Mori poll sensation - Labour 1% ahead!
September 14th, 2006
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But is the firm embarrassed by its own results?
After being behind the Tories in 26 consecutive public polls there’s news this afternoon of a Mori poll taken at the start of the month which has Tony Blair’s party back into the lead. The top line figures with comparisons on the last Mori poll in July are: CON 35%(-1): LAB 36% (+4): LD 19% (-5).
The fieldwork was carried out from August 31st to September 6th and so only those spoken to in the final couple of days would have been aware of the then exploding Labour leadership crisis. What is odd is that a Populus survey that took place after the start of the Mori fieldwork and finished on the the day before it ended found that the Tories were 4% ahead. Since then there has been a YouGov poll showing an 8% Tory lead.
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Given that it is such a sensational result it is extraordinary that the findings have been held up until this afternoon before being published. Even Mori’s commentary does not refer to the party share figures. It is almost as if the pollster is embarrassed by them.
The headline figures relate to only to those saying they “were certain to vote”. Of all respondents in the survey the figures were even more sensational - CON 30%: LAB 38%: LD 22%.
As I always state when Mori polls come out the firm does not use past vote weighting or a party identifier to ensure that its samples are politically representative and it has a reputation for extreme fluctuations.
The poll does not seem to have had any impact on the General Election betting markets where the Tories remain firm favourites to win most seats.
Mike Smithson
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Let me be the first to say -
well it’s MORI isn’t it!
When are they going to get their act together and get a decent weighting system going?
OT. Clare Short has confirmed she’ll stand down at the next election and she launched an attack against New Labour, Blair, Brown and so on.
The Chief Whip just said she can face expulsion from Labour Party.
Considering Short’s usually impulsive behaviour, I’m wondering if she can think about resigning her seat immediately and obliging Labout to defende Ladywood in a by-election….
LAB majority 36 Headline figures
LAB majority 114 Using those certain to vote.
Its a joke of a poll. A rogue rouge poll!
I also wonder why it has not turned up in any papers. Perhaps because it caused too much laughter?
I wouldn’t be surprised if it came up on ConsHome followed by a stream of “Look what Evil Dave is doing to us” comments.
2 - That would be a kick in the teeth for Labour - and a potential gift for the Lib Dems you’d have thought. (2005; Labour 51.9%, Lib Dem 31.5%, Conservative 10.9%)
Maybe the idea is to encourage Labour to keep up the ferrets in a sack routine by making them think it isn’t doing them any damage….on the other hand, Bob Worcester is a Labour hack isn’t he? So maybe the idea is to suggest a ‘Brown bounce’…which sounds vaguely Oatenesque…
It’s called the Brown effect. I must say my enthusiasm for Labour has improved since we learnt for definite it was going to be under new management and obviously I’m not alone.
Wasn´t Ladywood the last Liberal/Lib Dem seat in Birmingham, before John Hemming won Yardley? Good roots there…..
8. Err..the fieldwork for the poll ended the day before Blair’s announcement.
5
Excellent. I can’t stand that place!
9 - that was a by-election a long time ago. Means nothing. Look at Crosby, Croydon, Warrington (close), Ryedale, Ribble Valley, Christchurch, Hillhead… (OK - we’ve held some too, but often when they are lost they remain lost for ever…)
12. 1969 in fact…
Mike. I’m not an expert on polling techniques. Can you explain past weighting and party identifier.
“8. Err..the fieldwork for the poll ended the day before Blair’s announcement”.
In which case the next poll should be stunning!
In all seriousness I can’t be the only person who is hearing from all sides of the rainbow that Cameron’s a clown?
Personally I quite like him though he ought to get Barbara Woodhouse on board to sort out his whimpering manner
3. From listening to her today I doubt it, she hasn’t sounded confident when asked if she would stand as an independant and causing a byelection would be a profoundly unpopular decision.
There was a recent move to deselect her from within her CLP so presumably this would be reignited ?
Certainly if I was Chief whip Id have been melting the phonelines to Region to see if there was enough support before considering anything else .
Removing the whip would seem to suit her at the moment as she keeps more media interest as a sitting MP.
If there was a possibility of crossing the floor to the LD’s it would have happend and that would be the announcement instead.
15 too right
It’s too early to get excited by just one poll. Looks like they polled while the letters and resignations were flying round, but before Blair made his announcement and Clarke went on the attack.
Possibly people were excited at Blair going saying “thank god Labour are doing something about him!”
Lots of Labour and ex-Labour voters trust Brown where they distrust Blair. So he can say the same things as Blair but in a different manner, and people accept it, where they’d have kicked up a fuss if Blair said it.
If you look back at the polling after the May council elections, Labour were languishing at 30/31/32 and suddenly kicked up to 35% after Brown made his announcement on Trident, only to fall back as Blair came back to the fore with Lebanon.
We’ll have to see if the next poll confirms this one.
sorry should be 2.Andrea
I’d always understood political polls were the equivalents of Tesco’s loss leaders - got the pollsters name into the papers and their reputation built up. Mori does itself no favours in this regard if their methodolgy results in volatile swings.
