Labour at best ICM position since the “Gilligan WMD Affair”
December 21st, 2004
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If you want to bet on Labour - hurry before prices move
Labour are back to 40% with ICM for the first time since the notorious Andrew Gilligan interview on the Today programme in May 2003 according to the December ICM survey in the Guardian today. The shares are:- CON 31%(+1), LAB 40%(+2), LD 21%(-1).
This will be disappointing news for both the Tories and the Liberal Democrats who had both, perhaps, been hoping for a boost from the David Blunkett affair which seems to have worked the other way.
Four years ago, in the December before the 2001 General Election, ICM recorded LAB 44%: CON 34%: LD 16%, so both the Tories and Labour are behind what they were then but the Lib Dems are ahead.
Today’s ICM poll is in contrast to the two YouGov polls at the weekend which both had the Tories on 32% and Labour on 35% - a difference, we think, that is explained by the differing methodologies. ICM uses the telephone while YouGov surveys are online amongst groups of people who have previously registered. Both pollsters claim to be the “most accurate”.
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ICM polls are usually the most price sensitive and we expect changes
Labour have moved forward on the spread-betting markets and the latest spreads from SportingIndex are LAB 347-355 seats: CON 198-206 seats: LD 71-75 seats. IG have LAB 348-356: CON 190-198: LD 69-73.
Last week we suggested that those who wanted to bet on Labour should do it immediatly. The prices have moved since then and look set to move even further so the case for action is even greater.
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The sentiment is running very much to Labour at the moment and prices will move accordingly.
My personal betting. We think that there is no value on the Tory or LD buy prices at the moment. Having taken my profit on the Lib Dems in October my strategy will be to sell Labour when I think the price is right. The polls so over-state the party that there will come a moment when there’s really good value in such a bet. I had been looking towards the 350 seat mark but now I’m holding off until it gets to 375-383 seats which I think is what it will reach.
Mike Smithson
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Very interesting. i thought the public liked David Blunkett, and he has been helped by a sympathetic press.
Very interesting that 70% of Lib Dems like Blunkett- I thought it would be much lower. Could be a problem for Oaten and the strong anti-blunett stance.
That was unexpected.
Personally I expected Blunckett’s resignation and the rough month that the Government’s had to depress Labour’s poll performance by one to two points so in most polls I was expecting something in the range of 36-37%.
But I had maintained that this would be a “blip” and that Labour’s ratings would improve between now and the election (with the potential for a bounce after the Budget).
Perhaps I overestimated the negative effect of the past months press… well it looks like the argument as to weather Labour would recover from it low point earlier in the year that was debated here a few months back is being argued. And as someone who said it would I’ll afford my self a self satisfied grin
O/T - I recall some discussion of the quality of Lib Dem candidates; it seems (allowing for the Guardian’s spin on things) that the Tories have similar problems: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/conservatives/story/0,9061,1377811,00.html
I’d be interested in Sean’s take on this.
FAO Ben
There is an ideal job for you being advertised on the W4MP site….sorry no good with links etc…..
There are 27 jobs at present but one just shouts out “ideal for Ben” would be very useful experiene I am sure………..
Unfortunately, the Guardian’s article will not come up on the screen.
Sean - copy all the text after the commas into your browser.
Mark/Ben - here’s the link. Job 1203 I presume?
http://www.w4mp.org/html/personnel/jobs/list_jobs_ref.asp
No - its job 1196
LOL! How can anyone resist the chance to work for Parmjit Gill, and you get your travel expenses paid to boot!
I’m afraid the article still won’t come up. Any chance you can just reprint it?
Tabman Steve…..how did you guess?:)
Sean - here it is. You probably need to read it through the filter of the Guardian and the injured party himself. ‘I was a Tory reject’
City banker Jeremy Moodey felt he had all the right credentials to become a Conservative party parliamentary candidate. But he hadn’t counted on racist old ladies, political shenanigans - and an ill-timed Skoda joke
Tuesday December 21, 2004
The Guardian
I fidgeted anxiously as I waited for the next question. The interview with the somewhat forbidding lady chairman of the Kensington & Chelsea Conservative Association was not going well. “When have you been successful in leading and motivating others?” asked Shireen Ritchie, whose other jobs include being Madonna’s stepmother-in-law. I looked out of the window and ransacked my brain for some past experience that was vaguely relevant, perhaps also one that would get me a tick for Family Values while I was at it. “When I was a teenager I once organised a petition against the opening of a sex shop in my local high street.” Ritchie looked unimpressed. I slumped further into my chair, convinced I would fail the interview.
