Spread punters still back a Tory majority - just!
November 21st, 2008
But will the next set of polls follow MORI?
The panel show the latest spread betting levels on the three main markets. There will be 650 seats next time so to ensure a majority a party will need 325.
As can be seen there is now something of a division between IG Index and PB’s co-sponsor, Sporting Index. It’s not often you see a gap as large as five seats in the Tory and Labour spreads between the two companies.
So if you want to “buy Labour” or “sell the Tories” the best place is Sporting Index. If you want to go the other way round try IG or Spreadfair - which is a betting exchange.
Generally these differences shake themselves out over time - but it’s just that at the moment IG seems to be attracting more money on Labour.
In the short-term everything depends on the next round of polling. We might get some surveys this weekend while next week we should see ComRes, ICM and YouGov.
A question punters are asking is about the extent that they can have faith in MORI - the pollster that always seems to show the extremes. In September 2007 it had the biggest Labour leads, in September 2008 it was the only pollster to put the Tories over 50%, and this week it recorded the smallest Tory lead six months.
Mike Smithson
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first?
Gold seems to have gone up quite a lot today - what is going on?
and third!
Icarus- you are cutting quite a lonely figure so far on this thread.
3- at least something is on the up
FPT:
477. No offence but the article is outdated piffle. There’s a huge factual error in the opening paragraph:
“The EU simply is not a country, any more than the US + Canada comprise a single country.”
Er, yeah, right. As we happy subjects of the EU’s non-imperial empire can attest, the EU is certainly a lot closer to being a country than “the US plus Canada”.
A ludicrous mistake.
After that it just gets sillier - for a start, it’s all sadly outdated by the collapse in US capitalism over the last few weeks.
Let’s face it, autocratic Chinese state capitalism now looks, unbelievably, like the future - as compared to laisser-faire Reagonomics. Even as we speak America is on the verge of nationalising its largest bank.
There is a rich irony in all of this. We thought the Chinese would eventually become more like us. Yet now it seems we are all becoming more like the Chinese.
I suis ein european
seanT- sadly totalitarianism looks to be the natural order of things
You might have something Sean, even the boy Osborne is suggesting we have a state bank!
Out of the 12 votes at the end of the last thread that Nick P voted for in Parliament I would only have voted for four. Nonetheless three of those four I consider to be the most important and if we’d had a Tory government I believe they would have voted against those as well.
5. The EU isn’t a country. Fact. It’s edging closer to it, but it’s not. It still doesn’t have a common currency, foreign policy and military, which are the features he picks out.
Regarding the ‘collapse of capitalism’: who do you think is going to recover fastest and best? China is going to be hit by the global recession too.
2. All that money pouring out of the stock market has to go somewhere.
On the topic of the stock market, how much further will it have to go before Insurance Companies start edging near insolvency. I remember there were big concerns around the time of the Iraq war. Was around 3400 or so.
More bailouts??
Wow Hillary to be SoS. No wonder her and Bill came onside.
Presumably the leaking by the treasury of future tax hikes is an attempt to circumvent Osborne’s likely line of attack following the PBR, unless of course the treasury mole can earn their money and provide another line of attack.
I suppose the quality of Osborne’s rebuttal will demonstrate whether the attempt to smoke them out was successful.
We are now entering the key phase in this battle of Labour vs Tories. Although I think Brown could go forward to an election victory from here, he is taking one hell of a risk. The scale of public borrowing at 8% of GDP is eye watering. His justification on the Jeremy Vine show was to quote his father ‘a stitch in time saves nine’. The economic arguments are highly plausible, but they could go haywire.
Meanwhile Brown has poured cold water on the idea of a June 2009 Election. His biggest mistake last time was not dithering. It was stringing along the media. This time he seems to have let it be known that it’s off before the rumour begins.
10. Duh.
The EU certainly has a currency, with some outlying states refuse to use. It has a virtual common foreign policy (these days EU states nearly always adopt a common position before UN meetings, for instance). It hasn’t got an army, but it sends EU military missions abroad, and if Lisbon is passed it will have an army and a diplomatic corps etc etc etc.
And on many criteria ignored by your guy the EU is more of a country than the United States itself. Individual states within America can pick and choose whether to have the death penalty, for instance. EU states do not have that choice: Brussels decides.
The guy’s article is made dubious by this one egregious error. The rest of his piece is piteously outdated by the Kredit Krunch.
10. In fact China is going to be hit the worst - its growth is export financed. When this goes away, you will have millions of ruined middle class people. Not just out of a house/job - back to the gutter. Literally. History tells us that if you p%^& off the middle classes like that….
14. The EU business isn’t really the point of the comparison, the comparison was between the USA and China, and what China would have to do to equal the US in stature, or surpass it. The E.U.is in his, and everyone else’s, estimation, a miserable upstart of a pretender to superpower status. The issue is China, what it would need to do in terms of technology, military or otherwise, and in terms of its economic performance to equal America’s influence.
However, the EU does not have a currency. 15 of the 27 member states use the Euro, so 45% of the member states do not. The ECB does not have the powers of the Fed, many of which are held by the nations.
It is indeed true that the governments of the EU want to create their neo-Soviet empire, and doubtless they will succeed, as they have convinced themselves they have no need to take into account people’s views, and no-one seems to care about these things enough to pick up guns. Maybe those historic revolts were all about bread and not about ideals?
OT but the magistrates seem to have got it sussed….
