Whatever happened to Brown’s “bail-out” bounce?
October 19th, 2008
So was that the Labour recovery that was?
First of all - hands up - I got it wrong. My reading of the extraordinary events of the past fortnight was that this would give Labour a significant boost and that the crisis was a potential game-changer that could alter our view of the next election. This is how I’ve been betting.
We’ve all seen the incredible transformation that has come over Brown - the international acclaim that has given him an extra spring in his step, the newly recovered confidence and a smile that looks genuine if a little inappropriate for the times. All this has given heart to Labour MPs in marginal seats who had become reconciled to losing their jobs and salaries at the election.
Alas overnight we’ve had three new polls which must have gone down like a lead balloon in Downing Street. Surely Labour and Gordon could have expected better?
All three polls have positive figures for Brown on his handling of the crisis: ICM had it by 54% to 36% and there were similar numbers from BPIX.
I’m far from convinced of the importance of non-voting intention findings. If they meant anything in electoral terms they would show up in how people say they would vote. They don’t and that is Gordon’s problem this morning.
Before then I hope to look at the detail of the surveys - particularly the ICM poll which is reported in such an odd manner.
In the Glenrothes by election betting I expect that SNP will become an even tighter favourite.
Mike Smithson
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Maybe there is a case to say that with so much economic bad news, people have just switched off from the news for a while. This would explain why with so much good press for Brown, the polls haven’t moved too much. Of course if the reason is that people have switched off from Brown, then Labour really do have to worry.
I don’t mean to show any hubris, but I was one of the few predicting that there would be a ‘dead cat bounce’.
My main area of contribution is on economics. On the previous thread I argued that the explanation could be that the same polls show the bank bailout is extremely unpopular with the electorate.
For Labour the precedent is ominous. The NR bailout last year was followed by a 20% collapse in the polls for Labour and Brown becoming the most unpopular PM in history.
Brown going around boasting about the plan was reckless to the extreme. When it turns that the initiative was Darling’s, and he was in turn acting on a Swedish plan, one wonders why Brown wanted to make himself the centre of attention?
Could these be the dying days of Labour as a major political party in Britain? Could this be the Lib Dems moment of triumph? 80 years of third party status may be coming to an end. How many seats would Labour get if they came third in a GE?
No mystery. It’s the economy, by which is meant voters’ individual economic circumstances, not whether the FTSE is up or down. As food and fuel prices, and hence inflation, and hence interest rates fall, Labour’s polling can be expected to improve, but it was never going to happen overnight on the back of a few headlines, whatever Lord Mandelson believes about a snap election.
Sawadee kap.
First let me say, with all due respect, to our lefty friends
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHA
HA HA HAH!
LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!
*ahem*
These are very very VERY poor figures for Labour. Really - very poor. The nicest of the polls ComRes, is notably disappointing for them, the worst, BPIX, is utterly calamitous.
Because, let’s not forget, this comes during and after ten days of the most positive media coverage of a British Prime Minister many of us will have ever seen.
Brown was, quite literally, the Man Who Saved the World. He hasn’t been off our screens. The Tories have been scrabbling to get three minutes of coverage on BBC Cumbria, the papers have been dissing Cameron and lauding Brown from all sides - even the Tory papers, especially the Tory papers - and yet none of it has worked.
Indeed, if we take Smithson’s rule and take the worst poll for Labour as being the most accurate, we are actually left with the BPIX figures which show an enormous and INCREASED Tory lead of 16%, a lead which would see Cameron with a three figure landslide majority.
I think ChristinaD called it right. This has been a David Davis moment, the media has gots it narratives in a twist, it has behaved like a bunch of groupthinking lemmings in miniskirts: drawing a hysterical and girly conclusion from the most meagre of data.
The op-ed writers may think Gordon is Fiscal Spiderman, the voters are of, how shall we put it, a different opinion. The voters don’t like Brown, they don’t want to see him on their screens, only 1 in 50 think he is an attractive character, he’s electoral cobra-venom.
And I also think it was a mistake bringing back Campbell and Mandelson: yes they may be shrewd (allegedly) but voters don’t like them either. Their presence gives Labour the feeling of a catacomb, full of eerie corpses.
AND to make matters worse, this is of course the peak of the Dead Cat Bounce. From now on its all repossessions and retraction, no-more-holidays and winter gales, unemployment queues and rising crime and horrible tax rises and spending cuts, all presided over by the Emperor of Gloom, mister No More Boom and Bust himself.
Oh dear.
Predictions from here:
1. Yes the SNP price must tighten now for Glenrothes; after thinking Labour had at least a chance, I am now much less sure
2. If the SNP win Glenrothes, as seems likely, the comeback narrative - already hideously crippled - will be utterly finished: Labour will be staring at ghastly general election defeat all over again
3. At that point the infighting will recommence: Get Rid of Gordon. And this time Brown will have Mandelson prowling the darkened cloisters, and unsheathing his stilleto blade
The current crisis is not suited to boosting the Labour poll ratings.
The people primarily affected are mortgage holders, people with private pensions, savers, financial sector workers and business owners. These individuals are mostly lost to Labour for the foreseable.
Public sector workers, union members, wearers of mustard coloured corduroy trousers and anti-capitalists might not favour the hurling of vast sums of public money at bankers quite as much as Gordon hopes.
I find it difficult to picture the circumstances of a floating voter who would switch to Labour because of this downturn. Entrenching the grass roots is the best Labour can hope for in the long term.
3. I think you might be surprised by the number of voters whose individual economic circumstances are directly affected by whether the FTSE is up or down.
There are, for example, over 2,000,000 voters who are shareholders in HBOS and millions more whose savings and personal pensions are specifically linked to the performance of the stock market and the dividends being paid.
As I say upthread, according to Smithson’s Iron Law, we should take the Labour-unfriendliest poll as being the most accurate. That means BPIX. i.e. 46: 30: 13
Feeding BPIX into Baxter gives an overall Tory majority of…. 152 seats.
And this is Brown’s BOUNCE?? oh dear.
PS. Amidst the general carnage of media commentators, now lying on the battlefield like British Tommies after the first Somme offensive, one newspaper pundit, at least, has survived with his reputation intact: John Rentoul on the Independent.
Whereas everyone else has been saying the Krunch is a game-changer, he has remained flintily unmoved in his electoral pessimism about Brown and Labour.
A Cohiba for Mister Rentoul.
After a quick glance at the headline ComRes numbers, I was pleased (and not a little surprised). After seeing the BPIX update to the last pb.com post, I was astounded and overjoyed. This is a huge setback for Labour (and the Lib Dems). In fact I will go further: Brown has had it.
I will follow Mike’s longstanding advice and wait until the very last polls of October, and the first ones in November. Unless Labour see a sharp improvement in those, then the die is cast.
8. Indeed Stuart. BPIX is horrible for the Lib Dems as well as Labour. 13%?
Baxter gives them 15 seats on that performance. 15 seats!
What the Krunch seems to have done is squeeze votes out of the Libs - but they are not all going to Labour. Enough are going to the Tories to make any Labour gains irrelevant.
This makes sense psychologically. Some old-fashioned lefties have been drawn back to Labour by the soc1alism of the bail-out etc etc. But some floaters and soft Libbers just see recession and bust, from Mister no-more-boom-and-bust, and in their anger they are turning to the Tories - or to the SNP in Scotland.
You must now have a very good chance in Glenrothes.
I hate to say I told you so but……
The gordo smirk; the idiot Labour MPs at QT the other week; the economy!! the list goes on and on.
Actually it’s not even just Gordon. Voters like DC and he knows it. They’ve rumbled NuLab and the tax and spend swindle. Game over.
9. SeanT - “What the Krunch seems to have done is squeeze votes out of the Libs… “
Indeed. We are going to see some absolutely horrifyingly shocked Lib Dems at the Euros and the next UK GE. I am talking about their real ‘heartland’ seats here. Places like Ross Skye & Lochaber, Fife NE and Edinburgh W. Seats that you would not expect them to lose in a hundred years. Even Charlie Kennedy is going to be clinging on by his bloodied fingernails at this rate, and the Tories must be licking their lips if Menzies Campbell retires.
The Greens are screwed too. Watch out for Green trouble in Brighton Pavillion and at the Euros.
- “You must now have a very good chance in Glenrothes.”
To be fair Sean, I always thought we had a good shout in Glenrothes, even at the peak of the Metropolitan media hysteria over Flash Gordon. That kind of crap may play well in Clapham, but those BBC journalists really ought to get out a bit more: look at the world through the eyes of someone who lives in Coleraine, Coventry, Caernarfon… or Cardenden. Then tell us how “flash” Gordon really is, to your average voter. Answer: not flash at all.
Remember, Glenrothes = 90% “ground-war”. Anyone who has not actually been there, on the ground, well… to be honest, their predictions are pretty worthless.
(Note: be careful with the ‘headline’ Baxter calculator. It always always includes some really silly Scottish Tory gains. These should be discounted.)
11 (Note: be careful with the ‘headline’ Baxter calculator. It always always includes some really silly Scottish Tory gains. These should be discounted.)
Don’t worry - I spotted that. Baxter turns half of Scotland blue - which is daft. It under-estimates SNP gains, I suspect.
10. I think the MSM spinning of the Gordo revival has been pathetic & its rapid unwinding should remind them that people and not the press are the true masters. This is a message the BBC could do with pondering long and hard.
Mike - “… I expect that SNP will become an even tighter favourite.”
You may not be seeing a better SNP price before Polling Day than Sporting Bet’s current 1/2. So, if you took Coral’s 100/30 on Labour last week then this morning may be your last chance to retrieve your holiday spending money.
If anyone is aware of any other bookmakers with Glenrothes prices, please let us know. (We are aware of the 4 shown below, plus William Hill.)
Glenrothes by-election - best prices
Bookmakers:
SNP 1/2 (Paddy Power)
Lab 2/1 (Ladbrokes)
Con 100/1 (Coral, Ladbrokes, Sporting Bet)
LD 100/1 (Coral, Ladbrokes, Sporting Bet)
Betfair:
SNP 1.5
Lab 2.74
Any other party 50
(£4,528 matched so far on Betfair)
OK, I’m off for a celebratory swim and sunbathe.
But before I go, one more point: for me, the crucial stat in all these polls is this from BPIX/MoS:
“Some of Mr Brown’s ratings are humiliating. A mere one in 50 sees him as attractive and one in 25 says he has charisma”
One in fifty? One in fifty?? Just two percent of the population regard him as an attractive politician.
There’s not much you can do with figures as bad as that. Even if Labour miraculously doubled the number of people who think their leader is an attractive politician, they’d have persuaded all of 4% of the populace to like him.
I fail to see how any party can win an election with such an unattractive and disliked leader. It’s sad for Gordo personally, but there it is. The voters just don’t like him, and if Gordo Saves The World hasn’t persuaded them, then they never will.
The Labour leadership plotting recommences Monday at 9am, sharp. All are invited. Bring a friend.
ComRes/IoS Scottish sub sample - usual caveats apply:
Lab 37% (-2%)
SNP 35% (+17%)
Con 14% (-2%)
LD 9% (-14%)
BNP 2% (+2%)
Grn 1% (n/c)
oth 1%
Scottish Baxter:
Lab 38 seats (-2)
SNP 14 seats (+8)
LD 5 seats (-6)
Con 1 seat (n/c)
Speaker 1 seat n/c)
Patrick Hennessey doesn’t watch much television:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/3223978/Wheel-of-political-fortune-spins-as-Labour-targets-Middle-Britain.html
He concludes his piece with what he evidently thinks is smart analysis. “What has changed, however, is the degree of certainty that Mr Cameron will be at Number 10. On Friday night the Conservative leader, in remarks not flagged up by his office, used a meeting in Yorkshire to challenge Mr Brown to a presidential-style televised debate.
“If Gordon Brown is watching this, any time, any place, anywhere I am ready,” Mr Cameron declared in Leeds. Such challenges are normally made by politicians who are trailing their opponents, not by those who feel in full control of their destiny.”
But David Cameron had already said this publicly on Andrew Marr before his conference speech:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7640480.stm
“In the wake of the debates between US presidential hopefuls John McCain and Barack Obama, Mr Cameron said, “Yes, yes, yes,” when asked if he would take part in a televised debate with Gordon Brown.
He told the Marr show he had already asked Mr Brown - and Tony Blair before him - for such debates and said they could be a way to “liven” up politics.”
Perhaps that would explain why that passage was not flagged up by David Cameron’s office.
On topic, it is always difficult to assess the impact of a single unprecedented piece of news. A section of the public appeared to have collectively lost their patience with Labour after the last budget and the 10p tax row, and for 6 months the polls had been pretty consistently abysmal for Labour and Gordon Brown.
The bail-out plan has been very well-received by those that purport to understand these things. However, that group is a small part of the voting public. How much were the rest of the public going to be influenced by the views of the chatterati, particularly when the key features of the plan involved exorbitant sums of money? How much were voters who had more or less made up their minds how they were going to vote at the next election going to swing from one party to another over just one issue, an issue that most voters found simultaneously boring and terrifying and didn’t want to have to understand?
If I were a diehard Labour supporter - a mental leap I struggle to make - I would obviously be discouraged by the BPIX poll in particular, but I would be arguing to myself that voters who had been profoundly alienated were never going to jump back in a single group salmon (lemming?) leap. I would be hoping that recent events might at least mean that when Government ministers speak that some more voters might listen. I think that is a reasonable hope. If Labour carries on with its very recent conversion to an intelligent junking of bad policy, and I would vehemently advocate them dumping ID cards next, faint hope can continue to flicker for the Labour party.
Sorry if this has been covered previously but Labour’s dog whistle moves on both Metric Martyrs and Immigration really demonstrate the depth of their despair.
Setting aside that I support both announcements, a huge swathe of their activist powerbase is going to hate it.
Shows where the election is going to be fought when it comes for certain. In the gutter.
An interesting conundrum for DC. Does he drift along in agreement or take the lead and up the stakes ? Risks both ways.
19
DC need do very little.
Formulate po;icies, keep the Conservatives clean, happy and respectable in voters’ eyes:
and have patience.
The latter is vital.
Gordon has done his work. The economy and welfare system will slowly implode over the next 2 years.
And Labour will be out of power for at least a generation.
Who are the LibDems? Do they have a Leader? I think we should be told.
These polls are in line with my expectations. The presumption behind the Brown bounce narrative leading to Labour pulling close to the Tories was at best bizarre. They assume that most of the electorate is not interested in politics - true. However, they then assume that in spite of this they will have noticed there is an economic crisis. They then assume that because they aren’t interested in politics they won’t have been inspired to ask “Why is there an economic crisis ?”. Doh.
My view is that many of the non-politicals will NOT have noticed there is an economic crisis if it hasn’t touched them personally. This group is in no position to be either impressed or unimpressed by Brown. If they were moved one way or the other they wouldn’t be part of this group per se.
But, the non-politicals who HAVE noticed, and they must surely be the larger group, they must be asking “Why ?”. The fact that the Beeb chooses to minimise the connection between the government and what is happening is neither here nor there. This group is unlikely to turn to the medja for advice in any case. But, talking amongst themselves, and believe it or not many of them do have the power of speech, the words crisis, Brown, Labour, Disaster, w**kers, Mandelson, bunch of ****s will tend to come together.
