Beware the polling commentators
December 20th, 2004-
How the Indy described a 6% drop as “standing still”
The December poll by Communicate Research for the Independent on Sunday
showed a huge change since November when the pollster was reporting that Labour was back to its 2001 General Election level of 42%. The figures
are:-
LAB 39 (-3): CON 34 (+3) LD 19 (-1)
But the most remarkable feature of the poll was how it has been covered by
John Rentoul in the paper. His story appears under headline “Poll
shows Labour’s popularity is unaffected by resignation drama”. In the
story Rentoul notes that “David Blunkett’s resignation had no effect on
Labour’s popularity, according to this month’s IoS poll. Labour still leads
the Conservatives by five percentage points.”
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It beggars belief that a political correspondent of a quality national paper can describe a drop 6% as “still”. In future don’t believe
what Rentoul writes on polls until you’ve checked the figures yourself.
The survey is a major turnaround and shows that we were right to be sceptical about the November survey. Also today’s 34% Tory share is remarkable because CA are the only telephone pollster that does not weight its results by past vote recall - a process that with the other pollsters usually produces a huge correction in the favour of the Tories.
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Our guess is that with a past vote recall adjustment CA would have the two main parties neck and neck
We stick firmly with our belief that Labour and the Tories are much closer than the pollsters are reporting Indeed of those certain or almost certain to vote in the CA survey the Tories are ahead.
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I am guessing that we was getting at was that their was little change in levels of party support according to whether people were surveyed before or after the resignation. Either he expressed himself badly, or his article was badly edited, or maybe he does indeed believe there is no difference between an 11% lead and a 5% lead.
To be fair,though, the drop is only just above the margin of error.
? The figures you show in the post show a 3% drop - not a 6 point one.
I think Mike is referring to the gap between Lab and the Tories - which will change by twice the Lab-Tory swing.
The figures are all in the +/-3% margin of error, I guess, so ‘no real change’ is statistically justifiable. That said, though it may (somehow) have won paper of the year, I think the Indy’s reduction from quality broadsheet to radical-student-lefty-rag is utterly depressing.
Yes, but the gap is reduced by 6%.
“No real change” isn’t statistically justifiable however you cut it. The most you could say is that there is a real possibility that the apparent reduction in Labour’s poll lead does not really represent a shift in public opinion. This possibility is pretty small but not so small it can be discounted as totally unrealistic. However, margin of error runs both ways - it is just as possible that a six percent cut in the lead is an underestimate of how badly Labour has done in the last month.
Maybe the Indy are comparing their poll with polls conducted by other polling companies immediately before Blunkett’s resignation. But of course that would be an equally flawed approach unless heavily qualified because of the different questioning and weighting techniques used by different polling companies.
I am glad others agree with my view on the sad recent history of the Indy. Unfortunately, readership figures suggest strongly rising sales over the past year - although perhaps the Indy itself will write these off as representing “no real change”.
My impression is that the Indy is picking up readers mainly from the Guardian (which has seen quite a sharp decline over the past 12-18 months), and mainly on the basis of its new tabloid shape.
Your rather savage criticism of Rentoul’s piece falls short of your usual high standards of thoroughness. The comment about Blunkett’s resignation having ‘no effect’ in Rentoul’s 1st para quite obviously refers to Labour’s lead in interviews conducted prior to Blunkett’s resignation compared to its lead in interviews conducted afterwards - which actually saw a two-point increase for Labour but, as Rentoul points out, the change isn’t statistically significant. In case his readers haven’t yet twigged that this is what he is on about there is a reference at the end of the piece to 403 interviews being conducted pre-resignation with the implication being that the remainder were conducted afterwards. If you look at the tables (http://www.communicateresearch.com/poll.php?id=48), CR’s poll suggests Labour’s rating has decreased by 3% while the Tories has increased by 3% - which, given the sort of month Labour has had is not at all surprising. To speak of it as a ‘major turnaround’ is surely over-egging it.
Your believe in the power of weighting by past vote is also overdone. I just looked at one survey selected at random - ICM’s November Guardian poll, and it produced nothing like the sort of movement required to put the parties at level pegging. Their figures, which were in fact in line with yesterday’s CR figures, showed that the effect of past vote weighting actually ended up with a higher Labour lead! If you don’t believe me it’s at http://www.icmresearch.co.uk/reviews/2004/Guardian%20Nov%2004/Guardian%20Nov%2004.pdf. So your ‘guess’ that past vote weighting for CR would put the parties neck & neck looks like a pretty bad one. Beware the polling commentators indeed!