http://thelawwestofealingbroadway.blogspot.com/
R&T’s Labour seats with less than 10% majority over the Tories…
Gillingham and Rainham 15 0.0%
Crawley 37 0.1%
Harlow 230 0.6%
Croydon Central 328 0.7%
Portsmouth North 315 0.8%
Battersea 332 0.8%
Hove 448 1.0%
Milton Keynes North 848 1.7%
Stroud 996 1.9%
Dartford 860 1.9%
South Basildon and East Thurrock 905 2.1%
Ealing Central and Acton 839 2.2%
City of Chester 973 2.2%
Colne Valley 1267 2.5%
Cardiff North 1146 2.5%
Hastings and Rye 1156 2.5%
Calder Valley 1303 2.7%
Stourbridge 1280 2.9%
Milton Keynes South 1497 3.0%
Corby 1517 3.1%
Vale of Glamorgan 1574 3.4%
Swindon South 1493 3.5%
Dorset South 1812 3.7%
Northampton South 1445 3.8%
High Peak 1750 3.8%
Loughborough 1816 3.9%
Aberconwy 1070 3.9%
Birmingham Edgbaston 1555 4.0%
Stafford 1852 4.0%
Broxtowe 2139 4.4%
Burton 2132 4.8%
Brighton Kemptown 1853 4.8%
Bury North 2059 5.0%
Redditch 2163 5.2%
Rugby 2397 5.2%
Pendle 2180 5.3%
Wolverhampton South West 2114 5.3%
Carmarthen West and South Pembrokshire 2043 5.3%
Ribble South 2528 5.4%
Derbyshire South 2436 5.5%
Bristol North West 2781 5.7%
Dumfries and Galloway 2922 5.7%
Tamworth 2569 5.9%
Cleethorpes 2642 6.1%
Swindon North 2675 6.2%
Westminster North 2120 6.6%
Worcester 3144 6.8%
Harrow East 2934 6.9%
Great Yarmouth 3055 7.4%
Eltham 2904 7.6%
Brigg and Goole 3217 7.8%
Bedford 3413 8.0%
Stevenage 3288 8.1%
Hendon 3231 8.1%
Chatham and Alyesford 3289 8.3%
Brentford and Isleworth 3633 8.3%
Bradford West 3050 8.3%
Rossendale and Darwen 3696 8.4%
Hammersmith 3673 8.4%
Blackpool North and Cleveleys 3241 8.5%
Halifax 3481 8.8%
Lancaster and Fleetwood 3428 8.8%
Dewsbury 3999 8.9%
Dudley South 3222 8.9%
Northampton North 3340 9.0%
Warrington South 4337 9.2%
Wirral South 3538 9.3%
Lincoln 3806 9.5%
Leicestershire North West 4477 9.5%
Gedling 4335 9.6%
Halesowen and Rowley Regis 4010 9.7%
Nuneaton 3894 9.7%
12. Better inside the tent pissing out.
14. Surely the obvious answer is that by the definitions of what makes a country and what doesn’t the EU is further along in some respects than the US and Canada (or compared to the US as a whole) but behind in others (most noticeably the leaving the Union aspect). Rather than trying to plot them on a simple spectrum.
15. There is actually civil unrest simmering under tne surface in China.
A lot of factory bosses have simply disappeared with the money once orders from the West dried up, leaving workers unpaid for several months .
Municipal government is having to pay some factory workers to prevent unrest.
Others cannot afford to go back to their families in the countryside.
This should explain the Chinese $375Bn fiscal injection package; not going to help banks but rather to stop riots in the streets .
17. I was under the impression that knowing whether the prostitute was being controlled wasn’t necessary for conviction and it was a strict liability crime
16. “It is indeed true that the governments of the EU want to create their neo-Soviet empire, and doubtless they will succeed, as they have convinced themselves they have no need to take into account people’s views, and no-one seems to care about these things enough to pick up guns. Maybe those historic revolts were all about bread and not about ideals?”
Television is the opium of the masses.
5- seanT- Saying Chinese state run capitalism is the way forward sounds very reminiscent of what people said of the Soviet system when the Russian economy was growing so quickly in the 1950s. Truth is, no outsider really knows the true state of the Chinese economy and its state-run firms. In the long run well regulated capitalism will beat politicians picking winners every time.
21
), but read the comments on the blog, it seems fairly clear…
I dont know the law(or need to know it for that scenario
Previous thread, re Boris Johnson. He isn’t an MP - what does it say in Tory party rules about leadership candidates?
23. “well regulated capitalism”?
indeed.
R&T Labour seats with less than 10% majority over the LibDems
Rochdale 149 0.3%
Oxford East 332 0.7%
Edinburgh South 405 0.9%
Hampstead and Kilburn 474 1.1%
Islington South and Finsbury 484 1.6%
Watford 1151 2.3%
Aberdeen South 1348 3.2%
Edinburgh North and Leith 2153 5.0%
City of Durham 3274 7.4%
Norwich South 3023 7.4%
Leicester South 3727 8.8%
Liverpool Wavertree 2911 8.9%
According to newsnight the PBR is going to set out clearly which taxes will be going up to pay for Browns mad borrowing and tax cut binge.
This is, of course, complete nonsense. Two or three years before the event, the government can’t possibly know exactly how much they will end up borrowing, and consequently by how much taxes will have to go up after the election. You can bet it will end up being waaaayyyy worse than Labour will be telling us on Monday, though.
23 Absolutely. I suppose that State capitalism does makes sense if, but only if, our economy is expected to shrink for the next 200 years or so.
26. I remember reading an idiot’s guide to investing once. Apparently if you had invested 20k on the stock market (U.K. I think) at any time after WW1 you would have made a million in an average of about twenty years. I forget the exact figures, but the longest it would have taken you was just over 30 years, and that was rare, and it was not the time of the depression. You would have made your million quite fast if you’d invested just before the Crash. Caitalism will evolve with a different regulatory system. We jst have to hope that we don’t get suckered into E.U. legislation which ties our hands in future when we need to change the rules again.
re 392 previous thread - coldstone you’ve got a short memory. Remind me who exactly was it who introduced the so-called “luxury” rate of VAT at 25%?
25. I’ve no idea. But now we have a multi-polar institutional framework in Britain, it’s surely only a matter of time before movement between the GLA, Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly and front-rank politics at Westminster becomes common. See Canada!
Executive experience sometimes counts for a lot in opposition leadership - noone could accuse Boris of being a novice. If Labour spend a long time in opposition they might look to Wales and Scotland to try out new policies and recruit capable leaders. (Leighton Andrews as Labour leader? The Liberal mind boggles…)
some guy from the FT on news night arguing labour’s case - finished off by arguing in relation to an NI rise that labour would be able to challenge the Tories saying ” what will they do about it ”
it was somewhat revealing about the state of FT journalism - the enthusiasm with which he argued the labour case revealed a political allegiance - the veil slipped a bit
The FT is not doing well in this crisis - not only is it putting its prices up - but it is clearly behind the curve in economic thinking - which has moved on to how conditions can be improved for the private sector wealth generating sectors - which will be hit the hardest in the competition for credit by the government moving in to credit markets to hoover up all that is available and spending it the unproductive parts of the economy
Martin well done for getting a foot back on the employment ladder.
R&T’s LibDem seats with less than 10% majority over the Tories
York Outer 203 0.44%
Romsey and Southampton North 204 0.46%
Cheltenham 316 0.66%
Somerton and Frome 595 1.12%
Eastleigh 534 1.12%
Westmorland and Lonsdale 806 1.70%
Hereford and North Herefordshire 1089 2.39%
Carshalton and Wallington 1225 2.93%
Taunton Deane 1868 3.30%
Chippenham 2183 4.70%
Torbay 2727 6.01%
Sutton and Cheam 2689 6.22%
Cornwall North 2892 6.87%
Richmond Park 3613 7.09%
Cheadle 3672 7.41%
Portsmouth South 2955 8.00%
Truro and Falmouth 3931 9.25%
Southport 3838 9.32%
O/T Obama finds time to back Chicago bid for 2016 Olympics:
http://olympics.thestar.com/2008/article/541320
re 28 Quite! When we’re listening to Darling explaining down to the last farthing on Monday how Brown’s splurge is going to be paid for let us remember what he told us only 8 months ago.
