New ICM and YouGov polls
As promised there are two new polls tonight. YouGov for the Sunday Times have topline figures of CON 40%(+1), LAB 27%(-2), LDEM 18%(-1). The second poll is by ICM in the Sunday Telegraph; their topline figures are CON 40%(-2), LAB 29%(nc), LDEM 19%(nc).
So there are no major shifts in either poll, ICM continues the trend of a narrowing in the Conservative lead, while the move in YouGov is in the other direction (in fact, YouGov looks more like a reversion to the mean than anything, prior to their last poll they had shown Labour at 27-28% for four polls in a row).
While it is not statistically significant at all (a move from 39% to 40% from one poll to another really doesn’t mean anything), politically it’s significant that after several polls with the Tories sub-40% and in hung Parliament territory, that both polls have the Conservatives up to 40% again and with a lead that would translate into a majority. It doesn’t necessarily mean much, but it will work against a hung parliament narrative establishing itself.
UPDATE: Some interesting stuff in the other questions in both polls. YouGov asked some questions about whether the Conservatives were seen as the party of the rich, and about potential tax hikes and cuts. On the issue of the Conservative party image 52% agreed with the statement that the Conservatives are still the party of the rich, with 31% disagreeing. It was largely a partisan response though, 90% of Labour supporters thought so, only 14% of Conservative supporters.
On taxation, YouGov continues to find the public opting for public spending cuts over tax hikes (by 52% to 30%). If there are to be tax rises though, putting extra taxes on the very rich remains as popular as ever. Asked whether taxes should be spread evenly across the population, or concentrated on rich people, 66% go for the latter. YouGov also asked about the Conservative proposals to recognise marriage in the tax system, and found the public pretty evenly divided: 48% of repondents supported the idea, 43% disagreed.
ICM meanwhile asked about people’s belief in man made climate change. They found 52% of people thought that climate change was happening and that humans were largely responsible, 39% of people thought that it had not yet been proven that it was man-made, while 7% did not believe the world was warming at all.
This isn’t vastly different from the Populus poll on climate change taken in November, suggesting no vast change in opinion. However, the questions were probably asked in a different way and giving different options, so we cannot be sure. We really need a truly comparable question in order to see whether the recent leak of emails has shifted public opinion on climate change: a question on climate change asked exactly the same way as one before the leak.
Filed under: Environment, ICM, Voting Intention, YouGov
There’s an ICM and a YouGov poll out today.
New polls and averages up at http://ukelectiontrend.blogspot.com/
No significant difference in my trend model yet from these yet. Still predicting a slim Conservative majority.
I think it’s still the case that if Labour are doing better in Scotland than elsewhere as some recent polls have shown, it probably means the Tory majority would be slightly higher than most of the calculators are indicating.
The Tories are still grounded and can’t rise above the 40 mark.My opinion is that they are now stuck on 40 as their best effort and that the polls will begin to narrow over the next few months.A hung parliament now seems more likely as these last two polls only confirm what we knew.
My trend model is also showing that the Liberal Democrats are making slow gains. Perhaps to push them back up to 22-23, which would put all those assumptions about “the marginals” into the rubbish bin as any ‘edge’ they had dissolves into Libdem defectors.
Andrew
Can you please check the LDEM figures from the latest ICM in your Tables. You appear to have them at 13 rather than 19. Does this affect your projected results?
I’d wondered why Andrew wasn’t commenting on the apparent slight strengthening of the LibDem figure.
Interesting how the Telegraph reports this. Instead of reporting that the Conservatives have still slipped down in comparison with their past ICM polling, they lead with “Tories hitting the key measure of 40 per cent”. And only a couple of paragraphs down mention that Labour have gained four points while the conservatives have lost two points over their last ICM poll. That’s worthy of a ‘Gold Star Standard of Reporting’.
LIN REES “The Tories are still grounded and can’t rise above the 40 mark”, This appears to be a rather silly analysis. What evidence do you base your forecast on apart from 3 polls showing the Tories just below 40% followed by 2 showing them at 40%? I have no idea whether or not the Tories will benefit from the problems Labour may face from the Iraq enquiry, the new problem associated with the Hutton enquiry & next weeks public sector borrowing estimates but it is naïve to assume the Tories “cannot” rise above 40%.
Since 1987, most polls have overestimated Lab support and underestimated Con support also the Con vote was hit hard with tactical voting in the 2005, 2001, 1997 and even 1992 general elections, therefore if the polls point to a 20 seat majority for Con it could be more like 50 or 60. Also most pollsters believe that the Cons need to be 10 points on front of Lab to win a slim majority, it would possibly be a slim Tory majority with an eight point lead as it was in 1992 if what I stated above is correct.
@Mike: See my article here – http://ukelectiontrend.blogspot.com/2009/12/how-to-misleadingly-report-poll.html
“Going from bellow 39 back up to 40″ is a misleading reading of these results. The ICM poll, rightly or wrongly, has been giving higher figures than the Ipsos-MORI. Comparing a ICM poll to an earlier Ipsos-MORI poll will make it appear that the Conservatives have made a gain. While if you compare an Ipsos-MORI poll taken after an ICM poll, it looks like the Conservatives have lost out.
This is why you either compare only within on polling outfit, or compare across a moving average trend.
LIN REES your comments look even more unreliable when one examines the equivalent 2008 polls:
ICM
Con 38
Lab 33
LD 19
YouGov
Con 41
Lab 35
LD 15
The country is not mad – there will not be a hung parliament.
As I said in my last post, we’re seeing polls with a CLead >12% – the WMA is 39:27:18. But the retrospectives show that the last YouGov, which looked out by 2.2, was only out by 0.8.
153 days to the next election and over the last 153 the average CLead has been 14.5%. There is a weak (R2=0.47 downtrend of this lead which if continued would indeed leave the CLead around 8% at the time of the election, but I’m very sceptical. I think we will see a reversion to the mean. Brown’s stupid lie about Spain being in the G20 can’t have helped and the “Class war” tactic is doomed IMHO.
@Mike
Your post rather backs up Lin’s point. In what can only be described as one of the worst years for a governing party in a generation, and the main opposition sees virtually no change in its polling numbers over the year.
Anthony,
Can you confirm whether the polling averages include the 2.6% of the electoral vote that comes from Northern Ireland? As far as I’m aware they don’t, but I’ve been looking into seat projection methods lately and I wanted to check I’m using the correct percentages.
Thanks
quite a few people point to the fact that the Tories are averaging 20% in Scotland as opposed to 40% across mainland UK as saying the Tories must be doing far better in England.
However as Scotland only makes up under 10% of the mainland vote ( most polls don’t include NI’s 2% of the Uk population), then if the tories are getting 40out of a hundred and 2 of that is in scotland then they are getting 38 out of 90 elsewhere.
That works out at 42% which is better but not vastly so.
The battle will be one in the key english marginals, but the fact that Scoland only acounts for 10% of the vote and is a four rather than three party system means that you really can’t use the comparison between UK and Scottish figures to show the Tories doing significantly better than they are.
Having said that they are still on targets for a 50+ majority, but that will be overwhelmingly from English seats.
Is this really a trend model Jay Blanc, or wishful LD thinking?
There is no evidence atall that the LDs are matching the levels of support in the last Parliament or at the 2005 election.
Lin Rees
The Tories are still grounded and can’t rise above the 40 mark.My opinion is that they are now stuck on 40 as their best effort and that the polls will begin to narrow over the next few months.A hung parliament now seems more likely as these last two polls only confirm what we knew.
As Mike and others have said before him, there is no evidence that Labour gains on tories in the closing months before an election.
If the tories have a more effective front man, which I think they do and if the tory electoral machine is stronger than 5 years ago, which I think it is, then surely they should be able to reach 42% by May.
