poll, hence the incorrect figures.)

Just to clarify point aobut Populus poll for The Times. There were no interim figures. The only figures which Populus produced were those released on Times Online at about 7.45pm last night, and which appeared on page two of the Times this morning. To ensure that everyone sees the figures at the same time, for the past three months a report on the main findings appears on Times Online ( in fact, last night the full report). So I am puzzled why there was any confusion since the figures were the same all the time. I think Anthony’s explanation is the one that makes sense.
Peter Riddell, The Times

I do not believe this opinion pooll. Every other one put labour closing the gap. Populus is owned by former reagan - bush employees, who are all deeply linked to the right wing establishment. I am sure if Murdoch was angry at the result he would ask for it to be “!revised”. I cannot see how this would need to be revised. Did they find 150 people hiding under a stone. Unless the public have now fallen in ,love with crooked MPs as a sort of lovejoy figure this poll is alot of rubbish. We are suppoed to believe the excuse that people like camerons face when he is on TV so even when he is found to have corrupt MPs people go ooooooo he has a nice face. Well what is it did people forget what looked like. .

Having just returned from a place abroad which did not sell UK newspapers I have had a bit of catching up to do. Seems to me that the polls have yet to settle down after Christmas but that overall little has changed. In fact are we not where we were this time last year? Some other points
1 Yes it is clear that whenever David Cameron is in the spotlight the Tory ratings increase which is very good news for their election campaign whenever the contest comes. Like Bill Clinton, Tony Blair,Barack Obama and the new Aussie PM Cameron connects with the voters. Brown does not.
2 I was appalled at the Conway affair. Why did the Speaker let him off so lightly? He should resign his seat immediately.
3 On the other hand let Wendy Alexander swing in the wind-she is a fool rather than a knave. Scottish Labour deserve her.
4 It’s early days but the Lib Dems are not making much progress despite the sleaze problems of the other two? Clegg still does’nt cut the mustard.

GIN I think your right, I was concerned recently that the Tories needed to change strategy but into a more pro-active, initiative-grabbing role but also agree that this poll seems to suggest otherwise. The old cliché of ‘its not oppositions who win but governments who lose’ seems to be proven to be true yet again, with the Cameron’s position being made as seemingly safe as Blair’s in his days as opposition leader.

My dad points out that Blair also had very little in the way of ’substance’ in terms of policy at this point and that it would probably do more harm than good going down that road this far from a general election - not to mention the threat of Labour policy grabbing and the steam being taken out of the actual Tory election campaign when it finally comes around. Another line of comparison is Major’s folly of waiting until the last minute to call an election which only gave Labour the time they needed to cement their lead… It looks like history is repeating itself.

I think with all respect to them, that MORI need to review at their polling methodolody. Back in November were they not showing a 1% Labour lead, while all the other organisations were showing the Tories ahead by several points?

I think David Cameron may have been looked upon favourably because of the way he punished Derek Conway by stripping him of the Conservative whip - not something that has happened to any of the Labour MPs caught up in the expenses row.

I cannot believe a word of this result. Let’s remember this seems to be indicating the tories are more popular now that they found out to have a corrupt MP taking money he was not entiled too, than they were in november when every other company showed labour was in meltdown. This is a a load of utter BS. Why did they need to revise, unless people at the times are writing detailed work on results that have not even been completed yet, then it is pretty obvious what is going on here. The new Murdoch did not like the result took the immature decisions of asking the company to change it. Does anyone seriously think after this scandal the tories would be at their highest lead since the gneral election. The excuse is people like the tory leaders face. Ehhh did people forget what he looked like are their a bunch of morons going oooh look he has nice face i will vote for him. Well what happened to those people in november.

“In his commentary over at Political Betting Mike Smithson raises his theory that the Conservatives tend to do well whenever David Cameron is on the television even if it isn’t very good for the Tories. He may be right. It may be that David Cameron just acted swiftly enough to neutralise any damage to the Tory brand.”

