Populus October Poll
The Populus monthly poll for the Times, bumped by a day because of economic news, has topline figures with changes from their last poll, back at the tail end of August before the conference season, of CON 45%(+2) LAB 30%(+3) LDEM 15%(-3).
A mixture of their conference and their handling seem to have pushed Labour back up to around 30% in recent polls, but in this poll at least their is also a boost in Conservative support which means the Tory lead almost unchanged from the last Populus poll. Such was the overshadowing of the Conservative conference by the economic crisis that by the time this poll was conducted their publicity boost from conference may have already been and gone, but we’ll have to wait a few weeks to be sure. Meanwhile the poor old Lib Dems seem to have been squeezed following their brief conference boost – ICM last week gave them their second lowest score of Clegg’s leadership, this poll is the lowest score Populus have given them under Clegg.
In other questions Gordon Brown is enjoying a boost to his reputation, his average rating out of ten is up to 4.38 from the dire 3.9 he sank to in June. David Cameron still outranks him on most measures though – he is regarded as being ahead on “good judgement” (40% to 36%), character (50% to 32%) and – rather self-evidently since what would Brown be a change from – representing change (60% to 22%). Again rather obviously Gordon Brown is seen as more experienced (77% to 11%). Cameron and Osborne continue to be more trusted on the economy than Brown and Darling by 38% to 31%.
The worst news for the government is that, despite the economic problems, people continue to look for change rather than experience. 65% still agree it is “time for a change”. As I’ve said before, this is an incredibly strong public narrative, the sea change in public opinion that sweeps government from office. The economic situation means that the government do at least have something they can throw against it – that it’s no time to risk a novice government – but that desire for change is a powerful trend to resist.
Filed under: Populus, Voting Intention
‘more trusted on the environment?’
Don’t you mean economy?
I don’t really think this supposed Labour revival will have any real impact unless Brown can capitalise very soon, otherwise I fear, with all the bad news coming in continually, even this mini-revival will just slip away.
The interesting thing is that Gordon saved his bacon but not necessarily that of the Labour Party. I’ve said a few times that our assumption of Gordon being the problem is overstated – in many respects it is the labour Party that is the problem.
On the proverbial doorsteps we can test whether people respend to the bogeyman of GB or the terror of ‘Labour’ – it’s as much the latter as the former. Use the phrase ‘get rid of this government’ and most times something close to a yes results.
Still a long way to go however and a great deal of quite interesting water to pass under the electoral bridge.
By the way you mention sea changes. I was reading the Spectator on the plane back from Japan (by the way I hope no-one takes it seriously when it talks on economics) and in this review it claimed James Callaghan’s sea change comment was made in 1970. Surely it was 1979 and about Mrs Thatcher? Anyone know for sure…
http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/books/2188491/the-end-of-old-labour.thtml
It is interesting that Populus is now giving the Conservatives a slightly higher lead than most other pollsters, where the reverse is usually the case.
I wonder what YouGov, for instance, would be reporting now.
This does not look good for the LibDems.
Because the next election will be so competitive, they may well be squeezed by those who want Labour out and also by those who don’t want the Conservatives in.
Matthew – since the full quote ends “I suspect there is now such a sea change – and it is for Mrs Thatcher” it can’t have been in 1970!
Callaghan is quoted as having said it to Bernard Donoughue near the end of the 1979 campaign,
This surely is a very good poll for the Tories. Their Conference was blown off the front pages and they had minimal free publicity from it. Brown is on our Screens daily with the economic cisis and pretty much getting an easy ride from the reporters who seem without question to buy into the meaningless mantra “we’ll do whatever it takes” . The Tories have actually risen to the mid 40’s and have a 15% lead. I accept that anything can happen but to my mind the only people that can throw the next election are the Tories themselves – and sadly they are of course capable of doing that !
“Meanwhile the poor old Lib Dems seem to have been squeezed following their brief conference boost”
This is a line I find hard to understand.
The LDs, just like the Liberals before them have been experiencing a squeeze ever since the 1920’s and the country began our experiment with the multi-party system.
They get squeezed when they fall in the polls and they are about to get squeezed when they rise in the polls – are the pips squeaking yet, or is this just old-fashioned lazy commentary lacking in insight? You decide.
It is the lot of any party traditionally presented as representing the centre-ground to get squeezed, but the reality is no party has an exclusive hold over ‘territorial’ positions, especially not since political cross-dressing came into vogue in the past decade.
Surely it would be more accurate to analyse when squeezes occur and more informative to explain why they occur.
As far as this Populus poll goes it looks very difficult at first glance to determine whether or not there is a squeeze at work on the third party, or whether one side of the gains can be accounted for by the reduction in others.
The 2pt fall in others (12% to 10%) is significant in understanding the way opinion is shifting and is more than probably due to the reduction in overall dissatisfaction in the three main parties when they gain media coverage for their arguments which amounts to more that a soundbite or a slogan.
However I think it is difficult to draw this conclusion from polls whilst they fail to advertise the number of non-voters uncovered in undertaking the survey, so a healthy dose of scepticism must be retained regarding the relevance offered.
On a side note, there is growing acceptance that the credit crunch is the product of structural incentives in the financial services industry forcing the market to extremes, I wonder if the same can be said for the polling industry?
Callaghan, like Brown, overstayed his welcome. The last straw came when he got off a plane from the Caribbean in the middle of an econimic crisis and said: Crisis? What crisis?”
I think the Comres on 28th of August is less accurate as it is inconsistent with 3 polls before and 3 polls afterwards. If we ignore the Comres poll and average these polls then we see that Labour has dropped 1% and the Conservatives have gained 3% in about one week.
This POLL is just the beginning of getting back to normal – the reintroduction of “old” faces in the cabinet is still yet to appear in the POLLS !!
