Bleak news for the Lib Dems from the South-West

July 4th, 2011

But will incumbency keep the losses down?

There’s a poll out today from Marketing Means which has appalling news for Nick Clegg’s party about the state of opinion in one of their strong-holds, the SW of England.

According to the hybrid phone/online poll the Tories are down one to 42%, Labour up 13 to 28% with the Lib Dem down from 35% in the region at the general election to just 16% now.

On the face of it this would see a near wipe-out for the party in the region with YouGov’s Anthony Wells calculating that they’d only have two seats left – Yeovil and Bath.

My guess is the incumbency effect for sitting MPs and considerably better organisation and support in seats that are being defended would stem some of the losses if an election was to take place now.

As the leading Tory analyst, Rob Hayward, told ConHome readers last month - “Be under no illusions even in what will probably be the LDs’ darkest days they could still defend their bastions very effectively.“

One of those bastions is Torbay where the week before last they took a Tory council seat on a swing of more than 10%.

Mike Smithson

chris_g00

Seth O. Logue @397
What a brilliant idea! Let’s have a public inquiry, where the accused wouldn’t be able to defend themselves ahead of possible charges!
wage slave

398.

“Doesn’t have a point of view
knows not where he’s going to
Isn’t he a bit like you and me?”

Well jsfl, since you ask, that nooblooLabourTory is a bit like you and Tony Bliar. But no, he’s not a bit like me.
wage slave

394.

Seth, I am with you but for one thing. Your analysis suggests a Plod proficiency factor or more than 0.2.
chris_g00

Gabble @393:

Fact is, if it had been left to PB tories, none of this would have come to light.

Much of this happened a decade ago. Was New Labour really PB tory?
GIN

393. Cowardice had nothing to do with it on my part Gabby.

I thought phone hacking was a non story because I found it totally boring and couldn’t get excited about Sienna Millar and Jude Law leading such exciting sex lives that the papers wanted to listen to their coversations all day every day.

Clearly this has moved into another level with the Milly Dowler angale and I’m now as interested as your average PB’er to see what happens next

*Note I’m not at Tim p*ssing myself with excitment levels yet, but I am now interested*
wage slave

399.

“All major parties will also wine & dine the Editor’s of the same papers before the next GE.”

‘All’? Not ‘both’?

Chris, UR Danny Alexander and I claim my UKP5!
tim

Wonder who will be the first backbencher to ask Cameron about this “According to the latest Private Eye, Murdoch wanted to get rid of Rebekah Brooks a few months ago, but David Cameron asked him not to”

Crimson Tide !
wage slave

405.

“Was New Labour really PB tory?”

Only plato, if she is to be believed.
ex pat

Fairly interesting discussion on Newsnight on Scotland and England.

The Scot Nat women seemed very intelligent although Paxman kept cutting across her for some reason . Noticeably he did not interupt his pal Potillo!

Perhaps he should learn some manners or listen more. He might learn something.

I thought the format was pretty awfull.

However perhaps the BBC will eventually learn to hold this important discussion.
jsfl

394. Seth

The police were investigating a child abduction case before the press were informed of the incident.

You are assuming that someone in the police didn’t tip someone off about the kidnapping

The police would have taken possession of Milly’s mobile phone as one of their first acts in the investigation.

You are assuming that she didn’t have it on her when she went missing.

As to the rest of your points whilst very interesting, what have they got to do with a third party allegedly interfering with a police investigation?
wage slave

243.

“Commission to probe multi-billion pound super sewer”

I thought someone said the NotW should not face a commission until police enquiries were concluded?
Seth O. Logue

408 tim

You need to explain to PB what you mean by “riding partner” in the context of David Cameron and Rebekah Wade.

I fear you are placing OGH’s stocks of Chateau Palmer at risk.
jsfl

403. Wage Slave

I realise you seem to think you are the centre of the universe but if you reread the post I suggested that it was Labour Supporters singing to their leader. So it doesn’t include you are me or little Nicky or Dave or anyone outside the red team…….
wage slave

414.

jsfl.

The concept of the universe was dreamed up by shallow thinkers. Most of whom liked to interpret their own poetry.
Mick Pork

385. “It’s hard to claim your privacy was invaded if you cannot be bothered to take even the most basic steps to protect it, i.e. you don’t value it yourself enough to do so.”

