ComRes show collapse in Conservative support
ComRes has a new poll in tomorrow’s Independent with, for want of a better description, frankly odd results. The topline figures with changes from ComRes’s last poll are CON 30%(-10), LAB 22%(+1), LDEM 18%(nc).
These results are clearly grossly out of line with other companies – why? The reason isn’t a change in opinion, this poll was conducted at exactly the same time as MORI’s poll. Over at Political Betting Mike Smithson is focusing on ComRes’s past vote weighting, which has shifted significantly in Labour’s favour this month. Unlike Populus and ICM, whose political weightings are practically static from month to month – thus fulfilling the purpose of ensuring that the political make up of each month’s sample is stable – ComRes’s seem to change from one month to the next.
I’m struck by the high proportion of “others” in the poll. UKIP are at 7%, the Greens at 8%, the BNP at 3%, SNP and PC at 3%. These are all perfectly believable and in line with other companies. However, unlike anyone else ComRes also have 9% voting for “other others” – far out of line with everybody else.
I’m reminded of Populus’s last review of their methodology: people who said they were going to vote for “another party” used to be included in others, even if they didn’t know who for. Populus changed their policy so if people didn’t name a party they were classed as don’t know. If ComRes include people who don’t know what “other party” they’ll vote for, it’s a potential reason behind that big “other other” score.
Alternatively of course, MORI could be wrong (the changes in party support are, after all, just as extreme as ComRes’s) and the Conservatives could suddenly have seen their support collapse over the weekend. Personally, however, I’d be amazed if YouGov, Populus or ICM produced figures to support this poll.
Filed under: Communicate, Voting Intention
If ComRes have distorted this poll with weighting, I think some serious questions will need to be asked of them by the British polling council!
The numbers for the Tories are indeed strange, though it is arguable that at 18-22% Labour really are at their hardcore vote and cannot go down any further irrespective of what happens. At 40% plus the Tories have been accommodating a large number of ’soft’ non core supporters – easy come easy go voters who by definition dont usually vote Tory. Taking the recent polls together although the changes may seem dramatic there is actual reasonable consensus on Labour and Lib Dems, both within margin of error of 20%.
As I said this is Ross Perot territory.
I know one American prediction analyst was predicting a third candidate in the USA could make it with the economic crisis, and both parties becoming discredited. Maybe this could happen in the UK.
In the UK this may be a time for a real Ross Perot type.
We have many.
1. Duncan Banatyne. Of dragons dens he is political.
2. Alan Sugar
3. Richard Branson
They look like the sort of people that the country might take to, as men with a real record. I thought Bantybne did a good documentary on tobacco companies.
Sugar and Branny are major possibles with massive potential in this climate.
The Comres change in past vote weighying does explain some part of the party vote share changes but by no means all of it . If the weightings had been used from the previous Comres poll the Conservatives would still have been well down at 33% .
Abthony the detailed data tables for the ICM poll showed that they have changed their past vote weighting in the last poll .from Con 19 Lab 22 LD 13 to Con 20 Lab 23 LD 11 . The LibDem figure would have been an even more incredible 27/28 with their usual weighting .
It looks like the Euro election is having a big effect on the Westminster polls at the moment, as expected. We’ll have to wait a few weeks before the Westminster polls get back to normal.
Blip, it flies in the face of far too much current polling data, Con down 10%? I believe that lies in the methodology utilised by ComRes, and I dismiss the ‘others’ finding too, for a Westminister poll again it counters all other (more reliable) polling findings.
Nope, I wont loose sleep over this:
The real positions of the political three I believe are:
Con 38-41%
Lab: 21-24%
Lib: 18-22%
Maybe the expenses scandal is hitting all parties now…Cameron has actually got his own problems on the second house that has come out, was this before or after this was given media time?
It certainly makes for a very confusing message and if anyone can guess the result of the Euro correct, get six numbers on the lottery quick.
A great pity MORI didn’t do a Euro score. Given the likely low turnout I would have thought their methodology would be more accurate than most. On the face of it only those ‘absolutely certain to vote’ are likely to vote on Thursday.
Any thoughts Anthony?
This cannot be a shift of public opinion as you suggest Tiney Tim, because this poll was conducted before the recent events you cite.
This is merely a blip.
Blue Moon, I’m also surprised MORI didn’t do a euro poll. Perhaps they are holding it back until later in the week?
definitely a blip, with other polls suggesting the Tories solid at 40% the media has, despite many Tory stories, been far more negative towards Brown and very little controversy surrounding Cameron himself. The sense you get from Labour HQ is that they are on the brink of collapse no doubt taken from canvassing and private polls and is this public mood were true then we would see a much more upbeat Labour party.
I find this sudden drop in tory support unbelievable, i muct agree with MC and Dean T, they have have dropped a small bit, 38 maybe, but i very much doubt this much of a drop. If i were a labour supporter i would take this poll with a pinch of salt and wait for other polls, my bet is it will show torys where they have been for the past few months.
The only thing I can think of for this poll is the people taking part thought they were doing a euro election voting intention poll, but its actually a Westminster poll. Thats the only thing that seems to make sense, though even as a euro poll the results are still distinctly odd…..
Whatever, I think ComRes come on this site and give us a detailed run-down on exactly what has gone on here, particularly as The Independent are using this to run quite a negative headline against David Cameron.
Does the last few words in the question help boost ‘others’?:
“If there were a general election tomorrow, would you vote Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat or some other party?”
I never trust ComRes polls as it often has such bizarre and wild swings. I’m no Tory, but I’ll accept that their support has not dropped by a quarter in recent days!
The closer we are to the Euro election the more the Westminster voting intentions will be affected by how people are thinking about voting in the Euro election. That’s the most likely explanation for the Tories being on 30% in this poll and the high level of support for the minor parties.
All the pollster with exception of Yougov. have recently provided a highly improbable statistic for one of the main parties:
Comres: Cons 30
Mori: Lab 18
ICM: Lib Dems 25; Lab 28
Pop: Lib Dems 15; Lab 27
But overall there has been a lot of consistancy and the statistics that stand out as most frequent are …
Cons 39 Lab 22 Lib Dems 18. This is exactly what Yougov. polled on the 29th May.