Are you sure a party leader has this sort of impact? The Government Department at the University of Essex conducted major research into this area and, surprisingly, found very little evidence that the personality/personal characteristics of a party leader has much impact on election results: See http://www.amazon.co.uk/Leaders-Personalities-Outcomes-Democratic-Elections/dp/0199253137

This is silly. The figures weren’t revised, you’ve had it from the horses mouth.

Thye were revised it said so on numerous respectable websites. Thye were revised.
1) Doy ou serious tythink the tories would have their biggest lead since the gneral; election now.
Since then we have had cash for perrages, november northern rock scandal, the politcal sncadlas, but whwen do the tories get their bioggest lead now Why It does not make snse
2) The figures were revised. It is said so on many respectable websites.

The “It’s the economy, stoopid” idea could explain it. Such uncertainty, yet so far not enough data to show actual significant job-losses. I no longer agree that Cameron needs to simply wait and not offer any substantial policy ideas. The lead is too soft and not nearly large enough for the mid-term.

Jordan - If history does repeat itself, then 1992 is a better comparison, when Major left it until the last minute, and then (unexpectedly) won another five-year term. Brown is perfectly capable of doing something similar - he certainly has Major’s lack of “presence” in common.

I noticed today Labour proposals regarding a contract that will have to be signed by new council tennants asking them to seek employment
I thought they introduced a law sometime ago that you had to seek active employment if want to claim benifits so im not sure whats changed
But it does send out the message as I have said before the political agenda is moving to the right and it is quite obvious to me that Labour are struggle to match the Tories when it actually comes down to policies that the people would like to be introduced and know will be carried out
I just wish Labour wouldnt keep putting forward headline grabbing initatives that decive the voters and dont deliver on and this cant be how The Labour Party wishes their party to be viewed by the public I think their support will continue to slowly fall away if they dont start to introduce policies that are honest and actually work because “Joe public” are not as stupid as they may think!

Peter - certainly not sure! My own belief is that broad party image is the most important factor in how people decide who to support and I’d expect party leaders to have a very strong influence upon how party image develops.

Can’t comment on Tony King’s book without reading it, but certainly the 2005 BES suggested leader image was a very important predictor of voting behaviour at the last election

http://www.essex.ac.uk/bes/Papers/BritainVotesjune4b.pdf

BS - sigh.

You’ve had it from the political editor of the Times that they weren’t. Mike posted the wrong figures to start with for reasons that have been explained, it’s pretty obvious if you read the comments there. Other sites would have sourced the figures from Mike. Unless you either accept the bleeding bloody obvious, or come up with evidence compelling enough to outweigh Peter Riddell then I’m going to stop giving you the benefit of the doubt and decide you just trolling.

BS has been all over Tory home being abusive.Just ignore him. His mum will be home soon and he will have to tidy his bedroom and do his homework.

On a more positive note,’the Peter Riddell’. Excellent.
Don’t always [ie.usually] agree with him about Mr Brown but I love reading his articles, give what he says serious thought and have the greatest respect for him.

Just goes to show that it is possible in politics to respect those you do not always agree with.

Was that the blog equivalent to name dropping Anthony? Very cool.

You have to say that this is a Good poll for the Tories but why is there such wide variation in the Poll results at the moment ? As for IPSOS-Mori they should really look at their sampling procedures because they are miles out of line with all the others.

Conway doesn’t look to have hurt the Tories at all - probably because DC acted so quickly.

There is a lot of negative sentiment about the economy at the moment - within the papers, tv and just people’s views generally . I wonder if this pessimism is being picked up in the polling results at the moment. If this is so, this “pessimism” will continue to hurt Labour until economic sentiment turns the corner which maybe 6,9,12,18 months away - who knows?

I was on PB last night and that is what happened. They were betting each other on the outcome for fun, got impatient, started googling and were posting incomplete sentences.
You know this already - I know.

I think the Tories are doing well, but I do suspect not quite as well as at the end of 2007.
We need to move the agenda on to a positive program for government (the trick is without giving too specific details away).
Northern Rock is linked to other economic problems, and Brown’s hands are not clean - but there is limited mileage in implying that the government should have done a better job running a bank - that’s a very socialist thing to suggest.