Debt levels are forecast to be 38.5, 39.4, 39.8, 39.7 and 39.3 per cent of GDP by 2012 /13. Every year lower than in 1997.
I wonder in the brilliant economists who came up with these are still in the Treasury?
R&T’s LibDem seats with less than 10% majority over Labour
Manchester Withington 531 1.4%
Bristol West 1147 2.5%
Leeds North West 2064 5.0%
Hornsey and Wood Green 2395 5.1%
Chesterfield 2733 6.4%
Camborne and Redruth 2733 7.1%
Birmingham Yardley 2864 7.3%
Dunbartonshire East 4061 8.7%
Inverness Nairn Badenoch and Strathspey 4148 9.4%
32. Nick Clegg of course being an example dare I say it (I’m sure plenty of jokes will be made about ‘capable leaders’.
Huw Lewis is the Labour one to watch in the Assembly though, dark horse to take over from Rhodri
37 It’s depressing - a bit of extra fiscal discipline over the last ten years would put us in a very different place now.
36. What odds on that? I’d have it as a dead cert now (it was favourite before).
I think it’s safe to assume a number of the upcoming polls will show Tory leads within the margin of error, and maybe one with polls level.
The key for the long term trend will be the PBR.
The conundrum for Labour is that if they don’t spell out exactly how they aim to recoup the tax giveaway, they will be completely open to the ’stealth tax’ and ‘tax bombshell’ attacks.
BUT, if they do detail how they will recoup it (maybe raising national insurance?), many people who are given the tax break will merely save it in anticipation of the upcoming tax rise.
Let’s be honest, this fiscal package will not help the econonomy one jot, but it could well help bribe the electorate before a June 2009 election and that is really the only thing Our Gord cares about.
33. Yeah, its these clowns, like those that work at the FT, that for years went around telling us that we didn’t need to worry about all this debt that was going on. How the house price bubble would last forever. How boom and bust had been abolished, yada, yada, yada. All the jokers that parroted Browns nonsense for all those years are the same ones now telling us theres no alternative but to borrow now and tax later. I sometime wonder if these people actually know anything about economics. Heck, I even wonder if Brown even knows what he’s doing! I’ve got a horrible feeling we’re now an out of control car, running at high speed to the edge of a cliff and nobody knows how to drive the thing anymore…
42. Apparently Darling will say on Monday that NI and VAT will rise after the election (so I assume they will both be cut before the election)
The point was made on Newsnight though, that by having to announce which taxes will be going up to pay for this, it will encourage everyone to save any money they get back from Labours tax cuts.
I’ve got a feeling this PBR statement will be looked back on in future years as a complete and total disaster both for Britain and for Labour. Labour backbenchers will love it, but six months from now I reakon the Tory position will be proved the correct one.
44. Matthew Parris in The Times says pretty much exactly the same thing
Had to laugh at the Freudian slip made at post 420 in the previous thread by Darmstadtium.
He writes:
“409. Red Crosby; according to the Electoral Calculus website ……”
Hmm, “Red Crosby” - I’m sure Rod will be pleased….not! (Never has voted Labour, I believe)
45. Nice to see Matthew tearing aparts Kaletsy’s rubbish earlier in the week. Nince times out of ten Matthew Parris is spot on, IMO.
44.
Apparently Darling will say on Monday that NI and VAT will rise after the election (so I assume they will both be cut before the election)
The point was made on Newsnight though, that by having to announce which taxes will be going up to pay for this, it will encourage everyone to save any money they get back from Labours tax cuts.
If what you say about admitting taxes will go up does happen then as you mention it will mean any extra money people get will be put into savings rather than blow it on the high street.
Is this an incorrect rumour, or brain-dead policy from Darling?
Although one issue I disagree with Matthew over, is that I don’t think theres anything fundamentally wrong with fiscal stimulus. If we have a lovely £30bn surplus to to tap into, then I would have no problem pumping that into the economy, and maybe putting another £30-50bn on to borrowing. The point is though (and this is something the Tories need to say over and over again) that we don’t have a surplus to use to stimulate the economy. After 14 years of growth we have eye watering levels of borrowing and thats before the recession has even started. The way Brown has behaved with the public finances is criminal. The fact we now find oursevles in a position of not being able to afford to stimulate our economy is a stunning humiliation for the Labour government. Where the hell did all the money go?
48. It was the lead item on News 24 at 11pm from Nick Robinson so safe to assume it is a genuine treasury brief
48. Well, Darling doesn’t have any choice but to say how this borrowing will be payed for (though of course, the actual borrowing figures will be the usual “best case scenario nonsense” and so the planned tax rises will also be dodgy) because if he doesn’t we’ll see a run on the pound and the government will never be able to finance the debt.
49. Isn’t that what all the ‘didn’t mend roof when sun was shining’ stuff has been about?
38 etc
can someone now post the seats where the Tories have a lead less than 10% over Labour?
(here’s hoping)
52. Yes, but the Tories need to be very clear why they aren’t supporting the fiscal stimulus and who’s fault it is.
37. Darling will likely be just as wrong on Monday as he was before. I don’t know why they bother, practically every prediction over the last year or so has been wide of the mark. Wouldn’t it be refreshing if he just said he doesn’t know?
52 Yes - and the point about borrowing for the fiscal stimulus is that if it doesn’t work what do you do next? More borrowing or face up to even more painful cuts? The problem is there is no easy way out of recession.
Brilliant quote by Ken Clarke:
“Alistair Darling could be quite a good Chancellor, if Gordon ever gave him the job.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5209367.ece
49. Yes countercyclical spending makes some sense, although tighter monetary policy is arguably better. But this isn’t countercyclical, we spent money we didn’t have in the good years, and we’re going to spend even more we don’t have in the bad, and then *KAPOW* everything will be fine. Anybody who disagrees is a Tory talking-down the economy.
Tom Sharpe couldn’t invent UK fiscal policy.
re 56 you could say it would have to take its course. perhaps?
58. Its such nonsense isn’t it? If you just stop and think about for five seconds, Browns whole plan just falls apart. It has so many holes in it. Thank god the Tories haven’t been cowed into going along with this impending disaster.
Fraser Nelson at the Coffee House Blog reports on Brown’s admitted his mistake - but we let him get away with it for far too long
Its well worth reading. He also thinks the media failed to do enough to sound the alert.
