The blues move to a 13 point lead with ComRes
October 26th, 2009
CON 40%(nc)
LAB 27%(-1)
LD 18%(-1)
And just five more people say they are voting BNP
Possibly the most significant number in tonight’s Comres poll for the Independent is the share for the BNP after the massive focus on the party last week in the run-up to the fieldwork.
All sorts of figures were being bandied about over the possible effect and yet the share only moves up from 1% ten days ago to 2% - and a lot of that is down to rounding. The mid-October poll had 8 respondees saying BNP - tonight’s survey has that at 13.
Apart from that the story remains gloomy for Labour with all the polls in the past week showing downward shifts. It seems they are stuck in the 20s with not much sign at the moment that they are moving out.
Yet Cameron’s party doesn’t seem to be getting the benefit and is still on 40% - which isn’t comfortable enough.
Mike Smithson
MessageSpace Advertising
Independent ComRes
Conservative 40 (NC)
Labour 27 (-1)
Liberal Democrat 18 (-1)
Other 15 (+2)
All within MOE although it would be interesting to see a break down of ‘others’ for obvious reasons.
ComedyResult still overstating Labour.
Others seems very high at 15%- still a poor poll for Labour and Brown.
What I would like to know is a breakdown of where Labour are getting its 27$ from. Is there any firm analysis of Labour “support”
MOE. Yawn.
Still, it’s good that the BNP bounce is very small. I was fearing something a lot worse.
Interesting to compare to the ComRes poll of exactly a year ago
Con 39 (+1)
Lab 31 (-4)
Lib Dems 16 (+2)
Others 14 (+1)
I love how Mark Senior keeps trying to make out Conservatives were disappointed with the PH Mega Marginals poll. As though a survey of 33,000+ people, six months before the election, pointing towards a 60+ Conservative majority is something to be upset about.
6 - TSE: Clegg is DOOMED!
8 - Possibly.
I wonder how many Labour cabinet ministers are looking at these results and wishing they’d found the backbone to do something about Brown 6-8 months ago.
re 6. It’s not really possible to make a year on comparisons with ComRes. The firm had a major methodology change in June 2009.
The most interesting political story of today is in the States.
Harry Reid, according to reports, is actually pushing for a ‘opt-out’ public option - much better for America than the ‘trigger’ public option which would never actually get triggered.
Reportedly, elements in the White House (probably code for Rahm Emanuel rather than Obama himself) were pushing for the trigger because it would get Olympia Snowe’s vote, and would therefore be ‘bipartisan’ - but according to Senator Durbin of Illinois, the Senate progressives would have filibustered any such legislation.
That is quite astonishing. Reid, to date, has been the most gutless and weak leader possible. Pelosi, on the other hand, is a real star operator.
The sole remaining Senators in the Democratic caucus who may not vote for cloture seem to be Blanche Lincoln and Ben Nelson. Landrieu, Lieberman, Conrad and Bayh all seem to have committed to vote yes on cloture.
6. Interesting that ComRes had a high Others total last year, before the expense’s stuff.
I suspect one of the reasons ICM is so sucessful with general elections is that their methodology not only gets a very accurate total for the Lib-Dems, but seems to always have the Others lower as well, which is usually what happens at general elections.
BNP hysteria overplayed.
They’re now on the way down from 2%
MTF - What I would like to know is a breakdown of where Labour are getting its 27$ from. Is there any firm analysis of Labour “support”
Ethnics
Guardianistas
Public sector non-jobbers
Layabouts
Scots
‘Our family’s always been Labour, they’re the party of the working class’
People can belong to more than one category.
And one rich farmer with too much spare time.
One question that pollsters are not asking us is ‘do we want Blair as EU president’?
Re my post at 12
And Ben Nelson seems to be making conciliatory noises.
If Lincoln is really the sole remaining Democrat she will certainly not join the Republicans in a filibuster. She is likely to lose her re-election bid whatever happens - but she will definitely do so if she is the sole Democratic opposition the most significant Democratic legislation in decades.
Besides, no-one remembers procedural votes in the long run. She can still vote against the final bill - and probably will. But that is irrelevant, there are easily 50 votes for that.
12 Wibbler. If Reid can get and keep the votes, that is indeed big news. Not necessarily good news for the Democrats in the 2010 elections, though.
Also of interest is what this does to the popularity of Olympia Snowe (and maybe Susan Collins). They are Republican senators in Maine, one of the bluest states. The public option is very popular there.
It is definitely possible that one of the two will vote for cloture - possibly after amendments are offered to help save face. This is probably unlikely, though, as Olympia Snowe had seemed to draw her line in the sand at the trigger.
6 - Yes, Mike you’re right about that.
Perhaps the comparison to ICM might be more useful. As I think we’re 4 weeks after the conference season. When the polls have settled down.
ICM/Guardian of 2009-10-18 showed a difference from a year before.
Con 44 (+2)
Lab 27 (-3)
Lib Dem 18 (-3)
Others 11 (+4)
FPT 248 TimT
I would like to think I believed in free markets, but I don’t. I think they are based on upscaling a nice simple concept - that if Mr A bakes nicer cheaper pies than Mr B Mr B ups his quality and drops his price, hurray! - farther than it will upscale, because 1. we are better judges of pies than of banking products, 2. even at the pie making level Mr A and Mr B do better out of cooperating and price-fixing than out of competing.
