Is this approach too Dave-specific?
January 4th, 2010
And could Cameron be creating hostages to fortune?
Wow. What a busy morning. Is it going to be like this right through to the general election day whenever that is?
What’s caught my eye is this Tory NHS poster and the way all the emphasis is put on Cameron - “I’ll cut the deficit. Not the NHS”
Is this going to be a common element in other campaign material? Clearly this has been through the focus groups and reflects what we’ve seen in the polling - electors are more comfortable with Cameron than his party.
The trouble is that this looks like a presidential campaign and leaves the Tories vulnerable to the charge that their leader is putting forward policies that don’t have the full backing of all members - Daniel Hannan, on this issue, to name but one.
Still this was the approach of NuLab in 1997 when Tory efforts to warn of what lay behind that nice Mr. Blair got no traction.
There’s a danger, too, of this being flung back at him. Inevitably a complex organisation like the NHS is going through continuous change and inevitably well-loved local services can get axed. Is Dave going to get the blame?
Mike Smithson
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First?
first?
hah! i shall use my uber db admin skillz to move my comment back in time 30 seconds. sorry ‘Me’.
Congrats to ARS
I think this is fine, electorally. People take a presidential view of party leaders, I think.
Personally, I’d prefer a change to a more collective Cabinet approach, but that’s a problem for all of politics and it’d be unfair to single out Cameron for criticism.
And a merry “unfirst day” to the rest of us.
3-
. Please, don’t do that, I’m never first!
The approach has risks. It is particularly vulnerable to the Tory vote being associated with flaws of David Cameron that emerge from now on. For all that, it seems a sensible strategy.
He should have worn a tie though.
Cameron is what people want. No-one ever got poor on giving the people what they want…
It will test OGH’s notion that the Tories improve when Cameron is in the media spotlight.
Oh, and congrats to ARS. I wonder if their being No.2 in pollster of the year helped their cause? I believe that RodCrosby now has to start including them in his polling reviews. That should hurt Labour swing-back!
Going against the Great I Am himself can Cameron be criticised for making it a personal pledge?
The Conservatives need this election to be a referendum on Gordon Brown, they can’t do this without themselves adopting a mano on mano approach; nice David Cameron v Angry Gordon. Trustworthy David Cameron v Shifty Gordon Brown
Dodgy Dossier on day 1 has helped, giving Cameron the chance to respond easily to obvious misrepresentation. A little astonished myself that two month labour produced such a flimsy attack - based on assumption Cameron had fallen into ther bear traps set last Autumn when he hadn’t.
Congratulations to ARS. That’ll stop the leftie whiners bangin’ on about the BPC!
As for Cameron he clearly got a new shovel for Christmas and seems intent on digging. He’s clearly setting himself up for a battle with major factions of the right-of-centre (he’s already losing much of their active support) down the line.
My prediction if he carries regardless - 2014 and the ‘Eton Rifles’ will be defeated……
However, I don’t think it will have any short-term impact on this campaign. Like Blair if he wants to play the Presidential game it will take a while to sink into the public consciousness.
This approach didn’t seem to harm Tony Blair. Nor will it harm Cameron who is somewhat more popular than his party.
Later on, who knows? But there is an election to be won first.
*** First ever post. ***
I have lurked here for half a decade, but will make more of an effort to contribute, and leave it up to you to decide if my contributions are worthwhile.
Hopefully on topic via moderation. I like this bill board its exactly what the Tories should be doing. I’m finding this year’s election result a hard one to predict, mostly because the Tories start from a long way behind on seats and its not a straight fight with Labour because it would help the Tory cause to win seats off Lib Dems too that were blue when the blues formed their last governments. Aside from the fact Lib Dems took Tory seats by being boosted by tactical Labour votes, it also feels like there’s a lot of competition for floating votes at the moment, not least because of the expenses story.
But also, it depends how the electorate view the question put before them – politicians and commentators have in the past been surprised by the public mood (GE’s 1970, 74, 92 for example) and it can seem so obvious and unsurprising when analyzing the result on the other side of the election. I’ll give you an example to demonstrate what I mean: if the election is about referendum on the last 13 years and especially the government we’ve had the last 5 years, if feels like the Conservatives are coasting to a comfortable working majority with “its time for a change” and its hard to see how Labours awful poll ratings can recover much; but if in the white heat of the election proper it becomes all about which party can best manage the climb out of recession whilst safeguarding public services and protecting the most vulnerable citizens then this billboard is the right conservative strategy to win that sort of election, against a devil the electorate knows and which is promising less pain.
On timing I am more confident in my prediction – the correct thing for Brown to do is call the GE for the same day as the locals and save the country some money. But this years election will definitely be held in June, as Brown goes down to the wire hoping for a “game changer” to come out of the hat.
“Is this approach too Dave specific?”
No, Cameron recognition is a proven asset to his party, with or without a tie on
plastering his face all over the billboards will high-light Labour’s airbrushing of Gordon Brown from theirs.
Just as Labour did with their campaign literature when Blair became a liability.
Apologies for going off topic, but I see that Coral have now shifted their odds for a May election to 4/11. This is the best price that you can get (you can get it with Ladbrokes and Paddy Power also).
The best price on a June election is now Ladbrokes’ 14/1.
Terrible strategy from Cameron - he should restrict himself to going on Andy Marr to tell porkies and visiting schools every week to announce fantasy spending.
FPT 244.So Darling’s Dodgy Dossier was tasked with blunting the Tory election campaign launch, eh?
Oh dear….
I really don’t see the gap in national polling betwen Tories and Labour getting within 10% between now and the election. In spite of the collective best efforts of the media to make it look like a contest.
At what point do the media give up on that unpromising line of attack - and go instead for the new line of whether Labour will crash and burn at the election - “Will Labour face obliteration, coming third behind the LibDems?” That would at least have some continuing legs on it right up to polling day…
I would vote for the blue party at the next election if it weren’t for the fact that I despise all the others who will be voting for the blue party. I see the hatred and bigotry of the old-school right wingers and can’t bring myself to tick their box on the ballot paper. Dave’s de-toxification effort is nowhere near complete & the time is running out.
PS, Have the blue party now dropped the tree logo?
One interesting observation. Is this something where Labour will not copy the Conservatives?
Can anyone really see a Labour poster campaign with Browns ominous expression glaring out at the electorate?
In all seriousness, that is an appalling slogan - and an appalling hostage to fortune. Surely even the Tories realise that if the economic situation is as bad as they say it is (which is not as bad as I think it is) then no aspect of public services can be immune from “the cuts” when they are finally introduced. Not even the NHS.
My wife comes from an old Labour family and has not entirely forsaken them.I asked her after Marr how she would vote on a “five more years of Brown”campaign.She paused…and said Tory.
Is it too much to ask that people could make a New Year’s Resolution to stop this stupid, childish, asinine twattery of trying to post ‘First’ on each blog post at the top, as though it were some test of intelligence or relevance to the blog post ?? It’s not much to ask..
Anecdote alert: our village bakery didn’t survive into 2010…
I think it’s bold and works myself. I was won over when Tony did it
Yup it’s presidential, but politics has already drifted that way presentation-wise.
If Cameron does sofa-government, then that is a different matter altogether.
I can’t help but feel that this tactic is about making it plain really early on that Cameron is trustworthy, human, credible - and to contrast that with how Gordon comes across [without saying it].
I’m intrigued at the draft manifesto strategy, publishing as they go along - brave stuff - has any other party tried this kind of thing before?
Can’t recall much more than a dribble of new stuff escaping before the campaign kicks off proper in previous GEs.
20. Is it too much to ask that people could make a New Year’s Resolution to stop this stupid, childish, asinine practice of using moronic adaptation’s of well known people’s names as their NICs?
View from the DT
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/philipjohnston/100021289/tory-election-poster-is-cameron-really-the-big-idea/
No its not too personal.
People believe Cameron on the NHS because of his son and that is linked to the spending pledge,
Without that the Conservative Party would remain fundamentally unelectable as it had been for over a decade.
The British people are not prepared to vote for a fundamentally uncivilised party that does not believe in equal access to health.
A few pieces of advice for Dave though.
Replace the incompetent Lansley with Grant Shapps.
Dump the idiotic single rooms nonsense which came out of Lansley’s knee jerk reaction to Hospital acquired infections.
Stop doing the choreographed “I want another baby” tour of maternity units, it looks shallow and exploitative.
And be prepared to explain why you want the biggest QUANGO in world history to be set up to run the NHS.
It’s odd the way that they’ve made the lectern look like an axe. Not exactly the subliminal message that they want to give with the poster.
22. Plato
You don’t fancy getting Dave on the sofa then?
Its a good start, but at some point, the message on what will really be cut, probably has to become clearer.
I agree with Ted at 8. Its all about making the election a referendum on Brown.
Nothing wrong with being presidential. Cameron’s an asset to the Tories, they should use him.
Don’t know about anybody else, but my thought on seeing that was, “Well, what _is_ he going to cut, then?”. It would have made sense to me if it had said something like, “I’ll cut transport, not the NHS”. As it was, it didn’t make me think he was too presidential. It just made me think he was full of shit.
This is a good poster: clear, simple, direct.
There is much fantasy about NHS cuts. There is no conceivable scenario where spending on the NHS could be cut in real terms; even keeping it constant in real terms will be a major achievement. That’s not to say that there aren’t big savings to be made in the NHS budget; of course there are. Anyone who has had the slightest contact with the NHS, or has talked to NHS employees, knows that (although extracting those savings in such a complex organisation is going to be a hard slog, and take time). But those savings will be absorbed into the ever-increasing demands on health services - something common to all developed countries.
Cameron is right to make this clear. The headline deficit reduction numbers will have to come from elsewhere - most notably the welfare budge, which is out of control.
26 antifrank
Well spotted!
good positioning of cameron.
it gets the deficit firmly onto the election agenda.
it innoculates against left wing attack.
3/3.
The wording should have been more direct: “I’ll cut the debt, not our NHS”.Maybe not so precise in accounting terms but a more effective slogan?
I can’t recall any other top Tory, apart from Naniel Hannan, who has critcised the NHS.
28 and Brown fears that - he repeated yesterday “the next election is not a referendum…”
It will be Gordon, it will be.
22. I agree the contrast between the likeable and warm Cameron and the barely human Brown is striking, and should be milked for all it’s worth.
Was there ever an election when the relative attractiveness of the two main party leaders was so different? Even Major had a residual personal attractiveness, despite his enormous flaws.
26 I’m rather assuming that the “axe lectern” isn’t on the national posters??? Merely a savvy photographer at the poster launch…
33
Er, that’s Daniel.
tim @25
The British people are not prepared to vote for a fundamentally uncivilised party that does not believe in equal access to health.
Why they voted for a party whose deputy leader was John Prescott, and you don’t get less civilised than that. On health equality, do you really think that Labour has delivered?
27 Eeew no! I can’t think of any fanciable politician - showbusiness for ugly people with a rare exception - and then they look nerdy/anally retentive/smug!
37 - I think you’re right, in which case that photographer deserves a pay rise.
Arguably, Major v Kinnock in 1992?
36 - Wilson v Heath?
42 was to runnymede at 36.
30. Richard but by creating the largest quangocracy in history Cameron is limiting the efficiencies that can be delivered and redirected to meet the ever increasing demand on Health Services.
It’s simple cost supply economics. The NHS above all Government departments has gone way beyond the point where diseconomies of scale caused by centralisation kick in. The only solution is to decentralise NOT dump the responsibility upon an unaccountable centralised quango insulating the Government from the responsibilities.
I’m afraid this is yet another example of Cameron bottling it. Before the recession it may have been reasonable to avoid the NHS issues in the first term. Now it is not……
Marquee Mark @ 42
Kinnock was not the most attractive of politicians but he was in a different league to Brown. He was also a fighter, something that despite his pleas, Brown is not.
42. Kinnock vs Anyone.
30 Richard Nabavi
“There is much fantasy about NHS cuts. There is no conceivable scenario where spending on the NHS could be cut in real terms; even keeping it constant in real terms will be a major achievement.”
I’d agree with this. Even if the Conservatives manage to make massive savings through efficiencies and restructuring, the health budget will need to go up to cover the cost of the baby boomers moving into old age.
E Blackadder / P Mandelson: “We want to fight this election on issues and not personality”
V Hanna / A Marr: “Why?”
E Blackadder / P Mandelson: “Because our candidate doesn’t have a personality”
The contrast is the key here. Its not just about Cameroon but Brown too.
42. That’s perhaps the closest - but Major wasn’t as positive as Cameron and Kinnock (remarkably) wasn’t as bad as Brown.
43. Which contest? 1970 Wilson moderately attractive, Heath moderately unattractive. 1974 (both) Heath somewhat unattractive, Wilson perhaps a bit better though hardly viewed with wild enthusiasm…something of a no-score draw in those two elections in terms of the leaders.
Re the last thread on Clegg demanding a Purnell leadership - I think most Labour MPs would rather be in opposition with a leader they can feel comfortable with than a coalition in government under Purnell, who most of them loathe, so I think that is a non starter!
47 Kinnock got ridiculed but perhaps unfairly. He certainly had political courage (see his conference speech re militant).
Brown gets ridiculed quite rightly for tellign lie after lie, not dealing with national problems just to save face and labours chances and has no courage
33 Russell
But saying “our” NHS, undercuts the “British” message that he wants to maintain. It would carry a message that Cameron would save an English only service.
Campaigning in an asymetrically devolved system carries its own difficulties.
46 Quite right!
50. Of course there is Foot versus Thatcher…..
50 - 1966, when Wilson won a much-increased majority.
53 Agreed - not something most English voters will realise but those with their own AMs, MSPs will be alive too.
Day 1 of the campaign, and Gordon Brown bottles it
We thought Gordon Brown was going to do some electioneering of his own today, but it seems as if he is keeping a low profile. He visited a school in Hackney with Ed Balls and the children’s secretary has made an announcement about one-to-one tuition and specailist teachers. But apparently Brown did not use the visit to deliver a Tory-bashing soundbite to the broadcasters. For one reason or another, he has decided not to get stuck in.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2010/jan/04/general-election-campaign-live
Blair vs Hague 2001.
59 Blair vs. Howard surely.
47 “was in a different league to Brown. He was also a fighter, something that despite his pleas, Brown is not.”
Serf, that should really dismay Labour. When it came down to it, voters turned away from electing Kinnock in huge numbers. Your assessment would indicate that it will be even more pronounced when they have to decide to vote for Brown.
46 jsfl - You are right in one sense, but you’re not being realistic as regards timescales. Of course, the NHS needs fundamental reform and decentralisation. Arguably, it also needs time to bed down the reforms which Labour have already made - talk to anyone in the NHS, and you’d pretty soon hear complaints about how many problems are caused by the excessive number of changes.
The point, though, is that any changes along the lines you suggest will take many years to bear fruit in terms of major savings. The NHS is a hugely complex organisation; indeed, even a single medium-sized hospital is very complex in the range of different specialisms and the interactions with external bodies (in contrast to schools, say, which are pretty simple). It seems to me that treading carefully on this issue is a good thing; rushing in with ill-thought-out reforms will make things worse, not better. Cameron needs above all to be realistic - and that includes not making promises of savings and reform which cannot be achieved in the first term.
Longer term, I agree with you that decentralisation is required. I think we’ll see that, as a gradual reform reversing the centralised interference that has so characterised the Blair-Brown years. Just don’t expect it to happen overnight. My hunch is that it will be a major plank of the second term - but Cameron has to win two elections first.
60 - By 2005, Tony Blair was blood-soaked. Not so attractive.
In 2001, William Hague was likeable enough. His flaws didn’t relate to his personal qualities. It’s hard to imagine Gordon Brown getting a successful career as an after dinner speaker.
The Tories are getting around 40%, quite often a little more and less often a little less. Labour are struggling to get above the high 20s with their share being swopped around with LDs.
What has happened is the habitual Tory vote has come home. It won’t go all the way back to Labour as they were conned by Blair and Brown over the past 13 years and the younger ones in 1997 are now older and wiser. They are also clever enough to know that voting UKIP or LD could let in Labour.
56. Wilson looked sharper and more the man of the moment then, for sure. But Heath didn’t (at that point) have anything like the massive personal negatives Brown now has.
58 I wonder how often we will read “He visited a school in Hackney with Ed Balls” in the next 5 months?
Good poster that works on several levels - NHS reassurance, dealing with the deficit, personal. It isn’t a hostage to fortune. Good stuff.
re. Plato’s link on the last thread about Cameron’s ‘Bullingdon bling’ 5 buttoned cuffs, I rather liked this response:
It’s the sign of a very good Saville Row suit. More importantly, the buttons will actually work – not just be sewn on. Take the implication that it’s genuine. Unlike Blair.
63 Howard was clearly unelectable.
If only IDS has been given the chance. That would have been amusing.
Afternoon all
My first thought this morning was “oh god, another four months of this cr*p to look forward to”…
I wonder how long it will take for people to get sick of this - a week at most, I would guess. If we’re going to play “the NHS is safe in my hands” then Cameron has to be certain there are no unpleasant hostages to fortune lurking in the depths of the Osborne proposals.
“Read my lips - no NHS cuts” will be fine unless and until Wards have to close which will be portrayed as a breach of promise even though it wouldn’t be of course.
I thought Darling seemed ok this morning though the economy isn’t going to be one of Labour’s strong cards. To the offer that Osborne wouldn’t be any better, the obvious rejoinder is that he couldn’t be any worse so there’s no point going down that route.
I wonder the extent to which the debates will get bogged down in the detail of statistics and perceptions - today’s events don’t augur well.
Tim’s posts today have reminded me of a thought I had last night, is this site some sort of psychology experiment?
A fairly large group of people with very strong views, grouped into different “herds” according to their party. Some people come here for betting tips, others for debate, some just to slag off anyone they dislike. Another factor of interest would be how many people only visit the site when their “herd” are winning. For instance whenever the gap in the polls close more lefties appear for a while and then vanish again.
I imagine that a pyschiatrist would be interested in why Tim visits this site, often for very long hours, just to attack the Tory Party? He can’t get anything from it and he won’t change any votes, it seems irrational.
Congrats to ARS.
I think the poster is good, it didn’t strike me as presidential at all, I thought it was grown up and serious, though I prefer his hair to be more casual - so far judging by Cameron’s performance this morning and Darling’s dodgy dossier, I would say the Conservatives are on a roll!
66 Brown’s timidity in meeting the public is in very, very marked contrast to Cameron’s willingness to mix it up with non-Tory voters.
I can’t believe that won’t come across in any debates (which I still think Labour will bottle…).
65 IMHO Heath was helped by the Mike Yarwood impersonation which was built around his heaving shoulders and odd laugh, it wasn’t the scary smile, odd hand gestures that Gordon has, and humanised Ted Heath. Affectionate satire rather than today’s stiletto.
66 meant to replace Hackney with ….. as I don’t expect its only Hackney schools that will be haunted by Gordon.
59/60- the common theme there is Blair
26. tim, you spend too much time micro-managing the shadow cabinet. People do change in unexpected ways on achieving power - octavian/augustus, Henry V if you want some minor public school A level examples, or in modern times and for a surprise on the down side look no further than J G Brown himself. Either Lansley and Grayling will do fine, or they won’t and they will be sacked and replaced and life will go on. Ou sont les Blunketts d’antan? Ou sont les Byers? Ou, we would ask if your party had any more sense of decency than a necrophiliac morgue attendant, sont les Mandelsons?
Mind you, ou est le Mandelson d’aujourd’hui continues to develop into a question in its own right.
Congrats to ARS on their BPC approval!
On the poster, Gordo9000 will be thinking “Just what do you think you’re doing, Dave?”
‘whenever the gap in the polls close more lefties appear for a while and then vanish again.’
Hmm yes but how much of that is a real shift in psychology rather than an orchestrated thing?
Are we going to have to put up with the Nats constant whingeing for the next several months whenever an English politician refers to an English only matter?
66 ‘I wonder how often we will read “He visited a school in Hackney with Ed Balls” in the next 5 months?’
Why just Hackney? There are child shields all over the country that Brown can hide behind during an election campaign.
Afternoon all. Just as a sobering thought for those of you who don’t work in local politics - we’re out of grit!!! Can you believe it? We’re out of grit. Call me Dave can wibble on about whatever the hell he wants but we’re leaching votes today because we’re out of grit. Bugger. As you were.
70
I imagine that a pyschiatrist would be interested in why Tim visits this site, often for very long hours, just to attack the Tory Party? He can’t get anything from it and he won’t change any votes, it seems irrational.
Think : for money.
69
Yeh, it’s going to be a long campaign. I’m bored of it already tbh and nothing much is going to change, unless Labour surprise the hell out of me and decide on a consistent strategy.
79 Until, in front of the massed press, some child screams “Mummy, make that man go away! He’s SCARING ME, MUMMY…”
And that will be the end of Gordon’s attempts to meet his adoring public.
Off topic: This could presage some really bad news for Britain:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/6928590/Goldman-Sachs-teams-could-quit-the-City-over-taxes-and-regulations.html
70 - Bob.
Just be glad there’s still a little bit of variety on here.
Taking out the top half a dozen or so Tory posters the rest of the herd knows little about politics or betting.