I was not one of the 300 would-be politicians who applied for the Kensington & Chelsea parliamentary seat earlier this year. On the contrary: if K&C was the Premiership of politics, I was still languishing in the Unibond league. For the scene was not Notting Hill, amid trendy young Tories, but a grim 1970s conference centre in Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire. And I was being interviewed simply for the right to join the Conservative party’s approved list of parliamentary candidates, the chosen few who are allowed to apply for constituency nominations.
Why would someone with a reasonably successful career as a director of a City investment bank go out of his way to become a politician, a calling which is among the most despised in the country? I could say I was motivated by the old Platonic maxim, that the fate of a good man who does not get involved in politics is to be governed by people less able than himself. But that just makes me sound like a pretentious prat. The reality is that I don’t know what drove me to such a fit of madness.
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I think I may have deluded myself that I would be joining an exclusive club (after all, if you get in, central office extorts an £80 annual membership fee for the privilege). But the reality is that getting on the approved list is a doddle. I got on, as did the nice Asian gentleman who sat next to me in Newport Pagnell and who made a complete Horlicks of the group exercise. In fact, it is only two-headed paedophiles and former Lib Dems who fail to get on the list. It is too much of an earner for central office, and a useful source of campaign cannon fodder for hopeless byelections such as Leicester East and Hartlepool. And if that campaign fodder comes with a dark skin, or in a skirt, then acceptance is almost guaranteed.
Ten months on, I find myself bitter and disillusioned. I should have seen the writing on the wall in Hampstead & Highgate, the first constituency I applied for, and where I failed to make the shortlist. I was told later that they were impressed by my CV but didn’t like my photo: my thin-rimmed spectacles make me look too much like an officer in the Waffen SS, apparently.
It became even more frustrating in subsequent seats. I seemed to have little trouble advancing to the final stage, but it was invariably here that I encountered dodgy practices. I seemed to win on points when it came to rhetoric, but lose overall when it came to knowing the right people, or pandering to the right prejudices. I first learned this brutal fact in an inner-London constituency with a high percentage of Asian voters. I reached a three-man final, but lost to an Asian candidate who trucked in loads of his Bengali friends, some of whom barely spoke English and probably had only been party members for a few months. Needless to say, all the Bengalis voted for their man. The constituency chairman looked visibly embarrassed when he announced the result, but was totally powerless to do anything.
My next final was in west London, a seat that used to be Tory in the 1990s. I thought I would resort to humour to win over the members, so cracked the old joke about Charles Kennedy being the political equivalent of a Skoda: “Used to be crap, has got a bit better in the last few years, but is still not going very far.” The audience tittered, but sadly I had not been diligent enough in my local research: the association chairman drove a Skoda. But what really did it for me was the fact that I was not local, nor was I prepared to move in to the constituency (hardly surprisingly, given that the Tories had not a prayer of winning it) if selected. So I lost to a rather pedestrian local councillor.
On then to my third final, also in west London, and also with a very high Asian vote. But here the political shenanigans moved from the comic to the downright sinister. This was a seat with one of the highest Asian votes in the country, yet the selection panel contained not a single Asian. Indeed, the association had hardly any Asians. My speeches at short-listing and in the final focused on this deficit. As an occasional Urdu/Hindi speaker who spent three years working in the subcontinent, I argued that I was perhaps better placed than many to reach out to Asian voters, and win them back to the Conservative fold. I lost the vote by a large margin. The feedback from the association chairman was that I “overdid” the Asian stuff. “There are perfectly good reasons why there are no Asians in our association, which outsiders like you don’t understand. We would rather you focused on the issues affecting whites in their part of the constituency.”
My jaw dropped at such naked racism. As it did in my next constituency, this time in north London, where one old lady buttonholed me to complain about the fact that Asians made up some 25% of her constituency. “You know,” she said rather furtively, “that Idi Amin had the right idea when it came to Asians.” It was in this seat that I learned how capricious local party associations can be, however; they went on to select an Asian candidate. The feedback I got was that I was “too posh” for such a deprived inner-London seat.
This was also my downfall in my fifth final, also in north London. Here I lost by the narrowest of margins against a councillor from outside the constituency, who (I later learned) had not even initially applied for selection. He was invited to apply by the local association after the deadline because his ethnic background (Turkish) “fitted”. I lost my sixth final, an east London seat, by an even narrower margin, and only after several recounts. Here again the winner was a borough councillor, but he came from outside London and had no particular connections to the seat.