Bryant making a fool of himself on Newsnight.
21 - That’s news?
On Newsnight, somebody shut the leftie up…”We must support a British candidate”..
Perhaps Austria should support Joerg Haider, or Adolf Hitler.
Perhaps Britain should support Peter Sutcliffe or Tony Blair.
17 TimT
I’m not sure about that. I suspect Democrats will lose Senate seats in 2010 but I certainly wouldn’t ascribe that to healthcare - more a natural anti-incumbency move. The 2010 elections will be driven by turnout, and Republicans will almost tautologically be more enthused to go and vote. These soft checks and balances form part of the genius of the way the American political system is designed… I can’t imagine that healthcare will be the straw which breaks the camel’s back for many.
On healthcare itself, the Republicans have allowed the Limbaugh/Palin faction to dominate the discussion - and this has hurt them badly. The public option is pretty popular in purple states. Only the reddest of red states will have enough people sufficiently angry - but they are in the wrong place!
The public option itself won’t start for a few years - but I understand there are other elements of the healthcare bill, centred around reductions in premiums and pre-existing conditions, which kick in before the 2010 Senate elections.
Chris Bryant says that its amazing that Tories do not want a British EU president.
Huh - pardon me - why should we want to support a socialist.
Bryant was instrumental in removing Brown as PM (the leader of his own party) - now he wants to foist Blair on Europe.
Bryant talking through his underpants on Newsnight. His whacky bracer forced of the road by Muttley.
Re my post at 24
Also, if Reid delivers on healthcare, he will hugely improve his own re-election chances in Nevada… Self interest is a very good motivator!
…”We must support a British candidate”..
Logically then he should tell English voters to vote for a party with an English leader.
Yes, wibbler. Reid finally finding some spine could (with the emphasis on could) save him his seat in Nevada.
Other big news of the night is Pawlenty backing the Conservative Party’s candidate in New York.
20 Private enterprise works better than any alternative that people have tried.
21 Does he ever do anything else?
FPT 282 I don’t think there is the remotest prospect of the Lib Dems winning Exeter next year. That’s a definite Conservative/Labour battle.
After seeing the picture from that website, everytime i see Bryant on telly now i picture him with white Y-fronts on his head.
I cannot believe labour are trying to push the patriotic card over europe!!! just how stupid do they think we are? and bryant? quite possibly the worst lab politian ever. He loses votes by the second!!!
Though on a serious note, could the tories use a blair presidency as a reason to pull out from the EU? Id like to see the lib dems talk there way out of that one, after all in there eyes the EU would be ruled by a war criminal!!
And also, this talk of significance about the president of the EU, surely this undermines labours arguement about the insignificance of the eu treaty?? I think labour have once again mucked up!
“ICM/Guardian of 2009-10-18 showed a difference from a year before.
Con 44 (+2)
Lab 27 (-3)
Lib Dem 18 (-3)
Others 11 (+4)”
In an electorate of 45m with a turnout of 60% that means Labour will expect 810,000 fewer votes than this time last year. If we assume Gordon Brown has had twenty relaunches since this time last year, that’s -40,500 votes per relaunch.
As I said a while ago, you can’t relaunch a turd.
If the BNP have gone up one percentage point, then leaving aside the effects of rounding, on the face of it they’ve registered a 100 per cent increase in support.
No David Cameron would be forced into a swift and humiliating retreat on Europe if he wins power, according to one of the elder statesmen from the last Conservative Government.
Lord Heseltine, the former Deputy Prime Minister, predicts that Mr Cameron will have to rejoin the European People’s Party (EPP) soon after the election. He is understood to have warned the party leadership at a private meeting last week that its currently Eurosceptic stance would be deeply damaging to Britain’s foreign policy interests. He suggested that the Conservative leader would inevitably have to “reach an accommodation” with the EPP — even though that would be extremely difficult to achieve without losing face and enraging party activists. story here.
And in the same article
A woman Tory candidate faces the threat of deselection today in the latest sign of a growing grassroots’ backlash against Mr Cameron’s efforts to make his party select more women.
Elizabeth Truss was picked to fight the safe Tory seat of Norfolk South West by local Conservatives on Saturday. But the 34-year-old has been summoned to an emergency meeting to answer criticism that she failed to disclose an 18-month affair with a Conservative MP, Mark Field. She said she had always been open about her past.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6891343.ece
Its a non story.
”We must support a British candidate”..
The leftie was saying that a British president is racialy preferable to a Maltese president, or a Polish President, or Romanian President.
Sounds racist. Someone should ask the Commission for Equality and Human Rights to get involved.
29 and he has an almost unassailable majority as well. Is he popular with his constituency party?
More disgusting Pole bashing by Labour on Newsnight. Racist scum.
Is Chris Bryant the biggest prick in Labour? Tough task - they’ll all a bunch of big pricks.
As Hague said, making Blair EU President would be a “hostile act” (love the language, Billy) against the UK and its people.
If the EU Superstate doesn’t want the most eurosceptic government probably ever elected causing havoc with their undemocratic project next year, it better go with the Tory flow on this.
30 On the basis that the worst is best, I wonder if there would be considerable advantage in Blair getting the job. It would annoy a lot of people in this country, and alienate them still further from the EU.
28. Sean Fear
“I don’t think there is the remotest prospect of the Lib Dems winning Exeter next year. That’s a definite Conservative/Labour battle.”