Imagine thread after thread of MTF, EdP and Oracle.
I’m doing you a service.
75 - Micro managing?
Replacing Grayling with Pickles is macro surely.
re press reporting on todays events…
I see the Beeb are being surpringly balanced by actually leading on the Tory announcements and then reporting the Labour attacking repsponse secondry.
In 2005 it was always the Labour attack first and the Tory message second or as a foot note - sometimes within minutes of a policy / manifesto pledge. You could almost imagine a Labour spin doctor being present in the BBC news room during that campaign.
62. Richard
One simple question. What is the point of ‘investing’ in a new quango then?
Why not stick with the current structure? We already have an example of where messing with the long standing arrangements for some new whizzo organisation has failed (the introduction of the FSA). So what purpose is there for creating such a ridiculous quangocracy?
Furthermore, if you are telling me that certain services could not be decentralised and handed down (to say County control) in five years then there is no hope for this potential future Conservative Government or for the public sector as a whole. This is the best funded public sector organisation with many of the best paid bureaucrats in the land. If they cannot manage it then who can?
I’m sorry Richard you seem to have become an apologist for bureaucratic interests in the last two days.
Of course, what Cameron is doing is going to screw the Scots. Under the Barnett formula their spending will have to fall.. and they will have to find savings. And if it’s the NHS in Scotland… it’s all the Scots’ OWN fault.
I look forward to years of amusement…as I watch Scots without zimmer frames as I am ensconsed drooling in my old folks home…
It seems certain ARS are measuring something significantly different to the other pollsters so far as Labour is concerned [no significant difference for the Tories, but they're slightly better for the LibDems], and that is problematical for obtaining robust estimates of Labour support.
79 - surely if he goes too often he’ll have to put himself on Ed’s ridiculous database?
O/T
I’ve just had a thought. Imagine just after the Tory victory at the GE and all those Labour MP’s that kept silent and kept Gordo in position suddenly realise that htey made the biggest mistake ever.
Just think of the blood letting The Horror, The Horror
80 “we’re out of grit!!!”
We should start using Labour voters instead…. They’ll mostly be in the North where its needed - and quite gritty individuals. Although supplies are probably not going to be replenished any time soon.
66 - I wonder how often we will read “He visited a school in Hackney with Ed Balls” in the next 5 months?
Ted, we’ve had two “I want another baby” film scenes from Dave in the last three weeks.
How many venues left on his tour?
“Well hello Macclesfield Maternity Unit.
I want another baby.
I’ve been Dave, goodnight”
87
jsfl
You don’t get the idea of setting up new organisations.
You can pick the best and people who support your aims. No crap of getting rid of people who do not support you but are difficult to fire,
Standard Operating Procedure when you want to change things: freeze out your opponents…Ensure their influence on policy is: nil.. Put them in a position where everything they do is worthless.
69 A media war of attrition could be quite a turn-off unless the Tories manage to keep it really fresh.
The evolving manifesto offers a good route for this if they can avoid the whole thing ending up as process story.
Just on face value, a few things have popped into my mind re the Tory tactics so far:
a) start early and therefore set the political weather [where you can]
b) use Cameron as a stark contrast to Brown without actually saying it
c) draft manifesto - kill off the ‘Tories have no policies’ meme
d) evolving manifesto - Tories are inclusive listeners who want to govern for everyone, neutralise Labour’s ‘many not the few’ line
e) consulting prior to manifesto to give legitimacy for hard decisions post GE - effectively ’sealing the deal’ if they get in.
f) all of the above gives the story legs and allows for in-flight tweaking
It’s bold stuff, hope it works. I want rid of Labour and sensible, inclusive policies that will do as much positive stuff as possible.
85- surely that’s true of any group Tim? Plent of lefties on here fit that description too. As for betting I made a neat 16% return this year on my political bets! (£16)
School visits with Balls are Brown’s dream publicity outing. A rabidly enthusiastic righthand man working the crowd, TV cameras and no need to go off script, a tame audience who are all smaller than he is and who, even if they could see through him, wouldn’t dare to contradict - you can see the attraction. It must be about the only place he really feels at home.
78 Chris, they have a point. On one side we have Cameron majoring ion NHS, on the other Gordon Brown (an MP for a Scots constituency) majoring on Education, both not of interest to Scots voters.
81 - How much do you get paid for posting here?!
89- polling firms have over estimated Labour’s share of the vote for years, ARS seem not to be doing this so I reckon they have a chance of being the most accurate at the GE.
Are the Tories planning on running this poster in Scotland and Wales? PM Dave will only be in charge of the English NHS.
93 that could be targeted at Mrs C as well as potential voters
58, 66
Possibly the outlines of Labour tactics?
Keep Brown statesmanlike, above the fray, speaking ex officio (and ex suus mens) on Marr while people like Darling gets the retaliation in first and Balls becomes offensive.
It could be a way of negating the ‘Presidential Campaign’ style.
(shame about the pesky leadership debates…)
93 tim, you ran with that line last night; it was pretty boring then, but did wind up a few people. Are babies your new obsession to replace IHT?
Dave versus Gordon is the Tories’ best weapon.
So why not use it?
Seems like a no-brainer to me.
Time and time again, Cameron is shown to be more popular than the Tory party. The approach makes sense. Constitutionally, you may be voting for your constituency MP, but what you’re really thinking when you step into the polling booth nowadays is “who do I want in Downing Street? Brown or Cameron?”
The Tories are taking advantage of that.
The ‘no NHS budget cuts’ mantra is clearly designed to stop the emotive Labour campaigns of yore resounding (ie “poor little Suzy with her dodgy heart has to wait 5 years for an operation due to Nasty Evil Stinking Tory cuts. Here she is on her deathbed. Tories are murderers”. Like it or not, the NHS is a very important institution for many and Cameron will have seen, from his own personal experiences and the reaction to people in this country to the debate on healthcare going on across the pond, that it is just too toxic to reduce health spending at this moment in time.
My mother used to work in the health service. She says she remembers quite clearly that with a Labour government a whole new layer of middle-management got appointed, and as soon as the Tories were in it disappeared. In the current climate, I see no need for these middle managers. Not sure the QUANGO is the way to go, but I’m prepared to listen to the Tory plans.
103 “Balls becomes offensive”
Becomes? W-A-A-A-A-A-A-Y too late for that…
94. Madsa but don’t forget we are all ‘green’ now and in fact all that happens is that the same ‘experts’ are recycled in different jobs.
It’s SOP for pretending to make change when in fact nothing changes except that self-important egotists get to spend squillions of quid on making themselves feel even more important…
PS The ‘best’ rarely would even take a look at the public sector. Is Crozier ‘the best’ or Mark Thompson for example.
Utterly OT, but amusing:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8439495.stm
“As a business, we mourn the loss of any member, but the fact remains that our members demand the high standard of beauty be upheld,” said site founder Robert Hintze.
“Letting fatties roam the site is a direct threat to our business model and the very concept for which BeautifulPeople.com was founded.”
Member For East Brimstone January 4th, 2010 at 12:07 pm
If Brown does hold off till June then he will surpass Neville Chamberlain in terms of length of service after the relevant date.
The election could come earlier, i have noticed the media political narrotive recently pump co-ordinated anti-Tory stories out. These come from Labour be of no doubt about that!
The interesting distraction story is the Mandelson becomeing an MP again story. This looks so ridiculous because it suggests a long election campaign when we know with Labour they maybe inclined to do the opposite. Part of Labours campaign seems to be driven by their obsession with the media. I really dont think Labour get it that bnobody believes him.
On another note:
107
87 I understand your frustration but the NHS employs more than a 1m people - about 10x the British Armed Services.
The bureaucracy is gargantuan - and will take several years to unwind [and in teeth of fierce opposition from those who have vested interest in the status quo].
The NHS created something called the NHS Constition in Jan 09 that started the process of moving decision making out of Whitehall and into the hands of professionals.
Cameron seems to be running with this concept [it's common sense] - Labour are oddly making no hay with ‘it was our idea first’ stuff.
Puzzling but welcome
97. Its a shame Gordan Brown doesnt visit my daugther’s ( aged 9) school she harrangs Brown for being a slug and stealing her dad’s money everytime that he appears on TV.
WATO has Darling speaking before Cameron. Amazing.
101. Well, he’s got to run on it being that it’s his policies that will impact 50m plus, whilst the policies of others will only impact on a minor portion of the UK population.
I’m sure there’ll be Scotland and Wales specific posters, but it makes clear numerical sense to produce campaigns such as this in a national election.
108. 94. Madsa
An afterthought - the taxpayer really can’t afford such silly PR stunts in the current circumstances…..
Wasn’t it George who said ‘We’re all in it together’ after all?
Surely the Tories should counter the Labour ‘Blackhole’ claim by saying that any Blackhole Labour cite comes from the Labour Government not being straight with people and hiding the truth on the national finances.
Labour manipulate everything for partisan purposes so it would not surprise me that the real state of the economy is much much worse than Labour let on!
We have PMQ’s returning this Wednesday. We’ll perhaps get to see whether Cameron had been doing his rope-a-dope routine, to help keep Gordon in power into 2010…
106 “the NHS is a very important institution for many”
Think how many voters fall into this category:
a) those with ageing relatives with chronic health issues
b) mothers - especially new mothers [and their families]
c) those who are now over 65 and worried well
d) those who are ill and worried about NICE depriving them of drugs available elsewhere that may save/extend their life
I’d imagine these people are ‘more likely to vote’ - any thoughts on my supposition?
116 numbertwelve
Of course, he has to run on it. These things matter within England. My comment above (which I think those, except a couple of bigots, understood) is that UK parties have a dimension to deal with that wasn’t really recognised in 2005.
87 jsfl - First time I’ve ever been accused of being on the bureaucrats’ side!
I think the point about the ‘quango’ is misleading. The NHS is already a massive quango. The change that is proposed is relatively minor, to try to remove the temptation for ministers to get involved in micro-managing the NHS. Certainly, it is perfectly reasonable to criticise that policy on the grounds that it is too timid, but for the reasons I’ve already given I think it’s right to be cautious.
Bear in mind also the politics: it’s all very well criticising Cameron, but there is an election to be won before anything can be achieved. The New Labour dragon, with all its capabilities of smear and misrepresentation, is severely wounded, but it is not yet dead. It is desperate to portray Cameron as out to kill off the NHS.
Politics is the art of the possible. Part of that is choosing the terrain on which you fight, the compromises which need to be made, and the areas where you are going to spend your political capital. The Conservatives have gone, quite rightly in my view, for Education as the first real battleground where they intend to take on the bureaucrats in a major way. That is the correct priority because (a) Education is a massive failure under Labour, which urgently needs fixing before another generation of children are damaged forever, (b) It is relatively simple to fix, if we address the producer interests, (c) It can be improved reasonably quickly, offering the still-unconvinced electorate concrete evidence of how Conservative principles can deliver improved public services.
The NHS, in contrast, is (for all its many faults) not such a massive failure, is much harder to fix, is more dangerous politically, and could easily be made worse because of its complexity. Above all, it cannot be fixed quickly.
In other words: have patience!
109 We have a similar policy on here.
Typical member of Tory Herd
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_sw6-mHqJZVQ/SJ7aJss06nI/AAAAAAAADdU/QW_W1Mbqgjg/s400/redspeedo.jpg
Occasional Labour visitor
http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/05_01/newfritzlCEN_468×636.jpg
121. “Schools and hospitals first” = “If you live in Scotland, don’t bother voting”
Notice to “Dick the Prick” - you user name is unacceptable
BBC R5 shaping the debate and attacking Cameron
One for PB’s resident Warmists
“Coldest December for 13 years”
http://news.aol.co.uk/environment-news/month-coldest-december-for-13-years/article/200912311259324288424
120. You missed a category
e) those who have experience/knowledge of the NHS in-house care and are terrified of the thought of ever being returned/ experience it.
120 - The NICE point is populist garbage peddled by people who won’t say who they wish to die instead of their relatives.
94 - tim, that’s a new low for you. Attacking a man who lost a disabled child for saying he’d like another.
Absolutely disgusting. Please withdraw those comments.
one of these giant billboard posters have been bought outside the entrance to News International’s headquarters in Wapping. This morning streams of Times and Sun hacks had to walk past a giant Dave begging for their affection. Subtle.
http://order-order.com/2010/01/04/attack-of-the-fifteen-foot-dave/
117
I am sorry. I have reformed organisations before. The NHS is huge and full of entrenched placemen. If you want reform that works, you have to make it via an organisation which excludes the muppets you wish to get rid of.
As Plato says above, a 1 million organisation - responsible for the life and death of millions cannot be reformed overnight.One cock up and you kill people.
I note a number of Tory supporters on this thread are in “learned nothing from past mistakes” mode. If you seriously believe that the policies you appear to want can be implemented without widescale risk of death to thousands , then…
Your comments on the NHS remind me why I stopped voting Tory.. Fortunately saner heads prevail.
You remind me of Heffer in the DT on this issue. He proposes policies - which have zero chance of implementation. Why? Because he appeals to a very narrow core of voters and appals all the rest.
After all, the past 3 Tory leaders have been right wing zealots and got: nowhere.. Of course, if you like Opposition, way to go.
Whilst the NHS may be inefficient etc and should be improved, to suggest whole scale cuts is the proposal of people who stand zero chance of being elected.
121. Oh most certainly, I’m in agreement with you.
It’s definitely a toughie. Campaigning on reserved matters in Scotland, for instance, is going to revolve largely around foreign policy, the EU and defence. I suppose Afghanistan might be the key to win that battle, promising more support for the troops, but again Cameron falls into the hole of promising more spending at a time when he recognises the deficit has to be reduced.
Everyone’s favourite chestnut (”cuts in departmental bureaucracy”) is probably going to be wheeled out here.
Personally I think Dave’s big problem in this campaign is going to be education spending. It will be cut. I believe Ken Clarke made noises to this effect. It’s less emotive than the health service but will of course invite the old ‘leaky classrooms’ attack to re-emerge and could frighten some young mothers and fathers, for instance. This is going to be the big challenge to sell on the doorstep, but I hope Cameron has the guts to set it out.
128. jsfl January 4th, 2010 at 1:16 pm
Too right! I had a minor outpatient operation a few years ago and was appalled by the unhygenic procedure. I need to go for another operation but keep putting it off as it is general anysthetic!
Worried I will never come too again you see!
129 It may be garbage of the populist type - but a rep from BUPA rang me last year when I cancelled my subscription and she used the ‘but what if you get breast cancer - you may not get Herceptin…’
As someone who lost her mother to breast cancer and father to colon cancer [at 65 and 67] - I’m pretty well up on the recent treatments so was happy to tell said rep to eff off, how many others would know so?
No different from the MMR stuff - once it catches fire, it takes a long time to put out.
133 - Personally I think Dave’s big problem in this campaign is going to be education spending. It will be cut.
I think thats correct, Goves radical reforms will be a few pilot schemes as they depend on creating overcapacity.
133 - advance picture of the new planned Conservative academies for Middle England children …
136 tim - You’re stuck in a Fifties ‘central planning’ mindset.
OT Spot the person who looks like he’d steal ladies’ undies
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lancashire/8439446.stm
133 numbertwelve
Up here, Labour have already shown their strategy, which they developed during the Glenrothes and Glasgow East bye-elections -
Never discuss reserved powers, but if forced to, be critical of the UK Government’s actions on Iraq etc.
Campaign solely on devolved issues, and criticise the SNP and Tories on devolved issues - no matter how irrelevant.
133 Ed Balls wants education to be about spending, Michael Gove wants it to be about empowering parents, letting peple create their own new schools with funding following pupils. Gove’s proposals are radical enough that the discussion will move onto those rather than Ed’s favoured ground (which is anyway only in existence because he isn’t Chancellor, he’s trying to make best of what he’s got having been a failure as an education secretary).
137 Tabman, why have you posted a link to a photo of Gordon Brown at the gates of Downing Street?
138 Second Law of Thermodynamics.
135 - Herceptin is available but only suited to about a fifth of breast cancer patients.
The BUPA rep is perhaps better suited to a more honest career in timeshare sales.
139 Well, Plato, I think we can all agree that kills your idea of politics being showbusiness for ugly people stone dead…
122
Education as the first real battleground where they intend to take on the bureaucrats in a major way
And not just the bureaucrats but the Gramscian Long Marchers who control the increasingly ossified public sector establishment monster.
142 - it’s what Brown’s got lined up post June 2010: Headmaster of the Fife Academy for Young Gentlemen.
101. There was no significant polling industry bias in 2005.
ARS seem to be 4-5 points below where the rest of the pollsters say Labour are. That is a huge difference and shouts extreme caution.
You have to believe two things.
i) The rest of the pollsters have all deteriorated since 2005 in a pro-Labour direction.
ii) ARS, the new kid on the block, are spot on.
87 jsfl
Have you ever used the term ‘Newco’?
138 - Creating Sweish style “free schools” necessarily involves creating surplus capacity.
In Sweden they only account for about 8% of pupils and thats with roughly double the money following the pupil that Gove proposes.
A few pilots.
122. Richard
I’m not convinced by your argument. Your latest post effectively suggests that the Conservatives are doing nothing about the largest spending department there is in the middle of the biggest public debt crisis in peacetime. In which case why bother with this PR nonsense this morning?
The Conservative NHS policy is a nonsense and likely a very expensive nonsense at that.
The biggest problem is Cameron’s commitment will make it that much harder down the line to change anything and will leave his government and the NHS open to every criticism under the sun. You should start off as you intend to proceed. He has set out an impossible and indefensible position on Health and it will come back to bite him.
Now I’ve never been a fan of Cameron’s. I think he is three vertebrae short of a full backbone but I do want an effective right of centre Government to stay in power for a considerable time to take us into the much vaunted post bureaucratic age and roll-back much of the damage done by the left. I increasingly see Cameron and his dreadful PR industry traits as an obstacle to that.
Basically, he is putting a straightjacket on his future government and the conservative movement before it has taken breath and he ain’t no Houdini…
139 - Plato,
141 It’s an interesting perception change that seems to be gaining traction.
Spending was viewed as a *good* thing for a long time - rather like recreational shopping.
It’s now increasingly seen as irresponsible and profligate.
The jump from being a *fun* thing to do - to a *feckless* one has been pretty big.
The more Labour trumpet spending money that most people think we don’t have will be bad electoral news [unless of course you prefer to ignore the rude letters on the doormat].
A technical post about tax raising and the implications for the timing of the GE. Apologies for the length.
Income tax is an annual tax and needs legislation each year to continue to raise it. Normally the process is as follows:
House of Commons resolution to impose income tax. This has the power under the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968 to collect taxes.
A Finance Act is passed under the terms of PCTA 68 which superceeds the HofC ressolution.
This process allows income tax to be collected between 6 April and the passing of the Finance Act later in the summer.
However if parliament is dissolved or porogued (sp?) prior to the passing of the Finance Act, the HofC ressolution ceases to have effect, and any taxes collected has to be refunded.
So how does this apply to different dates for the GE?
This means that we need a Finance Act prior to an GE which takes place after 6 April. The earliest date possible for a Budget (normally requied prior to a Finance Bill) is 10th March (3 months after the PBR).
So far so good, but what about a March 25 election? No FA or Budget prior to then, so no power to collect income tax from 6 April. But the HofC will not be returning until late April - typically a few weeks from the GE to parliament sitting.
Under what powers will income tax be collected from 6 April until parliament sits and is able to lay a HofC ressolution?
The timing is all wrong.
To conclude, a March 25 GE has technical difficulties with income tax raising post 6 April.
My view is that the possibility of a 25 March election is a red herring.
Interesting that the Tories have started using the Union Flag (or a section of it) at their news conferences and on their publicity etc, instead of, as previously, the somewhat meaningless although not unattractive fuzzy tree.
Hmm….. I wonder why that might be.
145
149 Seth
You’ve completely lost me…..?
85 - nice bit of pomposity from you tim old bean. That is the problem with all these prols getting access to technology eh? Gives them the opportunity to discuss things that really ought to only be discussed by their betters.
Maybe you should set up your own site called http://www.upperclasschampagnesocialistpoliticalbetting.com . I am sure it would be a hoot where all your chums could have a good laugh at all the ignorant plebs!
On the poster again, it just struck me how powerful the ‘we can’t go on like this’ line is. It works subliminally - with the deficit and NHS headlining. But it’s obviously going to be a day in day out below the radar message through the campaign. Very hard for Labour to counteract that.
134 Martin…it is a truly shocking organisation.
153 Not sure. Spending cuts and tax rises are politically palatable so long as they are abstract or for someone else. The Tories have to keep it general and not something that’s tangible.
More QE anyone?
…the measure most closely watched by the MPC – M4 money supply growth with that of intermediate financial companies stripped out – was positive in November, with a one-month growth rate of 0.9 per cent. But the three-month growth rate remains negative at -2.2 per cent, raising questions about just how effective the Bank’s quantitative easing programme has been.
Alan Clarke, economist at BNP Paribas said: “It would have been a lot slower were it not for QE. However, had QE worked more successfully through the system, via increased lending growth, then we might have expected to see a more robust pace of growth. It is still not showing through, so on the basis of these data there is still a case for more QE.”
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d702aac6-f91c-11de-80dc-00144feab49a.html
161 - “The Tories have to keep it general and not something that’s tangible.”