Saying that I nearly posted a couple of days ago that I wouldn’t be surprised if polls came out better for Labour as result of exposure and particularly Blair’s performances at TUC and under attack from brownies. That would remind people why they voted for him. If Inspector Yates calls then publicity would turn bad but Blair has beeen able to show his strengths under pressure - he’s still a master.
16. Would the Lib Dems even want her? not exactly Orange Book, is she?..more like Mao’s Little Red Book.
21. exactly, It would also be dangerous for them to have someone that well known join as UKIP can attest post Kilroy.
16. Crossland. I was just teasing. Yes, she didn’t sound so keen to the idea to stand as an indy.
I can’t see your point about deselection though. She has already said she’s going to stand down. So there won’t be a reselection process, but they should directly start the selection of the new candidate.
Can we pay someone to nobble each pollster so that we can get more rogues like this one? It makes it more likely that labour will try and cut and run election and fail miserably, I’m not sure if I can wait threee more years.
Heck, Roger!
“In all seriousness I can’t be the only person who is hearing from all sides of the rainbow that Cameron’s a clown?
Personally I quite like him though he ought to get Barbara Woodhouse on board to sort out his whimpering manner.”
Reading that quickly, I thought you wrote “Barbara Windsor”…..
16. con…the Chief Whip has already referred her conduct to the party chair and the general secretary of the Labour Party.
As much as I find Mme Dominatrix so OTT, I think she has a point now. She advocated Labour MPs losing their seats, so I think it’s right to take disciplinary actions against her
It is rather disappointing that so many posters on here do not seem to understand opinion polls and Margins of Error . Conservatives cry rogue poll when a brief look at the data shows that it isn’t . The last 3 Mori polls have had Conservatives 36/36/35 Labour 33/32/36 and LibDem 21/24/19 all figues consistent within the accepted M of E for opinion polls measuring a population whose opinions have remained constant let alone one where there may have been some movement in opinion obver the time period .
Far too often an opinion poll comes out with a 1 or 2% change in a party’s support and this is disected at length when in fact there is no statistical significance whatsoever in the measured change .
Rogue polls do occur , the BPIX poll with LibDems at 14% and Others at 16% clearly is one , and strangely ICM with others at only 8% in the last poll is probably another .
There are differences in the methodology between pollsters and it is this that gives the difference between Mori and ICM/Yougov/Populus . You can argue over the merits of each pollsters methodology but do not shout Rogue when it isn’t .
http://www.ipsos-mori.com/polls/2006/mpm060906obs.shtml
If anyone cares to look at these figures for Party leader then the poll becomes understandable.
15. roger I agree. One person I know who was initially enthusiastic about Cameron (because on the rebound from Blair and looking to recreate the feeling of 1997) has gone off him because quote “he’s creating a Toffs party”. It’s not just that Cameron himself is elite, but that his kitchen cabinet is too - Osborne, Zac Goldsmith etc. So people don’t really believe him when he says he wants to be inclusive, when he won’t even let the middle classes in his own party into the inner circle. It’s a far cry from Thatcher and Major.
20. LOL, you are spinning this as a Blair effect? Blair was a master, right up to about 2003/4, he used to pay very close attention to what the voters wanted. When he stopped doing that, he felt liberated but at the same time became a liability. Labour only won 2005 because Brown was sent round with Blair as his human shield.
23.Andrea
If her CLP instigates a deselection it shows her unpopularity and isolation, If the Whips office ‘expells her’ it shows ‘control freakery’ and she looks like a Martyr.
The ’she’s only in it for herself’ narrative would be assured and any damage she could do would be reduced
The deselection rules were tightend up specifically to stop CLP’s deselecting sitting MPs as this was a Left tactic in the 70’s but i would guess that its still possible if Region doesnt stand in the way.
There are always loopholes….
I think that’s right Mark, on the whole.
If, say, the true figure is Conservative 38%, Labour 33%, Lib Dem 19%, then this MORI poll is consistent with that, just as much as last Friday’s Yougov poll is.
27 - good points.
My layman’s understanding is that the MoE on a poll is this - that pollsters can predict with 95% confidence that the figures they use are within +/-3%.
I guess, therefore, that 1 poll in every 20 must, statistically, be a rogue…?
The semantics of ‘rogue’ do not change the fact that one poll out of nowhere showing a labour lead is one that willengender littlebelief. Given what has been occurring in the labour party and the effect of policies by Blair here and around the world and there has to be a phrase for it. If not ‘rogue’, then I’ll settle on, ‘not credible’.
30. Crossland, maybe.
It won’t be the Whip Office alone to decide on her whip anyway. They need a vote of MPs and it seems everyone is furious with her. I bet they can find an almost unanimity in that vote.
27 - Mark Senior - a worthy sounding posting but belied by your bleating over the BPIX poll on Anthony Wells’ site!