Well, as I pointed out, that was *one* reading of what Rentoul had written, but not the only one. Either way, the article was either badly written or badly edited.
Frankly it’s a pretty ridiculous focus of analysis.
2 ’stories’:
1) Lab/Con gap has fallen by 6 in light of Blunkett revelations
2) No change in support since Blunkett resignation (based on two small samples with presumably correspondingly large margins of error and with limited insight into how the Blunkett affair in general has affected support)
Why go with no2?
Alex, Sean, Freddie,
I think this is what is known as a slow news day…
Agreed Robert.
At the risk of sounding like an anorak though, it would be interesting to analyse the impact some of the pollsters’ weightings have on their data. For instance, if it’s generally thought that to weight by past vote recall favours the Tories, when & why doesn’t that happen…indeed if it happens at all? Anybody know of any studies that have been done on this?
Freddie - regarding your first comment - how on earth have you managed to come to the conclusion that in ICM’s November poll weighting by past vote increased the Labour lead?
From the tables published by ICM in November you cannot actually tell for certain, since they do not provide a cross tabulation between 2001 voting behaviour and current voting intention. What you can tell is that ICM weighted Labour downwards, and the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats upwards (specifically in November ICM weighted the Conservative 2001 vote from 30% to 30.1% - a minute weighting - the Labour 2001 vote from 49% to 46.5% and the LD 2001 vote from 16% to 17.6%).
November happened to be a month where weighted had a smaller effect than some other months anyway - in ICM’s October poll the unweighted shares of the 2001 vote were Conservative 25% and Labour 54% - requiring huge weightings to be applied and presumably making a huge difference.
ICM’s weightings are/were smaller than Populus - certainly Populus’s old methodolgy for weighting by past vote consistently had the effect of cutting the Labour lead by about 5 points - had Communicate’s poll been weighted using Populus’s old system of weighting by past vote it would, indeed, have resulted in the parties being roughly neck and neck (Populus’s new system will have a more varied effect since it weights to a fixed weight rather than one related to that month’s recalled vote).
The bottom line is that different methods of weighting by past vote have different effects, and certainly Populus’s method until last month could have done exactly what Mike says it would.
In a more general sense - the effect of weighting by past vote depends upon the methodology used and - more to the point - what target weights the pollsters use.
All the pollsters unweighted samples contain more people claiming to have voted Labour and less people claiming to have voted Conservative or Liberal than there really were in 2001 - this is consistent across all the polls who ask the question (in fact, recalled vote is apparantly pretty stable at around about 27% CON, 51% LAB, 16% LD).
In most cases therefore weighting by past vote will favour Labour because pollsters will weight towards the real figures - common sense alone would suggest that in a poll where 50% of people claim to have voted Labour in 2001, no pollster is going to think “too few Labour voters there, better weight it upwards”.
The exception, incidentally, is YouGov who weight to figures of CON 26%, LAB 56%, LD 13.4%. Their unweighted samples also have more people claiming to have voted Labour than other pollsters, but nevertheless YouGov’s weighting by past vote does sometimes favour Labour. ICM and Populus’s weightings pretty much always favour the Conservatives.
Interesting debate on here as always. I tend to look at the weekly local by-elections for trends and the fact is Labour has recovered from its summer lowpoints and the Tories are not winning bucketloads of seats - indeed they are losing seats to the Lib Dems in some areas!
I don’t subscribe to the notion of a Tory revival - if anything, they are worse now than in late 2000 in some surveys.
To Stodge - the polls in the latter part of 2000 were affected by the petrol crisis when Hague’s Tories got ahead of Labour. It took until the new year for things to get back to normal and Labour to recover fully. In September 2000 Labour was 34% with ICM; October and November they got to 40%; and by March 2001 they reached 49% - 7% more than they got in the election.
Part of my irritation with the Indy goes back to last February when another political commentator seriously misread a poll and I wrote to him and the paper suggesting that this be corrected. It wasn’t and I did not even get an acknowledgement.
If journalist are basing stories on poll data then they have to ensure that they get it right - otherwise it is just sloppy. When Rentoul’s story “hit the streets” at the weekend it was picked up by the Press Association and the BBC who both repeated the error. They assumed that Rentoul had got it right.
I follow the polls closely and if I see errors in the way they are reported I will attack them. Having been a BBC journalist for 14 years I apply the same standards that were expected of me to today’s journalists.
And so you should. At least when I contacted the BBC about airbrushing the Tories’ only ever ethnic minority MP from history they had the grace to put it right.