Poll is not an acronym.
James – unlike the sea change quote, which Callaghan did say, “Crisis What Crisis” was just the headline of a Sun article reporting Callaghan’s comments, he didn’t actually use the words.
What Callaghan actually said was “I promise if you look at it from the outside, I don’t think other people in the world would share the view that there is mounting chaos”. Not such a snappy headline
Prate Out Loud Ltd
The part nationalisation of the banks is going to be a big factor in the next election.
For me the Conservative’s unswerving commitment to free-market economics was the most serious obstacle to voting for them again.
The polls indicate a desire for change, but surely now not a change to the free-market policies of Old Conservatism. If Cameron and Osbourne signify their commitment to making Govt a mitigator of the flaws within capitalism, they could win a very large majority IMHO.
This poll merely confirms the previous two held since the end of the conference season
For the moment however our eyes are fixed on the financial turmoil unfolding before us and how our rulers handle it.Brown started off quite well with shades of his ‘foot and mouth’ performance in the summer of 2007. He looked and sounded the part even if he offered nothing of substance. But Darling has dithered and swithered and made one inept speech after another thus throwing away whatever plus points Brown might have accrued.
Tomorrow may bring a cut in interest rates of as much as 1% but at a time when the UK banks are desperate to retain deposits and disinclined to lend a penny to anyone could somebody explain to me in my ignorance how this is going to help at this precise moment if the banks don’t pass it on. Should’nt the cut have been made three months ago?
Nick – possibly, but for traction in the polls, the opposition parties need to be able to point to what they were saying themselves. Otherwise, it’s just hindsight.
There’s clearly an argument / difference between “dithering” and “considering the options carefully”.
Your opinion is clear. Whether it’s shared by the rest of us will be reflected in the next polls.
I’m sure I read a comment on here that it was always best to “go last” in the conference season. It didn’t work out that way this time.
re your request for an answer…
Purely selfishly, my tracker rate will go down automatically with the base rate, bu that apart, sentiment, confidence might well improve if rates are lowered.
The effect on inflation would be mitigated by the fact that demand has been strangled, oil and other commodities have come down considerably from the heights of recent months.
In other words, no reason not to lower interest rates.
John TT
You raise an interesting point about how much it is necessary for the opposition to have a narrative which proves they were saying something different on the economy to the government, and for that narrative to be proved right.
“for traction in the polls, the opposition parties need to be able to point to what they were saying themselves. Otherwise, it’s just hindsight.”
Is that really necessary? The ERM crisis and ‘Black Wednesday’ is pointed to as the turning point in Lab and Cons fortunes in the 1990s – but Brown was a supporter of the ERM. The opposition parties were arguably louder supporters of it than the Conservatives – yet it was the Conservartive who carried the can.
In fact, looking back over this current crisis, the Tories have not done too badly. It seems a bit much to expect them to have a detailed alternate policy right now to get the country out of a problem that is partly caused by the government’s own reckless spending and debt. But Osbourne wrote to Darling after the Northern Rock nationalisation, and twice since, urging him to raise deposit insurance to £50k and offering to help get it through the commons. This was igonored until the move had to be brought in in a panic last week. And Osbourne has been saying since last week that the banks need recapitalising – now done by Darling in a last minute 2am crisis meeting with the banks.
I’m not saying the tories have the answers to this mess – I don’t think anyone does. But the question is, do they need them, in order to come out of this crisis ahead of the government?
That’s a genuine question?
They don’t need them, they merely need to win the argument.
My point was that saying “we’d have done that 3 months ago” would be seen as hindsight unless there was a supporting piece of evidence.
You’ve used two pieces of evidence to support the idea that Osbourne would have acted differently. Whether that helps win the argument depends on whether people believe you/him, but to say “we’d have done that” without supporting evidence is meaningless.
Darling would argue that increasing the protection to 50k woould have sent the message that the depositors were at risk at all. He’d argue that Osborne was encouraging depositors to feel unsafe by simply posing the suggestion that they weren’t Before the Iceland bank crisis, no depositor has lost a penny, or needed to worry that they might.
I can’t remember clearly how the Major Govt was attacked, but it won points for Labour simply because it hit home.
Does “ditherer” hit home? We’ll see.
I await PMQs with interest.
Other James
Interest rates just cut by .5 %
Brown will probably defend any “dithere” accusations by stating that the BofE wanted a co-ordinted global response, and that took time.
So while Merkel and Ireland acted unilaterally, our MPC were encouraged to work with all the central banks to cut rates at the same time.
From BBC web :
The US Federal Reserve has cut rates from 2% to 1.5% and the European Central Bank trimmed its rate from 4.25% to 3.75%.
The central banks of Canada, China, Sweden and Switzerland all took similar action in the co-ordinated move.
It would be interesting to see in a Poll what percentage of relative party support is actually in support of that Party. I guess that the LD’s 15% is actually 15% of people who support the ideas and philosphy of the LD’s as they are likely to stay the 3rd party unless we have a hung parliment.
I wonder what percentage of the Tories current 45% is actually in support of the Conservatives and their ideas and what percentage is actually those whose first priority is tactical, in that they want labour out and see voting Tory as the only way to achieve that.
I guess their may be a good 15%?? of those negative voters?? who may attach their preference to the Cons out of a desire to chuck out Labour than being dazzled by the Conservatives.
Is their any poll Anthony or questioning that is used to ascertain wether a preference is for one party or tactically against another??. Thanks
Probably under half those who support the Lib Dems in the polls are actually Lib Dem identifiers, i.e. aware of their policy and support it.
Interesting Poll-even more interesting Populus trend Graph post 2005 GE, in Anthony’s “Polls” data:-
Cons-an inexorable rise except for the brief Brown Bounce.
