CR Poll - Lib Dems down to 17%
February 26th, 2005
Both the Tories and Labour advance
Communicate Research’s monthly poll for tomorrow’s Independent on Sunday shows only minor changes from last month for the two main parties. The headline figures are LAB 41%(+1):CON 34%(+2): LD 17%(-3)
This equals the lowest poll figure for more than a year for Charles Kennedy’s party and reflects that all the recent campaign skirmishes have been between the two main parties.
CR do not prompt for party choice and do not weight on previous vote recall - both factors that hinder the LDs.
When the LDs advance, as they always do, during the campaign it is likely to be at the expense of Labour. The aggregate share for the two parties has been almost constant in all polls at 58-60%. When the LDs fall Labour rise and vice versa.
So when the LDs come back into the spotlight in the campaign then 5-6% might toggle.
Given the way CR do their polls these are good numbers for Michael Howard. Like other recent surveys UKIP seem to be hardly there.
NOTE I am on holiday until a week on Monday which means there will be a limited service on the site.
Mike Smithson
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This produces on Baxter:
Conservative - 185
Labour - 397
Liberal Democrats - 37
I do think that CR polls tend to exagerate the labour lead at the expense of the LDs, however there has been a marked downward trend in their poll ratings recently [the LDs]
Checking the “Polls - latest UK” link on the right, the Communicate Research/IoS poll for 28/10/04 also had the Lib Dems at 17%, so “lowest for more than a year” isn’t quite right.
Thanks Alan - corrected
On Hill & Knowlton it produces:
Labour 390
Cons 203
Lib Dem 37
I forget what adjustment you need to make for Scottish Boundary changes but I guess:
Labour 379
Cons 202
Lib Dem 36
..would be about right!
Rik’s calculation is interesting. So nowhere near the difference with 2001 unifom swing Mike found in the earlier article today; this will be due to the distortion in the distribution of Labour majorities caused by their aberrantly strong performance in the seats they only just won in 1997 last time compared with all other types.
different day, different paper, different poll, same result, tories hammered.
Even with riks calulations the tories have les than labour in 1983.
At just what result would they not be “hammered”? 300… 400?
But it’s hardly cheering news for the Liberals either, is it?
Robbert,
With the ICM poll (37,34,21) Hill & Knowlton (Scottish adjusted) give labour 45 less seats than baxter
With the Communicate poll (41,34,17) Hill and Knowlton (adjusted) give labour only 17 less seats.
The difference in the two polls is a 2% swing from LD to Lab.
The reason for the variations between Baxter and H&K is that Baxter appears to be based on a uniform swing from 2001 while H&K on a uniform swing in 1997.
At the last election Labour got an extraordinary large number of seats for their vote, seemingly down to tactical voting in marginals (ie a far from uniform swing) and contented apathy in core seats.
Essentially the nearer the parties % in the opinion polls is, the greater the effect of the different basis of the H&K and Baxter calculators.
What this means is that even if Labour and the tories get the same amount of votes as they did last time, a geographical change in the vote spread due to “non geographical swing unwind” could cost labour a good few seats. You could conceivably even see Labour increase their % of the vote and still lose a few net seats.
In my opinion Alan Milburn has a somewhat thankless task and Gordon Brown is sitting pretty because if Labour get 100+ majority he can take credit with his economic policies, if they get less than 40 he is well positioned to usurp Blair in the wake of an “electoral disaster”
It is interesting that the polls seem to be giving the Lib/Dems a hard time at the moment. Apart from their anonymimity generally they seem short on anything worth voting for other than not being Labour or Tory. And if it got close can there be many people who wouldn’t shudder at the idea of Charlie becoming PM?
I’m just puzzled why the spread betting companies still have the Lib Dems around the 70-seat mark.
Well because people aren’t betting against them, obviously
I’m accumulating sell bets on the Lib Dems at around 70. The price may be hovering at this level because the campaign proper hasn’t got underway yet and they can expect an improvement on their current poll level when it does, plus their propensity to spring surprises on the night, but I just can’t see them getting more than 65 seats this time.
It’s difficult to see the Lib Dems getting more than 65 seats this time so selling @ 70 makes good sense to me. The price may actually rise as the campaign proper starts as the Lib Dem poll position improves a bit so an even better betting opportunity may present itself in the weeks ahead.
I walked into that one !
So why does no-one believe the polls and the election predictors, at least to the point of betting money on them ? Could it be because the Lib Dems are still polling quite a bit higher than they were in, say, March 2001 ?
13 ‘It’s difficult to see the Lib Dems getting more than 65 seats ‘
take the 13/8, 67 or less with bsq. Definite rick imo.
(over 70 ….6/4)
John at 15,
Thanks -I’ll look into it! I’ve taken a fair position already on the Lib Dem downside @ 70 and meanwhile just about potentially bankrupted myself on a Conservative buy @ 189. But it seemed a good idea at the time……
I have always felt that the Lib Dems’ position is over-stated somewhat in spread betting because of the greater risks of selling than buying with samller numbers eg if you sell at 70, you can win only 70 times your stake, but you could potentially lose about 556 times your stake, depending on how many seats they contest.
I know you can pull out before an election, but it still has an effect because the Lib Dems would suddenly start gaining lots of seats if they were to get an unexpectedly high percentage of the vote.
This works even more with even smaller parties eg it takes a lit of courage to sell UKIP / Veritas at 0.6 seats or whatever.
17 - fixed odds punt I gave (-67 13/8) a much safer bet than selling the spread and equally good, or better value.
With so many imponderables in this election Id be very wary of spread-betting unless you can find a market with a convenient stop-loss.