Remind us how well that defence went down in court for those who hacked the Royals and were jailed for six months ?
PhilW

147 – Thats a good point – If the police really are interested in the truth a lot of smirking news media organisations outside the Murdoch empire currently putting the boot in may well find themselves in the dock for similar indiscretions.
I am unable to accept, intellectually, that only one organisation used these methods of information gathering and that the rest of the media ignored this form of sourcing or were totally unaware of what was going on.
Seth O. Logue

411 jsfl

You are assuming…

I am not so much assuming as speculating.

An early tip-off is possible but less plausible than my original speculation.

I think we would have heard in press reports if the mobile phone was with Milly Dowler and later recovered. It may be the case but again this is less plausible originally suggested.

As to “a third party allegedly interfering with a police investigation”, I would bet this is a construction placed on the events many years later by journalists seeking to spin the story and discredit the NOTW.

Everything is possible. Just some interpretations will be more likely than others. The simplest explanation is always the best place to start even if it doesn’t always deliver the right answers.
jsfl

393. Gabble

Well ‘the fact is’ this was sloshing around for almost a decade under the Labour leadership and none of this did come to light. So why was it that the Labour Government had its head up Murdoch’s arse for over a decade and didn’t make a sound about it? Don’t tell me – ‘they didn’t know about it’ even though they were seemingly best pals with Rebekah and Andy. Now where have I heard that before…..

The stench of corruption surrounding that Labour Government gets even stronger even when they have been thrown out. No wonder there is talk of building a super sewer under London’s streets because we are going to have to continue to suffer the detritus of Labour’s ‘Rotten Noughties’ Government for decades to come……
NoOffenceAlan

385. Doesn’t it also depend how the phone number was obtained? Mobile phone numbers are not generally in the public domain, are they?
wage slave

416.

“Remind us how well that defence went down in court for those who hacked the Royals and were jailed for six months ?”

Ah, yes, but adult members of the Royal family and their team of high-paid advisors could not be expected to have the nous of a 13 year old schoolgirl.
Tim B

wage slave @401:

Tory pratt attacks the late Millie Dowler for ‘not protecting herself’

Hacking is hacking. Your people are nasty. Geddit?

That’s hardly a rational, reasoned, argued, accurate or polite response to a post which in no way criticized you or anyone else.

What I said was that dialing a voice mail number and entering a publicly available password is hardly serious, whether it be of a 13 year old or anyone else.

I’m not defending what happened, or the motive behind it, but it’s neither hacking nor nasty. I do not deserve to be called nasty, a prat or a Tory.
jsfl

418. Seth

Have you read the article?

Then why does the report indicate that family members were still attempting to contact her on the phone? Why was it that it gave them misplaced hope when the messages were deleted? Surely they would have known that it was with the police and if they did know that why would they have thought Millie deleted the messages when she didn’t have her phone?

Furthermore, most people tend to take their mobiles with them when they go out don’t they (unless they forget them).

Therefore the logical assumption is the police did not have her phone when she went missing……
Mick Pork

397. Log

“There won’t (and shouldn’t) be a public inquiry while the police are still investigating the alleged offences.”

I never said there should be while the police investigation continues. I’m talking about when it finishes as it has already expanded into two teams and shows every sign of expanding further.

At the end of this there will be a reckoning. I doubt the police investigation will be an end to the matter and politicians will have to be seen to do something about this. There are underlying issues around the press and their methods that will have to be tackled either head on once the police investigation finishes or after an inquiry of some sort.
jsfl

415. Wage slave

Funny I thought it was the geezer who wrote the theme tune of ‘Fireball XL5′..

So you believe Copernicus and Newton were ‘shallow thinkers’ do you? Well I suppose in comparison to your in-depth insights here on Pb.com such thinkers are shallow..
Seth O. Logue

423 jsfl

Am researching but Mail article on trial has photo of phone captioned: Evidence: Milly’s Nokia 3210 mobile phone was recovered by police after the teenager had been abducted

http://bit.ly/iHCCW9

Will keep you updated!
Seth O. Logue

427 jsfl

More from Mail report of trial proceedings:

“She said, ‘No, I’d better not.’ But then she changed her mind and said, ‘Actually I will come. I’ve got nothing better to do’.”

