With respect it may be a totally different type of recession to you but to the bloke who has just lost his job it adds up to the same thing -he is out of work. Fairly or unfairly such people tend to blame the government of the day regardless of whether it is left wing , right wing or in the centre. Gordon Brown is already getting a significant portion of the blame because the economy has gone wrong on his watch. You doubtless feel that is unjust but whoever said politics was fair? It ain’t.
Are you really seriously suggesting John that all or nearly all those in the DE socio economic group who voted Labour in 2005 but come to lose their jobs in the next 12 months will STILL turn out in equal numbers and vote Labour in 2010?
Ever since Maggie Thatcher forced the Labour party to embrace capitalism there has been very little to choose between the two main parties so far as economic policies are concerned. The test today is competence. So long as this government was perceived to be running the economy reasonably well the electorate tolerated them. That perception has changed and explains why the polls have once again swung away from Labour as indeed several of us forecast it would on this site last autumn. Was it not Bill Clinton who once asked his staff to put up on their wall a sign saying ‘It’s the economy stupid’ ? Wise words.

People don’t bother to vote when they realise there’s no point – nothing in it for them. The bigger the difference between the two major parties, the more bothered people will be.

Thatcher appealed to the working classes in a way in which Cameron doesn’t (yet), and despite Cable’s performance, a big LibDem resurgence at the GE isn’t likely among them either.

Is there polling data on turnout amongst the unemployed?

1 It could be argued that it is precisely because the socio-economic groups who will suffer most from unemployment in the next 12 months are natural Labour supporters that makes the government so vulnerable on this issue. This is their core support and it’s under threat.There are no Tory votes in danger here.

2 I grant you that relatively few of those in the DE’s thrown out of work in the next 12 months are likely to vote Tory or Lib Dem or that the DE’s will be anything other than solid Labour but I simply do not agree that they will turn out in the same numbers as in 2005 and vote Labour again. I do not believe that the majority who lose their jobs will bother to vote at all although some might even vote BNP.

3 In 1979-remember ‘Labour is’nt working’ ?- we had a very similar situation. Why should it be any different come 2010? Rising unemployment under a Labour government=net loss of Labour votes.

He isn’t getting any “stick”…?

He has a queue of people posting ,whose jaws dropped as low as his having heard Turner & Sants today before the Treasury Select Committee.

Ye Gods.
It is all truly astounding & utterly outrageous.

If GB says “it started in America” and/or “we need Global supervision” ever again after this he should resign.

yes you may be right, but for gordon to be PMQ’s as normal would be wrong, on such a sad day for the conservative leader’s family, but yes it may help brown to be a bit more in touch with people and have a bit more emotion.

It may be that today’s sad news actually helps boost Brown’s personal approval ratings by reminding the public that he is human after all. However, I doubt that the goodwill generated by his obvious empathy for the Camerons will rub off on his Government or the Labour Party.

Notwithstanding the findings in this poll as reported in the Guardian, Brown has still been able to keep his personal ratings above those for his party. If we see Brown’s stock rise, increasing the gap between his personal approval and that of the Government, this may give those plotting and positioning for a leadership election pause for thought.

There is, it seems to me, a critical test period coming up-April/June .

Gordon goes to US & addresses Congress some time in March. This is clearly a “deck clearer” for the London G20 on April 2nd.
Will there be a credible communique , representing co-ordinated international government interventions, and clear agreement on Gordon’s Grand Plan for International Financial Regulation?
If so GB could begin to look like the Saviour of The World again.If there are signs of disention & protectionism he may lose more credibility.

The Budget is set for April 22nd-what will the revised forecasts look like? What new initiatives will feature?
Many of GB’s economic initiatives are yet to be rolled out and/or have had a chance to take effect. Some-like the initiatives on Repossession are still being worked up with lenders.
Much is made by GB of “helping” the unemployed, and yet there are severe criticisms of JobCentre Plus.

By end June we should have a good idea of the outcome for unemployment, the effectiveness of Government Agencies and Initiatives in keeping people in their Houses, anf finding new jobs.
By then too, the vexed question of the Credit Market, and the effectiveness of Monetary Policy will be clearer.

Municipal & EU Elections in May & June will provide some real indication of public opinion.

Gordon could be looking a whole lot happier by July-but if he’s not I think he will be in danger of running out of time – or credibility-or both.

In other words, the game of politics is all about saying “we’d have made a better job” opposing “you’d have made it worse”, or “you’ve stolen our ideas” opposing “you stole ours first”.

In contrast, the game of this site is to exchange views, without seeking to convert or denounce each other, on what the polls are doing (and why). No floating voters will visit this site in the hope that the arguments here will make their minds up for them.

Although it’s more possible that any innovative ideas that appear might just find their way back to the parties whose activists visit by way of research, it’s unlikely that the more knuckle-headed outliers (not you Nick!) will receive the attetnion they think they deserve.

If you go back a couple of weeks I did a graph of the Lab.vs.Con position in different social groups, and the DEs, where unemployment will likely hit the hardest, were as one would expect still the most solidly Labour.