From what Ive read, I dont think anybody on this board is confident about their predictions as to how vote share will convert into seats.
Why are peoplw betting on the lib Dems higher than the various predictions on seats? Because the latter don’t make any sense. Even if you take the lower end of the Lib Dems’ poll figures - 17% - this is still 3% higher than at the comparable point in the last cycle. It therefore seems a little odd to predict that they will lose seats on that basis. The reason the predictions claim that is because they compare today’s poll figure with last time’s result - not like with like. Add to that the clear trend since 1992 that Lib Dem target seat campaigns produce a differential swing and you can see why active Lib Dems are a lot more positive than those making the predictions. Bob Worcester got it way out last time for these reasons.
This is also why many Lib Dem activists do pretty well on the betting markets as I intend to again this time
I wouldn’t say the poll was such good news for Howard as Mike suggests (except in the sense of helping to depress turnout) - allowing for the methodological issues, it appears to bear out Sean’s theory that the underlying position is a moderate but stable Labour lead, and if that’s still the position 86 days from now… But it does tends to confirm the polarising effect noticed elsewhere. What we’re seeing, I think, is a semi-cyclical chain reaction:
1. Polls show Labour has comfortable lead. Tory voters depressed, Labour voters think it’s safe to abstain or go elsewhere, LibDems gain.
2. Tories think “we’ve got to shake this up”, promise to break the asylum convention and give dosh to pensioners. Lots of media coverage. Poll shows Tory vote rising moderately.
3. Lab/Lib voters think urgh, they might win! Start returning to the Labour fold. Media bored with asylum story, write about Charles and Camilla and Kerry (no, not John Kerry, you anorak) instead. Tory vote subsides a bit, Labour vote rises. Poll show comfortable Labour lead again. Return to step 1, but at slightly higher Lab-Tory level than before.
We have time for a couple more cycles of this, but we seem to be quietly moving towards a fairly large Labour win. What ought to be possible is for the LibDems to grab some of the non-populist Tories, who are uncomfortable with some of the saloon bar rhetoric. But it would need something headline-grabbing that would appeal to Tories without being obviously un-Liberal…
Nick
There is another issue with the LibDems that hasn’t been commented on here. There was a suggestion in one of the papers last weekend that the LibDems could be losing a substantial tranche of the Muslim vote they were exploiting over Iraq due to their vocal opposition to the Religious Hatred bill. The issue with the Muslim vote etc also goes someway to explaining why predictions about numbers of LibDem seats are not over sensitive to the opinion polls. A lot of the support they picked up over Iraq and have maintained to some extent since is not actually of much benefit to them electorally (except in a small number of seats - eg. Leicester South).
A few points of interest from the entrails of the poll:
- Labour now has a wider lead among women than men, and a wider lead among AB voters than C1 voters (within the MOE)
- If the poll only measured people with 10/10 certainty to vote, like (if I recall correctly) ICM, the lead would be a tighter 40-36.
- LibDem voters have markedly more Internet access than the other parties (possibly relevant to assessing YouGov figures, despite the attempts to adjust)
Nick
Doesn’t this all point to that we don’t really have a clue? There is everything to play for!
Nick to your points.
REMEMBER CR do not prompt for party choice which has been shown to be a big disadvantage the LDs
REMEMBER CR do not weight on previous vote recall which with other phone pollsters gives a 3-4 bonus to Labour
REMEMBER CR have no track record yet.
All this leads me to conclude that this poll is totally in line with ICM. The Tories were averaging 31-32%, that is now upto 34-35%
Neil [21] - the glory of FPTP, from the betting (if no other) point of view, is the tenuous relationship between %age of the popular vote and seats won. For example, in 1983 each %age point the Alliance won gained then one seat in the HoC; each point the Tories won gained them nearly ten! It is perfectly plausible that the LibDem vote could increase next time by up to a third and they could still suffer a net loss of seats, due to competent Tory campaigning and tactical unwind.
Whenever we make predictions we turn ourselves into coconuts. And no, wild horses wouldn’t drag from me the name of the Tory PPC and bookshop owner who last time predicted that the Lib Dems would win 23 seats…
As always we have seen several contributers give good reasons why this latest poll is awry. I agree that it’s interesting discussing the minutiae of polls but there has to be something wrong when it seems that posters on this site not only know that the pollsters are wrong but by how much and why. These pollsters, I imagine are at least as keen as we are for their polls to be correct. Their very livelihoods depend on it! They must have some inkling of the likelihood of shy Tories, tactical unwind, not weighting for previous voting, not prompting by naming a party etc etc. Yet they go on blithely pumping out these polls knowing in 8 weeks they’ll be judged and not seeming to care that their methodology is going to lead to an inaccurate result. We glibly talk about these pollsters as if they’ve just come down the river on a bycicle! If It’s so obvious what they are getting wrong why don’t they change their methods and get it right so all we gamblers can make some loot!
Roger agreed. It is part of the pollsters’ DNA to overstate Labour. Poll watchers like me see what they are doing and comment. CR will be proved wrong on May 5.
And the IoS itself does not show much confidence in its poll. It’s tucked away at the bottom of page 8 with the party shares buried in the text.
What you’ve got to remember with pollsters is that some of them are very new, and allowance has to be made for them making mistakes. Companies like ICM have the massive advantage of having polled at the last few elections and can therefore design formulas which bring their underlying figures into line with reality. Whereas the new companies have to base their adjustments to some extent on guesswork, ICM can do it on the basis of hard data. Their formulas make not stand up totally logically, but all that matters is that they work.