If the Lib dems can further strengthen their vote, then labour may be lucky to reach 25%.
We still have others at 15, +7 on the “norm”, seemingly keeping Labour in the doldrums of the 20s and the tories in their own doldrums, the 30s.
SNP progress contributes 2 points to others, maybe, but 4 or 5 points may must be disillusionment with the main UK parties in england.
Do people think some of these voters will return to the mainstream? If so, where?
I notice that 4 points on the tories moving average gives them a majority of 110 whilst 4 points on Labour gives us a hung parliament. If the split is equal, it favours the tories.
As the Tories even got more votes than Labour in the last election in English constituencies, I reckon a 40% overall vote should be enough to give the Tories a decent majority.
Mark M –
No, all polls are Great Britain only, excluding Northern Ireland (so for comparisons with actual election results, make sure you are using just GB figures).
While labour will be happier than a month ago, they will still be very worried that after a ‘good’ month their own vote is not really moving much. This could yet happen, but while they have been successful in softening the Tory vote they will not be competitive unless they firm up their own support by a good few points.
The poll data on how the Tories are seen is significant. The ‘class’ war could easily backfire on Labour, but this finding shows there is something to work on if they can get it right. Its interesting that while Cameron lables these attacks as silly and vinditive, the Telegraph reported yesterday that 14 out of 15 shadow cabinet members who went to comprehensive/grammar schools named their school on the CCHQ website, while only 3 from 17 who went private named the schools. This included one who said she went to her ‘local school’ but declined to mention it just happened to be Cheltenham Ladies College. Clearly the Tories have some nervousness about this issue themselves, but Labour will need to be careful to craft an attack thet doesn’t turn people off.
Its totally unscientific but the way i’ve always looked at who will win a UK FPTP election is to sum the squares of the party percentages and each parties share of that is the share of seats they will get.
On this basis the Tories will get 367…. a majority of about 90…..
Peter.
I have noticed over the last 4-5 elections that the actual results tend to be slightly better for the Tories than polls show and lightly worse for Labour than the polls show. Is this a fair coment?
Eric – yes, it is.
The caveat is that the polls have been improving over that time, from 1992 when they were grossly skewed towards Labour, to 2005 when they were very close to the actual result.
The pollsters have further refined their methods since then, so there is no guarantee that any Labour bias will remain in this election’s polls.
@ Anthony in his opening remarks – heaven forbid that anything alters the prevailing pro-conservative narrative – let alone the published figures from ICM which clearly show Conservative support going from 45 to 42 to 40 in consecutive polls. But that is a triumph according to the narrative ! I regret to say that this will only get worse as we enter what will be a very bitter election period. We need objectivity not wishful thinking and distortion.
To me, this forthcoming election looks and feels like the 1979 election. The similarities are manifold. Callaghan, who had taken over from Wilson mid-term, had dodged an opportunity to go to the country the previous autumn, there had been the debacle of the IMF bailout, the winter of discontent, plus sundry other failures of labour in government – not least the fact that Callaghan lost a vote of confidence on the Scotland Act which forced an election not at a time of his choosing. There was a new tory leader whom Callaghan thought was untried, had a plummy voice, and (shades of toffs!) was a woman. Voters, he thought, would turn against her. Incidentally, there was also a new Liberal leader too. Although Callaghan was more of a gentleman than Brown is, the campaign was rough and was fought on many of the same grounds as this coming one will be. Mrs T won an overall majority of 43, but the swing was not uniform. The further north, the smaller the swing. In Scotland, they swung against her. In 1974, the voting % were Con 36%, Lab 40%. In 1979, they were Con 44%, Lab 37%. I would expect Cameron to get a majority of at least 50.
So out of every ten people
4 support the Conservatives
3 support Labour
2 support the Lib Dems
and 1 supports some other party
Not much of a grounds for anything other than a National Coalition really.
Shame party politics prevent such an idea being put into practice.
Gotta say, I agree with ALAN W in as much as this should be about realistic analysis and not wishful thinking. That said, I can’t see the excitement of the labour group everytime a poll comes out showing a drop in torie support. It’s like saying ‘YIPPEE we are not going to lose by as much as we thought we were’.
My feel from the media today is a much more positive one for the Conservatives who seem to be offering a fightback. As said on this and previous blogs I think the whole ‘tory toff’ thing is a mistake and will backfire on labour.
When you are in a hole you don’t care about the background of the person pulling you out.
@Dont tell em Pike
Such a good start: “Gotta say, I agree with ALAN W in as much as this should be about realistic analysis and not wishful thinking.”
Shame you then go on to wave your own particular flag.
@ DAVID IN FRANCE
“a National Coalition ”
What on earth would be the point of that?
The Tory party have always been the party of wealth. No change
whatever has occurred in that department.
What has changed is the perception of the non chattering class’s
regarding all politicians as self serving swine. This backfires on the party of “fairness and compassion for OUR PEOPLE” more than it does on the Tories, even though the pigish greed displayed by both was 50/50.
The days of Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill vs Ernie Bevan,
patrician born leader vs working class hero, are long gone.
If the Conservatives can do better than this lot, we dont care where we went to school.
@David in France, you could say the same thing about even 97….I’d hold me nose and vote for either party if they promised a swtich to first alternative, or some sort of borda….or rather, I wouldn’t…..as I live in a safe seat and realistically don’t get a vote.
@David in france
Not so much as flag waving but more of an observation.
There seems to be a almost hysterical reaction (from both sides) everytime a conservative drop in voting intention is mentioned. I feel many other factors will influence this election not least of all the number of party activists willing to canvass door to door etc.
@ALAN W
Please excuse my stupidity ( I am a Tory) but where do you get a drop from 45 to 42 to 40 in consecutive polls for the Tory Party?
According to Anthony’s list the ICM tally for Conservatives is
44 42 42 40
labour
27 25 29 29
Lib dems
18 21 19 19
Not a 45 in sight. All within margin of error and with 42 being a plausible average. However ….
Why should the lib dems drop 3 points (indeed after going up 4 points)? Why does nobody comment on the wild fluctuations in the lib dem vote. 3% change on a 21% share is a lot.
The concentration is on the tory share but if we are getting these wild fluctuations in lib dems – well is there something funny with the polls? Seems to me we see labour down, libdem up and vice versa.
Just how confident can we be in internet polling and telephone polling with such small samples?
Thanks to the UEA I am quite suspicious of statistical manipulation.
@ TREVORSDEN
“Thanks to the UEA I am quite suspicious of statistical manipulation”
That puts you in Ed Milliband’s category of – “flat Earthers trying to undermine the science.”.
King Harold,
Notably, Ernest Bevin never became Labour leader. Instead, the Labour leader at the time was the son of a lawyer who was also a trained lawyer. So it was more upper class vs. professional class.
David Cameron does break the mold of “From Humble Beginnings, just off the M1″ that has been a key criterion for Tory leaders from Heath onwards. That’s why class politics feels so archaic: the Tories were loathed to push it vs. Tony Blair (Michael Howard did it only once, I think) but most importantly there was no narrative like that to be used against Heath, Thatcher, Major and the like. The closest was the way people made fun of them (Heath in particular) for their sergeant-accents.
Will it do well with the British public? I suppose Labour have nothing to lose at this point and it’s as good a distraction from other news as any. The important thing will be to avoid looking desperate, which will require good media management of the sort that was used over the Lisbon treaty. For this reason, it’s probably best if it’s not done by an incompetant like Brown, who fudged things up at PMQs. It would be best if one of the many working-class Labour ministers used it.
It comes to something when the party of government, once lead by a Public School boy who espoused education & aspiration; now mocks Public School boys in HoC , ruins education & decries aspiration.
We will see how much of a vote winner this turns out to be.