Chance, methodology, volitility of public mood can, of course, affect the accuracy of a poll. I suspect that particularly the with Comres Cons 30 all three have been at work in a big way
9% for other others is, I would suggest, impossible.
I haven’t studied this poll in any detail, so am not able to comment on how it was done.
But it clearly looks like the Euro election polls and the Westminster polls are now converging – as we get near the Euro elections.
I can’t think of any other time when there has been such blanket coverage of an issue which has damaged parties generally – except perhaps some of the fringe parties…
and
at a time when there is a free protest election approaching.
(Even local council elections tend to make people think about what the affect will be on their area, whereas Europe is just too remote for most).
But the fact that the Euro protest vote and the Westminster voting intentions are starting to converge suggests that turnout might actually be rather higher on Thursday than many think – because people seem to be thinking about how they will vote then.
For a bit of fun I predict that in the Euro Election we will see:
Cons 27%
Lib Dems 17%
UKip 16%
Lab 15%
This is based on the wishful thought that Brown’s signaled determination to remain PM will cause some would be Labour voters to switch to the Lib Dems.
I wouldn’t want to stick my neck out on it too much as it’s such a chaotic free for all, but I still think the Conservatives might get about 30% and Labour about 20%.
Yep LS the 9% for others does seem high, even by the standards of current events swelling immediate support for these ‘others’.
And again I doubt that this suddent drop is the result of public re-alteration of their voting intentions due to the immediate euro elections, otherwise the other pollsters would have shown equally suddent changes; remember this was conducted at the same time as the other pollsters, and only this one found such a fall in support.
I mean even on a primitive first glance, there is no way the Labour party (given the chaos its currently suffering under) is a paultry 8% behind in the Westminster voting intentions.
As for UKIP and their euro chances I will just add that I suspect they will be within a polling margin of error on the night for second; too close to call but UKIP will surely do better than 10% (as per the last telegraph poll from Sunday), that is lower thn the other credible euro polls have them on, so UKIP anywhere between 12-19% beyond that I cant tell. Labour 15-20%, so UKIP have it all to play for.
I cant see the Conservative and UKIP combined vote being as low as 43%. My guess is they will be nearer 50% between them.
in any case the polling numbers speak for them self im not going into detail as i’ve had a long day ,mostly on feet all day, but the polling to the nearest whole numbers are
CON 40%
LAB 23%
LD 18-19%
OTH 19-18%
the monthly swing compaired to the 2005 GE is 9.6% from labour to conservative and a predicted majority of 106 for the conservative at a GE.
on this polls it’s a duff’en no one will belive that the tories are at or below 35% or 30% in any poll.
ROGUE POLL!!!
*ahem*
I find it interesting that in the last week or so the two likely rogues we’ve seen are only off on a single party. The other two are in line with everyone else. In general, I think the ranges are as follows:
Conservative: 40+/-2%
Labour: 21+/-3%
LibDem: 18% +/-2%
Labour’s figure is a bit more volatile, but I think this makes sense: They’re way off the low end of where they “should” be, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they are sliding around a bit more than everyone else. “Other” is hard to peg as there is no monolithic third party; I think they’re hovering a bit over 20% (call it 21% +/-3%), but because “other” has multiple constituent elements, it’s a bit harder to nail down. I’d personally say UKIP and Green at 7 +/-2% each and BNP at 4% +/-2%, with PC and SNP taking up the rest.
Why is it unbelievable that the Greens are out performing UKIP?
We now have two polls to confirm this trend, both polls taking place after the revelation that Nigel Farage has taken £2 million from Europe for party activity. I know it has not been nearly as widespread but you can bet that on the doorstep and with campaigning nearly all parties have probably mentioned this.
Rogue or not, it’s an extremely interesting poll and it could mean anything could happen in the Euro’s on Thursday.
The old adage about a rogue poll being one you disagree with has come sharply into play….
Frankly I was surprised that the Tories hadn’t taken even the slightest hit with the days and days of stories about their MPs. Maybe it is a blip, maybe not. Its worth the comedy value in watching the outraged (panicked?) harrumphing of Conservative supporters if nothing else.
Being out campaigning where I had, in Tory areas, in Labour areas and Lib Dem areas, the general response was that they just were no longer interested in the main parties. They certainly did not say they would vote Green but the consideration was there, and for this election perhaps more than any other voters are seeing that there is in fact alot of alternatives out there and there’s bound to be one in which they agree with on 70% of party policy.
Regardless of what is actually happening at the top with the three main parties, all of the others, Greens and UKIP included, is now making more sense to alot of people than ever before.
I believe the 1% extra for the Greens can be a result of the Greens General Election campaigning being in place almost all year round in a few pockets, and thus it’s more visible in localities for most of the year rather than UKIP who are establishing themselves as the party of ‘ giving the bloody nose.’ However, in some regions, I reckon the Greens could give Labour a couple of bloody noses themselves.
I would be interested to see how Labour manage to keep hold of their seat’s in the South East and South West, at this stage it must be close down south.
As I have noted elsewhere this poll is clearly a rogue. The WMA is 37:22:19 and ComRes has recently produced 2 polls (30-Nov and 19-Sept) which underestimated the CLead by similar amounts.
Interestingly it gives a Retrospective error to the last YouGov poll of 0. Though YouGov can get it wrong (it was 5.4 out on the 3rd April) overall it is the most accurate of the pollsters (Std 2.6 Bias 0.4) and the last 5 polls have had retrospective errors of 0, 0, 0, -1.6, +1.6 – pretty impressive.
One point of interest that I think bears mentioning. I think the main parties trying to prevent voters from going B’NP is getting to be highly counterproductive, for one simple reason: If you’re exceedingly ticked off at Gordon Brown and he comes on TV asking you not to do something, I think there are a great many people who will see the best way to slap him across the face as being to vote B’NP.