Although its a place where the Conservatives would probably benefit from a big LibDem effort. As in Norwich South and Brighton Pavilion if the Conservatives get over 30% they will probably win as the ‘leftist’ vote will be split between Labour, LibDems and Greens.
33 In the words of Christine Keeler “he would say that, wouldn’t he?”
30 Yes. A Blair Presidency will result in Britain leaving the EU.
If Britain leaves, the EU will disintergrate.
38 I doubt if there’s a significant Green vote at Parliamentary level in Exeter. It’s not a typical university city, in that it has a much stronger Conservative vote than most do.
33. Tim - this is the same Michael Heseltine who:
- knifed Margaret Thatcher
- wants us to join the euro
- supported the Millenium Dome
- wanted us to join the ERM in 1990?
He has been wrong about just about everything ever, and is fundamentally out of sympathy with David Cameron’s Conservative Party. Can’t you find somebody better to quote? It would be like me quoting Tony Benn as a voice of the Labour Party.
My friendly advice to the Tories would be to keep Osborne and Hague well hidden till the general election votes are being counted.
If there is a consolation for Labour it’s that they are at rock bottom and the Tories at their zenith. So there’s only one way for each party to travel!
tim
How much influence do you really think Heseltine has over Conservative MPs, activists, members, supporters and voters?
40.
One can only dream, Ken.
43. Um, Labour have polled lower than this and the Tories have polled higher.
35. Doubt it, but also doubt it’ll matter where he is.
Wow, bryant was really bad on newsnight. Mark Francois by contrast always does well, pointing out that bryant had signed the letter to get rid of Tony in the first place sent bryant into a tirade of personal abuse which Kirsty Wark went along with by repeating the accusations. Classy.
Francois is a very good demagogue and I hope he is promoted. He is rarely bested even with a tough brief.
43 Alas, I don’t think Labour are at rock-bottom.
FPT Unbelieveable performance on Newsnight from Chris Bryant advocating Blair as Pres of Europe and ignoring the actions he took to oust Blair as PM of UK. Hypocrite?
Kirsty (of course) spent most of her time attacking the Conservative rep.
“So there’s only one way for each party to travel!”
Sing ‘Things can only get better’ to us.
So if Nick Griffin was a candidate to be EU President. Labour would support his candidature because he’s British?
39 These were actually the words of Mandy Rice-Davies.
Seth Gillette “Is Chris Bryant the biggest prick in Labour?”
Not from what we have seen in those underpants.
20 Constan Treader. I acknowledge that markets have faults, price and market fixing being one of them, public goods, public bads, non-actuarial issues, natural monopolies and information imbalances being yet others. But I have yet to be convinced we have anything better, and every other major economic real world experiment seen to date has been a lot worse.
52 One was a long legged liar who hung around traitors
and the other was a female prostitute.
tim - are you feeling OK?
I just can’t believe you have nothing to share with us about the nondeselection of Eleanor Laing.
51. A better and more comparable example is Thatcher circa 1994. Would the Labour party have supported her as British president of Europe?
Like Blair now, she was a world famous politician, controversial at home and abroad, but also widely respected and admired - especially in America.
Of course the f*cking putrid lefties would have chucked a mental at the very idea of Thatcher losing power in Britain, only to come back to lord it over them - unelected - as EU prez. They would have resisted it totally.
So it’s pure hypocrisy from Labour. Colour me unstaggered. Blair won’t get it anyway, cause of Tory hostility. I reckon some Frenchy will sneak up on the inside. They always do.
From the BBC:
“South Korea’s economy grew between July and September at its fastest quarterly rate since the first quarter of 2002.
The Bank of Korea said that gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 2.9% in the third quarter compared with the previous three months.
It grew 0.6% compared with the same period last year, ending a run of three consecutive quarters of negative year-on-year growth.”
Newsnights economics correspondent just neatly shown why banks are taking us for a ride.
Getting money cheap from the taxpayer and lending it to allegedly uncreditworthy sources (us) at a premium.
Easy money and the the bastard barrow boy bankers want to pay themselves bonuses.
Go get ‘em George.
56. Nah, it’ll be some milquetoast Dane or Luxembourgeois that only three people have ever heard of.
48 personal abuse which Kirsty Wark went along with by repeating
Kirsty Wark is Labour. Scottish Labour ministers stay at her house.
27 - Reid is in big trouble in Nevada, possibly terminal.
The national polls on health care show:
1) vast majority favor ‘health care reform’ in general terms
2) a majority are now against ‘Obamacare’ in general terms, whatever it may turn out to be.
The more the public find out about ‘obamacare’, the less they like it. The more Obama speaks about health care reform, the less the public like it.
The reason one has to say ‘Obamacare’ is there is no definition of what it is yet, although it is becoming clearer.
One of the wheezes being put forward by the Dems is to just say “OK, we’ll not put a specific cost on ‘Obamacare’, we’ll just add it to the national debt, thus reducing the cost of ‘Obamacare’”
The Repubs did the same thing on several issues, but that doesn’t make it right.
I am non-partisan on this: it doesn’t affect me and I have no axe to grind.
43. Given your record that means the Tories should get Osborne and Hague on the tele every day between now and the election.