Labour-an inexorable decline except for the brief Brown Bounce, and the recent gains from Lib Dems.
Movements :-
Since Brown Bounce (27/09/07)-Cons +14 Lab -11 LD -2
Since Lab Low ( 8/06/08) -Cons n/c Lab +5 LD -5
Pretty good for Cameron, awfull for Clegg, wait & see for Brown.
The Big Question is how today & it’s aftermath will play out.
At PMQ’s GB was in in control & credible on the rescue package.DC ceded the ground and questioned on the details. He laid down markers on rewarding gung ho bankers-GB countered with FSA building that into the re- capitalisation events.
All square I thought-national crisis/all pulling together.
The Elephant in The Room at PMQs was the UK Economy.
GB,pressed by a Tory backbencher, sensibly refused to say what the Treasury forecast now was-until the next Budget.
The IMF forecast is for recession 2009 to early 2010.GB’s current Forecast for 2009 is + 2.25/2.75.
What will Labour’s tax & spend policy be for the next two years? Can they really bring themselves to cut the rise in Public Spending-or will they heap more debt on to the mountain being created currently?
How will a Public already asking ( The Politics Show today) -as did their US counterparts-”why are we paying this huge sum to Banks at the drop of a hat” ,react to cuts in Public Spending?
Conversly , recent Polls have indicated a public mood to curb Government spending, and reduce the burden of taxation.Perhaps this mood wiil be enhanced by the Governments apparent ability to conjure Billions from a Hat when The City comes begging.
( Incidentally can any one explain where AD is going to borrow the £50 billion from to buy shares in Banks-not Banks presumably??)
And how will Cameron & Osborne pick a path through all of this?
The drift of Public reaction to today’s events & their effect;to the encroaching trends in the real economy, and to the performance of Cameron & Brown through the next few months will make for interesting Poll results.
It’s too complicated to be answerable in one question really. If you ask a straight – are you voting for the party you most support, or voting tactically against another party, the Liberal Democrats are most likely to receive tactical votes: in the big PoliticsHome poll of marginal seats I asked people that – 86% of Tory voters said it was their preferred party, 12% said it was a tactical vote. 82% of Labour voters said Labour was their first choice, 14% said it was tactical. 68% of Lib Dem voters said it was their first choice, 28% said it was tactical (that is, of course, only in a third of the country).
The other way would be cross referencing voting intention with what party people generally identify with. ComRes normally provide cross breaks for that, in their last poll 79% of Conservative voters saw themselves as Conservatives, 85% of Labour voters saw themselves as Labour and 66% of Lib Dem voters saw themselves as Lib Dem (16% of Lib Dem voters generally thought of themselves as Labour).
Colin – the other interesting factor is the total dominance of the economy on the news agenda. It has pushed everything else completely off the scene. While the economic situation will presumably take a very long time to play though, how long it will continue to dominate the news agenda is a different question.
Colin – re public spending.
I think its apparent to most people that public spending is way too high and needs cutting but GB wont cut it this side of an election. Even before all the recent financial mess and with just a “slowing” economy the Government was atill heading for record borrowing territory. Public spending will have to be cut but I fear it is Cameron that will have to do it.
On your other point I think there is some difference between public spending in general and the 50BN the Government has spent today.
Normal spending is gone for good when it is spent but with Northern Rock and with todays Bank bail Out today the Government would argue that they expect to get all the money back. Whether they will of course is open to debate.
Regarding the Government’s financial position – this will have to be publicly aired in the pre budget report which is due in the next few weeks. That will be interesting.
The economy dominates because the events of the financial upheaval are breathtaking and neck-breaking in their scale and speed.
There a many investors out there waiting to call the bottom. It won’t happen until greater transparency is achieved, and also perhaps a steadying of the housing market.
I suggest that will take twelve months, given a continuing following wind, and that management of the public finances, when it returns to “normal”, will never be quite the same again.
“On your other point I think there is some difference between public spending in general and the 50BN the Government has spent today.”
Indeed so KTL-but I suspect to the vast majority of voters its all of a piece with this huge dollop of money the government has suddenly conjured up.
I heard an interviewee on TV saying-how can they find all this money for Banks , but not for the NHS!
One sometimes wonders about the terrible lack of understanding out there.
Yep – Cameron was undoubtedly correct at the Conservative conference when he said, if elected at the next GE, he expected to inherit a real financial mess.
With 18 months to go to the next GE, and the country almost certainly in a recession, which is set to bite in terms of jobs over the next few months, the Governments financial situation is set to get extremely dire.
Its ironic as far as that person interviewed on TV is concerned that the NHS may have to be fairly heavily cut before long – never mind having more money spent on it.
It is noticable that some Labour supporters continue to cling to the hope that the financial crisis will somehow be a ‘game changer’ for their beleagued government. As it is now becoming clearer by the day from the latest polls that this is not happening perhaps they will soon revert to their previous plotting in an effort to evict Gordon Brown from Downing Street and replace him with that fellow -what’is name-who was recently seen waving a banana around at their party conference.
Other Labour supporters however have long ago seen the writing on the wall and like many Conservatives in 1997 merely wish to retire into opposition as gracefully as possible and work out where it all went wrong.Waiting for May 1997 to come and go was a long drawn out agony for friend and foe alike. Looks like we are in for a repeat.
A couple of points.
I liked the line put by Ken Clarke that anyone who was prepared to say for certain what is likely to happen in these uncertain times is an idiot.
Following on from this point I think being able to show with hindsight that you were right is less convincing than the ability to act and the ability to show that you have acted decisively.
This is because narrow markets are irrational and respond speculatively to developments. When this translates to the broader democratic society the effects which start to appear are hyper-rational in the profusion of their various forms of logic.
So if there is any blame to be shared around over this crisis it is to be given to those who’ve provided mixed messages to muddle any clarity of purpose – which has the effect of frustrating their own proposed solutions.