Trevor – why don’t people comment on the Lib Dems? The brutal answer is that people who aren’t Lib Dems don’t care much, most people look at the polls in the light of whether the Conservatives or Labour are more likely to win.
Of course, in terms of whether either party will get a majority, how well the Lib Dems do is actually of huge importance. How much the headline polls can tell is about that though is a different question. The Lib Dem swing is less uniform (though not that much less uniform, they are not immune, and if they are down by 3% nationally, it has to come from somewhere), but a lot will be down to personal votes, tactical voting and so on.
How confident can we be? Roughly speaking, with a sample size of 1000 we can be 95% confident that the figure is within 3% of the “real” figure.
@Bill Patrick
Yes Bill I am aware Major Attlee led the Labour party at the time.
However I so admire Ernie Bevan (and so did Churchill) that he always seems the sort of self made man who has a right to represent the working people of the 30s, 40s and 50s.
How very different to the home life of our own dear Prime Minister.
Several people have made comparisons with the coming electoral battle and what happened in the 1979 and 1992 elections.Whilst there are some parallels, there is also one significant difference which now makes the task for the Tories more demanding than on either of the earlier occasions – the fact that in 1997 and 2001 the LibDems achieved a major breakthrough largely at Tory expense. The LibDems now hold something like 35 seats which were comfortably Tory in both 1992 and 1979. Whilst the Tories are likely to regain some of them , I would expect the LibDems to retain most – so that the Tories end up being deorived of at least 25 seats they relied on for a majority in 92 and 79.. Without those 25 seats the Tories would certainly faced a Hung Parliament in 1992 – and probably in 1979 too!
KH, Do you mean Ernie Bevin or Aneurin Bevan?!
Graham – I was in North Devon a few weeks ago which has been LibDem for years.
Places like Illfracombe were a dump a shocking dump, with the evidence of it being a benefits dumping ground clear for all to see. I would not like to be either a lib dem or labour defending that record.
So I think LibDem seats are as vulnerable as any. After all what has voting LibDem given us – 13 years of Blair and Brown and a deficit and national debt to make your (and your grandchildrens) eyes water
GRAHAM
BEVIN
@ALAN W
Your remarks regarding the latest polls are really more silly than they at first appear. The Tories have perhaps lost a point or two,
since the late summer, then again it may well be normal variance. There is no ongoing trend showing Labour catching up in these figures.
Also your comment last night regarding the huge media bias in support of the Tories really does display utter desperation.
Before your desperation leads you to mock the Tory inability to exceed 40%, look at where they came from in the public perception. Like or lump it, Labour are now facing the same situation. You would do better working on a redefined future than hopeing against hope that “something will turn up”.
Anthony,
Does the ‘within 3% of the “real” figure’ apply to all the parties within a poll?
i.e. if the Conservatives are at 40%, then the 95% confidence is that they are within 37-43% and if Greens are on 3%, then the confidence interval is 0-6%?
Or, does this apply to only the more well supported parties?
If I am in Ed Millibands bad books then I must be doing something right.
Blair was a public schoolboy,
Foot was a public schoolboy,
Callaghan sent his daughter to public school
Gaitskell was a public schoolboy
Atlee was a public schoolboy (I think his son and certainly his grandson went to public school – Stowe , as did George Monbiot, so AGW was born on the playing fields of Stowe)
People like Dianne Abbot send their children to public school.
But with 20% of people in Scotland being technically illiterate – does Brown care?
Given a 5% swing either way and with 1 high number for ‘others’ I think we should expect these swings. Difficult to place too much credibility on a single poll.
“with 1 high number for ‘others’”
sorry – ‘with A high number for others’
Mike R – nope, it depends on the size of the figure, there are lower margins on lower figures. Technically the 3% margin only applies in full to a figure of 50%.
I wouldn’t worry too much about it though – technically the figures also only apply to a genuine random sample, as opposed to the quota samples and quasi-random samples the pollsters actually use. It’s best to treat the margin of error as just a rule of thumb.
Oh shock horror I forgot
Balls went to a public school.
@Trevorsden & others
I think it’s fairly obvious….extremely obvious…..that the point Brown had been meant to make (but failed), wasn’t so much that the tory front bench most all went to uber posh schools for the privledged, but that their tax policies can be painted as favouring extremely rich people like themselves.
Even just pointing and calling eton boy will do their core vote good ofc…..but that won’t really help them save any seats.
LOL what happend to the BNP’s 22 % of the vote? did that just vanish into thin air? I see there has been no reports on this lately !
‘Even just pointing and calling eton boy will do their core vote good ofc…..but that won’t really help them save any seats.’ it might by getting their core vote out–old labour hasnt gone away, it’s just resting…
It is interesting to hear about the spin put on the poll by The Telegraph.The underlying stats point to a possibility of Labour working on the ’soak the rich policy.’ This morning one commentator in a leading newspaper suggested that Cameron had ‘run out of things to say.’ whereas the government can be pro-active. This difference may determine the result of the next election.
According to Alec’s post above 53% of the Conservative Shadow Cabinet went to private schools (17 out of 32).
Does anyone know what the figure is for the Labour Cabinet?
‘So I think LibDem seats are as vulnerable as any. After all what has voting LibDem given us – 13 years of Blair and Brown and a deficit and national debt to make your (and your grandchildrens) eyes water’
I dont think all of this can be blamed on Lib Dems; even they would suggest they are not that powerful. and who’s to say Tories would have been any better, they were after all, bereft of any useful ideas by the time they lost office. (Oh, other than privatise everything or selling everything off and slash / burn all social welfare…)
Quote: The country is not mad – there will not be a hung parliament.
N Beale
And since all any individual can do is influence the result in their own constistuency, how will the country ensure that there isn’t a hung parliament, exactly?
Quote: I reckon a 40% overall vote should be enough to give the Tories a decent majority.
Dennis Ward
In any democracy I want to live in, 40% should never give one party a majority.
NBEALE:
If there is a hung parliament despite a 10% Tory lead, it won’t be because the country is mad but because the boundaries are woefully out of date, more than 10 years so.
@TONY FISHER
It works for us thanks. Whatever “country you choose to live in”
it will not be able to display a track record of parliamentry democracy which even begins to approach ours.
I cannot stop you attempting to sell PR in Britain but please remember our appaling system has not given us the benefits of leaders like;
Francisco Franco
Benito Mussolini
Phillipe Petain
and the ever lovely Adolf Hitler.
@LIN REES
How can Cameron run out of things to say when we owe £3trillion and are loosing a war, in addition we are enquiring into another war which appears to have been started due to lies.
I can think of about 2 dozen questions straight of and I did’nt even go to Eton.
@JACK
If it has taken the resting “Old Labour” this long to learn that Cameron went to Eton, they should have their francise removed.
@ LIN REES
“This morning one commentator in a leading newspaper suggested that Cameron had ‘run out of things to say.”
He didn’t actually.
Rawnsley in the Guardian quoted Wilson as follows :-
When the election of 1964 was finally called, the leader of the opposition, Harold Wilson, sighed with secret relief. He had, he confided to friends, “run out of things to say”.
The thrust of the article is that Cons are far too reliant on their leader over the next six months for things to say.
That may or may not be true , but Cameron -as Wilson- is dying to get the GE Campaign started & said so again this morning on TV.
There will be plenty said when Brown’s phoney hiatus comes to an end.
Mr Myers,
‘Dizzy Thinks’ knows how many.
He could add Labours biggest donor to that list, Lord Sainsbury (who guess what, went to Eton)
And
Attlee Gaitskell Foot and Blair all went to public school as did labours current deputy leader Harman. Browns closest advisor did as well.
Re: LibDems…
My trend model shows that the Lib Dem data has been very noisy, but that there is a slight trend upwards that might put them firmly back over 20 on election day.