Looks like Labour MP’s are revolting….over the idea of Blair as el President
Labour MPs join Tories in opposing ‘President Blair’
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6891395.ece
56. LOL! Sean Fear, congratulations on a classic post.
56 SeanT
And Thatcher as President is what the EU really needs today.
If nothing else it would strain Hague’s loyalties to the breaking point!
More hilarity in the Norfolk Truss Field.
http://www.wattonandswaffhamtimes.co.uk/content/wstimes/news/story.aspx?brand=WSOnline&category=news&tBrand=WSOnline&tCategory=news&itemid=NOED26%20Oct%202009%2010%3A31%3A48%3A107
From the BBC:
“The final piano is being made at the UK’s last piano maker after nearly 100 years of production.
Over 350,000 upright and grand pianos have been made at Kemble and Co in Milton Keynes since it opened in 1911.
Main shareholder Yamaha announced its decision to close the Bletchley factory in April. It is transferring production to Asia, with the loss of 90 jobs.”
Gordon Brown the factory shutter.
Wibbler. I live in Maryland. There are strong passions on either side of the debate. Anyone in Hagerstown for the town meeting could not deny that there are many even in Maryland, the Bluest of Blue states, who are strongly against health care reform. And it was not just rent a crowd, it was my neighbors.
My wife worked at NIH and since in numerous hospitals and surgery centres, as an anesthesiologist (anaesthetist in the UK). There is much unreported unhappiness within healthcare professionals with the proposals - a group which has probably broken democratic by a comfortable margin in the past. And that sector is 1/6 of the economy by value, probably more by employment.
66. Watton and Swaffham Times? Bloody Murdoch rags.
Here is a picture of Chris Bryant.
http://orderorder.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/9f4919b48e584b5f404070501883ffdf_RhonddaMPChrisBryant.jpg
This person would tell British people what is good for them.
Kate Hoey, the Labour MP for Vauxhall, said that she did not want “anyone to be president of Europe”.
Similarly, Ian Davidson , the Labour MP for Glasgow Southwest, said he still hoped for a referendum in Britain and that the position of president of Europe “will not be created”.
So, Labour isn’t all 100% prick-dom them. Two have a backbone.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6891395.ece
how is the EU president chosen?? does it need the unaminous backing of all countries?
55 - Eleanor Laing?
Who knows, its all a secret.
Cleared by Daves scrutiny panel but coughed up £25k for something which Dave has kept secret and she describes as a “moral gesture”.
Ah! If only the Scottish sub sample had any meaning (which on a weighted sample of 65, they don’t). Baxter would give
SNP 38 : Lab 8 : Con 6 : LD 6 on the Com-Res sample.
:-) 
O/T
The World’s Greatest Money Maker: Evan Davis meets Warren Buffett
The most remarkable hour’s worth on TV this year imho. Do watch it on iplayer if you missed it.
“If Britain leaves, the EU will disintergrate”
Only a Tory could have written this and believed it!
43. Roger “If there is a consolation for Labour it’s that they are at rock bottom and the Tories at their zenith. So there’s only one way for each party to travel!”
I have just looked at several of your blogs over past year and so far the indications are your forecasting results are poor. I suggest you think more carefully before making such stupid comments or at least back them up with a logical argument.
76 - I believe Gordon Brown and Tony Blair used to say the same thing, around 1983, you know when they campaigned on a platform to withdraw from the EU.
76. I couldn’t really care less what happens to the EU. As long as we’re out of it, I’m not fussed to be honest.
68 - TimT I’m in Georgia, and I echo your comments. I went to 2 town meetings over the summer, one Republican and one democrat. The opposition was real and not a rentacrowd.
Most people who have health insurance - over 2/3 the last poll I saw - were happy with it and don’t want it messed with.
The assurances - repeated today - that health care will be cheaper, higher quality, and universal just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
There is a ‘credibility gap’ developing between the administration and the country over this.
80 - sorry, should be Democrat.
76 Why, Roger?
It seems highly likely to me that if Britain - or indeed any significant member - were to leave, it would be start of a more general exodus.
The obvious candidates to exit would be those who, without our contributions (increased by Blair in return for nothing), found themselves net contributors for the first time.
Last time I looked only Britain and Germany were net contributors. Don’t know if that’s changed but I’d be quite surprised if it had.
Once EU membership became a cost rather than a freebie I think enthusiasm for it would seep away like…I don’t know, something that seeps away quite quickly.
79.
Agree completely.
If I were Cammo, I’d just ignore the EU as PM. Just completely ignore it. “The UK does not recognise undemocratic, underhand cabals that seek to exert their influence over soverign peoples etc etc”
What could the EU do about it. Merkel, Sarkozy and Berlusconi throwing their toys out of the pram? Oooh, scary!
A relatively large movement in SPIN’s Brown and Out market today.
Now at 1000-1010, up 20 since yesterday I believe, and up 30 since the low point a couple of days ago (when PtP was selling…).
It looks as though punters, on SPIN at least, think Brown is here to stay.
76 - As a teenager I lived in Spain in the 1960s. It was a very poor country. I spent a couple of weeks driving through southern Spain 4 years ago, and the number of new roads, developments, bull rings etc was quite extraordinary - the place has been transformed.
It was good to see, but the source of the funds is probably the UK and Germany.
How does the development of southern Spain help the taxpayers of the UK and Germany? Therein lies the whole EU problem.