Margins of error vary according to the size of the sample. But more important is the consistency of the pollsters results over time (unless of course you believe that public opinions yo-yo every month). MORI is remarkably inconsistent month on month and seems to regularly produce outliers which do not accord with the average of all polls. For example in the last three months the LDs have gone +3, +3, -5. They are also the only pollster currently showing a Labour lead (statistically neck and neck).
I have not called “rogue poll” but there is no doubt that this poll is an outlier at present. Succeeding polls will indicate whether MORI are right but the fact that two other polls indicate otherwise suggest that they are not.
1 or 2% individual changes in a single poll do not mean much but when they occur consistently in a single direction month on month they suggest a gradual shift in opinion.
My preferred pollsters remain YouGov and ICM both for their consistency and their accuracy in previous elections. I well remember MORI’s rogue poll just before the last election!
The best measure IMHO remains an average of all the pollsters over a cycle!
OK, so pollsters can predict with 95% confidence that the figures they use are within +/-3%.
Suppose I am happy with 90% confidence. What is the tolerance then? 2%? 1.5%?
My point is that although we can say 1 in 20 are rogue, where rogue is not within 3%, the vast majority should be much closer than 3%, assuming the distribution is normal.
36. ‘OK, so pollsters can predict with 95% confidence that the figures they use are within +/-3%.’…
…of reality? that of course assumes an unbiased sample…and that is where MORI may really be at fault.
37 - so we can dismiss all MORI polls as rogue as their sampling is flawed. That’s fine; I believe Labour leading no more than I believed LDs on 24% last month.
I’m probably wasting my time even saying so, but there’s really no point in even commenting on a single opinion poll. As Mark Senior says, you can’t ignore the margin of error. One poll showing Labour up a couple of percent and the Tories down a couple of percent doesn’t mean anything. Within the 3% (or so) margin of error, there is always a degree of randomness in the result of any poll.
I can’t comment on MORI’s methodology, but it’s quite possible to have a result like this without there being any fault in the way in which the poll was carried out, it’s simply the way in which random samples work.
What are significant are trends over a series of polls.
What did MORI predict before the GE and recent May elections ?
Seem to remember yougov were much more accurate..
Have to say again that Blair is looking and sounding better than he has done for ages in the media (live just now on Sky). Maybe he feels the weight lifting but it appears that he also wants to show us what we’ll be missing with the next guy (whoever he is).
As we reach the early months of next year I would imagine we’re going to see a slight rise in labour support as a result of this (now is too early for this to have taken effect though).
Full guide of fringe meetings at the Con conference:
http://www.conservatives.com/pdf/conf06-fringe-guide.pdf
33. No - it does not mean that 1 in 20 polls is rouge. The 1 in 20 figure is an arbitrary figure associated with the width of the margin of error. For example, a percentage of 40% will be correct to within around +/- 3% nineteen out of twenty times, but correct to within +/- 3.5% nine out of ten times, if the effective sample size is around 1,000.
However, as cdm pointed out a few weeks ago (sorry can’t find the exact post), it is not widely publicised by the polling organisations that weighting effects (i.e the application of weights) can considerably reduce the ‘effective’ sample size and, hence, increase the margin of error, something that would be fairly easy to estimate but I have never seen that published. As an example, I think the final ICM percentages are based on a sample of around 700 or so. ICM is, I think, regarded by many posters on this site as being a reliable polling company and I wouldn’t disagree with that at all. But, depending on the size of the weights used, the 700 could easily become an effective sample size of 500 or fewer - meaning estimated margins of error are increased up to around +/- 4.5%.
For those that complain that the Ipsos-MORI weighting method is not correct, please remember that there are many stages in a survey (and hence many potential sources of error), and sampling is as important, if not more so, and I have never read any criticisms of their sampling methodology here.
If you are going to criticise a poll, it should be on the basis of the methodology, not the outcome just because you happen not to agree with it.
re my previous post - I meant to reply to 32, not 33
(well within the margin of error though ;o)
Whilst it does look a bit of a rogue poll, remember the polling prior to 1992. Its is still all to play for for the two main parties as i see it. Lets not have kittens over this just yet
Today’s by-elections:
Adur DC, Hillside
Party Defending Seat: Con. Cause: Death
Powys CC, Ynyscedwyn
Party Defending Seat: Lab. Cause: Resignation
South Shropshire DC, St Peters
Party Defending Seat: LD. Cause: Resignation
South Tyneside MBC, Cleadon and East Boldon
Party Defending Seat: Con. Cause: Resignation.
West Sussex CC, Southwick
Party Defending Seat: Con. Cause: Death
Presumably, if she decides to run as an independent next time, Respect would give Oor Clur a free run, and the Lib Dems might decide (quite off the record, of course) to concentrate their campaigning elsewhere…
46: On the contrary - I would expect the LibDems to think they could come through the middle of the split Labour vote and win the seat…
46. I doubt she would do it. As Crossland said earlier, she didn’t seem so keen to that idea.
(Respect didn’t stand in 2005 either)
The Electoral Reform Society polled 214 delegates at the TUC conference about their prefered choice as next Lab leader. The result was McDonnell 59%, Brown 10%, Johnson 8%.