They also have different philosophies. An example is Mori, who seem very wary of pushing their polls as strong method of predicting the election (as opposed to illustrating trends). To predict the election result you need to do far more in depth research, polling of key constituencies etc etc. The pollsters weight their polls to be representative of the population, NOT to be representative of the constituency map of the House of Commons. Mori’s method should be more useful the closer we come to the election - on the day of voting virtually everyone should be able to give an accurate “yes or no” to whether they are certain to vote or not.
Alex - plenty will still live even for that question - and they will all be people who answer yes.
Oops that should have read “lie” rather than “live”
Re 27: That will be Cllr Philip Dunne, Chairman of Ottakar’s plc I presume.
I see the vote-2005 site is down. Judging by some of the fruity & inflated comment then that’s no bad thing.
Talking about “living for questions”, I’d have to ask why - if there is so little faith in polling - there is such a fevered (even hysterical, if you think if that thread responding to the last MORI release) response to individual polls on this site?
I have never paid much attention to any single poll on voting intention (one of the least reliable and interesting question pollsters ask, by the way).
Taking the last few v.i. published results together gives a rough guide to the current state of response (not a prediction of what will happen in 2 or 3 months time, but even that is subject to the judgment that the polls may (or may not) still be systematically over-representing Labour’s chances if there actually were a General Election today (which there isn’t).
I’d be interested to know what Mike means with his ex cathedra statement (29) that “CR will be proved wrong”. Does he mean that the result won’t be 41-34-17, or that whatever CR say in their last pre-election poll it will be way off the actual result?
Did CR do any polls in election 2001? If so does anyone know where I can find their eve of election poll?
no see post above
We seem to have 2 sets of polls - ICM/YouGov and to a lesser extent Populus who show a narrowing gap between Laboor & Tories, but still with Labour in mid/high 30’s, Tories in low 30’s and Libs in low 20’s and a second group - NOP/MORI/CR who have a big Labour vote and the LibDems down substantially since last year.
I think the 1st group have got it right - not just because I’m a LibDem but beacuse their track record is so much better than the second group (and indeed CR have no track record at all, though their methodalogy appears to be a tghrow back to a much earlier style of questioning)
Torn Lig [33] - he might well have done, but not who I was thinking of… as to Vote 2005, it’s moving to a new server and threatens to be back!
IA - Up Hill and down Dale?
all i ever hear is how polls over state labours leads, if this is the case as everyone can se it why can’t people correct their poll, maybe they allready have done. Labour win elections so its no good saying that ANY Labour lead is overstated.
A reason I would suggest for previous labour poll inaccuracies is that it was fashionable to vote labour, now it is not. THerefore the support labour gets in polls will be firm. This time the pollsters will roughly get labours support right.
10 - you’re right about the Lib Dems being almost invisible recently, and I’ve been struggling to understand why.
If you read Anthony Rawnsley’s article in today’s Observer: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/columnist/story/0,9321,1426471,00.html
an explanation presents itself.
To summarise, Ransley argues that the media are desperately looking for a story other than “Labour romps home”. Crosby et al have helped partly by being slicker than in the past, but also the media have been looking for a “Tories doign better” story because that’s a real story.
Rawnsley mentions that some of the policy initiatives trailed (More Matrons) are not exactly news, but couple them with poll increases and you have a story.
THe Lib Dems also suffer because they aren’t going to be a government (unles in coalition) so their policy initiatives, unless newsworthy in their own right (eg drugs) are not given coverage.
Vertigo @ 40 - it has been a long time since the polls collectively understated a Labour result. 1983 being the last time, where 2 polls got it bang on and the other four understated Labour. ICM understated Labour in 1997, but that’s the only other occurance I can think of. I think you can assume reasonably that the Labour figure will be correct or slightly high based on the last 20 years of evidence. You cannot assume anything else looking at the last 20 years, both LibDem and Tories have been understated and overstated in the final polls.
One can also compare secondary elections in this Parliament with what pollsters were predicting. Most pollsters overstated Labour support in the Scottish election, and in the European election.
John O [39] - you might think that, I couldn’t possibly comment
33. vote-2005 is moving server this weekend. I actually find it entertaining. You have to have laugh at statements like “The MP has a huge majority but is extremely unpopular.”
Waht worries me as a Tory is that people keep on repeating that other are more likely to say they vote Labour “it’s socailally acceptable” i do not buy that Labour are now the party of Government and unpopular and opposition do occationally win election. As Governments with a good econamy loose them (1997). what i do buy is that fact that the LD will increasde thier vote share possibly substancially but will not make a net gain if at all as they will be picking them up hand over fist in Labours heartlands. Take a case in point UK elect are predicting that letwin will loose massivly if anyone has been there recently will know there is no bases for that accertion it is totally fancifull. Anyway hope you are all out leafleting.
http://www.psa.ac.uk/2004/pps/Cutts.pdf
This is an interesting look at the success of Lib Dem targeting strategy.
Will they ever be able to “target” the 350+ seats required for a working government?
Rob 48 - this is probably not the key question to ask. As the Lib Dems steadily target more seats the nature of their grass roots campaign organisation (the ‘ground war’) is steadily changing as is their approach to the national mdia campaign (the ‘air war’). (For example, over the past ten years their local campaign organisation has developed from a shoestring Campaigns Dept which wa ssupporting about 30 target seats in 1992 to a large team of Regional campaign Oficers supporting full time organisers in around 100 seats). As the number of seats they win grows, so does their national credibility, an with that the balance between the important of targeted local campaigning and the national campaign changes too. So by the time they get anywhere near being able to challenge for a majority nationally, the nature of their campaigning will probably have developed a long way from their current approach to targeting. Obviously the relative success of the other main parties will have an impact on this as well. The more seats the lib dems win, the nearer they are to overtaking one of the other parties. As soon as that happens the whole dynamic will change with it.