Luke,
I tend to agree with you…there’s an anti-establishment feel to what’s going on now, and a lot of people are breaking off. Labour has basically collapsed into its constituent parts, with a lot of working class voters going B’NP while more “liberal” (in the American sense, regrettably) ones go Green and any Eurosceptics in the house go UKIP. It’s really quite interesting to watch (as is watching a car crash…the two have many similar qualities), but I think that’s basically what’s happening. The parties are breaking into constituent parts under “other”.
Antony,
Could this poll actually reflect Euro voting intentions? From this perspective, this poll looks inline with the others.
Alex
At the last election Labour and the Tories combined got a bit over 70%, are we really to believe that the big 3 combined are now barely reaching that figure?
Sorry, I knew those figures looked a bit odd, I was looking at the 2001 results. Labour and the Tories got about 68% combined.
Last week whilst canavssing I found an enormous surge in genuine Don’t Know – perhaps all major parties are now being hit by the allownces saga? All will be revealed on Thursday.
Although I don’t see this poll as being genuine due to many of the observations already noted, it is broadly what I would have expected, with Labour hammered and Tories out in front but still suffering badly. I have been suprised tat this isn’t the general poll trend.
The next few days could shape UK politics for a generation. If Labour survive the onslaught and manage to estalish a new leader and stronger message and if they can point to an improving economy and some evidence of government activity working, there will be a choice at the next election that may not look very comfortable for the Tories. Cameron opposed many of the economic actions that may have worked, and one of the hangovers for them of the expenses scandal is the resurrection of their traditional rural image. Labour is being swamped at present, but if conditions stabilise a GE campaign could be more interesting than people currently think, but note I only say ‘could’.
You boxed my ears last month Anthony for daring to suggest that the local elections on Thursday might demonstrate the accuracy of this or that poll. By which I meant the BROAD message each poll was making.
More than 250 gains for the Tories will surely prove that the COM Res poll might be duff and less than Labour 200 losses will prove that the MORI poll is duff. Yes this is not the general election but some reading over in terms of trends will emerge. The polls are on trial-and somebody is going to get egg on theri face .
This poll does suggest some convergence in the minds of voters between the Euro and Westminster elections, even if unusal methodology and poor question writing have played a part.
More importantly the range of numbers in different polls suggests to me a lot of volatility. Conservative commentators on here seem to show a high degree of complacency . The core Tory vote appears to be 20-30%, which is what they will get on Thursday in the Euros. The extra 10-12% of Westminster support seems to be quite ready to vote UKIP etc when given the chance.
My ‘best guess’ at core votes is
Con 28%
Lab22%
LD 15%
Oth 5%
withn 30% not very committed to anyone but an awful lot of whom are very annoyed former New Labour voters.
Anthony, Although I can do long tots and long multiplication and division of pre-decimal money, i have never understood statistics and probability (so it’s a good thing I didn’t become a bookie), so your advice please. Is it possible to work back these conflicting results and apply the opposite methods so them (ie ComRes’s method to Ipsos-Mori’s stats and vice-versa) to see what that calculation results in?
Jon – only very, very crudely, and obviously not when it comes to different wording or sampling being used. I tend to advise against it!
As a Tory I hope this is a rogue. However all statistical speculation will at least (for once) be proven right or wrong conclusively in just a few days.
9% for other other’s? Must be a rogue, still good to see the Cons at such a low level!
[Edited partisan rubbish - AW]
However, bet Cameron will be quiet over his election calls in the next few days.
@ Chris. Whether David Cameron is quiet or not over the next few days, I don’t think anyone else really has a great deal to crow about…
What a wonderfully bonkers poll – in keeping with the bonkers politics we’ve seen lately, though I’m strongly inclined to agree with everyone except Chris and consider it an anomaly among recent polls.
Anthony – I was wondering what evidence we have for strength of support for the various parties – ie how strongly voters selecting different parties rate their support. If there is any data this could give some clues as to whether/how much Tory support has been affected by expenses stories. This poll apart, their support is holding up very well, but is there an underlying sense of Tory voters feeling less secure in their choice?
It strains credibility that the steady flow of scandals would have *no* effect on the Tories, especially as they have been well in the lead in terms of losing MPs in the last couple of weeks and there is a natural reservoir for angry Tories at UKIP. And last week saw Cameron and the Tory machine roll out to defend Julie Kirkbride, and fail.
I wonder if the hardcore Tory voters are more or less likely to go ‘kipper? Ideologically, and in terms of style, UKIP is at least as close to the Tory right as David Cameron is, and possibly more so – his look’n'feel is that of a Blair clone, and that kind of Tory really hated Blair for style reasons. A lot of the dead’uns are very traditional rural squires with significant personal following; if it wasn’t for the hits on Kirkbride, MacKay, and Cameron himself, you might almost imagine CCO was behind it in order to discipline the hard right, traditionally the source of internal troubles in the party.
The thing about high ‘others’ is that, especially at county elections, many people do not have ‘others’ to vote for and will therefore vote for the three majors. For example, for the 8 county seats in my area of Surrey: 8 Tories, 8 Lib Dems, 3 Labour, 1 UKIP and that’s it. In 5 seats people only have the choice between Tory and Lib Dem.
I’m intrigued that in my (safest) of the 8 Tory County seats, that’s where the UKIPPer is standing. It’ll be interesting to see the impact of the patchiness of ‘others’ standing in the county elections.
New ComRes poll places Greens on 15% – ahead of the LibDems. See http://www.greenparty.org.uk .
Dan Hannan , top of Conservative list in S.E., has placed a bet that Greens will beat Labour in that region.
Greens seem to be on a roll!
@ Chris
As ComRes are the most volatile, whilst YouGov have been consistently the most accurate for years, I suspect that DC is more interested in the impact of the Independent headline claiming 30% than the actual poll.
And is there any explanation as to why ComRes varies their weighting so much? Do they have an established methodology for that? Because if they don’t, they suddenly look very questionable.
Does anyone think the Telegraph may be holding a ‘bombshell’ to be released over the next couple of days which may sway voters towards, or away from a particular party(s)
As has been commented above, the headline figures in this poll are closer to what we might have expected for Europe – at least before Labour started dropping like a stone recently.