But the truth is that newspapers are more and more part of the entertainment industry.
“British voters should use the European Parliamentary elections on June 10 to send Prime Minister Tony Blair a message on the Iraq War” said Charles Kennedy – the electorate voted. The anti-war party Liberal Democrats totalled 14.9% coming 4 – a humiliating position.
In February 2003 the LD’s were polling 26% before the start of the war now in December 2004 the LD’s are polling 21% - almost a 20% drop in support.
Ian Duncan Smith went for less.
I know it’s so easy to criticise the LD’s but until you change your leader and policies you will never be more than a protest vote.
Okay all the above is tongue in cheek but there is an element of truth in it.
I concur entirely with Steve T’s point at 5. I remember talking to a Labour PPC in Brighton, and he said all the Independent front pages (with their usual screaming indignation) plastered over one of the walls of the Conference centre reminded him of a particularly strident student paper. Its supercilious condescension re. Europe is bad enough, but Fisk’s hyperbolic indignation (and conspiracy theories, his latest being that the Iraqi government may have killed Margaret Hassan to make the insurgents look bad) is even worse. I like how Fisk’s mugshots vary between red-faced indignation and a smug sneer. Truly the face sums up the attitude. A paper which once proudly announced a policy of keeping opinion and reportage separate now has an editor who thinks that attitudinal reporting is the future of newspapers. In fact, the success of the (relatively) spin-free Metro proves the opposite (yes, I know it’s free, but many surveys showed that readers said they liked how it gave them the news without any particular steer or spin).
The letters page, meanwhile, is as bad (if not worse) than that of the Guardian, almost entirely a collection of alternately smug and whingeing middle-class lefties so far up their own backsides they could be human colonoscopies. These, presumably, are the people who bought YA-B’s ‘Greatest Hits’ book.
Why do I still buy it? James Lawton’s football commentary, plus Hensher, Tonkin, Viner, and Blacker.
But at least the LDs increased their vote at the Euro Elections - unlike Labour who’s 22.6% was the lowest by a governing party ever in a national election. Also on that day in the local elections Labour were forced into THIRD place by the LDs.
What policies should the LDs change - should they retrospectively back the Iraq war and now support compulsory ID cards - the signature policies of New Labour and the Tories?
Or alternatively, they could back ID(S) cards and then offer to scrap them if they ever got to power. Go figure …
Richard - I concur with some of your comments re the Indy’s columnists, especially the odious Y A-B. However, there is also the equally odious Bruce Anderson.
Mike - 22 - The LD share of the vote in the European Election was 2% higher than in 1999 but 4% lower than the 2001 GE.
You agree then that in being the anti-war party this has cost the LD’s 20% of their vote - perhaps it is time for Kennedy to go.
Re. Tabman Steve’s point at 24, I’ve always thought that Anderson is deliberately employed by the Indy to make the Right look bad, just as Eric Heffer was given a column in the Times to make the left look bad.
Mike - further to 20,22,23,25 –some time ago I acted as a presiding officer at local, general, European and even parish council elections – it’s where I gained my love of politics although I never joined a Political Party as my views could change as I listened to reasoned debates and my views have altered as I have grown older.
At the majority of these elections only the LD candidate would come round and thank the presiding officer and poll clerks for undertaking the polling duties – I thought that this was kind and it created a positive impression amongst the presiding officers. The LD was perceived as being “good” people who worked hard at a local level to get things done.
Whilst this perception is fine for local politics, for a general election people tend to vote for a party that represents the majority of their views – in the light of the fact that most of the LD’s policies goes against the views of the majority of the electorate how can the LD’s make gains?
ID cards - majority of the public for - LD’s against
Asylum Seekers– vast majority against – LD’s for
Human Rights – majority fed up with it - LD’s for
Detention of foreign terror suspects – majority would like them to be sent back to their country of birth even if dangerous – LD’s would not.
Crime – majority would like the right to use more than reasonable force against a burglar who should have no rights – LD’s against
Europe – most Britons would like to be part of a trading complex not a federal state – LD’s against.
Tuition fees – most people support them (apart from students) why should manual workers pay taxes for middle – class kids to go free – LD’s against
The above is only for representation purposes only but does illustrate how little in common some of the LD policies have with the electorate. In my opinion the LD’s will only gain 18% of the vote at the next GE – for every vote they take off Labour they will lose one to the Tories. Assuming this happens Charles Kennedy will resign, to be replaced by another who could possible change the ideology of the party from left of centre where they are only appealing to a fifth of the population to a more middle of the road rightist party with policies to appeal to all.