People keep asking what should Cameron be saying,
(1) This is a crisis of Brown’s own making. Forget Labour concentrate on Brown. The Labour front bench is not just a talent free zone but a charisma free zone as well and so invisible.
(2) I, the great Cameron will sort it out. There isn’t much visible talent on the Tory side either so don’t complicate matters by including the party.
(3) If you want it sorting out vote for me. If you don’t, don’t. TINA as Mrs T would say.
Nationally he shouldn’t admit the LDs exist. But locally where they are an issue the stark choice should be modified to me Cameron against all the rest of the hard left.
Who are the LibDems? Do they have a Leader? I think we should be told.
Vince Cable?
Could it be that those people who think Mr Brown has handled the current economic crisis well, also think he had a hand in creating it?
The bailout is necessary because of Brown’s huge policy failures in the past.
Asd time goes by the ideas comeing out of Downing street are ever more desperate. Apparently now we are to dig up Keynes and “bring forward” capital projects from future years’ budgets.
Shame we didn’t save any money in the good years for just such an eventuality. The cupboard is bare. And with 2 million headed for negative equity the future is really not rosy at all.
On that basis, hardly surprising this disastrous government is not popular.
“…wearers of mustard coloured corduroy trousers” - is this a demographic I’ve missed?
“No good will come of wailing out bankers”
William Archibald Spooner
mirthios @ 6 re FTSE relevance. Of course the wider economic picture matters but it has only an indirect effect on votes which are determined by “the pound in your pocket”.
In the same way, my view of the health service is determined by how long my dear old mum has to wait for a new hip, not by increases in NHS spending, even though the former does depend at least partly on the latter.
“Negative equity ‘to reach 2 million’”
“Passports will be needed to buy mobile phones”
“Lord Mandelson flies high with hedge funder”
“Lord Ashcroft plans to leave £900m to charity”
Which of these four headlines from the on line edition of today’s Times is most likely to persuade you to vote Labour?
23 - They may think Brown did a reasonably good job of launching the lifeboats, but they know who was on the bridge when the ship hit the iceberg.
Chief Secretary to the Treasury Yvette Cooper, has called on banks and building societies to be more lenient on home owners who default on their mortgages.
Does that include Northern Rock?
24 “the cupboard is bare” but falling interest rates will mean the government can borrow cheaply to replenish it, and will also mean negative equity is less of an issue since mortgage payments will become more affordable. The forecast dire consequences of all those people coming off low fixed rates should be mitigated by low floating rates.
The crucial question is what will be done with the money? ID cards bad since few jobs will be created and many voters will be annoyed; digging holes and filling them in again is good.
Conservative leader David Cameron has called on the government to allow small businesses to defer paying their VAT bills for up to six months.
Nice one - the government must say “no” because it is haemorraghing cash and needs every single penny it can lay its hands on. Now.
31
Wouldn’t business tax cuts be a better way to create jobs than gov’t spending “digging holes and filling them in again”.?
Hadn’t seen the BPIX one last night. A 16 point lead, with the Lib Dems on exactly 2 voters a dog from Cornwall, is not exactly great news for Labour or the Lib Dems. Just why aren’t the Lib Dems benfiting from the very low poll ratings seen from Labour over the last year or so?
Anyway, if BPIX is anywhere near accurate, Labour are doomed.
30…what a silly girlie she is. stay at home with the children might be more appropriate.
I see Brown is at the IMF today, strutting about. Interesting comment from the Telegraph today
“Gordon Brown Said in April 2008 that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) needed complete re-structuring so it could act as an “early warning system” for the international economy. Will the PM to explain what action was taken by himself and HMG upon receiving previous warnings from the IMF.
Dec 2003 IMF gives Brown borrowing warning.
Sep 2005 IMF report: Warning over £1 trillion mountain of debt.
Dec 2005 IMF report: IMF fires new warning over Britain’s finances.
Sep 2006 IMF report: IMF warns over UK property crash.
April 2007 IMF report: Private equity collapse on cards, says IMF.
October 2007 IMF report: UK house market is “heading for crash”.
April 2008 IMF report: UK vulnerable to US-style housing slump.
”
The man is a joke.
No more needs to be said i think
I think the problem that Labour had with the “Brown bounce” is that they overdid it.
Day after day it was Brown on television saving the economy, but effectively all he was doing was creating soundbites (Cameron-style) and throwing our (future) money at the problem. Lots of praise from the media luvvies and from foreign leaders, of course, but this does not carry much weight with our electorate.
So a humilliating own goal from the Labour team of Campbell, Mandelson and Peston - and especially Peston because he was the most highly visible.
Although TIPP went in the other direction last night, today’s Zogby confirms the small movement towards McCain post-debate. Zogby is the first tracker with (almost) only post-debate interviews, and McCain is up 2.8 points since pre-debate (Thursday morning). Now trailing 45.1 to 47.8.
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1597
There is value betting against a landslide.
33
Yes of course it would.
Construction jobs would be done mainly by hard-working immigrants anyway, Brits are too lazy and underskilled!
33 A recession provides a good opportunity to carry out useful capital projects more cheaply than would otherwise be the case.
But aside from that, tax cuts would make more sense than just increasing public spending across the board.
36 - This is the only IMF story worth reading today:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/oct/19/imf-strauss-khan-wallstreet-france
Who’d have thought it? A French politician having an affair with a subordinate? Sometimes people are determined to live up to stereotypes.
For those that are interested, fact fans, Piroska is the Hungarian name for Little Red Riding Hood.
This is a great site, and I mean that genuinely, but there are two main problems. One is that when people are punting with their own hard-earned cash they will not always post honestly. The other, more serious one in terms of the current narrative, is that like a lot of media outlets, threads are designed to generate newsworthiness. The result is that there is a tendency to short-term reactiveness. Everytime a new poll appears a thread pops up, often with frankly ludicrously over-blown metaanalysis. If polls are moving around then the result is a greater amount of movement than Peter Snow’s swingometer.
Moods in the nation do not always, or even often, change quickly. A look at Anthony Wells’ opinion poll charts will show that even after the catastrophe of Black Wednesday it took several months for the nation to turn decisively against the Tories - something that is amazing with hindsight. (Though a note to our genial host: the economic competence indicators were the litmus test for this.)
If, today, you had offered Brown and Labour that after the Conference season and in the midst of the greatest economic crisis this country has faced in at least a generation, the Tory lead would be reduced from, say, 15-20% pre-Conference to around 10% now they would have bitten off your hand. The sort of lead the Tories have 18 months from an election means that Labour could, very definitely, still win the next General Election. I do not happen to think they will, but they might. If Brown has demonstrated economic competence, and if the crisis abates in time for spring 2010 then they now have EVERY chance of winning. That’s a huge turnaround.
Now, I suggest people take a step back and watch events unfold with a little more sobriety and a little less short-term reactivity. We may have been going through a significant turning point. But it is too early to know.
John L - 31 - “negative equity is less of an issue since mortgage payments will become more affordable.” Are you sure?
Thousands of borrowers will miss out on cheaper mortgage bills because some of the biggest lenders prohibit interest rates on their tracker loans from falling below a minimum threshold.
HBOS, the country’s biggest mortgage lender, which is set to be taken over by Lloyds TSB, will not cut tracker rates if the bank rate falls below 3 per cent. Nationwide Building Society, the second-biggest lender, will also refuse to pass on any decreases if the base rate sinks lower than 2.75 per cent.
Abbey has a 3 per cent cut-off point on some older trackers, while building societies including Yorkshire, Skipton, Norwich and Peterborough and Scarborough operate similar thresholds on all their tracker deals.
HSBC does not have a lower threshold on its deals, but includes a caveat in its terms and conditions allowing it to not pass on rate cuts if there is a “significant” change in the mortgage market.
In an additional blow for HBOS customers, the lender this week told borrowers it was changing its promise that its standard variable rate (SVR) would not be any higher than 2 per cent above base rate. From next month the lender is increasing this margin to 3 per cent.
42 By 2010, we may be past the worst, in the sense that output is rising again, but it won’t seem like that, to the public at large.
Whilst I closed some of my Conservative ‘buy’ positions at a loss to reduce my exposure, I’m still sitting well long on them which I’m happy with. I was never convinced that we’d see a huge poll boost for Brown, and in any case was happy to look long term to the next election itself when I expect a Tory majority of over 50.
However, bizzarely I still think Labour may win Glenrothes. I can’t really justify this, it’s just a feeling. Hey, they should win Glenrothes and the very small Brown bounce we’ve seen could just push them over the line. I’ve happily laid the SNP on Betfair at 1/2, but I’m keeping my stakes low.
42
I dont think you see the bigger picture Richard. THe media has been fawning over Brown and his rescue plan. the BBC coverage could not have been more helpful if it tried. Cameron has been largely out of the news , and the best Labour can manage is 31%
What that tells me is that the Conservative vote at 40% is not soft as alleged, and Labour is at about its zenith.
Then Lets think on the reaction of the nation to the recession thats upon us, the hundreds of 000’s that are going to lose their jobs, 000’s of businesses going bust and think on three weeks of Gordon v Dave in a GE campaign. I really don’t think Labour have a chance unless the Tories to something incredibly stupid (which they wont).
This is as good as it gets for Labour.
The presidents of the US, France and the European Commission have unveiled plans for a series of summits to discuss the global financial crisis. Where’s Flash?
Dear Mr Brown
As you laugh like a drain at the thought of another Bank going down and glance at the results of the latest Polls spare a thought for good old Abraham Lincoln,
“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time. …”
You would have thought that the MSM would have learnt their lesson over Davis Davis. But no, apart from one or two notable exceptions (John Rentoul bless him is one) they read it wrong and were taken in by the Brown/Campbell Dream (sory Nightmare)Team.
I am looking forward to ‘flip flop 3′ from both Polly Toynbee and Jackie Ashley. Polly in particular has just finished her latest piece on Gordon, Saviour of the World. “Oh Bugger!” was heard over the sun drenched rolling hills of Tuscany.
I think that the main reason why Brown has not made major advances on the banking bailout is simple. Stripping away all the detailed technical arguments about “recapitalisation”, “tier one capital” etc, what has he actually done?
Spent £57b of taxpayers’ money.
Not so difficult really, is it?
42 - Not sure about that. All the evidence thus far is that the one thing that won’t benefit Brown is an economic recovery. It really isn’t in the Tory interest for the country to hit an economic catastrophe.
I always thought (hoped) that the Brown bounce was over-rated. Labour MPs waving their Order Papers in the House is no indication of how voters will react. Rember the 2007 budget where they were ecstatic at the announcement of 2p reduction in Income tax and then the 10p debacle afterwards…..
Great news to make me cheerful this Sunday morning.
42, although your posts are well-written I disagree with almost all of them, including this one.
The Tory and Lib Dem conferences were overshadowed by the financial crisis: Labour’s wasn’t.
The media has given up (for now) the leadership narrative and has sometimes literally been calling the PM a superhero. And the result? A poll deficit of 9-16%.
Btw, for those who backed Hamilton for the fastest lap ’tis a good time to lay. All green now (had backed Raikonnen, Hamilton and Massa) and laid the first two, but I need Massa to pull his bloody finger out.
Expanding…
If the one issue where Labour are doing well at the moment is the ability to handle an economic crisis, and the overall polls are generally in the Conservative favour regardless, then it won’t do Labour any good for the economic crisis to abate. The public will just congratulate themselves on their sound views about economic crisis management, and vote Conservative.
The only problem for the Conservatives comes if the electorate are actually presented with the dilemma where they are forced to choose between their generally preferred party, and their specific views on best to handle the economy. And that will only happen if the economy is still looking very sticky.
“Now, I suggest people take a step back and watch events unfold with a little more sobriety and a little less short-term reactivity. We may have been going through a significant turning point. But it is too early to know.
by Richard October 19th, 2008 at 8:13 am”
I agree. We have all over-reacted to the tiny Brown bounce of the last week.
The truth is, if you look at the longterm trend of Labour support and Labour turnout and actual Labour votes in actual elections, they have been in serious decline for half a decade. And now, under a leader liked by just one in fifty voters, and with the nastiest recession in memory dogging their heels, they are headed for their worst election performance in a generation.
Them’s the facts. The last week or two have just been noise. You are right to advise us to take a step back.
wholelly expected poll result. Hype does not equal votes.
55, aye, I reckon some Tory supporters were wetting their pants because they’d bizarrely become used to silly bugger poll leads of 20% plus. In reality, double digits is fine any day of the week,d espite the odd mad lefty proclaiming only a lead of 37% will guarantee Labour’s defeat.
#3 …No mystery. It’s the economy…
Yes, or rather the economess as it is being called in the US.
45 - Why should Labour hold Glenrothes ?
The vote Labour narrative is difficult to follow. The only UK narrative for voting Labour at the moment is to save the world, if you think Labour can do that. Even if you do it is difficult to translate that national objective to voting in a by-election.
Meanwhile, the SNP narrative is superficially appealing and like the LDs in by-elections before they lumbered themselves with Clegg, they can say all the we will do nice things for you here. Fairly vague as to what they might be of course but …
This is partly why I think Labour could regain both Glasgow East and Glenrothes at a GE, which will be fought on national issues. This all depends upon how well the new MPs perform at opening fetes and wringing their hands at the appropriate moments. Those are the main means at their disposal for separating their seats from the national agenda.
42 - Sure, what is being considered here is a straw in the wind. But when there are many straws and they are all tending to move in the same general direction then that gives a good indicator as to the way in which the wind is blowing. The last sixteen months have seen a major change in the direction of UK politics, a change which could endure for twenty years. When the hindsight analysis is done as to why this happened the role of this, and other less influential websites must be taken into account.
57. Sargeant Bob Sykes, of the Tory Party Pant-wetting Regiment, Coward’s Own Battalion, Chicken-lickin Platoon (rear echelon), come out with your hands up.
ChristinaD is correct that just as they did with David Davis most of the media have interpreted the impact of the Brown actions wrongly. The voters have clearly concluded that they want him and Labour out at the next GE.
If Labour lose Glenrothes, Brown’s indian summer will be brought to a brutal halt.
61, it’s not a very good indicator of the media’s powers of either perceptiveness or persuasion. And, as has been said before, they should probably focus more on the actual message being put forward, instead of considering it a footnote to the central matter of its intended effect on the electorate.
59. I don’t really disagree with your analysis - it’s just a gut feeling. I’ve only laid the SNP for small stakes as, I agree, that the logical arguments point to a SNP win. But, Glasgow was very close and I think things have just improved that little bit for Labour (not to prevent catastophic defest at the next election, you understand) that they could just nick it.
I have been out of the country for a couple of weeks in a part of the world where international politics is of scant relevance, so you can imagine my surprise when I picked up the papers on my way through Heathrow yesterday to discover that Brown: Champion of the World was the new narrative.