As, clearly, do Labour.
Congratulations to ARS and to you too Mike for teaming up with them.
When can we expect our first 2010 poll from the newly registered ARS then?
141 - OK I’ll offer you a betting proposition.
I bet you £100 that the number of pupils in a “free school” at the end of the first term of a Conservative Government is less than 2% of the total pupils in the education system (excluding Higher Education)
The picture of Cameron isn’t great though. Airbrush much?
tim - so nice that you have now accepted the inevitable that there will be a conservative government
159 I assumed that this was the logical progression from ‘we’re all in this together’.
Tactics 101 seem to be:
1. Don’t think that this will apply only to someone else
2. It’s appalling and unsustainable - ie irresponsible for more of the same
3. IMO - next move - something along the lines of ‘we all have to do our bit’
a) call to public sector workers to highlight waste [that crowd-sourcing thing is a great idea
b) small businesses to highlight what help they need
c) other feedback from evolving manifesto used as evidence/agreement with Tory mandate.
160. graham p malpas January 4th, 2010 at 1:37 pm
Certainly is a dreadful organisation.
Filthy, self obssessed, with a combination of some highly skilled professionals i.e. Doctors, nurses, speacialists etc supported by militant unionised jobsworths who offer Basil Faulty type service.
The public services in general are very poor and they get paid on average 7% more than comparative private sector jobs IIRC according to recent figures. Added to that the Pension schemes in the public sector in the same report said they get 3 times the level of pension plus holidays. I find it outragous absolutly outragious - talk about having your cake and eating it.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1240228/Gap-public-private-sector-doubles-civil-servants-spend-20-000-party.html
LABOUR LABOUR LABOUR - OUT OUT OUT!
As someone who was around the NHS all his working life, is now an NHS pensioner, and who personally identified several tens of thousands of pounds savings in his last couple of working years, I would agree that yes there is waste. And, of course, some is in management. Some though is in poorly applied front-line services, and those are best identified by competent outsiders reviewing what people are doing (or prescribing) and ensuring the alternatives.
The last thing the NHS needs is another management shake-up. It’s oh so too Daily Wail easy to scream “sack the managers”, but a considerable time over the last few years has been spent in doing just that, or at least moving them about, to no overall apparent benefit. What I suggest is needed is a period where the relatively newly constructed PCT’s and whatever are left to get on with things, and develop health & economically sound policies and procedures, rather than everyone either looking over their shoulders to see where the next re-organisation (and consequent plug-pulling) is coming from, or ignoring an uncomfortable or radical idea “because the guy in charge won’t be there next year”.
Promises of no change, and three year budgets, even if reducing, would probably get results.
Great news from the BPC, well done ARS. I wonder if the beeb will add them to their poll tracker
talking of the beeb , Pb.com gets a mention here, with a slective quote ..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/seealso/2010/01/daily_view_the_election_campai.html
151 jsfl - I think we’ll have to agree to disagree. I see it precisely the opposite way around: we need a centre-right government for at least three terms, in order to undo Labour’s damage and address the new challenges. Rushing in and trying to do everything in the first term would IMO make that crucial second victory less likely.
It’s essentially a disagreement about tactics and pace, not the desired endpoint. My judgement is that Cameron has got both of those right, and it is largely because of that that we actually have a very good chance of a Conservative government at last. (Having an unpopular government is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for an opposition win).
168 - “3. IMO - next move - something along the lines of ‘we all have to do our bit’”
I think this is never going to be astute politically for the Conservatives. Quite simply, for any group of millionaires to talk about “doing their bit” for general belt tightening invites ridicule along the lines of “it must be a real hardship getting rid of the third under-footman” type.
169, Martin, would the fact that you have been turned down for employment in the generally very poor public services have anything to do with your view of them?
As a member of the civil service, I really do get tired of people generalising about what goes on. The whole of the civil service are not “pen pushing jobsworths”, the majority are doing jobs that need to be done.
Rather than shotgun an entire workforce we need to identify the jobs that could be either dispensed with or done more efficiently, constantly droning on about “feather beds and gold plated pensions” does nothing for the debate.
132. Madsa
Whilst the NHS may be inefficient etc and should be improved, to suggest whole scale cuts is the proposal of people who stand zero chance of being elected.
Show me where in any of my posts have I talked about cutting services?
I have promoted decentralisation not cuts and argued that the current Conservative NHS policy will only waste further resources on bureaucracy rather than target it where it is needed. As you have equated this to cuts, I can only imagine the effectiveness of your ‘reforms’ on organisations in the past…..
tim’s probably right on the numbers in free schools at the end of the 1st term. That’s fine. When changing a large organisation, best to start small, the pace of change can accelerate rapidly after that.
The tories left it way to late last time to take on education reform, which Blair immediately reversed (except for the school he sent his kids, of course).
23 Plato. Drip-fed or episodic manifesto. Might be a way to get the public to read most of it, rather than dumping a whole tome on them in one go. However, unless it is written as one and then released episodically, it runs the risk of the sums not adding up. Let’s hope the whole manifesto is already written. Anyone at Conservative Central able to confirm?
172 Happy New Year Richard.
173. zzzzzzzzzzz
172. To get on the BPC you merely have to pay your subs and agree by their terms of publication. ARS should have done this straight away. I don’t think that Mike particularly needs too much congratulations on managing this not particularly tricky admin task.
178 Jonathan - Thanks, and same to you! It will certainly be an interesting year…
174. Oh, certainly you can’t get rid of everyone in the public sector. The public sector needs people to work! And most of them do a fantastic job. But at the same time it’s impossible to deny that we have one of the most bloated public sectors in the world. And we simply can’t afford it when we need to stay economically competitive as well.
Re 164. The next ARS poll? I’m hoping to have something within the next fortnight. The firm is also at an advanced stage with structuring a marginals poll.
The big question is whether it will show as little volatility as it did in the Oct-Dec period?
The fact that it hardly moved at all while the others fluctuated a lot
was very puzzling.
Any polls due ?
172. Richard
You like madsa are trying to put words in my mouth. I have not at anytime suggested that it has to be rushed what I have suggested is that it should be commenced whereas all your arguments support maintaining the status quo and effectively ‘doing nothing’.
By doing nothing and setting unachievable expectations (and likely robbing peter to pay paul) rather than a measured approach in all areas will only leave a right of centre government vulnerable to failure at a much earlier point.
I’ll tell you what if Cameron survives past 2015 you can tell me I told you so. If he doesn’t you can be sure I will tell you.
17 - Have we seen Mr Shanked here before or is he another one of the student collective, who has now learned to put a space after his full stops?
171. Trust the BBC to pick up that deeply unrepresentative quote from OGH.
165 tim - I think you are slightly missing the point. It’s not the new schools themselves, but the galvanising effect of the possibility of competition on existing schools, which will make the big difference.
Suddenly all those excuses for why they can’t impose discipline or improve literacy will tend to disappear.
183 I did an ARS poll this morning - a tiddler just on my household bills/overall expenditure vs debt/credit cards. No voting intention.
186 A few times before over the last month or so IIRC.
Dave is almost certainly the Tories’ best weapon (other than Gordn Brown), so it makes sense to use him quite a lot.
Good clean poster, positive message, promising start from the Tories.
re 180. That’s not entirely correct Paul. The firm had to go through a methodology review and had to respond to detailed questions.
Mike
Congratulations on ARS approval to be part of the BPC
but I’ll believe that ARS have arrived when the BBC put them on their poll charts!
169 - not everything you read in the Daily Mail is a fact.
What is not made clear in that article is like for like comparisons. The public sector doesn’t have many of the sorts of jobs that will tend to bring the private sector averages down. Most public sector workers are white collar; many private sector jobs are unskilled.
188 - That increase in competition will be very limited compared to the competition that already exists in the “better (oversubscribed) school down the road”.
The key is how to get the worst performing schools standards up.
174. don(the other one) January 4th, 2010 at 1:50 pm
Firstly dont take it personally.
I am a customer of the Civil Service as is everybody else potentially in this country. It is my observation and my right as a uk citizen to pass my views on it.
From what i have seen from employment processes to seeing what is actually done, the whole thing is a comfortable job scheme. Grossly inefficient, plodding, resource wasting and a joke to anyone who has ever worked in the private sector. Yes i have been turned down for work in various public organisations and Quangos for what ever reason - usually poor reasons and I did not show my scepism in dialogue or body language.
Some public service is required and is good but does that mean it deserves to be better paid and provided better Pension/holidays than the private sector? Does it mean we cannot critise its gross ineffiency and its unionised militant “I’m all right jack’ workers. Of course not! Yes Don maybe their are some folk like you who are dedicated, productive and efficient public service entreupreners. But you are the seem of Gold that glistens above a mile deep strater of shit!
172. Richard
To put it in other terms the Conservative proposals on the NHS are like swapping the deckchairs around on the Titanic whilst stopping the passengers from jumping into the lifeboats.
177. TimT. Bear in mind it is a draft manifesto. Cameron was at pains to stress this at his launch this morning:
“Yes it is a draft manifesto because this is still an open document; open to the ideas of the millions of people it will affect.”
It’s going to be published online and everyone can have their say. Not sure where that will leave the sums adding up …
O/T
For all living Midlands northwards, batten down the hatches and lay in extra food/fuel
http://www.metoffice.com/weather/uk/yh/yh_forecast_warnings.html
On thread, I think the answers are No and Yes. No harm in being too Dave-specific yet; he’s an electoral asset - though he must be wary of hogging all the limelight once in government and must allow other senior Tories to make their own marks. But yes, I was surprised and disappointed when I saw the poster yesterday at the extent to which he’s cornered himself. In an ideal world, no, we wouldn’t want to cut NHS spending; but we’re not in an ideal world, we’re nearly bankrupt, and we have to consider savings everywhere we can.
177 Agreed - I’d be very surprised if this wasn’t all part of a long-term announcement plan - over a year [starting after the expenses fiasco knocked everything sideways].
I used to do strategy comms and this has all the hallmarks of a good one:
a) admit the issue that everyone knows is there but corporately is bad news
b) explain what needs to be addressed - ie beyond just throwing someone elses money at it
c) what your/our role in it is - share responsibilty to stop arm-chair whining
d) ask for help/input/advice from those who care about getting it right for their community/special interest group
d) do it with those who chipped in and allow ‘the crowd’ to tell those who are unrealistic/chippy to grow-up or get involved themselves
157 jsfl
The term ‘Newco’ [New Company] is used by lawyers and corporate financiers/strategists when restructuring commercial enterprises.
I am suggesting that transferring the assets and management of the NHS from the civil service to a ‘quango’ is the equivalent in corporate restructuring of creating a new company.
I was being slightly provocative here by hoping someone would leap on my suggestion as evidence that the Tories were planning to privatise the NHS by floating British Health PLC. The bait clearly didn’t attract.
Creating a new organisation to hold the assets and manage the NHS does however have benefits without it being a path to privatisation. For example, it may make it easier for the NHS to raise finance on the capital markets. It could also enable the NHS to set up a ‘for profit’ subsidiary or division to market its services outside the UK. It could even allow for strategic industry investments - inbound or outbound - for example with the pharmaceutical or medical insurance industries. None of the above need to be adopted policies at this stage. The intention is to enable future development.
A more sellable case for creating the ‘quango/newco’ would be to separate the functions of government and civil service from enterprise management. Governments are not good at micromanaging enterprises. A separation of powers should help stabilise and incent the development and management of the health service.
Confused?
Labour’s document has not done as much damage to the Tories as the party may have hoped. That’s because Labour does not appear to have got its message. At one point in his Andrew Marr interview yesterday, Gordon Brown appeared to accuse the Tories of not having a deficit reduction plan. He then reverted to what has been the main line of attack over the last 6 months, accusing Cameron of wanting to cut the deficit too quickly, thereby prolonging the recesion.
But today Darling has told us that got a secret set of spending plans that make Brown look positively miserly. Leftfootfoward had just put up a blog post showing that, if you take the figures in the Labour document, borrowing would remain higher under the Tories than under Labour. Please, these charges can’t all be right. It might help to “agree a line”, as they say.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2010/jan/04/general-election-campaign-live
I quite like it except I think they should have used “debt” which is less literate than “deficit.” The ” we can’t go on like this” is clever because its using change as a word without using change as a word. everyone is sick of change and its associated with windbag Obama.
The Presidential aspect looks a little odd at the moment so I understand the thread but its the natural consequence of debates. They are going to change everything so its worth really investing in your key brand for a few months before he takes to the presidential stage. Interesting to see what the Lib Dems do with Clegg in this regard. Tim is also right that the Ivan tragedy gives Cameron a unique perspective on the NHS at least from recent Tory leaders.
That said of course its a huge hostage to fortune that will blow up in his face quite possibly as soon as the end of the first term. But that is just the price of doing business. It can’t all go wrong for him unless he wins and that always has to come first.
203. Very good - hilarious in fact. What a shower.
With my ex Procter and Gamble hat on, I didn’t rate this poster (LDO) and couldn’t explain why - Thinking about it, I because I think the message clashes with itself.
I’ll cut the Deficit - fine.
I won’t cut the NHS - fine
But putting the two together? To me at least, it leaves you wondering what’s _not_ being said on the poster - will taxes rise? Will other services be cut?
It’s the equivalent of a early New Labour poster saying. “I’ll spend more on Schools and Hospitals. I won’t put up income tax.”
While as overall political strategy it makes sense (you can hold down spending on other areas, increase NI, etc etc) putting the two things together only highlights the dissonance between the statements.
195 tim - No. Because of the central planning model, poorly performing schools get pupils anyway, almost irrespective of how bad they are. The establishment doesn’t really care; they see bad schools (in your terms) as ‘capacity’ to be utilised. In any case, in many areas there isn’t a good school down the road.
Introduce the possibility of new schools opening up, but outside the bureaucrats’ control, and suddenly the dynamics change.
Blair got this part-right, but didn’t carry it through.
The most telling example of this point in the last decade was Tower Hamlets’ refusal to permit the Goldman Sachs-sponsored Academy in the borough. That tells you everything you need to know about producer interests overriding the interests of pupils - in this case, some of the most under-privileged children in the country, who would have been offered a fantastic opportunity to break out of the straitjacket.
203 - *coughs politely*
http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2010/01/04/is-this-the-man-wholl-choose-browns-successor/#comment-1369031
183. Thanx for the info Mike, looking forward to it. And on your question:
“The fact that it hardly moved at all while the others fluctuated a lot
was very puzzling”.
Maybe they just have a better and newer system.
187. What can you expect from the BBC? They didn’t even mention the pounding that piglet on a stick D, (darling) got from the media this morning.
202 I’ve set up two Newcos and didn’t get your hint either
I really don’t see any Tory going near the privatisation route for many a year - shipping services out to the charitable sector however would make a lot of sense in some areas.
154 - Verulamius. Interesting point, thought could an Order in Council get round that? I’m not an expert on constitutional matters and I know that the monarch is kept a long way away from the authority to raise taxes? If Brown called an election in the 2 weeks before Parliament is formally dissolved, couldn’t he ram through a simple continuation Primary Act?
To ARS, congratulations on the membership. I’m looking forward to some interesting polling in the next few weeks from all the pollsters.
On the subject of this post this personalisation probably started with Maggie actually, someone who completely dominated her party and government. It resumed under Blair and it is instructive that when Blair went Labour bounced. If you make it personal, you have the advantage of removing that Leader can draw a lot of the poison (obviously I am looking far down the possible road for the Tories). Regardless of the leader I still think Labour would be looking at a defeat this year, but the scale is likely to be Brown magnified.
But to continue the personalisation theme of this. It comes back to Trust. Brown is not trusted and Cameron is more trusted. That’s why he is on the poster saying “I’ll….”
207 - all talk about education is bullsh8t unless and until someone talks about the elephant in the (class)room - how to exclude disruptive pupils, and then what to do with them when you’ve removed them from ruining the education of the many.
A school can be run by Tower Hamlets, Michael Gove, Goldman Sachs or Uncle Tom Cobbley and all, but if it has the same pupil content its going to get the same results.
206 Hopi. That is the whole point of it. There is a sacred cow called the NHS [and the guppy sized Int Dev].
Everything else is up for the snip.
202. Seth
Certainly such a scenario has crossed my mind and I fear that it is possible that that may be the underhand motive behind this.
I equally consider this to be disasterous (it sounds like the heatlh version of the BBC) as everytime previous Conservative Governments have done this sort of thing it has resulted in poorer but more expensive services. The worst of all worlds.
Governments are not good at micromanaging enterprises
Seth and this is the point. It is not only Governments that are not good at micromanaging enterprises. No large organisation is good at micro-managing enterprise and the problem is Governments only deal with other large organisations. So handing it sideways has no positive effect.
194. Tabman January 4th, 2010 at 2:04 pm
The unions normally say that public sector workers are low paid citing toilet cleaners etc. Now which is it a highly qualified private sector or an unskilled private sector verses public sector vis a vis?
Even under Labour there is no requirement for a PHD to clean cracks in toilets!
206: The aim of the poster is clearly to counter the labour claim of Tory cuts.
Theres two messages there. ‘I’ll cut the deficit=postive’
‘I won’t cut the NHS=reasurring’
It’s there to shoot the labour attack before they happen. Which is easy as labour are so predictable.
183. Are we not having a forecasting competition for 2010, Mike?
216, but Gordon said to his friend Andrew that the Tories were wrong about everything. This must mean the deficit should remain, but the NHS should be cut, or abolished.
204 - YS, he can’t. They are not the same thing.
202 Seth O Logue Don’t know if you got my message at 516 two threads ago (Can he go on avoiding the c word?). It was a while after you posted yours to me (dinner break)
207 - I’v no particular issue with any of this stuff ideologically, I just believe two things.
1. Goves plans will fanny around at the edges because they are very expensive.
2.They are likely to appeal to those parents who generally already give a f*ck.
One thing we know is that we need to get at the kids whose parents don’t give a f*ck as that is the defining factor in whether the child (or indeed school) does well.
I suspect ideas like this will have more impact.
A state school with a ten-hour working day is to be established to test how extended timetables can enhance the education of children from deprived homes.
The Sutton Trust, whose aim is to improve educational opportunity for pupils from deprived backgrounds, wants to establish such an academy, Britain’s first, modelled on a charter school programme in America.
Research commissioned by the trust found that children with parents who were graduates spent on average twice as much time on their homework as pupils with parents who had O levels: 18 minutes per weekday and 21 minutes at weekends, compared with only 6 and 9 minutes. They were also less likely to read for pleasure.
A third of children (34 per cent) whose parents had little or no formal education claimed to have had no homework set during the survey period, compared with 10 per cent of pupils with graduate parents.
This gap was so large that the research authors, from the universities of Oxford and Durham, concluded: “This suggests that the children of less educated parents are much more likely to be in classes or schools that do not in reality set much homework.”
Sir Peter Lampl, chairman of the Sutton Trust, said that the findings illustrated how a child’s background could entrench lower aspirations and underachievement, and longer school hours were a way of bridging this gap.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article6963360.ece
204. YS - using ‘debt’ instead of ‘deficit’ would be dishonest and quickly revealed as such. I’m very glad to see the term being eschewed.
215 - Martin. You’re confusing two separate issues: absolute low pay and relative low pay.
Cleaners (generally speaking) are absolutely low-paid, in that they receive at or about the minimum wage.
Generally speaking, public sector workers are relatively low-paid compared to private-sector equivalents. That is certainly the case in my area of employment - finance. OTOH, public sector workers have more stable pension arrangements, longer holidays and (sometimes, but not always) shorter working hours. Its a trade off.
213. Precisely. I just think the poster leaves the viewer wondering about that “Everything else” Schools? Defence? Police? Taxes?
I’m talking more about advertsing than about politics here - but Wouldn’t it be a stronger message to use the “We can’t go on like this… I’ll do X” format, but restrict X to one thing?
So today Cameron could have done “I’ll protect the NHS” next week do “I’ll reduce the Deficit” then in a few weeks time do “I’ll create Free schools” or whatever.
Trying to combine them just makes the proposals more confusing and highlights their internal inconsistencies in a way that could be easiliy avoided, imo.
212 I was very fortunate to go to a school with a very high level of pupil conduct and when we had a trivial bit of disruption - said pupil would be called out in front of the rest of the class as someone who was swapping a few minutes of tom-foolery for a life of missed good wages.
It never failed to shut them up.
I’m all for taking disruptive kids out of the mainstream and giving them a really strict/task based learning environment until they get it.
Thinking that you can fart about and spoil the learning of others is one of the most selfish acts I can think of.
Mike, polls usually fluctuate, even if they are unbiased and there has been no underlying change in support. 75% of the time they will give the wrong answer (to the nearest 1%.)
But underlying support does change, albeit usually at a glacial rate.
It is almost impossible to draw any inference from the fact that ARS’s reported values appear “stable.” Chance, rounding, and the days they happened to be in the field could explain this.
Their difference from other pollsters reported Labour shares remains worrying.
206/213 - Hopi - the message I got (as Plato says) is that there will be cuts, but not to the NHS. Excellent preemptive strike because of course Labour say at every opportunity that the Tories will cut the NHS. Cameron has the added value that he has been completely consistent in this message. Unlike this mornings horlix of a Labour ’strategy’.