Re: Campaign…
Anyone who thinks that there isn’t a current and on-going election campaign in this country, must be one of those ‘common folk who don’t pay attention to politics’. The conservatives have been in election campaign mode since last year when people started rumouring that there would be a snap election.
And yes, I think that Cameron has shot his wad too early by starting off an election campaign over a year before the election.
Where Labour politicians went to school is missing the point slightly. For Labour, it doesn’t matter in the same way, they are not really vulnerable to that sort of attack because they are traditionally the party of the working class.
The Conservatives on the other hand are trying to ditch an image of being interested only in wealthy and well off, so are vulnerable on things like this.
(Of course, while Labour themselves are not at risk of being painted as the party of the rich, such an attack does risk making them look negative or hypocritical, so it’s not without risks)
Lin – in case you hadn’t noticed Frank Luntz has replied to you on the previous thread, and you probably owe him an apology for making false allegations about him.
A word of caution. The ‘class war’ debate seems to have degenrated into a discussion over which schools various people went to. This will not be how Labour use this issue. Schooling is the part of a characterisation exercise that is currently underway – Eton and Cheltenham Ladies College makes it quite easy to do this in many people’s minds. However, the strategy will be much broader than merely the backgrounds of respective candidates. It will be about tax, who pays what, controlling bonuses and how much banks will pay back, excessive earnings, both public and private sectors, spending cuts against tax rises etc. In short, it’s going to come down to the haves vs the have nots. In Labour’s favour, a majority of people (according to these polls) see the Tories as in it for the rich. The reaction to the 10p tax rate abolition also shows the British electorate want to see ‘fairness’ in how tax and spending is approached. This could be made to chime with the general thrust of the attack on the Tories.
For the Tories, they currently have greater credibility on tax and spend issues if the polls are to be believed, and few appear to support class based attacks for the sake of it, so there could be a backlash if the attacks are seen to be economically incoherent and purely opportunistic or envy/class driven. Labour has to hold the middle class coalition to have a chance of power, now and in the future, and its easy to alienate this group.
The PBR on Wednesday will be critical. Last weeks PMQs smells like a set up for new tax policies in the PBR. Darling might well stand there and ape Osborne’s ‘we’re in this together’ line while he lines up some eye catching top end tax increases. Don’t ask me what the reaction will be and how it affects the polls though.
‘@ANTHONY WELLS
Labour cannot persist in this class warfare if it is made clear just what hypocrits they are. Its rather like them making an issue of the duck house and up jumps Mr & Mrs Smith with the porn movie. People will just take them for a dirty pot calling a kettle black.
The real villians are socialist MPs who stand against private education and then send their own kids to such an establishment. Also, Labour cannot be elected by the “bottom end of the market ” only. They need to attract people with aspirations. This kind of 1920s class war wont cut it with them.
They can. Not least, as Alec says, where people went to school is just a sideshow. The core of it will be on taxation, attitudes towards bankers bonuses and so on.
Figures for the 1979 election earlier weren’t quite right.
1979
C 13,697,923 44.9% GB (43.9% UK)
Lab 11,532,218 37.8% GB (37.0% UK)
October 1974
Lab 11,457,079 40.2% GB (39.3% UK)
Con 10,464,000 36.7% GB (35.7 to 35.9% UK)
Of course when a lot of Tories went to grammar schools they couldn’t be accused of benefitting from being able to pay for the best schools because grammars were obviously selected by academic ability. Margaret Thatcher won a scholarship, Norman Tebbit attented an academically selective school, and John Major went to a grammar school.
What proportion of the current crop of bankers went to Public School? I personally have no idea, but I can’t help thinking that the recent trend towards reckless adventurism and greed in city institutions owes a lot to a drift from quietly arrogant public-school tie types towards loudly arrogant state-school barrow boy types.
There is an anachronistic part of me that quite warms to the idea of having a cabinet stuffed with Eton-educated sons of the gentry. It doesn’t conjure an image of self-interest so much as one of self-assured noblesse oblige. Complete cobblers of course, but so is the mood music Labour’s trying to play. And ultimately its not about the facts, its about the picture it paints in people’s imaginations.
I think we are not understanding GB’s motives,do not forget he is a calculator on legs. He realizes that the election is lost. Every thing is aimed at the Labour core vote so as to limit the damage to ensure enough of a party to come back in 2014-15. He has given up the middle ground as he knows it is lost. The Liberals also will loose heavily as anyone in Cornwall and Devon knows, although they may pick up a few seats off Labour in the North.
@King Harold
The psyche of the British middle, and pseudo middle class has changed. Whereas before, the manifestations of their frustrations and inferiority complex, would be directed towards those they believe to be lower down the scale from them. Now it is quite the opposite. Look at how we as a nation take great delight in bringing down those who we feel think that they are higher up the scale than us, or those we feel that think they are ‘getting too big for their boots’.
C.L.A.D:
I agree with you – it’s interesting how people never blame themselves for their problems. As you say, sometimes it’s people lower down the scale; other times it’s those higher up it. If someone runs up a credit card debt for example, it’s never their fault, always someone else’s.
Have you seen the latest.Darling and Flint say that Labour has given up attacking the Tories on class. It only lasted 4-5 Days
I think the answer to what the trends are is pretty clear from the five-year chart of all polls, which overcomes the problems of comparability and different polling methods. What it shows is that the general trend since mid-2008 for the Tories is clearly down, with each successive peak being lower than the last. Looking back to August-September 2008 they were regularly polling in the high 40s (at one point 52%). Now they are averaging under 39%.
The major shock to the system caused by MPs’ expenses hit both Labour and Conservatives, but Labour suffered more, while for the Lib Dems it was neutral. The real question is what happens to the ‘other’ vote as it gradually filters back to the main parties.
At present, this process seems to be helping Labour more than the Tories (probably because of the UKIP element), with the former gaining 5-6% points versus the latter’s 3-4% points. If the news on the economy carries on improving and GDP growth starts again, then it is likely this will continue. My current prediction is therefore: C41, L32, LD 21, Other 6, leaving the Conservatives 12 short of a majority according to the swing calculator.
Please everyone – get off this obsession with which school people went to – it really isn’t the point. It’s really about public perceptions of wealth and fairness, and in particular unwarranted wealth. Jonathon Ross and RBS directors are as much in the frame as any ex Eton chums.
Up until the banking crisis as a nation we collectively accepted that if people were super rich they were obviously worth it – market forces. (I know many of us didn’t agree with that, but this was the prevailing orthodoxy). This has changed, and people are much more prepared to question massive salaries and the social worth of the wealthy. Personally, I firmly believe there is little correlation between remuneration levels and true worth at the top end. However, those hiring (including government) and those hired, collude in a game where both are more satisfied by higher salaries paid as one side thinks they’ve secured the best while the other thinks they are the best. Hence top wages keep spiralling upwards. As you come down the wages scale however, there is a mystery point at which this logic ceases to be heard. That’s why you never hear councils saying how they need to pay bin men or cleaners bigger wages to secure the best workers.
I suspect Labour is looking to play on some underlying sentiments that the high earners in society have picked up massive benefits over the years, while appearing unwilling to now dip in and pay the price now when needed. Its as much Labour’s fault as anyone’s, but we have a tax system where the poorest pay a far higher proportion in tax than the richest, and many see this as unfair.
This is the milleau of issues that Labour wants to tap into – schools are not the real issue.
I believe UKIP will poll at least 4% in the general election (compared to 2% in 2005), and both the Greens and the BNP will poll at least 2% (compared to 1% each last time). That means “others” will poll at least 8% in my opinion. I also think Labour are unlikely to reach the dizzy heights of 32% which would only represent a 4% decline since 2005.
@Glen Otto – “Have you seen the latest.Darling and Flint say that Labour has given up attacking the Tories on class. It only lasted 4-5 Days”.