49. The problem for the Lib Dems is predicting which party they will overtake. In 1983 it was “obviously” the Labour Party; in 2001 it was “obviously” the Conservatives. What the Lib Dems really need, of course, is a few multi-millionaire backers.
Re 49 - how do you think the loss of Lib Dem Cllrs and Councils in recent years impacts on their influence and campaigning ability?
Alan - 50 - “What the Lib Dems really need, of course, is a few multi-millionaire backers.” Sorry what the Lib Dems need is policies people can vote for - having liberal policies means you can only appeal to liberal minded people apart from the protest voter.It’s a conundrum.
What multi-millonaire would support a party that would put up their income tax to 50%? The problem for the Lib Dems, is not that they are liberal, but actually that in many areas they are not. Their policies on taxation for example are more reminiscent of socialism than liberalism.
Tabman makes a good point. As it is impossible for the Lib/Dems to form the next government there is little point in examining their policies. So why should we vote for them?
A better class of opposition politician? A method of voting without taking responsibility for the outcome? The possibility (unlikely) that we would have a hung Parliament and no-party could enact a manifesto?
None of these seem good reasons to vote in my opinion. Or have I missed something?
Roger, what vote are you suggesting for those who opposed to the war and believe Blair lied to Parliament and people in initiating it?
I am invigorated (doesn’t often happen these days) by the fact that when I joined the Liberals (sic) we had 6 seat and now have 57 (?) - what the 2 major parties dont realise that FPTP will cause some chaos when percentages get close — Listening to people (real voters) they seem these days to be treating the Lib Dems as a REAL party - worth a vote - especially when it actually doesnt matter who you vote for you get a Tory government in any case
Andrew, The Liberals have been more left wing than the Labour Party (which we used to put as S for socialist on Canvas sheets - but notice we dont any more because it would be silly) since about 1966
Icarus [57] - which Alliance policies in 1983/87 or Liberal policies in 1974 were more left-wing than the ones Labour was then offering?
The Tories are starting look like they might be able to edge out of their 30-33% box by boosting their core vote turnout & the swinging some target Lab voters over on the immigration issue. However this really doesn’t help them as Labour simply “triangulates” and steals the Tories clothes on any issue that they seem to make headway on. The average of this February’s polls so far gives the Tories 33.4% compared to 30.3% in Feb 2001 - adding a couple of points to theat average to overcome the usual understating of the Tory vote still only pushes the Tories up to 35-36% at best.
To really advance they need to totally neutralise Labour on the economy, either by reversing Lab lead or by pushing the economy down the list of voter priorities (neither of which they show any signs of doing)
The LDs are certainly being squeezed by the modest Tory revival, not in the sense of losing votes from 2001 to the Tories so much as losing the chance to portray themsleves as the opposition to Labour. That’s very important for them in terms of making any kind of breakthrough at the election but it doesn’t amount to a crisis. They are still polling 3% higher than in Feb 2001. The average of polls in Feb 2001 gave the LDs 15.3% and this moth they are averaging 18.4%.
The upshot of this is that BOTH the LDs & the Tories could see modest rises in their votes in May. I just can’t see the substantial LD will end swapping seats between themselves with 3-4 Tory gains off seat by 5-6 LD pick-ups.
This ofcourse leaves aside how both parties will fare against Labour.
Depending on how the overall Labour vote holds up (and I would still predict that they end up with around 35%) I see upwards of a dozen potential LD gains from Labour _ of which I would expect them to take maybe 5 or 6, with no losses. While I suspect the Tories will take between 35-40 Labour seats with maybe 1 or 2 going the other way.
Icarus: how come tories vote libdem to keep out labour then?
Icarus, if you want to push this rubbish that the Lib Dems are to the left of Labour please remind me how many Lib Dem MPs voted for the minimum wage. On that issue you’re now way to the right of the Tories!
I am not arguing that the Labour party is to the left of the Lib Denms only that the Labour Governments behave like Tories - maybe we would to if we actually got there!! - But it is perhaps surprising that the Labour party doesnt do something about a Gov. that wants to curtail essential freedoms like this one does!
27 Guilty as charged. But in mitigation can you take into account that in 1992 I predicated a Tory majority of 21?
The old left and right labels look a bit dated now and lack relevance. A better distinction is “big state” or “small state”. All three main parties are big state to a large extent so those of us who might prefer a small state are effectively disfranchised and left looking to profit from the election via a spread betting account.
But the problem for the Lib Dems is while they were a centrist party under Paddy Ashdown advocating only minor changes to the taxation system and opposing the minimum wage (which the were wrong to do) under CK they seem to have become a proper left of centre party with their proposed new super tax, an idea that no major party in the western world would champion anymore. Indeed my main criticism of the Lib Dems is their economic shortsightedness. In order to increase revenue from taxation in the long term the best policy is to cut tax (especially business rates and the basic rate of income tax) as has been shown in Ireland where growth is at circa 5% at year and tax yields are rising fast. For an economic team led by the former chief economist at Shell and a former high powered banker from Barclays, their taxation policies on an economic level (I guess then can justify it in ideological terms) beggar belief.
Andrew [65] - that’s possibly because the effect of the Lib Dem policy on someone earning £120,000 a year or a little under £2,400 a week would be to pay an extra £40 a week in income tax…
We seem to have a number of professional pollsters on this site. Perhaps they can repeat the answer a question they must have given loads of times before. Why don’t the pollsters exclude people who live in safe seats?