Hopi Sen, you’re assuming this poster is a one-off. I reckon we’ll hear a lot more of “we can’t go on like this”.
221 “A third of children (34 per cent) whose parents had little or no formal education claimed to have had no homework set during the survey period, compared with 10 per cent of pupils with graduate parents.
This gap was so large that the research authors, from the universities of Oxford and Durham, concluded: “This suggests that the children of less educated parents are much more likely to be in classes or schools that do not in reality set much homework.””
Erm - doesn’t it suggest that the children of less-educated parents are more likely to lie about the level of homework they are set, because their parents aren’t checking that they’re doing it (as the stats above seem to indicate)?
213. The poster is a nonsense. Whoever gets in will have a desperate time in first looking at the books and then balancing the books.
I believe all departments face the axe and it is really silly of Cameron to say otherwise.
218. Gordon’s repeated use of the word ‘wrong’ is pretty ridiculous. Because it makes him seem like he’s always ‘right’ on everything. And people don’t really like people who keep repeating “I’m right, you’re wrong”…
223. Tabman January 4th, 2010 at 2:25
No, the chiefs in the public sector dont get as paid as much as some of the heads of private sector companies. Much of the ‘overpaid’ state sector is in the middle.
Jobs on say £15,000 to £35,000.
Toilet cleaners get a rum deal in any sector but you dont need any qualifications to do it, though it would not surprise me if their was a NVQ on offer somewhere.
224: I would say that the tory strategy is to ram home the deficit line as the key thing. Labour have (and continue to) spend too much money.
Problem is as soon as they do that. Labour start shouting about tories will cut all spending and leave people to die….
This is however obviously the start of a planned strategy. The core thing will probably be everpresent is the deficit issue, as it’s posion for labour. Then to build in other things around it.
Interesting stuff above re NHS / Cameron’s approach.
OT / Betting Post
The unofficial launch of the general election campaign this morning has shifted a few things around in the betting markets - election dates for one. If the pace and flow of announcements and rebuttals continues like this, with politics taking a front seat in the media, for the next six months, there are likely to be opportunities in the markets. I’m relatively new to political betting and was wondering where people see there being potential value or volatility that might be taken advantage of?
224 Nope - he’s establishing a core brand principle.
Detail comes next. As someone who understands advertising, you know exactly I’m getting at and what the Tories are doing.
Awareness building is the big one - the what/how/price tags come later.
219,222. Yes, you are both right about that. I still think deficit is too literate for a poster but I hadn’t thought about the debt/deficit distinction which is a very large one.
They do a NVQ in Toilet cleaning!!!
http://www.trurocollege.ac.uk/page.php?pageID=163
re 217. We are planning one - Paul Maggs is working on it.
On topic I think it’s better not analysing the poster as like most contemporary PR it seems easily distorted and dismembered.
The only true thing it say is
We Can’t Go On Like This
220 Tim T
I did thanks. It was just before I grabbed a couple of hours kip, so I noted your email with the intent of following up. Many thanks.
237 OMG! Will I need one soon to prove that visitors under 18 to my house won’t catch some hideous disease?
Didn’t the “We can’t go on like this” meme start in Dave’s conference speech? Or am I thinking of something else?
212 - agreed Tabbers. Grammar schools and private schools are popular not because parents want their children taught with the top 20% so much as because they don’t want them taught with the bottom 10%. Much more effort and resource needs directing towards this sector of the cohort, ideally in separate units.
However, there’s another elephant which needs to be addressed: the ability to pay teachers more to do a specialist / unpopuloar job (such as teach disruptive pupils in specialised units; or, more prosaically, to teach science). It’s currently very difficult to pay teachers differently and to entice good teachers to challenging schools.
241. Plato January 4th, 2010 at 2:35 pm
From Faisal Islam for those betting on the election date…
“Labour strategists say they have been “remorselessly conservative” in their assessments (e.g. by not costing the grandparents tax credit) and that they expect this document to stand up to “six months” of election scrutiny (is there an election timing hint in there?).”
http://blogs.channel4.com/snowblog/2010/01/04/labours-double-flip-as-election-phony-war-begins/
241. SeanT would be screwed.
242 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4862103.ece
No reference to the word “can’t” if that helps.
245, heavy hints could just as easily by double bluffs.
175
jsfl
If you think wholescale reorganisation of the NHS - AGAIN - will improve things within 5 years,,, then you are I suggest being unrealistic.
And your article read “cuts” to me .. and richard. Which is a message problem - for you.
230
Try cutting NHS spending now and see how many people you will kill. Literally.
As you will HAVE to cut drugs and staff and people will die.
Any government doing that will last 5 years. Period.. And leave power with a host of implacable enemies.
Of course, if you want to die tomorrow and have no drugs or nursing staff, go right ahead.. We’ll save on the pensions bill…
229 - I suspect its a combination of many things, with parents who don’t give a toss being the root of most of them.
Thats why, in a field with plenty of competition, the most moronic thing Grayling came out with last year was that children who get in trouble with the police or at school should spend more time with their parents under curfew.
Jaw droppingly idiotic
245 - how can they have been “remorselessly conservative” when they’ve added in things the Tories aren’t committed to doing in order to make the number bigger?
Maybe they meant their lying was remorselessly conservative, as they’ve lied a bit less than they usually do.
221 tim
Research commissioned by the trust found that children with parents who were graduates spent on average twice as much time on their homework as pupils with parents who had O levels: 18 minutes per weekday and 21 minutes at weekends, compared with only 6 and 9 minutes. They were also less likely to read for pleasure.
I may have led a sheltered life but I am shocked by these figures. It is no wonder that independent schools gain a massively disproportionate share of places at the Russell Group universities when you see these figures. As an attendee at a boarding school I spent 1 1/2 hours per weekday from the ages of 12 to 16 doing ‘prep’/homework. Even my nieces who attend a state day school spend at least an hour each evening doing homework - although TV and various other electronic devices are permitted distractions.
Am I sounding like a Bufton-Tufton here? What is everyone else’s experience?
82 - tim amused me not that long ago by claiming he is unable to vote Labour at present.
So, he spends most of his life on here attacking Labours enemies on behalf of a party he cannot bring himself to vote for.
My guess is that when it comes to truth tim = Gordon Brown
OGH Last year, you had also mentioned that you would be working on a survey of PBers. Any progress on that? Probably not your highest priority as we enter the run up to the campaign, but will be very interesting whenever you get around to it.
O/T was on DVLA site (the one that will cut the deficit painlessly according to Gordon) and noted that to get these efficiency savings (and close more Post Offices) they are offering a free draw car prize.
Shame it isn’t a British made car……
“If you tax or SORN on-line or by phone this month you will be entered into a FREE prize draw for one of three brand-new SEAT Ibiza ecomotive cars.”
228. ‘We can’t go on like this’ is actually a brilliant line. It really hits the mark with fear of five more years of Brown. It’s also more subtle and modern than ‘we’re all in this together’ which is rather WW2. It speaks to the relationship counselling generation - hints at angst and renewal, but it isn’t flashy. A pop song banalty sure, but so unremarkable you hear the message rather than see the cleverness. A world away from ‘are you thinking what I’m thinking’.
“We can’t go on like this” is a clever slogan. Plays to people’s fear of Gordon Brown, and says “even if you don’t like us, you know something has to be done”.
252 - About an hour to an hour and a half sounds about right, and I went to a comp.
I suspect both our sets of parents gave a toss. (although mine chose to bring me up themselves)
The research in the States on kids whose parents either didn’t care or who had to work all hours with the children going home to an empty house are better off staying in school for another couple of hours.
Seems perfectly logical to me, and wouldn’t involve a huge tranche of reorganisation or legislation.
107 - “Time and time again, Cameron is shown to be more popular than the Tory party. ”
conversly several polls now state that Brown is LESS unpopular than Labour itself.
You really know its all over if that is the case.
257- Absolutely right.
The other problem with “Are you thinking…etc” was it was so easily parodied as “Are you drinking…etc” or “Are you smoking what we’re smoking”…
I can’t yet think of a decent parody of “we cant go on like this”, can anyone else?
252 At my primary school we had zero homework, at my big school we routinely had 3+ hrs daily homework plus about 10 hrs at the weekend [ie almost all of Sunday].
I have a vivid recollection of coming home, eating spaghetti on toast and then spending the rest of the time before sleep sitting with text/exercise books trying to do what I’d been set.
It got so OTT, that our class revolted and pointed out to a harpie geography teacher that whilst she thought it was 30 mins - it actually took 90mins.
Mike, others
Why people keep banging on about Daniel Hannan’s opinions I just don’t know.
1. He is an MEP not MP
2. Because he is an MEP most of the public barely know him and those that do accept that he is an attention seeking Maverick !
His views don’t matter
For repeatedly disruptive kids, the best thing is to have special schools, with few pupils and the active involvement of social services, police, health etc. There are a few around, though nowhere near enough.
Large parts of the left would hate the idea, as it is against the ‘comprehensive’ ideal.
79. Chris, yes, it is only fair as welisten to you whinging. Pretty obvious that they should make it very clear they are talking about England only if it only applies there.
Sorry, was reply to 256
252 SOL Admittedly I’m in the States, and my daughter went to a private Friends school. One of the reasons she dropped out to do distance learning was the 2 hours a day homework after a 40 minute commute each way. Now she spends much less time on her education and is getting better grades. So it’s clearly not just the amount of time kids spend on schoolwork, but also the quality. In this regard, I suspect the kids of graduates also do better than those whose parents only attained O Levels.
But the number is shockingly small. Trying to part the dense mists of my memory to get back as far as my own schooling in the state system, I think 45-60 minutes a day was more like it.
186. Archroy
Do you have anything of interest to say, or are you just clogging up the internet?
My occasional posts are usually betting related - arbs etc. That’s what makes this website popular - betting tips & political opinion, not tribal bullying of first time posters. Shameful.
252. Seth - Agree these figures seem astonishingly low. As for 6 minutes of homework on weekdays, surely that can’t be classified as homework at all. What kind of homework can be done in 6 minutes?
I just thought that Global Warming supporters should be notified:
Jan. 4 (Bloomberg) — The heaviest snowfall to hit Beijing and Seoul in more than half a century grounded hundreds of planes in the two capitals as temperatures in northern China were set to fall to the lowest in 50 years.
Beijing Capital International Airport canceled more than 500 flights today as of 2 p.m. local time, China Central Television reported. Gimpo Airport in western Seoul grounded 187 flights as of 2 p.m. local time, the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs said in a statement.
235. Well, If he is, the core brand principle is way too diffuse- you shouldn’t try and say three things at the same time in a poster.
Great (and even good) posters communicate one simple direct message. Think “Labour’s Tax bombshell” or “Hague/Thatcher” or (commercially) any of the great economist ads. They might require you to engage with the message to “get it”, but the message itself is simple and clean. (Tobacco advertsing is another example - Silk Cut posters managed to clearly communicate a very definite brand image without saying anything at all)
That’s not the case here. I think that the deficit cut message muddies and undermines the NHS message. Apart from anything else, it puts the word “Cut” in a positive poster about the NHS, which I don’t like as a piece of copy-writing.
Where I agree with other posters is that the “we can’t go on like this” line seems to be a way of tying things together, and could be re-used.
251 What a shame that Darling and Brown weren’t “remorselessly conservative” in their own dealings with the UK economy….
And it isn’t six months to the election. It is four (if May) and five (in the unlikely event that Gordon goes for June).
The fact that Darling’s Dodgy Dossier didn’t stand up for six hours is neither here nor there.
214 jsfl
I agree with your point that large corporations are similar to governments in their inability to micromanage enterprise.
This was a fault of the Thatcher era, where nationalised industries were translated from state monopolies to private monopolies. That in turn created a role for regulatory authorities (more quangos) which can never be as effective as commercial markets for ensuring competition.
There is no reason why an NHS Newco cannot create competitive markets in certain services by disvestment. I do however believe that the political will is for the core services of the NHS to remain part of public sector provision. Newco divestment would therefore need to be gradual and marginal for quite some time.
The key is to create the delivery mechanism for such developments. Whilst not knowing the Cameron/Osborne/Lansbury plans in detail, I welcome the first step establishment of a super quango/newco.
263 Yes. My mum worked for a while with disruptive care home kids and always said that they responded best to a really strong/physically large male role model who took no crap [ie no chance of bullying them to get their own way].
It’s no surprise.
I tripped across a series on iPlayer called the World’s Strictest Parents - it confirmed everything my mum said - selfish kids needs strong boundaries, strong role models, mutual respect and calling out when they do wrong.
It won’t always work - but frankly I find the whole ‘oh let’s feel sorry for them/excuse bad behaviour’ stuff mealy-mouthed and doesn’t do 90% any good at all.
270 Hopi Apart from anything else, it puts the word “Cut” in a positive poster about the NHS, which I don’t like as a piece of copy-writing.
An interesting observation. However, doesn’t it also work the other way? Cameron needs to convince people that he is serious and realistic about cutting the deficit [subtext: unlike Labour], whilst not frightening the horses. So you could argue that by combining the ‘positive’ NHS message with the dreaded C word [which Gordon won't admit to], the poster sheds a more positive light on cutting the deficit.
In other words, I rather think this poster is more about the deficit than the NHS.
267 - Your post at 17 seemed so typical of the “I’ve been a life-long Conservative but just can’t bring myself to vote for Dave” type of astroturfing that I was left wondering just how much you would really want to “vote for the blue party”.
258- On a serious note, while I agree with you taht its a good idea- it will cost an awful lot of money (an extra two hours a day amounts to an extra 25% of wages to pay). To get an idea of the amount involved look a the differential in school fees between those private day schools that have a convetional school day (say 830-4) and those that have a boarding style school day for day pupils (say 8-630)- the difference is huge.
On a less serious note my parents too decided to farm out my upbrininging (from 11 upwards at least). Best thing that ever happened to my relationship with them- we were actually pleased to see each other when I was in my teens. It also, i think made me much better adjusted than I would otherwise have been. I suspect that had you, Tim, been to boarding school you would not spend anything like the time you now spend on here as you would have more real as opposed to virtual friends.
260. Nope - can’t think of a parody. No doubt Campbell and his people are hard at work on one as we write.
277 Paging Wage Slave….if he can’t work out a tortured method to misrepresent it, no-one can!
249. Madsa
And your article read “cuts” to me
Tsk Tsk Tsk
Well certain people will read what they want into anything and unfortunately this seems to be true in your case here. Such failings in people are what cause the sacred cow status of certain issues which in turn results in them never being resolved!
Furthermore, whilst Richard and I may disagree here as his posts indicate this is not a debate about ‘cuts’ so don’t put words into his mouth either!
So in your presence I will remember in future:
Shhhhhh Don’t mention the NHS
I heard a Tory spokesman on the news yesterday say that “nothing is ruled out”. This implies that cutting the NHS is NOT ruled out - and nor, presumably, is immediate British troop withdrawal from the Middle East.
273- Is that the problem with your Bengal cats- they lack a large male role model?
Incidenatlly loved the Simon’s cat stuff- is bang on!
272 SOL Agree on the keeping the core public and divesting certain parts of the NHS to create not just competition but also more effective and efficient use of resources. A major area of healthcare where this could be done quickly is in the diagnostics and lab work area. In the States, blood work etc… is routinely sent out to private labs which compete for the business; you go from the orthopaedic surgeon’s office to another outfit which exclusively owns and operates MRIs and competes for the business. Such independent specialist businesses can invest/size themselves to be very efficient and to keep up with advances in technology in their field so that they are always on the cusp of what science has to offer. I just don’t see how a monopoly monolith can be as agile.
262 Wayne. Dan Hannan’s views matter because he’s entitled to his opinion like everyone else and more importantly he’s been democratically elected, unlike your good self.
270 I disagree - he’s not trying to say 3 things at once. That’d be something like:
Tories are nice
Tories will be harsh on waste
Tories eat babies
It’s dead simple - unequivocal committment to the NHS, unequivocal pledge to cut the deficit using cuts in other areas.
*Simple* messages are *slogans* - there are another 5 months to conjure these up to attack their opponents on specific points, rather than setting out a general philosphy of looking after users of the NHS more than anyone else.
279
One of my friends died in S Staffs from MRSA.. I am in now way misty eyed about the NHS.
But you are a good advert for Labour to use about unreconstructed Tories
Interesting piece from the Fink on Darling
http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/2010/01/in-our-story-on-alistair-darling-this-morning-thisabove-all-caught-my-eye—-mr-darling-also-said-he-was-unable-to-promis.html
269. But haven’t you heard, weather IS NOT THE SAME AS CLIMATE (except that hot weather is evidence of global warming).
So if you hope to be taken seriously on this subject then just for starters you need to start posting as climatecock. Or perhaps not.
266 - TimT when I was at boarding school (in the 60s) we had 2 hours of classroom prep every night Monday to Friday, and were expected to do about another 2-3 hours over the weekend.
My daughter (when we came back 4 years ago and she entered high school half way through 10th grade) did about 4 hours a day for 6 weeks to make up ground, then an hour or so. Now she’s a junior in college she does about 2 hours a day, on average.
In my youth it was thought that American schools were much easier than British schools, and that was my impression staying with an American family at the age of 15. But my daughter feels - and I agree with her - that British schools are now much easier than American ones.
260, 277
Tantric sex failure - We can’t go on like this
The problem for the ‘we can’t go on like this’ line is if things improve or can be represented as improving. With Labour marching the streets, trumpeting ‘the promised recovery - universal prosperity in our time’, then the meme begins to look a little unfortunate…
277. The overall format is quaite easily parodied, though perhaps more as a commentary on Cameronion rehrtoical vacuity.
We can’t go on like this.
I’ll pretend to care if you pretend to like me.
We can’t go on like this.
I’ll make us all a nice cup of tea.
We can’t go on like this.
Is this an election, or are we having an affair?
We can’t go on like this.
I’ll
Verulamius. I imagine the House might convene on Easter Tuesday rather than late April after a 25/3 election and the new government would pass a resolution sharpish, or the PCTA 1968 could be amended.
Obama is getting less popular.
Obama’s effigy in Pres. Carter’s hometown
Posted: Jan 02, 2010 11:35 PM
Video Gallery
Presidential effigy in Plains
2:31
PLAINS, GA (WALB) – A doll found hanging off a Main Street building in Plains is causing controversy.
Controversial enough to get the United States Secret Service involved.
Witnesses say it was an image of President Barack Obama with a rope around his neck, and the display was found hanging in one of the city’s most recognizable sites dedicated to former President Jimmy Carter.
A few people were able to snap pictures of the black doll before it was taken down.
“I saw this stuffed thing hanging up,” said Alonzo Davis, Plains Resident.
Davis is one of the people who saw the doll hanging off the brick building, he said a sign on the front had President Obama’s name on it.
“People have seen it and have the pictures but no body is talking about it,” said Davis. “I don’t think it’s right I don’t know if it’s someone horse playing or what.”
Plains is proud of Jimmy Carter, with patriotism on display almost everywhere. Tourists walked around with no idea of what happened Saturday morning, but some who live here are speaking out.
“It’s wrong what they did, but I’m not shocked to hear about it,” said Plains resident Trevor Sims. “It’s a nice place to live and visit but some people out there don’t like it.”
Both the Plains Police Department and the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office were notified.
The Secret Service is handling the situation, we called and they said they won’t have a comment until next week.
o/t On the subject of posters, I’ve just been told that a large billboard has appeared in London of Obama’s face superimposed over Ahmadinejad’s face, with the slogan ‘who is the greater nuclear threat?’. Anyone else seen it, and anyone know who is behind it?
O/T for OGH:
R5L confirming that Coyle has spoken to Bolton today…
287 In fact *any* weather event is evidence except when it’s cold.
Risible stuff - I find it amusing how often any wildlife story now has comments saying things like ‘oh, no mention of global warming being at fault then?’
When a theory gets this level of ridicule it can only be a good counter-balance to the hysteria masquerading as science.
If there is a problem with Cameron’s poster surely it is that the NHS is in good shape. Its an easy target to knock but my experience of it now, and in recent years has been excellent. I’m not a Labour supporter but in my opinion the NHS now is first rate and certainly a lot better than it was under the Tories.
Unless the Sun start running headlines of people waiting on trolleys for hours the NHS is not an issue at this election. Neither do I think is Education or the Environment.
The only policy that matters at this election (indeed at most) is the Economy.
6 months ago Cameron would have walked the election. Now, whether or not things are getting better is debatable, but they are not getting worse. People have short memories.
If we get through the next four months without economic disasters, no bad press for the government and the sun (Weather not newspaper!) comes out then Cameron is going to have a hard battle to get that majority.
Apart from “ideals” what are the Tories actually saying that they will do that Labour will not? Reverse the fox hunting ban is about it!
273 Plato, while we didn’t have much in way of disruptive pupils (public schools tend not to) there were a couple of boys there whose domestic situations were poor and as result were allowed more leeway, so did did tend to play up. Then we got a 6′3″ ex Oxford rower as a Geography teacher & form master (had street credibility as he had a PCs helmet he had grabbed in the Grosvenor Square anti war demo), amazing how disruption in any form just stopped, without threats or punishment, just withering contempt at its first appearance and overbearing physical presence.