By now my political exploits were following a pattern. I did not seem to be losing against candidates who (as far as I could see) were appreciably better than me. Nor was I necessarily losing against local candidates - in more than half of the seats I contested, the winner was from outside the constituency. What the winners did have were the “right” demographic characteristics or a track record in local government. In short, I was encountering further evidence of the professionalisation of politics - the creation of a well-trodden path of political progression which begins with a nerdy interest in politics in your teens, continues with a spell on the local council and ends with selection as a parliamentary candidate. Whether experience of local government actually equips our political classes for the national political stage is, it would seem, totally irrelevant. The fact that many of the least impressive members of Blair’s governments - Ian McCartney, Paul Murphy, Stephen Timms, the hapless duo of Beverley Hughes and Stephen Byers - earned their political spurs in local government might point to a different conclusion.
Yet nothing could have prepared me for my fate in my seventh and most recent final. Here I was again tied in first place, this time with an attractive woman political lobbyist, the kind of obsessive political hack who has been attending party conference since her teens. Several recounts later, and still we were tied. We were forced to pick lots out of a crumpled Tesco carrier bag. She won, and I slunk off into the night, resolving to cut my losses and devote my weekends to putting up shelves rather than trying to ingratiate myself with racist old ladies in seedy north London pubs. But when I Googled the successful candidate the following day, I discovered that she had actually fought the 2001 general election against the Conservatives, on a Pro-Life ticket. This had not been disclosed to the selection meeting, as is required by central office rules. I know that at least two members who voted for her would have voted for me if they had known this, but I was discouraged from making a formal complaint as her name had already been posted on the party website and it all would have been a bit of a mess. And since I personally agree strongly with her anti-abortion views, I did not quite have the killer instinct necessary to stick the knife in.
But maybe that’s the point. Perhaps I don’t have the killer instinct to be a politician. I will be the first to admit that I am no Portillo, Powell or Peel. But I did get the sense that most Conservative activists have little interest in choosing parliamentary candidates purely on merit; they want candidates who reflect back to them their own prejudices and parochial concerns, or who can further narrow local interests. And the selection process for Conservative candidates encourages this dysfunction. On the rare occasions when central office dares to intervene, it does so for politically correct reasons, say to impose an ethnic minority candidate on a safe seat. And when central office stays out of the process, local associations often opt for candidates who would struggle to get on the local Neighbourhood Watch committee. It is little wonder that people outside of the political glasshouse, such as myself, despair of ever breaking through into this cosy little world. Our own achievements outside of politics count for nothing when compared to the ability to campaign against dog turds on the local common.
Mark - it could almost be 1st April
Actually, I see the basis of a Hollywood “buddy” movie here ….
Sean
As I have pointed out on here before Parmjit was actually a good mate of mine when I lived in Leicester…….but like you I wonder who could possibly turn down such an offer:) still he was always a good lad for getting the beers in (like the previous MP for leicester South)………..I do wonder what the role would actually entails as PSG does seem to be rather quiet as an MP
Tabman Steve, quite a lot of people who try to become MP’s have a higher opinion of their own abilities than those who interview them have. They are surprised not to be chosen for a safe, or at any rate winnable, seat, within a year or two of getting onto the candidates’ list. They also fail to recognise that getting ahead requires a huge measure of both luck and persistence. Peter Lilley, for example, had about 60 interviews before he got selected to fight Tottenham! Michael Howard got on the approved candidates list in 1965 and didn’t get the chance to fight a winnable seat until 1983.
In fact, Jeremy Moodey has done exceptionally well to get through to the final round in more than one seat, so soon after getting onto the approved candidates’ list. If he works hard in a constituency, and provides mutual aid in various elections, and generally gets a reputation as a hard-working Conservative in London, he may even get to fight a winnable seat in 5 or 10 years time.
I’m really not impressed (a) by his self-pity, (b) his running down of other candidates and (c) his decision to publish this in an anti-Conservative newspaper.
I suspect that the consituencies have done the right thing in not selecting him.
Quite agree sean…although not a Tory I could see why the whining git was not selected:)
There are people in all parties who think that they are so marvelous they can just turn up and walk into a safe seat…….