To be honest, that strikes me as classic Alistair Campbell. Its a brief burst of activity designed to trigger certain thoughts and feelings, prior to policy announcements designed to work into the same emotions. By the time your opponents are responding you’ve moved on and are insisting it’s not an issue, but the damage has been done, and the overall message lingers in people’s thoughts.
@Lin Rees
Why is it that Luntz is almost always prefaced as a “right-wing” pollster? Surely you would expect a pollster to be neutral and independent.
@ Alec
Thankyou, a very interesting observation.
CLAD – Not in the USA you wouldn’t! There are polling companies across the water who specifically work with Republican or Democrat clients. The reason is simply that there is a lot of money in political polling in the USA, and pollsters can make a good living specialising in polling for Democrat campaigns, or pollings for Republican campaigns. If that’s the work a company is looking for, it’s can be good marketting to be known as a Republican polling outfit – then someone running for office on a publican ticket might think “Ah! I’ll get Republican Polling Ltd to do the private polling for my campaign, they’ve got lots of experience in polling on republican campaigns”,
In the UK, there is very little money in political polling, and companies make their money polling for commerical clients about advertising and toothpaste and pensions and so on – political polling is mostly just a shop window to get their names known and advertise their accuracy. The only large scale private political polling done is by the party HQs, so it’s not like there are lots of other potential Conservative party clients or lots of other potential Labour party clients to appeal to. No UK polling company would want to be seen as right-wing or left wing.
Anyway, enough Luntz. It’s not on topic, and I don’t want any further posts making allegations that may not be factually correct. If you want to risk libelling people, don’t do it on my blog.
ALEC:
The problem is that which school people go to is very much connected to perceptions of unfair wealth these days, especially with people buying properties in the catchment areas of what they believe to be the best schools. There are probably some commentators who have always predicted that this would happen once selection based on academic ability was abolished in most of the country. I would love politicians who support the current school policy to explain why they think selection based on wealth is fairer than selection based on academic ability. It seems a no-brainer to me that the the current situation is more unfair than it used to be, not less.
Thanks Anthony. Message received and understood.
Interesting though, vis a vie the differences in polling between the US and Britain. How does this relate with Canadian polling and Angus Reid?
CLAD – the Canadian political system is very like our own, I’d be very surprised if there were any partisan polling outfits over there. Certainly AngusReid are not a partisan company.
@ Tony Fisher – “In any democracy I want to live in, 40% should never give one party a majority.”
Well, you can always leave. I’m surprised you haven’t done so already, seeing as Labour won the 2005 election with just 35.3% of the vote.
I agree with James.
And what’s the alternative?
If excessive attention is paid to parties that have attracted a lot less support than 35.2% or 40%, just because they hold the balance, then it’s extremely debatable whether the majority of people are getting the main thrust of policy that they voted for.
A party in power with an overall majority does still have to frame it’s policy somewhat towards those who haven’t voted for it or are loosely aligned, because if they don’t the removal van will arrive in Downing Street, something which is not so clear a threat if you are cobbling together a co-alition, and there could be a situation where it is extremely difficult to remove a government.
I have to agree with Tony Fisher. I think Australia’s election system of a two-party preference vote is more democratic. Even in the US, the winning party usually gets a majority of the popular vote (if not, somewhere near).
That said, I think the LDs could find PR has a nasty sting in the tail aswell as leading to an inevitable co-alition. The PR elections we’ve had in non General Elections in recent years show that this miscellaneous vote which goes to the LDs in fact breaks up in different ways to other smaller parties, and doesn’t lead to people thinking they can get more LDs elected.
Whichever way you rationalise it this “Eton Toff” stuff boils down to a two part subliminal message:-
a) People who go to Eton come from a background which renders them incapable of understanding “ordinary people”
b) People whose parents were wealthy enough to send them to Eton , will, if in government , promote tax & other policies which favour “wealthy” people to the disadvantage of all other people.
a) rests on the premise that understanding only comes from direct personal experience. ie that education, and imagination cannot have an effect on outlook.
Clearly if this were true no advances in Science , Technology , the Arts or Humanities would have been possible & we would all still be living in a Paleolithic world.
It is manifestly a stupid proposition & I have no doubt that the average voter ( excluding the tribal voter that is ) will see it that way.
b) is more subtle.
It plays on the perceived folk memory of “loadsamoney” “Thatcherism”.
To the tribalist who accepts a) it will follow logically.
To the objective mind which rejects a) it suggests that Cameron & his team are liars. It has to since no sane politician would go to the people on a manifesto of bashing the poor & making the rich richer.
b) therefore suggests that whatever Cameron/Osborne say , what they intend is to help the already wealthy to become even more wealthy, at the expense of the poor.
We shall see if this suggestion gains support.
I hope Cameron confronts it head on. He could start by explaining that his IHT proposal is for only “millionaires” to pay it,( not- only millionaires to avoid it )- and that modest estates , particularly in the South East, between £350k & £1million, will thus avoid this tax on aspiration & arbitrary property values
@James Ludlow – “Well, you can always leave. I’m surprised you haven’t done so already, seeing as Labour won the 2005 election with just 35.3% of the vote.”
He shoots. He scores. Nice finish.
@Andy Stidwill – “There are probably some commentators who have always predicted that this would happen once selection based on academic ability was abolished in most of the country. ”
It’s one of the myths about selective education that its based on academic ability. Its more about whether you had parents who read to you as a child, paid for private tuition lessons, or had the time and ability to help with additional education at home. then there is the fact that children develop at many different ages, but their school selection takes place on a singl day at age 11. In an ideal world there would be promotion/relegation tests every term – wouldn’t the middle classes love that? And what about the poor sod that has hayfever for the 11 plus?
Academic selection is no panacea and is almost as class based as a free market free for all. Why can’t we just sent local children to local schools, and dispense entirely with myth of parental choice?
Quote: @ Tony Fisher – “In any democracy I want to live in, 40% should never give one party a majority.”
Well, you can always leave. I’m surprised you haven’t done so already, seeing as Labour won the 2005 election with just 35.3% of the vote.
James Ludlow
What an absolutely pathetic response.
I want to change the system to something fair and democratic (and have done all my life), not leave my home country. And PR would increase real choice as it would remove the ridiculous argument that “there’s no point voting for/listening to party X as they can’t win a majority”. So we get a choice of Labour or Conservative. Great!
@Colin – Interesting post. I would suggest that there is some truth however in your proposition a). People from different backgrounds can imagine life in someone else’s conditions, but the experience is that most don’t. I’ve always been struck for example by Johnathon Aiken’s experience. Well educated, wealthy, with a very one sided view of certain sections of society prior to his imprisonment. Since then he’s been a model of liberal understanding of prison and justice issues in particular. his social circle has been greatly expanded and he is nothing like his former Tory minister incarnation.
I think it is genuinely difficult (but not impossible) for those from a privileged background to gain a true sense of perspective on many social issues. It’s why every now and then we have TV programmes where famous people spend a week living as homeless types or on benefits. I don’t need to do that. I’ve been there and seen it already.
I believe that in the full package of issues that go to make me support one party or another, their social background, and more critically how and whether their social background affects their policies, is part of my decision making package. One example is that Bush and Blair took us to war in Iraq, in part because they believed in God and thought they were doing the right thing. I would prefer a moral atheist or humanist to take such decisions on my behalf, as I worry about people who talk to a god making such life and death decisions.
@ Tony Fisher – it’s your original comment that’s pathetic, not my response. You sound exactly like those rockstar and Brit Art jokers who harumph about leaving the country if the government and/or taxation aren’t to their liking.
Colin with reference to your Cameron post earlier on .Rawnsley called him a man with chameleon like qualities who could re-invent himself to suit the mood.