Tories 20 polices [yes those things they don't have] for the NHS
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/6931790/David-Cameron-sets-out-20-policies-to-boost-NHS.html
291- Yes, I think there may be milage in this idea in particular:
“We can’t go on like this.
Is this an election, or are we having an affair?”
I admit, that didn’t take long! Although I am not too impressed with your other suggestions.
Garry Gibbon on the poster:
http://blogs.channel4.com/snowblog/2010/01/04/election-campaign-new-cameron-poster-has-a-touch-of-the-politburo/
294 it was online on one of the Sundays, assumed it was a link to an article (didn’t click through)
Moves on the Brown pemiership tonight?
“Audacity of Pope
Looks like Greg Pope will be getting some tender loving care from Nick Brown later today. Labour’s Chief Whip and long-time Brown enforcer was overheard late last night on the train coming into King Cross. Guido’s informant sent this from his iPhone:
“Nick Brown is sitting behind me on the train to KingsX right now and although he thinks he’s being guarded on the mobile – I know what he is talking about. The essence is that the plot rumours are real and he is holding meetings tomorrow to discuss things. Greg Pope was mentioned and the feelings within the PLP and ‘worries’, two camps, theose who will ’soldier on and those who want him out’…”
Monday night* is usually when the PLP meets. Nick Brown will be keen to crush the dissent that is being stirred up by Charles Clarke before it can get any momentum. Guido suspects that Greg Pope won’t give a damn, or be cowed very easily, he is openly calling for Brown to go on his blog. He is standing down at the election…
*Haven’t confirmed it is business as usual today.”
http://order-order.com/2010/01/04/audacity-of-pope/
272. Seth,
On this I disagree because a Super Quango like any juggernaut by nature is inherently obese, resource hungry, slow, inflexible, unresponsive and difficult to manoeuvre. It is the epitome of inefficiency.
It is no different from its parent government department because it is just as big. I really don’t see what passing the baby from one juggernaut to another achieves other than more expense for little or no benefit. Politicians should stop prevaricating and instead get on with what needs to be done.
IMO it is better to identify certain services (relatively insignificant ones initially) and devolve responsibility for them politically and financially (just as they have done with most domestic services in the devolved Home Nations). There is no need to privatise, there is no need to cut (other than central bureaucracy) and there is no need to waste money on shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Cost/supply theory supports such a move and it is in line with the much claimed localism of the party (although Cameron’s credibility on this is dying). I can only imagine that there are ulterior motives for not going down this route. It will be interesting to see which lobbies benefit from the Cameron approach. One things pretty certain the people will not……
297 - No I don’t think it’s a problem with the poster that that NHS is no being seen as reasonably OK, I think that’s the whole point. As someone above said, the poster’s about the deficit, not the NHS.
294 The Times has had online ads with exactly that image for the last couple of days - also one of a tv camera over an AK47.
It confused me and I didn’t bother to click on it.
300. But surely the suggestion is precisely that electing a leader is exactly like committing to a relationship. Isn’t that the point?
269,287 - Successfully riled, I think.
294 - I have seen it and it made my girlfriend ask me who the man superimposed on Obama was.
But who it was for?
Sorry, fail for me on that!
Is this a trend?
2005:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1506584/More-snow-expected-to-end-coldest-December-in-a-decade.html
2008:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3724518/Weather-Coldest-start-to-winter-since-1976.html
2009:
http://www.hyscience.com/archives/2010/01/britain_suffere.php
Andrew Grice in Indy not impressed by Darling (but almost has some kind words for Cameron)
“Darling issued a fat 148-page dossier of Tory pledges, claiming it showed a £34bn “credibility gap” in David Cameron’s spending plans. An old trick, which the Tories used with devastating effect at previous elections when they were in power. It didn’t quite work today, Darling. The problem is that the Chancellor –sorry, the Prime Minister– won’t spell out where Labour would cut spending, so can hardly accuse the Tories of having spendng plans that don’t add up….
…At least the Tory leader was talking (mainly) about his own party’s policies. Unlike Labour, which will come under pressure to say more about its spending plans/cuts before it gets a hearing on what it says about the Tories.”
308. Thanks David. Mystery!
311 - FT if I remember correctly. Saw the billboard version yesterday.
Interestingly, I dont think anyone has noted this but has Darling brought his announcement forward by a few days. I am sure it was scheduled for either Tuesday or Thursday
If Darling has brought it forward it shows the Tories are completly dictating terms of political trade and Labour are an utter car crash already! 
This article from the Guardian still tries to blame the cold on Global Warming. Amazing!
Peru’s mountain people face fight for survival in a bitter winter
Climate change is bringing freezing temperatures to poor villages where families have long existed on the margins of survival. Now some must choose whether to save the animals that give them a living, or their children
For alpaca farmer Ignacio Beneto Huamani and his young family, life in the Peruvian Andes, at almost 4,700m above sea level, has always been a struggle against the elements. His village of Pichccahuasi, in Peru’s Huancavelica region, is little more than a collection of small thatched shelters and herds of alpaca surrounded by beautiful, yet bleakly inhospitable, mountain terrain.
The few hundred people who live here are hardened to poverty and months of sub-zero temperatures during the long winter. But, for the fourth year running, the cold came early. First their animals and now their children are dying and in such escalating numbers that many fear that life in the village may be rapidly approaching an end.
In a world growing ever hotter, Huancavelica is an anomaly. These communities, living at the edge of what is possible, face extinction because of increasingly cold conditions in their own microclimate, which may have been altered by the rapid melting of the glaciers.
A consequence is that Quechua-speaking farmers and their families, who have managed to subsist for centuries at high altitude, believe they may not make it through the next southern winter.
There have been warnings from meteorologists in Peru that this month will see the Huancavelica region hit by the worst weather conditions in years with plunging temperatures, floods and high winds. The weather is already claiming lives; last month seven people died and scores were treated in hospital after torrential rain caused flash flooding in Ayacucho, the capital of the neighbouring region.
The cold is tipping Pichccahuasi into a spiralling decline brought on by pneumonia, bronchitis and hunger.
Although designed to withstand the cold, Huamani’s house is crumbling and his roof, half-collapsed from the snowstorms that battered the village last June and July, offers scant protection from the freezing wind and rain.
His family, including four young children, sleep on wet ground night after night. His children have not yet recovered from illnesses from this year’s winter and he is terrified that they won’t be resilient enough to endure further freezing weather.
He points to his youngest son, aged two, who trails after him, soaking wet and racked with bouts of coughing, as he goes about his work
“All the children here are sick, they all have breathing problems,” he says. “The problem is there is too much cold, too much rain. We have had no time to recover from last winter before it has begun again. There is nothing I can do.”
Climate change campaigners and development NGOs say that the failure of Copenhagen has signed the death warrant for hundreds of thousands of the world’s poorest and that a quarter of a million children will die before world leaders meet again to try to thrash out another deal at the United Nations next climate change conference in Mexico in December. Among them may be these children of the high mountains.
Enduring prolonged sub-zero temperatures is a matter of course for Peru’s indigenous mountain people, many of whom live at more than 3,000m above sea level. Scores die every year from the cold, but in recent years the number of people succumbing to the freezing temperatures has triggered talk of a national crisis.
This year the neighbouring district of Puno saw a severe spike in child mortality as the winter brought months of high winds and relentless ice storms. Government figures record that more than 300 children died in Puno in May last year from the cold; NGOs say that the figure was probably much higher.
288 TimB I did my secondary and uni education in the 70s. Same impression as you - US high school and undergrad at that time was regarded as inferior (or is it that I am now just less chauvanistic). I look at what my daughter is doing for high school now, and for the most part, it is much more advanced than what I see my nephews and nieces doing in the UK state system.
306 PollyB
Aren’t these the kind of words used before a relationship ends, rather than before it starts?
173′Quite simply, for any group of millionaires to talk about “doing their bit” for general belt tightening invites ridicule along the lines of “it must be a real hardship getting rid of the third under-footman” type.
by Tabman January 4th, 2010 at 1:49 pm ‘
If that’s the LD view, we won’t be seeing a lot of Clegg and Huhne then.
308 I assumed it was someone like Amnesty Int - still have zero idea who it’s meant to appeal too…
Just clicked on it - Russia Today ?!?!
http://rt.com/
Children’s Secretary Ed Balls has challenged his Conservative opposite number to a public debate on education in England.
Mr Balls said he was writing to Michael Gove to propose dates for a question and answer session with parents, pupils, teachers and governors.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8439471.stm
I don’t blame the Tories for their Cameron-centric strategy. Every strategy has its risks, but if the Tories don’t have the confidence to hang their hat on the reputation of their most popular and dynamic leader in a generation, they don’t deserve to win. Plus, the British political scene is becoming increasingly Americanized, and this is just one more logical step in that movement (the debates are another).
291 Hopi Sen
Before a press interview perhaps
We can’t go on like this.
Not without our old school ties
303 jsfl - Have you looked at what is proposed? I think it does make quite a reasonable start, and is not quite as timid as you suggest:
http://www.conservatives.com/~/media/Files/Downloadable%20Files/DraftHealthManifestopdf.ashx?dl=true
(See summary page
221. Am surprised that Gove cites the Swedish model, as Sweden has two major differences–the free schools don’t all seem to aim to get students into university education, and university education is free for those who qualify for it. I would assume that Gove’s schools would have basically the same purpose as American charter schools–to get poor kids to raise their grades to the point where they can compete for university spaces.
Charter schools have mixed records of success. The main problem, I suspect, is that it is rather easy to use your “school” as a kind of benefits trap for yourself instead of using it to actually teach children.
302. Wasn’t the exact same thing posted yesterday? Lazy.
“We can’t go on like this” feeds perfectly into the notion of Brown’s weaknesses, of Brown the ditherer; of a man who runs away from things until the inevitable happens (eg. saying “sorry”; calling an election). Notions that Brown himself has developed in his period as PM.
For me though, the element that is missing to make this campaign truly effective, is specifically setting out that that it is Brown that is preventing the required change from taking place. Maybe that gets developed later in the campaign.
How ’bout them Cowboys!!!
303. jsfl - I note that despite making such a huge thing out of Cameron’s supposedly ‘wet’ stance on the NHS, you are proposing rather minor changes yourself - which would be likely to have minimal impact on the bureaucratic juggernaut you have been railing against.
The idea that devolving a few peripheral areas of health services to local councils (or is it local quagos?) will make any serious difference to health care performance via the magic of ‘localism’ is at best rather quaint, at worst risible.
321 Oops, that last thing was meant to be a smiley, but a reference to page 8.
319 - so Ed Balls is asking for the political equivalent of him being spit-roasted in front of teachers, children and parents? Nice.
274. I suggest that the very fact you’re saying this is more about the deficit than the NHS highlights the problem with the poster. It begs the question “so how _are_ you going to cut the deficit, matey?”
284. No, a simple message isn’t a slogan. We used to talk about a fundamental “advertising idea” which is communicated through the ad - so the idea might be (to take a famous example) “Smoking our Cigar helps you feel content, even in a difficult time” - which then becomes “Happiness is a cigar called hamlet” brought to life by an ad showing someting bad/horrible happenning.. solved by hamlet.
The _idea_ is simple and straightforward, so even where the ad itself is complex, the idea shines though. (another good example of a simple idea behind quite complicated ads are the 80s Levi’s ads.)
321 “We can’t go on like this.
Not without our old school ties”
And 5 button suit cuffs
Plato 299 I quite like the idea of 20 polices.
318. I saw the TV camera/AK-47 ad in Ilford Town Centre - I misread the “RT” for “FT” - oops!
Some bloke on Sky TV has just compared British Troops to Nazis -
What are people like that doing in this country? Labour have messed this country up so much you can insult our troops but get arrested for venting your displeasure at those who destabilise our society.
I really dont think Labour and their friends realise how thin the ice they tried on with the British public.
328
Eh!!
:0
328. Ask Ed,
1. SATs tests fiasco.
2). Independence of Ofstead.
3). Was Barry Sheerman wrong to criticise him over recent appointments?
4. Increase in amalgamations and rise of super sized Comps.
5. Is his old man a practising hypocrite, sending young Edward to Nottingham High School?
6. Is he serious?
329 Hopi - t begs the question “so how _are_ you going to cut the deficit, matey?”
Yes, but that is OK at this stage (this is only Day 1 of the campaign!).
333 - you can get arrested for reading out the names of war dead. Nothing surprises me anymore.
RT = Freeview channel 85, though only a few hours a day, like CNN (channel 84) for some reason.
Off topic: The Test is looking like it could be a classic. A draw seems highly unlikely.
malcolmg, I’d agree with you if every single SNP candidate leaves out devolved matters from their election address. Care to bet on it?
297. Mike Sole
surely it is that the NHS is in good shape
Ya think?
My mothers local PCT provisionally diagnosed her cancer, kicked her out with her tablets and washed their hands of her, leaving her to to die without any NHS support (and the hospice was next to useless).
Only when I stepped in (and brought her to live with me) did we get any sort of service from the NHS and the hospice support was excellent. She died 3 months after diagnosis last October. Now don’t ask me what her GP had been doing for the prior three years during his numerous visits or what had been done in fairly numerous visits to hospital because not once was cancer mentioned.
Under the propaganda veneer there is still an awful lot wrong with our NHS!
325 TimB. All you had to do was ask if they’d win a game in December and they run off a string of 3. Didn’t see that last one coming. Great way to end the season, dispatching NO and Philly.
It’s official, Zorn is gorn.
329 - I remember an ad-man telling me once, tongue somewhat in cheek, that there are only two fundamentals in advertising:
1. If it’s new it must be good
2. If you have nothing to say, sing it
The cuff-buttons war:
http://underdogsbiteupwards.blogspot.com/2010/01/button-war.html
329: It’s the first day of the 6month marathon which will be this election campaign. All this poster is doing is laying groundwork and trying to define the battleground.
And its not negative, which is something to be appluded.
I agree with Hopi Sen about the slight message sloppiness in the poster. Also they could have found a better picture of Cameron.
That said, it is a great positive that they are able to use Cameron in this way. Labour can’t use Brown. What a massive difference. And it is early days yet.
It is also very interesting to see a positive campaigning blitz from the Tories on the same day as we see a very negative campaign from Labour.
275. Archroy
Au Contraire… I’m very receptive to Dave’s message. I’m economically conservative, but socially liberal. The problem is that the blue party voters that I’ve been exposed to until now have had an abhorrent right-wing social agenda that has ruled out the possibility of my voting Conservative. I have never wanted to be part of that club. There are a lot of us who still bear the scars of being at the blunt end of Section 28 not so many years ago. I’d vote for Dave, but not the Conservatives.
329 And your example of a great idea was created in 1966
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happiness_is_a_cigar_called_Hamlet
IIRC BT’s best ad [it's good to talk] is from the 80s.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIuDEjON_zw
As I said, simple messages are almost always slogans - very rarely are they anything but as proven by your P&G example.
21 - I agree. I first saw it on RealClearPolitics and 538.com when the American election was going on.
326. Then tell me Runnymede why is that such councils like Wandsworth can make major changes in service provision without facing the wrath of their electorate but national parties and bureaucracies are so terrified it wont even contemplate making changes?
Furthermore, I’m only talking about minor changes initially because when a juggernaut is careering down the road in the wrong direction you have to slow it down first and then turn it round. What you don’t do though is put your foot on the accelerator (Labour’s normal approach) or slam the brakes on (which would be the extreme right of centre solution) or in Cameron’s case attempt to jump into another juggernaut that is careering down the same road in the same direction (which seems rather dangerous to me without any particular purpose at all)…..
342 - yes, the margin of victory was a surprise - total domination in every aspect of the game. ESPN pointed out after the game The Eagles record vs. non-playoff teams this year, 11-1. The Eagles record vs. playoff teams this year, 0-4. Suddenly that 11-5 record doesn’t look so good. So now it’s squeaky bum time until Saturday at 8pm when Philly goes back to Jerry World to play the game again. About 2 minutes from the end the big HD display flashed up pictures of Jerry and Emmitt Smith putting NFC East Champions caps on. The crowd (all 100,621) went wild as they say.
Zorn gorn wasn’t much of a surprise. Snyder has owned the team for a decade and Zorn was his 6th coach - he’s now looking for #7 and is desperate for Mike Shanahan. He is an interfering owner - like Jerry - but at least Jerry had the good sense not to change too much after last year. Snyder seems to be a slow learner in that area.
336: Except that this poster is supposed to be about the NHS, no?
I mean, that was what Cameron’s speech today was about and presumably why he launched the poster with Lansley, and visited that maternity unit, and said that stuff about improving maternity services. As I say, I think your confusions about the poster message supports my case!
Anyway, I’ve gone one quite enough about advertsing techniques! Personally I’d lump this with “You can get it if you really want it” rather than “Labour isn’t working.
This has probably been posted before but who the F had the grand idea of calling Labour’s File of Tory Errors a…. dossier?
Is it some meta-meta-joke on the electorate? Has it been focus grouped such that people say “ah, dossier!, that word reminds me of Iraq, think I’ll vote Labour”.
Why don’t they go the whole hog? Why doesn’t Alistair Darling say they’ve found the hidden weapons of mass NHS destruction in Tory spending plans? Why doesn’t Ed Balls loudly claim they don’t need a second UN resolution to attack David Cameron?
Why doesn’t Peter Mandelson go on TV and say they intend to count every one of the 500,000 Dead Iraqi Lies hidden in the Tory manifesto?
tim?
The Tories accuse Labour of telling “lies”
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5681488/the-tories-accuse-labour-of-telling-lies.thtml
341 Sorry to hear about your mother. However other people’s experience of the NHS is very different. Cameron talks the talk but he can afford private care, most of us can’t or would not use the private system because of our principles. Cameron says he will protect ‘Public Health’ but this accounts for only 3% of the NHS budget. Beware of semantics in any promise made by politicians.
345. Tsssk - 5 month campaign, tops!
The Ed Balls ploy shows that Heseltine was correct “it’s not Brown its Balls”.
‘Gordon’ initially wanted the debates not just to be leader debates but be months of debates starting late last year on particular ministerial areas. Seems it was most likely Ed’s idea.
He really has got the upper hand again hasn’t he?
348 Oops typo - 90s.
It would be nice if Gordon treated us all like grown ups and named the day. Being coy about it just wears thin.
Which is it to be, Gordon?
March 25; April 8, May 6
please, put us out of our misery.
Gary Gibbon C4 news.
The image of a very shiny David Cameron now staring out from 1,000 poster sites round the country reminds me a little of those touched-up Politburo portrait photos the Kremlin used to put out.
Harriet Harman underlines in the Standard today just how central she is going to be to Labour’s election campaign.
The Labour Deputy Leader claims that Boris’s Tube, rail and bus fare hikes - imposed on London commuters for the first time today - are just a foretaste of a Tory Government.
Tax hikes for the many and tax cuts for the few, says Harriet. (She says that Boris’s abolition of the western c-charge zone in Kensington and Chelsea and the scrapping of Ken’s £25 c-charge for 4×4s are tax cuts for the rich).
But in a what may be a lesson to CCHQ, Team Boris have decided to adopt a robust response. Far from appearing defensive over the fare hikes, they say that the rises are the tough medicine that London needs after years of living beyond its means under Mr Leninspart.
http://waugh.standard.co.uk/2010/01/harman-boris-and-the-buller.html
353 Fate moves in mysterious ways
[atheist meme]
111. “If Brown does hold off till June then he will surpass Neville Chamberlain…”
That will make a great headline on election day.
And perhaps a photo opportunity at Croydon Aerodrome to drive the message home.
357 - wait until the debate negotiations begin. The sentence at the end of the announcement articles said that ‘detailed negotiations will be held in the new year’. It will be interesting.
352: The poster is clearly about something more overarching than just the NHS. Expect more things to be drawn into the strategy over time.
363 APPLAUSE!
That’d be a corker
Perhaps outside the Propeller pub for added interest ?
357 Mandelson’s very quiet these days. Anyone know where he is, and what he’s up to? Has he nipped over to Brussels to beg for another job?
347 - but AS, it’s important to beat the far rightwingers by showing them that the Tories win elections by being moderate and inclusive. If you don’t vote for them and there is a hung parliament, it’s them who’ll be running round taking over the party again, saying “We would have won if we’d been more rightwing”. If Cameron gets a big majority on this message, the Tombstone element in the party will be struck a mortal blow. With Nick Herbert, Nick Boles and Margot James etc waiting to become big Tory media stars under a Cameron government, it isn’t as if they can turn back the clock to a s.28 era anyway - unless they don’t win the election.
Where do you live? For all you know the Tory candidate in your seat could be gay.
353 - Surely if it really was a dodgy dossier then you’d be taken in by it and support Labour in the election?
355 Sirus. You’re a hard hearted b*st*rd if you’d really decline private healthcare for your loved ones on principle, if they really needed it, it was better than what was on offer publicly, and it was available.
Healthcare is not something to be doctrinaire about - it should be something where the best practical solution is sought. In my view, that probably means a mix of public and private, but I’m open to any realistic ideas.
355. Thank you.
My point is that the NHS performance is variable. It will be good in some areas and poor in others as my own experience showed.