It makes no difference who you vote for in the Rhonnda or in Huntingdon, but its crucial in Kettering. (It doesn’t really matter how you define safe seats, as long as they are the same safe seats all the time—you can then compare like for like.)
Can’t you then get more accurate and meaningful predictions per sample size?
All main party’s economic policies are rubbish - With Interest rates double our competitors and way above the rate of inflation there is no incentive to invest in the UK so investment is pathetic (you are better off putting your money in the bank!) and manufacturing is F***ed.
Marchgale all three main parties are now ’small state’ and those who prefer a little more government intervention are disenfranchised!
[68] Icarus, time for Economics 101, as the cousins would say. Interest rates are always above the rate of inflation. The difference between the two is the true cost of borrowing/lending.
I haven’t been a professional pollster for about ten years, but here are a smattering of possible answers to David Kendrick’s point(67):
1. David seems to think that the main purpose of polls is to predict General Election results, therefore pollsters should concentate on the marginal seats that determine the identity of the government. However as I have frequently said here and elsewhere, this is not even the most interesting function of polls, unless you’re studying tea leaves in order to turn a buck in political betting! Surveys can give a (rough) airing to public opinion on issues of all kinds, from support for or opposition to a war to views about Charles and Camilla. Should pollsters really exclude those unfortuanate enough to live in a safe seat from having their say in a national sample? Sounds almost like disenfranchising them twice.
2. Practically it is much harder to make sure that a sample of marginal seats is accurate. Even so-called random polls have to make sure that the percentages of respondents based on class, age, newspaper readership etc are typical of the universe of those targeted to be represented. These ‘global’ figures are not readily available on the basis of a set of marginals, even if there were such a thing with an agreed definition. This is why surveys of marginals and of individual constituencies have a(n even) worse record than national polls.
3. Many national polls are used as bases for an ‘omnibus’ survey, whereby other clients ask questions of a national sample when they would not want to find out about the artifical set of marginals, useful only for the rather spurious purpose of election prediction.
4. The only opinion polls which should be used as predictions of seat outcomes are those immediately before an election, and in my opinion actually only exit polls. I have worked on these since 1987 and I can assure Mr Kendrick that they do indeed only include marginals for prediction purposes, and have a reasonable but not perfect record, tending still slighjtly to overestimate Labour compared with the Conservatives by a couple of per cent.
68 Icarus - Please don’t start the “Britain joining the euro-zone where interest rates are lower” argument
Will [69], whichever way you look at it there’s a huge soggy consensus of all the parties which all look to formulate policy by focus group these days - actually there’s very little to choose between any of them, in terms of how much your or my personal life/lifestyle is actually going to change as a direct result of the next election - even when compared with recent decades, at least with Wilson/Heath or Thatcher/Kinnock there were oceans of clear blue water between the sides so you could make a serious choice between the parties. Today people think Tony Blair’s a tory and Oliver Letwin’s a social democrat. No wonder people don’t vote any more!
Finally some movement from the LDs, it will be interesting to see how (if) this hits the news tonight and papers tomorrow.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4301539.stm
RE Innocent Abroad: And your point was what exactly? £40 per week may not seem like much, but over a year it adds up to over £2000. Bear in the mind that most high earners have high mortgages and families to educate and that is a significant amount of money to lose. This is not to mention the loss of more money through local income tax and the various other taxes the Lib Dems propose to adopt. Also consider the fact that most people even earning high salaries are not saving much, so it would disproportionately hit their spending income (unlike in the US where savings level are relatively high). Anyway over the long term tax cuts are a proven way to ensure higher and higher tax yields in a way tax increases are not (Laffer Curve). Finally any increases as such will never be as successful as envisioned as the big earners (250K+) will no doubt be able to afford elaborate tax avoidance schemes, just a s those who have a lot of money and are looking to offset inheritance tax do. So it actually ends up effecting only those just above the level.
RE State Size: All parties are small state in the words they use. But are they in the policies they adopt? Mrs T was the classic example of this, with the state growing in many areas even as it was cut back down in others. It takes a brave politician to cut back the state properly, knowing the effect it can have on unemployment levels and the flack it can catch from not being seen to do anything about certain problems or difficulties that might occur.
IA - not quite - in the US for example they have been lower than inflation for some time. And it’s going to cause a hell of a hangover when all that liquidity is withdrawn.
Apart from that you are right though - Icarus is rather fond of the idea that cutting rates is a magic cure for all ills. If it were rates would already be lower - the reason they are up there is the BoE think that is in the country’s best long-term interests. They are right.
I think the Laffer curve [75] is a fairly controversial hypothesis, one of the supposed delights of economics is that by selecting your real world evidence carefully you can bolster any theory you like!
As far as tax avoidance is concerned, what you have to demonstrate is that the extra tax would lead to a significant number of people who do not practise it to-day starting to do so… unprovable either way I should have thought.
Anyway, if you believe in cutting back the State as a good in itself, buoyant tax revenues would be the last thing you’d want!
Andrew, you’re right to talk about the Laffer curve but bear in mind that it only works for very high tax economies. If I remember correctly empirical studies found that Laffer only works at very high tax levels. So cutting taxes from 70% to 50% increases revenue, but cutting taxes from 50% to 40% will either be revenue neutral or lower revenue (though I agree with you that the LibDems tax proposals are poor - especially compared with the government’s superb handling of the economy).
tabman at 74 - this is an obvious area for Bawbee Brown to target on 16th march - so well and truly shooting the Libdem fox.
RE Buoyant Tax Revenues: Just because you have high tax revenues does not necessarily lead to a large state. You can recycle them through more tax cuts, or increase spending on the absolute necessities, without necessarily increasing bureaucracy (pay higher salaries, high more police etc).