It’s not a question of right and wrong, it’s a question of resolve. And in this because the Chancellor has less control over economic decision-making tools than the Prime Minister (look who is chair of the new National Economic Council) the final decisions of the government will remain open to valid questions. This unstable relationship at the heart of our politics leads to bad message management and has the effect of overturning their intended outcomes when players in the various markets (dealers in finance, commentators on politics etc) start to speculate. Maybe Mandelson is the man the media should be talking to more often…
It is the political instability which has lead to the economic instability. From one day to the next Brown can turn from being best man for the job to being the overriding negative influence. Clearly Brown is a good man but his overshadowing of cabinet colleagues is undermining their collective strength.
How is it possible to reestablish conditions of calm? By running around shouting ‘don’t panic’?
In looking at the alternatives we must ask: has Osborne or Cable created more consensus, more harmony and more unity? Who has been swifter off the mark and beaten the other to the punch, and who is capable of the stronger counterpunch?
In such circumstances as these I think bookmakers will be willing to take all bets at almost any prices!
I don’t think a deposits guarantee of £50k is anywhere near enough to assuage fears in the face of a banking collapse, because the effected parties are those who are selling houses. Perversely and anti-intuitively this refusal to make 100% guarantees will take sellers off the housing market and therefore could bring about a return to stability even if the cost is of market retraction.
So, perhaps typically for me, I’m prepared to argue against the prevailing orthodoxy and say that Darling should actively do nothing by postponing the pre-budget report in order to body-swerve to his political opponents and regain control of it’s contents. Doing so he will be forcing a confrontation with Brown in which either Brown will lose the next election by sacking his Chancellor or win it by shrinking Browns personal influence. Failing to force a full confrontation will only prolong the period of instability and could have much greater and more far-reaching effects, which I doubt would be pleasant for any involved.
Such are the stakes at play in volatile situations.
Confucius said something about exciting times…
There is no date fixed as far as I know for the pre budget report but it has always been delivered in the Autumn – meaning Oct or Nov. I dont see how Darling could avoid it.
It won’t tell us anything we don’t already know – Government borrowing at record levels, the 40% Golden Rule exceeded(Even without bank bail outs), tax revenues have collapsed, probable negative growth for next year, more money being spent on benefits as more people lose their jobs etc. It will be humilating for Darling to deliver it and it will be well covered by the press.
Will there be any hints of public spending cuts in view of the above – I doubt it.
John T T
In your first post, you call for the Tories to abandon the “Old Conservatism” of free-market economics. That’s actually the new Tories; old Tories were the Heaths and Edens of Keynesian consensus, and further back, the protectionists and authoritarians of the Corn Laws and the Six Acts.
The new Toryism of liberal economics and (hopefully) liberal social policy from Thatcher onwards are almost in opposition to the origins of the party. Cameron is a Thatcherite – http://www.conwayfor.org/our-nine-principles.aspx – as he declared these 9 principles to be the “common ground” of policy-making.
“Waiting for May 1997 to come and go was a long drawn out agony for friend and foe alike. Looks like we are in for a repeat.”
Yes Nick, I remember it well.The economy was improving, but I-along with so many- had come to despise the Administration….and that nice Mr Blair seemed so plausible & fresh & new-not like Labour at all really !!!!
plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.
“the total dominance of the economy on the news agenda.”
I can’t see this changing Anthony-maybe right up to election day.
It will dominate as we move into recession because so much other domestic policy is shaped by it.
“Will there be any hints of public spending cuts in view of the above – I doubt it”.
This will be a test for Cameron & Osborne as much as for Darling & Brown.
Which of them will dare to speak the truth & say we cannot afford this now-knowing full well that Government spending is the only thing powering a declining economy right now.
Public spending is also people-hundreds of thousands of new people on the Public Payroll , with gold plated pension rights, chargeable to future taxpayers, of the sort which are but a fondly remembered perk for most Private Sector employees now.
If it is to be the latter who bear the brunt of this recession, whilst the former are untouched by it, there will be a political price to pay for anyone who advocated that policy.
Colin – “I can’t see this changing Anthony-maybe right up to election day. It will dominate as we move into recession because so much other domestic policy is shaped by it.”
I can well imagine it will top public concerns for that long, but column inches (or news bulletin minutes
) isn’t necessarily the same thing. After a while, they will run out things to report – the current density of events can’t continue, there are only so many rescue plans, so many banks under threat.
For how long can news bulletins and newspapers be headlined with “another hideous day on the market”? After a while “economy still rubbish” ceases to be news. How long is that? I don’t know – maybe you’re right and it could be years, but…
IMHO people get fed up of crises and the people that provoke them. Gordon Brown seems to need a crisis every day which is too much for most people.
The LibDems unfotunately are beginning to sound idiotic – first Clegg wants tax cuts and now the Scottish LibDem leader wants HBOS to stay as an independent bank. How?
I’m surprised that polling shows such a high proportion of voters apparently voting for a party whose principles they generally accept.
For sure its very much less than it was if party membership is any guide.
‘wolf
IMHO people get fed up of crises and the people that provoke them.’
I’m not convinced; I think people are far more concerned with how to get out of the current situation…
Hope is dim but still there for some of us. A small rise is better than the constant fall in Labours percentage.
“Brown has found his Falklands said a glum looking shadow minister” reported on Radio 5 today…..even I would say that is a bit over the top….however…
A slightly disappointing poll, though Labour back up into the thirtues and the fall of the Lib Dems continues to give us cause for optimism.
The other thing is that there appears to be a tightening in the differentials between cameron and Brown on some of the key areas. This often occurs quite some time before the respective alteration in the headline voting figures, I believe.