Many people who are very talented don’t make it, not because people have it in for them, but because they lack either persistence or luck. To take one example, Peter Goldman was an exceptionally talented Conservative, who got selected to fight a very safe Conservative seat. Sadly, that seat was Orpington in 1962!
Just a thought - but if a governing party’s poll rating apparently picks up after a prominent ministerial resignation, does that say something about perceptions of the departed minister?
The poll suggests overwhelming public sympathy for David Blunkett, something which I just can’t understand. However, it is further evidence that what bloggers think about David Blunkett is most definitely not what the public think of him.
I’ll clarify a bit - a chunk of the public, including Labour supporters, clearly despise Blunkett - some perhaps to the extent of not wanting to vote Labour because he was in the Cabinet. With him gone, they may be more inclined to follow their basic preferences, whilst Blunkett’s fans who support other parties stick where they are.
Whatever the case, it’s a slightly odd poll result.
BBC and ITV sign NOP and Mori for first joint exit poll
http://www.brandrepublic.com/mediabulletin/news_story.cfm?articleID=230918&Origin=MB20122004
Marvellous - the 2 least accurate pollsters - [perhaps they’ll get Communicate Rtesearch to join them!
On Labour’s poll bounce - I can’t believe I’m agreeing wwith ben again. I’ve always thought Labour would go up again before the election (perhaps to a 40% average) though I thought this would happen in the New Year not before Christmas (ofcourse Labour could go up further in January/February). Where I’ve disagreed is that I think they will slip back to about 35-38% during the campaign itself.
Also resignations rarely have a major impact on public opinion unless its over a policy issue on which there’s a nig debate - so I’m not suprised that Blunkett’s going has had no effect.
Some idle wishful thinking …
If you feed Con / Lab / LD %ages into Baxter on the following scenarios you get the following seats:
32 (186) / 35 (371) / 23 (59)
However, reverse the lab / LD %ages and you get:
32 (264) / 23 (59) / 35 (290)
I’ve assumed the Conservative vote remains the same; is this a 12% swing Lab/LD or a 6% swing?
12%
Can you ask Santa for a 12% Lab/LD swing?
Ok I will but only in England……:)
No problem - Cymru am byth!
more on ID cards from Stephen Robinson in the Telegraph:
“The Tories have failed to see that this debate is about much more than a piece of plastic. It is about our attitude to government, and its attitude to us. I would not expect New Labour to understand that point, but if the Tories do not understand it either, there is no point in someone like me voting for them any more.
In selfish terms, I was relieved to see Michael Howard take the easy way out and endorse ID cards, because it freed me of any sense that I should have to vote for his party. No longer will I have to profess enthusiasm about Tory policies, or pretend that I see the green shoots of a Conservative revival.
For the first time I shall vote for the Liberal Democrats, because they do understand that the identity card debate is about the just role of government, and I suspect tens of thousands of instinctive Conservatives will do the same next year.”
Is his POV representative of your average Conservative voter?
I suggest it is about as representative of the average conservative voter as Tony Blair is of the average Newcastle United fan.
“Hey, y’know, when we get the ball over the try line into the net, is that, like, scoring a run?”
“Is his POV representative of your average Conservative voter? ”
Not in the least (and I write as a Conservative who is opposed to ID cards.) As far as I can tell, opposition is strongest among younger Conservatives activists in London (on both the Right and Left of the Party) - but certainly most Conservative supporters are in favour.
As one who was previously ambivalent I’ve found the contra-ID card arguments compelling (see the whole article for a good summary). The pro- arguments seem to consist of bald assertions “Cuts crime”, “Prevents Terrorism” eetc without anyone actually explaining how this is supposed to happen. Can anyone enlighten me or do I have to draw the unpalatable conclusion that many people are very gullible?
ID cards will do nothing to prevent crime or terrorism; the only sane justification for them is that they will cut fear of those things. Only the infantile will suppose that that is any of government’s business.
You might enjoy the 1952 committee, a group of formerly Conservative supporters who are deserting them thanks to their attitude to ID cards.
Personally, I think the really galling thing is that I’m expected to fork out £85 for an ID card.
Sheesh,
Robert
The YouGov poll in the Sunday Times had a question on ID cards broken down by voting intention. Conservative voters were 62% in favour of compulsory cards, 22% in favour of voluntary cards, 12% against either.
The ICM poll for Reform last month had figures broken down by party support. Those considering themselves Conservative supporters were 88% in favour of compulsory ID cards, 11% against (they were not given the option of voluntary cards in the question).