This is as it always will be. The problem is that when centralised bodies are involved it is in their vested interests to pretend everything is wonderful when it is not and as a result of creating such a mythology (the #welovethenhs nonsense for example) the real issues get brushed under the carpet.
Sirus I do not believe for one minute that Cameron is going to do anything to the NHS. That’s the problem. Isn’t it ironic that in one of the few areas where Cameron actually seems to be proposing to ‘Do Nothing’ and Labour are almost completely silent about it.
As for the public health budget, that is probably the least value for money aspect of the health budget there is. They really ought to redirect that funding to front line services rather than wasting all that money on adverts……..
‘We can’t go on like this’ absolutely all over the press. Matthew D’Ancona (in a very on message article for the ES) likens it to Maggie’s 1975 conference speech:
“We can go on as we have been doing, we can continue down,” Margaret Thatcher told the 1975 Tory conference. “Or we can stop and with a decisive act of will we can say Enough’.” No one understood more clearly than the Iron Lady the importance of policy. But she also grasped that she first had to persuade the British public that the hard work of economic reconstruction would be worth it
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23790747-cameron-has-made-the-tories-fit-for-office-again.do
The issue is whether any of this is Tory policy, and whether any of it would actually be implemented by any Conservative administration on the timetable that Darling’s document suggests.
The Conservatives have been quick to jump on the “dodgy dossier” - there’s a detailed rebuttal due to land in my inbox any minute. David Cameron claimed to have seen at least £11bn wrong with the paper in the first seconds of looking at it.
For example, to get the £45bn figure. Labour has thrown in nearly £5bn in tax cuts for married couples, and another £5bn from abolishing stamp duty on shares. Yet the Tories have have not made any detailed policy pledges in either area, as is perhaps demonstrated by the fact that the Labour researchers only throw these tax cuts into the last year of a putative Tory parliament in their calculations.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/stephanieflanders/2010/01/the_thought_doesnt_count.html
367
Mandelson is alleged to be helping
MilliputMiliband with his leadership election campaign…(seriously)http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6931396/Towns-mayor-caught-on-camera-stealing-womens-underwear.html
Which ever party he is from!!!!
365 Speccie Coffee House points to a more basic reason for leading on the NHS - Tory polling improves when Cameron talks about the NHS. It would be a good start to the campaign for the Tory lead to increase in January polls.
364 I am not the only person who thinks these will just not happen then.
Gordon will want to control everything. If he can’t get his own way, it will be Dave’s fault.
Everybody could write their columns from their own partisan perspective now and file them for later.
346. Posters are there to carry a simple but hard hitting message.
‘We cant go like this’ and ‘Time for a change’ are such messages.
The less you put in a poster the better.
Other more personal messages may come, such as ‘You can’t trust Brown’, or ‘Who sold our gold’, will depend on how the whole campaign pans out.
350. It’s one thing for a council to squeeze efficiencies out of services which it has long been in charge of, quite another I think to expect it to take charge of healthcare (which it has no experience at all in running) and work miracles.
‘Localism’ without competition would also likely mean even bigger and more random postcode lotteries which I suspect the public wouldn’t much like. I can’t see this approach working except in very limited areas - it isn’t going to make inroads into major problem areas like e.g. cancer treatment.
There are a number of possible comprehensive alternative reform programmes for the NHS, but your rather limited and naive proposals aren’t among them.
372 - Ah yes, I remember.
Just think if Maggie had to do all she did to undo the last Labour c0ck up just think what the Tories will need to do to clean up the mess left by this rabble.
: rubs hands with glee :
366. Or standing on the corner of Alcock Close?
8. No one I speak to ‘wants Cameron’ any more than Brown.
There is only one possibilty I can see for a debate. That’s if Labour are so far behind, they are quite happy for Gordon to have a car crash, if it gives them a glimmer of a hope of throwing Dave under a bus.
On topic, I had my doubts about the poster when I HEARD of it (I was reading pb on my cellphone in a cat house, as you do). Now I can see it on my laptop I quite like it.
Nice photo of Cameron, nice bit of extra detoxification. I agree with Ted: anything that makes the election presidential, i.e. Cameron Versus Brown, is surely gonna be good for the Tories, as it focuses everyone on Brown.
But I also agree with the poster upthread who says “deficit” is too mimsy and delicate a word. People don’t understand “deficit”. They should have said Debt. Not least, cause a monosyllable is always better. And “NHS” is maybe a bit clumsy as well.
“I’ll cut debt, not health spending” - that’s more potent.
It’s a sound move for Cameron to concentrate on the NHS - the one area where there is no real difference between him and Labour. It then comes down to a “who-will-blink-first” contest between him and Brown to name the areas of public spending which will be cut.
In the mean time, of course, it’s good for the Lib Dems while the 2 other parties are saying the same thing and avoiding details of how they would cut the deficit.
It’s also a good move for the Tory campaign to centre on Cameron, given his front bench team.
316. Old Nat. Absolutely - but the recognition that the old, clapped out relationship has failed is going to be the prelude to new love.
I think the Conservatives have left themselves quite a lot of room for wriggling on the NHS with this campaign. It doesnt mention funding, Camo could quite legitimately cut NHS funding and argue that provision hadnt changed, for example by removing layers of management or outsourcing certain services to more cost-effective providers. If he cut funding from the NHS but demonstrated that more doctors and nurses are being employed and more patients being cured, I think the public would forgive him for it.
12 Member For East Brimstone -
Welcome as a poster on PB, no doubt there will be many more like you as the GE approaches.
As regards GE timing, I think it would be very harmful to Labour’s cause should Brown leave it until the very last possible date, especially in those areas where people had been expected to vote just one month earlier. I think it remains odds on for May, but from a betting perspective, I’m hoping for March, which would be worth a tidy sum to me.
Btw, are you a pundit or a punter or perhaps both? Also, please can you suggest a shortened form of your name to facilitate replies?
384 - But cutting the deficit and cutting debt are two different things. And he is only promising to do the former and not the latter.
It seems Cameron has just backed off the commitment to “recognise marriage in the tax system”.
283.ghanimah
Yes he has been elected as an MEP not MP.
How pompous of you to say he has been “elected unlike yourself” !
What differance does that make?
Most people do say he is a big head and egotistic.
You should get out more, it might help your opinions/judgement
Any ideas which council districts will be the first to declare that they have run out of salt/grit? Can’t say that I have seen any evidence of gritting in Bristol today.
384. SeanT. 4:19 pm.
“I’ll cut debt, not health spending” - that’s more potent.
Yes, but to cut the debt you have to eliminate the deficit, not just reduce it. The National Debt is going to be still growing throughout the Cameron premiership.
348 - Yes, the best advertising ideas can last a long time because they can be creatively expressed in lots of different ways. So “Happiness”, or “Guiness is worth the Wait” or “Oxo brings families together”
As for the difference between slogans and ideas.. one way of thinking about adverts -
You start off with what you want to communicate
1. YOu want an Advert to get people to do X (buy sudso, visit Pizza hut, vote Labour, smoke hamlet) because it persuades them that Y is true (Sudso is kind to childrens skin, Pizza Hut is a great value meal for the whole family, The Tories haven’t changed, cigars are relaxing when you’re tense) - that’s your consumer insight. If your insight is wrong and people won’t buy Sudso even if it’s kind to skin, your ad won’t work, no matter how technically good it is.
2. Your advertsing idea is how you dramatise Y. “Because a baby’s skin is safe in Sudso, even nurses recommend it” “Busy modern Families can come together at Pizza Hut” “William hague is just Thatcher in disguise” “Even when things are at their worst, Hamlet can make things a little better”. The more effectively and creativly you do this, the better the ad
3. Your slogan sums up your idea, and if it’s a good one, sticks in the consumers mind. But a slogan isn’t as important as the idea - For example, people generally know what Persil is about, but don’t know it’s slogan. The Hague ad might have had a slogan, but i can’t remember it. Hit the Hut is the current Hut slogan, but I think is a pretty bad summary of what is quite a nice advertsing idea.
319. Is that for real?
The only thing I can think of is that Balls thinks that he’s going to score points by being the last to defend those Good Old Labour values. Somebody needs to sit him down and have a talk with him about his limitations. Just like most of us are never going to be rock stars or astronauts because we have wobbly voices or get sick just stepping on an airplane, Ed Balls is never going to be Labour leader because his name is Balls. As long as there is one other Labour MP and his name isn’t something like “John Fannymaster,” it just isn’t going to happen.
I think it’s cruel that people let him continue in his delusion.
389. Yes Neil quite right. It seems that some posters who normally are quick to rail at Labour and their friends for conflating these two terms and misleading the public, are apparently happy for Cameron to do so. Odd.
392. Fife Council became the first to confirm its grit supplies had been exhausted after receiving less than it ordered from suppliers, but stocks are starting to be replenished.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8439087.stm
395. Don’t be vague, ask for Haig.
That is the slogan which came to mind.
Or just to wind up Hopi Sen, ‘Don’t be vague, vote for Hague.’
396 - “Ed Balls is never going to be Labour leader”
Quite. Though I suspect that is something that Ed is going to have to find out the hard way.
Day 1.
Marriage Tax policy falls apart.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8438965.stm
Well done Dave.
389, 393. Yes, I know - derrrr - but this is way above the heads of most voters. The deficit contributes to the debt, that’s good enough if anyone questions the Tories on the semantics.
They should have said Debt. We are in debt. The debt is growing. Tories will fight against this.
A simple message that everyone understands. Saying I will “cut the deficit” sounds slightly complex, and is therefore weaker.
Tories should worry less about how Guardianistas and journos will react to their message, and more about how Nigel Northern Line is gonna feel.
402 - “Saying I will “cut the deficit” sounds slightly complex, and is therefore weaker.”
But saying “cut the debt” is an obvious lie and obvious lies are best avoided in an election campaign. Dont you think?
402 - “but this is way above the heads of most voters”
But these ‘voters’ do not write the headlines, set the agenda or sway voting intentions.
Honesty is best, even if it confuses some
379. Runnymede
I was wondering when the old chestnut about ‘postcode lotteries’ would come up.
Here’s a word to the wise. Localism = post code lottery. It’s unaviodable so there is no point trying to pretend any different.
Equally competition is inherent in localism (which is what causes the postcode lottery). It is the multiple bodies (geographically) providing the services that causes the competition.
Oh and last but not least I don’t expect miracles (did I say anything about miraculously resolving issues?) in fact any such transition would be difficult and painful (just like giving birth is - as my ex-wife often used to remind me).
What I am talking about is reversing the disastrous course that centrally controlled public services and former nationalised industries have been careering down for decades. If we dont reverse the centralised direction then the costs will continue to rise and the quality will continue to fall.
389 - My bad months are January, February and April. I don’t quite break even with March (I made some judicious bets at long odds some time back, but those are now outweighed by my May and June portfolio). I do well with May, which I have backed intermittently over many months at prices up to 4/9. I now have a good stack of June bets at 20/1 and 18/1, which I shall probably trade on Betfair at some point if I can.
I don’t think anything has changed fundamentally since October. In my view, that means that May should be heavy odds-on favourite - at least 1/3 - and March is the possible outsider if Gordon Brown wants a surprise (maybe 5/1). I completely discount January and February. I can see Bunnco’s arguments for April, but I’m not convinced. If 6 May comes into range, Gordon Brown will probably not wait for June.
403. Nigel Northern Line???
397. Runnymede - how many voters, do you reckon, as a percentage, understand the difference between deficit and debt. I’m guessing something under 20%.
The Tories HAVE to win this election to save the country from these grotesque, ugly, inept Labour tra1tors. If that means blurring an issue or two to ram a point home (NOT lying, per se) so be it.
401 Yes tim, and your friend ‘Dave’ even gave a reason why -
“But he stressed he could not make a commitment to do this over that period because of the “vast” size of the deficit.”
Now, care to remind us who is responsible for running up that vast deficit? Here’s a clue - his first name is Gordon.
387 PollyB
Mmm I wonder if it’ll have subliminal message on the population? Just as Cameron is pushing marriage - the divorce rate could soar!
I think I’ll keep the TV off, in case Mrs Nat gets affected by it!
402. Starting from the perspective that the public are idiots and can safely be led by the nose to wherever you want them to go seems rather foolish to me - and indeed is one of the hallmarks of the tainted brand that is New Labour.
402. SeanT - Speaking as Polly Piccadilly Line that was also my first reaction. Who uses the word deficit outside of nerdy accounting circles? On consideration, however, I’m pleased the Conservatives opted for the precise word rather than the populist word. On the balance sheet of credibility, it was the right decision to use ‘deficit’.
401. I think you mean Labour’s spin line on Tory Marriage Tax plans falls apart.
A bad day all round for the Red team
334 Martin…just watch the power of Facebook in all of this. 120,000 signed up already opposing proposed Wootton Bassett gathering.
394 NoOffenceAlan - and what are the Lib Dems planning to do to reduce either?
ID Cards & Trident, the former shared with every party but Labour, the latter pretty inconsequential in the first term of any Government. What else?
The tax changes are just redistribution, now decided to abolish fees for uni so more spending there. What else?
Cable suggested that NHS would be cut, and education but can’t remember any details nor agreement from Lib Dem policy group. Anything?
403. No, it’s not a lie. The deficit is PART of the debt. Cutting the deficit means you are indeed cutting back the debt, the debt may grow but you are still cutting back.
Anyway this is utterly trivial wank, which is no doubt why it delights a pedantic schnorbitz like yourself. The poster headline is a minor mistake - and that is merely my opinion as a, ahem, international thriller writer. I do know how to use words; and I think these words are not perfect.
But who gives a fig. This is day one of maybe a 100 day election campaign.
Crivvens!
Oh now look, Daves reversed his position on marriage back to a pledge again.(Urgent clarification issued by CCHQ)
Well done Dave.
Fantastic stuff.
401. Tim - there is currently no “marriage tax” to have a policy on - unless Gordo is bringing one in ???
364 - At this point I doubt Brown could refuse to take part without damaging himself - but one has to wonder given his ratings now if it actually would damage him much.
He is definitely the one who is most apprehensive about the debates. Cameron is good at it, Brown has virtually no debating skills at all, and Clegg is there to make up the numbers.
All we know is that there will be 3, of similar format, ‘about’ half of each will be ‘themed’ (think health, education etc), and 90 minutes long (the ITV one is apparently 85 minutes). The audience for each will be ’selected’. By whom is not clear.
Cameron would no doubt be happy to have a series of 3 all-comers debates with questions about anything. Brown will want a series of single issue debates. Cameron will want rebuttals and discussion among the candidates. Brown will not.
Cameron is a quick multi-threaded thinker and very nimble - he does good one liners and quips which may well be the key to these (think Bentsen and Quayle - the only line anyone remembers is “You’re no Jack Kennedy”). Brown by contrast is a slow and plodding thinker who cannot multi-task. He is also a poor public speaker and not good at the cut and thrust of these occasions. Even worse he’s not good at delivering even prepared one liners.
These sort of debates (really enhanced Q&A sessions rather than actual debates) are primarily an exercise for the floating voter and are not deep policy discussions. If you like Brown, you are unlikely to change your mind however badly he does. Ditto Cameron.
It’s the uncommitted voter, or as Gay McCord says in terms of golf scores, “the dreaded others” who are the target. Each leader wants to lay out his stall to attract the floating voter.
416 - You would sell their credibility very short if you’d give it up for the sake of 2 syllables. And you would be very wrong to. International thriller writer or not.
413 - No.
CCHQ are having to clarify and correct Daves own interview.
Shambles.
*82 tim under Draper springs to mind…
395 - don’t forget the daisy commercial from 1964 - only shown once but damaged Goldwater badly….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExjDzDsgbww
410. See what you mean.
There are a few wonderful images of Brown which would stop the traffic. The deranged wild eyed Brown with clutching hands - like MacBeth on Acid. His jogging picture, and the flak jacket, busting gut and creased jacket, could be used with Gordon Brown Five More Years, Are You Kidding…
407. lol. I was trying to conjure a phrase that means modern British archetypal average voter, a new British equivalent to John Doe or Joe Schmoe (too American), the man on the Clapham Omnibus (absurdly 1920s), or Worcester Woman and Mondeo Man (too specific/already dated).
I’m happy with Nigel Northern Line, but could be persuaded by Sunil Circle Line Extension if you prefer.
401. Tim if today is typical of how the campaign is going to go you will have a hell of a lot of trouble finding worthwhile lines of attack. Nobody, not even their chums at the Guardian, believes Labour’s dodgy dossier. It’s a remarkable own goal for the first day. If only they hadn’t delivered a pack of lies at the PBR.
‘competition is inherent in localism ‘
Is it? If you have local monopolies, as I assume you would under your proposals, where is the competition?
Consumer choice can only operate by people physically moving to areas with better standards, something which can happen a) only glacially and b) to a limited extent given the finite stock of available housing etc.
And even then unless you finance locally as well, and allow weak units to fold, there isn’t much pressure on the crummier areas to improve. Far from ‘competition’ levelling standards, there could easily be an entrenchment or even worsening of existing widely varying performance.
Note - this is how the comprehensive school system, run by local authorities, ‘works’.
426. Freddy Facebook ?
“Ed Balls is never going to be Labour leader”
Quite. Though I suspect that is something that Ed is going to have to find out the hard way.
You could be right. I can see Ed coming to terms with not being leader about as well as Gordon came to terms with PM Tony. It will be a case of chip off the old block/history repeating itself.
427 - I want 24 hour Tory TV.
If Daves going to be all over the place as he has this last hour, then bring on the rest of the Shadow Cabinet.
426. Sean Soi 6?
421 – tim, if it was such a ’shambles’ you would only need to say it once. You repeating the same guff ad-nausium rather undermines that imho.
401 Perhaps I missed something, but the story seemed to be about the NHS.
Why oh why was there extended coverage on Sky of Obama returning to Washington after his holiday ? Breaking News: he had quite a good holiday, it is quite cold in Washington and one of his daughters came out of the plane first.
434. I scoured Sky, the beeb , the Tele, the Times and The Guardian and they all seem to be leading on Dave’s policies on the NHS - nevermind Darlings Dodgy Dossier - and no mention of Dave cancelling Gordo’s new “marriage tax” ?
Confused of Cambridge.
420 - debt and deficit are not synonymous:
deficit = government spending more than it takes in
debt = something you owe
It’s difficult to see how you can pay off debt without dealing with the deficit (which presumably adds to the debt) first.
433. Strangely, this is the only website that seems to have any reference to the “shambles”. Surely not spin from the bunker to cover up deceit in the dodgy dossier?
432. Doesn’t alliterate, except visually. “Tom Knox Titty Bar” is better in that respect, but might be ever so slightly offputting, and besides, it is rather specific to overpaid international thriller writers who spend the winter in the fleshpots of Bangkok, rather than the average British voter who, well, doesn’t.
Freddy Facebook is better, but possibly too youthful. I remain content with Nigel Northern Line, but am generously open to suggestions.
426. Hmmm, better make that Sunil Central line (small case “l” as per Underground’s own usage), since I live between two stations on that line!
434 - It’s buried in the middle of the story though, to Tim, it was in flashing rainbow colours and beeping.
I have seen the artwork of one of the Tory election posters -
A picture of Brown out running (puffing) in his tracksuit.
The slogan
“I feel f4cked just like you lot have been”
434 Well, I’ve certainly been looking all over the internet for news stories about the Conservatives’ plans falling apart, but I can’t find them. Maybe there’s something on the radio.
I’m not sure that it’s to Labour’s advantage to argue simultaneously that the Conservatives will cut public spending, and increase public spending.
434 - Dave strayed, in an interview with Nick Robinson, into an area he wasn’t grasping properly.
Bit like his performance over pensions at the conference.-, had to be corrected.
If you’re going to have a Dave centric campaign, your man needs to be up to speed.
Tim uses PB to try to influence the news agenda - and at that he is rubbish. He has big ideas of what stories should be covered which never seem to make it.
Just look back at the moves he’s tried to get off the ground and look at how many have gone plop.
The problem is that he lacks that core ingredient - news sense. That instinctive understanding of what the narrative is at the moment.
Sad really.
Talking of shambles… or is it deceit?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6975099.ece?token=null&offset=12&page=2
The Chancellor said that he would present legislation to Parliament tomorrow enshrining the Government’s commitment to halving the deficit over the next four years.
He also said he was unable to promise that Labour would not raise VAT to 20 per cent so soon after it returned to 17.5 per cent at the start of the year — something Mr Brown and Ed Balls have repeatedly suggested the Tories might do.
He also revealed that the national insurance rise and changes to pension contributions for top-rate earners will not — as the Prime Minister suggested yesterday — pay for reducing the deficit and will instead go to ring-fencing frontline health, education and policing services.
tim: you have a mildly good point. There are too many aspirations floating around, and the tories need to start putting up or shutting up. See Steph today:
But it’s true that there have been a number of not-quite-pledges in the rhetoric of senior Tories over the past year - like the talk of tax cuts for married couples, or reversing the 50p rate for top earners. Here and elsewhere, they have wanted to gain credit for aspiration, without having to pay for it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/stephanieflanders/2010/01/the_thought_doesnt_count.html
What you don’t have, is grounds for the protracted real time online multiple orgasm you seem to be experiencing. Put it away.
yawn…tim seems to have been given his lines from the bunker for the week.