It was Gordon Brown on Wednesday in PMQ’s who said of Cameron,’the more he talks the less he has to say.’ He has been Leader of the Opposition for a long time and it is a difficult job.
@ ALEC
“Academic selection is … almost as class based as a free market free for all.”
” In an ideal world there would be promotion/relegation tests every term – wouldn’t the middle classes love that?”
My parents were solid old fashioned working class.
They had precious little money for the family
neccessities , let alone “private tuition lessons”.
They encouraged me as best they could & ( critically) pushed me to study. I had a good primary school ( which I walked to each day-two miles there & two miles back)
I went to Grammar School & passed professional exams.
My brother failed eleven plus & went to “Secondary Modern”. He entered the RAF at age 15 and retired as a Wing Commander.
By & large success in education results from a combination of two things-Good Teachers & Good Parents ( Two of them)
It is the increasing absence of both of them which has reduced educational success rather than the litany of social deprivation & “middle class” envy.
It is no wonder to me that we never approach the levels of innovation & initiative to be found in USA.
President Obama used the phrase”middle class” in his campaign constantly to identify his biggest target constituency. In this country it is a term of envy & abuse.
It is no surprise to me either that the greatest philanthropists the world has ever seen come from the USA.
What Bill Gates is doing for global health & learning is staggering & would be sneared at as “charity” in this country where aspiration must always be supressed.
Lin-I read the article thanks-it was pretty balanced about Cameron’s achievements & faults I thought.
Colin: I certainly agree with what you’re saying. The problem is that the middle-classes are always vulnerable to a kind of pincer movement: of being ganged up on by those at the very top and bottom of society. Those at the bottom resent them for being successful and those at the top see them as a challenge to their position. Abolishing grammar schools was a move which suited those at the top and bottom at the expense of those in the middle.
ALEC-social background & religious beliefs are quite different.
I profoundly disagree with you about social background. It goes to the root of what I believe.I could not disagree with you more about anything.
I might well share your distrust of religious belief-it would depend on how exclusive & inflexible it was.
@ Lin Rees – The Observer and The Guardian regularly run articles in line with their pro-Labour, anti-Tory editorial bias. I don’t know why you think Andrew Rawnsley’s contribution to the genre today is particularly significant.
“What proportion of the current crop of bankers went to Public School?”
Why ask, because noboby likes bankers, so lets link the Tories with them.
How many officers who have lead or indeed died in Iraq or Afghanistan went to Public School….
I doubt it would be smart for Labour to try to link the Tories with them….
Peter.
Slightly off-topic (though I hope non-partisan). All parties (and the public) seem to be agreed that it would be unacceptable for large bonuses to be paid to bankers this year, in particular in banks bailed out by the taxpayers, and especially RBS, whose directors are threatening resignation if their proposed £1.5bn bonus pot is restricted.
What I am puzzled about is the government’s reluctance to exert the muscle that their dominant stake in RBS gives them. They could at any time in the last year called a general meeting to replace the board with a clear majority of their own appointees and halfed (or more) the bonus pot. It’s hard to believe that this would have been received with anything less than delight on the part of the electorate.
It would also have had the useful virtue of calling the banking industry’s bluff about the need for massive bonuses to retain key staff – if some dealers deserted RBS and the bank adopted a more prudent market position as a consequence this would have been a plus.
So for both logical and electoral reasons they should have done something. No need for threats or new legislation to cap bonuses or introduce windfall taxes.
So am I missing something obvious? Or is the treasury staffed by cowards?
@ LESLIE
” It’s hard to believe that this would have been received with anything less than delight on the part of the electorate”
…….and rejection by key RBS stafe who would walk away.
It’s a predictable rock & a hard place.
You can have a State Bank , run by the State, with social objectives-or you can have a thriving competitive private sector commercial bank.
You can’t have both.
The former will not return taxpayers’ investment. The latter just might….possibly….maybe.
The answer is to increase Reserve levels for all Banks so there is a restricted Bonus “pool”
And then of course we would become uncompetitive with New York.
No doubt the new Francophile Anglophobe EU Commissioner that Brown let us in for will sort it all out.
at the end of the conferance season i predicted that the tories majority at election time would be 70-100, it is now looking more likely from the data of the past two months that a conservative majority is still on the cards, after running the latest polling data the result of the next election could be
CON 361 SEATS VOTE 40.6% +7.4
LAB 222 SEATS VOTE 27.3% -8.8
LD 41 SEATS VOTE 18.1% -4.5
OTH 30 SEATS VOTE 14.0% +5.9
so all in all it looks like the conservatives will win with a majority of 72 but with labour still on well over 100 seats. the current predicted swing is 8.05% lab to con and 5.9% lib dem to conservative.
lib dems with a majoriy of less than 11.8% could see there seat go blu where the tories are second and labour less than 16.1% and the seat will go blue where tories are in second, what we have to remember is this is only based on a UNS and dose not take account of the swing in target areas, but i would say that i think it very unlikely that in the target seats with higher than the current swing any mp will be un-seated but some differances will come about, mainly in the midlands and some parts of the south west other than that marginal swing will likely be +1 or 2% and no more above the national GB swing.
Leslie – equally off-topic, but most is partisan anyway, so nice to meet some wrriter who is not. The difficulty is the consequences for the credibility of The City, both in the eyes of the staff and their employers. A decision that makes The City look like a hostile place for Capitalism would cost The Jolly Old Electorate a lot of money.
Capitalism is all about enabling stakeholders to take a proportion of the Capital as a dividend, or as a percentage of the Sum.
It doesn’t square with Socialism (unless it allows the Taxpayer to be a stakeholder with no ,more power than an Ordinary Shareholder.)
Darling might be popular if he hita the bankers in tyhe way you suggest, but only until the people realise how much money it will cost them.
SORRY THAT SHOULD SAY WELL OVER 200 SEATS NOT 100
I can’t understand why none of the papers have started running stories on the Labour “core vote” stategy ? All the in depth pieces have been on the “hung parliament” story, which has llittle evidence to support it. I have to say despite all the comment here the polls ain’t moved a jot in the last six months, but I guess thats boring.
Hi Jay
You wouldnt be a Lib Dem clutching onto straws by any chance would you?
My bet is that the Lib Dems will get wiped out south of the midlands. 20% or not. Why because not sure too many people think that this country needs any more liberalism. Cant say i am convinced we do.
Peter-a nice point well made.
Peter – “in the drug dens of Eton” would have been more difficult to dismiss as class-warfare than “on the playing fields…).
Or maybe “on the jet home to or from the tax haven” would have notched a point or two in the polls?
It’s all a bit petty, but I think ultimately will be forgotten once the TV debates start.
Any news on the BBC Scotland Question re TV debates?
ps Lots of common people go to public schools, and lots of class ones to to Comps
“All parties (and the public) seem to be agreed that it would be unacceptable for large bonuses to be paid to bankers this year,”
In think the barrow boy bankers should be strung up from the nearest lamp-posts. As rope I would use the cats cradle of regulation invented by Gordon Brown.
But in fact Osborne has suggested that bonuses should be paid in shares, which on balance and on reflection is a fair compromise between 2 divergent views.
‘Just one more sensible policy brought to you by the makers of One Nation Conservatism.’
On the subject of climate change, I am not particularly suprised by the polling results. What I think has been lacking is a real effort to bring the debate to the general public in a way that they (we) can understand. I am pretty smart, even if I do say so myself, and I understand the basic thesis of greenhouse gas causing warming, but I wouldn’t claim to understand even the basics of climate modelling science. I think someone like the BBC should have a “Climate Week” with a series of simple documentaries and perhaps a civilised debate programme to try and get the key ideas across. If the science is so convincing and overwhelming, it should eventuate penetrate into our consciousness and remove some of this doubt.