In Chesterfield voter contact work we’ve done in the last week certainly suggests a more positive impression of the PM. That doesnt mean that there arent still doubts or that he has gone from zero to hero but his work in the last 2- 3weeks has certainly been on the whole well received and some people are starting to alter their opinions of him.
I do have some sympathy for the view that people may tire of there being a crisis, and of course there is no doubting that time for a change is a powerful political slogan, but whilst I think this poll may calm some Tory nerves there is hope for Labour in it, making it a fascinating time to be a political anorak.
I think the biggest losers are the Lib Dems, at a time when there might have been seen to be a reason to be against both of the main parties and given their pride in the predictions of Vince Cable you would have expected a major boost for them but actually the opposite has occured.
THE ECONOMIC ELECTION:
in 97 as we all know the conservative got wiped off the face of britain by blairs labour party but the conservatives would have lost the election without theeconomy putting in the deat nail of john majors govenment beacuse they were becomeing unpopular through being in office so long. in the case of the election the economy played a big part and this could aso be GB’s problem at the next GE, hes the man who took us into the down turn even if in this country only 75% o it was his fault if 97 is repeated it could be even worse than that for labour.
We’re back to the daily gaffs and shooting in the foot by Brown – after the terrible reshuffle a few days ago we are given on a plate the £400 billion giveaway today – ironically it will be borrowed money !!!
Weighted Moving Average is 44:30:16.
Whether the electorate will notice that the fatal delay in annoucing the rescue package knocked tens of billions off their pensions remains to be seen. But to anyone who understands management this National Economic Council was a massive blunder.
I wonder if it’s time to quote Denis Healey ‘ You cannot spend yourself out of a recession’.
Richard Manns – apologies; by “Old Conservatives” I meant circa 1980-2005
I clicked your link – under “freedom” I think Thatcher possibly spluttered even more than I when Cameron declared that incentivising bonuses should be unilaterally scrapped while the taxpayer was contributing. He sounded Old Labour!
What baffles me is the lack of an effective body to put the case for the bankers. No-one is there saying “OK we were part of the problem , but we must be part of the solution”. Instead we allow confusion to reign in the minds of the general public,
Most people have no idea , e.g. that when they spend £20 in B & Q, a substantial part of that goes into their own pension fund.
wolf – the first thing to get right is inflation. Once that’s down a positive cycle can begin. Increasing spending in the Healey sense would increase inflation and therefore “you can’t spend your way….” works.
This is different, because this “spending” isn’t going to increase inflation.
Take away Vince Cable, the LDs would have little left.
If you ask any Lib Dem about economic policy – the answer is we have Vince.
I agree that the Lib Dems appear to be the main casualties of the current financial crisis in terms of public support. Would it have been any different if Vince Cable were leader and not Nick Clegg? Possibly is the answer but we will never know.
Despite a few isolated and meaningless by council by election successes in the last week or so the Lib Dems are facing a meltdown in both votes and seats at the next general election unless they can reverse the present trends in the polls. If Nick Clegg struggles to make himself heard during the campaign itself-as well he might- then it is hard to envisage the Lib Dems coming through with one of their last minute revivals.
Does that mean that the Lib Dems should dump Clegg. No. He may look out of his depth now but come the mid term of a Tory government battling with the tail end of a recession and with a Labour opposition discredited and in disarray Clegg could attract a lot of middle class protest votes-and that’s what the Lib Dems are all about after all.
For all that Vince Cable is a capable politician, and his warnings on debt driven growth have been proved right, two things should be remembered.
First that although he has been there for a long time it is only the current crisis that has brought him to the fore and secondly that u the LibDems have never really promoted any real attempts to slow the housing market or curtail the banks in the last decade.
Cable may be more effective than Cameron when calling Brown to account because his party aren’t seen as cheer leaders for the city, but when the economy was booming and the majority of LibDem voters were enjoying it, the LibDems weren’t calling for credit control, larger deposits or part nationalisation of the banks.
The truth is all parties, even my own, when they had doubts, felt politically unable to challenge the new orthodoxy when it was delivering the growth and revenues to improve public services and when high employment, rising house prices and increased wealth were all popular with the population.
The public may be spitting at bankers and their bonuses but go back a few years when they were handing out mortgages at cheap rates and people were making more money from the rise in the price of their homes than their wages and you wouldn’t have seen many complaints.
In addition politicians kept their fears to themselves because it is rarely good politics to tell people the good times won’t last when your opponents are saying they will just role on.
In short “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone”. We shouldn’t let the debate over who is most to blame let us forget that we probably all had a part to play in creating this mess.
Peter.
Guilty!
I must say, I’m sure my house was giving me smug looks when I was leaving for work a year or so ago. Not laughing now, are you Number 5!
John tt
LOL.
Peter.
Peter,
it is my understanding that Vince Cable has come to prominence precisely because he was making those warnings as long as 5 years ago.
In my area housing has been one of the biggest issues campaigned on by the LDs, so if they aren’t getting sufficient credit nationally then that is the fault of the media. Perhaps you could enlighten us with your partial recollections of what they did on the issue north of the border when they were in coalition?
As for the nationalisation of financial institutions didn’t Nigel Lawson do exactly that in 1984 (I forget which one)?
As for the polls, I shall repeat that it is idiocy to make firm predictions about the direct consequences of a volatile situation. The dust is still spreading and the only thing which is certain is that big changes are possible.
Johnson Matthey was the Bank that was rescued under the Tories in Oct 1984.
It is, and remains a successful chemicals and precious metals company, aswell as in it’s mreo traditional roles of cutlery, jewelry, and silverware.
It originally started in the 1800s in Gold, but from I think about the 60s diversified into other more risky banking in a separate bank division.
Actually, under the rules then in the 80s, the Bank of England was allowed to rescue a smaller bank without the government involved, although in effect, they were part of the decision.