It may well be that notwithstanding it being a “westminster” poll, the fact that the question was “how would you vote tomorrow” could well have led people to respond on the basis of how they intend/expect to vote the day after tomorrow. Add in that the question asked “or some other party” then the high score for “other others” is not actually that unreasonable (there are about a dozen or so to choose from).
A Con score of +/- 30 for Europe on Thursday is well within range of likely outcome, but does not of itself suggest that Cameron would struggle to win the GE when it eventually arrives.
Actual results on Friday will give us a much better idea as to the true position for Westminster than those which come out on Sunday.
Whilst one can posit a case for Cons to have suffered some erosion as a result of expenses, loss of a quarter or more of Con support has no rational contextual explanation. It certainly does not gel with responses when canvassing or even the wider mood music.
@Antony – you seem to pick and choose what’s classed as partisan – there are comments, on the last thread that come straight from Express/Mail mentality – all of which seem to by-pass your strict anti-partisan censorship.
@Chris
I suspect that you and I are on the same wavelength politically, but I tend not to rant and rave and complain. I’d recommend it in order to enjoy a more pleasant experience of this site.
From what I can see, Anthony does a great job keeping the views resonable balanced, and I have certainly seen no bias or selectiveness on his part.
I would suggest that by drawing attention to yourself, you are practically asking to be moderated out
I am glad to see the Greens on a roll. This country badly needs an injection of Green politics.. and there will be plenty of time for the Greens to sort out some of their inconsistencies before they become any sort of dominant party.. normal evolution – more members, better analysts, better PR etc etc…
I hope they make some serious gains. The thought of more UKIP is worrying. I sat next to Nigel Farage on a plane, and while he seemed fairly decent, he did not come across as terribly bright I am afraid.. but I could be wrong.
Anthony seems to allow a certain degree of partisan talk as long as it’s actually ‘political’ not personal.
Thing is Chris that other people, if they feel inclined to put anyone down, tend to aim their vitreol at MP’s or ‘Brown’ or ‘Cameron’ not at other posters.
If you make comments about how stupid others are or “Express/Mail mentality” etc it’s very different from an attack on the Tory party in parliament say. They chose to be in the public eye and deserve to be chastised for any wrongdoing.
Most of the posters here just want a reasonably friendly place for dissemination of opinion polls.
Alasdair,
‘I am glad to see the Greens on a roll…and there will be plenty of time for the Greens to sort out some of their inconsistencies before they become any sort of dominant party”
I wouldn’t count on it. I suspect, in a similar way to those Tories backing the UKIP, that the angry Labour supporters ‘lending’ their votes to the Greens will return to the fold before long.
Much has been made of the expenses issue of late but I’m not sure it really is going to herald a sea change in British politics as some commentators believe. Just a change from Labour to Tory in the long run.
“Anthony seems to allow a certain degree of partisan talk as long as it’s actually ‘political’ not personal.”
He does Ivan-& I for one am grateful, not being a fan of Polling minutiae.
@Adam C – take you point, just afraid the lack of consistency is rather frustrating and only invites counter partisan arguments.
“This country badly needs an injection of Green politics.. ”
Do you mean we need policies like these ?:-
“To move away from the global marketplace and instead develop strong self-reliant regions.”
“There is little or no threat of direct invasion of the UK by any nation. Commitment to a large standing army, a navy of large warships around our coastline, squadrons of fighter planes and a cripplingly expensive missile defence system is therefore unnecessary.”
“Introduce the Citizens’ Income scheme to shift the balance of economic power in favour of individuals and households, and away from large scale, remote private companies and central government. It will make full-time paid employment less necessary,”
Guido runs a very broad church. It’s a good place to get the bile out of your system, but don’t expect not to take the knocks in return!
I was out canvassing in North London on Saturday and Sunday and there were large pockets of people (much higher than usual) who told me that they were voting Green, especially in the strong Tory ward of Hampstead. I agree that I think the Westminster poll has been converge to the Euro poll. I am not surprised that the Greens will do well, I’ve always felt that a Tory poll of around 40% is overstated. I think their might be some wobbly hands on Thursday of people who say they’ll vote Tory, after being so annoyed with Labour, yet can’t bring themselves to do it.
Alasdair,
For so long as teh Green party are seen as people who are concerned about presevation of the planet and its resources, they can pick up protest votes from those who are genuinely concerned about the future.
However, whenever their full policy positions come under scrutiny, the crass simplicity, inherent contadictions, and aversion to any form of economic development, combined with some extreme left-wing views about individual liberties, they wilt under the glare of exposure.
That is what happened after the Green “success” in the 1989 Euros [Success only inasmuch as they achieved 15% of the vote. Of course under the old FPTP system they did not come near winning a seat. I suspect that many of those voting Green in 1989 were aware that this would be so, and had teh d'Hondt scheme been in operation people may have thought twice about voting Green.]
It may well be that the Greens can pull up into double figures this week – even perhaps double their MEPs. But it will plainly be a protest vote for a Parliament which many people regard as unimportant at best (if not altogether worthless).
Were they to achieve more than a handful of seats, then the scrutiny will be back, and the weakness of tehir political programme be exposed.
Jon – I’ve come accross exactly the same…I’ve spoken to a suprising amount of new Con voters who are indicating they’ll vote Con with a very heavy heart, they are still viewed very negatively and my view is it won’t take much for the Cons to lose a fair chunk of their vote.
This poll is a blip, asfar as i can tell its propbably more along the lines of:
Con – 40
Lab -20-21
LDem – 20
Others – 19-20
I think it is way too early to say this is only a blip. The expenses scandal seems to have been tougher on the Tories in recent days/the last week and it is logical that this drip drip of negative sleaze will sap their support as it has with Labour. Any consistent narrowing of the lead will give some encouragement to Brown even though the support goes to minor parties as it will at least deny Cameron a majority.
I dunno, it was baffling to me why the Tories should be defying gravity at 40%-sh for so long, whilst the Lab and LDP scores made more sense.