Personally I hate the idea that I have to take for granted the scientific conclusions of a bunch of eggheads who don’t take the trouble to explain it to me in plain English. I think that feeling is at the root of the problem. A lot of us are getting that bristling at the back of the neck that comes from being patronised.
The other question which is barely being examined at all (apart from a recent campaign to combat climate change by supplying condoms to the third world) is the issue of population growth. Carbon footprints are caused by people; ergo we can hardly reduce our overall footprint as a species whilst simultaneously doubling our numbers every hundred years or less. In the face of the seemingly unstoppable destruction of the planet that birth rates are hurtling us toward, it is hard for me to get motivated about using public transport or making sure my TV is not left on standby.
@ NEIL A
“The other question which is barely being examined at all the issue of population growth.”
Its THE ISSUE Neil.
But it will never be addressed.
The Greens, and Social Liberals in particular won’t touch it. They will rabbit on about homo sapiens’ “consumption” , but not his breeding habits.
Also it highlights comparative living standards-population falling in technologically advanced nations-rising amongst the rural & agrarian poor who need children to look after them in old age.
Most untouchable of all it involves religious & cultural beliefs ( or oppressions if you see it that way).
Any Poll on this subject will be like those on tax increases-Tax other people please-and stop them having so many children.
It’s a poor outlook for us all in the end as you imply.
Alec:
“Why can’t we just sent local children to local schools, and dispense entirely with myth of parental choice?”
The concept of “choice” is rather hard to grasp if you live on one of the 27 inhabited islands in this constituency.
Was it just Conservative ministers that you thought would better people after spending some time in jail, or was it Labour ones as well?
@TrevorsDen
And if bonuses are paid in shares, in the case of RBS that’s £1.5bn worth of shares. That will mean that the government’s and any private investor’s stake would be diluted. That can’t be good for the share price. So it could be a double whammy.
CLAD
Cheeseparing the balance sheet with share options keeps cash for dividends, and hence yields therefore share prices up, but the proportion of the total business represented by one share declines marginally.
It looks as if it isn’t real money but of course when the options are taken up, it is.
@TONY FISHER –your dead right
@James Ludlow–your dead wrong our current system is rotten and very undemocratic
@Mark R— read your history books and past poling data again the lib dems historically have the highest incumbency factor so I think you will be way off the mark .Look at the recent local authority by elections data from Rallings and Thrasher and you are seeing a clear swing away from the Tories in the South West commented on at Conservative Home with some concern.
@Mark R–Liberalism and liberalism are very different by the way just like Conservative and conservative !!
I think the Lib Dem vote will top last election % and seats as once they get proportional media coverage their votes always goes up.Their recently announced media strategy of the Nick and Vince show (remember the two Davids?) will maximise this further
When I was a kid (in the 1960s and 70s) I remember that Polls used to have a section for “don’t knows”. Why don’t they do that now? What’s happened to the “don’t knows”?
@ CLAD
“That will mean that the government’s and any private investor’s stake would be diluted. That can’t be good for the share price.”
Cash bonuses reduce net worth & earnings, which in turn reduces share price when EPS multiple is applied.-so its as broad as it is long.
The objective is to stop them getting their hands on it until it is clear beyond doubt that net worth has been enhanced.
Hence the idea that they have to wait & see if share price actually rises.Osborne proposes new shares , with disposal embargoed for three years .
He also floated today that as soon as taxable profits are there, they should be taxed-ie all the past losses from bad behaviour should not be offsettable for tax.
@ Tony Fisher – it’s your original comment that’s pathetic, not my response. You sound exactly like those rockstar and Brit Art jokers who harumph about leaving the country if the government and/or taxation aren’t to their liking.
James Ludlow
I suggest you learn to read. At no point in my original post did I suggest my desire to leave the UK, nor did I infer it. I simply do not like the current electoral system in the UK, which perpetuates the status quo. I have always worked to get something better (even when I was a Conservative member) because I believe that no party should have absolute power without the support of an overall majority of voters.
It doesn’t matter two hoots to me whether it’s Labour, Conservative or anyone else who gets elected on 35 to 40% of the vote; it just shouldn’t happen.
@Mark R
I’m a little confused by your post tho… Are you implying that they’ll be defeated in all the places we expect them to be defeated in, that the other parties already hold. In which case, what is your point exactly?
Or despite maintaining their vote share, the Lib Dems are going to lose lots of their seats to the Conservatives? Is this the same narrative that says the Conservatives are going to win no-matter what happens to their lead because of ‘the marginals’?
Do you have any figures or polling to back that up your stance, or would that be the same “wishful thinking” that puts the conservatives as “the choice of the nation” when most people are going to be voting for left or centre left.
Paradoxically, the reason why the Conservatives need a huge lead to avoid hung parliament, is also the reason they have a slight voting disadvantage in getting seats, but it’s also the reason why they even have a chance at getting a large number of seats at all. This country is, over-all, substantially to the left of the Conservatives. The Conservative vote does well at all at getting seats only because the left-wing vote is split between Labour and Lib-Dem. Conservatives don’t want to comit to things like instant run-off-votes or proportional lists, because they know full well they’d be slaughtered. Everyone knows it’s the First Past The Post system that keeps the Conservative party as a major party when really the votes say we should have had a Lib/Lab coalition for the past few decades…
@ Tony Fisher – your tone is likely to do your cause more harm than good. You posted that you did not “want to live in” a democracy where 40% could give a party a majority. I guess it was just spittle-flecked hyperbole on your part but if you post such comments don’t feign indignation when people respond to them in kind. Because this is a democracy where 40% can indeed give a party a majority and you stated that you don’t want to live in it. Ergo …
I think Colin and a few others have made some really good points about the Toff debate.
I would rather an MP start rich, than end up rich at my expense.
What’s the betting that Osborne’s share/bonus policy will not rule out them being preference shares, even with a disposal embargo.
James Ludlow:
I don’t want to live in a democracy where 40% can have an overall majority, I want to remain in the UK and reform the UK electoral system so that can’t happen again.
What is it about that that you just can’t seem to comprehend?
@ Tony Fisher – I see you’ve added on an extra bit now, explaining yourself. I hope you are better at campaigning than you are at writing.
@Colin – don’t get me wrong re social background of candidates – I don’t judge on that basis, but it makes me ask questions about what evidence I have as to how I think they will govern. People from narrow, potentially blinkered backgrounds (and I mean that in relation to any point on the social spectrum) have to satisfy me that they have sufficient experience and openess to overcome what I would term a sort of social disability before I vote for them. If I feel they would govern only for ‘their own kind’ I would be very suspicious. I apply this to left or right, upper or working, etc. On religion, for me again its a ‘watch’ factor. For some, it inspires them to do great things. Many dictators equally claim some godly inspiration. Its about understanding how someone thinks, as ultimately thats what we vote for.
@Neil A & Colin – re population control, the Greens have a policy of reduced population in the UK (or at least they used to) but no clear idea as to how to achieve it. Your right though – it’s the elephant in the room, and about as big an issue as you can get. Its also one of the huge issues that democratic politics is almost useless at discussing. I would still suggest getting the bus though. Beaches are made of grains of sand.
Eric – they still do! The topline figures are repercentaged to exclude the don’t knows and won’t votes to make them comparable to election results, but all the polling companies have a section for don’t know, and if you look at the figures on their websites they are published there (sometimes they are published in the newspapers too – certainly in the past YouGov polls in the Telegraph had the don’t know and won’t vote figures in the small print at the bottom of the table in the newspaper, I’m not sure if they still do it)
James Ludlow:
And I hope you’re as bad at campaigning as you are understanding.
It’s annoying that the “don’t know” figures aren’t published well… It gives us extra information about how much future movement and tightening we can expect. A trend of softening or firming figures means much more if there’s a lot of “don’t knows” who might be drawn in with that trend on voting day.