431.Tim,
Whats that loud banging noise coming from the cupboard, below the stairs in No.10?
Is Gordon going to be let out or put out of his Misery!
Dour Gordon looks about as appealing as a plate of shit !
443 - It’s strategically dreadful by Labour. I have absolutely no idea what they are thinking of. At a stroke, they have reinforced the Tory message by drawing attention to Tory policies, undermined their own message of wicked Tory cuts, given the press a free hit at their own vague plans for cuts and issued a document littered with errors that are easily rebutted, meaning that the more difficult items for the Tories are lost in the mess and allowing David Cameron credibly to dismiss the report as junk.
Also in the strategically weak camp today is Nick Clegg, who has retreated into the Lib Dem comfort zone of “a plague on all your houses”. He needs a more distinctive message than that.
445: Spot on Mike.
415. Glad you think the Lib Dems are in with a shout of winning the election, Ted.
445. He may not have any news sense, but he has plenty of nonsense.
445. A bit harsh Mike - he did break the story of Coulson being sacked.
An alternative view of Andrew Landsley from a Coffee House poster of the left (mind you it is David Lindsay, not a man I’d usually quote!), but it is a bit of a corrective to Tim’s view:
Their longstanding Health Spokesman could do with a higher profile, having voted against the Iraq War
445. lol. It’s not sad if tim really is a bot, or collective noun of bots (a bolus of bots?) at Labour HQ. Then he is just doing his job, often quite badly.
Just like the rest of us.
What is unbelievably sad is the idea that tim is a real person, not employed by Labour, a real guy in Cheshire with kids and a life (as he claims) who genuinely thinks it worth his while to waste his dwindling years endlessly posting pointless and depressing lefty spin-wank.
I prefer to think he is a droid. It’s less tragic.
BBC PM opens with Darling and Clegg attacking Cameron. No mention AT ALL of the Cameron NHS launch. Sigh.
454 Don’t forget Alan Johnson’s appointment as Prime Minister over the New Year. tim broke that one too.
450. I hope that at least one newspaper calls it a dodgy dossier tomorrow, that would be the icing on the cake.
457, what’s Clegg said?
445
Mike Smithson
You are being unfair.
Tim told us of the evil of the Tories’ partners in Europe. Apparently they are Nazi Latvians .. or Nazi Czechs .. or something really really important like that.
When the Bunker has someone like Tim on their side, how can they lose? Tim hits the nail on the head every time.
(It’s just a pity he’s driving an nail into a water pipe and leaving a soggy mess behind)
Cameron looks weak putting out a statement so quickly apparently contradicting what he said about tax and marriage earlier.
Surprisee me that. Je’s been reasonably sure footed so far.
457 Who cares? Actually, dunno. I hear his voice and my ears glaze over. IYKWIM.
tim — how old are you?
459 - You mean, like this?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/jan/04/alistair-darling-tory-black-hole
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6975099.ece
Labour have already argued that a reduction in the rate of increase of expenditure is a “Tory cut”.
Therefore, reducing the deficit = cutting the debt.
Keep it simple. If Cameron gets impaled on the debt/deficit problem, where does that leave Brown? It only emphasises the depth of the hole we’re in, that Brown’s debt will grow and grow forever, despite “Tory Cuts”.
sorry - 462 was for 460
445- I do greatly admire Mike’s incredible restraint and tolerance on PB of people he clearly detests, but it’s also in his/PB’s interest to do so. Like any good drama program that you tune in to week after week, PB needs conflict, and tim’s presence provides that in spades. Mike no doubt sees that.
461, also, the Tories secretly control of the Chief Rabbi in Poland. Admittedly, that was Bedpans rather than tim…. assuming they’re different people.
Circle line extension? How did I not know about this?
Ah, just investigated and it’s not as earth-shattering as I first thought. Can’t really see the point, to be honest. That part of the tube round Edgware Road always seemed a little odd to me. Why not extend that strange branch of the District Line one stop further and run it into Baker Street - or even Marylebone? Edgware Road is such a pointless place to stop. I assume it’s for sound engineering reasons, but it’s still curiously unsatisfying.
But then, I once had to get from Pinner to Earls Court.
Have just heard R4s headlines for PM. They refered to “confusion” over Cameron’s plans on tax for married people. They are also going strong on Darling’s dodgy dossier. Maybe Tim is really a headline writer for the BBC?
WTF are the BBC giving Darling so much time to say it in full???
452 The Lib Dems might at least propose something regarding the “savage cuts” Nick Clegg and Cable say are required (will need to be close to £100bn according to Vince) if they are going to criticise either of the others.
As it is it’s all hot air.
Ah, at last. Someone’s told Eddie Mair there was other news today.
468. Stars and Stripes
So glad I’m not of of those detested people
428. Runnymede
I find it intriguing that you chose to highlight the education system where the Conservatives are proposing exactly that and in which failing comprehensives (weren’t they a centrally imposed national solution) would be under threat (thats if Labour don’t get the chance to close them first - remember Ed Balls has been threatening them too).
At it’s core there is a significant element of this in the Conservatives environmental/energy proposals as well.
Of course it also means shifting financial control as well (there is little point if real power isn’t shifted).
Far from ‘competition’ levelling standards, there could easily be an entrenchment or even worsening of existing widely varying performance.
You are repeating the postcode lottery argument. The general trend through competition is to force standards upwards. Those institutions that cannot adapt will fail and whilst I would expect some sort of safety net to be provided at the end of the day if something cannot survive it cannot survive.
Which makes it all the more surprising that there is no localist element in the Conservative’s NHS proposals.
470. Unfortunately there isn’t the capacity east of Edgware Road (there are only two tracks!). The District line used to make occasional trips as far as east as Liverpool Street but that stopped in the 1970s AIUI.
477 - Thanks Sunil - good knowledge. Knew I could rely on you!
The detailed tables of the poll of Scottish Conservative targets are now available:
http://www.opinion.co.uk/Newsroom_details.aspx?NewsId=113
As I suspected, the Scottish Tories again weren’t brave enough to include a voting intention question.
Unnervingly Eddie Mair has honed in on single rooms in his interview with Andrew Lansley. It is all so close to Tim’s posts it really does make it look as if, at the least, they are being briefed from the same source. How close are BBC news editors to no. 10s operation?
tories in disarray
“Election campaign opens with David Cameron marriage gaffe”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2010/jan/04/election-campaign-cameron-gaffe-marriage
477. You’re welcome! Oh the easiest way from Pinner to Earl’s Court is probably Metropolitan to King’s Cross then Piccadilly. If you’re feeling fit, you can always cross-platform at Finchley Road for the Jubilee and pick up the Piccadilly at Green Park
481 – And as if to confirm the bunker’s line of attack, up pops PB’s village idiot.
480 I thought Lansley did uncharactistically well (not a fan), slapping Mair (mistakenly insisting on the wrong thing) down with, ‘No, not single rooms, same sex wards’. Make sure there’s a bullet in the gun if you want to be quick on the draw. Tim. I mean Eddie.
479 NoOffenceAlan
They really aren’t doing themselves any favour with these polls. They are clearly gutless.
481 - Disarray!?
483
And soemone asked why tim posted here.
He is clearly a paid poster… like Gobble.
481 Ah, Gabble, just the person I need.
You may remember Gordon Brown saying this at the Labour Conference:
From now on all 16 and 17 year old parents who get support from the taxpayer will be placed in a network of supervised homes. These shared homes will offer not just a roof over their heads, but a new start in life where they learn responsibility and how to raise their children properly.
Since that policy has now been in operation for several months, and had effect ‘from now on’, can we have an update on how many such supervised homes have been opened and confirmation that ‘all 16 and 17 year old parents who get support from the taxpayer’ are now being placed in them?
So Labour’s big launch, Gordon on various media spots yesterday and Darling presenting the output of two months work, gathering togethere a huge number of nicely placed MP’s FoI requests, Parliamentary questions and Treasury, sorry SpAd activity and the news is all about Cameron and the Tories?
People who hadn’t heard about single rooms now do etc. Most people don’t remember detail just the headlines, Labour haven’t got any.
483. Don’t be unfair to ‘Village Idiots’ they are far superior to the likes of Gabble….
Clearly though they must have laid his keepers in the bunker off given how he is becoming feral and seems to come and go as he pleases.
480 - “It is all so close to Tim’s posts it really does make it look as if, at the least, they are being briefed from the same source. How close are BBC news editors to no. 10s operation?”
Did you ever think that maybe you are nuts?
488 - ah yes, who could forget the immortal “gulags for slags” - although I prefer the knockup lockup.
Be good to hear how well it’s doing….
Do Bunker computerss have a function key that brings up “Tories in Disarray”?
Beeb - Alistair Campbell to appear in front of Chilcott Inquiry, 12th Jan.
483. Given all the posts on here today about the utter incoherence of Labour’s position it must raise serious questions why the only line taken up by the BBC precisely coincides with Tim (and Gabble’s) posts.
492 Tim B - I’m thinking of doing an FOI request to the Cabinet Office to get the latest news on this exciting initiative, but I imagine Gabble will be able to give me the answer straightaway.
466: History Boy @ 17:05
“Labour have already argued that a reduction in the rate of increase of expenditure is a “Tory cut”.”
And why shouldn’t they? After all it worked before.
In the early 1980’s planned increases in NHS expenditure were reduced, the amount spent was still to rise but not by as much as had been previously planned. Labour painted this as a cut and the calumny stuck, which is how we got the myth that the Thatcher government cut spending on health.
In fact the last government to actually cut health spending was Labour, after the IMF called.
493. I dunno but it certainly the seems to have the effect of bringing unity to Conservative attacks….
Campbell to appear at the Iraq Inquiry…
Must need to become the story, instead of the Labour Party, things are really getting bad for Gordon and co…
481 tim running a Guardian story line. Again. Surprise factor 0.3…
BTW, Member for East Brimstone - is that still in the constituency of Hellfire, or did it get moved to Damnation South?
Does it annoy you Gabble that tim gets so much more response than you as Labour’s no 1 poster, despite saying that Brown, Balls and Harmann are cr*p ?
Having read through what Cameron said, I struggle to see where the “gaffe” is.
In any case, a day where the news was meant to be dominated by Labour attacks on the Conservatives has in fact been dominated by discussion of Conservative policies, which will not displease Cameron
496. Richard Nabavi
I think they’re rolling it out over 3 years.
Progress is probably moderate.
504
Like the 2 million new houses Gordon promised three years ago?
There will be an online live Cameron Direct this Friday at 6.30pm:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo8QkM5zpHI
504 - Yeah, just like the recession, eh? Plonker.
Cammo clarification
“Recognising marriage in the tax system is something I feel very strongly about and something we will definitely do in the next parliament. We will set out exactly how in due course.”
= “I will do such things –
What they are, yet I know not: but they shall be
The terrors of the earth!”
He needs to stop doing this - it is “not let matters rest” again. It sounds really, really weak and clueless.
I heard Brown’s interview on radio 5 yesterday and have watched part of his interview on the Marr show. Both times he was very storng on his message, but he also avoided questions like the plague, flitting left and right, acting like they hadn’t been asked. Can you imagine the audience on question time accepting that? (if the debates happen of course).
Maybe the Tories will still be in “disarray” when they get that majority
Nick Robinson follows the tim and Gabble line on marriage gaffe. Quelle surprise.
504 - is that moderate, like in moderate recession ? If so, must be bad news.
Lia
rm Byrne on SkyNo surprise Byrnes confused . Its not hard to confuse an idiot.
502. fr: “Does it annoy you Gabble that tim gets so much more response than you as Labour’s no 1 poster…”
YES!
Apart from style, wit, judgement and a sense of humour, what the hell’s he got that I haven’t!!
514 - A lot more time on his hands..?
505, unfair, madasafish. I’m reasonably sure he promised 3 million. They’re over there, next to the unicorn village, the fountain of molten gold and the budget surplus.
504 Gabble - But he said ‘From now on’. (That is in the written text, so it wasn’t a misspeak). That isn’t compatible with rolling it out over 3 years.
Some mistake, surely?
Guido at 303 as unreliable as usual on Labour matters (though to be fair he admits doubt as the end). Nick Brown won’t be talking to Greg Pope at the PLP or anywhere else today. Parliament is closed (session restarts tomorrow). There are unlikely to be any MPs there, and there’s certainly no PLP meeting.
As for the topic - hard to say. Cameron was a big asset for the Tories for a while which started to wear down through over-exposure (I think the failure of “David Cameron’s Conservatives” in the Ealing by-eleciton was the turning point). By going big on him they may build him up again or increase the over-exposure. On balance I think he’s still a plus for them, but their weakness is the the perception that he’s a one-man band semi-detached from some of his colleagues, and that seems to me a counter to this approach.
485. Oldnat, where do your family stay in NC, I spent some years living in Raleigh.
511, he isn’t nicknamed Toenails because of his fondness for pedicures.
514 - lol, Gabble
520 - erm Morris Dancer, why is he called Toenails? (I’ve often wondered).
518. Nick Palmer MP January 4th, 2010 at 5:42 pm
Second paragraph =
You will no doubt welcome Gordon Brown to Broxtowe in the months ahead on regular basis. I can just see your campaign material Five more years of Nick Palmer with Gordon Brown grinning next to you!!!
Should be a 10,000 - 15,000 majority!
522, because his primary place of residence is sufficiently advanced into Gordon’s bottom that only his toenails remain visible.
I’m trying to get James “The Tories are racists” Macintyre known as Bedpans. Early days with that.
From a quick look across the BBC and Sky they are focusing on this “marriage tax gaffe”. Tim is right (said through gritted teeth).
By now Cameron ought to know exactly what he is going to do on things like the marriage tax promise. He should of been able to say “we will announce specifics on that in x weeks time.”
He did not, instead he used the word “hope” to bring in changes. It is very weak and makes him and the Conservatives look shifty and indecisive. A bad day for him. It is just unprofessional and sloppy. All of this seems to coincide with the return of Steve “hugatree” Hilton and his presentations that lack substance.
When he came out with the European nonsense of “asking for powers back and we may have a referendum but there is no rush”, it also made him look indecisive and dropped a few % in the polls. I now do not expect the lead to have widened in mid Jan polls.
“I think he’s still a plus for them, but their weakness is the the perception that he’s a one-man band semi-detached from some of his colleagues,”
Bless you, Nick, you do try so hard.
437 TimB I guess technically it is possible to pay down debt while running a deficit - if your deficit includes not only interest payments on debt but capital repayments which exceed the deficit, you will be reducing your debt.
522 - They say he’s so far up Gordo’s bottom, all you can see is his toenails
518. Yeah Nick whens Gordo going to Broxtowe? Have you set up a Brownites for Palmer ‘claque’ yet?
“There are unlikely to be any MPs there, and there’s certainly no PLP meeting.”
Perhaps they haven’t told you, Nick.
445 - Tim uses PB to try to influence the news agenda - and at that he is rubbish. He has big ideas of what stories should be covered which never seem to make it.
Just look back at the moves he’s tried to get off the ground and look at how many have gone plop.
The problem is that he lacks that core ingredient - news sense. That instinctive understanding of what the narrative is at the moment.
Sad really.
by Mike Smithson January 4th, 2010 at 4:54 pm
Not your best timed intervention Mike, as the story I highlighted upthread is now leading on the R5, R4, BBC News 24.
Even Danny Finkelstein highlighting that Cameron needs to find direction.
Haven’t checked Sky yet.
Mrs Dale: When I was on 5 Live earlier, former Number 10 Communications Director Dave Hill said Labour’s strategy would be to contrast Brown’s record with Cameron’s lack of experience and to play up the economic credentials of Gordon Brown.
Well, that’s that then. Tory landside (as I may have mentioned…)
527. jsfl January 4th, 2010 at 5:48 pm
No doubt NP will be saying the samething when he shakes the PMs hand in the Broxtowe visit pictures!
http://politicalbetting.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/gb-steve-mccabe-mp.JPG
NPMP as unreliable as ever in his representation of Guido. Guido writes this:
Monday night* is usually when the PLP meets. Nick Brown will be keen to crush the dissent that is being stirred up by Charles Clarke before it can get any momentum. Guido suspects that Greg Pope won’t give a damn, or be cowed very easily, he is openly calling for Brown to go on his blog. He is standing down at the election…
*Haven’t confirmed it is business as usual today.
O/T - Returned home to find 2 flyers from Farage/UKIP really laying in to Speaker Bercow.
They are far too angry and shouty in my opinion and on the front he says says “now his own Conservative Party has turned its back on him” and bangs on about demanding a referendum on staying in Europe.
Nasty and unconstructive stuff.
519 malcolmG
Not too far away (using the US as opposed to Scottish definition of “far away”)!
They live south of Winston-Salem, where my daughter-in-law works. My son has been performing in the theatre at High Point.
just got this from CCHQ - invite to tell Cameron what you think about the NHS
http://www.conservatives.com/draftmanifesto/
Still nothing from Labour despite registering twice using different email ids.
Who are they trying to get engaged? Clearly no one given my experience.
531.
Check 511 above.
533.
I bet Nick would look just as unnerved as McCabe as well. (you can just see McCabe thinking ‘there goes my future’ in that picture)
518- “but their weakness is the the perception that he’s a one-man band semi-detached from some of his colleagues, and that seems to me a counter to this approach.”
Even if the underlying premise is true, that’s all the more reason to put Cameron front and center. To use your band reference, if you’ve got Miles Davis in your band, you don’t put him in the back just to try to prove that the rest of the ensemble isn’t really so bad.
Also, it may be preferable to have a unified, highly talented group across the board, but as Tony Blair showed, the next best thing if you don’t have that is to put your best guy forward and make the most of his talents.
31
“Top of the World, Ma”.
O/T - Our new IT policy barred pb.com for most of today, saying it contained adult and offensive material, which amused me no end.
I’ve managed to convince our IT monkeys that pb.com essential to my work.
re 531. So you did all that Tim. Who is paying you BTW?
543.
479
Point well made about the Tories dodging a voting question and in any case ORB should be ashamed of themselves.
The questions on the hung parliament (strong and stable OR hung!)and whether the SNP should concentrate on Holyrood are pure Sir Humprey leading questions.
The only remarkable thing is that any newspaper -Sunday Herald +Scotland on Sunday - whould fall for such guff.
Actually thinking about these two embarassing papers not too remarkable.
542, there’s nothing offensive about enormo-haddock
543 - No ones paying me, I have News Sense.
And Dave coming a cropper in his first interview was always going to be a news story.
539. jsfl January 4th, 2010 at 5:54 pm
I was thinking he was thinking something more severe!
something to do with C - Nuts!!!
I doubt Brown will do much meeting the crowds though so Nick need not order a bullet proof vest and body army yet! Though is i had to go on a tour of a seat in England with Brown i would get some tear gas at the least and smoke grenads if the crowd turned ugly!!!
496 - I can imagine that Gordon will make a concerted effort to get more female members into the Labour Party, but with Gordon’s run of luck the headlines would be similar to:
Gordon Brown to get 30000 women in Labour..
tory plans launched into chaos:
“… he [Cameron] was forced on to the defensive over tax breaks for married couples after telling the BBC he hoped to bring them in but could not promise them.
Mr Cameron later issued a statement saying they would “definitely” come in.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8440069.stm
tories are just making it up as they go along. lol.
546 - But tim, the news story was supposed to be Alistair Darling’s dodgy dossier which was two months in the making.
Like Sean Fear, I’m struggling to see what Cameron’s ‘gaffe’ is supposed to be. As far as I can tell, he merely confirmed that there’s no definite commitment to introduce transferable tax allowances (an idea which has been floated by the Social Justice commission).
Have I missed some vital stage in the sequence?
536 - small world Oldnat: I worked in Winston-Salem for 2 years in the mid-90s.
547- I believe you tim, I don’t think you’re being paid. You seem far too dedicated to be doing this for money.
547. tim January 4th, 2010 at 5:59 pm
Tim did you see the BBC News last night on the Seals that have dissapeared from san fransisco bay. I mentioned here maybe they could be as a result of the animals sensing a big earthquake. The BBC mentioned outlandish theories and an earthquake in the same sentence.
The BBC then concluded saying the seals probably moved due to global warming and the wish going further north………….
One thing is much clearer after today.
The Tories are going to fight the election on Tory policies.
And Labour are going to fight the election on Tory policies.
Labour have nothing to say about themselves.
552 - If you find out what the gaffe is, would you mind telling me.
Sodomy non sapiens
555. Here we are:
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8438215.stm
News at 6 leading very strongly with the “gaffe” over tax and marriage. Trouble is it comes across as a desperate attempt by the BBC to create a story where there is none.
551 - Far better than that now.
Big hole in Daves foot backs up what Darling was saying about Cameron saying all things to all people.
Leading on Sky as well.
547 What - not The Guardian?
Evening all, just logged on. The poster uses “we” to refer to the whole electorate. It would blunt the message to follow that up with “we” meaning the Conservatives.
552. Richard Nabavi: “…he merely confirmed that there’s no definite commitment…”
tory statement:
“Recognising marriage in the tax system is something I feel very strongly about and something we will definitely do in the next parliament.