I think the apparent distinction between the reaction of the media and that of ordinary voters can be explained as follows:
1) This is a genuine crisis which, if not resolved, could lead to a catastrophe. The person who promotes (nb - not necessarily devises) the policy which resolves the crises deserves tremendous credit, irrespective of their culpability for the crisis (this is logical - the crisis was made by millions of people in dozens of countries, so blame is widespread (although concentrated on the banks and those having regulatory/policy oversight), but the resolution is in the hands of the few)
2) The media, especially the centrist and right-wing media, recognises this and casts Brown in a positive light. The left-wing press is split ideologically between those delighted to see “big government” vindicated and those horrified by state handouts to bankers, but rejoices in the fact a left-wing leader is succeeding where right-wing leaders have failed
3) Most ordinary voters are prepared to give some credit to Brown, but this is more significantly tempered by their immediate economic concerns - food and fuel price inflation, anticipated pay-rise constraints, falling house prices, the spectre of unemployment etc. These fundamentals have not been affected by last week’s events.
I think as a general rule a lot of people are prepared to support the “right long-term decisions” even if they cause tremendous short-term (and even long-term) costs to other people (e.g. mine closures). Obviously the one group least likely to support the “right long-term decisions” are those most likely to be negatively affected (e.g. the miners - Turkey’s don’t vote for Christmas). The analogy isn’t perfect because the issue here is not whether or not people support Brown’s proposal but whether they give him credit for it, but I hope you can see the point - with so many people across the political spectrum concerned about their economic position, their willingness to give credit is limited.
FYI - Stuart Dickinson, I’m afraid the good folk of East Africa are not following the SNP’s fortunes in Glenrothes with the vigour you might hope for…
Good Sunday Morning PBers !!
Delicate surgery undergoing on my ARSE, so no new information today !!
Meanwhile ….
New PPP poll for West Virginia :
McCain 50% .. Obama 42%
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_WV_1018.pdf
Reading the Sunday Papers it is obvious the opinion pieces were written too early - like Mike and others they expected a continued Labour improvement - which is a problem the Sundays have with fast moving stories. It looks now like a conference type bounce rather than a permanent move though like conference season we will perhaps have to wait till mid November to see where the more settled view is.
The Independent political editor story and editorial seem written in a bubble, fitting the expected narrative to a poll which doesn’t entirely bear out their conclusions.
What we need are more polls, over a stable few weeks. It certainly seems that pro-Tory/anti-Labour sentiment is strongly entrenched, and the Lib Dems are seen as an irrelevance by most voters when deciding how to kick the government.
Rasmussen new party id weighting for the coming week - Dem +6.9 up 0.4% on last week :
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/new_rasmussen_reports_partisan_weighting_targets_39_7_democrat_33_0_republican
Morris dancer “the Lib Dems are seen as an irrelevance by most voters when deciding how to kick the government.”
Yes BPIX LD hit their lowest with 13. Even though Cable has been in the media more than Osbourne.
One thing that seems to be left out of the analysis, that is despite the crisis, this is still a third term government. The history of third term governments is not a good one, fourth terms being even worse.
I still think the Libdem figure is too low, they’ll do better in a GE, increasing the chances of a no overall majority, with the strong possibility of the Tories being the largest party.
Latest Zogby/Reuters tracker :
McCain 45.1% .. Obama 47.8%
Note - Yesterday - M-44.4/O-48.3
http://zogby.com/index.cfm
It’s happened again:(
My Betfair account has received money from somewhere, and I don’t know where. I refreshed after making about 4 bets on the fastest lap GP market (laying my previous positions) which might explain the amount lowering, surely, but the last change on my account statement is the Nadal-Simon result. I’m a little perplexed by this.
70, or they’ll take some Labour votes and become the official opposition:P
72, ah ha, it may be due to lapsed bets!
Do they automatically lapse if unmatched for X period of time?
70. YAWN.
You “may still think” whatever you wish, but the most believable poll in this crop, according to Smithson’s Second Iron Law, is the BPIX.
That shows the Lib Dems winning a mighty 15 seats according to Baxter, and the Tories having an overall majority of 154.
Not exactly hung parliament territory, is it?
lol
By the way, has anyone worked out what’s up with the ICM poll? Seems hard to believe they would do a proper poll without asking voter intention. Has the result been held back? If so, why?
70
I’d like a pound for everytime someone’s told me that!
How the Bellylarf see it!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/10/19/dl1901.xml
72 - if you laid off your positions then you presumably reduced your exposure - hence your account balance increased.
75
The’ll do better than 15 seant, the Libdems are always underestimated, local organisation is usually very good, Libdem MP’s have high a profile and work hard.
Look at Cornwall!
77, ah… I thought that it would mean my account would be reduced due to increased liability. Hmm. Thanks for replying though
78 coldstone, yes the LDs do get underestimated but when you hit 13 that is a loss of 4 out of 10 of the GE2005 support. No wonderful local operation can dig you out of a hole that big.
70/75/78 - No coldstone’s right (and wrong). Right that the LibDems will do better, perhaps wrong that it will have more than a periferal impact on the overall result.
The main thing that causes the LibDems to underperform expectations in General Elections is when they get delusions that they can make breakthroughs at the national level (’74, ‘83, ‘87, ‘05). When they concentrate on what they do best - hard local campaigning with lots of “under the radar” activity then they will be OK.
That’s not to say that the next election is looking very tough for the LibDems. Just not as bad as the polls and predictors suggest.
9% is a good lead, and 16% is even better, though there’s a technical prtoblem with the BPIX poll. However (you knew I was going to say that, didn’t you?), as someone who’s been professionally cautious about the predictions of a Labour bounce, I don’t think you can argue that the polls don’t show a Brown bounce, and that invalidates a lot of the analysis on the thread. For instance, yes, seanT, people don’t think Brown is sexy, evidently unlike your well-documented self, but they think he’s more honest, intelligent and dignified than Cameron, all useful attributes for a PM, and they think by more than 2-1 that Cameron would be worse at handling the current crisis. Because some of you feel he’s useless, it makes you jump to the conclusion that a good Tory lead must be due to that.
So why hasn’t that rubbed off in a better Labour poll rating? Because people don’t change their minds quickly, especially in a non-electoral context with a bleak economy. There is a segment of the electorate, say 10%, who voted Labour last time but have been leaning towards the Tories for some time: they’re bored with us, not happy about this issue or that, worried about the economy and feel a change couldn’t be worse and Cameron seems OK. Up to a few weeks ago, this group also thought Brown was a poor leader. The current crisis has changed that view, and in many cases they now think that he’s as good or better than Cameron. But the other elements are still there, indeed the economy part is worse than a month ago. So I’ve been arguing throughout recent weeks that it won’t produce an instant leap in the polls for us - but it’s still an important building-block to change perceptions about the party leader.
Nor has this group really got a settled view, as shown by the BPIX finding that if there was a snap election on the economy the gap would narrow from 16 to 6 (45-39). That brings us to the oddity about the BPIX survey. There’s nothing to indicate that they split the sample for the alternative voting intention questions. From their wording, what they seem to have done is ask these questions in succession:
1. If there was an emergency election on the economy, how would you vote? Answer: Lab 39 Con 46.
2. If there was an election, how would you vote? Answer: Lab 30 Con 46
I don’t think the wording *can* have been exactly like that, since the reader (it’s an online poll) would have thought hang on, they just asked me that. I think question 2 must have been something like “If there was an election not only about the economy, how would you vote?” The way it was worded is crucial, since it affects how far respondents were prompted to think “As this is a different situation I’m being asked to reconsider”. The findings are interesting because they show that the economy remains Labour’s strongest card, and that 39% are willing to say they’ll vote Labour if the question prompts them on the issue, but the methodology is sufficiently unclear that we can’t really conclude much more, and the ComRes poll seems the more reliable picture, pending further data from the coming polls this week.
76. All these columns and op-eds are pointless. Indeed they symptomise an increasing problem for printed media they cannot respond quickly enough to changing events.
As someone says upthread, the Sunday papers are still following the narrative of last week - Brown storming up on the inside, amazing comeback from Gordo, yadda yadda yadda, in fact the actual polls show that any comeback, if it existed, has totally stalled - and the most believable poll shows the Tories with an enormous lead.
Today’s papers report yesterday’s news. The media narrative has already switched - once again. Now it’s: WTF happened to the Brown Bounce? Hence Mike’s thread-title.
MSM got it badly wrong…Again
BBC ditto
Lab MPs ditto
Lab retro spinners ditto
LDs ditto
A few Tory panickers ditto
Mike Smithson but at least he unlike the rest has the courage to admit it!
Gabble????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
82
Nick, I have couple of straws if you’d like to clutch them.
82 - Nick i think the former is more likely to be seen as “leading” than the latter. A combined two party percentage of 76% is in line with all polls in recent times. 84% is clearly ridiculous and seems to have totally excluded minor parties.
82 - Could you point me to the finding that by 2-1 people think that David Cameron would be worse than Gordon Brown in handling the current finding? I’ve seen polling suggesting that most people believe that he wouldn’t have been better, but as you know, that is not the same thing at all.
82. Living proof that the more you write the less sense you make. Desperate stuff!
How do you have “an emergency election on the economy” anyway?
86 - Why is 84% ridiculous in a polarised election of the type under consideration? The London Mayoral election, which gave every incentive to voters to cast first preferences for minority candidates, resulted in Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone hoovering up 79% of first preferences.
54 “The only problem for the Conservatives comes if the electorate are actually presented with the dilemma where they are forced to choose between their generally preferred party, and their specific views on best to handle the economy. And that will only happen if the economy is still looking very sticky.”
But the Tories have 45% of the vote and a six point lead on the question of who you would want to run the economy now, in a crisis. It may not be as good as the 16 point lead, but it is only minimally encouraging for Labour.
IMO, the 45/39 figures are strong evidence for the LD squeeze theory. So as (or if) the sense of crisis reduces, we are likely to see an LD comeback. Given the immediate boost Labour got at the expence of the LDs in the first post-crisis polls, this is more bad news for Labour.
82. What a pile of pathetic old waffle.
“I don’t like this BPIX result so I’m going to find some flaw in the methodology and talk about it at tedious length so no one actually notices what I am doing even though it could be argued the poll nudges people into voting Labour rather than what I’m burbling on about hello where am I gurgle gurgle”
Why didn’t you just repeat Smithson’s First Law: any poll I don’t like is a rogue poll, seeing as that is exactly what you are doing: you are just confirming Smithson’s law. You don’t like this poll, ergo it is “dodgy”. Tut tut.
And Nickie, darling, if you don’t think only 1 in 50 voters finding your leader attractive is any kind of problem, that’s just fine by me. You stick with old Gordo. He’ll see you right.
*chortle*
86. The only minor parties which might do well in 2010 are SNP, BNP and maybe PC - & 2 of them wil take heavily from the LDs.
The televisual media clearly reflecting the penny dropping for the media luvies this morning.
As I have thought all along throughout the last 6 weeks, all Broon has done is addressed some of the apathy on the left of the political sphere.
These polls are effectively post Labour conference polls and despite some truly desperate, convoluted and actually quite sad attempts by nick palmer to discredit BPIX, they clealry show Brown a mile behind.
The core left may approve of Broon but the rest of us will be kicking him out in 2010 and good riddance too him.
80
We should all remind ourselves what a public opinion poll is, a snapshot of opinion at a given time, it is not a predictor of the future.
I do not question their accuracy or the fact that they have a good track record in predicting the outcome of any GE, but they are not infallible.
As for the Libdems, I can remember when they all could go the HofC in one taxi. When Cyril Smith became an MP, the joke was, ‘Well at least it’ll now take two taxis’ The Libdems have improved their situation somewhat since then.
82. The Cons were seen as stronger on the economy in 1997…
Four quick points:
(1) The return of Mandelson to the Cabinet is, amongst other things, Brown’s verdict on his own government: hopeless.
(2) Reports this morning that the Treasury is finding it impossible to compensate folk for the abolition of the 10% tax rate in future financial years…after spending all that money on bankers.
(3) Surely the credit crunch fits in nicely with the Conservatives ‘Broken Society’ narrative. All those miscreants in Government and the City…in denial about their wrongdoings. The mindsets that have harmed society…and not one apology.
(4) Horror stories about yet more Government borrowing to bring forward major projects during the recession. At this rate, the recovery from the recession will be even worse than the downturn itself.
82- What is your majority?
“Ridiculous” (bad word) in the sense that this is the poll that is out of line with all that has gone before.
Like you say it is “polarised”, which is indicative of a question which is leading the respondent towards a “two party preferred” type question.
Considering that Labour usually do best (even recently) on two party preferred questions (the Conservatives are ecstatic if they show them close to 50:50 because of the potential impact on tactical vote unwind) then it is difficult to portray a Con lead of 45-39 as “good” for Labour.
Some FSA idiot on Andre Marr claiming they are now ’set up properly for the future’. Yeah right!
75 The BPIX poll is not a credible poll to apply Smithson’s 2nd law or any other . It is not even clear from the report whether the figures quoted of 46/30/13 were asked as the first question in the survey , the way the report is written seems to indicate that how you would vote in an emergency GE on the economy was asked first . As we will never see the detailed data we will not find out whether these are just mickey mouse results .
So far in October there have been over 35,000 real votes cast in local elections . The vote shares and changes compared to the previous elections in 2006 to 2008 are
Con 11,743 32.5% - 2.7%
Lab. 6,794 18.6% - 1.3%
LD..12,863 35.6% + 2.5%
Oth. 4,825 13.4% + 1.5%
Clearly there has been no Labour bounce , their support still bumping along the bottom .
99 - I certainly agree with your last point.
We have had one experience since the war of an election called on a single issue, the “who governs Britain?” election of February 1974. That election was lost, which certainly doesn’t give Labour much incentive to follow that route unless Gordon Brown sees it as a way to minimise his party’s losses.
The fundamentals havent changed and I don’t think we give the Great Unwashed British Public enough credit not to get the difference between one issue and others. People are thinking ‘you have to do what is necessary to ensure I can go to the bank. But, where is my money? wheres all the taxes gone? my house isnt worths much..and you are doing what now? Borrowing and taxing more?’
The other issue is Brown himself. People just dont like the guy, they don’t trust him and they don’t feel comfortable with him. It really doesnt help.
I wouldnt be too hard on yourself Mike, you probably made a bit of hay out of the perceived changes in the seats markets, which proves that the public and punters can depart and the punters can be the ones who ignore reality.
Right, off for a job before the rain starts.
103. Jog…..god it sounds like I was going out to shoot somone and didnt fancy getting my hair wet..
82. Is anybody else hearing voice of Charlie Brown’s teacher?
Mark Senior, care to comment on the LDs rating with support for LDs at Clegg’s lowest?
101. BPIX asked people how they would vote in an election. The result was 46: 30: 13.
You don’t like this, as you are a Lib Dem. Therefore it is a rogue poll.
Smithson’s Law applies.
The poll that is curious and iffy is ICM - it actually shows more people put off Labour cause of the crisis, and Brown’s handling thereof, than voters who are enthused by Supergordon. This would imply - no more than that - an actual increase in the Tory vote since the last ICM poll pre-Krunch (which was what?).
But we can’t know this for sure. It may just be soft Tories hardening, er, if you know what I mean.
I think in UK it changes from s or c (can’t remember which way around) depending on whether it’s referring to people (eg “the defence”) or the act (eg “to mount a defense”). Similar to practise/practice I believe. And they just chose one. I may be wrong and the practise/practice thing not apply.