For instance, take those much lauded northern marginals. A substantial “don’t know” there can wipe out any apparent ‘edge’ over the national figures if the labour vote continues to firm up and the “don’t knows” who were former labour voters return to the fold.
Example “Don’t Know” figures, from the last Guardian ICM poll…
Total was 14% of the unadjusted figure. (Greater than the 12% who would vote for Lib Dems.) This is down slightly in the North, with 12% “Don’t Know”.
From that, I’d say that there is the potential for at least 4-6% trend movement in the polls just from “Don’t Knows” making a decision. If this keeps moving in Labour’s direction, that’s bad news for the Conservatives.
When you sum the totals of “Don’t Know” “Will not vote” and “Refused” they still don’t add up to those who don’t turn up to vote. My assumption has always been that most of the “Don’t Knows” are actually non voters, while even some of those who express a party preference are also non-voters.
If that’s right, then omitting the “Don’t Knows” seems sensible.
Re: climate change – the BBC has a GlobeScan poll (link on BBC News front page, listed under the Copenhagen main story), showing an increase in public concern in most of the 23 countries polled since a comparable GlobeScan poll conducted in 1989.
As if by magic!
Just found this useful page (with lots of good links) on the BBC website
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8376286.stm
POLL ALERT
New TNS-BMRB poll for The Herald:
TNS/BRNB (formerly System 3) fieldwork 25 November – 2 December 2009, 998 polled.
Do you agree or disagree that the Scottish Government should negotiate a new settlement with the UK Government so that Scotland becomes an independent state:
Agree: 31% (+2)
Disagree: 46% (-11)
Don’t Know: 23%
I cannot find this poll in the Herald’s online edition, but have these 2 links:
http://www.snptacticalvoting.com/2009/12/independence-poll-snp-fight-back.html
http://www.snp.org/node/15921
Here it is:
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/politics/support-for-independence-at-lowest-level-for-two-years-1.990388
Oldnat – Don’t knows are much less likely to vote than people who give a voting intention, though some of them will. Looking at the last ComRes poll (they are the only company who normally gives Don’t know as a cross-break on their likelihood to vote question), 31% of don’t knows said they were 10/10 certain to vote, 49% said they were certain not to vote.
Populus and ICM of course do factor in those don’t knows into their topline figures, based upon their past vote. Ipsos MORI, ComRes and AngusReid all use a squeeze question to try and force people who say don’t know to give an intention.
I must admit to getting a bit puzzled about the hung parliament narrative. If the GE result gives (say)
CONS 40%
LAB 30%
LD 20%
Others 10%
Surely that could not lead to a hung parliament? Am I wrong?
If I am wrong, and some outcome like that did happen, then I would suggest that the days of FPTP are numbered whichever party formed the government.
@JAY BLANC
Can I just ask how you can say ‘… if this keeps moving in labours direction this is bad news for the Conservatives’
If they are ‘Don’t knows’ they haven’t moved anywhere surely? what evidence do you have that this 6% is going to swing left?
Colin/John TT
Thanks for your responses to my posting regarding RBS bonuses. You both argued that attacking bonuses was a bad idea because of the impact on tax revenues/the position of the City. However, I was not actually arguing the case for restricting bonuses (although I do think they should as it happens) but the manner in so doing. I was taking as read that there was an all-party consensus that RBS should not pay large bonuses this year. My question was why is the government going about it in such a cack-handed way when they could simply control the Board and amend the bonus proposals from within. Introducing legislation for windfall taxes or whatever is going to emerge from the PBR this week is a sledgehammer to crack a nut when they could have stopped this 12 months ago.
Leslie
Just in brief follow-up to my last posting – the main reason I think that bonuses should be cut has nothing to do with moral outrage but simple logic that the money should be retained in the bank to boost its capital and to reduce the likelihood of further taxpayer support needed in future.
I could also argue that there is little or no evidence to suggest that massive bonuses are needed to generate good performance, and indeed there are strong grounds for supposing that they distort priorities.
Leslie
@C.L.A.D
Thank you, but I do not need psyco babble from you to tell me
how the British middle orders think.
Leslie -
The point is that the shareholder should join the board if it were interested in doing more than exerting a little influence on commercial decisions. The advice from the board is clear – if they are prevented from including bonuses as a matter of course for rewarding successful employees, then the integrity of their business would suffer from a brain drain to rival companies.
Overall, The City’s reputation as a good place to invest would suffer. “Controlling the board ” as you suggest would go against the principle that banks should have autonomy to run as commercial enterprises without political control.
The “all party” consensus doesn’t include the directly affected party – the bank – but it does include people shouting from the sidelines who have the benefit of not having to take a risk, and will have the benefit of hindsight in suggesting Cable-like, that whatever happens was wrong (even if they were advocating it at the time)
it’s fiendishly difficult to stay ahead of the game and produce tax outcomes that are fair to the tax-payer and the taxed.
@PETER CAIRNS
“How many officers who have lead or indeed died in Iraq or Afghanistan went to Public School…”
You are right Peter, there is no point getting the vile ranting Tories associated with these people. Even though they are Tory almost to a man/woman. About 1/3rd are not public school, but after Sandhurst its nearly impossible to tell. Except perhaps some ultra posh Cavalry Regts, or some Guards. Its changed a bit since my day (Boer War, at least it feels like it sometimes.)
“the money should be retained in the bank to boost its capital”
Leslie, if the consequence of reducing the bonus pot by £1bn is that the capital of the bank suffers by £1bn or more as capital abhors political control and flies out, then who wins? More tax-friendly economies do(which is why a global solution would be ideal)
@Leslie – my understanding is that the RBS board have stated they have a legal obligation to take decisions in the best interests of the company. If they believe this means paying large bonuses to attract/keep the best staff then they would (in their view) have no choice but to resign if the government blocks this. The prefered route that the government now appears to take is to levy a tax on bonus payments. this is more sensible, as it could be levied on all banks, not just the one’s with direct government ownership. There is a very strong argument that the entire banking system has been propped up by government, not just those with direct support, and the removal of competitors as part of the bail outs has enabled bigger profits for the remaining few, so a general industry wide tax is logical and morally reasonable.
The more difficult question is whether this move would send bankers overseas and affect the wider ability of the banking sector to prosper. It’s difficult, but I have two thoughts here. If it is a windfall tax (ie time limited) there would presumably be less incentive to move abroad if it clearly defined that the arrangement will be for a short period for a specific purpose. Secondly, I wonder whether we shouldn’t just call their bluff. When you boil it down to the basics, the banks failed, and failed miserably. I see no evidence that massively rewarded staff performed well, and if they choose to leave these shores, we’ll be losing failures. I’m tempted to say let this happen, allow market forces to replace these people with the next generation, who may well earn less, but might perform better. As I said in an earlier post, I see little evidence that huge pay delivers huge performance, and I would be prepared to test the theory on the banks if need be.
Alec – it would certainly shrink the financial sector (ironically, it’s generally thought to be large size of the sector that has made us suffer more from the crunch)
Deferring bonuses for a year would take the heat out (a likely consequence of a one-year super-tax), and the most likely course.
For general levels of pay to come down, htere would need to be an over-supply of talent. Training more high-flying bankers would produce that.
And it’s not so much the flight of talent (a lot of people like it here!), as the flight of capital (not much upheaval to transfer funds to more trusted centres) that would cost us.
Call their bluff.
Right at the beginning a Northern Rock shareholder said it all.
“You were paid as supermen, but you quite clearly aren’t”
Easy to say when you aren’t taking the risk. This is no time for poker.
Also, many of the people responsible have gone, and many of those picking up the pieces and doing well now shouldn’t be punished for the failures of others