Danielle told London’s Old Bailey that Milly usually dodged buying a train ticket so she could spend the 80p fare on sweets.

That afternoon Danielle lent her 10p so she had enough for chips.

In the cafe, Milly borrowed a mobile phone from a boy she knew and called her father to say she would be late home.

Milly could not use her own phone because it had no credit. Danielle said she was certain the mobile was on.

But it had been switched off by the time Milly’s frantic family tried to call her that evening.

http://bit.ly/josD63
eek

PhilW @417

I think its very much a case of thank god we weren’t the ones caught out. Considering how easy it was to do and the fact that the method was published online (popbitch did it on 13th March 2002) I think all newsrooms would have been doing it by the time Milly disappeared a week later.

I also think that because it sneaked into newsrooms quietly over the previous 18 months its perfectly possible editors didn’t realise how the information was being gathered especially as all papers were getting the same type of detailed stories. That’s not an excuse an editor should use tho as they should take responsibility for their staffs actions.

What I don’t get is how a journalist got Milly’s phone number in the first place.
Tim B

wage slave @425:

It would no more drift into my mind to do such a thing, or to consider such a thing to be ‘not serious’ than it would do to machine-gun a children’s nursery.

The first part of your sentence I agree with completely, the second part I will not comment on.
Seth O. Logue

428 jsfl – correction

That quote was from Sun article not mail.

http://bit.ly/jdyyAu
Seth O. Logue

432 jsfl

The investigation continues:

She also had a Nokia mobile phone with her name on and keys for her home on a bottle opener-style ring. None of the items has ever been recovered.

Sun http://bit.ly/irczjw

Seems to be in conflict with other reports and especially evidence photo of Nokia phone.
observer

410

Yes basically agree. Paxman should be pensioned off. Portillo is on something and the rest of the cast were simply loopy.

Joan Mcalpine was the SNP women and newly elected. She was interesting and it bodes well for the NATS if she is typical of their new intakew.

What was her background?
jsfl

427 Seth

No need to search further:

Telegraph 30 Mar 2010

The items she was carrying, which were never recovered, accentuated the picture of schoolgirl innocence. They included a Nokia 3210 mobile phone with “Milly” scrawled on it, a pencil case, a white plastic purse with a small red heart in the corner and a pendant with a fairy on it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/7537348/Milly-Dowler-murder-reconstruction.html
Mick Pork

429. “its perfectly possible editors didn’t realise how the information was being gathered”

Editor – “Where did you get this story ? Is it copper bottomed ?”
Hack – “No idea where I got it boss but the story is 100% true.”
Editor – “Fair enough, put it on the front page.”

No chance.
Tim B

O/T I’m watching Alistair Cooke’s America, and he makes two interesting points in the early episodes which grabbed me.

Firstly the Virginian aristocracy in the 1770s were in hock to Britain, for furniture, chandeliers, musical instruments and decoration in particular, for £2 million pounds. This was more than 20 times the amount of money in circulation at the time. Given current financial issues that it intriguing.

Secondly, the average age of those who met in Philadelphia to write the Declaration of Independence was 42, more than the life expectancy at the time. It does tend to concentrate the mind.
Seth O. Logue

433 jsfl

Yes it does appear her phone was never recovered. But then I guess that was not needed to analyse the messages left for her.

There is no doubt the police were closely monitoring the messages as this Telegraph report on the trial proceedings evidences:

Mr Dowler left two messages on Milly’s mobile phone – and admitted his first reaction was ‘absolute anger’ that she had not come home.

Using her proper name he shouted: ‘Where the f*** is Amanda?’ Then it turned to fear as he realised how late it was.

He telephoned Milly’s friend while his wife rang a local hospital, then called police. Later he went out in his car to look for her. But by then, the jury has been told, she had already been abducted and was almost certainly dead.

It seems even more inconceivable to me that anyone could have accessed the message store and deleted messages without the investigating police knowing and investigating.
rullko

351. Labour councillors in Scotland are to be forced to work harder or face expulsion under radical plans to shake up the party north of the Border.

Councillors standing for the party in next year’s local authority elections will be told to sign a contract committing them to meeting thousands of voters a year and taking part in dozens of meetings. Those who fail to meet the requirements will face disciplinary action from party headquarters.