Don’t know if they asked just to delegates of affiliated trade unions or not
With all the news on how much trouble Clare Short is in, few people seem to have noticed how absolutely correct she was in nearly everything she said. Nothing more damaging than the truth…
it seems that the Lab Chief Whip tried to arrange a meeting with four or five of the most marginal MPs who wanted very much to talk to Short about her hung parliament ideas.
I would have loved to seeBob Marshall Andrews taking part to a similar meeting: “Listen, Clare, you don’t need to campaign for my defeat, I can do it by myself without problems”
Who on earth commissions MORI for their polls? The Labour party? I stopped trusting MORI polls years ago, they are unreliable.
Trouble is that you never know when one of their polls will be accurate!
49 - Interesting - that’s 23% Don’t know or Other…
53. Lennon, thankfully for Labour I think delegates tend to be more leftwing than members.
Even if this poll is not a rogue, it is time for MORI to change its methodology. You don’t get the Lib Dems for example falling 5% in one poll and having other general wild increases and decreases in party support.
52 - Mori commission their own polls which they then offer to newspapers if they want them.
49 - The ERS must have wandered into an SWP-organised fringe meeting to get those results!
I wonder to what extent Johnson can expect to do well with union members due to sorting out the public sector pensions issue for them last year. All public sector unions had voted for strike action before Johnson stepped in and sorted things out for existing members at least. I seem to remember Brown briefing against that settlement (suggesting it wasn’t set in stone etc..) and those affected (particularly UNISON members) might be influenced by that when it comes to a vote.
Clare Short reaction: “The chief whip has it in her power to remove the whip - if she does then that’s fine”
uhn, it sounds to me like she can’t wait to be thrown out!
Clare Short said she intended to campaign for a hung parliament.
Can anyone suggest how such a campaign could be mounted? Would there be a Hung Parliament Party? Or would the campaign throw its weight behind a finely-calculated slate of Tories and LibDems just suffficient to lose Labour’s majority?
Or would it rely on the instinctive popular reaction that ‘hanging’s too good for them’?
35. Rik.If I recall the last MORI poll before the 2005 General was very accurate, the ones earlier were considered wayward.
It is just possible that because all the publicity was on Labour, no body else got a look in, this can have an effect on opinion.
57. Neil, maybe they interviewed many delegates from Fire Brigades Union (they aren’t affiliated to Labour anymore, so they don’t even have a vote). Some of them were interviewed by Sky a couple of days ago and they were all supportive of McDonnell.
Fire Brigades Union also contributed to McDonnell’s GE campaign
60. All the final polls were quite accurate…a remarkable coincidence.
Strange how one poll that produces a result that some people do not like is dismissed as a rogue. If that poll had produced a Tory lead of 15% would that have been dismissed as a rouge? There are three years to go to the GE (probably) the political climate could be totally different then. All polls taken at this time are irelevant anyway, they are only snapshots of opinion, they can’t tell the future. During the ‘Westland Affair’ polls were published showing substantial Labour leads, eighteen month later Tories back in with large majority. Tory posters too this site, have been down on their backsides for so long, they are over reacting to favourable polls, keep a sense of proportion.
re 60. It certainly was the case that the final Mori poll before May 5th 2005 did produce a pretty good forecast. But the methodology used was not the same as it has followed since then. The firm put different weighting on the propensity to vote of supporters of different parties. It also sought to guess how those who refused to say would vote by making a prediction based on the newspapers they read.
Both of those were good sound techniques because the evidence suggests that a Labour “certain to vote” is less valuable than a Tory or Lib Dem one.
I liked the newspaper approach to working out what refusers would do because there is a lot of evidence to back is up.
Why then has Mori reverted to its old way?
61 - The FBU also contributed to the GE campaigns of RESPECT (at least 4) and Green Party (at least 2) candidates.
re 63. That’s a fair point and I wish people would apply a bit of rigour here. If you are not comfortable with the Mori approach then you cannot say some of its polls are good and some are not.
Regular visitors here will know that I make the same statement on Mori whatever the headline figures show.
65. yes. They were once affiliated to Labour, but then they left it in 2004. So they’re now open to support whoever they like.
Last year they elected a very left wing candidate as their General Secretary.
Back to dates for the GE again…
Aren’t the Euros in June? So why all the talk of a GE/ Euro clash?
What would the timing be if there was a good set of locals in May 09 for Labour to prompt a GE to be held in June - or have the locals been jiggled along to June as well?
Isn’t there a limit on the number of elections that can be held on one day? So having locals, Euros and GE on one day would be too much - especially as some areas would also have Parishe Elections etc.
59. Campaigning for a hung parliament is, in my opinion, relatively simple in principle. All you need to do is decide which party you’d like to see win in each seat and publically support the candidate of that party.