I wouldn’t be too hasty to call it a blip.
The other others can include parties like:
Eng Dems
Soc Labour
old Liberal Party
old SDP
Jury Team
Independents
Respect
No2EU
Christian Party
etc…
It doesn’t seem wildly weird for people to be more open to new things, expecially when Cameron seems to be shy of commiting to anything more than “we’ll promise to think about changing x, y, and z”.
My feeling is that I can’t see why anyone but the most recalcitrant stalwart would stick with Labour now – New Labour killed off Old Labour; and now New Labour is dying… so what’s the point in Labour any more?
Tories seem unwilling to commit to anything concrete, and just seem to think they can humour peopl with the same old carefully choreographed politician-speak; and the LibDems seem to be like watered-down Labour. It seems natural for voters to start looking around at alternatives.
I would regard:
Con 30%
LibDem 20%
Lab 15%
Oth 35%
as a very feasible destination for the polls over the summer.
‘My feeling is that I can’t see why anyone but the most recalcitrant stalwart would stick with Labour now – New Labour killed off Old Labour; and now New Labour is dying… so what’s the point in Labour any more’
Hardly, the most balanced comment – I can give you 5 tangible benefits that Labour have brought in straightaway without even thinking about it!
I would say and have always said the same about the Cons!
Chris
In your view the Cons are going to lose a fair chunk of their vote all because you have been talking to some potential Tory voters and they have confided this to you.!
Would those be the same sort of people you have decried on this site as being idiots, pathetic readers of the Daiiy Mail and worse?
Be careful you don’t get contaminated pal.
@Nick – no these guys aren’t beyond hope yet – like I said a gentle nudge is all it will take – the Mail/Express brigade are a lost cause i’m afraid.
I note as each batch of polls come out people’s perception of Labour’s ‘core vote’ is shrinking
Even this poll with it’s shift in weighting to favour Labour has them on only 22 per cent
I’m fairly certain they will not climb signifigantly above 20 per cent in the near future – unless something major happens
Chris,
Reread what Promsan wrote.
If you base your faith in a Labour recovery on positive things they have done in the past 12 years you misunderstand how people think.
For the “good” things, people may (perhaps) say “Thank you” – though I don’t recall Brown being so gracious when he inherited a thriving economy and public finances in 1997.
For the “bad” things they will crucify you.
The problem for any government – however good – is that the “good” thinks get forgotten, but the “bad” things feed an enduring grievance. For each voter, they only need one “bad” thing to decide to withdraw their suport, and any number of “good” things are unliekly to win it back. Thus, the longer a party stays in government, the greater the number of voters nursing a grudge. Hoping to sweep all the defects under the carpet and champion one or two positives simply won’t work.
Finally, whatever the voter’s view of the government record, they will be looking to what the programme is for the five years ahead. For that, they need to see vision, ideas, themes, policies they can believe in, and above all, leadership.
If in any doubt, just look at what happened to John Major.
The point Promsam makes is very valid in that context. Old Labour stood for something. It did not sell. Blair invented “New Labour” and sold it to the public. Now that “New Labour ” is worn out, whither the Labour Party ?
Labour not only needs a new leader, it needs a new philosophy suitable for the future. Attempting to rebuild a party fundamentally while in Government is next to impossible. The public know that. That is why Labour ratings have fallen so dramatically this year – and they will not recover until after the next general election.
Even if the past weighting did shift in labours favour….they only got +1, cons-10…..hard to see how it can all be that, and a biggish cons fall makes sense with recent news.
@Promsan, I think many would ’stick to labour’ simply because there isn’t a left wing alternative…at least not in England.
The upcoming elections will be most interesting, but in a GE situation I can’t see labour falling far from 1/4 of the vote, simply because left wingers have no-one else to vote for and will want some sort of balance against cons.
At least, that applies for next years election….maybe by the one after that some party or other could rise to challenge for the left….I’ve often thought that there’s plenty of room for a socially liberal & economically left party, rather than left always being nanny state…
Can’t help but think people saying labour are dying are overreacting though, think about what happened to the tories 15 years ago, labour 15 before that….they haven’t even lost the next GE yet and some here seem to think that they’re dead and buried as an organisation.
This poll is way off the others, but the others seemed amazingly suspicious showing the cons not suffering at all from all the moats….maybe that’s something to do with (most) people having no idea how much it costs to look after a moat, or build a duck house….but knowing that a 3k tv is ridiculous…but still….
I’m thinking all polls right now should be taken with extra salt, and possibly pencilling in a compromise figure of 35 for the ‘real’ cons level is the best option.
My further pencillings (for real current GE level) would be labour 25 (know all you anti-labours will disagree, but I think they’re suffering from votershyness somewhat atm) and libdems….possibly approaching 25 themselves too.
Paul HJ makes good points Chris, people are optomists….and no opposition has ever said ‘but be warned we are likely to get at least a few things badly wrong because you guys have unrealistic expectations of perfection’ In govt pros and cons don’t balance out, cons always win…and the past is never given much thought compared to the present.
Look at polls on economic trust….the labour govt has overall had a much better economic time than the previous cons govt, but the electorate will and do ignore that.
Labour can’t regain any ground by pointing to the good things it has achieved over the last decade….it can only gain by pointing to good things that happen between now and the GE…and the only obvious candidates for that are how it handles the reform/calls for reform, the economy, and possibly Iraq/Afghanistan…..and possibly bigger than any gain it could make from it’s own perceived good performance….barring exceptional economic recovery….by the tories doing bad things.
In all fairness, I might like to note something: I think Labour’s core vote was about 23-25% before Expensegate. I think they actually dropped somewhere between 1/4 and 1/5 of their base, which had previously been somewhat immune to breaking off, over the expenses disaster hitting them.
Reading some of the more partisan comments on various threads I’m struck by the throught that the two main party’s core vote is predominantly made up of those who passionately hate the other side far far more than they support the party they vote for.
The subtext of some comments appears to be “….no matter how this government is, they will always better than the alternative.” which on all sides is narrow minded dogmatism at its worst. (Sorry, dont mean to offend but that’s how I feel).