On the polls, yes, of course, everything is technically possible.
Even a large Lib Dem majority.
But I don’t think it will happen.
Peter
You are absolutely right when you say that collectively all of us bear some responsibility for creating this mess. An earlier post by I think it might have been john tt spoke of a uniquely casual attitude-he said culture-towards debt in the UK which transcended politics.
I have wondered for a long time how some folk fund their lifestyle including those on far lower incomes than me who take exotic holidays abroad, the brand new plasma tv sets I see in houses I visit in my voluntary role, the unbelievable largesse we all- myself included- spend on presents for children at Christmas time. We knew in our bones that the party had to stop sometime but we buried our collective heads in the sand and took no notice.
For all that -and mindful of another unhealthy national characteristic-finding someone else to blame- we elect governments to set an example, to lead not follow, to educate us about the errors of our ways NOT to encourage us in our vices, to pander to our weaknesses or to buy our votes on the ‘never never’. We have been living beyond our means for far too long. We should have known better and so should our leaders.
In the past governments prevented their populace from becoming over indebted by raising interest rates as the economy overheated. This was unpleasant for many and not always popular! Even with such management, the natural economic cycle still occurred with the occasional mild recession.
It was obvious (not just to Vince Cable but anyone with eyes) that the economy was becoming massively overstretched some years ago.
This government bought some time by keeping interest rates lower than they should have been by managing inflation with unprecedented levels of cheap immigrant labour. The result of which is, now the inevitable is upon us, a much more severe correction to take place over a much longer duration.
Our government are not the only ones in the world to have put electoral hopes before the good of their people but they are, rightly, going to be blamed.
No matter how well they manage this it is of their making and when the dust has settled the press will certainly point this out along with the increasing unemployment figures and resultant rise in crime (and continued lack of prison spaces!)
I expect the polls to show little or no revival for Labour right up to an election.
Reply to Anthony Wells:
Is saying that Labour are doing poorly in the polls because they are rubbish to be considered partisan? I may have expressed some of my views in a colourful manner but as far as I can see I have said very little that bears no relation to the assessment of the polls. Personally, I find the whole area of what is partisn or non-partisan and what is meaningless or inappropriate a rather big mine field. I wish you well in your endevour.
Last year it is probably true that a good Conservatives conference gave them a boost and Brown’s ‘dithering’ over calling an election did make a difference in the polls. But conference boosts normally subside within a few months. And did Brown’s decision really upset Labour supporters?!!!! The people it must have upset were Conservative supporters who thought they could have won that election. Such a person may be biased towards thinking it made a ‘damn’ difference in the polls. As I said, big mine field, good luck.
Neither of these properly explain why Labour did so poorly in the polls and failed to recover in the slightest. And it should be remembered that information about what was going to be in the Queen’s speech was in the media for a few days BEFORE the speech as well.
Ivan,
The government has to an extent let us down, but in truth if they hadn’t backed the boom they would have been replaced by a government would have.
How many terms would Blair have got if he had a manifesto talking about minimum 20% deposits for a house or a return to restrictions on credit like the old hire purchase rules.
Thomas,
Why don’t you just come out and admit your a LibDem supporter/member. We all worked it out ages back and you pretending to be a neutral is starting to get embarrassing.
Peter.
If I may make my point more clearly. Only someone who disagreed with Labour’s plans (as outlined in the Queen’s speech) would really be disgruntled by Brown’s decision not to call an election after hinting that he might. I’m sorry but your arguement is blatantly illogical.
Call me old-fashioned but it is not good speeches nor the occational human error but it is policies that change people’s lives that permenantly change polls.
The POLLS will not get any better for Brown after another appalling day shooting himself in the foot – is Iceland really a terrorist threat ? The mind boggles with this government – was’nt it this guy that suggested local authorities etc spread their money out , but forgot all about the Icelandic banking investors when he promised that all British savings were safe in Icelandic banks – but has now changed his mind and says it’s only private investors !!
If only there was an election tomorrow !
The POLLS keep on saying “go now” – Brown’s as unaware of that as he is about how to solve the problems he & the USA helped create. When the Tories take over, the national debt will be at unbeliveable levels – I hope Brown does’nt walk away in 2010 with a peerage & a ministerial pension etc after the mess he created (just like the bankers do after doing a bad job)!!
I really doubt whether the electorate will like the spectacle of Gordon Brown clearly enjoying himself in this crisis (because he is “back in the game”) and cracking jokes about failing banks whilst splurging £200bn of our money.
NBeale:
i really doubt whether the electorate will like the spectacle of gordon brown clearly enjoying him self in this crisis
well the voters of this country will most likely by the way the polls are going vote out this govenment and im sure that gordon brown will be in for a shock in his seats even if his party holds the rest, hes unpopular noth and south of the border which makes him unelectable, but if DC shots his self in the foot then we may see another round of small gains for labour in the polls all DC has to do is sit their and do nothing for 12-18 month and he will win hopefully with a big majority, but this far out you can not predict anything.
My suspicion is that you are wrong, and this will be playing in Brown’s favour. Doing things to try and save the economy, taking tough decisive action, that sort of thing. It is playing to things that were once his strengths.
That he made a joke or the particular powers that were used against Iceland are not the sort of things that carry weight alongside whether banks are rescued or not, or whether people who have invested money in Icelandic banks get it back or not.
We see this theory around a lot at the moment Anthony. The question is;
1. Does Brown get more blame for creating the mess?
2. Or does he get more credit for trying to sort out the mess?
I suspect it’ll be 1 rather than 2.
So far John Rentoul appears to be the only commentator saying this economic crisis is BAD news for Brown;
http://blogs.independent.co.uk/openhouse/2008/10/by-john-rentoul.html
And I have to say, my suspicion is to agree with him. The next poll (this weekends Sunday Times/YouGov?) will be very interesting indeed.