RE Laffer Curve: Interesting points Matthew. It seems to work best in high tax economies as you state or in cutting the basic levels of taxation (basic rate of income tax). The lower down you cut the tax, the more likely the money that is saved is likely to be spent (a man earning 10,000 pounds a year will spend more of his money saved from tax cuts than a man earning 100,000 pounds a year, who will save more of it). At least that is what happened in America under Reagan. This is why I don’t think it is particulary necessary to cut inheritance tax. However I still think the argument applies in Britain particulary in relation to business rates (double those of Ireland) and low level taxation (Basic rate which starts at too low a level). I also think it works to a degree at the level of the higher rate, due to the number of ordinary white collar professionals being dragged into it.
I really doubt that a saving of £1000 on a house costing £150,000 is going to swing many voters. The buyers would better spend their time trying to persuade the vendor to give them a bit more off the price. Not difficult with house prices dropping. This is one of the mistakes the Lib/Dems make in my opinion. They look like they’re just tinkering.
re. 51 - The lib dem performance in local elections in recent years has been something of a mixed bag. In so far as there has been a trend it has been losses in southern and rural areas with gains in urban areas. One interesting trend, though, is that local election performance across the held and target seats has remained strong. the areas where the churn is taking place tend to be those councils where the LDs made ‘easy’ gains from the tories in the 90s, some of which are now reverting to type. typically these will have been in non target seats. The places where you see the LDs making big gains currently (manchester, newcastle etc) are probably where the future target seats against Labour will come from. This refelcts the importance of grass roots campaigning for the LDs. In any seat where they dominate in local elections it means the organisation has got to a level where challenging for the parliamentary seat becomes more realistic.
Good Lord, are there still those who take the Laffer curve seriously?
And re 80: Do you have evidence that total taxes (or total tax rates) decreased during the Reagan administration? I’d like to see it. Those taxes would include state as well as federal taxes.
RE 83: Yes there are some who still believe in the Laffer Curve. As for Reagan, the point was, that some of his tax cuts particularly those skewed towards the rich were not that effective, because the money the rich got from tax cuts was not reinvested in the economy. Instead it was added to savings in the bank.
Andrew I think you are confusing two ideas when talking about the Laffer curve it was not alledged that tax revenues would rise due to the spending of the money otherwise taken by tax as one assumes that the government would spend that money anyway. The government can stimulate the economy by cutting taxes but only if spending is not cut by the same amount (i.e. government borrowing increases) both Reagan and Bush have followed this policy. The Laffer curve exists because of the effect of tax on incentives so that at both 0% and 100% marginal tax rates the tax take will be zero. The argument lies at what point on the Laffer curve revenue the maximum tax take is and as Matthew states in practice this rate is so high it is not relevant for modern economies and hasn’t been since WW2.
The big unknown remains the “LibDem campaign boost”.
1) If it comes? (the fact that almost all pollsters now prompt by party name might work against it)
2) If it comes who will it take votes off? The movement in the polls suggest a very high %age would otherwise vote Labour - any substantial boost along these lines takes us into uncharted territory.
Andrew at 65: I think I should point out that in Ireland you pay 42% tax at ca. £21000 p.a. … It is true, however, that corporation tax is very low.
83. It has to be remembered that Reagan cut overall taxes once (1981), raised them twice (’82 and ‘84) and then produced a revenue-neutral tax reform in 1986 which cut taxes but abolished rafts and rafts of tax exemptions.
Does anyone know about this special branch raid on Kennedy’s office mentioned in the Indy yesterday - something over Iraq. Is this significant. Why has it not been more high profile?
Do you have a link to the Indy story Graham?
No. I got it on paper - it is cheaper that way. It was on their big spread about Iraq. There was a Plaid office raided as well they said.
Wow, you can get news websites on paper?
Actually I found that part of the story in the free section online. I am also surprised it has not been more high profile.
How’s your spyware btw?
Here it is.
Perhaps there’s been some gagging order on it.
I get the Obswerver on Sundays. Another good article by Nick Cohen on the erosion of democracy via the postal vote. He’s referring to the recent fraud cases.
The other impact of postal voting is that it “freezes” the electoral view some 2 weeks before polling day. Now that I’ve become more involved in politics I can see how advantageous that can be to some parties over otheres, because:
- you bypass the final two weeks of campaigning where many things can happen
- the freepost may come out AFTER the postal vote has closed (dependent upon your own organisation, and the local Post Office)
- it stops those pesky “last minute switchers” who waver in the ballot box.
All these can have a significant impact over and above the scope for fraud.
94 - I’ve wondered since the Hartlepool by-election how much it helped Labour there (I mean for the reasons you mention Steve, particularly by “freezing” the votes, rather than any allegation of fraud.)
95 - Look at who’s keenest on it BV and draw your own conclusions. It would be interesting if anyone involved had the actual figures though.
I have drawn my own conclusions
but I would be interested in testing them against the numbers.
Does anyone know what safeguards are in place these days to prevent people voting in two (or more) places? At least under the secret ballot a person had to physically travel to two (or more) places in one day.
On a similar note, how is turnout calculated? When universities register every campus student automatically, does this automatically depress turnout amongst the young if they are all registered at home as well?
Re 87 But what is their NI rate - you have to add NI and Income tax together. So UK rate is 34.8% over £4,600 and 41% over about £36k . Hardly very progressive
98 - Alex, IIRC there aren’t any (practical ones at least). And that’s the point.
See http://politics.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1426454,00.html
Sorry 33% and 41% - got my -ees and -ers mixed up
I suppose you could make a case for saying that if people live in two different places then they have a right to choose by whom they are represented in both.