I know you and the LD supporters/ commentators of the site will argue the above and quote the drugs issue etc but just for the sake of argument accept that if the above does comes true will the LD’s “ do a labour” and adopt more tory-like policies or are they happy knowing they will never be in power?
Vino, you’ll see from early pieces on this site that I thought that Kennedy should have gone in the Spring. I think he has recovered well and has a good public image that will be reinforced during the General Election campaign, if indeed it is in April, by him becoming a father. Instead of the focus on LD policies we’ll get several days of “baby stories”. To have timed it like this shows his commitment to the party.
This will also mean that other LD leaders will get a lot more coverage.
The trouble about Kennedy going straight after the General Election is that the time-table is a bit too short for Lembit Opik, who, surely, will be leader one day
Re 24 and 26, I can’t really repeat Bruce Anderson’s comment about Kimberley Quinn (as reported in Private Eye), but it shows him to be of dubious charm.
Funny what you said about it becoming a student paper - it reminds me of my student paper when Johann Hari was (briefly) involved with it.
Mike, why did you think Kennedy should have gone in the Spring?
Paul - I think part of the reason is that there’s no obvious successor at present. Apart from Lembiy (Nooooo ….. !!!!) the only other high profile LDs are Simon Hughes (already fought a leadership contest and lost) and Ming (too old).
There are some very able performers in the top jobs, but noe wuite ready for the leadsership. IIRC there was some discussion about the various contenders (Oaten, Cable, Laws etc) that concluded that ll of them had their flaws and Kennedy was the “least worst option” until after the election.
ID cards are giving Oaten plenty of exposure, and I thought he performed well on his recent outings on Question Tme and Any Questions.
Cable is able (but liquor is quicker? :)) but a bit to dry and earnest.
I don’t feel any desire from inside the party for Charles to go. Maybe so a few months ago- but I think Lib Dems now know he is an asset to the party, and his unique style sets him apart. He’s still the most popular leader.
As on the various Lib Dems policies which are unpopular: I agree they are. Howvever, there will be a huge protest vote against Labour in their seats, and muslims and other faith groups will likely agree with the LDs on asylum and ID. In most Tory/Lib Dem marginals the issues will be local: how good your local Lib Dem MP is (and many hold their seats once they win them- thats a fact) compared to tories, the usual fighting to save post offices/hospitals/farmers etc. It works- and in the seat I am in I am still seeing tories moving over to the party when we canvas and collect surveys- and that isn’t spin, despite it being quite close. Sating that, I think the swing in LD/Tory seats will be almost 0- with some like Western S-Mare still falling.
I think the ICM poll is about right for the LDs- 21-22%, as some estimates are grossly exagerated.That’s 3% up, and just about enough to hold most seats. With targeting, I can still see 65 seats, most coming from Labour.
Tabman, I agree I though Oaten was very good in the debate on ID cards and whenever he has been on Question Time, Any Questions etc… he has impressed me.
Any word on weather Kennedy will run for the leadership again when his term is up?
And as always Mike Please, Please elect Opik
On the subject of Home Affairs spokespersons does anyone else anticipate David Davis succeeding Howard?
Vino - re LD policies. I suspect you’re right, but I also believe that a large part of this is the drivel fed the populace by the press. Anecdotally in support of this, at the weekend I was debating AIDS with a 60-something relative, fundamentally decent but Daily Mail-reading and not educated. His initial position was along the “gay plague” lines, but after my wife and I had discussed the situation in Africa and the rates of spread in the heterosexual population, and also the spreading mechanisms, we’d changed his mind. He admitted to us that his only knowledge was of it as something that affected gays only.
When you consider all the other issues you’ve listed, a lot of the populace simply don’t get the “liberal” side of the argument. ID cards is another good one - the counter-argument is starting to get discussed (it’s a waste of money, better spent on extra police, ID cards won’t prevent anything etc etc). In a GE campaign then some of the counter-arguments may begin to seep into the wider consciousness. I live in hope
Ben - Davis has also impressed me with his handling of Blunkett, and looks more of a real (if misguided IMHO :)) person than Howard. But he has to keep his seat first, especially if you can put in a word with 7000 or so of your buddies in Haltemprice
You are right Vino, but there is a section of the population that has differing views and has to be represented. Besides the views you describe are already pretty crowded why would these people suddenly start voting Lib Dem. Of course you have to move with the debate, witness Labour and economic policies but they haven’t exactly abandoned all their principles. In my opinion the Conservatives are now well behind the times on many social issues (or appear so) but they do represent a significant section of the electorate especially the rural/elderly.