Tim has access to the latest technology and is incredibly rapid in picking up the latest stories on the most obscure websites. It is beyond doubt that he has an incredible amount of time to spare. Coupled with his denigration of Brown, Balls and Harman, I have come to the conclusion that he works for the BBC.
560 tim - Since you appear to understand the gaffe, perhaps you could explain it. The BBC account makes no sense:
But soon after the interview, the Tories released a statement saying they would “definitely” recognise marriage in the tax system over the course of the next Parliament and would give more details in “due course”.
In what way is that supposed to contradict what he said earlier:
“It [transferable tax allowances] is something we want to do, it is something we believe we can do, it is something within a parliament I would definitely hope to do,” he said in an interview with BBC political editor Nick Robinson.
“But I am not able today to make that promise because today we face this vast budget deficit.”
He added: “There are some tax changes we will be able to make. There are others we would like to make but we cannot guarantee that.”
There are two rs in Pyrrhic, aren’t there?
Darling’s Dodgy Dossier is rapidly looking like an expensive waste of time and money. No surprise there.
558 - Martin they may have moved from SF due to global warming but down here in the south east we are having record cold - the last couple of days it didn’t get above freezing, and overnights are down to 14-15. Houses here aren’t designed for that kind of weather and the heating is running overtime.
Typically at this time of year we should be seeing high 30s overnight and up to 50-60 during the day.
564. fr - highly plausible.
563 Gabble - Yes, but as the quotations at 565 seem to show, they are different things. No commitment to transferable tax allowances, a commitment to recognise marriage in the tax system.
Am I being thick, or are the BBC making up a gaffe where none exists?
537. Oh Plato don’t get me started again….
I actually tried to ask a question but it kept forcing me to choose between three other questions (supposedly asked by other members of the public) that were completely different to the questions I was asking.
The whole thing is a stunt to give Dave the answers he wants (what else would it be after all). It has a nice reader facility though even if the contents is even more worrying than I had thought?
564 - “I have come to the conclusion that he works for the BBC”
There is no earthly way that tim is in paid employment.
536. Oldnat, lovely part of the country, OK for some good furniture deals at High Point.
tim’s News Sense =/= Common Sense
551: ‘…the news story was supposed to be Alistair Darling’s dodgy dossier which was two months in the making…’
Yes, the leftist media is clearly bitterly disappointed that Darling’s dossier and his lugubrious presentation bombed, so they’re just trying to rescue something for Labour by hyping up Tory ‘gaffes’. Except a lot more of this in the coming months.
After the dazzling success of ‘Cameron’s Conservatives’ in Ealing Southall I’m pleased to see him rolling himself out nationwide.
Vote for the Camerons!
565. Richard Nabavi. A good account. The BBC have now whittled their headline to ‘confusion over Cameron’s tax plans’ - which could of course mean anything. It really is hard to interpret this as anything other than bias.
Just listened to R5L and R4 in the car. BBC sounds like the communication wing of the bunker.
Contrast Peter Idiot on R5L ranting questions at Philip Hammond with his gentle questioing of that very nice Mr Liam Burn.
Sky TV is just as bad
565 Richard Nabavi
“I would definitely hope to do” and “they would “definitely” recognise marriage in the tax system” are not synonomous.
If they hadn’t issued a clarification memo, it wouldn’t have been an issue.
As it is, it looks weak. It’s a presentational problem, and this early in the campaign should give the Tories cause for worry. It’s like the Tory commissioned Scottish polls - generally met with derision for their political incompetence.
568. Tim B January 4th, 2010 at 6:11 pm
Its very Cold here as well - I have seen Brass Monkeys gabbling through the snow! Dont think it is related to the midnight monkey that pops into my bedroom and shits im my mouth when i am asleep - it is the only way i can explain my foul breath!
I actually saw a squirril darting trough the snow today, no doubt trying to keep his nuts warm and off the snow. Poor bugger - If i had a riffle i would shot it to stop it from freezing to death!
575, it’s already been happening for months. First there was a non-existent Tory split because Cameron wouldn’t back a post-ratification referendum, then there was a u-turn because Cameron wasn’t backing a post-ratification referendum.
At best, much of the mainstream media are incompetent. Some are blatantly partisan.
Cameron was bounced into his gaffe thanks to Labour’s expose of the tories’ financial black-hole.
GE Campaign, so far:
Labour 1 - 0 tories
567 Didn’t cost Labour a penny. You and I paid for some civil servant to photocopy all the maybes in the Treasury files. Cheap as chips.
579, disagree slightly. It’s a very minor cock-up, but better to have one now than in the heat of a GE campaign proper.
Gabble has been busy, doing a hatchet job on Sir John Major
John Major rewrites history
While criticising Tony Blair, the former prime minister forgot his own dismal record on big money and the Bosnian war
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/04/john-major-today-blair
580 - get down to Grosvenor Square and apply for that visa…there’s bound to be somebody needing your photoshop skills
555: Martin Day @ 18:03
“… the Seals that have dissapeared from san fransisco bay. …”
Mr. Flaming Picky would like to point out that the creatures that have wandered off from Sna Francisco Bay were, in fact sea lions and not seals.
553 TimB Where have you not worked?
Oldnat - tobacco country, is it not? If is that history/just the name? Not much of the stuff left in VA or MD
Poll result, Best MP
http://www.yoosk.com/theme-detail/219.aspx
Douglas Carswell 47%
Gisela Stuart 16%
Tom Harris 12%
Lynne Featherstone 9%
Bob Russell 6%
Jo Swinson 6%
David Howarth 2%
Chris Mullin 2%
Wot, no Gordon? No Jacqui? No Morley?
Re 571
Oh no wonder they’re using a centralised Google tool. If there is one thing that will make Cameron and Co a laughing stock it is their collective Googlemania!!!!!
Getting your major speech of the day lampooned as “Darling’s Dodgy Dossier” - is that what is called News Sense, tim? Because anyone in possession of 4 molecules of Common Sense could tell you that was how it was going to be portrayed. “Dossiers” are now always “Dodgy”. Adding alliteration with “Darling” was hardly a leap going to require Evel Knievel’s Rocket Bike…
I struggle to understand how the BBC can present a report on Darling’s Dodgy Dossier (with a straight face) and not mention the fact that the government themselves have ‘unfunded commitments’ of £20 billion .. EVERY MONTH!
Both NPMP and Roger are now making triumphalist references to Ealing Southall as if the past two and a half years never happened. The intervening catastrophic Labour losses at by-elections have been wiped from the memory banks.
583 - If you have evidence for that accusation you may want to supply it to the Cabinet Secretary and / or a friendly media outlet.
565 - First reaction was Dave had changed the policy in the interview, then CCHQ had to correct Dave, big problem if the campaign is going to be “Dave Specific”
Read my contributions upthread for an accurate News Sense timeline of the afternoons events.
Signing off from the Sense-News News desk.
587 …and said Sealions have been found in Oregon.
572 - Agree with one caveat….he may be employed by the Labour Party, or more likely, in the political section of a (large?) trade union. Or, who knows, a Conservative double agent?
But personally I couldn’t care one way or the other. There is no doubt that tim is an excellent punter - I don’t believe he has lost a single wager here - but he is repellent as an individual as befits a diehard Blairite, and is thus completely counter-productive to the Labour cause. So keep at it, tim!
582. But then they unleashed you again Gabble
Conservatives 5 - Labour 1
581. Morris Dancer January 4th, 2010 at 6:17 pm
Its shocking and then you contrast that against the soft soaping and poor coverage of Brown yesterday.
The BBC needs to be privatised, it fails to meet the requirements of impatiality. IMO it breacheds the BBC Trusts covenants and is one of the reasons why Labour is heading for much worse than defeat. The leftist establishment is heading for implosion IMO.
596, were they attending a climate change summit?
*** BETTING POST ***
After carefully absorbing the wisdom here for a very long time and with particular reference to the advice of Tim and Gabble, I have now placed my very first political bet. Yay! Oh - on a Tory landslide (I may have mentioned before…).
572. I don’t believe it. tim starts posting on here, on average, at about 7.40am, he ends usually around 11.30pm. That’s day in day out. Week in week out.
Either he is the saddest geek in Christendom, who hasn’t had sex (or indeed a meal) since 1985, or he is paid.
No self respecting human would do what tim does for nothing. What’s the point?
Martin Kettle writes
Shame Labour into holding byelection
Invoking a ’six-month rule’ to deprive NW Leicestershire of an MP is a nakedly self-serving act.
Labour mustn’t get away with it
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/04/labour-byelection-nw-leicestershire
585 Dennis McShane daring to describe another human being as ‘unctuous’. Priceless.
595 tim - I appreciate that may be an accurate account of how the BBC presented it, but I’m still baffled as to how what he said in the interview could possibly be interpreted as a change of policy, unless the BBC is blatantly biased, of course.
I’d certainly agree that the pro-Labour bias in the media is one of the major obstacles to Cameron getting a big majority.
SeanT January 4th, 2010 at 6:24 pm
Is this the face of Tim
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6931396/Towns-mayor-caught-on-camera-stealing-womens-underwear.html
552 Indeed. I think that the literate public and the political media interpret the words “gaffe” and “split” very differently.
602 - Where do I sign up to get paid to post on pbc?!
Obviously you are just trying to get a subtle dig in at tim’s rather sad and seemingly lonely lifestyle. Fair enough, he is annoying and so deserves it. If we are being serious for a second then my impression has always been that he took redundancy / early retirement on a full pension from a public sector organisation and now the only thing he has more of than bitterness is time on his hands.
Toenails (why is he called that?) giving a report that is as clear as mud slinging. I honestly think this will turn off viewers.
588 - yes it’s tobacco country - home of RJ Reynolds, two of whose largest selling brands were Winston and Salem. I used to go to lunch at a place opposite a large tobacco warehouse.
The Rotary Club I used to ‘make up’ at had on its banner a tobacco leaf as about half the members were tobacco farmers.
If I remember correctly there is Reynolda village which includes the Reynolds mansion.
SeanT, on the other hand, no self respecting human would do what tim does for money either.
602 - Perhaps, the simplest explanation is that he’s married
588 TimT
Still tobacco country - though much less now as much of the land has been used for housing to deal with NCs rapidly rising population over the last few years.
my daughter in law’s family farm is still let out for tobacco cultivation, though I doubt that will continue when she inherits it.
Toenails’s ’roundups’ really are a terrible lot of content-free ‘Aren’t I witty’ (no) toss. Er, tosh. Sorry.
OMG, speaking of which, Nicholas Parsons is back.
568/580 TimB/Martin Day. Just heard from someone who was at a funeral in Rochester NY this weekend. Was told to ‘think Dr Zhivago’ in terms of the weather there.
We are still stuck in the teens F (-10C) in MD with high winds (down from 50 knots to a mere 20-30 now), and the forecast is for that to continue, with perhaps another 5″ of snow, for at least two weeks. Standpipe in the barn is frozen solid. Thank god the well is still working. At least it’s not muddy - ground is frozen solid.
503. Good piece from the Kettle.
If Labour succeeds in not holding a byelection in NW Leicestershire and the 2010 general election is held in May or June, it will have set a modern record for pre-election de-representation. What an appropriate epitaph for a party that talks a lot about fairness but which in practice simply lacks any nerve of outrage about political fairness at all. Not for more than 30 years will a constituency have been deliberately deprived of an MP for so long. NW Leicestershire should be in revolt against its disenfranchisement by Labour. I hope that enough brave backbench MPs and a brave Speaker can between them make enough trouble to ensure that Labour is shamed into holding this byelection. David Taylor, at least, deserves no less.
Side-splitting stuff: Public will no longer believe Tory policy pledges, claims Byrne
http://tinyurl.com/yejet85
614 I have met Nicholas Parsons. He’s a damn fine gent. For a LibDemmer…
610 - Tim B - maybe you remember the huge sign at the old Richmond (Byrd) Airport: ‘Welcome to Richmond. YOU MAY SMOKE’.
602 SeanT I thought Tim was a farmer…
606 - stealing women’s underwear, performing a sex act, and a mayor of Knott End - you couldn’t make it up. There used to be a ferry from Knott End to Fleetwood which I traveled on frequently in my youth.
ITV News completely missed the “gaffe” story. Could it be because the BBC made it up?
515- This all highlights a major flaw in the global warming hysteria movement’s dishonest salesmanship, too. In years past, every heatwave and hurricane was solemnly declared proof positive for AGW. Now, why should people not also take the Arctic blasts as proof that AGW isn’t so bad after all?
Off Topic.
For sale, Heinz 57 mutt, prone to running off in the dark on freezing cold nights.
Will consider part exchange
All this talk of tobacco isn’t helping those who have given up smoking
Midlands Today reporting that small shops in Birmingham had a very bad Xmas period.
326. Tim B
Bah, humbug!
582. “Cameron was bounced into his gaffe thanks to Labour’s expose of the tories’ financial black-hole.”
Yes the dodgy dossier has worked very well. Keep up the good work.
608. Hmm. Fair play: you may be right - he could indeed be a sad and bitter retiree, kind of like Roger or coldstone but with a bit more nous (sorry guys, love you really). That does make sense.
But he talks about his kids with, at times, what seems like conviction, and kids implies that…. he isn’t that old.
I wonder if he is a mixture of both. Sad old-ish retiree who is getting some money/encouragement from the Labour party (or a union) to use his undoubted political smarts to best effect on here.
Anyhoo. It is one of the things that makes pb so richly rewarding. Who Is Tim - and, more to the point - Why?
And now I must abed, this evening I had the lithe commerce of limbs followed by an excellent seafood curry, and now I have a splendid cabernet sauvignon to drink, and tomorrow it will be hot n sunny.
Life is sweet. Sawadee K.
621 It is just that BBC News hasn’t got any New Sense - and has to be steered by the likes of tim and Gabble, who have it in spades and are able to convince Toenails that “This is big. HUGE!”
618 Prodicus
Even NC is changing, however. For the last few years one single restaurant has been advertising itself as “The only smoke-free dining establishment in Davidson County”. I don’t know how the legislation is getting on, but there are plans to ban smoking in restaurants (and bars?) state wide.
624. Bloody marvellous isn’t it. I haven’t had a pang all day and then some bloody advert comes on TV about getting help giving up and I’m gagging for one.
If a party proposed abolishing the advertising industry. I’d vote for them!
615 - same here. My lawn is not waterlogged for the first time in weeks.
My partner’s sister has a cottage in northern NH and they go there to ski - by choice. The mind boggles.
629 - “This is big. HUGE!”
I sincerely hope you’re talking about the news story.
The Screaming Eagles January 4th, 2010 at 6:25 pm
Tony Blair declared: “I am delighted that we are going to have the by- election. We have been pressing for this. The Conservatives have been forced into it.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/major-gambles-with-timing-of-byelection-1282413.html
629 - Confusion reigns.
Is Cameron cowering in the face of Labour attacks?
until 3pm the Tories were winning the first day of the ‘long election campaign.’ The press weren’t buying Darling’s dossier and the Tories’ rapid rebuttal was proving effective. Then, Cameron screwed up – in the process of running from a Labour attack.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5682488/is-cameron-cowering-in-the-face-of-labour-attacks.thtml
There is no earthly way that tim is in paid employment.
by Neil January 4th, 2010 at 6:13 pm
It’d break the working time directive if nothing else
Ted’s Dodgy Dossier
Every secondary school pupil to get a personal tutor throughout their school years, with small group tuition for 600,000 pupils (2007 promise)
Increased house-building to 240,000 homes a year, to create by 2010 two million more home-owners than in 1997 (2007 promise)
3 million new homes in 10 years (2007 promise)
10 in the number of eco-towns planned in every region of the country (2007 promise)
50% increase in funds for social housing to £8 billion (2007 promise)
All new homes to be zero carbon by 2016 (2007 promise)
by 2010 5 million more homes will benefit from discounted or free loft and cavity wall insulation (2007 promise)
By 2010 another 3 million from discounted or free low energy light bulbs and energy efficient appliances (2007 promise).
By 2010 one household in three offered help over the next three years to cut their carbon footprint (2007 promise)
Free nursery places for two-year-olds for every parent who wants them in every part of the country (2008 promise)
Fund over a million extra families to get online (2008 promise)
Abolish prescription charges for all patients with long-term conditions (2008 promise)
624 TSE & jsfl
Sorry!
633 Toenails would still be taken in…
631 - I’ve just had a stressful day, but have given up all my vices
Since I will not be voting Tory/Labour can I be an independent judge.
Bad start fron the Tories. The pressure today is as of nothing compared to the white hot heat of the election. To wobble today will sap the confidence.
Labour shouldn’t be celebrating. A lot of people are fed up with their ultra negative approach to politics.
All of which offers opportunities for the NATS in Scotland and Wales and indeed the Lib Dems if they can get back to the Kennedy/Ashdown optimism and away from the managerial depression of Clegg/Cable.
605: ‘I’d certainly agree that the pro-Labour bias in the media is one of the major obstacles to Cameron getting a big majority.’
Absolutely. If the public were properly informed about Brown’s crimes then Labour would be wiped out for all eternity. Instead we get Labour spokesmen and propagandists posing as news broadcasters. Can you imagine any journalist outside a communist dictatorship proclaiming a party leader as ‘The Trillion Dollar Man’? Yet old oval-head Robinson said this of Brown during some pointless summit or other. It’s a national disgrace!
628 ‘But he talks about his kids with, at times, what seems like conviction, and kids implies that…. he isn’t that old.’
Believe that and you’ll believe anything. He’s also claimed to be a farmer. It’s all a great big fantasy.
630 Sad, Oldnat. Even in the South, Liberty is dying.
622: Stars And Stripes @ 18:35
I know you are on the other side of the Atlantic, but you really must try and keep up.
As was explained by someone on this site a few days ago, very cold weather is, in fact, confirmation that global warming is happening, and its all our fault (well, more your’s than mine according to the orthodoxy because you are an American).
It would appear that Global Warming causes very cold weather as well as warmer weather. Its really simple, and anyway weather isn’t climate. So although the weather is very cold the climate is actually warmer. Got that? I hope so otherwise you will be labeled as a denier and be burnt at the stake (except you won’t be because that would add to CO2 levels).
one slogan — more of a sound-bite really — was particularly sharp and it indicates that the Tories are prepared to be very robust in their rapid rebuttal.
When Darling produced his document showing what he claims is a hole in Tory spending plans, the Conservatives came straight back within minutes calling it Labour’s “dodgy dossier of lies.” It’s a very powerful tabloid phrase, probably from the pen of Tory communciations chief Andy Coulson, and is obviously designed to conjure up bad memories… just when Blair and Campbell are preparing to go in front of the Chilcot inquiry. Clever.
It’s many years since the Tories have punched that hard in their attack lines. Labour will have to up its game quickly to match that.
http://blogs.wsj.com/iainmartin/2010/01/04/general-election-day-1-better-slogans-please/?mod=rss_WSJBlog
626 - Bah, humbug!
They play again in Dallas on Saturday at 8pm Eastern - maybe Philly can pull it off then…. remember this stat -
The Eagles record vs. non-playoff teams this year, 11-1.
The Eagles record vs. playoff teams this year, 0-4.
Suddenly that 11-5 record doesn’t look so good
Now they’ve laid the ghost of ‘no win in in December’, the only other stat they need to demolish is that kids starting college last year were 5 the last time Dallas won a playoff game..
I don’t expect them to win the Superbowl (although I would like them to win next year as it will be in Dallas) but a playoff win would be great.
618 Prodicus That reminds me of the signs at Norfolk airport (VA), home to the second largest naval fleet in the world (after San Diego, I think), amphibious marine (hovercraft), airborne marines (Oceana air base), the Navy Seals, and rapid sea lift command. Even prior to 911, in addition to the usual signs at the security screening area for no food, no drinks, no guns, no knives, it had prominent signs for no jokes.
647. I am just hoping that last night was a cunning ruse to lull Dallas into thinking they can win it. Or something…
644 Prodicus
Liberty! Hah! My son lives in a dry county - you have to drive to the next county to buy booze!
645
New thread.
New thread
637 Ted, yes but if you can knock that up quickly what does that say about the shy and retiring CCHQ?
645- Who is the spiritual leader of this AGW movement? Is he/she actually referred to as a Pope/Ayatollah/??? or does he/she merely exercise the interpretive prerogatives of such sources of divine inspiration?
630 - that is something that is happening in a lot of states. NC would be one of the last holdouts I imagine but it’s an inexorable tide, if only for health reasons. I saw a stat recently that less than 20% of the US population are now smokers.
In Georgia pretty much if you either serve food or allow children, it must be non-smoking. You can have a smoking area if it is partitioned off and has separate heating & AC.
The vast majority of places here allow kids, so if you wish to smoke you have to go to something like a biker bar, where only a few have all their own teeth..
648 TimT — Speaking of jokes and that naval base, you know the one about the signal from the US flagship to the British flagship: ‘Good morning from the world’s biggest navy.’ Reply: ‘And good morning to you from the world’s best navy.’
645 HurstLama. Perhaps the appropriate punishment for the heretical AGW deniers is to be frozen at the stake, perhaps in Copenhagen, or in that little village up in the Peruvian Andes where global warming is causing the llama farmers’ children to freeze to death?
650 Oldnat. Alas Damascus MD is dry too. It’s to stop the youth dying drunk driving. Now they have to drive further to get drunk …