Did the YouGov poll mention the £85 cost? My impression is that it is not widely known about and may make quite a major difference to people’s views, but it would be interesting to know if they actually referred to it in the question.
James - YouGov didn’t mention it all all. ICM did in a later question. When the cost was included in the question itself support fell to 73% amongst Conservative supporters (23% opposed).
(the precise wording was “The Government is currently proposing that the charge for the ID cards will be at least £35 per person, or £85 if combined with a passport. Taking this into account, along with other things we have discussed, would you say you now think identity cards area a…? Very good idea/ Good idea/ Bad idea/ Very bad idea”)
I’ve put a summary of ID card polls on Polling report here, though that doesn’t have the breakdown by political alleigance. There was another YouGov poll on ID cards carried out on behalf of Privacy International - their summary of it is here but most of the actual figures aren’t included.
What I think is difficult for the Conservatives is that they are fighting a war on two fronts and the voters they are trying to win back from the Lib Dems are a slightly different group to those they want back from Labour. They went with the sensible decision in terms of the main front with Labour but may have been damaged when it comes to Lib Dem-Conservative marginals.
Thanks, Anthony - slightly depressing but interesting!
I am amused by this contrast:
1. At question 4 of the ICM survey, only 10% of people indicate that they would be willing to pay “up to £40″ for an ID card (including those willing to pay even more) and well over half are willing to pay no more than a tenner; but
2. At question 5, 68% say ID cards would still be a good or very good idea if there is a charge of £35 per person.
Figure that one out!? Not sure what the reason is - perhaps a lot of people take question 4 as meaning “at what point would you feel a bit miffed about the charge” rather than “at what point would you no longer support the scheme”. Still it is an amazing contrast.
This Blunkett report is a complete joke - they’re all lying through their teeth. Budd said the crucial question, which he couldn’t answer, was whether Blunkett raised the application as a ‘general case’ or a specific one (ie. because she was his mistress’ nanny). Quite why the email felt the need to say “no special favours, just a bit quicker” if it was the first (and innocent case) is completely ignored.
Further to the ID card most supporters of the scheme see it as an entitlement card - the GMC said that 1 in 10 precriptions/hospital appointments were to people not entitled to them ,the so called hospital tourists and illegal immigrants.If the NHS budget is £18 billion then possible savings of £1.8 billion
Vino - what proportion of this supposed £1.8bn is emergency treatment? THat won’t be saved unless we’re proposing to leave people outside the hospital doors whilst they die because they haven’t got their ID card.
I can just see that being used in a PPB …
Blunkett has pushed ID cards off the top of the agenda - no mention of it in the 6 oclock news tonight.
42 - The tory answer is - Dr Fox said people would have to produce the card within a certain number of days, as happened with a driving licence. “People who can’t produce the card when required would be open to investigation by the immigration authorities,” he said. “There would be a big disincentive to use the system illegally because people may well end up being deported. “It is not harsh - it is just fairness. People who need emergency care should get it.”
OK …. so they turn up for medical treatment without a card, and give a name and address. Upon investigation these are found to be false. But that’s alright because the immigration authorities can then look up their records on the ID card computer system in order to find them - except they’re not on the system. :~
Today I wnt to the bank where I had to produce my passport and one other form of identity to get money out - ID card would have solved that. Doesn’t every other European country have them ?
If they do, do they have biometric data on them? ANd wouldn;t a passport them become redundant?
45 - Thats exactly whats happening now - at a cost of £1.8 billion
47 - Yes & Yes thus saving the cost of a passport
Exactly - and how will ID cards alter this situation?
No card no entitlement whether it’s Nhs treatment or whatever.
So where will we get to put all those interesting passport control stamps then?
Seriously - the point I was trying to make at 50 is that unless cards are *compulsorilly carried at all cards and treatment is refused unless one is present* then you won;t stop NHS “fraud”
Too late at night … that should have read “at all times”. Vino - from what I understand carrying card is not going to be made compulsory, so people can turn up for treatment without one. Admittedly they could get turned away from non-essential treatment but the emergency stuff will still be done. And even if it were compulsory to carry your card people aren’t going to be turned away from emergency treatment are they? So ID cards will not solve this problem.
Tabman Steve - I agree it won’t solve the problem at A& E but should for other medical treatments.Most voters want a British Nhs and not a UN one which we appear to have now.The whole of the immigration issue is a total mix-up and will I think cost Labour a lot of votes in the next GE