Has anyone even looked at the voting motivations of the core support?
Any national poll at the moment is going to be skewed by the euro election figures. I think once the summer comes and literature from Parties dwindles, especially where parties believe they have little chance of winning the seat. We will see figures for general election polling start to look a lot more familiar.
The old SDP?!?!?! I thought they were only active in one or two council(s).
I think there is no way that other others make up 9%, however, this group is consistently underestimated. It could be 4%-ish.
Poll reckons Conservatives would be short by 49 of overall majority. How do they work this out?
@Julian B, yes very much so…..I’ve seen many comments along the lines of ‘before labour can completely ruin the coutry’….’labour supporters are insane’ on this site….and although I haven’t seen any of that nature going the other way (not that I know what chris was edited for), ‘anyone but the tories’ is certainly a sentiment that’s common IRL.
It’s bad things vs good things again, and particularly works against the party in power….when the lib dems suggested a 50% tax rate it didn’t do them any long term damage after they scrapped it, but labour actually enforcing it is going to stick in rich peoples heads for a long time…..same as unionists active in the 80s still absolutely loathe cons, but don’t feel much against other parties that broadly supported cons aims.
Right wing parties are likely to enact right-wing policies when in power, making lefties hate them….and vice versa.
Hmm, my previous comment is ‘awaiting moderation’ I’m guessing theres a system to pick up on certain words I used…oh well.
Wolf:
It’s because there are a lot of seats Labour would hold on this due to “Other” piling up a large number of votes. More importantly, with an “other” rating this large you get a lot of Labour-leaning seats that “other” outruns all three parties in. Note that this is merely the sum of “other”, not a specific party.
To translate: Everyone falls far enough in a number of seats that the remainder starts exceeding 30% in many cases, and getting close to 35% in some. In a somewhat marginal seat, that’ll put “other” ahead of a splintered major-party vote. I’m picking up either 71 or 53 such seats, depending on whether the NI seats are counted in this list.
Wood,
I think he has a filter in on a certain prominent extreme “right-wing” party.
Gray,
UKIP are the only prominent Right wing party I can think of (Conservatives could be called it at a push) and I would hardly call either of them extreme!
Sorry Anthony, I had to!
“Hardly, the most balanced comment – I can give you 5 tangible benefits that Labour have brought in straightaway without even thinking about it!”
Oh come on, the last few years have seen Labour going through the agony of removing clause 4 and transforming itself into something quite different from anything even Kinnock would have recognised.
I’m not pro tory or pro libdem, just stating what to me appears to be obvious… labour was founded to do a particular thing, and it simply doesn’t do that any more… it is a pointless organisation now. the stuff Blair did to it to make it electable took it away from “socialism”.
“I can give you 5 tangible benefits that Labour have brought in straightaway without even thinking about it!
I would say and have always said the same about the Cons!”
I assume by that you don’t mean you can give 5 tangible benefits of voting Con?
Let’s be clear, I think the Cons are just as hopeless as the Labs, but having provided half a dozen specific tangible benefits is not the same thing as having an overall vision or fundamental point to their existence.
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@Paul H-J
thank you… I mean isn’t it obvious that Labour was invented or a reason… and that the distance between where labour was when it was invented from where it is now is mind-boggling.
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@Wood
“@Promsan, I think many would ’stick to labour’ simply because there isn’t a left wing alternative…at least not in England.”
Oh contraire…
Please bear in mind that the view from villages around Barnsley, or areas like South Leeds is remarkably different from places down south or leafy affluent suburbs.
There are quite extensive areas where there is nothing remotely weird about voting for Socialist Labour or the BNP; and where voting for the Greens or the LibDems would be viewed with mockery. I get the sense that a lot of people on this forum are university educated and work in offices and simply have no acquaintance with other worlds in Britain.
Imagine yourself as the child or grandchild of an ex miner, and living in an area of chronic depravation… there is none of that tribal loyalty that labour could once take for granted… think on it. there are many people under 40 who are simply cut out of prosperity, and on the rare occasion they see a labour mp on the telly do you really suppose they regard them as any different to the tories? not any more…
…and what do you mean by a left-winger anyway?
do you mean an economic socialist or a diversity dalek?
(PS, I think Anthony has set it up so that any inclusion of a well-known acronymical party or the phrase that is the dextrous avian limb triggers the moderation!) ; )
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I think JulianB makes a good point in that, I doubt a huge number of people desperately want Cameron and Osborne over new Labour, they simply want rid of new Labour.
(and for that nutty Chris feller, I don’t want the Tories any more than the LDP or Labour!)
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for all, my comments are not meant to be partisan… I just don’t see what the labour party is for… the libdems and tories have a similar lack of point to them ideologically, just a vague whiff of a particular perspective, but few actual clear ideological principles; and I think in such chaotic times, it is human nature to look for around for someone with some kind of credible certainty.
The main three don’t seem to offer much of that at the moment… and you tend to know where you stand more with minor parties because they spend less time on marketing and on moulding their policies to suit the polls.
Lib, Lab, Con seem to be little more than management consultancies… and nowadays cowboy ones at that.
At the heart of all that’s going on at the moment is a complete moral vacuum throughout society, and if there are no parties who have the balls to define what they think right and wrong means, then I would not expect the public to put up with being taken for granted.
At the end of the day, the expenses thing is just confirming people’s worse suspicions… but it’s the economic stuff that has a real effect, because unlike the expenses thing, it affects people directly; and this is the core of the problem. The “moral decay in society” and the “excessive immigration” stuff are mere kindling in comparison.
“without even thinking about it!”
…very telling!
I don’t rreally have time to engage – so sorry for not responding to anyopone who might reply.
Promsam – are we related? You’ve summed it up for me, but there are slight nuances of disagreement
(BTW it’s “au contraire”, and the word so……m triggers moderation on account of the missing letters, which are fruity, according to modern dictionaries.