To remember which is which, just think of advise / advice.
101
I think your by election votes are the most ridiculous nonsense Mark. WTF does that prove. B*gger all in fact.
106. I think you’ll find a council by election in deepest somerset with 200 people voting and showing a Lib Dem landslide means far more than these opinion polls.
And Hamilton wins. A good day so far.
Nothing shows how confused the Govt are than Yvette Cooper “ordering” the banks to cut repossessions. Banks don’t repossess for the fun of it, they do it as a hard headed analysis of how to best salvage their investments. I’m not quite sure how Cooper expects the Govt to “make a profit” out of all the money spent on purchasing Bank shares if the banks have to stop acting like businesses whilst we own them.
106 LibDem support is up when real voters have to get up and go out and vote .
107 Every BPIX poll is a rogue poll that is why they do not publish their methodology .
108, but that’s a shift from verb to noun, whereas the verb from defence is defend, so no ’s’ comes into play.
110 35,000 plus voters including 1,600 in the marginal seat of Taunton Deane .
113 - How are the LibDems doing if you include by-elections on seats won in 2005?
111, pity Kovalainen couldn’t get between Hamilton and Raikonnen or Raikonnen and Massa though.
367. ChristinaD - “No Scottish Labour posters though [at pb.com]. It always makes me chuckle when certain Labour posters miss that glaring fact.”
Christina, I got the strong impression that Henry G Manson is a member of Scottish Labour.
371. “… if I am proved wrong, I am sure that there will be a queue formed by the other Scots using the excellent archives on this site to remind me of my doomed predictions.”
We would not be so unchivalrous!
It’s, ‘Go North Young Man’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/oct/19/creditcrunch-marketturmoil-recession-london
re 101. I should amend my polling law so that it only includes those surveys where methodology is transparent. BPIX, as e say so often, is a complete disgrace because it doesn’t answer emails, doesn’t provide any data, and shows no desire to join the British Polling Council.
Whenever I have raised the issue of non-registered pollsters in the past the firms in question have been very co-operative and have supplied me with the key data. BPIX is the single exception.
I’ve been thinking about the issue of BBC “impartiality”. I don’t think there is any such thing. Every individual sees the world - and the nation, and the economy, and politics, and moral issues - through a whole lifetime of accumulated filters, blinkers, rose-tinted glasses, attitudes, prejudices, cultural assumptions and individual experiences. Everybody thinks that his / her own opinion is “reasonable”, “neutral”, “impartial”, “rational” or whatever you call it. If a journalist makes adjustments to his own view, in order to accommodate or adjust to what he thinks will be perceived by “most ordinary people” as “neutral”, or if he over-compensates for what he thinks is his own bias, then that is merely another filter being added on, rather than his own being taken off. The average of the aggregated opinions or attitudes of “society” also change markedly over time. What would an “impartial” discussion programme on the BBC in the 1950s on the subject of, say, gay marriage have been like?
116 Sorry Alex , don’t quite understand your question .
122 - In 101 you referred to
“The vote shares and changes compared to the previous elections in 2006 to 2008 are”
What about previous elections in 2005?
43. “John L - 31 - “negative equity is less of an issue since mortgage payments will become more affordable.” Are you sure?
Thousands of borrowers will miss out on cheaper mortgage bills because some of the biggest lenders prohibit interest rates on their tracker loans from falling below a minimum threshold.”
One other significant factor: lenders are dropping the LTV at which they’ll offer deals, commonly to 90% or less of current value. That means that a lot of people who took out loans in the last couple of years will find that they’re unable to renew fixed, discount or tracker mortgages when their rate comes to an end, nor will they be able to move to an alternative lender. They’ll end up sat on the SVR which may by as much as 2% more than the rate they were previously paying.
120 Fair enough Mike, but does it make the poll wrong? What is their track record compared to other pollsters??
114. I was practicing, not defending
As we have still not had marcia’s Glenrothes report (get that coffee down you and get typing!), here are the few tantalising tidbits from her Glenrothes canvassing yesterday:
________________________________
Exhibit A. “Worrying for Labour, today’s poll shows that working class voters are abandoning Labour as they fear for their jobs.Almost a third of working class class voters (29%) say they are less likely to vote Labour.. compared to just 16% of upper and middle class voters.”
Marcia replied: exactly what I found in Methil today
Exhibit B.
I had one woman today in Methil who said that she was put off Gordon Brown as as said he was like having ‘a laughing undertaker at your Mother’s funeral’ His joke about another bank going bust when his phone rang has irked some voters. She said peoples job are at risk and he can only make fun of it.
Exhibit C.
I will post a report in the morning. Being in the most ‘Labour’ part of the Central Fife Holyrood seat was very interesting to say the least.
by marcia October 18th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
___________________________________
Fascinating stuff. I cannot wait until the full report.
I’m not sure what kind of electoral miracle you were expecting, but we’rer pretty damn pleased with these latest figures - they represent a firming up of the Labour position which had been in free fall, and if we can maintain these levels for the next month or so, then we’ll be looking at a steady improvement over a 12 month period. this suggests we’ve come out of the conference season in a far better position than we went into it, and Mike, you were the one saying conference polls should be taken with a pinch of salt!
So compare these poll with the pre-conference polls and you’ll see why we’re pretty happy…
120 - Is BPIX run/owned by Essex University academics?
112. Nothing shows how confused the Govt are than Yvette Cooper “ordering” the banks to cut repossessions. Banks don’t repossess for the fun of it, they do it as a hard headed analysis of how to best salvage their investments. I’m not quite sure how Cooper expects the Govt to “make a profit” out of all the money spent on purchasing Bank shares if the banks have to stop acting like businesses whilst we own them.
That’s an example to illustrate why capitalism is inefficient in providing the basics of life - like housing - when business decisions about salvaging investments is more important than ensuring that everyone has a roof over his head.
120. No. That’s up to BPIX. Why do they have to obey your demands (no offence?) or spend their time answering your emails? Perhaps they think their methodology is better, and they see it as a trade secret, and they don’t particularly want to let everyone know how they do it.
That’s a perfectly understandable commercial position to take.
The only thing that matters is whether BPIX are any good as pollsters. As I understand it they have been no more or less accurate than other well-known pollsters, in terms of predicting actual elections. In fact I seem to remember them doing quite well (though I could be mistaken) in terms of accuracy.
Therefore they should be accepted. I’d be saying the same if they were showing the Tories on 2%. You can’t pick and choose which pollsters you like, simply because they don’t cleave to your rather demanding wishes.
All that matters is accuracy.
123 There were 6 byelections in county/unitary seats that did poll on GE day in 2005 , 4 had later results which I used . Lincs CC did not have a LibDem candidate in 2005 so no comparison could be made . The other 5 on 2005 results showed LibDems up in 2 a little and down in 3 by a little , they all showed Lavour down substantially .
130 - “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we can expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest” (Adam Smith)
Strangely, Communist countries have had a history of famines.
Haven’t got time to read through the thread, but two things.
1. Hurrah.
2. What do we do now? Can we rely on the media narrative at all?
A new rule?
The only narratives that have a real impact on Gordon are bad ones.
Gordon does have some of Teflon Tony’s qualities, but its the bad stuff that sticks and the good stuff which slides right off.
130 - Well that’s obvious. That’s why housing benefit and Council Housing exists. The idea that business should sustain extra losses to meet Govt policies on housing is ridiculous.
Remember it was only the other day that Brown was claiming that Govt failure to build enough houses would lead to a faster recovery in the housing market.
131 BPIX produced a poll in April 2005 just prior to the last GE showing the Conservatives in the lead .
134 - the MIDAS touch in reverse, you mean. Known as the SADIM touch.
136, not sure selectively quoting a single inaccurate poll proves BPIX is worthless.
Be interesting to see the two polls out around Wednesday/Thursday. I wonder how recent the fieldwork will be… pity they aren’t at the weekend, after Cameron attacks Brown in PMQs.
124. David’s correct if you have little or no equity you have limited choices, you would be unable to remortgage and most likely be placed on the standard variable rate.
Banks are going to look to improve balance sheets by increasing margins on mortgage’s and this will absorb any falls in interest rates.
Interesting results from the polls but I do think there’s a ray of comfort for Labour in two factors which have been touched on earlier in the thread but not really brought together:
- Labour is perceived as having the better leadership for an economic crisis.
- Large parts of the electorate are viewing the credit crunch as docu-drama; it and its repercussions are not affecting them yet.
There is therefore the possibility of Labour pulling off a 1992: gaining ground despite the situation because people believe they’ll be the better party to get the country out of the hole.
Will that happen? I remain sceptical. Firstly, the government (and Brown in particular) has developed a habit of ‘ordering’ people or organisations to do things when they have no power to do so. Telling oil companies to cut the cost of petrol, mortgage firms to pass on the rate cut, councils not to prosecute over metric/imperial measurements etc. That’s not a healthy sign.
Secondly, I rate the media and strategy development skills of Cameron well above those of Kinnock and co. Labour can only win on the above basis if the Conservatives cannot persuade the public that it was Labour’s (and Brown’s) ineptitude and arrogance that brought the country into the problems it’s facing, and he has 18 months to do that. There is plenty of evidence that would support such a contention and I expect it to be given a good airing throughout 2009.
Thirdly, Brown has executed a U-turn of remarkable proportions which has gone relatively unnoticed. The days of prudence are long gone but the ditching of the borrowing rules are the laying of the tombstone over its grave. Brown made such play about ‘only borrowing to invest’, ’sustainable borrowing’ and so on that it can’t go unnoticed forever. What happens when people ask whether he believed those statements? Does he believe them now? Does he believe in anything except holding on to power? Difficult questions to answer.
The one silver lining for Labour is that Osborne is still at Shadow Treasury and probably can’t be moved. He may be extremely clever but he comes across as the wrong sort of Tory and is not voter friendly. Someone has to make the case against the government’s handling not just of this crisis but of the last 11 years; that person can’t be Osborne. Cameron has to lead of course, but an effective government has to be more than one man.
128.
Unemployment, repossessions, cutbacks and shortages. I’m sure that will firm up the Labour position no end.
136 yes 1 point in the lead - the final result was Labour 3 points ahead - I’d say firmly within MoE and rather more accurate than the 8-10% leads for Labour many polls showed. Hardly a wild outlier was it? Had the Labour % within 1%.
135 (con) - If the Govt, say, personally guaranteed up to 25% of every mortgage issued then things would be different. But they don’t.
Banks issue mortgages to make money, not out of any social imperative. They receive no Govt subsidy to do so. In fact it is the providing of mortgages to too many people which is part of what has got them into trouble.
Ooh lookie here:
http://tinyurl.com/5de696
Here’s a politicalbetting thread from a year ago, where Mike lavishly quotes a BPIX poll, which came up with a GOOD result for Labour.
Scroll down for approving comments of the BPIX result from Nick Palmer, Tyson, et al. Note also the several remarks from Mark Senior, who does go on about rogue polls - but only in relation to Populus and ICM polls, which were good for the Tories - suddenly he has no problem with the BPIX methodology.
And then there’s this gem in response to the BPIX poll:
“Well, well, well, after the worst week for GB (again), if a GE was held now, the Tories would struggle to be the largest party, let alone form a government.
Disastrous polls for the Tories!
by Gabble November 25th, 2007 at 8:51 pm”
I mean, guys, get a grip. It’s sad. If you don’t like a poll, it’s a rogue, if you don’t like a pollster cause they won’t answer your emails (?!!!) suddenly you can ignore them?
All that matters is accuracy, and it seems lefties are happy to see BPIX as accurate, and indeed highly reliable and spiffing - until BPIX produce a poll they don’t like.
Tish tish.
130. You do not have to own a house to ensure that you have a roof over your head. Providing there is a decent social housing provision in the area there need not be a problem - and even without that, as long as there is rented accomodation of some sort people will not be left on the streets, though that kind of housing can be something of a lottery.
Politico article discussing the racially prejudiced voting for Obama:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14691.html
‘SNP conference: Suit, tie and trainers – it’s party time for teenagers’
http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/SNP-conference-Suit-tie-and.4605695.jp
100…echo your sentiments entirely. they would struggle to run a piss up in a brewery!
144.
wonderful stuff!
Are BPIX a member of the BPC yet? If not, their polls won’t affect my view of the next election one bit.
Remember “Gordon Brown yesterday (11 July 2007) promised a new drive to help people get on the housing ladder by building three million new homes by 2020.
3,000,000 in 13 years. That’s around 630 every day. Gordon’s promise is 465 days old.
= 292,950 new homes so far and it should be up to 300,000 by the end of the month.
How many have been started?
How many have been completed?
How many have been sold?
Mind you - you had been warned. David Cameron accused Mr Brown of recycling old policies, saying that he had made similar promises on four occasions since 1994.
Out of interest Stuart, I was interested in that Scottish sub-sample you quoted earlier, in which the main net shift was undoubtedly from Lib Dem to SNP with the rest all within the MoE. I wondered if you had any explanation for it?
Obviously, the Lib Dems have had their problems getting good publicity, both in Scotland and across the UK (Vince Cable apart), but for Labour to be holding up that well surely implies that there must be a drift from the Lib Dems to Labour is Labour is also losing support. Have you - or indeed any of our other Scottish contributors - seen any evidence of that?
OK playmates, here are the links you’ve been waiting for!
in which Tina Fey meets Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live we have
http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/gov-palin-cold-open/773761/
and in which Amy (the one who did Hillary with Tina’s first Sarah) does a fab rap with the real Sarah swingin’ along we have
http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/update-palin-rap/773781/
Have fun!
… [Alex Salmond] will use his leader’s speech at the SNP conference in Perth to accuse the Prime Minister of squandering billions of pounds.
He will say Brown wasted a fortune on updating Trident nuclear missiles, private finance initiative (PFI) projects and the Iraq war.
Salmond will also paraphrase former Chancellor Brown’s phrase that the banks had contributed to an “age of irresponsibility”.
He is set to ask: “Where did this age of irresponsibility come from?
“Who broke down the barriers in the financial sector?
“Who presided over the inflation of asset values?
“Who allowed the spivs and speculators of the derivatives market to be totally unregulated?”
And he will add: “It may have had something to do with the occupants of 10 and 11 Downing Street homes of the Prime Minister and Chancellor over the last 11 long years.”
http://tinyurl.com/6nbujs
The Salmond conference speech is live on BBC2 Scotland this afternoon.
154.
Salmond is good at this sort of thing, and is saying what the Tories should have been saying more often this past week.
So, thats the Brown Bounce, then?
As I’ve been saying repeatedly the public ain’t going to flock to the man thats done more to encourage this boom and bust in the first place - The spin from Campbell and Mandy never made any sense, but the media was silly enough to fall for it one last time. After Iraq, you’d have thought they’d have known better…. Lesson now learned?
OT. Well done Lewis Hamiton. What a perfect answer to all his critics.
I think we should treat the BPIX poll with caution (after all that was always advocated before). Anyway, can I point out one major reason why the Brown narrative is going to do badly.
In the past two days, there have been headlines about the $70 billion of bonuses that US bankers expect to pay themselves and the unchanged from last year £16 billion in bonuses in the City.