“Mankind gets hubristic. We just did it again. Central bankers screwed up the supply of money in the economy, just like they did in the Great Depression and in the 1970s. It was too cheap for too long, we all gorged on it, we all got stung. End of story. Devastatingly simple. And, if you’re a pundit paid to explain economic dangers to the public, embarrassingly simple.
A Cabinet member was telling me the other day who was suggesting the press should be responsible and not talk up gloom. I replied that in my view, the press had indeed failed – but failed to alert the public to this bubble. We had become part of it. The definition of a bubble, of course, is when the commentariat join a false consensus and people like Jeff Randall, Bill White and John Redwood are somehow seen as mistaken, ideologically-driven mavericks. The list of people who got it right is, of course, longer. But it certainly doesn’t include me.”
59 No - just that tough choices are needed and that, unfortunately, some people will suffer regardless of the government (of any colour) does. Mitigate the recession but ensure that the recovery, when it comes, is strong. Easy to say! But these guys in politics, this is what they chose to do and shouldn’t shirk responsibility when things get a little difficult.
42.”I think it’s safe to assume a number of the upcoming polls will show Tory leads within the margin of error, and maybe one with polls level.”
I am not so sure, I sense a shift in the media narrative and the public mood this week. Not sure that the public are buying the Gordon is a hero anymore. Cameron in the news more this last week, Osborne on Sterling, borrowing, taxcuts today leading to a ticking tax bomb later.
57. thats why he should be shadow chancellor. he can pull off humour whilst retaining an air of authority and sense, which will be vital pending this pbr and labour ‘tory cuts’ attack. Also, im guessing darling’s pbr response speech to osborne will be built around osborne himself. pulling clark in at the last moment would surely destablise and blunt darlings rebuttle. And finally the media are bound to focus on clarkes appointment and speech, ensuring the tories arent forced out of the media a second time round!!! Surely cameron has to do it.
58/60 The memory of Howes counter-cyclical 81 Budget ,coupled witha maybe a little drop in VAT,an expansion of personal allowances,makes me feel:
‘Oh dear,the Tories have to counter this’
My reaction:since DC’s ascension to the leadership (and let us NOT FORGET the frankly vile,reactionary 05 Tory manifesto,written by one member for Witney..)
There will be a GE sometime in late spring/early summer 09.I await the expression on David Cameron’s face at Witney; as he concudes a fourth straight public telling your party to ‘F*** off”
Just an interesting thought. Darmstadtium’s been popping up in the last few days reminding all of us that a Tory vote means less money for cancer drugs. Well it might surprise him to know that we have to pay VAT on drugs - in my Trust’s case the annual drugs VAT bill is sufficient to employ 105 nurses. The NHS will spend in 2008/09 about £12 billion on drugs. If Darling rises VAT to 22.5% in a few years time to pay for Brown’s splurge that means £600 million is taken out of the NHS budget every year. Given that our only bigger expenditure is on salaries they’re going to be clobbered by the extra NICs as well.
Once your cogs have stopped whirring and lights flashing Darmstadtium, what’s that going to do to the NHS’s ability to afford new cancer drugs?
65 Terrible news my friend - Gordon Brown is going to receive 2 fingers from the electorate for the almighty hole he’s going to drop us into on Monday.
64. Doesn’t the opposition leader alyways do the reply during budgets and pbrs? I rmember sitting at home with “Flu” during a budget and watching Michael Howard doing the reply for the conservtatives (so it must have been 2004 or 2005) and he was warning about the massive increases in debt that was going on. And how right he was.
65. Firstly, the Conservatives aren’t “my” party. I belong to know party.
Secondly, I’m sorry you think the Tories not supporting the stimulus is Camerons fault. If you want to blame anyone, blame Brown. He’s the one thats spent and borrowed our economic legacy so that theres no room left to do anything to help stimulate the economy. Cameron is just being honest. The cupboard is bear and its Browns fault. Don’t shoot the messenger.
67 Dammbellendium’s cogs aren’t whirring tonight as some fool in The Bunker filled it up with the cheap oil, and it blew a gasket.
53. R&T’s Conservative seats with less than 10% majority over Labour
Sittingbourne and Sheppey 22 0.1%
Clwyd West 51 0.1%
Hemel Hempstead 168 0.4%
Kettering 176 0.4%
Somerset North East 212 0.5%
Finchley and Golders Green 294 0.7%
Shipley 450 1.0%
Rochester and Strood 503 1.1%
Wellingborough 610 1.2%
Gravesham 654 1.4%
Wirral West 569 1.5%
Preseli Pembrokeshire 601 1.5%
Filton and Bradley Stoke 653 1.6%
Reading East 739 1.7%
Thanet South 810 1.8%
Enfield North 937 2.4%
Scarborough and Whitby 1245 2.7%
Enfield Southgate 1127 2.7%
The Wrekin 1187 2.9%
St Albans 1334 2.9%
Shrewsbury and Atcham 1808 3.6%
Staffordshire Moorlands 1618 3.9%
Dumfriesshire Clydesdale and Tweeddale 1738 3.9%
Ilford North 1735 4.1%
Forest of Dean 2049 4.3%
Selby and Ainsty 2060 4.3%
Putney 1723 4.8%
Wimbledon 2480 5.7%
Beverley and Holderness 3097 6.2%
Basingstoke 2651 6.3%
Clacton 3629 8.5%
Peterborough 4005 8.9%
Monmouth 4527 9.9%
Don Foster MP, the Liberal Democrats’ culture spokesman, said: “After phone-in scandals, inflated salaries and the serious editorial failures that led to this Brand affair, it’s hardly surprising that people are questioning the value of their licence fee.
“In the past the licence fee was the least worst option available to pay for the content we wanted, but the reality is that the continuing changes to the way people watch TV means it simply isn’t sustainable in the long term.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/3497926/Calls-to-break-BBCs-monopoly-on-licence-fee-after-damning-Sachsgate-report.html
Yes we can ….
Repost:
65. Firstly, the Conservatives aren’t “my” party. I belong to no party.
Secondly, I’m sorry you think the Tories not supporting the stimulus is Camerons fault. If you want to blame anyone, blame Brown. He’s the one thats spent and borrowed our economic legacy so that theres no room left to do anything to help stimulate the economy. Cameron is just being honest. The cupboard is bare and its Browns fault. Don’t shoot the messenger.
36,39,72 - What’s with the lists? It looks as if Mrs Dale’s been posting on here tonight.
74. “I belong to no party.”
Whatever you say, don’t say that. On this site, there are no grey areas. You’re either - at the absolute minimum - a frontbench spokesman, or you’re an astroturfer.
