It’s going to be the decisive week. ”

Oh no it’s not–we are all nerds: in the main world no-one cares. In a week’s time it’s all forgotten for normal voters.

It’s going to be the decisive week.

Cameron has suddenly drooped in the polls after topping 50%, if he can’t regain that rating with his conference bounce then the perception will be that the tide has turned and the momentum is now against him.

The succession of conference bounces is an interesting phenomenon which has long been acknowledged internally in the formation of protocol over which party (of the main three) goes in which order: political attention is undivided and the important issues can be scrutinised better.

Anthony, I hope you’ll reserve some analysis is for comparison between the different bounces each party experienced, because it is interesting that the commentariat is now picking up and dissecting in more detail the relative effects of the season.

At this stage it seems that Clegg and the LDs have benefitted more than Brown and Labour, so we’ll have to wait and see a little bit longer whether Cameron can reimpose himself successfully on the public consciousness and, more importantly, whether or not he can regain his former position of poll dominance – having dropped 10pts so far a rebound of less than this must be considered a failure for the Conservatives.

I think this means that there will be some proper scrutiny on the Tory party conference and that can only be a good thing for democracy. If the Conservatives come up with a coherent set of policies and the public agree with them then they deserve to win the election and although I’ll be disappointed I accept that that is part of democracy.

What would really scare me is if they are allowed to get into power based purely on a good marketing scheme and an unpopular PM. I’d like to see some proper Conservative proposals coming out over the next week (which in fairness did happen this time last year) – it’s going to be an interesting week!

GBs bounce gone in a flash!

I don’t see any reason why the Tories should expect much of a bounce from their conference. They have been deafeningly quiet throughout this financial crisis
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Well – lets be fair here. If they had gone out with trumpets blaring, one of four things would happen.

1) Brown would steal any good ideas
2) They would be accused of playing for cheap political points and not putting the country first
3) Any potential flaws in their plan would be pounced on by Brown and Co – whether there are flaws or not.
4) It would all be blamed on conservative policies, as a poster further above stated.

Actualy…thinking about it….they’d all happen.

Forgive the old posts below, but Graham has raised an interesting question about what would have happened if Jim Callaghan had called election in 1978.

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According to Bernard Don’hue, Callaghan’s decision was a considered one, even if it turned out to be a disaster.
He had been privately advised that although Labour had regained a narrow, fairly steady, but still intermittent lead in the opinion polls, they would be beaten in marginal seats in the Midlands.
He went to his Sussex farm, I think for the August bank holiday, with the Times Books of the 1970 and 2 1974 elections, working through the results (as some of us do here) trying to work out what the results would be. He concluded something like 305 Tory seats and 305 Labour seats or something very close.

Thatcher, who could actually be quite a cautious figure on some things, wrote perceptively that if she had scraped in in 1978 and got the winter of discontent it could have broken her too.

. At the end of the summer recess [1978], Jim Lester (MP for Beeston, now Broxtowe] was telling people he’d clear out his office to avoid coming back to collect it (if the election was called at the end of the recess).

By 1979 everyone was looking at a pay policy smashed by union stupidity.

March 26th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
Joe James Broughton
Twickenham (& Richmond Park,Windsor)
I think the Tories would have won if the government had collapsed in early 1977. I think a lot of Tories were quite fearful that they had missed their chance as the Labour government recovered it’s standing in late 1977 and 1978 (apart from a brief Tory boost around Feb 1978). The IMF medicine appeared to be working for a while, and the air of crisis began to subside.

March 26th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
Joe James Broughton
Twickenham (& Richmond Park,Windsor)
I think an October 1978 election probably would have produced about 42% Labour (37.8 in May 1979) and also 42% Conservative (44.9% in May 1979) with the Liberals falling back a bit more – 12.8% (14.1 in 1979).

Jim Callaghan was probably pretty accurate in his assessment of about 305 seats each for an Oct 78 election. (Either party could have scraped it though – they’d have needed to reach 318+).

I sometimes think, perhaps the idea that Labour would have won in 1978 is a comfort blanket for those who’d like to believe the 1979 loss was only because of the Winter. In fact, I think the winter confirmed a deeper malaise that the electorate was already aware of.

But to be fair, a lot of Tories believed they would lose if the election was called at the end of the recess, and the chances of a majority were slim.

March 31st, 2008 at 11:58 am

I suspect Labour would have won in the late summer/early autumn but it was risky…..