“Vote SNP to make Labour politicians work harder” appears to be the moral of this story.
jsfl

432. Seth

IIRC those making the allegations are the Dowler’s solicitor….
jsfl

436. Seth

Well the messages would have been held on the Service Providers servers. The phone was just a mobile way of accessing them across the network.

So the point is whoever deleted the messages from the full mailbox on the server allegedly interfered with a criminal investigation and created (accidentally or no) the false impression that Millie was still alive when she wasn’t.

It seems even more inconceivable to me that anyone could have accessed the message store and deleted messages without the investigating police knowing and investigating.

Well indeed and that raises even more questions and there are suggestions that the police just passed over it at the time in the fervour to find Millie….
jsfl

Oops – Ed Is Crap!

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/miliband-running-out-of-time-to-beat-the-odds-of-an-election-win-2306969.html

All complaints to the editor of the Independent newspaper….
jsfl

As it seems I’m talking to myself I’m orft

Toodles and Nytol……
Seth O. Logue

438 jsfl

those making the allegations are the Dowler’s solicitor…

Now we know the phone was missing, switched off later in the evening and never recovered, the argument that the Dowlers were given false hope of her being alive when Mulcaire or his agents deleted the messages doesn’t stack up. The police would have arranged with the phone company to have controlled access to the message store fairly early on and the Dowlers would have dependent on their family liaison officers for updates on activity.

If I were the solicitors to the Dowlers, I would be making as much noise about the NOTW as I could without committing to a civil prosecution in the hope that NI would be shamed into a large out-of-court settlement. My guess is that NI will settle generously and quickly to kill the story.
Me

Totally OT- Do you guys have a suggestion for an opressive kind of book like “The Trial” from Kafka ?
The Screaming Eagles

440 – Titter ye not but Andrew Grice and John Curtice join the herd.

After nine months as the Labour leader, Mr Miliband is more unpopular than Iain Duncan Smith was at the same stage of his leadership of the Conservative Party in 2002. Mr Duncan Smith was ousted by his party the following year, before he got the chance to fight a general election.

and

John Curtice, a Professor of Politics at Strathclyde University who compiled the “poll of polls”, found that Mr Miliband’s personal ratings had dropped to a new low among all four polling companies included in his study: ComRes, Ipsos MORI, ICM and YouGov.

“Mr Miliband will have to overturn previous patterns of polling history if he is eventually to make it into Downing Street,” he said. “Since 1979 all previous opposition leaders with unambiguously negative poll ratings at this stage in their leadership have eventually sunk without trace.”
Blue rog

Completely O/T however it stirs a little feeling of “Gosh if only!”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-14018892

Anyone got old rooms in their house they’ve never opened.

This story, unsurprisingly, is on constantly here in India. What’s the betting that the Indian state finds some way to get their hands on it?
Oracle

WTF…..

MPs say an auditor’s report which found the Ministry of Defence lost track of assets worth £6.3bn is “alarming”…The NAO flagged up a lack of evidence about the existence and value of some £6.3bn of assets – including £752m of military equipment, which includes firearms and £184m of Bowman radios.

The MPs noted that back in 2008-9, auditors had raised concerns about inventory accounts and warehouse systems and checks had been improved, but they had found that the inventory recorded did not match the stock count at 29% of locations.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14018288

Bob…Bob….we have lost a couple of those new radios…arhh don’t worry nobody will notice…

What a complete f##king omni-shambles, we aren’t talking about losing the odd paper clip down the back of the sofa.
http://www.croydonloony.co.uk JohnLoony

Ostrogoth oblong plop.
MODERATOR

new thread
Trevors Den

gabble – growth is not flatlining – we had .5% and this quarter we may have .3% Thats 1.6% in a year and following labours massive recession which took 6% out of the economy we should be grateful for that. We only get 2.5% in a good year.

I think we will have another year at least of slow growth. Real growth as opposed to bogus growth does not happen overnight and cannot be built on a foundation of sand (if you see what i mean since sand can make a good foundation if it is compressed enough).
The very last thing we want – however painful – is a return to unfunded spending as a means to bolster a chancellors reputation. Right now we have been suffering from a good old pre election spending boom.

politicalbetting.com

Bleak news for the Lib Dems from the South-West

But will incumbency keep the losses down?

Mike Smithson