Rentoul’s had problems with statistics before - witness his clueless account of the Lancet report’s survey of Iraqi mortality (read it here, or see the comments here.)
Will - a list of Labour principles Blair hasn’t abandoned, please!
Higher taxation and over-regulation, to name two.
maintaining tribal loyalty at the cost of principal (I am against the war/id cards/fill in as appropriate” but am still Labour”
hating anything/anyone outside the tribal boundaries….
avoiding evidence based policy….
Priciples Labour has not abandoned. Social justice, helping the worst off in society, restoring workers right, providing support for pensioners, giving us the best free at the point of use health service in the world, help for families, improving the rights of people who are discriminated against. Actually this has been the most radical, reforming, progressive, redistributive and social democratic Government in the history of this country. It is actually even more radical and more redistributive than the great Government of 1945.
Well I think investment on public services is one thing that this government can be proud of. Also what Sean calls ‘over’ regulation, I think the minimum wage and the European social chapter are important pieces of legislation coherent with Labour principles. Also I don’t think much of the legislation coming from the Home Office can be said to be against Labour principles particularly measures on anti social behaviour. I am sure Ben can give me a few more!
Steve 2 I am sure you are sincere and believe what you have written to be true. The reality is that in the first term Labour did do a number of things ….the minimum wage for example that are to be applauded…..
However your comments on the NHs demonstrate that you are certainly not living in Wales…where despite record amounts of money being spent the quality of the service is deteriorating….on social justice I think its true that Labour have not abandoned the principal but they have simply failed to deliver and they are bound to fail whilst they cling to the “top down centralist” approach to government.
On issues such as pensions,housing,transport and the improvement of public services generally little has really been achieved. The quality of our government has not been improved with constitutional reform (badly needed if we are to deliver the above) abandoned in a mess and the civic life devalued by the conduct of the government party.
This website is not here for the purpose of inter party debate but to look at the likely result of the election. The comments about tribalism I posted are based on my own experiences of Labour activists which is that irresective of the evidence before them they will cling to the belief that the Labour party is delivering a “radical social democrat agenda” the recent queens speech shows that whatever may have been achieved in the first term the second term has been a disaster and the only option Labour has is to fighten the public into supporting them and do everything possible to avoid scrutiny of their actions.
Don’t see how you can blame Blair for the Welsh NHS but I presume you know about those aspects of devolution. The English NHS system as improved massively. On the other points I think we will have to disagree.
As for the electoral impact - it is huge and despite your prostestations to the contrary Labour is still well ahead on breat and butter issues that decide elections like the economy, the nhs, pensions, jobs, which party will be best for your family. That is I believe that not only does Labour deserve to be elected for a full third term but that it will be elected for a full third term. Of course a number of factors will affect whether that happens, not least turnout. On the Queen’s Speech quite frankly you are talking out of your a***.
In my mind people on this site are also forgettin that Labour is also quite an effective party are targeting by the way.
I agree with you comments to some extent Mark especially as regards the second term which seems to be a little short on ideas, partly I think due to the Labour party having no expectation of two terms of government, legislation was rushed through in the first term which could have been done in a more thoughtful way in the second. ‘A Level’ reforms being a prime example of that.
I have no direct contact of the NHS in Wales but overall I think the NHS will be a vote winner amongst those that come into contact with it, as shown by the positive perceptions of people who have used it recently, waiting times are sharply down.
I’m afraid I don’t think discussing the likely election result is possible without some inter party debate, many will disagree with me on the NHS for example.
Finally whilst I don’t think the government is the most radical ever, it is certainly not just a another ‘Tory’ government the truth is somewhere between the two.
Re.43 The same is true of the NHS in Scotland. Despite spending huge amounts of money (far more than in England) waiting times in Scotland have actually increased from 1997. You have to bare in mind that reform of public services has not touched every corner of the United Kingdom.
yes Will you are quite right that “new” labour is more than just another tory government and I would never make that comment. I think “new” labour is actually much closer to the traditional labour model which is very authoritarian and anti-diversity.
Steve2 The NHs in wales is in a terrible state largely due to decades of mismanagement allied to the disatrous La/Lib government in the assembly and the now even worse Labour administration. When the election comes I think it is likely people will either abstain or register a protest vote Welsh Labour MPs are now attacking the assembly government for its failure on Health but their only solutions are “more PFI2 despite PFI playing little role in reducing waiting lists in England.