48.”Apparently Darling will say on Monday that NI and VAT will rise after the election (so I assume they will both be cut before the election)
The point was made on Newsnight though, that by having to announce which taxes will be going up to pay for this, it will encourage everyone to save any money they get back from Labours tax cuts.”
Anyone see QT last night? Didn’t Jim Murphy argue the opposite?
And if so, are we being sold a pup regarding the much improved Downing Street media operation, the mixed messages come from various Cabinet Ministers is quite startling?
Patrick, do you still feel like signing up for an ID card knowing you’ll be fined if you forget to inform Jacqui Smith every time you move house? Passports and driver’s licences establish identity every bit as well without saddling me with extra obligations to a government which has openly admitted it can’t guarantee data security.
64 If Osborne had not warned about sterling last week would Darling have been driven to warning about tax rises?
Doubt it, there would have been lots on the cuts and benefit increases, and sugary words about actions after the recession to return to prudence. That would have been Brown’s PBR speech.
Osborne in a couple of speeches, followed by Cameron moved the focus on to affordability and longer term. Now it looks like he’s going to say we’ll cut X temporarily, raise Y benefit and in a couple of years we will raise taxes A, B & C and squeeze public spending. So the fragility of Labour’s approach is exposed and the public can ask, why if we were so prosperous before, if the fundamentals of the economy were so sound, if debt was as low as you claim will we be faced with this huge increase in taxes and cuts in public spending?
The last budget resulted in major fall in Government popularity as tax rises a year ahead were highlighted - VED, fuel duty etc. Because of Osborne a “good news” budget statement has become a harsh one, with warnings of bad times ahead.
Boy done good.
50.The credit card is maxed out.
75. The Rallings & Thrasher notionals are now freely available. I’ve sorted them into useful rankings.
69. “Doesn’t the opposition leader always do the reply during budgets and pbrs?”
That’s certainly true of the budget, not sure about the PBR. The budget also has the strange tradition that the Chairman of Ways & Means always deputises for the Speaker.
81 Ah. OK. Thank you.
78. Hmm, I believe I’ve committed to refuse to sign up for one. I think the LDs were running something along those lines, I might be imagining things though.
79.”64 If Osborne had not warned about sterling last week would Darling have been driven to warning about tax rises?”
My thoughts exactly. I think that Osborne has played a perfectly timed blinder this week, and, many in the media and ConHom have yet to realise it. I cannot remember which thread, but earlier this week I wondered if some mistook the timing of Osborne’s comments on Sterling as an appeasement of the usual suspects. I don’t think it was anything to do with them at all, it was all about getting his message out in time for this PBR.
With every briefing I have read regarding the contents of the PBR over the last 48, the more I realise exactly what Osborne was up too.
And, its totally passed the media by that Osborne, Lawson, Redwood, Clark and Major have all been in the media singing from exactly the same hymn sheet. And IMHO, that is not a coincidence.
79. Yes he has. the problem is his authority with the public as a potential chancellor is shot, regardless of how overblown the whole saga was. move him to party chairman and let him attack from there. Being party chairman with an economic grasp would be a major asset at this point in time. GO has the same problem as brown last year: it doesnt matter what you say, even if its a good idea, the public just arent listening to you anymore.
re 79 Nick Robinson tonight was likening it to Lamont’s 1993 budget, and we all know (contrary to the myth about black Wednesday) that it was this which really did for the Tories poll ratings.
re 81 Rod have you updated your spreadsheet yet?
84. You probably have. No2ID were running a similar campaign. That’s why they’re bringing them in slowly, they think they can ratchet up who needs them and when bit by bit. But they haven’t recognised that the people who will refuse really, really mean it.
88. Yes. Just testing it now, and will upload it shortly. Will give you a shout when done…
O/T but revealing on how some big business bosses haven’t realised the world has changed.
Chairman of GM flew to Washington on one of the 5 private jets leased by GM to beg for a huge loan from the taxpayer. There was a bit of comment on this so GM have responded by cutting their fleet to only 3 private jets.
Why do they need any? They are broke. There are airlines serving any airport any GM executive needs to visit and, while cattle class might be uncomfortable on longer trips and business might need to be done, business class is sufficient. If is a trip to Washington from Chicago or Detroit then economy class. Time that executives dependent on state handouts cut the trimmings.
85 ‘And, its totally passed the media by that Osborne, Lawson, Redwood, Clark and Major have all been in the media singing from exactly the same hymn sheet. And IMHO, that is not a coincidence.’
Meanwhile HMG are sending out all manner of competing messages - see 77. Has the mighty Mandy/Campbell media machine slipped a belt and broken down?
86 sorry Ryans that’s so last week, the GO must go has failed.
72 thanks.
I live in one of them,so some hard work required.
92 Osborne, Lawson, Redwood, Clark and Major singing together.
Are we supposed to be impressed by this barbershop group of has-beens and never was’s? Where’s Lamont BTW, doing his usual Edith Piaf?
“they haven’t recognised that the people who will refuse [ID cards] really, really mean it.”
Not simply committed refusal in my case, but also the simple fact that my passport doesn’t expire until 2017 and so I have no need to pay for another form of identification in the meantime. Why should Labour force me to get (and pay for) something I don’t need?
(All of which is to say — renew your passports NOW, even if you still have a year or 2 left to run on them. Proof of identity accepted worldwide without any of the intrusive obligations associated with a card.)
79.Ted, I think that Fraser’s comments about the media in the blog post I linked to@62 on the Coffee House Blog are really important.
Osborne going on the attack about the fall in Sterling will have caused ructions in Downing Street, but, as you pointed in your excellent post last week, the political lobby fell for their line and went with it.
That was a mistake, and they too were caught with their pants down as it were, they had been ignoring it. Their attitude to Osborne was very graceless and sniffy on the back of it.
And then reading Robinson and Peston’s comments on their blogs today, what an incredible turn around. After weeks of saying that this recession might be as bad as the one in the 90’s or the 80’s, but not like the 70’s - Robinson is now talking about *borrowing* reaching levels not seen “since Denis Healey was Chancellor - back in the 1970s - the last time Labour was in power.”
That is quite a dramatic shift from all the talk about a Fiscal stimulus being needed, to the incredible levels of borrowing.
95.Jonathan, you may mock, but I would be worried by the message they have been sending and the way its worked. See my post@97.
Cameron won’t move Osborne while McBean is still PM, however long that will be. Prob won’t move him afterwards either unless Osborne wants it.
Ken Clarke has been good though.
re 96 sound advice. You won’t lose out as much as you think because they will give you an extra nine months. It will have a chip in it, although it will have no data apart from a digital version of your mug shot.
Incidentally when my new passport had its first outing at Manchester airport last month the new technology failed. So stand by for mammoth queues next summer. All the joy of Smith’s stasi.
