The effect of the expenses row
Polls from YouGov, BPIX and ComRes have all shown the same sort of impact for the expenses row, so let’s step back and look at the bigger picture.
In Westminster polls both the main parties seem to have suffered, this means that the Conservative lead has been broadly unchanged, but Labour have been pushed to unprecedented lows and are close to falling to third place. The beneficiaries have been the others, most notably UKIP. This isn’t necessarily solely a result of the expenses row – in the run up and for a couple of months after the last European elections we saw a similar boost in support for “other” parties. They got the publicity of the European elections, and people who were voting for minor parties in the European elections were more likely to give them their support in Westminster voting intention polls too. However, as the publicity of the European elections faded away, so did their support in the polls.
Will the same happen this time? I would expect so, at least to some extent. The publicity of the expenses row will fade to some extent, the publicity the smaller parties receive around the European elections certainly will. Unless geographically concentrated, it is practically impossible for a fourth party to break through. The more interesting possibility is the effect of Labour falling behind the Lib Dems if that happens. If the polls were to start consistently showing Labour in third place the consquences upon an already fractious Labour party, and a volatile public, are both hard to predict.
For the European election meanwhile, there seems to have been a huge shift in support towards UKIP, who people appear to have picked out as the best vehicle for a protest vote over the expenses scandal. In this instance it is the Conservatives who are really losing out – until the scandal broke it looked as though they would be the easy victors of the European elections. Now UKIP have re-emerged, people seem to be chosing to vote UKIP rather than Conservative to register their disgust (and that’s without mentioning that UKIP tend to appeal more to Conservative voters in the first place).
It’s quite likely that UKIP will gain even more support than they already have, since news coverage of them increasing in the polls and them being people’s vehicle of choice for a protest against expenses may encourage more people to support them.
Filed under: Europe
But I thought I read on pb that UKIP were only on 5% in one of these polls.
Labour is like what Germany was towards the end of the second world war, opposion closing in on all sides.
Yep – .Brown Bread’ !!!
i dont agree with this.
ukip have a massive problem with corruption and expenses with their mep’s.this will be highlighted in the run up to the election.
bnp are more likely to gain or people wont vote in protest.
Weighted Moving Average 42:23:19 and the LibDem:Lab gap is down to 5. On the Retrospectives YouGov seems to have been spot-on and the last Populus poll was even further out (-4.8).
Labour is in melt-down and if they don’t ditch Brown then will be below the LibDems within 3 months (at present rates 1 month)
I don’t think anyone knows how these elections will turn out-regardless of the Polls .
Watching the voxpops on Sky you can see how the average punter has become bloody angry & totally disillusioned.QT the other night was like watching a citizens court from the French Revolution.
People are punch drunk with all this stuff- Furniture by the wagonload, -500 trees for god’s sake!-food -untaxed capital gains , mortgages…..I honestly believe that this is game changing and that “I will no longer vote” could be the main protest.
For the EU elections the usual poor turnout could plumet even further, making these pointless elections, completely without legitimacy .
How will the Local Authority votes be affected by the Westminster disgace?
So far as the GE is concerned, Cameron was right to say this represents a “danger” for UK democracy.
But unless he wishes to wake up to a GE turnout so low that it renders the next Parliament a joke before it assembles, he needs to start de-selecting the worst troughers, and ensuring, with Brown & Clegg, that Kelly produces a system which the public will accept & believe in.
And that is not going to be easy-till then the voters are capable of almost anything, all of which is unpredictable.
The UKIP increase shows a strange logic.
People are planning to vote for a party which is even more inward looking than the main parties. (And which has had a third of it’s MEP’s removed for fraud of one kind and another).
One would imagine that voters would look to more outward focussed parties – the Greens perhaps.
But no.
These are strange days in British politics.
UKIPs success is not a suprise. I am a very active member of the European Movement and regularly enter in to debate with them. A large % of Tory supporters are anti-EU, and as long as the Tories remain committed to Britain remaining a member of the EU they will inevitable lose a substantial slice of their natural support at EU elections. A quick look at Cameron’s EU manifesto proves their problem. It makes no commitment whatsoever to leave the EU, but witters on about Lisbon, which is a dead treaty. Moaning about Lisbon is easy and gives a pretence of being anti-EU, but only UKIP, the BNP & other fringe parties actually say they they will pull the UK out of the EU. At General Elections the UKIP protest vote will return to the fold and vote Tory again.