Despite “record levels” of investment there is an issue of funding as Wales receives its public spending allocation largely on the basis of population rather than need.
Labour do remain ahead on key issues……its not unusual for a government to do so…but largely because the Tories are a useless opposition. My comments on the queens speech are based largely on professional expertise in crime reduction. The 42 bills Labour have introduced to date have done little to reduce crime and mainly about headlines. In the first term excellent work….setting up crime and disorder partnerships etc …in the second term much of it undone by the idiot home secretary……I still have the email informing me that to reduce paperwork the three exisiting funding streams would be merged….and in the next paragraph announcing two more funding streams with all the extra paper work etc….soley intoduced to boost the image of Blunket. Why not just increase the original funding stream. The adminstration of the programmes took up so much time that any innovative or worthwhile projects could not be strated and we just had to persue “more of the same”. This is one of the factors in the chattering classes from the public sector dispairing at the government….
Blimey I am grumpy today and my spelling is worse than normal….:)
On election timing, “the gun has been fired for May next year” according to the Guardian and the BBC. What’s the latest date that 5/5/05 can be called, and what would derail it given the impact on the local elections already discussed if it was moved or postponed?
Mark - you must have been invaded by the spirit of Ben - Deus ex Machina
I think Ben is off somewhere dusting down his CV to apply for his new job:)
Careful Mark, talk like that could make the poor lad a bit green about the “Gills” …
Tabman…vg
:)
Re. 29, I’d be interested to hear more about Hari’s involvement in the student paper. He has his moments, but his reference to ‘David Irvine’ (he meant David Irving) in one column reminded me of the Private Eye ‘bumfluff’ gibes. I also remember a piece he wrote in the New Statesman a few years ago about his time at Cambridge, where he seemed to argue that the definition of an upper middle-class background was having parents who listened to Radio 4 and read broadsheet papers. His liberal anguish a few weeks ago about the supposed snobbery of calling people chavs (why shouldn’t we mock yobs in burberry baseball caps?) read like one of Private Eye’s parodies of his column.
I thought I might set one or two of you off…
What strikes me from the discussion of my oh-so-innocent query is that the areas where New Labour’s investment in public services hasn’t paid off are precisely those which have been given a greater or lesser degree of devolved government.
Would it be too cynical to suggest that Blair realised tha the Tories’ disinvestment in Wales and Scotland was such that it could not be repaired in two or even three terms, and that devolution would provide a nifty scapegoat? As for London, isn’t the fact that land and labour costs in the capital are such that public investment here will never justify itself in terms of bangs-per-buck compared to spending the money elsewhere?
Spot on.
I was not in the Plaid in 97 but I know quite a few people thought we should camapign against the assembly as it does not have the powers to do the job……….however in the end we have to try and make it work…..the problem in Wales, electorally speaking, is that we gave Labour a wake up call in 99 and now they are better organised….I still expect them to lose at least 5 and possibly as many as eight seats….
Tabman…diolch am fawr!
Both Labour & the LibDems have become deeply populist.
The LibDems are offering populist agenda on domestic social policy on one hand - £25 extra on pensions, abolishing tuition fees, 50% top rate tax over £100k pa balance by unpopularly liberal stance on asylum & Europe. (I suspect the debate on ID cards will be very evenly split by the time they are actually intorduced). The LibDems problem is not that they cannot appeal to the electorate - far from it - their current big spending polices are geared directly to winning the middle class votes that they need - who is it do you think is most concerned about tuition fees & care costs for the elderly? Why is it that the Tories are now aping LD policy on these issues? The LibDem problem will come after the next election when these spending commitments could trapped them into becoming a party which is seen as defending middle class perks on the backs of the working class - something that could have real traction if Labour took it up as a stance.
On the Labour side they are pursuing a populist asylum, immigration and law & order agenda, which appeals to both their core vote and more importantly in electoral terms the swing voters of the “wandering 10%”. This is balanced by the slew of stealth taxes which have paid for the extensive programme of welfare expansion from the New Deal through to Pension Tax Credits. Labour’s problem is that they have been rumbled on this and the middle class swing voters are beginning to lose patience over the steady increase in taxes. Blair’s answer to this of introducing greater choice into the public sector is flawed in terms of its electoral appeal becuase the people who are most worried about the “privatisation” of the NHS & other public services are exactly the same middle classes he needs to appeal to and who are afraid that he might force them to “go private” in order to use services they currently get for free.
Both centre-left parties are hooked on a conumdrum of how to pursue “prgressive” but different social agendas while diverting the public’s gaze from their less popular policies.