In this day and age it must be possible to have a centralised database of the electoral roll, which notes when people are registered in more than one place and whether they have abused the system to vote twice subsequently.
Or maybe that’s why we need ID cards, with a unique identification number?
Well you could Alex [102]… you could also make a case for restoring the University constituencies
103 - Wasn’t it Sinn Fein who used to say “Vote early, vote often”?
lol IB - MPs elected with a mandate of 867 votes
That is slur on Sinn Fein - ALL parties did it!!
89-’The Plaid Cymru MP said he was told by the police the leak had caused “seething anger at the highest levels”.’
I wonder how that ’seething anger’ compares with the continuing seething anger about the machinations of Tony’s toadies before the vote on the war.
Thankyoutony @ 108. So is the Plaid MP implying that the Govt asked for the raids?
And if so - why is this not (top) headline news. If the leader of a main political party has had his office raided by Special Branch is this not extraordinary?
110 - Graham, the article says “staff were interviewed by special branch”, which is a bit different to breaking the doors down and rifling through the filing cabinets. I suspect that’s why there hasn’t been more fuss.
107 , is it possible to slur Sinn Fein?
Important technical detail only 573 people were polled - this means that the margin of error is much larger than normal at 4.2%. And remember this only means that 19/20 polls will have an error for each party vote share of 4.2% - 1 in 20 will be larger if they’ve got their sampling perfectly random. For gaps between parties the margin of error is doubled. Hence the 7% gap between Labour and Tories could be a 1% Tory lead. And the 14% gap between the Tories and Labour could be as low as 6%.
according to the Indy article the special branch interviews of MPs came about as a result of the investigation ordered by the government into leaks……Adam Price has been subject to low level harrasment for some time ….
OK Steve - it was more fun to describe it as a ‘raid’ (I still live my life as if living in a 1970s cop drama
) However, it still seems to have been relatively quiet. Why are leading opposition parties being questioned by the police so close to an election? What papers have they (Kennedy & Price) got their hands on? Are the police being used to keep the matter quietl? If so is this using the police as a political body? Who ordered this questioning? When was the last time staff from the leader of an opposition party were questioned by Special Branch?
I still hold that this is really interesting and I would like to know more - Notice I am asking NOT accusing.
Sorry Rob. What poll?
115 - all valid questions, Graham. Perhaps you should email the BBC to see why they aren’t following up on this!
General point re Lib Dem anonymity - an interesting perspective on this here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1070-1504124,00.html
104, 106 - you could make a case for “new style” university constituencies. 10 (or whatever is appropriate for the percentage of full-time students) seats are elected by STV by full-time students, who are then barred from voting in a geographic constituency at a GE. I wouldn’t personally favour this, since students can be isolated enough from their “host” communities as it is, but it doesn’t have to be undemocratic per se.
BV - you’d only need 4 MPs (two for each seat - Dublin no longer being with us … )
In fact, by the time the seats were abolished, there were extra ones for Combined English Universities (such as there were by the 1940s) and Combined Scottish Universities.
Steve 117. How do I e-mail the BBC - I mean the right person at the BBC, not just nigel or nora at Cbeebies - the news editor or whoever?
120 - as long as the number of seats per college was weighted by age (older = more)
I believe Oxford University booted out both Peel and Gladstone (not at the same election)…
121 - general comments here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ukfs/hi/newsid_3980000/newsid_3986100/3986153.stm
Otherwise I don’t know (unless you try eg andrew.marr@bbc.co.uk ). Perhaps Mike still has some contacts at the news desk.
121 - general comments here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ukfs/hi/newsid_3980000/newsid_3986100/3986153.stm
Otherwise I don’t know (unless you try eg andrew.marr@bbc.co.uk ). Perhaps Mike still has some contacts at the news desk.
123 - and refused an honorary degree to Margaret Hilda in later years …
I can see you long for the 18th Century Steve. If you’re going down that route - I think 69 East St Ashburton should have a seat. There would be 1 elector - me as under those rules my wife would not be eligible and as a man of property I would probably stand. Oh the joy of a 100% turnout and a landslide victory.
123 - Gladstone certainly, at least. (I don’t know about Peel, which is a comment on my ignorance rather than your accuracy.) Fascinating the fundamentalist theo-politics that went on around those seats. Gladstone originally came into favour there in his earlier Tory incarnation when he wrote a pamphlet that advocated denying public office to all non-Anglicans.
127 - Wasn’t that the premise of one of the Blackadder episodes?
BV, Graham (and everyone else similarly qualified) - my lack of political education severly embaresses me.
129 - indeed, guest-starring the late, great Vincent Hanna.
http://blackadder.powertie.org/episodes/3/1/
Steve. Yes - Pitt ‘meerly the twinkle in his father’s eye’ was one memorable gag in that one. The 18th C rotten borough’s were a great idea, and most major politicians of the time took advantage. The Lib Dem decapitation strategy wouldn’t have worked in Old Sarum - unless you could have diverted a sizeable chunk of campaign funds into some elector’s pocket - a 66% swing may then be possible! Baxter would be out of business that’s for sure.
Is the andrew marr email genuine - or just a guess. I sent a message to Newswatch - but it looked like one of those things where you basically get ignored, but feel better for getting it off your chest. I want answers to my questions so I don’t think it will work for me.
The e-mail address for Newsnight is http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsnight They actively solicit ideas for stories for them to consider. Incidentally, I commend their evening e-mail, which gives a pointer to the things they will be covering at 10:30.
Sorry, that’s e-mail via their website.