83 Seth Gillette. Leaving the EU would not be no cost. The vast majority of our trade is with EU countries. Being on the outside means that you don’t get to help set the rules. Microsoft has shown how valuable having the inside track to the code can be. That said, being on the outside is not insurmountable either, as Switzerland shows. But just ignoring Europe really isn’t an option. I’m all for playing hardball on Lisbon, with repatriation of money and powers backed up with a credible threat to leave if we don’t get our way.
Ken Wasabi. “Kirsty Wark is Labour. Scottish Labour ministers stay at her house”
How sinister! I think you should get to know Francis. You have a lot in common!
84. URW - where did your poll of PBers end up on the ‘will he last until the GE or not’?
83. Yes, quite.
Just stop paying in on the grounds that’s its corrupt. Nothing will happen. What can they do? Nothing.
As someone so percipiently put it on the previous thread, Thatcher had lots of EU enemies and got a huge great rebate, while Blair bent over for them and all he achieved was to give much of it back.
Cammo’s strategy should be oderint dum metuant. His demands for a repatriation of sovereignty, and for Blair to be put on trial in the Hague for war crimes, should be accompanied by a threat to hold a UK-wide referendum on secession unless they play ball.
Those Eurob1tches will give him anything, literally anything, to prevent that.
86 - could we not have trading agreements with the EU, rather than political integration?
30 - I believe the vile Sion Simon is the worst Labour politician ever.
Being on the outside means that you don’t get to help set the rules.
So does being on the inside.
Countries that aren’t in the EU and are doing very well economically:
- USA
- Japan
- Singapore
- China
QED.
70. And here’s a picture of Hague.
http://www2.jpscotland.co.uk/steamie/uploaded_images/william-hague-with-baseball-cap-716155.jpg
I used to like Wacky Races as a kid. Dastardly and Muttley were my heroes. Muttley in fact was a subversive gem. So nothing wrong being called that. (Someone else whom saw Newsnight can explain).
So who is Bryant? Penelope Pitstop?
Ed and Dave are the Slag Brothers.
Ed and Yvette are the Gruesome Twosome
Brown and Darling are Sergeant Blast and Private Meekly
and
the entire PLP are The Ant Hill Mob.
Now who do you think Peter Perfect might be??
92 as a brit ex-pat in the USA. we’re doing OK….
90 Tim B (Not the other one) I guess that’s my thrust with repatriation of powers - a return to the principle of subsidiarity (decision making powers pushed down to the lowest sensible level of government rather than the highest) and re-emphasis on free trade (removal of both tariff and non-tariff barriers) rather than politics.
‘whom’ is a typo BTW
At this point I feel like launching into ” ‘who’ is on first ‘what’ is on second and ‘I don’t know’ is on third …. ” but I think I’ll go to bed instead.
90. Yes, it’s called being a Norway or Switzerland. Works for them, why not us?
89. I agree with you about what Cameron’s strategy should be. However, I’d like my Cameron to be more dishonest than yours! He should threaten the referendum if he does not receive repatriation of sovereignty or Blair be put on trial in the Hague for war crimes etc. But if his conditions are met, he shoud then hold the referendum anyway!
Roger
Will you display the photo of Blair wearing a straw boater please?
Or your hero Miliband with a banana?
92 John B You really believe the US doesn’t get to help set the rules of the EU? To do it from the outside, though, you need to be much bigger than the UK.
I don’t argue that it is impossible to be successful on the outside - I cited Switzerland, the ultimate outsider. I just pointed out that ignoring the EU would not be no cost.
93. I’d still sooner be bald, wearing a cagoul and have Seb Coe up my backside than be Chris Bryant.
61 - Back from Boston now, it’s been good to see real debate on healthcare and now we seem to be getting a much better bill than if it had been pushed through without thought. The opt out is something which personally appeals to me, it allows for voter power and localised democracy and that’s always a good thing as far as I’m concerned.
18 - Snowe is safe in Maine, she is one Republican (with Collins) who gains support from across the aisle.
On the other hand the far right candidate in NY23 being supported by Palin and Pawlenty is a gift to Democrats, it’s like looking at Michael Foot’s labour all over again.
“30 - I believe the vile Sion Simon is the worst Labour politician ever.”
Tom Watson just shades it for me.
Sion Simon
Tom Watson
Steve McCabe
Liam Bryne
Khalid Mahmood
What did the Birmingham area do to deserve this bunch?
104. Vote Labour?
104 another richard. You deserve what you vote for! Hopefully Birmingham will soon have a chance to demonstrate that it has learned the error of its ways…
86
Not at all. We have a massive trade defecit with the EU and put simply in trade terms they need us a lot more than we need them. Bar one year, the last time we had a balance of trade surplus with the EEC/EU was the year before we joined.
The rules on trade are governed by the WTO. As such ther would be little the EU could or would do to prevent us continuing to trade. More impoartnatly we would be free of both the mountains of red tape and the limits and controls on our farming and fishing.
Leaving the EU would be economically and politically advantageous for the UK.
I see Timbot is lying again. Laing wasn’t cleared by Dave’s panel at all (hence the £25k repayment), she was cleared by Legg.
http://www1.sky.com/news/Scrutiny%20Panel%20New%20Repayments.pdf
A quick google returns the following….