I’m sure we could debate for hours the weaknesses of LibDem policy-making (and of the other two parties). I agree there are a whole string of unpopular policies which make the LibDems hard to elect. I do however detect the signs that the party is maturing as it gets closer to real power. People like Vince Cable, Ming Campbell and in my view Mark Oaten seem to have a refreshing knowledge of what they are talking about. Some of those horrible piece of idealogical detritus are gradually being eroded, but in such a way as the more zealous LibDem diehard hasn’t really noticed.
If the LDs could ditch the ones that are always going to be losers, and play the long game on ones that are losers not (ID cards) but could easily yield any amount of I told you so moments in the future they will be in good shape for 2010.
sorry for all the typos in that
Re-55 I’m not sure that the theory really holds up. Even in the Tory years Scotland enjoyed far higher levels of expenditure than anywhere in England so you would expect parts of England to have suffered worse from disinvestment. What does perhaps help Blair is that he can point to Scotland (I don’t really know about Wales) as an example of ‘Old Labour’ failure. The Scottish NHS has seen loads of money but little reform (for instance there will be no Foundation Hospitals North of the Border) and is consequently getting worse. This may cost Labour 5-6 sears at the next election but virtually the whole of the Central Belt will continue to deliver Labour MP’s by the dozen so Labour have little to lose.
Re 29 and 54 Richard, probably better discussed on email.
book_value[AT]hotmail.co.uk that is.
Innocent Abroad, do you mean Nirj Deva, MP for Brentford and Isleworth 1992-1997? Where did the BBC do this? Can you tell me what was said back and forth in your exchanges? I work for Nirj, and he might be interested to know. Please email me if you can say more.
Sorry, if you want to email, please send to petercuthbertson[at]gmail[d0t]com
Bullseye - on tuition fees, don’t somethig like 50% go to higher education now? That’s an awful lot of people affected not all of whom are middle class. Furthermore, given that graduates are supposed to earn more proportionately than non-graduates, they will more than pay for the cost of their education in the additional tax they will pay over their working lives.
Jon at 59 - some LD spokesmen are showing alarming signs of competence - wasn’t Cable chief ecomonist at BP or something? Not sure that that always goes down well with the electorate though
Nick Clegg (ppc for Sheffield Hallam, MEP for East Midlands until he stood down this year) is the man who I would put money on to be LibDem leader sooner or later particularly if Charles Kennedy (who remains very popular with most LibDems) stays as leader for another few years
Re 66, 50% is the target for higher education. The actual figure is 39%, and of those, so many drop out now, that only about 30% can expect to get a degree.
Did he start writing for the Grauniad after selection or was he already a journalist? Seems pretty bright though.
Talking of journalists, I’ve a lot of time for Nick Cohen. He’s written a couple of very pertinent pieces recently; one on house-price premiums and hypocracy and the other on nannies.
Sean dear boy, one doesn’t go up to the ‘Varsity to take a degree - there’s far too much else to keep one occupied
Interesting stats though. However, I would still argue that it touches on more than just the middle class, or are the middle class >405 of the population?
That should have read >40%
Re 67, Cable was chief economist at Shell I think.
tabman steve, im an active LibDem who belives my party’s policy on tuition fees is the right one none-the-less i also recognise that it is targeted at a specific part of the electorate based on a clear understanding of the demographics of our support. this is something new and shows how v much more serious the party is nowadays about winning
Vino - the only reason you had to jump through these hoops to get your own money out of the bank is the ridiculous money laundering rules introduced by ….
Er .. David Blunkett.
I confidently predict ID cards will be Labour’s poll tax (if they ever get off the ground) - which with the Government’s record on IT projects is highly unlikely. The NHS computer system estimated at £2.3bn - current cost = £30bn. The CSA computer as far as I know has never worked properly and neither has the DWP.
ID cards will cost families hundreds of pounds a year, they won’t stp terrorism, deal with illegal immigration, reduce crime, make people safer and they will give the police rafts of new bureaucratic tasks identifying law abiding citizens.
When the facts become known - the tide will turn (just as it did in Oz) - Christ even the Mail on Sunday opposed ID cards (and interment).
I think the Lib Dems will be proved right (like they were on Iraq). The question is whether it will happen before the first week of May (which I doubt) - although the HoL debates wll be interesting.
Re 41. Labour hasn’t delivered for pensioners. Quite the opposite. The Pensions Tax, the increase of means-testing, the effective abandonment of those whose private pensions have collapsed, the undermining of saving and the reduction in the share of the national wealth spent on the elderly add up to real disappointment for older people.