For example, if you want to see 220 Conservatives elected then you choose the 220 seats that the Conservatives are most likely to win and urge people to vote Conservative in them. Meanwhile you also decide which 220 seats you think Labour are most likely to win and back Labour in them. Meanwhile you also decide which 150 seats the Liberal Democrats are most likely to win and back the Liberal Democrats in them. Meanwhile you also decide which 10 seats the SNP are most likely to win and you… etc, etc, etc, …meanwhlie you also decide which 1 seat you think that the Official Monster Rabing Loony Party is most likely to win and you back them in that seat
Yeah, I concede - it’s totally unworkable in practice but the theory is sound enough.
49 Congratulations to Electoral Reform Society for finding over 100 people who had heard of John McDonnell!
69. Yeah, like there are 150 seats that the Lib Dems are likely to win in! Not even Mark Senior would be that optomistic…!
Well tories it looks as if the cameron show has finally run it’s corse. This poll is no rougue - its the first indicator of the end of daves honeymoon. ‘Daves’ foriegn policy speach, in which he flip flopped on Iraq and displayed appaling opportunism in criticising tony blair on the lebannon has finally shown tHAT the great british public have at last realised what this shallow hollow man is all about and they do’nt like it. The fact that gordon brown behaved as such a statesman last week have highlighted what the next phase of new labour will be like - opportunity for all, social justice and no return to tory boom and bust. I look forward to later polls that will without doubt show a simlar trend.
As for dave - most tories despize him and without a poll lead he is nothing in their eyes - i suspect it will be david davis who will be fighting gordon at the next GE - and I cannot wait.
71 - Err, if you’re going to write a spoof posts you don’t need to add in *that* many spelling and grammatical mistakes you know. Even imbeciles have standards.
” a spoof post” not “posts”.
Bugger.
Why PFI was a brilliant idea part 126:
John Prescott said that PFI was “like a person who takes out a 30 year mortgage on a house”. Would taking out a 30 year mortgage on a house be a very good idea if you were going to move out and leave it derelict after 10 years? That’s what’s going to happen with the “shiny new hospitals”.
Is Clare Short lining herself up to join Spectre?
It looks that way.
1/She has been reported to talk about a new party.
Spectre is a new political party.
She has allegedly spoken of a new social democratic party. Spectre is a one issue party, but she can argue that the foreign policy failure of Labour is what needs to be rectified and Spectre is the route to forcing Labour to reinvent itself as a social democratic party as it is but with an ethical foreign policy.
2/ It is reported that she is not contesting her seat in then next election.
Spectre will target ministers who wanted war on Iraq.
3/ Her attacks on Labour leadership suggest she can no longer support her party as it is. It seems she doesn’t care if the whip is removed. The impression is that she is ready to leave. This is weeks before Spectre is officially launched to coincide with the Labour conference.
4/ Her support for the war on Iraq has played on her. She is an honourable woman. She was deceived by Blair and assurances he gave her, like millions of us. This is her way of repenting her support for what has been an absolute disaster.
If she joins Spectre, the new party will have a huge publicity boost in its launch and will be taken seriously as a threat to Labour at the margins. Labour will look divided with the defection of a high-profile figure who is popular with the public.
63 - “All polls taken at this time are irelevant anyway, they are only snapshots of opinion, they can’t tell the future”
Quite. The Nov 1981 poll for MORI put Lab and Con at level peggings - and the Alliance 16% ahead of either of them. Wasn’t a great predictor for the GE…
75 - Spectre! I thought James Bond destroyed Spectre in about 1973. Ernst Stavro Blofeld is dead.
Ha Ha. I wonder how long they will humiliate themselves like this. Their polls gyrate more wildly each week than a limbo dancer. The nation is truly psychotically schizophrenic if Mori are right. I reckon Mori out of political polling come the next election.
More seriously Clair Short to be expelled from Labour. Channel 4 suggested she could take revenge by standing as an independent anyway. Firstly is she popular enough to do a Peter Law? Secondly if she isn’t, she surely capable enough to hopelessly split the Labour vote, so who benefits.
Claire Short is not that popular. Big swing against her at GE.
I think “margin of error” arguments are a bit outdated these days with all the adjustments that go on. And under MoE 35, 36, 19 means that the most likely reality is: 35, 36, 19. Assuming it’s not a rogue, it is extremely unlikely that the true figure is, say, 38, 33, 19
179.”More seriously Clair Short to be expelled from Labour. Channel 4 suggested she could take revenge by standing as an independent anyway. Firstly is she popular enough to do a Peter Law? Secondly if she isn’t, she surely capable enough to hopelessly split the Labour vote, so who benefits. ”
Considering she got a 20% swing to the LDs last time, I’m not sure if she was so popular (I don’t think the swing is all her fault either).
This morning she didn’t seem so keen to stand as an indy (she didn’t rule it out but she said it was “improbable”)
Will try to post but computer seriously sick at mo .
35 FWIW I agree that Mori are out of line with other polls and commonsense , council byelection results tell us this and it is almost certainly their methodology that causes this . BPIX for reasons I have previously given is worthless and gives rogue results . It may be their methodology or samples sizes but as these are not published we cannot tell .