US presidential election:
‘Sir Robert Worcester, founder of the opinion polling firm MORI, has been fast out of the traps. “The pollsters were right on the night,” he says, with scarcely veiled satisfaction. “Yet where are the commentators now? Where are the critics? Where are the naysayers? Moved on. But hopefully, just hopefully, they’ll be just a bit less likely to challenge us in radio and television interviews in the future.’
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/03f0003e-b76e-11dd-8e01-0000779fd18c.html
98 It will be hard to sleep tonight after the devastating spinning of your motley crew.
89. The state regulates so many parts of our lives, that it is entirely possible for a ‘voluntary’ card to be in essence essential.
For example, one of the easy targets they want to pick off are Students. With pretty much 98%+ of students needing to interact with the state to acquire a student loan/maintenance grant. Students who have an identity card can register their loans entirely online, and get a verified response in the space of two weeks, with the bonus of being able to access their a-level grades early.
Those without an id card, have to complete a paper document, and include original birth certificate (no copies or ’short’ birth certificates are acceptable), as well as original birth certificates of both sets of parents. Applications only accepted through the post and take four months to process.
Quite easy really… What about registering to vote? Without an ID card you are required to attend an annual interview at your local council to asses your eligibility to vote.
The Government will use convenience, and deliberate inconvenience for refuseniks.
92.”Meanwhile HMG are sending out all manner of competing messages - see 77. Has the mighty Mandy/Campbell media machine slipped a belt and broken down?”
I don’t think that its working anywhere near as well as some have reported this week. Back in the old days, every Minister and backbench MP was trotting out the same disciplined line. They are all over the place right now. Brown, Darling, McNulty, McFall, Cooper, and now Jim Murphy etc.
“Cameron has blown it: his progressive party is dead”
“At the first true test of his mettle, David Cameron buckled. He has scuppered his own brilliant repositioning of his party. Steam-cleaning the nastiness has been abandoned in a probably needless panic. Let the sunshine in? Forget it,…”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/22/david-cameron-thatcherite-politics-osborne
re 103 all entirely voluntary, of course, as that nice Dr P keeps remind us.
105. hurrah
101. God, that man is insufferable sometimes. Since John Sergeant is flavour of the month, I recall him savagely tearing into some of Worcester’s characteristic hyperbole when he was political editor of ITN.
A post now held by Tom Bradby. Not, in my view, progress.
Coffee House Blog. James Forsyth asks Will Brown let Darling tell us that he is going to hike the VAT rate to pay for the stimulus package?
“As we learnt during the banking crisis, what Robert Peston predicts tends to become reality shortly afterwards. So, his informed speculation on what is in the PBR is well worth reading.
This passage is particularly interesting and appears to be the latest shot in the briefing wars, which has reached up to cabinet level, around the Brown-Darling fight over whether or not Labour should explain how it tax cuts and increased spending will be paid for:
“But he [Darling] will also announce deferred tax rises and deferred cuts in public spending - to kick in when the economy has recovered a bit.
When would that be? Maybe 2010, maybe 2011.
If he fails to announce such debt-reduction measures, there could be very strong downward pressure on sterling and a corresponding damaging rise in the cost for the government of borrowing.
And, to be clear, the incremental sums he’ll announce he has to borrow over the next couple of years will be colossal - equivalent to at least 8% of GDP, possibly more, or well over £110bn per annum.
You have to go back to at least the 1970’s for a time when public borrowing was spiralling up at such an alarming rate.
Such a rise in public borrowing would be unsustainable.
Which is why, to repeat, there will have to be deferred tax rises and deferred public spending reductions inked into the public accounts and announced by the chancellor.
All of that is inevitable.
So which taxes will rise?
Well my prediction is VAT.
For the sake of transparency I should say that I don’t know that there will be a VAT rise.
But a deferred increase from 17.5% to 22.5% in the VAT rate would raise around £20bn.
And it’s one of the few future tax rises which might actually stimulate a bit of increased economic activity ahead of its implementation, rather than encouraging us to save
To use the economic cliche of the moment, it would give us all quite a “nudge” to spend now, before the swingeing increase in VAT would kick in.”
I suspect that how the PBR is reported will turn on whether the specific measures needed to pay for the fiscal stimulus are announced or not. If Darling just makes a vague allusion to spending restraint and tax increases if necessary, then the cost of paying for this will remain abstract. While if Darling mention specific numbers, the reality of the situation will hit home.”
The more detail Darling has to give about future tax raises in that PBR, the worse the situation really is.
re 105 Gabble you forgot the sub headline “Tested by recession, the Tory leader has reverted to type - a laissez-faire Thatcherite, U-turning his party back to 1981″
Remind me who was in government for 16 years after 1981?
105 Polly Toynbee doesn’t support Cameron Shock!
I’m devastated by the news and will really have to consider voting Labour as a result.
105 Indeed, there is currently the whiff of the 2001 Hague Tory party about this lot.
109 Thanks for reposting that CCHQ press release.
Gaz, were you the poster that mentioned that your brother has damaged his hearing while serving in the armed forces?
111. I’m sure Polly will personally provide you with the nosepeg.
Picturing McBean chasing poor Captain Badger round number 10 with a meat cleaver while MandyCampbell is talking to itself and stroking a white persian cat saying “ve hav to get reed ov heem before he destroys us all”.
112.Most of that article was a quote from Peston’s blog on the BBC.
CCHQ press release, now that really would make him smile.
110. It is the thought of 1981-style tories that has lost them the last 3 elections.
11.
Cameron will be devastated by the news that Polly is unimpressed.
105. Gabbl;e MacShane:
“Cameron has blown it: his progressive party is dead”
…writes Polly Toynbee. ‘Nuff said.
117. But Gabble dear, they are talking about comparing this Labour government with the last one. Not good, believe me.
109 If Darling doesn’t give detail then every question will be which taxes will rise, what spending will be cut? fear of the unknown is worse than knowing.
If he does then it’ll be interesting to see how/if markets respond and how the public does.
Notice Gordon’s message has changed to “it would be an even deeper recession without these actions”
even deeper?
When the public expectation from polls is that “he’s leading us out of recession” not sure a message “I’m leading you into a horrible mess, it could be worse but you have tax rises to look forward to” is really that attractive. But then some will continue to look to nurse Brown for comfort for a while yet.
Remember this?
“Thus it is the social commentator Polly Toynbee, rather than Sir Winston Churchill who supplies imagery that is more appropriate for Conservative social policy in the 21st century.”
David Cameron
Make of this what you will:-
” A relatively good source (ie indirectly a Labour PPC) tells me they have been put on alert for an early election.