There is a fundamental disconnect between these numbers and the narrative being told of the newly socialistic “Saviour of Earth” Gordon Brown. Indeed there is a great deal of vitriol being poured out about the eeeevvil bankers rewarding themselves with OUR MONEY. Except that RBS, HBOS et al are not the places paying the bonuses, it is Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs (oh and one of the beneficiaries of government largess BarCap). The investment banks didnt get any of OUR MONEY, and the salary caps seemed only to apply to senior execs, not everyone - so this isnt surprising. Given that 50% of the population blamed the bankers for this debacle, this orgy of remuneration is going to go down with the public about as well as a pork pie in Mecca during Ramadan. We had Gordon’s chum Turner talking tough as covering fire for Gordon Friday, but the spin and reality are diverging far too quickly. The lefties like Polly are going to be very angry about the pig in the poke they just bought.
153.
It would never happen here. How could they get anyone ghastly enough to impersonate Harrimen Harbottle?
I wonder if Gordon will decide not to go to Glenrothes?
Silly me. He never looks at the polls.
The Lib Dems have made the wrong choice, their strategy is to go after Tory voters by promising tax cuts, in order assumably to defend the seats they have in the south. The problem is this is not credible. What they should have done is remained consistent in attacking the rich and tried to be the new party of the working man. This would have bought them seats in the north I believe and possibly offset ones lost in the south. It is too late now as they can hardly scrap the policies Clegg has only just put in place. They will go into the next election as tory lite rather than going in as the new working man’s party. I think they will lose a lot of seats.
82 “they’re bored with us, not happy about this issue or that”
It does make me laugh when labour come up with the bored voter line. I guess they think it really must play well telling people that the only reason they are upset is that they are bored and that they shouldn’t worry their pretty little heads about the issues, cause Gordon will take care of it.
152. David - “… I was interested in that Scottish sub-sample you quoted earlier, in which the main net shift was undoubtedly from Lib Dem to SNP with the rest all within the MoE. I wondered if you had any explanation for it? … but for Labour to be holding up that well surely implies that there must be a drift from the Lib Dems to Labour is Labour is also losing support. Have you - or indeed any of our other Scottish contributors - seen any evidence of that?”
Firstly, it is just a sub-sample, so huge dose of salt required. However, as ‘A View from Cumbria’ said yesterday: if you get a lot of straws in the wind blowing in the same direction then you get a very good idea of where the storm is coming from. (That was the gist of what Cumbria said anyway.)
It seems intuitively reasonable to conclude that Labour is shoring up its core support in its heartlands. (That in itself should utterly terrify Labour stategists, who know that they must reach out to the middle ground.) Hence we see their vote supposedly holding up very well in Scotland. I say “supposedly” because I just get the feeling that although a very large minority of Scots are naturally inclined to be sympathetic to Labour, I also know that their vote is as soft as hell, ie: a significant chunk of Labour sympathisers are going to abstain.
If the very best that Scottish Labour can manage after the sustained period of MSM adulation is only 37% (-2% on UK GE 2005) then they are royally screwed!! Remember Mike’s law: the poll that shows Labour in its worst position…. is the most accurate poll.
We have yet to have the SNP conference bounce too, which naturally all the English observers forget about.
You ask for evidence. I say: ask a Scot. Any Scot. Ask lots of them. The anecdotal evidence is utterly overwhelming: Scots have had 50 years of Labour domination of Scottish politics, up until May 2007. They like not being under the Labour mafia. You can taste the sense of freedom in the air. My god, it is tangible.
So my advice David is: phone a Scottish friend. Phone lots of your Scottish friends. Its good to talk.
144
Despite that seant, (or even because of it) the polls worth referring to are those with a proven record, i.e. one you can check predicitions against actual GE results, does BPIX fulfill that criteria?
ICM/Yougov/IpsosMori etc.
Were BPIX around at the last GE, what were they predicting, how does that compare with the actual result?
I’ve been reading the early post’s on this thread with care, and agree mostly with SeanT that Labour will launch a get rid of the bast–d campaign first thing Monday morning.
But today on the BBC TV news there is only mention of how clever Gordon has closed the gap with the Tories to 9 points, (Comres), with no mention of the BPIX findings.
Can anyone now doubt that the BBC is lock, stock and barrel, a Labour mouthpiece?
157. Very good point Sally!
If Brown does go to Glenrothes then I can guarantee you that his minders will not let him anywhere near a normal voter. The truth, coming from his ain folk, would cripple him. Strictly Labour Party members only, or children under the age of eight.
154. OUCH! Obviously Salmond is coming out swinging after Jim Murphy’s gloating triumphialism over the past 2 weeks. Comments which could come back to haunt him if people think he’s relishing seeing hundreds of banking jobs disappear. Actually if I was Murphy I’d be more concerned about how the eastern end of Renfrewshire appears to be reverting back into the Tory bastion that it naturally is. Has his mentor Dr. Reid officially announced that he’s standing down yet? That would give Murphy a nice bolthole in Airdrie!
156 - The bonus issue represents a nightmare situation for the Govt (BarCap didn’t get “govt largesse” btw, did they?).
The Govt know that the public like them to rail against all these large bonuses. There’s only one small snag with them turning words into action:
With the key caveat that bonuses are actually affordable it is not in the Govt’s interests to stop them!
40% of cash bonuses are taken by the Govt in taxes. That’s not a small hole to fill. Furthermore bonuses get spent in the real economy. That’s another not insignificant hole. Trouble is this reality can’t be publicly pointed out.
136. Unfortunately for you, Mark, in one of the only analyses I can find of pollsters’ performance before the 2005 G/E, BPIX came out as one of the MORE accurate:
http://tinyurl.com/678q6x
Now, this is a politicalbetting website, where the main currency for punters is information. Of course we can all absorb or ignore this or that info as we see fit. But as BPIX seem to be providing accurate polling information, perhaps more accurate than others, that is surely all that matters - when punters are deciding how to bet.
Naturally, any individual punter is free to say: hey these guys aren’t part of the British Polling Council, and they won’t take my incessant phone calls, so I’m going to ignore the accurate information they provide - but to me that seems a fairly silly and self-destructive position.
Especially if you are wagering actual money.
Moreover, this disdain for BPIX from lefties only seems to emerge when BPIX produce data they don’t like - see my comment at 144.
And on that psephologically geeky note, I’m going to make a cup of tea, with my coffee and tea making facilities.
Just for fun: Google searches
Obama : 195,000,000
McCain: 134,000,000
Palin : 95,800,000
Biden : 35,400,000
Clinton : 112,000,000
Hillary : 60,200,000
“Hillary Clinton” : 25,400,000
“Bill Clinton” : 20,800,000
“Obama will win” : 757,000
“McCain will win” : 420,000
“McCain will lose” : 164,000
“Obama will lose” : 300,000
“Barack Hussein Obama” : 1,340,000
“Barack Steve Obama” : 1,630
161 - both the Indy and ITV Teletext went with that narrative that Brown has “clawed back”.
161, actually, the BBC has a rare neurological deficiency where only polls that show an improving Labour position or outright Labour leads are visible. It’s quite tragic really.
146: great link on Obama and race - really worth reading.
Not much to add to the above, except to say that I’m not rubbishing BPIX in general, just querying the odd dual voting questions. If I was really spinning I’d argue that the 45-39 result is the one that counts since it seems to have been asked first. But in reality I think we should just put a question mark over both BPIX results, and since they don’t answer questions we’ll never know the answer. We’ll have some more polls in a few days so it doesn’t matter, does it?
166. I have just noticed that
“Obama will win” divided by “Obama will lose” is 2.53
“McCain will win” divided by “McCain will lose” is 2.56
i.e. negligible difference (as well as negligible importance)
131 - It’s true sean, there a lot of rubbish written about this.
I just looked at a wikipedia page which very capably demonstrates a failure of understanding of the meaning of English words
“It should be noted that BPIX are not members of the British Polling Council unlike the other main pollsters such as YouGov, ComRes, Populus Ipsos MORI and ICM. Therefore, their polls are not subject to public disclosure, and there is no way of judging their reliability or validity.”
Yes there is! How they compare with actual election results! That is the ONLY way in which opinion polls can be judged for reliability, especially. Transparency is very important on a site like this for helping to explain the polls, possibly to help detect rogues or the suchlike, but all the transparency in the world is useless if the method is so rubbish that they don’t come close to accurately representing public opinion.
Mike Smithson I must say again the fact that BPIX will not join the union and publish more details does not mean it is inaccurate any more than any other polling organisation.
All pollsters make calculations on the raw data to come out with their headline figures. Who is more accurate? Well those internals won’t tell you,nor will the methodology, only real voting will do that.
None of these polls are worth much on their own. It is the trend which matters and we need three or four in a row in a close time frame to get any feel for that.
The ComRes poll changes could easily be statistical noise, BPIX could be well out in any direction, the ICM polling seems to be mainly sub-Questions. What is the real position? Even Gord doesn’t know.
But I would guess that sinking feeling is returning.
Will he blame Mandy this time?
168. An infection they caught from their sister organisation, Pravda.
133. China had loads of famines throughout history until it solved the food problem, and hasn’t had any since 1962. Growth of 6.7% p.a. from 1953 to 1978 (as well as 9.5% p.a. since 1978) is something to chew on.
167. That maybe, but I dont pay my licence money to them, and I fully expect - for my money - that the BBC be more accurate and careful.
161 - indeed they do, and on the raw numbers they are right. However such narratives represent a very superficial analysis which fails to accurately account for the favorability of the recent events for the Govt and makes little mention of the actual situation represented by the polls - ie. a comfortable Conservative victory.
163. The Watcher - “Has his mentor Dr. Reid officially announced that he’s standing down yet? That would give Murphy a nice bolthole in Airdrie!”
Intriguing suggestion! I have been wondering myself what on earth Jim will do when he loses his seat. Maybe he will try to avoid being kicked out of parliament by changing seat!!
Only problem is that Airdie & Shotts CLP have already picked their PPC to replace John Reid, have they not?
124 - Re Mortgages, I renewed a tracker mortgage in July at about 75% LTV, if the prices fall considerably I may well be stuffed in 2010. There is a great chance that millions will be unable to renew a mortgage and therefore give up their property, many of them in negative equity. To preempt this government must put in measures to make sure that this does not happen, such as guarantees, otherwise things will be sent into a new tailspin.
On lib dem fortunes - Clegg has been stuffed by circumstances, he’ll have to rethink his economic policies so that tax cuts are taken off the table and replaced by ensuring that money is spent on reducing the impact of economic downturn instead.
38 - Zogby gave Democrats false hope in 2004 by being almost alone in showing a Kerry win, looks like they are doing the same this time with Republicans.
My post at 171 was nonsense. Please ignore.
Morning all
A couple of polls and everyone bathes in the rich waters of their own certainties.
As an LD, I’m not in the least bothered about these polls - no more than I expected after the past couple of weeks. For the Conservatives, the polls remain very strong and there’s not much for them to be unhappy about.
I suspect we are in for a very long pre-campaign and election campaign itself as it seems pretty certain to me the GE will be in June 2010. We now seem to be in a new era of Keynesianism with Labour throwing around public money as a means of staving off the worst impacts of recession.
It’s all very “New Deal” but will it work and what will the Conservative response be ? I think all parties have been wrong footed by the development of the crisis and are floundering about for a coherent philosophical and policy response. Even the calls for massive public spending cuts and tax cuts seem to have been muted by events.
It’s back to the management of fear - the political and social consequences of financial panic and major bank failure were, even if considered desirable by neo-Darwinian free marketeers - unsupportable.
169 what it does Nick is add further to the narrative tat in general voters feel Brown has handled the specific issue of the banking crisis fairly well and that Cameron would likely not have done any better.
However, its one heck of a leap from there to ‘and we are suddenly going to keep Labur because of that one issue’ - the public are not stupid, they know Brown just used an already established plan and in fact all he did was act before the EU (but out of character in that he waas decisive). They also note that superman is not present this weekend with Bush, Sarkozy and Barroso announcing the meeting of world leaders to save the world economy, and they note that he thought the idea of a bank going bust when that phone rang was hysterical.
Nothing fundamental has changed - Labour are still deeply unpopular - the Superman bounce taking them to Major 97 levels of public support - and Cameron is still generally liked.
Brown’s personal ratings are improving but its not Brown the people will elect and they are still pretty appalling.
As Labour enter the next GE campaign there will be a further question - will Brown serve a full term as PM? Cue Balir 2, cue voter turnoff even more.
I’d be concered if I were you Nick, you ’save the world’ and you lose to a landslide…. how thou must have offended.
Watching various paper reviews the main ‘poll focus’ is Labour cuts gap to single digits. This has been on Sky News and the Beeb. More people watch the TV and absorb the 15 second clips of “Labour cuts gap to single digits” than, like the majority of this sites users, studying the minutia of polling details.
In a bastardisation of the famous phrase, it’s not the details, “It’s the headlines stupid”
164. The idea is that Barclays the parent will take some money. Of course, the government isnt going to do anything to irritate the top 5% (who get the lions share of bonuses), since that would really eat into tax revenues. But wont Polly be gnashing her teeth and demanding her Gord do something.
It’s another big hostage to fortune. Together with repossessions, loans, etc. I am certain that the left will be so much angrier in 3 months than they were in September.
153- thanks Stephen.
I would tell everyone to click on those links. Great fun.
41 Been thinking about your comment that Mr Strauss-Kahn’s difficulties are the most important story. Obviously the US must feel some discomfort that at a time when global regulation is to be discussed the head of the IMF is an ex-French Socialist minister, who though a supporter of a freer market and less state ownership, from his comments seemingly remains a supporter of the French model. It could be politically useful in the upcoming negotiations to have sidelined the head of the IMF.
Wonder where Gordon will come down between the Sarkozy prescription and the US one? The EU stand will most likely follow Sarkozy’s so it may well be that the BRIC and China positions might prove the most important in deciding the outcome.
177.
‘Labour split in Airdrie’
FEARS are rising that the Labour Party is tearing itself apart in Airdrie as party bosses try to force a replacement for political heavyweight John Reid onto local members.
The Advertiser understands that Labour Party chiefs want an outside female candidate to stand in the vacant Parliamentary seat while the favourites among branch members are rumoured to be local councillors David Fagan or Jim Logue.
And the worry among some activists is that any Labour split in the Airdrie & Shotts branch could let the SNP claim what was once a stronghold in Labour’s heartland.
An insider told the Advertiser: “Given what happened in the Airdrie & Shotts constituency during the Scottish Parliamentary elections, with Karen Whitefield’s majority being reduced to around 1500, the Westminster seat is wide open for the SNP, if there is a split in the local Labour Party…. We’ve had a strong history of female candidates here. Jennie Lee, who later married Aneurin Bevan, was a candidate in the 1920s and became an MP. There was also Margaret Herbison and Helen Liddell, although Liddell was parachuted onto us to some extent. We have a strong history of female candidates here, but we want them based on merit.”