Mori unlike other pollsters produce their poll monthly and then try to sell the results to a newspaper but they publish them anyway if they do not have a buyer .
77 sbs
Your mention of a 1981 poll, is a good example of ‘chaos theory’ or ‘Events dear boy events’ Labour MP Bruce Douglas Mann switched to the SDP, he thought it only fair to call a bye-election in his constituency Mitcham and Morden. Polls gave him a 20% lead over his Tory rival Angela Rumbold. Hardly had the campaign started than the Falklands War blew up, result a 20% swing to the Tories, who won by a landslide. Chaos Theory or Sods Law with really hard sums.
The suggestion was that Claire faced de-selection or if she stood losing her seat. According to a fellow Midlands MP she was only re-selected last time because the Party put pressure on her constituency party and her majority had gone from 23,000 to 5,000. She even invited the photographers on the tube with her. Eat your heart out Dave!
A warning to Opinion Pollers
http://www.connpost.com/news/ci_4298956
Short and Cook were the best known critics within Labour of Blair’s war on Iraq. She would be a lightning Rod conductor to the Families Against the War that are launching Spectre and to be able to say she voted for the war because she was lied to and now supports the families in their quest to see justice makes the indictment against Blair seem even worse. She could be their best proof of deception and decisions taken by a tiny inner circle.
84. IIRC her reselection last time happened after all her attacks on Blair, not sure why the central party would have put pressure to reselect her and not the opposite.
She has already said she won’t seek reselection as Labour candidate. She made her recent comments knowning she won’t seek reselection (and well, with that comments she would have not got it!) and she doesn’t even seem to care to lose the whip.
45 There are 2 other byelections today . A seat on Selby DC previously Independent unopposed - straight fight between Lab and Con and a seat on Powys CC previously Labour unopposed where it is unclear as to which parties are standing as info is very sketchy .
The seat in Ludlow is being very hard fought between Con and LibDem and the Conservatives will be disappointed if they do not gain it .
The Devon seat is a straight fight between Con and Independent but the Independent is supported by the Lib Dems .
Will the LibDems be disappointed if they lose it?
Even Thatcher isn’t such a spent force as Short.I would doubt that even an anti Blair anti war party would be interested
Under Kennedy Claire Short would have defected to the LDs; it won’t happen under Ming. If it does, I’m out.
84.”her majority had gone from 23,000 to 5,000.”
That Midland MPs got the numbers wrong, btw. It went down from 18,143 to 6,801
Ludlow have a Conservative association right in the middle of town. Having visited the place a few weeks ago I’m surprised one was enough.
Andrea. Perhaps previously it had been 23,000? Maybe ‘97?
88 Of course , the LibDems are fighting the seat very hard too .
Roger, yes, it was 23,000 in 1997.
The swing has been similar to the one in the next door Sparkbrook.
This thing seems a Watson/Blair part 2: I dump you first, no I would have dumped you anyway!
85 I doubt the average forces family would have a lot of time for Clare Short
Clare Short Speaks the Truth:
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article1575803.ece
So apparently did Jesus and he got crucified…he just had a lot more followers than Clare…
92 - yes, it’s even more surprising that the LDs held Ludlow from 2001 - 2005. Never managed to figure out how.
96. I remember a visit she made to South Armagh a few years ago (before the peace process), when she more or less said that the IRA were justified in killing British soldiers. I’ve never had much time for her since then.
I wonder does Dave Cameron listen to Radio 4 much. Today on a comedy show called ‘Genius’ somebody came up with teh idea of stopping global sea levels rising by banning people from throwing stones into the sea and killing a few more whales….
Idea for ya Dave….
100 -At least she made me laugh once. Emerging from Downing Street in May 1997, she told the assembled jouralists she had been made Shadow Minister for International Development. Somebody had to point out that she was actually in the Cabinet not the Shadow Cabinet, and she corrected herself.
Should have resigned when Robin Cook and John Denham did. She lost credibility then.
The full agenda of Con conference (fringe meetings included) is out:
http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=conference.2006.agenda.page
(Dinky is speaking on Tuesday 3rd October)
Is that a bit like saying we are morally justified in killing Iraqi soldiers?
I can’t say I recall Clare Short saying that, but I do recall Tony Blair joining Bush in bombing children and mothers and soldiers and I do remember a CND card carrying Blair when he accused USA of “state sponsored terrorism.”
100 Ahem yes…a lightning conductor for forces families indeed….they’d be hoping she gets hit by lightning.
The anti war movement amongst its core ranks has people who absolutely loath the British military.
I remember Clare Short being booted for daring to suggest a dialogue about declassifying cannibis. Whatever faults she has, you can magnify that 100 times to see the hypocrisy of those she now criticises.
Fortune Cookie, that as we say here in Northern Ireland is whataboutery of the first order.