I note that David Davis has called Gordon Brown a “liar” on the basis that there has been a breach of Brown’s pledge to protect MPs from having their communications intercepted. There was I thinking that the Tories might have learned their lesson about trying to jump on the bandwagon of opportunity without thinking. There is no evidence that ministers were aware of what happened only that some unnamed officials may have known there were issues. (Probably the same unnamed officials who have made a career recently out of leaking useful information to the Tories).

There are only two issues here. Firstly, the legality of the police decision to bug the MP’s conversations with the prisoner and secondly, the question as to whether MPs should be exempt from bugging. Neither of which, I must say, is a matter of national interest.

Davis’ attempt to try and fabricate some kind of pseudo scandal out of this hardly supports the image that the Tories are allegedly trying to portray of a party readying itself for government. Cameron will be furious about this and I await Davis’ embarrassing apology within the next few hours. And to think that some within Tory ranks actually wanted this clown to be their leader.

As for the Populus poll, it simply serves to remind us that the polls remain volatile. In the same way that the Tories need to do more than rely on Labour gaffes, the government need to do more than rely on the likes of Conway and his ilk. Ultimately while these scandals make for good copy, they are froth and will not make a jot of difference to how people vote in a GE in 2009 or 2010. Of much more significance is the damage to the government’s reputation for economic management over Northern Rock (whether you in fact believe that damage is justified or not).

I amk not being a troll. There was a clear cased that the times itself reported it as 37 for the tories but the poll was revised the evidence is on the politcial betting website in the comments and links. Someone linked to the exact artcile and quoted specifically the tories on 37. That cannot have been guess work. I cannot accept that tories would be better than they were in november when no other company has even suggested such cased. There has been anger at the tories not support for them. I will come back with further evidence for this to proove I am not trolling,. We have to watch out that these results are not fixed.

3:30 Please do not be offensive to me. You are not acting like lady. I was not offensive to anyone i replied offensively to people who wre offensive to me.

I have reas on the PB website that numerous people had found search terms that indicated the tories were on 37. Is it really likely that the tories would be on 40. What a load of BS.

I can’t help wondering if BS was surprised that the Tory lead fell in the wake of Peter Hain’s troubles?

4:36 It did not fall it stayed up. Labour went up to lead of 1 after new year due to good press, then the hain scandal hit and the tories went up to 6 now we are expected to think a tory scandal would cause support for the tories to rise by 3. I think that is fantasy land. I can smell fish.

For god’s sake. Look, it’s this comment here, Andy Cooke did repeated searches on the Times website before the article was live and found two quotes from the article, one said “The Populus poll, undertaken over the weekend puts Labour on 31…” the other said “the Tories on 37 per cent, down three points”. Andy concluded that Populus were showing CON 37%, LAB 31%.

Once the full article became available we were able to see that the second quote in full was actually “This contrasts with an ICM poll in The Sunday Telegraph, done on Wednesday and Thursday, which put the Tories on 37 per cent, down three points”. The quote could never have referred to the Populus poll anyway, since if the Tories had been on 37% they would not have been down three points.

Incidentally, I’ve noticed some similarly crackpot comments on politicalbetting and ConservativeHome from people who are almost certainly you claiming MORI showed a 1 point Labour lead and then revised their figures. This is also utter nonsense, MORI showed a 1 point Labour lead, and are still showing a 1 point Labour lead. The figures are here.

That’s your lot, no more troll food.

Thanks for that call me a crackpot and then ban me from commenting. So what is it insult somene and then don’t allow them to reply. Thta is not honourable. I could just as easily say you a creackpot.

It seems to me that the last two polls have cancelled each other out in terms of influence; one relatively good poll for Labour, and now one for the Tories. I’m surprised they’ve generated so much comment.

I wonder if Cameron may be benefitting from the Obama effect. ie Obama’s key theme is ‘Its time for change’. The more he is on TV saying this in the news clips we see, the more that ‘message’ will filter into the mind of the UK electorate and think the same.

john t t - Maybe your right, but Major’s unexpected win was down to the then leader of Labour being an absolute twat who no one wanted as prime minister. You may say the same as Cameron, but at least he has appeal. Kinnock (spelling?) didn’t and so I think your wrong in thinking Brown has any chance of bringing Labour another term in power.