Banks being rescued/outside events/drama = Good for government
Back to mundane bad news = Bad for government.
Very roughly of course, and they can’t be separated.
Dammit. I just used 1000 words writing that and JJB did it in 26.
“One of the causes of the Brown government’s poor ratings has been his ability to put forward any compelling vision or purpose”
i think you meant “inability”, but this is for me at the heart of it.
Whatever Thatcher did, she had buckets full of Purpose.
Major turned it around for himself when he got on his soapbox and behaved with Purpose.
Now Brown is energised, has Purpose, and needs to sustain that beyond this crisis and really engage with the voters if he’s to have any chance of avoiding heavy defeat.
Judging by PMQs this week with six days of anti-Labour news to work from it was embarrassing from a Conservative perspective to see how easily Cameron got rolled over.
This must unsettle all but the most bigoted partisan.
While I don’t think Labour is out of the woods by a long stretch of the imagination the lack of ability on the tory front bench must the a cause for government optimism.
I think the public identifies the Conservatives as representative of the bankers whose irresponsible lending decisions are blamed for the mess. This creates amazing diffuculties for Cameron’s strategists as it smashes their ability to build a coherent narrative around their preferred theme of ‘responsibility’.
-
Peter,
you are perfectly correct to suggest I’m not impartial or objective, but please remind me if I ever claimed as much. I admit if there were a referendum tomorrow I would probably swing towards the LDs (an election in my constituncy would probably be a different matter).
You do yourself a disservice to suggest I’m actively pushing one side (I think that would be a bad thing) and I reserve the right to call it as I see it.
Can you handle a difference of opinion?
“I think the public identifies the Conservatives as representative of the bankers whose irresponsible lending decisions are blamed for the mess.”
To back up your theory, six of the rich hedge funders who have been making a very large packet in very recent times where on the boating holiday Mr Cameron went on, the one the media were banned from.
Note the muted response from DC when criticism of these people and there part, or making money from the countries financial demise(peoples pensions etc) in the last few weeks.
This weekends polls will tell us which way opinions have gone with regards the credit crunch……the only non-negative thing from the last few weeks is at least the polls have actually moved a bit.
Thomas,
I’ve watched you off and on for months and I can’t remember you actually criticising the libdems once, while you readily dig at everyone else.
In addition time and again you have talked them up either in terms of their policies or there prospects.
Your increasingly looking, walking, and talking in an extremely duckish manner, and it is a yellow one.
Peter.
Peter,
my comments are there for perusal at your leisure. You don’t need to regale us with boasts of your bad memory.
Notwithstanding the accuracy or not of your impression of bias, I’d have thought it beneficial to the overall tone of discussion here to have a greater amount of representative balance rather than have these threads devolve into a forum for partisan proselytising.
I therefore feel fully justified in leaving straightforward antipathetic sentiment to others as you’ll find I consistently make reasoned analysis and judgements which are there to be countered whomsoever disagrees with them or not and on whatever basis they wish to do so.
Put simply, the general context of current polls is that we have a government which is lagging in the polls to the opposition and a third party which is fluctuating under its recent general election performances.
Is this an accurate snapshot of current opinion, and if it is, is it also an indicator for future elections?
For the former I would say possibly, for the latter I would say probably not.
In both cases it is perfectly fair to ask why, indeed that is what this blog is for. Don’t you agree?
So please don’t get ditracted and make the mistake of trying to identify the sympathies of the commenters from the comments they make (it is dangerous to be drawn in by blatancy as you may be being manoeuvered by subversives to effect their counterproductivity – I mean, give the oracle some credit, he must realise he isn’t helping his stated cause even if he’s just enjoying singing while he’s winning, because the current tory lead won’t last forever. I also wonder how long the SNP can keep things up for…).
I agree with Peter Cairns.
On the polls, I think we might see some further increase for Labour, for some weeks at least, because of the emphasis on a banking crisis rather than domestic policy.
Thomas,
Verbiage.
Peter.
Thomas:
I also wonder how long the SNP can keep things up for…).
Nothing succeeds like success.
Sometimes you can get signs that there is a big change in the political weather. I heard about it but wasn’t much engaged in 1945. In the years leading up to 1997 what the polls were saying was corroborated in many ways by information and experiences that I was encountering quite randomly.
For example I remember reading a passionate well argued and well written article in a flute player’s magazine, reprinted in the comparable one for oboe and bassoon players.
This is not the likeliest place to get a critique of a governments education policy, but it was clear indication that here was a not-so-small group of people, musicians, eductionalists, parents and others who were angry enough about the governments performance and that there were journalists who thought it appropriate to set aside the normal non-political conventions of such magazines
We have the polls, and they get better as time goes on, and much better than eye of newt and toe of frog, but I still want corroboration like that from the soft and unquantifiable information.
Here’s some. It comes from to-days government press release. I think it tells us something about Glasgow East that we didn’t know before the bye-election, and it answers your question:”how long the SNP can keep things up for….”
Superintendent Michelle Martin said:
“Tackling disorder and violence has been core police business in and around Shettleston, Baillieston and Greater Easterhouse for far too long now, and while we have been fortunate enough to receive funding which enabled us to get more officers, more regularly on to the streets, we know only too well that enforcement alone is not the answer.
“The introduction of some fairly innovative ideas and facilities to channel youngsters’ energies into recreation, including the Outdoor Gym at Sandaig Park, Barlanark and the Phoenix Community Youth Bus, with parents also seeing a difference and endorsing the message that antisocial behaviour is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.
“We appreciate the strength of feeling within the Scottish Government to help tackle the various forms of antisocial behaviour and I am delighted that the Minister has been able to take this opportunity to once again see for himself the marked difference we are now experiencing in the East End.”
