YouGov: Cameron would beat Blair 41-38
November 24th, 2005-
But survey shows he’d be 5 point behind Brown
As a curtain-raiser for their Tory leadership debate today Sky News has commissioned YouGov to test different Tory-Labour leadership combinations. It’s headline conclusion is that the 39 year-old cyclist, David Cameron, is ahead of Tony Blair. In a form of polling that forces 
respondents to choose between two options without any regard for any other party these were the main splits:-
We’ve said it before in this leadership contest and we will say it again - we do not like this form of forced questioning because the answer is artificial and it completely ignores the Lib Dems and support for other parties.
There has been no indication in any of the main General Election voting intention surveys that the leadership contest has given the Tories a boost. The last main YouGov poll at the end of October had Labour eight points ahead of the Tories with the Lib Dems on 19. Two days ago ICM was showing a Tory deficit of five points with Cameron’s party still stuck on 33% - the share it got on May 5th.
For the Tories the significance of the poll is that it’s a taster for the likely media honeymoon that Cameron will enjoy after, as he surely will, he is announced as formal winner of the contest on December 6th.
For Labour the survey will have little effect. There have been many polls showing that the party would do better under Brown than Blair and the incumbent of Number 10 is still firmly entrenched.
The key polls will be the General Election voting intention ones from December onwards. Latest prices on the betting markets rate Labour’s chances of being top party in terms of seats next time at 59%.
With so many votes having been posted in the Tory leadership contest the latest poll and today’s SkyNews debate will have little impact.
Mike Smithson
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Such polls don’t really tell us very much at all. The choices at election time are much more complex. That said, the fact that the Public regard Gordon Brown in a positive light, just goes to show how stupid they are. He has stolen their pensions, created 800.000 useless state jobs at their expense and totally undermined the economy’s strong points.
But never mind heh, he talks a good game.
Well they have some meaning if they are shown to be positive to one side or the other in relation to similar polls taken at the time of a general election. ie. they don’t say that Cameron would beat Blair in a GE, but they suggest that he would do better than Howard, for example.
An interesting poll I think for a few reasons. Many suggested that Cameron’s Etonness (or should that be Etonosity!)would count against him. I’ve never thought that. There’s nothing the British like better than a toff. Usually the stupider the better (look at Lady Di or Boris J). Cameron’s obviously not stupid and doesn’t even pretend to be (unlike Boris) but no-one seems to hold that against him.
It was also said that David Davis’s council house fatherlessness would stand him in good stead. Again a mistake. No one cares less and speaking for myself I find it rather demeaning for someone in his 50’s to make a virtue of their “deprived” upbringing which was by no stretch of the imagination exceptional. David Blunkett who really DID have a difficult time hasn’t laboured the point so Davis who hasn’t just sounds like a whinger(thought you’d like that AHM!).
So what I read into this poll is that Cameron despite his background look’s less like a Tory than Davis despite his.
(Of course it could be telling us something completely different!!)
I am genuinely surprised at the result given regarding Gordon Brown. I can’t wait for GB to take over as I think he will be a disaster for the Labour party. Whatever else Blair is a master of the media and well liked (although no longer trusted) by the silent majority and especially by women.
Sure, the left love Brown, and why not? Apparently he supports most of the things they really want, state controlled industry, squeezing the middle classes, being a nuclear free zone, no more privatisation and private finance in public services, stronger trade unions- or so they delude themselves.
Once the novelty of a new PM has worn off will the public really warm to the dour, technocratic and aloof Gordon Brown?
And more importantly how will his support hold up once he doesn’t have Blair to shield him by taking all the flak?
3 - you could equally argue on the toff-factor that Cameron beats a fellow toff (Blair) but loses to a non-toff (Brown). I doubt that either your reading or this alternative is correct. Surely this simply reflects the fact that people don’t especially like Davis and the shine came off Blair ages ago - indeed I am not sure it tells us anything we don’t know. Incidentally, I am not sure many people in the wider public know that Davis has the background you describe despite his references to it - he is just a middle class politician in a suit to the typical voter.
Interesting, but doesn’t really tell us much.
Last week I took part in a different YouGov survey on Blair, Cameron and Lib Dems. This asked questions on how the leaders, and, in the case of DC, a likely leader, rated on policy, economy, public services etc. The poll closed a couple of days ago so we should see the findings soon.