Nick Keene:-

” I was appalled at the Conway affair. Why did the Speaker let him off so lightly? .”

When Martin heard of Camerons action in withdrawing the whip he said ” Hasn’t Derek suffered enough”
Speaker Martin & his wife have very nice trough tickets themselves. Speaker Martin -with his handpicked Committee- is responsible for blocking accountability & transparancy on Allowances& Expenses.
He is part of the problem-not the solution.

Cameron today is reported to have issued this edict:-

“All front bench Tory MPs must name their staff, reveal the number of staff they employ, the position they fulfil and whether they work in Westminster or the constituency. If a Member of Parliament employs a member of their family, they should be separately declared, within a salary band which should also be declared.”

Well done for taking a lead-but why just Front Bench.What about the Backbenchers? And what about the rules on “second home” Allowances?
People like Conway & Winterton must be made to understand that if they want access to taxpayers money they either account for their use of it -or they don’t get it.

And actually-why the hell do MPs need £150k + pa on top of their salaries to carry out their tasks?

Great Poll result for DC & very bad for Labour.

Adrian I do agree with what you say but that momentum seems to be gathering pace quicker in the U.S.than it is here (admittedly they are actually engaged in an election at the moment)
I was supprised when Gorden Brown started using the word “change” so much in his early speaches as P.M.(not so much now)I thought he would have used the words “build on and improve on” much more often maybe it was because he would only be able to use change at the start of his premiership not at the next genral election (if he does people will really be scratching their heads)where as Cameron will be really stressing to the people change is needed
As I have said before I dont see a contest when they go head to head thats when I think you will see the real swing to the Tories

Well that was fun - NOT ! The absurd left wing ramblings of BS - and people on here were actually responding to him !!

There seems to be the odd comment that i only appear on here when there is a good Tory POLL - not true , anyone wanting to check will see that i appear after all POLL results - all are worth commenting on by me . It’s just a shame that certain individuals are offended by my accurate predictions .

I , as you know have no political agenda one way or the other - it does’nt take a genius to see the direction of British politics in the next 2 years - bar some kind of catastrophe in either of the 2 main parties .

If those POLL results from Scotland mentioned by someone else above are correct and the Tories are steaming ahead in there too , knocking the SNP and Liberals back , we are in for some interesting political times even sooner than i thought - i mentioned that would happen a while back , but i was pillaried for that comment too !!

Anthony will have to let BS keep posting.
On the last thread we were accused of doing a ToryHome.
Only fair to have a LabourHome a day.

On Davis calling Brown[?] a was a bit taken aback myself.
Not comdemning it out of hand.
Just thought there better be a good reason.
It seems there is.
Sky News are reporting that their sources have said that Jack Straw did know about it in December, even though he has told the House of Commons he didn’t.
The story is on their politics page.

Gordon has hastily announced they will may start using intercept evidence.
Could be cynical and say it is a distraction from the other story. Or maybe they have so much of it in the back room of downing street, they might as well use it.
Can’t put their old tapes on ebay.

a liar…

anthony- please tell (BS seeker) he is talking total BS his self, this poll is very bad news for labour but one thing is right in what (BS seeker) said and that’s the amount of money being spent by MP’s plus exspenses, it’s to much and most MP’s would not be bothered if a 20% pay cut was impossed as they would still make more money then you or me

that clocks out of sink again i posted my e-mail at 8-18pm

Sorry Sally as posted by several people on pb.com your story re Straw is false and I suggest you eat humble pie and withdraw the liar accusation .

Please SallyC I wouldn’t want BS at my LabourHome - or anywhere else - but it’s easy enough to scroll past him.

I think I’ll hibernate for a while, and hope the political weather changes for the better - green shoots and all that.

I meant to add - can this website’s strange clock fast forward us into spring, or can it only time-travel an hour or two into the future?