A spokesperson for the Scottish Labour Party confirmed that an all-woman short-list is under consideration for Airdrie, but stressed that was the case in every constituency where an MP is standing down.
http://www.acadvertiser.co.uk/lanarkshire-news/local-news/airdrie-news/2008/04/02/labour-split-in-airdrie-65864-20708838/
Charities and opposition MPs have urged ministers to act after it emerged that Northern Rock is repossessing 50% more properties than the industry average.
Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Yvette Cooper, has called on banks and building societies to be more lenient on home owners who default on their mortgages.
She has not, of course, actually DONE anything.
169. The stupid bit in the article is the assumption that anyone who thinks that people of play the race card on occasion is a racist.
The article also misses a major point - when many Americans are asked about voting for a generic “African-American politician”, what comes to mind are Jesse Jackson and Sharpton. Politicians who deliberately emphasise their minority status and appeal.
Obama is a politician in the mainstream sense, who is black. The stuff in the article which verges on the contemptible are the suggestions that verge on saying Obama is a coconut (dark on the outside, white inside) because he behaves like a main stream politician, not a race hustler.
183 - Is this a new development? I was under the impression that they weren’t taking any money. That is why their share price rose (combination of not needing, and not needing to take, the money).
182 - No i think it is the details. Unless you think that people are going to come flocking back to Labour because of what other people think. Headlines may set the terms of the media debate, but the details are the reality.
187 - I think there is a growing list of Govt pronouncements in recent days, without actually doing anything.
Did anyone see Lord Mandelson on the Not Andrew Marr Show this morning?
He managed to spend 20 minutes rambling to the useless interviewer without saying much at all.
What is the government going to do for small businesses? I can’t remember much of what he said. He’s a top class interviewee in that he only says what he wants and never answers the question directly, but he’s so slimy and useless as providing any interesting information.
Btw, why wasn’t Marr around to interview him? The woman at the start said he was off in America filming something, but surely this would be THE interview of the month, getting Lord Mandelson back on the sofa after so many years.
Maybe they hate each other. And also, how did Mandelson get an interview on there without any other party representative getting a look in?
I’m so cynical - he got an interview with a soft, useless woman; and he got in a programme without any other politician from Consevatives or Lib Dems getting a look in.
Perhaps they should have considered anticipating events rather than responding to them…
169. Fair enough, Nick, I guess you could put a question mark, if you really wanted (and you do really want that) over the BPIX results.
But equally I could put a question mark over the ComRes results because I think their methodology - calling landlines - is more likely to favour public sector workers, the unemployed, students, impoverished pensioners, i.e. people who answer their landlines: Labour voters.
I might also note that the most recent poll of the two is…. BPIX. It comes after the Cameron counter-attack.
But let’s be really generous and ignore Smithsons Rule and the fact BPIX’s poll is the most recent - let’s take an average of the two, which seems more than fair to Labour, to me.
That gives the Tories a 12-13 point lead. But that’s a bit vague, so let’s be mean, once again, to the Tories, and say it is in fact just a 12 point lead.
That gives us, very roughly, a voting intention figure of 42: 30: 15
Feed those results into Baxter and you get… an overall Tory majority of… 72. Verging on landslide.
And this, remember, is when we are interpreting the poll figures generously for Labour. And it comes after the most favourable week of media coverage any British prime minister can hope to achieve. And the Tories are still predicted a near-landslide. And now we have all the bad stuff to come - the recession.
There seems no question to me. Unless something remarkable happens, even more remarkable than the Krunch, your party is headed for swingeing defeat.
But we will no more, soon enough, as you say. Glenrothes will certainly be interesting. It you lose that, I predict the assassins will be hunting down Gordon within hours.
161
It is, ‘probably’ BBC policy not to refer to polls which are not members of the BPC.
175 - does seem that there’s been a fair amount invested (emotionally, if not financially) in the SuperBrown stuff by the media, and those sort of “clawback” comments are a frantic attempt to keep that angle going.
The big commercial danger for media organisations, and I include the BBC in this, is what happens when the public stop listening to their news diktats. It’s now blatantly clear that the idea was for Brown to have stormed upwards in the polls and create a brand new contest, but the public have answered otherwise.
The BBC specifically feels its current MO is about to be shaken up in the near future.
192 absolutely - if Gordon loses Glenrothes, the charge will be ‘even at your very best, still you cannot hold a safe Labour seat’
Glenrothes defeat = endgame
189 Which is the same old announcement/reannouncements we have had for 11 1/2 years. We have also had Jaqui Smith calling for a consultation and I am sure it is only a matter of time before Gordon calls a review. they really must believe that the public have forgotten how new labbour has always operated and are suddenly going to be fooled by the same old stuff.
BBC News Channel mentioned a ‘collapse’ in the Tory share. O RLY?
190, be fair, Sophie Raworth is much nicer to look at, at least.
193, ha. When the Tories scored a (rogue) 52% rating the BBC never mentioned the numbers on TV, just referring to it as being ‘as good as Mrs Thatcher enjoyed’, which could mean anything.
188. whoops, I thought they had agreed to take some. Retracted after the original speculation. Anyway, doesnt alter the reality that people lower down the totem pole can be paid market rates and that the bulk is being paid by firms who are not receiving UK govt largess (unlike the Yank banks). I do find the amounts paid offensive given the possible need to brace up the balance sheets of some of these places. Hopefully it will all be paid in shares or options. Still the public is not going to be amused.
The problem is that spin works, but only if the background is favourable. Otherwise spin and substance come together (like matter and anti-matter) and give off harmful radiation - headlines in the case of spin, gamma rays in the case of anti-matter… And the government are spinning like dervishes at the moment.
163 Labour rules bar direct chicken running without seat alteration/abolition.
Plouffe from the Obama campaign just gave his September figures for fundraising, $150 million dollars, 632,000 new donors, 3.1 million total donors, average donation $86.
193 - No it isn’t:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/editorialguidelines/edguide/politics/reportingopinio.shtml
Given how the BBC in practice reports opinion polls, I sometimes wonder if I am the only person ever to look at these guidelines.
164
40% of cash bonuses are taken by the Govt in taxes.
Actually its a lot more, because the individual has to pay an extra 1% ?? Employees NI and there is Employers NI of about 12%. I havent the exact figs as I am no longer in that line of business, but i think its about right.
186. Can’t Scots Labour do anything right?
On the wider issue, I certainly expect that as the election approaches with the polls looking rim for Labour then the chicken run will begin in earnest, I’d expect to see people like Jacqui Smith, Jon Cruddas and John Hutton start to look around for more secure tenure. I reckon the dissolution honours will be full of current Labour MP’s from places like Merseyside and the Welsh Valleys who’ll have given up their seats to let some of those big names stay in Parliament.
195. I think that at the minute the SNP is the second favourite party for a lot of people!
190. Read my 161 millsy, it sez it all.
203 - yep you’re right.
205 - yup, I can’t come to any other conclusion. The media in general are so useless - they are totally awestruck by the potential power of the government. But the BBC are in a league of their own.
What BPIX have to ask themselves is why Sky and the BBC are treating them as a pariah pollster by not quoting their findings in the news. Now the BBC could be explained away because of their pro-Labour bias but Sky cannot.
BPIX are destroying their credibility by allowing statements to be made about their techniques on here without any response. BPIX are operating in a particularly stupid manner whilst other pollsters have learned that they need to listen and respond to criticism.
Come on BPIX, stand up and defend yourself. Sky and the BBC are treating your poll as unreliable.
204 see 200. They can’t without seat alteration/abolition. THey changed the rules to claim the high ground in the 90’s. So while Ruth Kelly could just have sneaked into Bolton South East with seat alteration if she had wanted, they can’t criss cross the country as they might wish. They can always change the rules again but time is short for that.
In a strange way the ramping up of GB over the last few weeks is probably contributing to his downfall.
Peoples views are likely to become more entrenched and waiverers are going to become definites.
On another point on the VAT holiday called for by DC for SMEs,it is a calculated move because the public will see that GB was able to support the Banks with billions of our money but is not able to assist cahflow where it is needed most.
It could work if VAT was allowed to be deferred to montly payments on the SMEs due date.The danger would be that if you allowed a total deferral then the SME might end up in even greater debt.
Regarding polls generally: we seem to be (touch wood) out of the conference and crisis volatility which makes them less than useful. Hopefully we’ll have a settled few weeks and months, so we’ll actually be able to draw more solid conclusions from what the pollsters reveal.
I still don’t know about Glenrothes, in terms of its impact on Brown’s future. Pre-conference Diane Abbot stated unequivocally that if it were lost the Cabinet would move. Post-conference it became less important, and post-crisis is again being touted as make or break. The goalposts shift once more. If Labour do lose, I still don’t think the guillotine will fall on Mister Brown, although it may be sharpened a little.
193
It’s allegedly BBC policy not to do news items on polls. It seems to be applied somewhat inconsistently.
200. I wouldn’t be surprised if that is changed! One of the things that hurt the Tories in the 97-01 Parliament was that so many front benchers like Portillo and Rifkind had gone down that there was a total dearth of talent to fill the front benches. Would Hague have made so many mistakes if he’d had a stronger shadow cabinet? Surely there is going to be a point within the next year at which it will become apparent that Labour is doomed and the focus will need to switch to damage limitation. If it was up to me I would be trying to ensure that as many of the PLP’s best performers will survive the massacre by getting them into secure seats, a “phoenix’s egg” if you will. If the worst predictions come true Labour will be reduced to a rump in it’s heartlands and Miliband (assuming he’d becomes leader) would be without most of his natural Blairite allies and would be under serious pressure to lurch to the left. As we saw with the Tories, that just puts you out of power for longer.
Punter, I hadn’t seen post 200 when I posted 204!
If that was their reason for bringing that in then inhindsight they may have just compounded the damage that is going to be inflicted on them!
213 The Watcher. There is a very slim chance that Labour MPs will start to think about damage limitation.
Just look at NickP our resident member of the PLP. Nick is a very intelligent man yet clings to the belief that “things will get better”. It is such an illogical view point when matched with the facts and historical trends. With the PLP thinking illogically and believing in tooth fairies and Father Xmas, Brown is very safe.
208. Not conforming to the conditions the BPS impose on its members, it might allow BPIX to compile and present its data on a much lower budget, and hence provide a cheaper quote for whoever wishes to use its services.
By joining the BPIX, the compliance costs could ruin this possible USP….
213. This would now be a good time for a tory front bench reshuffle, bringing to the fore the likes of Justine Greening, and getting rid of the Spelperson.
213. This would now be a good time for a tory front bench reshuffle, bringing to the fore the likes of Justine Greening, and getting rid of the Spelperson.
203 MTF - half right. Almost certainly they will already be earning above the NI upper limit so it will be 41% to the taxman
213 - “One of the things that hurt the Tories in the 97-01 Parliament was that so many front benchers like Portillo and Rifkind had gone down that there was a total dearth of talent to fill the front benches.”
And those who were left decided to elect IDS after 2001.
204: As noted upthread, chicken-running is explicitly barred by Labour rules. Anyway, any MP worth his or her salt wants to stand and fight in the territory they’ve worked for, not turn into the parachuted MP for Deepest Coalfield. (Pause for rendition of ‘when cowards flinch and traitors sneer’, or, according to taste, the Black Knight Monty Python sketch
)
re 193. If there is a policy at the BBC it is to give much less prominence to internet polls - hence the fact that YouGov hardly gets a mention.
I actually think it is right that BPIX should not get the same emphasis simply because they refuse to make details of their methodology clear. Thus Nick Palmer makes a valid point about two different voting intention questions being asked - I want to see which one was put first, the precise wording of the questions and the detailed data.
All other pollsters in the UK, whether BPC members or not, provide that detail - BPIX don’t.
219
Yup but the Employer has to pay ERSNI too, that makes it about 53% of what the employee is paid goes to Govt, though I grant you the employee will get 59%
220. Actually, they mostly voted for Ken Clarke.
229 No they didn’t - they decided to block Portillo, apparently it didn’t cross their minds the membership faced with a choice between a Europhile Clarke, who had sat on same platform as Blair supporting Euro entry, and a sceptic IDS would go for the sceptic.
221 So why do they get used. Purely on cost is it.
223 - oops
Just check out BPIX’s website - http://www.bpix.co.uk/
It has been “under construction” for three effing years.
The name of a Walt Disney cartoon character comes to mind linked to the word “….operation”.
219 - I think employers have to pay contributions on the total amount (the upper earnings limit only applies to employees).
59. Disagree , think it depends on whether peopl ein Scotland are stupid enough to go back to thinking taht labour will do anything for Scotland. More people are now realising that voting Labour will result in nothing , whereas at least the SNP will be fighting exclusively Scotland’s corner, and especially when everybody knows that we will have a Conservative government with next to no Scottish representation, surely the time to focu speoples opinion that a vote for Labour is a wasted vote. I think therefore that this will be the SNP’s biggest ever chance to get a large vote in Westminster, given their current reasonable handling of government which is far superior to previous Labour , guaranteed Tory government and LD’s self implosion after the 2007 election.
Anyway, would they have still picked Hague in 1997 had other big hitters been available?
TBH they wouldn’t, because they still would have wanted a fresh face that wasn’t so obviously tainted.
This will be Labour’s major problem in 2010 (assuming they lose the next election) - who will still be around and “fresh” enough? Guess we’ll wait and see
225 - No, they have a decent record against election results as well - as good as any of the others. It’s not a case of sacrificing quality for price.
It is only the Times, I think, who get seriously involved in the polling methodologies. The detailed tables aren’t really of interest to the newspapers.
63. Not in Scotland they havent , if anything its worse, very apparent as all the papers are printing ridiculous Labour propaganda, howver if yyou read the comments it is almost all the opposite.
re 232. excuse the spelling , poor typing and bad proof reading.
230 - I think the relevant factor there was that Hague might not have stood. Remember he almost made way for Howard.
202. The telling detail in those BBC guidelines:
“we do not headline the results of a voting intention poll unless it has prompted a story which itself deserves a headline and reference to the poll’s findings is necessary to make sense of it.”
Which gives them enough leeway to choose which polls to report, and which stories (ie which narratives about recovery etc) deserve reporting.
Correction : TBH they wouldn’t = TBH they would.
234 - that would have been an interesting course of events, though with the way the Tories were just out of the radar back then Howard was wise to wait.
Biggest mistake was of course electing IDS. Again, a seriously weakened Labour opposition may end up electing a Jon Cruddas who appeals to the base but nobody else.
221 - Answering my own question earlier, according to Anthony Wells back in Oct 2005
“BPIX is headed by Paul Whiteley and David Sanders of Essex University, so yes, it is two academics, but it’s two highly respected academics who were part of the team running the British Electoral Study….”
Mike, why don’t you write to them directly? Bit of (apparent) name and shame?? Hope that isn’t libellous
235
IF the BBC continue to carry on with the slant they have, there will undoubtedly be problems ahead for the Corporation. Are they gambling on Gordo to save the license fee? If they are, its extemely foolish of them.
But surely the point thaht SeanT is making is right Mike. Yes we can rail against them for not letting us see their workings and not being a member of BPC but if, in the end, they turn out to be one of the more accurate pollsters then as a gambler you would be daft to refuse to allow them to inform at least part of your thinking on where and how to place your money.