In my view the system as a whole is more likely to change with parties like LibDem and Labour in power than it is with parties like Conservatives in power. That’s why I think a lot of people will , if they do let them in in 2010, will only allow them to remain for more thean one term if htey prove they are an engine for positive change (rather than one for reversing back to the disasters of the past)
A new voting system is required.
As far as saying to hell with the lot of them, I may be a bit of a coward, but I just don’t see the point of voting for parties that simply could not get in.
And it really is important to vote, given that people around the world who are denied the vote should be encouraged by our active participation to demand the same rights for themselves.
sorry – just got the joke about the dextrous aviam member – very good – and I meant your summing up sums it up for me,in particular
I love the strange, but predictable leap of logic from “Labour Government in trouble” to ” we need a new voting system”.
Its almost as laughable as Brown’s ” We need to clean up the system” & not have a GE because that “only changes the faces”
In fact that assessment is as self serving as the “new voting system” idea.
If “wholly, exclusively & neccssarily ” had been applied from the Green Book, the system would have been fine.
It is the faces which need changing-& the current voting system is adequate for that purpose.
love the strange, but predictable leap of logic from “Labour Government in trouble” to ” we need a new voting system”.
I don’t know where you got that leap from, but it wan’t from me.
The system currently leads to dis-enfranchisement. They ar eall the same (only perhaps Cameron is more of a hypocrite than most in that he maxed his interest claim and preaches that the system has been abused while trousering £80k)
Labour is in trouble, but the public is waking up finally to the fact that we’ve been lied to for decades by the ruling elite.
You can bring your prejudice wherever you like, but you can’t argue that the results of FTPT at he next FGE will be fair.
If “wholly, exclusively & neccssarily ” had been applied from the Green Book, the system would have been fine.
That’s about as laughable as the (100% self-serving)notion that an immediate GE would solve it,.
john t t
“(BTW it’s “au contraire”, and the word so……m triggers moderation on account of the missing letters, which are fruity, according to modern dictionaries.”
I only got a C for French at GCSE… much better at Japanese though… “chigaimasu!”
“In my view the system as a whole is more likely to change with parties like LibDem and Labour in power than it is with parties like Conservatives in power. That’s why I think a lot of people will , if they do let them in in 2010, will only allow them to remain for more thean one term if htey prove they are an engine for positive change (rather than one for reversing back to the disasters of the past)”
I totally agree… for me, basically, the Libs Labs and Cons are all economically rightist and socially leftist parties… Labour pursues the agressive mock-liberal agenda, and the Tories hold the status quo to allow the dust to settle.
The Libs are like a sort of testing the water outfit who can propose things that are unlikely to ever happen, but all three are simply managing the country, rather than leading it – their ideology is now pretty much the same, with only very subtle shades of difference.
The Tories won’t change anything significantly, and I don’t think they have fully recovered from the 90s.
I don’t believe the Tories have convinced enough people that they are the engine for change any more than the other two have, and despite recent polling, I think things *aren’t* going to “get back to normal”, and I think all three *do* have something to fear… a large “others” vote is by no means guaranteed, but is becoming increasingly feasible.
I mean at some point, George Osborne’s going to have to appear, and I can see the nation collectively wincing at the thought of two public schoolboys taking control.
Like the LibDems there’s a real question-mark over competence with these two (though not as much as with Labour currently).
“A new voting system is required.
As far as saying to hell with the lot of them, I may be a bit of a coward, but I just don’t see the point of voting for parties that simply could not get in.”
Oh I think if there ever was a time when voting for “others”, it’s now… it’s possibly the only time it ever will matter… many of them could grab a single seat here and there and be our Sword of Damocles over the heads of the next (probably coalition or minority) government.
I don’t think you’ll get the change in voting system if the Tories get a landslide… we need a nice messy Balkanised parliament full of a hundred different points of view: not three carefully managed ones.
“And it really is important to vote, given that people around the world who are denied the vote should be encouraged by our active participation to demand the same rights for themselves.”
All the more reason to read every single manifesto and vote for what you honestly believe in – not waste it on a tactical second guessing of what your fellow-electors will do.
@ “I get the sense that a lot of people on this forum are university educated and work in offices and simply have no acquaintance with other worlds in Britain.”
Yeah, I get the same sense…as for Scargill, I can’t see it making a difference at the next GE, he’s too extreme…and the whole party turning over 10k pa? it’s just not gonna happen….can’t even see them as potentially growing to challenge for the left in future, too much a party that follows its leader(s) rather than the voters.
I suspect that most MPs do have an ideology in there somewhere, just the main parties are constantly too scared of putting off any voters to say anything….everyone has to tow the party line, and the party line is to very strongly and emphatically repeat things that 99% of people agree with anyway, no matter what they’re asked. I saw Cameron interviewed a week or two ago, he was asked about 5 seperate questions, to which ‘we should have a general election’ was a sensical answer to exactly none, but was all he said anyway. I’m going off topic and getting annoyed, but ya get my point I think.
I always tend to mean economically when I say left/right….and in my head I even split left and socialist….could do with some hard and fast quantifications of these things….
“The system currently leads to dis-enfranchisement”
So john-you presumably argued against FPTP in 1997, 2001 & 2005?
(my previous comment is awaiting moderation again :/ )
@ Promsan, many people would agree with you broadly….now try to get people agreeing on what major differences there should be
I think most of the reason the three parties are so clustered together is that people are generally pretty happy with the way things are….even if they don’t think so, when offered alternatives….
I suspect the best way for good change would be constitutional/electoral reform, possibly something leading away from the party system entirely…
@Wood – it’s not Anthony that’s doing it… just be more creative in your spelling and shove in the odd bit of random punctuation.
(I’ll refrain from any expecially rude examples!)
“I think most of the reason the three parties are so clustered together is that people are generally pretty happy with the way things are….even if they don’t think so, when offered alternatives….”