It’s permanently on continental time because I like long bright evenings

The polls vary mainly because of sampling error. As I have repeatedly explained, although the normally quoted error is +/-3% in fact the 90% confidence intervals are about +/-5% so 1 poll in 10 will be out by more than 5%. Reading detailed trends into individual polls is a mistake.

Just in case it wasn’t in the UK News, it could be election time up here if the SNP lose the budget vote tomorrow.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7229224.stm

If nothing else we’d get lots of polls…..

Peter.

Suddenly and for no apparant reason this site has degenerated into a welter of childish abuse and infantile expression usually found only in a primary school playgound. So -although nobody will miss me -I too am going into hibernation in the hope that things can only get better. Farewll for now from me then to the likes of Peter Cairns and Mark Senior with whom I have enjoyed many a joust in the last 12 months.

I will miss you Nick .

NIck,

So long and thanks for the fish….

Peter.

In fairness I think there was only one culprit - I think we all did very well in staying adult about it . I have to admit I can be pretty bad at falling into that trap sometimes. I just count billy goats now.

Why shouldn’t MPs be allowed to employ family?

The point is it needs to be a qualified apppointment, not hidden, and for doing real work.

To say people shouldn’t just because they are family strikes me as unfair and over-regulation.

We need to see how the polls settle a bit if we’re looking at the effect of scandals….

Of course MPs should be allowed to employ family - they can be the most obvious (and probably most loyal) helpers. But once something goes wrong, as it obviously did in the case of Conway, the media hunt like a pack of wolves, and any sense of proportion goes out of the window until they move on to another story.

Obviously any payments made from taxpayers money should be properly recorded and open to scrutiny - and this wasn’t the case, so it invited fiddling by the few who are too greedy. But I hope MPs will resist a panic move forced on them by the wolfpack, and will devise a sensible system that leaves both them and us satisfied.

The reason that the public did not react to Conway was because it was seen as corruption as such in their eyes - as the use of family members is acceptable in the commons by all parties . On the other hand - all the stories coming out the other side of the house are constant and touch on corruption by the information being witheld .

Cameron also did the right and honourable thing by criticizing & punishing Conway . Brown , like Blair hangs onto his naughty colleagues till the bitter end - the public don’t like it and start to link Brown into the same habits as if he is condoning it all . Whether he is or not !

First line should have read “NOT seen as corruption” - by depest apologies for my typing error .

I think the damage from Conway will be to politicians and Westminster in general rather than specifically the Tories.

Most people will accept that out of 650 MP’s only a dozen or so are really cheating the system and that they could be in any party.

However the other thing the public also believe is that almost every other MP knew what was going on and looked the other way.

It’s a sort of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” mentality, where you can be pretty sure that someone is breaking the rules but if you don’t report him he won’t report you, so it just continued until someone gets caught.

I think there is also a perception that the level of expenses and the flexibility MP’s are allowed are not acceptable and that for years it’s been one rule for them and another for the rest of us, with MP’s putting there own interests ahead of ours.

I don’t necessarily agree with that view but I think it is pretty much the public perception and it’s a “Plague on all your houses” attitude that means the party of the person in power isn’t as important as “they are all at it”.

Peter.

This is Peter Ridell’s comment on Speaker Martin’s approach :-

“the review announced by the Speaker appears more glacial in its pace, though wideranging with a “root-and-branch examination” of allowances, and an important caveat about “building its options for reform on the existing regime”. The review comes in two parts: first, on how MPs’ pay is fixed by July, and, then, on expenses and allowances by the autumn. ”

Note the “important caveat”.
Note the membership of Martin’s Committee of timeservers & insiders.

Where in the real world outside Westminster can you claim up to £250 in “expenses” without any receipts? This just typifies the problem-the enormous body of MP’s “Allowances” has grown too big, and they should not be policing it themselves.

So far only Cameron & Clegg have shown any leadership on this issue-but neither has gone far enough.

Speaker Martin’s Club will not provide the answer-as someone here once mentioned in another context-Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas.

Mark Senior you are quite right.
My mind is clearly too suspicious.
On consideration, I can see.
There is no proof he was a liar.
It seem that his senior officials were informed about a press story.
These officials were informed about a breach of a fundamental doctrine that the the PM told parliament was still fully in force.