132 - Ah, Kirsty, Kirsty …
As for Old Sarum, I’m sure some of the more aristocratic Whigs could have stumped up the readies …
Graham, Another (serious) thought…why don’t you contact/e-mail The Daily Politics; they often read e-mails on air (at least after PMQs)
re size of Poll (113) ICM polls which everyone seems to be happy with only get answers from about 500 people on how they will vote.
The great thing about polling is that no one can ever say you are wrong with the possible exception of entry/exit polls
Thanks Augustus. Who do I leave the message with? Michael Crick - he just wants to know whether people in North Norfolk have trained their dogs to attack candidates - or whether women in Broxtowe are turning against Tony Blair despite their dashing local MP.
Sorry, I don’t know - I have never dared cross the hallowed threshold.
Thanks Augustus and John O. I tried John O’s suggestion first - but again (like Steve’s above) it looks like a bit of a ‘make yourself feel better’ type route.
Am I nuts (don’t answer that actually - especially you alex
) or is it bizarre that this story isn’t in all the media outlets? I am not trying to stir it up out of proportion - I just want to know what it is all about.
I seem to have added a g to the end of my name - the last one was me
The best way is to just call the newsroom and ask “Who is covering the story about Special Branch investigating Iraq leaks” –or whatever. You will get put through quickly - newsrooms are geared to these enquiries.
Journos are always happy to chat about a story especilly if you can shed fruther light on it or provide more facts, contacts etc. - and it is not 5 minutes to their deadline!
However, given the number of journalists who obviously lurk on this site - some of whom even have the good grace to give credit in their own stories, I fully expect that there will be more pieces now on opposition parties interviewed in leak probe - (Thee Times IMHO for one :))
Icarus. I don’t think anyone is happy with any polls on this site individually. This is partly as Robert Waller says - the people on this site are purely interested in it giving them a precise answer so that they can lay their money / predict their majortity (or lack of) with more surety. Polls are not simply for that (although I think that Robert was somewhat disingenuous by trying to play down that role - Gallup after all invented the opinion poll in the US to show that he could do that in order to further his career and raise the profile of (market) research). However, what we can ascertain is the trends that are currently swishing around. CR was basically in line with all the others - so what we are seeing at the moment is a slight hardening of both Labour and the Conservatives and a slight erosion of the Liberal Democrats. The Conservatives appear to have pushed the scope of their box from 31-33 to 32-34, Labour have solidified in the upper 30s low 40s and the Lib Dems have slipped back against both of them. The exact figures are not really the issue - so whilst I agree that with smaller samples there may be sampling error - the consistency of the polls at the moment would lead you to assume that this is the rough position of everyone. Far be it for me to say that getting hung up on one poll is silly - (see my heated debate over Mori - although what I was trying to say on that one was that it actually was within the same boundaries as the others if reported right) - but taken in the round the polls are telling a story - the 2 big parties have gone to war and the LDs have got squeezed somewhat - although they haven’t appeared to have impacted on each other’s votes.
Thanks Scarpia. I take it you are someone in the journalistic field. Unfortunately I don’t know anything - that was why I was interested - I suppose I was trying to find out if it was big news waiting to happen - or just a little aside -and more to the point - who would this help / hinder in the build up to the GE? My guess would be that if it became a bigger story that it would help the LDs if it looked like Labour were trying to keep other parties from asking ‘legitimate questions’. But stories never seem to run how I think they will so what do I know?
re. 95 etc. - I think I would be right in saying that the final result in all four of the recent by-elections was much better for the Lib Dems than the postal vote. They probably won Hodge Hill on the day and won Leicester South by a much larger margin on the day than the result suggests (with the Tories the main losers)
Graham, thanks for that - but just because a poll doesnt show much movement from last time, if there is this much margin of error it doesn’t mean that opinion hasn’t changed - Perhaps less “adustments” for various factors would not be neccessary to produce a headline grabbing result.
144 - Postie, thanks, very interesting. Do you know anything about postal vote counts, ie whether there is separate details of postal votes total and splits?
Graham -143 - more a vile spin doctor these days.
On the significance of this story, it may be that PC and LDs haven’t made more of this, because this might happen more than we know. They are just regular ports of call in these sorts of enquiry.
Remember in the Thatcher years there were regular leaks (not only by members of her own Government :)) which caused general outrage, demands to hunt down and chastise the perpetrators, top cop/Civil servant appointed to do so. Normally these enquiries vanished without trace by which time the original row had been forgotten about. No doubt vast sums of public money were wasted as Inspector Plod and team went round and interviewed the usual suspects to no avail, but demonstrated a process that shut their political masters up.
IIRC there were only a couple of leakers outed. One was Sarah Tisdall who was a temp at the MoD who leaked info about Cruise deployment at Greenham common. They got her because MoD office services had a cunning plan by which a second copy was made and stored, thus enabling them to track down unauthorised photocopying. The second was Clive Ponting who was a senior civil servant, and blew stuff on the Falklands War. see http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/16/newsid_2545000/2545907.stm.
I can’t remember how they identified him - I think because only a few people had access to the documents in question - so they probably went for the only Grauniad Reader among them ;(
If these interviews are a sinister departure from normal practice I’m sure LD and PC will let us know (any readers on the inside of the Parliamentary offices?). And in the new Blog Age picking these events apart will raise wider awarenes - Viz G Bush’s forged Air National Guard papers and the CNN boss having to resign after asides about US military targeting journos in Iraq .. both of which have already been discussed on pb.com
Has anyone else tried to post between Tabman 146 above and Robert Waller on Loonies on the next thread (an hour later)? Two of mine have disappeared
!
143 -Graham
- more a despised spin doctor these days.
On the significance of this story, it may be that Plaid and Lib Dem