…and there was me thinking that the winter fuel payment and free TV license for pensioners where significant.
On ID Cards being the “Governments’ poll tax” will this be before or after Gordon Brown send middle England running for the conservative hills and yet at the same time loses ground to the Liberals? Personally I’m not convinced there is any real need for them, however I don’t have any philosophical objections to them either… the fact is they enjoy widespread public support (80% of people in one poll backed them) and so long as there is little personal effort involved I doubt they’ll be an issue I also doubt they’ll be used very much… and under any Brown Government they would be a very low priority and so likely as not will die a death. The biggest risk to the government is a big economic slowdown especially if Brown is the PM because his entire reputation is built on his economic competence but I doubt that will come about anytime soon.
God forbid that Nick Clegg or any other Euromaniac leads to LibDems otherwise it would be back to 15%.
Jon, surely you don’t mean Nick Clegg is exceptionally pro-European? have you read his chapter in the Orange Book? It is all about repatriating powers back from Europe and irritated a lot of Europhiles. Just because he used to work there doesn’t mean he is a “Euromaniac”.
Yes I have read his Orange thoughts and welcome them. Unfortunately I am well aware of his previous position on the subject - I suppose I still avoid crocodiles even if they tell me they have gone vegetarian.
Ben said ID cards wouldn’t be an issue ’so long as there is little personal effort involved’
How would he describe - face to face interviews at passport offices for 1st time passport requests, charging a family around £400 for the proviledge and threatening them with £1,000 fines if they fail to tell the authorities of a change of address? Seems pretty much like a huge and bureaucratic ‘personal effort’ for a piece of plastic that won’t work and will cost billions of public money.
As I said regardless of the polls now - support will fall for them - just like in Australia - as the absurdity of Labour’s scheme becomes clearer.
There is a fundamental difference between the poll tax and ID cards. Mrs Thatcher felt - rightly or wronly - that rates were broken, and a flat per person tax was the best way to fix them.
The Labour government sees ID cards as a clever electoral ploy to gain some headlines as the law and order party, while splitting the Consevative Party. I don’t believe Tony cares whether we have ID cards, I certainly don’t believe he has the slightest confidence it will cut crime, or provide value for money. But it is a sound electoral strategy.
All hail King Tony!
Changing the subject, I see that the latest figures for public borrowing are pretty grim. Does that rule out a giveaway budget in the Spring?
Do the figures not already anticipate what was promised in the autumn statement? I don’t think there will be a huge giveaway in spring, but neither will the spending bull be seized by the horns.
IIRC a deficit of £34 bn was forecast for 2004/5 as a whole. The deficit in November was £9bn, taking the total deficit for the first 8 months of the year to £32bn. January typically produces a large surplus, but even so, the deficit for the year is likely to be above £40bn. That would be nothing unusual if the economy was in recession, but it isn’t.
Sean dead right - and wait until it is in recession as sooner or later it will be, most likely as a result of what is going on in the US. It is extremely hard to know what a chancellor of any party would do in this circumstance. Slashing public spending will make it worse, as probably would raising taxes. Any attempt to let the public finances go to hell would result in a big racking up in long-term rates which would unwind all the comfortable assumptions that markets and politicians have tended to make.
It’s a truism that even the most successful economy will face a recession sooner or later. The deficit could easily double in a genuine recession. The government would still have some room for manoeuvere though, as overall public debt is well below the average for an advanced economy.
ben, do you really belive that ID cards “wont be much used”? perhaps if you are a middle aged white man, but I can assure you if you are a young Asian or Black man they will be used - used when you are stopped & searched in the street. these are the return of the much reviled “Sus” laws and they are storing up a lot of trouble for the future.
(And yes before any one points it out I know the current proposal is you won’t have to carry the card but in reality that will be amended very quickly as it makes the whole point about terrorism & immigration redundant.)
Sean - superficially yes but if you scratch below the surface the position is not quite a rosy. The UK has PFI type liabilities which are hidden off the balance sheet - that is pretty much unique for a developed country. Perhaps more importantly you are only looking at bond issuance - if you compare with the worst public debt offender (Italy though Japan’s figure looks worse) there are mountains of public assets to offset that liability to some extent. In the UK these have been flogged years ago. If you consider these things the UK is not really in better shape at all - and of course the decision to extent credit to any business or individual certainly would consider these things.
In addition the UK runs a large current account deficit, which means that it is much more vulnerable to foreigners pulling the plug than other EU countries and particularly Japan.