Bottom line Clare Short has absolutely bugger all in common with forces families and the idea that she is some lightning conductor for them..well it’s sniffing glue levels of illusion and delusion. The woman dislikes the military and probably she doesn’t really mind seeing them killed unless they are sent out to kill Jim Davidson or Page 3 girls.
I’ve come to the conclusion that Clare just hates herself, its a lack of esteem thing at heart.
Yokel, I’m not sure that the forces families that are building the Spectre thing are “average” forces families either.
Yokel. I’m not praising Clare Short, but there’s no doubt she would create 10 times more publicity if she was there for Spectre on the day their new party is launched. Instead of a paragraph on page seven, her defection would get the party on the front pages.
Andrea if that is so in that case Spectre is going to do nothing more than peel off some of the usual leftist voters, when in fact it could have been something a more wide spanning. It could end up just being another tool of conspiracy theory, I hate my country types, that really arent going to get far.
We’ll see where their support is strongest. If it isn’t strongest somewhere where the miltary don’t have a big presence and history where it should have support, then that will just show what the group is.
Fortune Cookie, truth is she’ll be nothing of the sort and may well just put off any wider support.
Yeah, but she must be worth a few thousand votes at least though 81. Who’s second the Lib Dems? I have to fancy the Lib Dems in Birmingham next time. Hemming easy, that seat Yaqub did well in ,expect her to replace George in BG & B as he heads to Brussels, and even if Clare doesn’t stand she can probably hamper Labour enough to give the LD’s if it is they a decent shot. Elsewhere the only way Stuart will hold her seats is if she defects to the Tories. As the Economist pointed out Labour are withering on the vine in the Brummie Capital at local level.
112. yokel, Rose Gentle didn’t have problem to share platform with Gorgeous George. So I suppose she wouldn’t mind Short
Rose Gentle represents a small group of people and comparatively few forces families.
114 but I think she’s a main figure in Spectre along with Reg Keys. It’s anti war party afterall.
I told you that the Tory MP was lucky in Naples:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/09/14/europe/EU_GEN_Italy_Canadian_Wounded.php
I confess I had not heard of the non-Blofeld Spectre before today. I notice it is an anagram of Respect. With the supposed new Tory logo (which I doubt is genuine) and Spectre, I begin to think it is April Fools Day.
117. SBS, it’s this Spectre:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/north_west/5248328.stm
1 in 3 people are either Indian or Chinese. So remember that when looking at the Labour Frontbench.
Which Tory MP do you mean, Andrea? The supposed former ex-used-car salesman, who was behaving like a drugs dealer? I can only suppose that in Naples, the gods tend to look after the stupid….
Bad luck on the Canadian, though.
120. Sage, I meant David Jones who was in Naples and robbed of his rolex
Newsnight reports Clare Short faces expulsion from Labour!
Any news on today’s by-elections?
Good Bye Clare - and you don’t even get the consolation of become
ing a martyr for the left after letting personal ambition and career advancement get the better of you over the Iraq war.
Rik, do you bother reading the page before you post your headlines? If you did you’d find you are usually well after the fact.
124. and then deciding to stand down and then making a big attack (kowning you’ve nothing to lose anyway) don’t usually make people martyr too
South Shropshire Ludlow St Peters Comfortable LibDem hold on bigger turnout . Conservative agent went to count thinking they were close . LibDem 488 Con 298 Green 70 - 2003 LibDem 366/276 Con 170 Ind 150
Looking in from holiday:
- Ludlow held comfortably by LDs with swing to them
- Poll is very nice but appears out of date. The main point seems to me to be to pay attention when newspapers report poll findings without including party standings - this is almost certainly because they fail to support the story. But it does reinforce the point that nobody is doing consistently well in every poll at the moment - e.g. the BPIX one, although good for the Tories, I think showed all three main parties down on the previous one.
- Spectre can come and stand in Broxtowe if they like, the more anti-Labour candidates the better.
- I’m sorry that Clare Short would by implication like seats like Broxtowe to be lost for the greater good of PR (which, ironically, I support). But I’ve long since stopped getting worked up about her views. She’s standing down anyway.
128.”I’m sorry that Clare Short would by implication like seats like Broxtowe to be lost for the greater good of PR”
And following her logic she would be pleased that people who can agree with her on many things like BMA or Glenda Jackson would lose their seats.
DAN Shortland became one of the youngest district councillors in the country tonight (Thursday, September 14) as the LibDems made a clean sweep in the Chard by-election.
Mr Shortland, who only turned 21 in May, polled 367 votes (54% of the overall vote) to become the representative for Chard’s Holyrood Ward on South Somerset District Council.
In second place was Steve Wright, for the Conservatives, with 180 votes (27%), followed by Rita Wickenden, independent, with 127 votes (19%).
In the town council election, LibDem David Orchard emerged victorious with 365 votes (54%), followed by Steve Wright, Conservative, with 184 votes (27%), and then Kenneth Courtney, independent, who polled 127 votes (19%).
The turnout was a low 31%, although this was 10% higher than the turnout in the recent town council election in Ilminster.