The plan seems to be a big giveaway in terms of tax reductions for people on low incomes in the PBR on Monday, to be followed by the introduction of a 50% tax rate for people earning over £60k after the election. “
113, yes
122. Gabble MacShane.
Note he talks about “imagery”, not “opinion” or “thoughts” (assuming you know what a thought is).
122 Nice one Gabble!
As regards the GE Seats market, the next significant movement in the polls (assuming there is such a movement any time soon) is quite difficult to call, yet if this were to show a continuing trend in Labour’s favour, IMHO there could be some rich pickings to be made.
This results from the spread betting markets seemingly being incredibly slow in picking up on a significant reversal in public opinion - this was certainly the case in the Q4 period last year, when despite the Tories remarkable recovery in the polls which continued well into 2008, the GE Seats market reacted as if they didn’t really believe what was happening in front of their eyes.
It’s the same now - Mike’s mid-point averaging of the spread-betting prices at the top of this thread shows that Labour are approximately 20 seats to the good and the Tories are about 20 seats worse off compared with the equivalent spread-betting prices when the Tories were showing an average lead over Labour of 18%-20% prior to the party conferences in September.
The real impact of such a 10%-12% decline in the Tory lead is actually vast, in excess of 100 sears, showing once again that this particular betting market, at least, is lagging way behind events.
So, lets look at the three “what if” scenarios - should the Tories recover somewhat, by increasing their average poll lead to a 10%-13% level, the view may well be that the Brown bounce has stalled and the spread prices are likely to reflect this by marking the Tories up 10 seats and Labour down 10 seats.
Were Labour to consolidate their position in the polls, by showing a support level of between 4%-7% behind the Tories, their position on the spreads is likely to improve further by between 10-15 seats over the next few weeks as the market continues to catch up with events.
If however Labour are shown to be between 0%-4% of the Tories, I can see their spread price going up by between 15-30 seats in short order. I won’t even attempt to speculate on what might be the impact were Labour to actually lead in the polls.
In summary, therefore, because the market is seriously lagging events, the short term upside on buying Labour GE Seats (or selling Tory seats)appears to be significantly greater than Buying Tory seats (or selling Labour seats). Of course, looking further ahead may well prove to be an entirely different matter.
121.Ted, you wonder what other nasties are coming up fast on the horizon?
122.Gabble, you should produce some evidence on that one, I think you have mixed up Cameron with another Tory MP?
123.Well, watch the 60-100,000 income group leg it out of the UK. It really would be complete madness, and the final straw as Labour flushed the future of our economy away.
Just doing a YouGov poll:
esearch has found that some supermarkets regularly:
Confirm the quantity of an order with less than 24 hours notice and then fine or charge the supplier if less than 100% of the final order is delivered
Hold suppliers responsible for ’shrinkage’ (i.e. theft in supermarket’s shop or warehouse or a data entry mistakes by the retailer)
Make retrospective to changes to contract terms (i.e. paying less than was originally agreed)
Charge suppliers for each customer complaint irrespective of whether the complaint is the supplier’s or the supermarket’s fault
Do you think these practices are…?
Acceptable
Unacceptable
Don’t know
Not a leading question at all!
124.Gaz, get him to contact the British Legion. Also, I noticed that Malcolm Bruce the Libdem MP for Gordon might be worth contacting too.
He is the Chair of the Parliamentary committee on Deafness, IIRC, he raised a question recently at Defence questions on this issue.
It might help?
123 “to be followed by the introduction of a 50% tax rate for people earning over £60k after the election. “
Bad plan. Law of diminishing returns. That’s most of the middle England vote gone then. And watch migration leap as the ‘Brain Drain’ kicks up a gear.
Swathes of businesses are relocating to countries with more favourable corporate tax regimes (see WPP, Shire, Shell etc) Private individuals will follow.
128 I think Gordon is beginning to realise that he can’t recreate his economic fantasy world just by ordering the banks to return to what they were doing in July 2007. Perhaps some doubts arose last weekend when he was peripheral at G20?
There are serious shocks in the economy still to be delivered - and he’s becoming aware of them.
For a light hearted which aligns take on my view of Gordon I recommend the Daily Mash
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/britain-now-the-drunk-woman-at-a-party-200811201409/
Particularly liked “Then she flirts pathetically with that really cool guy that’s just arrived before striding into the kitchen and telling everyone he fancies her but don’t say anything to him because he’ll just deny it.” - Gordon & Barack to a T
131. Thanks for the info, but my brother, unlike me, does not like to cause a fuss, and little doubt that any kind of complaint would result in his final year or so in the forces being absolute misery.
129. I find your scepticism interesting and revealing.
“Anger at Cameron’s endorsement of Toynbee”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1534943/Anger-at-Cameron’s-endorsement-of-Toynbee.html
127 Disclosure - Since posting above I’ve bought Labour GE Seats.
127. “should the Tories recover somewhat, by increasing their average poll lead to a 10%-13% level.”
British general elections are usually a lot closer than that in terms of the vote. Something everyone should bear in mind…
1945 -7.6
1950 -3.8
1951 -1.6
1955 1.9
1959 4.2
1964 -1.9
1966 -7.4
1970 2.3
1974F 0.8
1974O -3.5
1979 7.1
1983 15.2
1987 11.8
1992 7.6
1997 -12.8
2001 -9.3
2005 -3.0
( - sign = a Labour lead )
Only 3 out of 17 elections since 1945 have seen a lead for either party in excess of 10% [1983, 1987, 1997]…
Any FTSE news for us, Gabble?
135.Gabble, the link doesn’t work. And, no offence, but I genuinely remember the stir it caused at the time and the confusion. It was IIRC a less well known Cabinet Minister that you refer to. If I am wrong, apologies. But IIRC, it required smelling salts to administered to some Tory supporters.
For the last 11 years, the way that the Government has operated is to attack whoever is opposing them immediately and then move on. The aim is that by the time it unravels the media have lost interest and since they don’t do apologies, the story is forgotten, but the public remember the initial Labour party comments. This was well illustrated last week when the television channels/ Sundays ran “breach of convention” stories against Osborne, but by Tuesday the view of the commentariat was that there was no such convention, it was entirely appropriate for the Osborne to make these comments and the value of Sterling was an issue.
Given this past pattern of behaviour what is going on currently with the leaks in Robinson’s and Peston’s blogs? If this is expectation management then it is a very peculiar type since it’s so extreme. If it’s not that bad, these two will be made to look foolish. If it is that bad then there is no room for the Government to maneuver. The ‘fixing the roof when the sun shone” narrative comes back into play immediately together with other hostages to fortune.
The Labour party can only succeed by having all past sins wiped clean and the media narrative to be solely about how to fix the present. Every time the media recall who said what in the past, earlier forecasts and claims, the historical comparisons, then the public is reminded who has been in Government.