Anthony,
It may only be six seats but it does look like it’s the SNP not UKIP that are benefitting in Scotland.
Peter.
The SNP could be heading for a very large margin of victory in Scotland, especially if there’s not much of a gap between Labour and Conservative, which is certainly a possibility.
Yes Eric, you could be right. i just wonder how many potential UKIP voters meant BNP and god forbid will vote for them . I will be very interested in following this and see what really happens.
No matter what, with the present thoughts to immigratuon and the expences affair through all the pertirs, Mr. maliks involvement has probably not done the labour party any good at all..
I am very interested what the next week brings us for suprises in the voting polls analysises..
I don’t really know anything about Scottish politics, but surely the spectacle of the UK parliament being revealed as a rat’s nest of corrupt practice can only help the cause of independence? Even if SNP MPs were in on the troughing, it is still “Westminster” that is the problem.
If Nick Clegg can pull off something equal or greater to the Gurkha victory that captures the public imagination whilst Labour are this low then the Liberals could actually start putting them in 3rd place in polling…
That 15% Lib Dem in the last poll likely reflects the impact of the expenses..
Colin – I’m in complete agreement with you on this one. We’re no longer in conventional polls territory. I also think your implication that Cameron needs to go further is correct. In terms of GE polls the Tories seem to have weathered the storm better for now, but if Labour start deselecting as it seem they will more action will be required. I’ve also said before that other issues of funding and second jobs will soon come under the spotlight and the ‘moats & gardens’ image has opened up an attack line on the ‘new’ Tories that is a risk for Cameron.
If the prevaling view by next year is that ‘they’re all as bad as each other’ this would tend to hurt the leading party – in 1997 Blair was seen as squeaky clean. Combined with the possibility of a better than expected economy this could make for a closer election, but I emphasise ‘could’.
I do find it odd that Cameron is lauded for his approach to this with a few cheques returned, while Brown is lambasted after suspending 2 MPs already. Perhaps however we have seen the first stirrings of a new ideological divide – plasma TV screens vs moats – it’s your vote, you decide!
I’ve got so many thoughts on all of this, that I hope I’m not too incoherent, especially after a few pints!
1. When major parties start talking about a ‘threat to democracy’ when there is no rioting on the streets and no threat of armed uprising, what they mean is ‘There is a danger that we may no longer be one of the main parties’.
2. I expect UKIP to do well in the European elections, but much less well in the locals. That part of their vote which is a protest, then it will go somewhere other than LIB/LAB/CON. Perhaps Greens and BNP will make big gains.
3. In 2007 23% of births were to non-UK born mothers. This does not include births to second- or third-generation immigrants. It does not make one a racist to see that this will have a major effect on the nation’s culture and way of life in the next 20 years or so. Only one (minor) party is addressing this issue, and is being excoriated for that reason. The major parties need to address this issue from whatever angle they see fit, if the BNP ‘threat’ is to be reduced.
4. Stuart. I agree with a lot of what I think you say, but I hope you don’t mind me asking this: did you have the same English teacher as John Prescott?
5. I asked on another thread whether people thought that abstentions would outnumber defections in the forthcoming European and local elections, Turnout is usually low in these anyway. I find it very interesting. My own prediction is that turnout will be slightly up, but that the beneficaries will be the minor parties (if UKIP can be called a minor party in European elections).
6. My idea for cleaning up Parliament is very simple. Set up some method for constituents to call a by-election. This would keep the MPs on their toes. The bar would have to be set fairly high (e.g. 40% of electorate sign a petition?), to avoid by-elections every week; but this kind of system would be ideal in the current circumstances. The public would judge whether it was more serious to have your moat dredged at our expense, or to ‘forget’ that you have paid your mortgage off. This would be a ‘threat to democracy’ in the eyes of the major parties, but would actually be a huge gain for democracy.
7. That’s enough for now. See you all tomorrow.
“plasma TV screens vs moats -”
A point which escapes attention is that the taxpayer-having paid for them-is the owner of enough tvs wardrobes, sofas , massage chairs etc etc to set up shop.