Why do you think that?
try a bit of basic analysis:
graph of internet access:
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nugget.asp?ID=8
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/research/telecoms/reports/bbresearch/int_bband_updt/may2004/figure3
http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/internal/annrep/annrep9900/figure19.jpg
graphs of turnout;
http://www.esrc.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/facts/index15.aspx
I’m suggesting causality, but simply that during the 90s this “politician-speak” emerged in the wake of the traumas at either end of the 80s for different sectors of society; and this precipitated disenfranchisement, and then conincided with the emergence of the internet and info-revolution (incl. digital media in general), which has created a new paradigm in political activity and supplanted the old model – and the old model has now been found to be inadequate not only in the realms of discourse, but also in terms of economic management, and in terms of morals – a perfect storm.
social mobility and infestation and centralisation of the media and political spheres has further alienated large swathes of society… those who have been on the “right” side of the boom in information, wealth, and everything else have dominated the discourse.
This has now changed: more people are more educated; more informed, and more engaged by the technologies info revolution, and can now use that muscle to make new choices; and expectations in the social, economic, and moral realms have been suddenly unmet, and this is a toxic tsunami for any political establishment.
That’s the background.
I don’t think there should be any differences between those three – I think they should simply merge into one party and stop the facade.
You won’t get rid of parties – our species is hard-wired to categorise and organise, to groupform, to discriminate (or favour).
I think what is desirable is for a huge number of MPs to go; and for the triumvirate’s cold dead grip on power to be prised away.
PR isn’t the answer, but maybe a more proportional non-list single member system where you pick three in order of preference, and they get points for it… but that’ll be a pig to count!
I’m *not* suggesting causality, (!) tsk
@Promsan, I wasn’t asking what difference there should be between the main parties, but more that what major differences any party would have with the position of the main three that would see it stand a chance of competing.
I was saying that in the current system ‘the people’ as a whole broadly want what we’ve got, it encourages all parties to gather round the centre ground, and the centre ground is by default, what people want….it’s a bad average of the positions people would vote for, that ends up being specifically not what most people would vote for…
If you’re looking for tricky counting, part of the electoral system in Woods dictatorship involves each head of department being chosen by the electorate with an option for each voter to list up to 30 out of the 100 candidates for each post in a borda count system. So assuming 20 posts to be chosen each voter has up to 9300 votes.
And yes I figured it was automatic, just letting ya know there was another reply coming from the past…never would have occured to me to look out for the ci@lis in soci@lism.
Labour stands for the view that all people have rights and by acting collectively (the state) a framework can be established which enables individuals to prosper more as a result of their talents and work than would otherwise be the case.
In other words moderate the advantages that children from better off back-grounds have.
Liberals (including Tories in this context) believe that if you don’t ‘look’ after the lower reaches of society sufficiently order will be lost, there is some noblise oblige there as well for Dave and his chums.
New Labour was created as there was a need after Thatcher to trim to gain office blah blah etc etc.
Point is thgat whatever failings or successes over last 12 years a core philosophy exists which makes it highly unlikely Labour will die.
” whatever failings or successes over last 12 years a core philosophy exists which makes it highly unlikely Labour will die.”
I think that’s fair JIM JAM. When the post GE blood has been sluiced away people who have that “core philosophy” will come together & re-express it.But there will be arguments about what that philosophy is or should be , and more blood will be spilt. And this will all be a cleansing .
Meanwhile the concept of Cameron’s philosophy expressed in your second paragraph will be seen as dated……because of course he has already been through the process described above….he knows why Conservatives kept losing & all of this will feed into the “Labour” quest for it’s new/old/revised/whatever philosophy.
And so it goes on ad infinitum-the constant game of catching up with the public.
Colin, I’ve always been against FPTP (but not knowing enough about alternative systems, I can’t really have a debate about it.)
We’ve evolved rapidly over the last 20 years, led by technological development. Our system of electing people to speak up for us shouldn’t be locked in the past, but brought up to date.
The one thing that could attract a lot of people’s vote woould be a referendum offering a choice of electoral systems.
The one positive thing about the last few weeks has been a sudden burst of energy in the electorate. There is an opportunity to turn that energy into positive engagement.
Promsan,
In one of your posts above you touched on a point which was recently raised by the Archbishop of Canterbury (and the RC Archibishop in Scotland) which is that we do not hear our political leaders making a stand on moral issues of “right” and “wrong”.
To a large extent this is a consequence of the “liberation” philosphy of the 1960s or the concept of “moral relativism”. Actually, both are primarily selfish inasmuch as what is “right” is determined by what any individual hapens to consider “right” for themselves, so there are no absolute or universal values.
The generation which grew up in the 60s/70s who felt most strongly about this approach went on to work in media and public services, labelling themselves as “progressive”. Roy Jenkins described it as “bien-pensant” – the implication being that anyone who thought differently was bad. From this developped the concept of “political correctness” – which is plain totalitarianism if looked at objectively.
Whenever any politician has tried to make a stand based on moral values, they have been ridiculed by this self-appointed clicque, led most notably by our publicly-funded broadcaster.
Prime examples are Frank Field and Iain Duncan-Smith, but also look at what happened to John Major when he launched “back to basics” in an attempt to bring back some morality. The media immediately jumped on some examples of individual misbehaviour to rubbish the concept which threatened their world-view.
If we want to reconnect politics with morality, we need to reform our media, or we are asking for characters with incredible courage to stand up to them.
It may be possible. In the past few weeks I have heard more prayers in church for our politicians and leaders than I can ever recall in the past.
jimjam
not remotely convinced… since they gave up clause 4, they gave up any pretence to a core philosophy any different than that of Blair Light and Blair Lighter.
P h-j
I am a determinist, not a religous-ist.
The reason why morality is something they daren’t touch, is because moral relativism dictates that “good” may not be defined; and if “good” cannot be defined, then “good” cannot be done.
My definition of “good” and morality, stems from a “first principles” approach, and travelling via Plato, Darwin, and Popper.
I would never hand over the determination of morality to a man in a dress waving an ancient book of fairy stories!
Morality can be defined in terms of systems; and in my view, should be defined as rather like a vector than scalar concept: the direction being the persistence of the system. It just so happens that “the 7 deadly sins” concur conveniently with “systemic errors” in the moral logic of the system (in my view).
“different than ”
different from (god I’m turning into an American like those bloody sentence inflectors!)