PfP I agree with many of your comments on this blog, but I think we are in for a period of volatility in the polls as the public starts to realise how bad the economic situation is.
134.Wait until after he has left, and it would not surprise me if there was not already a pressure group formed and working on this.
Its been a long standing problem going back years, someone will be fighting the case.
133.Ted, that is a classic! Richard Littlejohn was also funny today.
139. You can cut and paste it or try this:
http://tinyurl.com/5fo267
141/134 Article in the Times on this recently.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article5042891.ece
Royal British Legion probably best if he wants to wait until he leaves Army.
140 Namesake - I agree, but it’s volatility that generates profits on spread bets (as well as LOSSES!)
Spreads are certainly not for the faint-hearted, should be monitored continually and should be restricted in size to the level a punter can comfortably afford to lose, assuming a worst case result.
143.
You’re showing yourself up, Gabble MacShane.
From that artince:
A spokesman for Mr Cameron said he would be speaking “in the same territory” as Greg Clark, one of his policy advisers who yesterday said that the party should ditch its Churchillian ideas about the welfare state in favour of some of the progressive views advanced by Toynbee.
Mr Clark, the MP for Tunbridge Wells, wrote in a policy paper that Sir Winston Churchill’s system of a welfare “safety net” that rescued the poorest in society from starvation was “out of date”.
He said the party should accept that poverty was “relative” rather than absolute and that governments had a duty to ensure the poorest were not just caught in the net but offered constructive routes out of it as well.
“If those furthest back fall too far behind, they cease to be part of the whole,” he said. “Similarly if the poorest people in this country fall too far behind those further up the income scale, our society will pull apart.
“Thus it is the social commentator Polly Toynbee, rather than Sir Winston Churchill who supplies imagery that is more appropriate for Conservative social policy in the 21st century.”
The quote was not from David Cameron.
Game over. Try again?
146. LS (& ChristinaD)
Apologies - you’re right, it wasn’t a direct quote from Cameron. I got a bit carried away with the headline.
However, it still demonstrates that Cameron and the tories were quite happy to associate themselves with her when they were trying to portray themselves as a ‘progressive’ party. Many of us knew this was a lie at the time - it’s right that their hypocrisy is exposed.
Some more from the tories’ ex-hero:
“But Cameron and Osborne don’t get it, as they return to Thatcher’s handbag economics. There is virtually no respectable support for their view anywhere. Rightwing governments, sober international institutions, all are for borrowing and spending. Alone in their clear blue water, Britain’s Conservatives perch on their melting ice floe.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/22/david-cameron-thatcherite-politics-osborne
Just hearing on Sky News about a girl who survived four months without a heart.
Don’t know why that’s making the news, Gordon Brown has survived at least eleven years without one.
“Many of us knew this was a lie at the time…”
Funny, I’m thinking the exact same thing about Labour’s claims regarding the so-called ’similarity’ of the passport and ID card databases.
Redwood advises the tories not to vote against the PBR. The hypocrisy is simply breathtaking.
‘The question now facing the party is how to vote after Monday’s pre-budget report. Redwood says this is of no significance. “My advice to the party is that we should not oppose tax cuts because we are in the party in favour of tax cuts. But we should make it very clear that when voting for the tax cuts we would do them in a different way from how the government will do them.” And if the government finance its tax cuts through borrowing? “Well, I would not expect the Tory party to vote against the government. But it probably makes no difference anyway.”‘
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/nov/22/david-cameron-conservatives
“The influential National Institute for Political and Economic Research (NIESR) says that a £15billion tax cut package could add as much as 0.4 per cent back to economic output next year, easing the depth of the slump.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1088442/Darling-plans-15bn-lifeline-tax-cutting-spectacular.html
137. British general elections are usually a lot closer than that in terms of the vote. Something everyone should bear in mind…
1945 -7.6
1950 -3.8
1951 -1.6
1955 1.9
1959 4.2
1964 -1.9
1966 -7.4
1970 2.3
1974F 0.8
1974O -3.5
1979 7.1
1983 15.2
1987 11.8
1992 7.6
1997 -12.8
2001 -9.3
2005 -3.0
( - sign = a Labour lead )
Only 3 out of 17 elections since 1945 have seen a lead for either party in excess of 10% [1983, 1987, 1997]
But if you define “close” in terms of 7% rather than 10%, then you find that 6 out of the last 7 elections have not been close, and 2 out of the previous 10 were close. What does that prove? That a two-party system produces close results? That a three/four-party system is more volatile? Or neither?
416. I have a policy that if anyone was a communist at any point in their life they have shown a serious flaw in their character that lends them to believe totalitarianism is ok
Your premise is catastrophically and fundamentally flawed. I have never meat a communist who has ever said or suggested or implied that totalitarianism is “OK”, and totlaitarianism is the opposite of what communism aims for.
459. What is surprising, almost frightening, is the sheer speed of its growth since 1990.
Growth in China has been an average of 9.0% p.a. since 1978. From 1952 to 1978 it was an average of 6.7% p.a. So much for being “laid waste by Maoism”.
I recently discovered that Polly Toynbee’s real name is Mary Louisa Toynbee. If she changed it to “Polly”, why doesn’t she go the whole way and call herself “Polly Potty”?
PfP @ 127.That was the perfect post and you make so many good points I will just highlight the most obscure.
You do so well to refer back to the antics of the Spreads in Q4 2008.After the dust had settled and it was clear there was going to be no GE in 2008 the market was in a state of shock.
Although the Parties were about level on betfair the Spreads had the Tories twenty points lower than Labour.Essentially that is when I started to make inroads.
In the rest of your post you sum up the current situation perfectly if a trifle belatedly.
Well done with your Buy of Labour !
Sleeping odd hours at the moment as I try to shake off a nasty bug. At the moment, I think that polls aren’t going to be much help to us in assessing the situation. The PBR next week and responses to it will be important; anything before that, probably not (even if it shows a Labour lead or 10% Tory lead, though my guess would be a lead in the 5-9 range this week).
Redwood’s comment that the Tories should vote for the tax cuts ‘while making it clear’ that they favour doing them differently is interesting. There are high stakes all round on this, and for once it actually matters how the Tories vote. Since people don’t by and large study Hansard, the only point they’ll register (if they notice at all) is whether the Opposition supported them or not.
If they do, the next question is whether they will also support (and, if they have the chance, implement) the tax increases or specific spending reductions proposed in the PBR for later, or do Something Else (in which case they’ll be under severe pressure to say exactly what). Saying, “Oh, we’ll have to see when the time comes” won’t cut it - the other parties will simply sketch out spending cut scenarios and impute them to the Tories, who won’t be able to confirm or deny.