As Christian described it on these pages: “bog standard government and a few minor gimmicks.” It’s not difficult and it shouldn’t be enough to get elected, but consider the competition!
The SNP aren’t winning. The others are losing. They can keep it up long enough to destroy the UK as we know it. It’s not what I would choose but it’s going to happen.
“The SNP aren’t winning. The others are losing. They can keep it up long enough to destroy the UK as we know it.”
This reminded me of a couple of comments I’ve heard at different times applied to various gangs of criminals.
“they depend on never having any bad luck, if we count on fully exploiting one piece of good luck we’ll catch them…”
All things being equal, they will return to a state of equality.
So unless independence provides some advantage which outweights the benefits of the multi-lateral coordination we have recently seen it is wrong and won’t happen.
As yet the SNP has yet to offer any suggestion of this, which is presumably why they’ve gone so quiet during the current financial crisis – their nationalism is directly at odds with the internationalist attitude required to function in a global economy.
“So unless independence provides some advantage which outweights the benefits of the multi-lateral coordination we have recently seen it is wrong and won’t happen”.
And just why on earth wouldn’t an independent Scotland be able to participate in multilateral coordination like any other nation in Europe. We’re leaving the Union, not the planet.
No one in the SNP has a problem with the coordinated international action Brown has called for or an international system of closer scrutiny and regulation, we’re all for it. the idea that some how an Independant scotland wouldn’t be as involved as any other nation is just palin silly.
As to the SNP being quiet, we have been vocal about what we can do as the scottish government within our powers.
On the UK front the news has been dominated by the crisis and the Governments response which has put brown on the front page. That has meant that he has benefitted from it at all other leaders expense.
Be it Salmond, Cameron or Clegg we all have to find a balance between promoting stability in a crisis and criticising the Government, and at the moment we are all slightly in Browns shade. How long that will last depends on how things go.
Right now we are all pulling together to get people in the life boats, but when that is done and as many as possible are safe, we’ll be sure to turn our attention to the idiot who hit the iceberg.
Peter.
Peter,
If you’re saying the SNP couldn’t do anything differently and you wouldn’t oppose the international consensus, then separation would be in name only – in which case did we ever have anything else?
The Irish experience is informative in this regard.
So, what is the point of the SNP?
Thomas,
No I didn’t say we wouldn’t do anything differently, I said we have done all we can with the powers we have, which as you know are far more limited than the UKs. With what we have, we are doing our best to deal with a mess not of our making.
As to the second part, as an independent country we would be as involved as any other in establishing the international consensus and would play our part.
I hope your not trying to advance the argument that if independent nations reach consensus they might as well not be sovereign, because that would mark a new low even by your standards.
The Brown argument is that we would be to small, vulnerable and isolated, an argument that has no basis in fact as there are lots of small countries involved in the EU scheme and they aren’t vulnerable and weak.
There is an interesting article on Browns attack on Independence in today’s Herald. It makes a particularly good comparison between the Uk and Ireland.
http://www.theherald.co.uk/display.var.2460784.0.0.php?utag=29088
Peter.
Peter,
RBS was a symbol of the renewed nationalistic pride embodied by the SNP and it’s failure reflects directly on the party.
Please tell me: wasn’t there a need for a broader range of views around the boardroom table beyond the parochial Scottish mafia headed by Goodwin and Matthewson?
Do you think it is realistic to claim that RBS could have been bailed out by the proceeds of North Sea oil when this was already allocated to cover the SNP’s proposed budget deficit (and wouldn’t have been sufficient in any case)?
So how else except by English money are all those jobs at the lavish new RBS HQ in Gogarburn to be saved?
Even with independence Scottish monetary policy would still be decided de facto by the Bank of England until it was to be transferred to Frankfurt because you have no plans for a central bank and integration into the Eurozone can’t be expected to be immediate, so in the SNP vision independence actually means greater dependence PLUS less influence – “play our part” is empty rhetoric in default of a real plan or any real ideas.
The Herald article you cite appears to be basing its naive conclusions on entirely subjective identity politics, and not objective brass tacks. The issue here is not any constitutional settlement, but the market structure and the regulatory regime – and with the example of RBS to back up the SNP’s case it’s clear that the former and the latter are completely separate.
But I guess we will have to wait until the Glenrothes referendum on the SNP’s inadequate shambles to prove how the public calculate their judgement. I agree that the public might answer that you’ve done nothing wrong, but they may equally say you’ve done nothing.
I think we strayed a long way away from polling towards partisan screeds about the SNP, I think that’s enough now.
Anthony,
Spoil Sport.
Peter.
Peter,
what is your projection for the result in Glenrothes and how do you think this has been influenced by recent events emanating from the financial world?
How will the result be noted in Holyrood?
thomas:
The Glenrothes election is for Westminster and the only connection with the Scottish Parliament is that the SNP government would like to encourage voters to believe that one more SNP MP at Westminster is worth voting for because his party colleages in a differently organised parliament are more popular and successful.
The SNP will not win in Glenrothes, Labour will lose, and sombody else has to get the votes. Scottish voters will not vote Conservative, and where the LibDems don’t appear to be the best buy for the negative voters they use the SNP.
The SNP don’t mind being used, but they must be wondering how they can turn negative voting which favours of their candidates into support for their referendum.
Recent financial melodramas won’t make much difference by themselves, but inasmuch that they draw attention to the obscene rewards for some whose talents are only average (as they must be) and because some of them must be the Non-Doms that a little while ago the party of the left told us made such a contribution to the economy that they could not be taxed lest they went elsewhere, then they may think that a government so bemused by the perceived success of the very rich that it allows them greater influence over government policy than the wider party needs some time in opposition to connect with its roots and the lives of its supporters.