Are these MPs to walk away with all these State assets ( rhetorical question!) , or can we have a Treasury Boot Sale ?
….Buy five TVs & get a Bank free.
The Queen should dissolve Parliament citing the fact the country has lost faith in this ‘current members of parliament’ and a General Election should be held with each current MP having to state their expenses over the past 4 years. Elected MPs could then get a £10k pay increase with no expenses in the interim whilst a new system is looked at.
It, of course, wont happen as it would be unconstitutional
“Buy five TVs & get a Bank free. ”
i don’t wnat a bank pretty much worthless can i have a swimming pool or moat with 5 plasma’s please
seriously though I think if politicians don’t sort this out soon there are going to be protests in the street calling for an election one national newspaper has already called for it to me the only way to deal with this issue is to have an election now so the british public can punish those MPs who have been ripping us off what price for an Alan Duncan losing their seat or an eric morley.
when will the first website appear under the headline of vote the parasite out and a list detailing MPs of all sides who are caught up in this.(might set it up actually hmmm)
The next election is going to be fascinating you have the meltdown of Labour the posiblity of the lib dems coming second on the vote and thrown in the likley hood that all three major parties will lose seats that were considered safe.
I understand the Sunday Express in Scotland is leading on a YouGov poll sample an SNP landslide for the Westminster elections.
Is this for Westminster or for the Euro poll?
It doesn’t seem to be available online on the Express site. Does anyone up north have the details?
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/101585/Poll-predicts-SNP-landslide-of-MPs
“SNP 38 per cent, with Labour on 27 per cent and the Tories on 15 per cent, just one point ahead of the Liberal Democrats.
Using the Electoral Calculus, it would give the Nationalists 37 seats, Labour 12, the Lib Dems eight and the Conservatives just two.”
Oh, and it’s for Westminster, though they also seem to have figures for Europe
“ukip have a massive problem with corruption and expenses with their mep’s.this will be highlighted in the run up to the election.”
This is the run up to the election! No one wants to hear of anything but the failings of Westminster.
I think this is really dangerous for Cameron if this atmosphere continues until the next election because it doesn’t give him the chance to seek a proper mandate. He wanted to be returned to government having debated on the economy and how we run public services in the future. But it is looking like the next election will just be a public flogging for most MP’s.
By the way, Anthony, how can there be two people who have the username ‘John’? That wasn’t me who posted earlier in this thread!
A lot of people who do not wish to leave the EU are nevertheless dismayed at the cynical handling of the referendum that never was on the Constitution/Treaty.
Although the Conservatives have said they will have a referendum IF the Lisbon Treaty has not yet come in to force, many do not think voting Tory will send a strong enough message to the antidemocratic element in the EU. Add in the dissatisfaction with the big parties following the expenses row, and we may see LibDem and Labour voters who are upset about the referendum issue moving to UKIP rather than to the Conservatives. That’s what I am doing anyway!
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/101585/Poll-predicts-SNP-landslide-of-MPs
This was meant to come before my earlier post, but is still awaiting moderation for some reason
“it doesn’t give him the chance to seek a proper mandate.”
On the contrary John-it does the opposite.
Does anyone think the rise in UKIP V Cons could be that the main vehicle for MPs expenses news is teh Torygraph. Their readers are more likely to vote for one of these two parties than any other?
CharlieJ – probably nothing to do with it. The Telegraph is running the story, but it’s not as if anyone else who reads a paper or watches the news on the telly wouldn’t be as aware of it.
Of those I’ve chatted to, those who voted Tory seem to mostly go for UKIP and even “Jury Team”; the Labour voters I know, many are going BNP and Green; and the LibDem I know for Green as well.
I think there’s a class/identity aspect to this, where more professional rural and suburban people and senior people go for UKIP; more working-class urban people go for the BNP or perhaps something like Socialist Labour (presumably because both appeal to “old labour” type economic outlook); those inbetween and the young seem likely to go for the Greens instead of the LibDems…
I have never heard of BPIX and they are not members of the Polling Company association so who are they?
I don’t trust this company!
Promsan,
Intuitively, the Con to UKIP; Lab to BNP/other socialists; LD to Green fragmentation appears right.