Press story V breach of fundamental democratic principles???
Which do you tell your boss about?

On reflection all is clear.

Sally , a fair apology , well done .

Thanks Mark…

And I don’t know if I should venture into the fray again….but The Sun [?? I know, I know!] is reporting that when Jack Staw was told about the press interest in ‘the interviews’, he was told they were asking about the ‘interview’s being bugged’. Which IF TRUE does make his claims that he had not heard about ‘the bugging from senior officals’ less than…gallant.

He had heard that the press had heard, but hadn’t heard it really was happening from senior officials, even though it appears they knew.

I think that is right?

Or maybe not…some news reports say the officials about the bugging from a second report from the press rather than ‘offically’…????

I will shut up now….
Anyway..no proof ..etc..

Been an intersting day in Scotland.

Sally C,

Yeah, i thought it might be close and to be honest i wasn’t happy about the concessions to Margo McDonald.

That’s not because of her being ex SNP but rather that where as the Tories over police numbers or faster business rate cuts or the Greens over more money for public transport were pushing on policy she was pretty much blackmailing the government for local advantage.

I don’t know how much Alex’s bit of brinkmanship worked but The Libdems, Labour and the Greens all abstained. It’s covered here.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7229507.stm

Everybody is of course spinning for all they are worth but i think the SNP are the clear winners and the Tories are pretty happy. I found this quote from the Tories particularly stinging,

“Today is historic - not because of what (the SNP) has done, but because it marks the final humiliation of the Scottish Labour Party.

“A year ago they were a party of government. Today they are not even fit to be called a party of opposition.”

I think like it or not by abstaining both labour and the Libdems have made it look that they were scared of an election and I suspect that will boost the SNP’s standing. The next set of Scottish poll figures will be interesting and with a bit of luck one of the Sunday’s may have commissioned one on the possibility of an election.

Much as I personally dislike the Tories I suspect the two happiest men tonight might be Alex Salmond and David Cameron.

Peter.

Anyone seen PMQ’s today? What on Earth has got into them?

That was the worst performance from them so far. Cameron’s first question was “How many reviews has the government had?” Which isn’t exactly the most taxing question to rebuff in the world. His second was “Are we keeping A-levels?” which he repeated half a dozen times even though GB answered it the first.

Despite that Brown still looked like he was under pressure. Tony would have kicked arse :). Just my humble opinion of course - what do you guys think?

Stephen…. Personally I thaught Cameron raised a good point about reviews…and A-Levels. Brown didn’t answer either question. Cameron’s question was “are A-Levels here to stay?” and GB’s answer suggested… only until 2012, Therefore the answer being ‘No’….without actually saying it, in true GB style! Reviews cost money and are a short-term way of showing that you are doing something about a problem when in fact you are just buying time before you have to become accountable! …….not what tax-payers want!
GB didn’t answer the first question, Cameron had to tell the country that he had already had 52 reviews… that’s one every four days of Brown’s premiership!

Steven-At first it did seem odd-but then the familiar Cameron tactic emerged- ie to portray GB as indicisive & incapable of answering a straight question.

Thus-Answer is n reviews-one every four days- i.e. no decisions , just reviews-eg are A Levels to stay or not?-answer yes till 2012 when there will be a (wait for it) review…..yes but will A levels be kept-no straight answer-QED/Job done.

Whilst recognising the tactic, I don’t like it .I would much rather hear forensic questioning of policy.Brown is vulnerable to this because he starts to spew out platitudes & does avoid straight answers.
Trying to make a fool of him can be an unedifying spectacle IMHO.

I would be interested to know from Peter Cairns if the Tories’ Westminster prospects in Scotland are largely a function of their performance at Holyrood, or does the Cameron factor have any influence?

Still Cameron seems to be on a role so I guess he feels it’s paying off?

Colin,

Holyrood or Westminster? It’s hard to say.

I don’t think that today’s events in Holyrood will have done them any harm, but I suspect it will have strengthened their existing vote rather than brought them that many new ones.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see them open a gap to overtake the Libdems who certainly will have been hurt by today. I wouldn’t be surprised to see ( in Holyrood) it go from about 14/14 and 12/13 to more like 12/16 and 12/16.