This is first and foremost a betting site. If there was a polling organisation that wasa right 100% of the time (I know that is an extreme example but you know what I am saying) then only a fool would not use them as a guide as to how place bets simply because they didn’t reveal their workings.
210. timmo - “In a strange way the ramping up of GB over the last few weeks is probably contributing to his downfall.”
Wholeheartedly agree. The BBC are just shooting themselves in the foot with all this preposterous hype. Let them get on with digging their own grave.
Here is a report for a visit to the Glenrothes seat yesterday. I was asked to go Methil and if I had time to go to Leven /Windygate on the way back. As the SNP Conference is being held I thought there would be few people to help. How wrong I was, the campaign rooms packed with volunteers who turned up. This is not a prediction of who will win but just a sketch from the seat. As usual for a Saturday morning/afternoon a lot of people were out.
Four of us made our way down to the coast at Methil. I was led to believe the Levenmouth area has the core of the Labour vote in the Central Fife seat. Having being away for about 3 weeks would be media coverage in favour of GB have made the Labour voters enthusiastic and straining at the leash to vote for them? Well, no. A lot of worried people, concerned about their jobs, the cost of fuel, what happens if they lose their jobs, those who have bought their council scared they will lose their homes. Bits of praise for the Scottish government for what they have done in the past year and some of course who said they could have done better.
From the Methil area – moans about giving help to banks but not much help to the workers. The cost of fuel with winter approaching. A middle aged couple whose husband works in Dunfermline (at minimum wage levels) and needs a car as there no trains in the area and the buses are far too slow, is finding it difficult getting a car loan to replace the car that is falling to bits. Where he was being showered with cheap loans invitations last year the cost of the loans have shot up when he has phoned for quotes. A Civil Servant not happy at getting a 2% pay award this year and 1% for the next two years with inflation at official figures at 5.2% plus with the cutbacks she expects she will lose her job with a few years. A woman said she did not like Alex Salmond – I always say that I did not vote for him in 2004, I voted for Roseanna Cunningham , she opened up a bit and said she he came over as smug but did through gritted teeth did agree that he was a lot better than the previous administration. One man complained about the cost of care fees now being charged by Fife Council. I explained what I had to pay for my late Fathers home charges from Dundee Labour run council and he said well he was lucky he had fees at Fife levels. The debt the new Fife Council inherited from the previous Labour administration is the reason for the increased charges. Some Labour voters will always be Labour voters no matter what happens around them. I did get a few switching from Labour to SNP. One uncharitable woman who said the looks of the Labour candidate put her off! I thought to myself, ‘you are are no oil painting yourself’. A strange man complaining that Labour were not doing enough as he had only one Labour leaflet to six SNP leaflets and that I should report that back to Labour. Off course I would so here I am doing so now.
Moved to Leven where the nice houses are. Conservative voters to be found here. One lady in tweeds doing her garden said that if you had said to her that she would vote SNP she would never believe you. Well this time she is voting SNP for the first time as she said the Scottish Government has impressed her but she will vote No in the referendum. The Tories should get some votes from this area but it is not a large area and encouraging support for the SNP.
A woman returning from shopping very angry at Gordon Brown with the run on the banks. She was incensed at him laughing on live TV when his phone rang and said ‘ maybe another bank going bust’. A laughing undertaker at your Mother’s funeral ‘ is what he looks like: her son is in finance and his job is on the line. Only a couple of people who said they normally vote Libdem and were undecided at this stage. By this stage the cool wind off the North Sea had me shivering so I was glad the others decided we return back to Markinch.
Completely off topic , good luck to my son’s bar billiard team the Brewery Tap representing Sussex in the All England Team Championships in Reading today . Hopefully 3rd time lucky , they were runners up in 2006 . Amongst their opponents are the Burton Latimer Conservative Club represnting Northants .
I’m wondering if all this “global” meeting and globe trotting could be hurting Brown, in the way Obama was hurt in the polls during / immediately after his world tour. My reasoning is as follows, but I would stress not my own personal outlook on this whole matter.
There is a significant proportion of the UK population that I would describe as “little Englanders” (very much the same in the US), and any credit they might have given Brown for saving the banks in the past few weeks is probably being offset as they might see it with his jollying around the world to talking shops with “Johnny foreigner”. Brown continues to tell us it was global economic factors, starting in the US, so the logic may also be why are we talking to these idiots who caused these problems. Furthermore, for some their logic could well be along the lines of “why is Brown off again to talk to the EU or Bush, again”, why doesn’t he concrete on solving our problems first”. The more Brown goes on about solving the global financial markets in combination with bad news from the real economy, I can see a certain section of the population up in arms about why he isn’t focusing on the UK first problems / regulation.
227. Your attitude to BPIX is a bit like a reader saying: I don’t like this novelist because he’s not a member of the Royal Society of Authors, he refuses to be interviewed or photographed, no one knows anything about his background, and many of his books are not on the library. Therefore he is a bad novelist.
Most readers would merely ask: are his books any good?
Similarly, most punters and political wonks merely want to know: do BPIX provide good polling data? Has it proved accurate in the past?
As the answer to both questions seems to be “Yes, better than many others”, all else seems irrelevant.
But I appreciate you are a professional and might be irritated by things mere amateurs regard as otiose. It’s the same way I get unjustifiably annoyed by cliche and tired prose in blogthreads.
I should have looked at the latest BBC HYS before I posted, seems like my hypothesizing has some legs. Lots of negative comments on their about this global economic meeting called by Bush, and just the idea of the leaders of the world talking finance in general.
210 - The deferral of VAT payments for six months suggested by DC would be subject to 7.5% interest I read. It might help cash flow but the business would pay more in the long term. In The Observer, DC is quoted as saying “In the coming months, the Conservative party will be outlining our plans to help families, homeowners and entrepreneurs.”. No thoughts of an early election then.
seanT at 192 offers a gesture towards reasonable dialogue so let me take it up. Yes, I think it’s quite possible that when the polls settle in a week or two, we’ll find the outcome of all this is (a) a Tory lead of 12% and (b) roughly even figures for Brown and Cameron, showing strengths in diffferent areas. That compares with a couple of months earlier, where the figures were around (a) 20% lead and (b) a huge preference for Cameron. That’s progress, and I don’t think you can really argue otherwise.
Would the Tories win an election if they had a 12% lead? Of course they would. But your thesis is this, is it not: “the media narrative was uniquely favourable to Labour, the economy is going to struggle for the next year, so things can only get worse for Labour”?
Well, maybe. But I’m not sure that “things are on the brink of catastrophe, Brown has probably steered us away from the worst” really counts as wonderful election-winning coverage. What the last two weeks have done is re-establish Brown and Darling as good men to lead in rough times, and raise a query about whether Cameron and Osborne quite fit the bill. I agree that rough times will continue for some while, unfortunately. What will the electorate conclude? We don’t know.
My private rule of thumb is that we have a reasonable shot at holding marginal seats like mine if the Tories are not more than about 6% ahead nationally (Mike has a piece from me about this which will appear sometime): otherwise we’re toast. That was a most unlikely scenario when they were 20% ahead. It’s now a reasonably possible scenario. I’m not going beyond that, but equally I don’t think you can sustain a position that it’s all done and dusted. The tale has many twists to come.
244. I often think BPIX results come out very close to YouGov. We’ve got another YouGov poll to come this in the next week or two, for the Telegraph. I expect it’ll show the Tories back into the mid 40’s again and Labour dropping back slightly on their Sunday Times score.
238. After the Frank Luntz focus group during the conference that showed no serious alternatives to Brown as Labour leader (Luntz being the person who said on Penn and Teller that you could get any answer you want depending on how you ask the question); after the instant cut to Miliband at the ‘novice’ moment; after the Nick Robinson ‘things can only get better’ redux /shakycam report on the 6 o clock news after Brown’s speech; I think the only reasonable conclusion is that Brown is the master of nepotism and cronyism. I think he has his people all over the media, and he was ‘recruiting’ them for years.
243. Obama wasn’t hurt by his world tour: the numbers showed a Berlin Bounce. I’m not sure where this myth came from.
159. Have to agree , Labour are in big trouble in Scotland , as are the Lib Dems. Their previous leader’s acceptance of Ming’s command not to enter a coalition with the SNP as he had a deal stiched up with Brown ( re the election that never happened ) has been very badly received in Scotland and unless things change people are really hacked off with labour negativity and see both Labour and LD’s as just puppets taking orders from London , contrary to Scotland’s interests.
Also throw in the fact that most people would not consider a switch to Conservative it means the only place they can go is SNP.
Thinking about Labour’s hope that Brown will emulate Major’s general election win. The argument goes that major won becase people didn’t trust Kinnock on the economy, but that is certainly not why I voted Major. The biggest two factors that decided it for me were the fact that Major had a big part in the sucessful first gulf war at which point he could have (and probably should have) called an election but was too decent a man to capitalise on a war. and Kinnock’s Sheffield rally where he came across as the most arrogant plonker who just assumed he was going to win.
Brown has never come across as a decent man, just look at the way he acted in the bailout. The first thought was beaming smile and being very impressed by himself, making inappropriate jokes, whilst costing the taxpayer billions. He is reknowned for being a bully, has no charisma, and is known for his brownies. Also I can’t see Cameron ever doing a Sheffield style rally.
So if you take the two main reasons why I voted the way I did in 92, I can’t see things improving for Brown.
There is nothing surprising about the polls IMO.
Brown is known as being poison to voters, the Banking crisis would only have become tangebile if it caused Banks to collapse.
Many employees of Banks will have seen holdings in share save schemes collapse in the last few weeks plus have redundancy looming!
The most interesting thing about the last few weeks is Labour’s claim that the state can start the economy by spending money on capital projects. IMO this is completly the wrong approach!
If the government was going to do anything I think the best approach would have been to cut Income tax and Interest rates. Why? It pumps money into peoples pockets quickly not like some stupid capital spending scheme that only kicks in after 4-5 years with its full economic affects! If Banks have a problem with capitalisation/ deposits then the worst case scenerio would be people put the tax cuts into the banks and don’t spend it or pay off debt. This would help correct the dreadful savings ration in the economy and help people pay off debt should they choose as people returned to financial health. People would have incentive to work and it will provide a stimulous!
I am actually starting to come out against the Banking package of Brown because I think the same affects could have been created without nationising banks and having to pump a load of money into the sector that is dead for all intense and purposes and does nothing to see off recession.
WRT BPIX, I think their eve of poll in 2005 was Labour 37% to Conservative 33%, which is pretty good.
241. Thanks marcia, but I am afraid that the booby prize was only available if you actually managed to find a definite Lib Dem voter! “Only a couple of people who said they normally vote Libdem and were undecided at this stage” is just not good enough.
247. Fair enough. I know you’ve got to keep your pecker up, especially if you are a Labour MP in a marginal. Whenever I do those Baxter predictions I’m afraid Broxtowe always leaps out at me, switching red to blue…
So we have a different take on events. I think you are underplaying what an extraordinarily positive burst of media attention Brown has enjoyed. He was literally hailed as the world’s financial saviour - at home and abroad. It doesn’t get any better than that, apart from winning a war.
Yet all it has done is claw back a few points, with the Tories still in a commanding and potential landslide-winning position, with the latest evidence showing the already sizeable Tory lead extending once more.
Moreover the Brownian flaws are still there, and as the waters of crisis drain away they will re-emerge. Whether you like it or not, just 1 in 50 finding him an attractive politician is disastrous. It just shows a personal dislike. And we have the recession to come…
But you know all this. I’ll shut up.
Where we do agree is the unending nature of the story. The next plot-twist is Glenrothes. If the polls are showing Tory landslides at the same time as you lose Glenrothes then I simply don’t believe the Labour plotters will stay shtoom. Do you?
But of course, you might just win it….
ukpaul@201: Have you got a link for that stuff? $150 million in one month is an incredibly big number (That is his September fundraising not his cash on hand, right?)
Wonder if he’ll throw a few quid at the Democratic Senate candidates…
247 - For most members of the public, the world of high finance has no more connection with their daily lives than the world of Westminster gossip. They will appreciate that there has been some sort of crisis (though most wouldn’t pretend to understand what or how it worked) and they may credit Gordon Brown with helping to avert it. But on a daily basis, it doesn’t mean much to them yet.
In the next 18 months, voters are going to find their houses going down in value. They are going to have friends and family members lose their jobs. They are going to be worried about their own jobs. For them, the story will probably not be “things are on the brink of catastrophe, Brown has probably steered us away from the worst”. For them, the story will be “the shit is hitting the fan”. Which, you might note, is a lot punchier a story and one that does not offer Labour a particularly hopeful future.
Glenrothes: Labour are now out to 3 on Betfair:
SNP 1.47
Lab 3
Other 60
254. Sorry should say in the last paragraph: sector that is dead *Money* for all intense ………
254 - Martin i don’t think the purpose of bringing forward capital schemes is to bring forward the eventual benefits of those schemes. The purpose is to give some respite to the construction industry, get their cashflow moving again, which allows them to get private sector projects moving again.
The point about focussing on schemes that are in the pipeline anyway is that it is not spending money for money’s sake.
‘Salmond will attack PM in speech’
Alex Salmond will accuse Gordon Brown of a lack of moral, as well as financial responsibility, when he addresses the SNP conference in Perth.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/7678140.stm
One thing i think is a fair criticism of the BPIX approach is that the headline figures can only give so much information. Although subsamples taken in isolation are pretty meaningless, it is possible to amalgamate subsamples over a period to discover what is causing the headline movements (be it switches in specific regional areas, ages, sexes etc or changes in voter turnout).
This wouldn’t be a problem if BPIX retained their data to produce their own seat predictions, but as it is all we can do is plug their numbers into imperfect UNS calculators, which is pretty unsatisfactory.
myself@262: OK, found it myself. $150 million dollars in one month. Blimey.
http://tinyurl.com/6dkuyf
266. Fine in principle but what are these projects? Will they mean the planning process and local consultation is ignored?
The thing about capital spending projects is is a one club golfer!
What about other sectors affected by economic slump? I am jobless and i don’t think lagging Lofts is going to help any long term career! Why don’t the governmentdo something for me?
Going on Brown’s recent rhetoric should not construction workers lag lofts?
Let’s just review the hypocrisy gap between Labour pronouncements and reality regarding Northern Rock:
Labour accuse mortgage lenders of being too quick to repossess the homes of hard pressed homeowners. Northern Rock actually is doing this more agressively than most other lenders, and has announced it will rapidly expand its debt management team, despite making massive job cuts in other parts of the business.
Labour calls for lenders to pass on the Bank of England rate cut. Northern Rock fails to pass on the 0.5%, reducing its’ SVR by just 0.15%.
Labour calls for the end of bonuses and big salaries, especially where they are a ‘reward for failure’. Clive Briault, Clive Briault, the managing director of its retail business unit, left the FSA “by mutual consent” at the end of April.
Mr Briault headed the team that monitored Northern Rock, which last year suffered Britain’s first bank run in more than a century and was forced to borrow £25 billion from the Bank of England.
Mr Briault received £380,000 under the terms of his contract and a pension pot worth more than £870,000.
Similarly, Ron Sandler who could be accused of being a known Gordon Brown crony, is paid £100,000 a month to make NR staff redundant, and manage a cynical plan to drive away its best customers, while maintaining the pretence that N Rock is being managed as a viable going concern.