Kirsty Wark axed as BBC election night anchor after holidaying with First Minister Jack McConnell at her luxury Spanish Villa.
http://news.scotsman.com/thebbc/Wark-axed-as-BBC-election.2608264.jp
“The well-aired suspicion is that Wark’s intimacy with the Labour-dominated Scottish political establishment has been the passport to riches”
In 2002, Kirsty Wark was paid 10,000£ of taxpayers money for one day of work for VisitScotland.
Her husband is a former influential Labour activist, founding member of Scottish Labour Action.
Wark was asked by Donald Dewar to serve on the panel to chose the architect for the Parliament, original budget of £40 million rose rising to £450 million.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-492360/Kirsty-Wark-bugged-emails-story-WONT-hearing-Newsnight.html
99. Another Richard. Can’t find Blair in a boater but if politicians in fancy dress is your thing…..(or maybe it’s not fancy dress?)
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/08/03/article-1041259-0218A2BE00000578-412_468×703.jpg
clearly the winner of the photo competition is Chris Bryant in his Y-Fronts.
http://orderorder.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/9f4919b48e584b5f404070501883ffdf_RhonddaMPChrisBryant.jpg
Such a beautiful person. He should be a armani y-fronts photo model.
Remember, these are the tpe of people who rule the British people and are responsible for traitorsgate.
clearly the winner of the photo competition is Chris Bryant in his Y-Fronts.
http://orderorder.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/9f4919b48e584b5f404070501883ffdf_RhonddaMPChrisBryant.jpg
Such a beautiful person. He should be a armani y-fronts photo model.
Remember, these are the tpe of people who rule the British people and are responsible for traidorsgate.
107 “We have a massive trade defecit with the EU” Ah! So you mean the EU is subsidising the British consumer?
110
Roger, I am amazed that a man of your abilities is unable to find a picture that popped up almost immediately when I looked for it on google.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23387466-blair-in-a-boater-a-crude-hand-gesture-and-the-class-of-75.do#
Such a credit to the country…
How are the 15% others split between the various parties apart from 2% for the BNP?
112
No TimT I mean that we are forced by the EU to grub up our orchards and throw away our milk, to destroy our farming base whilst quotas force us to import mik, apples and other produce from other EU countries.
The EU adds to the cost to the consumer, not reduces it.
# 111
You’ve put me off my Ovaltine now.
When are the tories going to up their game? I saw Osborne on Channel 4 News and he still looks like an overgrown schoolboy. Perhaps if he loosened up a bit that would help because his delivery is tense.
Really they need someone with a personality on their front bench, more like William Hague. I’ll be shot down in flames now.
114. Andy JS.
http://www.comres.co.uk/systems/file_download.aspx?pg=511&ver=1
Published VI figures are on page 22.
Green 5
UKIP 3
SNP 3
BNP 2
PC <1
Oth 2
114 Andy JS
It’s not 15% for others, it’s 13% (rounding effects)
Green 4% : SNP 3% : UKIP 3% : BNP 2% : others 1%
116. subrosa: When are the tories going to up their game?
I would respectfully draw your attention to OGH’s lead article in this thread…
On this ComRes poll, can we finally kill off any idea of regional subsamples meaning anything?
Scotland:
SNP 32
Con 24
Lab 22
LD 10
Oth 12
Tories ahead of Labour in Scotland? Laughable.
118. oldnat.
I think you may be looking at the wrong table? (Unless I’m being dimmer than usual!)
LondonStatto
I was using the pre-squeeze figures - I never trust the figures which pressure people into declaring a preference.
115 Richard Tyndall I am not unsympahetic to your views. CAP is a vile policy which hurts all but the EU farmer, hurting Third World farmers the most. I take your point on red tape and more freedom on domestic agricultural policy.
But agriculture is now but a small part of the overall economy. Competing in exportable services and in industry is much more important. The WTO deals primarily with tariff aspects of trade and not so much in the non-tariff issues. That was the point I was making about leaving the EU not being no cost. There could well be huge costs to our access on exportable services, and considerable non-tariff costs to our other exports.
Off to bed with me now.
115 - The EU are responsible for apple orchards being dug up?
I think the supermarket taste for South African and NZ fruit may be more important, but don’t let that get in the way.
121. oldnat.
Ah, I see.
I’m very sceptical of people taking numbers other than the published VI (most commonly seen with MORI polls) - the firms publish the numbers they use for a reason.
In particular your reference to “rounding effects” is erroneous.
Roger is predicting Labour will increase its vote share and the Tories lose share.
Does this mean, according to the PB bye laws, that Cameron can measure up the curtains in No10 and order the removal van to get his stuff there?
119 LondonStatto
We should also probably kill off the idea that the “others” figure means anything either, since the sample size for all of them was only around 90.
124 LondonStatto
i’ll accept that.
123
No Tim, the quotas on apples within the EU mean that UK farmers were no longer able to sell the apples they grew. The only alternative undwer the current CAP system was to grub them up to prove to the EU they had been taken permanently out of production.
Anyway, I thought you were supposed to be a farmer? How come you didn’t know this?
123
And further to that you obviously missed the act that apples are seasonal and that SA and New Zealand apples are mainly impored during the spring and summer when European apples are not available. Again as a farmer I would have thought you would have heard of the concept.
A rather pathetic lead for the Cons. During the GE campaign the Governing party tends to close the gap, I think a hung parliament is on the cards!