I think Labour having had the SNP accept the Labour amendment and vote for it, only to have Labour then abstain in the vote on a budget that contained their amendment, just looks like a farce.

There is a headline to that effect in tomorrows ( Thursday 7th) Scotsman with a picture set from the chamber of Alex laughing his head off and wendy with her head in her hands.

Even though I’ve expressed my sympathy for WA here before I think this has really been another nail in her coffin but in this case if this was her strategy she only has her self to blame.

Interestingly I think that one of the effects of the last six months or so has been a shift away from UK news dominating events to more scottish issues and I’ll give you an example.

Every Wednesday they go live on Radio Scotland at the start of the lunchtime news to PM’s questions.

Today the started with the first question and then before Brown had fully answered the announcer cut in and said,

” We’ll go back to that if there is anything interesting” and that’s the last we heard of it.

Now granted it wasn’t a big news day at Westminster and it was the Scottish budget and a potential election, but it does seem to suggest that right now England is another country.

Now that might seem like a very nationalist statement and me being partisan, but I genuinely believe that there is with a more proactive administration in Holyrood a greater focus in Scotland on Internal rather than UK affairs.

Having said that it would probably change if a UK election was close.

In addition and I am slightly cautious about saying this as an outsider but having read much of the discourse on this site and others over the last few weeks I feel that there is a real mood of anger in England at the moment, almost a sense of a nation that feels under siege and turning inward.

Issues like sleaze, race, tax, benefits and government inefficiency all seem to come across as if people just don’t believe that anything is going right at all.

If that is true and Cameron can tap in to it Like Obama, then I am actually starting to think he can win.

In contrast although Scots seem to be more worried about the economy right now north of the border there is a more positive mood.

So to sum up, I can’t say which has more influence on Tory fortunes, but it doesn’t matter because they are performing well in both parliaments.

What is perhaps more important is the divergence in politics between the two countries.

Peter.

Anthony. Have BPIX given up polling? Nothing since October.

I think the reviews question was a good strategy actually- but DC should have followed it through. The image of a PM who simply sets up reviews instead of taking decisions backs up the image he is trying to give to Brown. Whether he landed the blow or not is another matter, but I htink the idea was good.

Peter-
thanks-most interesting.

Colin

Collin - there was a more recent one (November I think) but the Lib Dem score was never published so it’s not in my tables. They were never regular, they are just when the Mail on Sunday feels like doing a poll.

Lukw - It’s a strategy that anyone who’s been in a bad marriage will recognise - if he makes decisions without consultations, he’s a control-freak, yet if he carries out consultations, he’s a “ditherer”. As an approach to PMQ’s that doesn’t work for me, but it seems to be working for the Tories.

As an example of the former, the decision to give the Bank of England independence was made without consultation.

The best strategy for Brown would be to rise above “tactics” and carry on “dithering”. Many people would have appreciated a bit more dithering by Blair before he sent the ships to Iraq.

Cameron’s criticism of Brown for conducting reviews is solely about scoring party political points. I have no problem with that; he is leader of the Opposition and if that’s what he wants to do that’s his choice. Let’s not pretend though that there is some great point of principle here.

The chief criticism of Blair and subsequently Brown is that frequently policy was formulated on the no 10 sofa and there was never any consultation or analysis taking in the views of experts, professionals and other vested interests. The purpose of a review is to do just that. If Brown doesn’t have a review he is called a Stalinist control freak and if he has one he is called a ditherer. This is the politics of the schoolyard.

As Colin says I would also be much more impressed if Cameron engaged in some proper forensic criticism of policy (he has plenty of material!) rather than seeking simply to maintain a barrage of negativity designed to win him power by default as the next best option. That may very well work (and he is entitled to take that option) but, in my view, it greatly reduces the prospects of Cameron achieving a big majority because he is not going to generate a positive reason for voters to go out and vote Tory. Blair’s success in 1997 was that it wasn’t just about giving people a chance to give the Tories a bloody nose but people were enthused positively about his pr