Honestly, you just couldn’t make it up, could you?
Saw Woolas (new Immigration Minister) on the Politics Show. Decent performance, except the end where he smirked about government not running banks that repossess homes.
However, total lack of any new policy, as rightly picked up on by Sopel. A reheated announcement made to coincide with events that will occur anyway.
Breaking news on the BBC: Brown to call for the sun to set at sometime during the evening, in line with the government’s policy of day and night.
Shadsy has now repriced Labour over at Ladbrokes. They have the best Labour price now: 13/4
(Note: Ladbrokes are still missing from Mike’s Best Betting section due to a technical glitch.)
273, if Labour won Glenrothes, how would that affect the SNP, d’you think?
251 - Nick, I look forward to your article contending that Broxtowe could well be retained if the Tories were 6% ahead. It only requires a 2.5% swing from 2005 for you to lose. A Conservative lead of 6% would imply a national 4.5% swing since the last election. Think you’re setting a remarkably low bar for yourself….
271. Yes the impact of Brown and his deceit unraval very quickly.
There are many questions on the NR and indeed the HBOS deals that remain awkward given Brown’s rhethoric and past friendships/ financial actions.
117 etc. Yes smooth drive by Ham the Man. Was anyone else but me waiting for FIA to find some obscure reason for flipping Massa and Hamiliton on the official placings?
274. Mr Dancer
I could give you a long answer, but instead, let me refer you to Scotland’s top columnist, Iain Macwhirter, in today’s Sunday Herald:
‘Shhh! Ghost of Garscadden past still haunts SNP’
http://www.sundayherald.com/oped/opinion/display.var.2461473.0.shhh_ghost_of_garscadden_past_still_haunts_snp.php
It is a good piece, as is standard for Macwhirter, but my favourite bit is the very last sentence:
- Oh, and one final point. For all his abilities, Labour’s candidate, Lindsay Roy, isn’t Donald Dewar.
He can say that again!!
277, haha, I was. If I bet on him to win a race/get a podium or suchlike I might well go for Ladbrokes rather than betfair. I tend to go for the fastest lap rather than results now.
http://www.sniffpetrol.com/wp-content/uploads/fiastewardparking.jpg
from the excellent sniffpetrol.com website.
251. With the Tories 6 points ahead, your odds against holding Broxtowe are about 3/1….
278, but long so I scanned it. Sounds like a shade similar to 1992 for Labour. I suppose the effect of it is to give Labour hope but also keeps the SNP very much on its toes.
Hmm. I hope you win, although obviously I hope your party’s ultimate ambition is never realised.
One consequence of Glasgow East and Glenrothes is far greater coverage of Scotland and Scottish politics in the media overseas, eg:
Staten Island Advance today:
‘Scotland’s independence? The debate rages in Britain’
To smooth it over a bit, Salmond also says that he wants an independent Scotland to be a member of the British Commonwealth, with the Queen of England as its head of State.
http://www.silive.com/news/advance/index.ssf?/base/news/122440861185620.xml&coll=1&thispage=2
Ho ho: the “Queen of England”!! You just gotta love Americans!
German media report the North Korean regime has informed their embassies around the world that an “important statement” is imminent on Monday and speculates that Kim Yong Il has either died or lost his position in a coup d’état. The statement may also affect “relations to the South”.
October surprise?
281. Morris Dancer - “I hope you win, although obviously I hope your party’s ultimate ambition is never realised.”
Thanks! Kind of…
If you lived in Scotland, you could always vote SNP at elections, but vote ‘No’ at the 2010 Scottish independence referendum.
284 “If you lived in Scotland, you could always vote SNP at elections, but vote ‘No’ at the 2010 Scottish independence referendum.”
Eh?!
Can’t quite follow the logic in that, Stuart!
284, if I lived in Scotland I’d probably vote against the SNP in general elections, but for them in by-elections. Unless my prospective Labour MP were Ed McBalls, in which case I’d vote for whoever would be likeliest to beat him, especially if they had a manifesto pledge to fire him into space using some sort of nuclear-powered bagpipes.
272 really? I wasn’t impressed - he basically stated that the new approach to immigration was in fact the approach already announced and that he is bringing no change of policy or direction to the table - it is once again reannouncement dressed up as new thinking.
Spot on about his comments at the end of the piece - if government ministers are not actually making the decisions, government owned bank repossessions don’t count was his thrust - a line I suppose Labour are forced to take given that their (our) bank, Northern Rock, is the biggest culprit at the moment.
287, but the difficulty is quite apparent, government can’t call on banks not to do X, when the nationalised bank is doing X more than most.
By performance I refer to style rather than content. The content was, as you point out, vacuous. At least he didn’t claim not supporting the government’s database means you want terrorists to kill everyone.
Jack W popped out for a bit?
Rasmussen: O51 M45
274. Not fatal but would be a major blow, most people are expecting them to win it and losing would be a real turnaround in their fortunes. Since election they have been constantly on the up and losing would take a lot of the steam out of their efforts. I will be absolutely amazed however if they lose , no sign whatsoever in any commentary that would make me think Labour are on the way back.
288 yes, there was that I suppose!
Yes in style he was OK.
Government are in a bind over reposessions - Margaret Beckett (whom I haven’t seen anywhere or on anything since her restoration to cabinet) was unable to come to the Politics Show to answer their questions.
O/T Was struck by Bild’s revelations on Haider’s last night - starting the evening drinking with an attractive blonde on his knees, then a half hour visit to a gay bar after midnight.
http://tinyurl.com/6ryb8w
Of course the election is not in the bag for anyone yet - there are still 18 months to go before the most probable date for it and a lot can happen in that time.
However, I don’t think Labour would be holding too many seats like Broxtowe if the Conservatives are six percentage points ahead on election day - given the likelihood that there will be more anti-Labour tactical voting and less anti-Tory tactical voting next time than in 1997 to 2005, a 6% Conservative lead is probably well into hung parliament territory.
292. Blondes and gays must have votes in Austria, I guess…
I think that the voters have a memory which lasts slightly longer than that of a Goldfish. They start to appreciate the media froth for what it is.
288 - I suppose the argument is that Northern Rock are limited in what they can do by EU competition rules.
Oh, BTW, I made a note a few weeks back of a Tory poll prediction:
Labour are about 3 weeks away from <20% IMHO.
by The Ghost of Harry Flashman August 27th, 2008 at 9:26 am
Haven’t kept the one from the summer about the Tories going over 55% soon (GIN, I think?).
292. the chance of Labour holding a particular Lab-Con marginal can be estimated using the Excel formula..
1-NORMDIST(x,y,3,1)
where x is (Tory opinion poll %lead + 3)/2
and y is (Labour seat %majority)/2
296 - Mr Palmer, nice of you to use the ’smiley’. It reminds the electorate of the expression on Gordon’s face, as he cracked his hilarious bank collapse joke when the mobile rang!
296.
Given today’s polls Nick - I can only assume you have reorted to Gallows Humour!
I had noticed that since the ‘Financial Crisis’ (AKA Brown’s Bust) you had become more punchy and partisan! Gallows humour is a good way to deal with problems and I use it! Though not sure why Brown is laughing - that one is lost on me!!!
I’m surprised no-one’s commented on Mark Senior’s post 132.
He said: There were 6 byelections in county/unitary seats that did poll on GE day in 2005 , 4 had later results which I used . Lincs CC did not have a LibDem candidate in 2005 so no comparison could be made . The other 5 on 2005 results showed LibDems up in 2 a little and down in 3 by a little , they all showed Lavour down substantially .
Which means, since vote-share is a zero-sum game, that either (a) the Tories were substantially up; (b) the Tories moved a little either up or down or did not move at all and minor parties/independents were substantially up; or (c) the Tories were substantially down and the others were hugely up.
Given that Mr. Senior did not say which of the three possible options was the truth, I would submit that it is relatively trivial for the reader to make a correct deduction.
289. Go easy on the W – Ras is an hour early today!
Another 1pt uptick for Obama, the second in a row although Jack W says Ras have boosted DEM id by 0.4. Still, it’s an uptick nevertheless when the GOP needed polls to tighten. If Gallup holds or goes Obama’s way, then the GOP face having to turn over a 4-6 point lead in two weeks with no more debates. I’m preety certain that’s never been achieved although I’d be interested to see the numbers. I’m starting to think my money on McCain is dead. I was sure McCain would win but who knows, maybe miracles do happen?
296. I’m sure if I forecast the Tories to be over 55%it was tounge in cheeck Nick.
296
The Ghost of Harry Flashman was probaly just out by a few weeks. Once the bank “rescue ( ie Gordon spending 55 billion of our money to rescue banks who had been porly regulated by the FSA (All Gordo’s doing of course)), the narrative will change to the mess the country is in, a terrible recession, 000’s of lost jobs. personal bankruptcies, reposessions… It wont be long before ITV will have the daily lost jobs feature on the news, if they havent started it already.
I wouldnt get to cocky, there is an ill wind blowing.
296. You should read the comments on Gordon Brown’s piece in Telegraph yesterday , if opinion polls mirrored that labour would be in single figures at best. Hard to imagine how anyone could get a worse reaction and supports the recent 2% figure he got in polls. People realise he is the architect of all the disasters and labour will pay for it big time if he is still in place come an election.
O/T
Sarah Palin has decided what she will do when McCain loses the election in a fortnight. She will become a Tina Fey impersonator. Anyone see her on NBC’s Friday Night live?
Alaska seems to be doing rather well with Mrs Palin away from the Governor’s Chair. Perhaps she should pitch to be the new Moose-powered Madonna? Or get some of that home-powered energy cabled up to her hot seat.
36.”I see Brown is at the IMF today, strutting about. Interesting comment from the Telegraph today
“Gordon Brown Said in April 2008 that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) needed complete re-structuring so it could act as an “early warning system” for the international economy. Will the PM to explain what action was taken by himself and HMG upon receiving previous warnings from the IMF.
Dec 2003 IMF gives Brown borrowing warning.
Sep 2005 IMF report: Warning over £1 trillion mountain of debt.
Dec 2005 IMF report: IMF fires new warning over Britain’s finances.
Sep 2006 IMF report: IMF warns over UK property crash.
April 2007 IMF report: Private equity collapse on cards, says IMF.
October 2007 IMF report: UK house market is “heading for crash”.
April 2008 IMF report: UK vulnerable to US-style housing slump.”
JonC, absolutely spot on with that post!
Gordon Brown gave the BoE independence on interest rates because politically it was a good move for him as a Chancellor. He knew that it would give him some protection from blame, because he was mindful of how damaging this had been to previous Chancellor’s.
He then set about changing the whole regulatory system, a disastrous move which failed completely.
He calls for similar action with the IMF at a time when they are being less than helpful to him politically, what a surprise!
After the last 11 years, he is the last person I would place in charge of completely re-structuring it so it could act as an “early warning system” for the international economy.
Labour have released a paper as “suggestions” to the SNP on how to beat the economic woes in Scotland. This is a 15 point plan. I can imagine the SNP’s answer to that will be one point - Independence from Brown’s Government!
http://www.theherald.co.uk/politics/news/display.var.2461559.0.labour_rolls_out_15_point_plan_to_beat_economic_woes.php
242/244. The licence is one of the main reasons for labour bias towards labour in the higher echelons of the BBC, IMO. (see my 161).
I was watching C-Span - a US political programme - on TV and the subject was senate congressional seats in various States. It was also a talk in, but the main subject this morning was McCain’s headline making comment that voting for Obama would bring in Socialism.
This seems to have struck a cord, and the number of people phoning in and saying that they would vote for McCain was striking; about 2/1. The main concern being that all three arms of Government shouldn’t be in the hand’s of one party.
It’s probably to late to make a difference, but it’s interesting all the same, and this race may be closer than we think.
289 Edmund
At 105, Jack is still popping out for a bit? Hope I’m as active at that age.
180 Ukpaul
Unless you are behind with repayments you will just go onto the SVR of your mortgage provider. The mortgage you currently have is designed to last the term of the mortgage.
You may not be able to get a NEW mortgage, but that is not the same thing at all. In any case it may well not be worth paying the current super-high arrangement fees anyway, depending on your circs. Hope that is some reassurance!
308. Errata: sorry for some reason 161 became 163.
Colin powell endorses Obama for President.
144. seanT
I have not made any claims as to the accuracy or otherwise of the BPIX figures. However, I think the way in which they were reported was confusing, to say the least.
It is not obvious, from the article, what question was asked to get the 46/30/13 figures. Did it explicitly ask people to ignore the economy and/or to consider ‘wider issues’? Did it refer to an ‘emergency election’? In other words, was this the same question as the previous BPIX poll. If it was, why wasn’t there any comparison with the previous BPIX/MoS poll which, btw, had a tory lead of 23%?
“When voters are asked who they would vote for in an emergency General Election on the economy…But when the economic crisis is removed from the question and voters concentrate on wider issues, the picture changes dramatically. The Tory rating rises to 46 while Labour slumps to 30, 16 points behind, with Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats on a lowly 13.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1078786/You-8217-like-Major-Churchill-voters-tell-Brown-latest-poll-shows-holds-election-hell-lose.html
313 - Alex, do you have a link for that?
Thanks
BBC News 24
Here you are DC
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608
315. http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/
New thread now up.
Thanks for the news links.
Marc Ambinder is giving quotes from the Powell endorsement:
http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/
I said a few days ago that a Powell announcement may just hurt Powell’s usefulness as a symbol of bipartisanship in a possible Obama cabinet and not help Obama much in the election. Since the polls now seem to tighten a bit, that may be different. Between Obama’s $150 million haul in September, the various newspaper endorsements, and Powell, I think a potential “McCain revival” narrative has lost a lot of steam.
If I were Obama, I would quickly seize on the various “people who don’t vote for us don’t belong to the real America” comments by McCain aids and supporters and revive the whole “we are not the Blue states of America, nor the red states of America, we are the United States of America!” routine.
311 - Thanks Jon C, although it is the very possibility of going onto the SVR that worries me (even though it maay be two years away). It may be better then owing to interest rate changes but, after years of paying off a mortgage with no missed payments, to be treated so poorly will make many people extremely angry - both with the mortgage companies and with government.
321
It’s hard to see how it is “being treated poorly” TBH. It is simply a case of not being treated lavishly generously as has been the case for the past 6-8 years for most people.
If you don’t have 90% LTV you won’t be able to get a deal, which to me is fair enough. But in your case you would have to be pretty unlucky to not have at least 10% equity even with a further say 20% price fall by 2010, doesn’t take much overpayment to get the balance down.
271 - very good post - i’m one of the NR customers they were not willng to keep / help.
I remeber a lovely letter they wrote me saying that there would be no new deals but they would do “all they could to help” me transfer to another lender.
Well, that didnt extend to letting me out of the deal 3 montrhs early without huge penalties and I had to wait til September to change mortgages…. and we all know what happened in September don’t we.
I was lucky, others will not have been.
Isn’t it obvious Mike that the average punter has had enough of Labour and what it’s done to their pocket? And, moreover, what it’s going to cost them now? The average punter is not stupid, the Westminster media is sycophantic and needs to get out in the real world.