Further to my 124, if you take the pre-squeeze figures (page 10) and simply ignore DK/Ref the percentages come out as:
Con 40
Lab 28
LD 17
Grn 5
SNP 3
UKIP 3
BNP 2
PC <1
Oth 1
The only effects of the squeeze is to increase the LD by 1 at the expense of Lab, with Oth also falling 1
130. R Gale.
I really hope you’re not the R Gale I know, as otherwise I shall have to Have Words on the 7th…
119. LondonStatto
The Conservative regional splits were revealing:
South-East 42%
Midlands 42%
North 40%
Wales and South-West 42%
Scotland 24%
Even a good Scottish Conservative score is still well short of that in the other regions.
The class splits were interesting:
AB 44%
C1 44%
C2 29%
DE 39%
The Conservatives have been disappointing in the C2s for a while but impressive in the DEs. I wonder why? Didn’t the C2s swing strongly to the Conservatives during the 1980s?
122
TimT, there have been a number of cost benefit analysis done on EU membership over the last few years. Unfortunately the government always refused to do a comprehensive official one - probably because they knew what it would show and didn’t like it.
All of those done - including one commissioned by the pro EU Britain in Europe - showed that leaving the EU would either have no economic or a positive economic effect. The BiE commissioned version was particularly funny as it was carried out by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research and the results were not what BiE had hoped. So much so that they tried to lie about the results and were rebuked by the NIESR themselves.
131 LondonStatto
Hey! I already accepted that you were right, and I was wrong!
135. oldnat.
You type too quickly
# 116 Thanks, forgive me I know not what I’m doing
Certainly something dubious about that poll, unless all the libdems/labour floating voters are going tory.
I do wish posters would not try and read anything into the regional subsamples . It was noteworthy that noone mentioned the Scottish subsample in the previous Comres poll which was .
Con 21%
Lab 29%
LDem 29%
SNP 12%
Green 6%
Others 3%
All on the massive sample of 53 people .
It is of no use whatsoever to try and read anything into figures based on such small subsamples .
138 Mark Senior
I don’t think anyone here has done that. It’s an obvious nonsense.
137. subrosa.
Well, it’s simply that the sample size is too small to be meaningful.
The MoE range for the Scottish subsample is:
SNP 19-45
Con 13-35
Lab 11-33
LD 2-18
And that assumes the subsample is itself demographically balanced, which it probably isn’t.
Curious story here - possibly a BNP supporter hoaxing the Mail:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/mediamonkeyblog/2009/oct/26/question-time-daily-mail-nick-griffin
More explosively, both the main story and the footnote here:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6891343.ece
From ComRes:
‘I would consider voting for a party I do not support just to try and keep Labour out of government’:
Con voters 41%
LD voters 33%
UKIP voters 56%
Grn voters 26%
SNP voters 48%
PC voters 24%
BNP voters 61%
Oth voters 47%
That’s a lot of potential anti-Labour tactical votes.
Also 48% of C2s and 38% of DEs would consider anti-Labour tactical voting as would 42% in the North and 39% in the Midlands. Now where are the marginal seats concentrated and who tends to live in them…..
Sorry, I see the latter article was menitoned upthread already - twice!
Labour voters:
Labour have a good chance of winning the next election: 53-45
David Cameron seems likeable but I am not sure I am ready to see a Conservative Government 45-49 (*)
(*) Terrible question, “disagree” could refer to either half.
138. Mark Senior.
No-one has been trying that.
IIRC the last ComRes poll didn’t have its tables published until some days (over a week?) after the headline VI figures - long enough for people not to care, I guess.
139 - Stuart Dickson often does , he almost invariably publishes all the Scottish subsamples , I guess though that he must have choked on his porridge when he looked at that particular one .
It is also a pretty pointless exercise in comparing two polls a year apart even from the same pollster and then treating the changes as gospel . The 2 polls will both be subject to Margin of Error which in most cases will exceed the changes in party support .
Nick Palmer the second story is a desperate attempt to create a story and it fails, not least as they have to report Hezza said nothing to them and in desperation they repeat the nonsense about Clinton and the ‘tory allies’.
I do wonder if the piece was written by tim. It is dim enough. And is taken seriously only by the credulous who are desperate for a game changer. Like yourself really.
Startling figure buried in the ComRes secondaries: 38% of people thinking of voting Tory say Cameron seems likeable but they’re “not sure they are ready to see a Conservative government”. Secondary double questions are especially tricky (for example, if you don’t like Cameron but would love a Tory government your answer is no) but it appears to show considerable unease in that 40%…
Explosive and startling are the words of the night tonight for Nick Palmer.
Leave it to Kelvin McK he does it better. More experience.
By the way, Nick Palmer, have you reread the article by the ‘Eurosceptic’ yet.
Might be worth mentioning in public that you got it rather wrong. 180 degree actually, it seems.
148. NPMP.
I’d fall into that category - I’m not sure I’m ready to see a Conservative government, but I’m certain I want to see the back of this Labour government.
As both NPMP and tim have linked to this rubbish about Heseltine it seems that Labour are running scared on this issue.
And as LondonStatto says many people have doubts about Cameron and the Conservatives but will still vote for them just to get rid of Labour. What happens afterwards is a different matter but by then NPMP will be NPexMP.