We already know from 2004 that UKIP can quickly pull 7-9% off Tories for a Euro vote. This can be proven just by comparing 2004 Euro results with both 1999 Euros and the rpevailing polls at the time which showed Cons at a reasonably high (for that period) 33-34%.
For Labour, their abysmal result in 2004 was probably a combination of votes lost to LD (who were up 2% on 1999), Green, Respect, and BNP – plus a large chunk who simply sat on their hands.
So, if Cons fall from 40%+ to under 30%, that would suggest a 12% shift to UKIP – for the Euros only – is not impossible. But of course that is 12% more than teh 6-7% they had earl;er this year, not in addition to the 16.9% they reached in 2004.
While it is unpleasant shedding votes to another party in the run up in any election, of the main parties, the Tories can be most confident of pulling back the majority of these lost voters at a GE.
@pete b-
most of the time i us spell check, but sometime forget to use it, but your right john prescote is alot worse a speller than most of us, he needs to go back to school very very soon
Neil A
Even if SNP MPs were in on the troughing, it is still “Westminster” that is the problem.
If it were Alex Salmond’s expenses that would not be so. He had a high claim for food, but in every picture I see of him he looks even fatter than the last one.
A year or so ago, I read a newspaer report that GB was aiming to lose weight and take more exercise to get fit for his new job; that DC had seen a photograph of himself without his shirt and decided it was time to “get on your bike”; and that AS, who also had a new job had decided to give up “late night curries and the much loved Lucozade.”
In the highlands, as Peter will confirm, IrnBru is a euphemism for Scotland’s other national drink but the FM wouldn’t dare (in respect of either beverage) follow the example of Fidel Castro who gave up smoking for health reasons.
The journalist who quoted what he was told about “the much loved Lucozade” obviously didn’t know about “InBru.”
Peter:
Please tell AS that he won’t be around for independence day if he doesn’t do something about setting an example to Scotland’s many obese citizens.
If 1000 people petitioned the Queen to dissolve parliament nothing much would happen. If 10,000 or 100,000 petitioned she would take the advice of the PM.
If 1,000,000 petitioned she would not need his advice, but he might take her hers.
When does a small pile of sand become a large pile of sand?
“plasma TV screens vs moats -”
Surely moats are entirely justified security arrangements that those MPs who have the press on their doorsteps must wish they had.
Could the papers who disclose details of MP’s security not be charged under terrorism legislation?
[...] a situation similar to Le Pen’s success in French politics was a distinct possibility, with extremist parties coming in from the margins. [...]
Paul H-J
“While it is unpleasant shedding votes to another party in the run up in any election, of the main parties, the Tories can be most confident of pulling back the majority of these lost voters at a GE.”
I don’t think the Tories are sweating about the Euros quite as much as anyone else.
As said, the Tories uniquely have a protest party whom they can rely on to never harm them in a “proper” election.
The same can’t be said for Lab and Lib… for them, they can lose their support more chronically – even to the various little parties; especially when the Tories are able to project their main USP: competence.
The other two things the Tories have on their side is that people are less shocked by their claims, due to the ingrained prejudice/stereotype of your average Tory MP; and the other thing is that they’ve been through this before, and a while ago, so they are able to react far swifter because they understand the toxicity of the thing, and they can then imply that the other two have some catching up to do, which plays to their competence card.
Say what you like about the Tory front bench, they are still surfing this one far better than Labour; and I believe the LibDems are held back by Nick Clegg, because he’s too similar to Cameron, but nowhere near as slick.
Promsan,
Agreed, almost in its entirety.
Only point I would draw to your attention is that while Tories can be reasonably confident of pulling back in a GE c80% of votes lost to UKIP in Euros, the residual UKIP vote can and does hurt at a GE. There were at least a dozen seats in 2005 where the UKIP vote exceeded the Lab majority. In a close election this can make a difference. Had UKIP not stood in those seats in 2005, the Lab majority could have been reduced by 20-25 seats. Not enough to change the outcome, but enough to make Brown’s current position more perilous.
I think some Tory voters think the day of the old aristocrat as MP might be drawing to a close. Not many lords in UKIP or the BNP.