FS
I don’t know if the slips of paper they shove through the door have as much impact as bad rumours about the local alternatives do… the local windbags, taxi drivers, barflies etc… I think can have a slow roast effect on perceptions, all tossed into the mix of news at ten, today, radio 2 and the quasi-quality newspapers.

But yeah, who of quality would put themselves forward for parliament these days, never mind endure the masochism of being a Labour activist?!
I think Labour are going to panic, and lose their cool, get distracted by relative irrelevancies of the NP (as opposed to their greater threat, the LDP).
Though I’m quite sure “Others” will have plenty to keep feeling chirpy about over the coming years… especially in council elections.

Some of the Labour activists have not deserted their annual conference in Brighton! But if you are implying they are a “rare species” these days, I wouldn’t disagree.

Actually, “Others” seem to be the most enthusiatic at present. The independent, Money Reform Party, candidate where I am had a stall in the middle of the city on a number of occasions over the Summer.

NBeale was referring to the pattern (if one can call it such) of polls pre / post conference season. I did an anlysis of these which is on the Pre-conference round up thread. Basically, the only conference season which saw any significant shift in polling position pre / post was in 2007. But, as I argued in my previous post, even that was merely a continuation of the underlying trend from August/September carried forward into October.

As to the German system…. My abiding recollection will be of the day Kohl lost his FPTP seat in the Bundestag, only to return as head of the CDU list for his home region. In other words, even if the good folk of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath had the temerity to reject Brown, he would still be back at Westminster as head of the Labour list for the Scottish Region – assuming the Labour Party would place him at the head of its regional list. This is actually the system currently used for Holyrood.

You don’t even need to slap those tables into Excel and map a trendline on ‘em to see the long-term trends and the turning points.

Conference season 2007 was a turning point, when Brown chickened out of an election, and the LibDems indulged in yet another leadership debacle… the trajectory of Labour despite undulations has been a steady drop of about 5% per quarter, and about 5% increase for the LibDems over the whole 2 years!
Whereas the Tories have been effectively on a plateau over the last two years… not very conclusive for them… they should at least be matching the Lib Dems… it’s the expenses scandal that has effectively scuppered the Tory knockout… too many reminders of “Tory sleaze”.

…Thank god we don’t have the German system, can you imagine!