Something for everyone to look forward to today is Tony McNulty’s punishment:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23760662-tony-mcnulty-faces-expenses-bill-over-pound-60000-claim.do
From each according to his ability to each according to his need, my arse.
151 another richard
But if NPMP was NPPM instead of NPexMP, just think of the insider information that would be available on PB!
this poll shows that support for the tories is very fragile and they are being picked as least worst option depsite having a rich old etonian in charge, which despite everything does not excite the working classes or the middle classes much.
it is only because brown and labour are so impossibly bad that they are in with a chance.
is there room for a third force in politics, based on honesty and integrity and centrist views to come through?
it cannot be the squibs, too much baggage and seen as a policy free zone, but a new centre party who wills ack their mp’s if they do not perfirm as required immediately would take votes from everyone.
the fact ukip without many policies did so well in the european elections tells me if they position themselves in the middle of politics but hammer away on expenses and honesty they would do far beetr than picking up protest votes.
say they will stop foreign wars which are not releveant to britain, and try blair as a war crminal, like the bnp, and they will become an acceptable face to vote for.
either that or anew party needs to be formed, with those labour members who agree ssytem is a mess based on all the nepotism.
re the thorny issue of immigration as long as they are not overtly racist and say they value all people who contribute but enough is enough country is in a dog’s breakfast of amess they will get huge public support.
maybe not under farage, but somebody to pull party togetrehr and all the better if they pull some honest people from the other parties.
with wives claiming they do secretarial work and second home slike goudie 400 miles from wwhere she lives, the whole system is a farce.
ukip should say a complete backdated tax audit on all mp’s will be carried out regardless what this mob of MP’s say.
and anyone who does not accept the same standards as the rest of the taxpayers in the uk regarding CGT will have to resign on the spot.
they would destyroy labour, and the conservatives witht hat sort of approach, although the media would try to strangle them at birth.
it happened in canada, so the same thing could happen here.
please poll the question;
” if there was a centrist political party who wanted troops out of iraq and afghansistan, restricted future immigration based on the quality of applicants rather than race, no nuclear weapons and who banned excessive expenses with their members all taking a lower set amount would you consider voting for them?”
maybe 80% potential voters, but i might be wrong, it might be higher.
146. Interesting to see the discussion about the dramatic changes in the Scottish subsample, because I’ve only just written a lengthy blog post on that very subject -
http://scotgoespop.blogspot.com/2009/10/comres-labour-slump-to-third-place-in.html
I hope no-one thinks I’m doing an Irfan Ahmed or a “Richard Willis UK”, I just thought it was relevant!
154 redcliffe. What is the difference between a rich OE and a rich Scottish Old Fettesonian?
there is no difference in my view.
both great establishments which cater for the top 0.5%.
and which along with other elite schools contribute far more than 0.5% to decision making politically in this country.
the point is most of england have heard of eton whereas they know little about fettes. and being a scottishs chool they could not imagine it is as posh as eton, when it is.
i have visited fettes, played rugby against them, and even though i was at a posh school built nearly 500 years ago this was another world altogether.
a furtehr thought; if the centrist party leader was seen as one of “us” rather than as one of “them” they might get further with the c1 and c2 vote.
POLL ALERT!
Yougov’s first Welsh poll is due to be published in the next couple of hours. In a land bereft of polls there is huge anticipation of what will hopefully become a regular Welsh opinion poll. Anyone have any info / predictions?
158
Bad for Labour. Modest gains for Tories. Good for PC and Lib Dems.
159 Or…
Bad for Labour. Good for Tories. Modest gains for PC and Lib Dems.
re 163. Can you post here as soon as you get news?
Many thanks.
Story on Welsh poll here:
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2009/10/27/poll-predicts-labour-trouncing-91466-25020815/
O/T The Daily Mail headlines a story “Vile smelling foreign ladybirds set to invade homes this winter”
That works on so many levels: “Vile”, “smelly”,”foreign”, “invade” set against “home” and an icon like the Ladybird being under threat from these immigrants.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1223014/Foreign-ladybirds-set-invade-British-homes-winter.html
174 so its 31% C:34% L:15% Ld:12% Plaid:7% others.
Others looks a bit high - Green, UKIP & BNP?
169 Correction 15% is Plaid,12% Lib Dem.
O/T did Easteross respond to my and others offer of a wager on Lib Dem seats in the SW?
168
I thought for a moment someone had been playing with that Daily Mail headline generator again
Nick Palmer @146
Is the use of your terminologgy in direct proprotion to the closer the election becomes.
To suggest as you do that this Times article is “more explosively ” is just fatuous.
If there is a potentially explosive story, its the immigration story that has been slowly burning away in the background for the last few days. If and its a big if, there is a paper trail, then its explosive indeed and no hyperbole used either.
So, in summary:
Bad for Labour and Lib Dems. Good for Tories. Modest gains for PC.
172 “ladybird” is also tittilatingly enough like “bird” and “ladyboy” to press a few subconcious buttons for its readers.
For info, last GE result in Wales was:
Lab 43%
Con 21%
LD 18%
PC 13%
176 Which gives changes in Wales since 2005 as
Lab -9
Con +10
LD -6
PC +2
175 Would Mail readers know what a Ladyboy is?
NEW THREAD ON WALES POLL
On thread: ComRes - “Thirty-six per cent of non-Labour voters also said they would consider backing a party they did not support “just to try to keep Labour out of government”.