The district and town seats were both previously held by former Chard Mayor Tony Prior (independent), who was disqualified from both councils by the Adjudication Panel for England until March 21, 2007.
re 9. Birmingham Ladywood (where I used to live before migrating to Perry Barr) has been all over the place in its time. In a previous incarnation it even had Neville Chamberlain as its MP.
Chagford was an Independent hold - can’t remeber the exact figures off the top of my head but is was something like Ind 310 Con 230. Not the exact figures but I’m too tired now! The Tories has a respectable result IMO in a seat where the former Independent councillor who recently died had held it for nearly forty years (if not even more)!
Jon Cruddas confirms he’s thinking to stand for the deputy leadership position
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1872786,00.html
He would like to merge the role with the chairman one and he thinks the deputy leader shouldn’t be a Cabinet position.
Who is Jon Cruddas? Never heard of him at all!
He’s the MP for Dagenham. It was reported last week that some unions people asked him to consider in standing.
He has been elected in 2001 and he has never held any government positions
Note how Ming has had the same personal ratings for more than 4 months now!
Jon Cruddas is liked by the unions because he was their conduit between them and No. 10 in the first term. His union-friendly attitude often found him isolated among the voices around Blair, and probbly explains why he is one of the few former No. 10 staffers not in government.
NEW LABOUR - headed by the arch traiutor BLAIR - has done its very best to airbrush England and the English out of existence (except for taxing scams)
For the playing field to be righted only UKIP or the BNP have the right credentials. As for the ‘Big 3′ Parties the whole jolly lot should be tipped head first down the Brussels toilet - with BLAIR in pole position!
Interesting set of comments that my colleagues and I have found most interesting. Sorry folks, for no, we’re not embarrassed about them. And I expect the purveyors of this website are not too happy about ‘publishing’ personal libelous comments about me!
Let’s take a couple of the points, without going too much into detail, although there are those out there who would do well to read “Explaining Labour’s Landslip” which Roger, Paul and I published after the last election, which explain in much more detail how polls are done, and why, frankly, I don’t pay too much attention to voting intention at a point two years, at least, from a general election. In fact, I now am much more interested in leader satisfaction ratings, with new tory and LibDem leaders, and the Labour leadership going to change before the next election.
Some of you seem to have missed seeing the Labour share published in my Sunday Times article on 10th September. There was no “conspiracy” not to publish it, only my focus on the Blair/Brown leadership story. We do not regard the voting intention findings as “sensational”. Only those solely interested in the horse race would describe it as such, particularly those who do not understand differences in fieldwork, differences in timing, differences in weighting and the difference, above all, in statistical reliability.
The best guideline, I would suggest, should be “watch the share, not the gap”.
And my decision not to major on the voting intention was partly because the Populus poll was conducted over the same period and published in the Times on 6th September, two days before I was writing my Sunday times piece. It was conducted by telephone interviews with 1,504 respondents on 1-3 September.
Ipsos MORI’s figure for Labour which was all I did publish was among 1,886 respondents of whom the voting intention is based on the 57% who said they were absolutely certain to vote. Our poll was conducted face-to-face between 31 August and 6 September. Virtually all fieldwork was completed by 5th Spetember, i.e., before the MPs’ letter to Tony Blair was published and the latest round of bloodletting, and may well now have been overtaken by events.
The comparison between the two polls is as valid as can be expected given differences between telephone and face-to-fact methodology and a shorter fieldwork period (3 days) vs longer (7 days) one. The Conservatives and Liberal Democrat shares are each one point different, ‘others’ 12% in Populus poll and 10% in ours (well within statistical reliability tolerance levels), and Labour in Populus 32% and the Ipsos MORI figure as published in the Sunday Times 36%. The previous Populus poll had a two-point Tory lead. The previous Ipsos MORI had a four point Tory lead.
Neither of the current polls show significant change in the lead from July nor are they significantly different from each other.
Sensational? No. Volatile? Yes, compared to the July findings. But as a wise man once said, “A week is a long time in politics”.
Just two specific responses to the comments above:
Mark Senior’s analysis is excellent.
Jamie, you recall that YouGov were “more acurate” at the last election. The final polls for MORI and YouGov were statistically identical and both well within the margin of error.
YouGov (deviation from the result)
Conservative 32% (-1%) Labour 37% (+1%) LibDem 24% (+1%)
MORI (deviation from the result)
Conservative 33% (0%) Labour 38% (+2%) LibDem 23% (0%)
Result 5 May 2005
Conservative 33%, Labour 36%, Liberal Democrats 23%
Brown has had quite a good week. The whole “project Gordon” thing and his increased profile, including the tears on Sky news have not him any harm at all. Early evidence that Brown might not be the liablity the Cameroons and the Blairites would have us believe. A very, very favourable report in the Currant Bun this morning featured some favourable polling. Cameron’s Scottish speech echoed much of Brown’s earlier in the week which reinforced an emerging feeling that it might now be Brown setting the agenda. This poll I think is reflecting that Labour flatlining is coming to an end, the question is how big will the recovery be ?