4 - People like Gordon Brown because however much Marcus and others go on about the disasterous economic position (and actually I tend to agree that there are some underlying weaknesses and Brown’s record is not the golden one he claims) most of us have enjoyed a sustained period of job stability and income growth. And whether you like it or not, he gets credit for that. People also quite like his dour persona - he is not a Flash Harry like Blair or Cameron - excellent. Finally, he strikes people as a decent man and his reaction to the birth and loss of his first child tended to confirm that.
5- Indeed, the council estate background of Davis is a fairly selctive reading of his past, is it not?
All polls are hypothetical, but these polls (how would you vote in a straight-choice presidential election) are more hypothetical than most.
Cameron’s Eton past will be used against him - certainly whenever the tory party says or does anything that appears to be pro-toff. His inexperience will used against him when he appears to make a mistake.
And his name will come up whenever anyone preapres an article ont he extent of drug-taking at our “top” public schools.
It is hard to how all this will play.
3. Amazing Roger - a largely non-partisan post, albeit as incoherent as ever. Are you ill?
I was excluding the comparison with Blair because it’s meaningless. You might as well ask who would you prefer as PM Richard Branson or David Cameron? You aren’t choosing a President and all the polls show that the Tories havent moved. You can compare Blair and Brown or Davis and Cameron but until their leadership contest is sorted out it’s impossible.
That Brown is well ahead of Blair doesn’t surprise me at all. I was a fan of the Blair flamboyance and now I look forward to the dour stability of Brown. Any Conservative who thinks Brown will lose votes for Labour might end up very disappointed.
10. Ah normal service resumed now, thank goodness. I was getting worried….
……and this is only a guess but I wouldn’t be surprised if Brown would prefer to be against Cameron than Davis. Politicians without gravitas can look very foolish facing Brown. Remember the high hopes for Osborne? Now he just looks like a jerk.
[9] Actually, Fred, I thought Roger cohered just fine - except for a wobble in the Boris department, but Boris has that effect on so many of us. Anyway, if we all restricted ourselves to coherent posts, the traffic would go down so much that there would be no need to upgrade the site software, and who would be so cruel as to deprive Robert Smithson of that pleasure?
Fred. Fortunately I like your good nature and you can be funny!
11, And I suppose your comments are entirely unbiased Fred?
13. And wasn’t it Fred who described the proposed 90 day measure as ‘fascistic’? Pot and kettle? Or was that a different Fred?
13-15. I read this site 70% for entertainment, 30% for information. Roger’s rants provide a good proportion of the 70% so I’m anxious they don’t cease….I am of course pretty provocative myself at times, mostly to try to get an entertaining reaction - as I have just done!
Edging back toward the topic, I think the key event on the horizon is not opinion polls after Xmas so much as the local elections next year.
If a Cameron honeymoon period leads to a good Tory performance they will be feeling pretty good about the world. If they don´t break out of their heartlands, Davis supporters will be muttering.
Surely it is far to early to judge how the country as a whole will respond to Brown and Cameron as potential prime minsters (or actual, in the case of Brown). Most of the electorate don’t watch the news, let alone Newsnight, Dimbleby etc., and have not yet even started to form an opinion about Cameron.
I also think these polls tend to reflect the general consensus that Brown has been a very steady hand managing the economy. When the voting masses re-appraise him as a prime minister, and ambassador for the UK on the world stage, I suspect he won’t be regarded so highly. I personally think Brown frightens small children and somehow manages to look ‘grubby’; these perceptions matter when choosing a PM far more than when judging the technical abilities of a chancellor.
I really am not sure how Brown will play in the country. All my (Labour supporting) northern and Scottish friends reckon he will go down like lead balloon with “English” people once people start to see him every day on TV.
People want to hear rosiness and cheer (like with Blair), not dourness and gloom.
I’ve just posted this on a betting forum concerning Gordon Brown so I’ll copy and paste seeing as we’re talking about him. Illustrates further why he’ll be a poor prime minister
There are talks about Gordon Brown making a further grab of bookies profits in the racing post today. The success of the Gross Profits Tax (15% of the profits instead of 6% on every bet) shows the growth that can be generated by setting a low tax rate. The chancellor is raising far more than he used to and to go for a short term tax grab could stunt further growth in the betting industry and will result lower tax reciepts in the future.
“I personally think Brown frightens small children and somehow manages to look ‘grubby’;”
That’s interesting. I know what you mean and I have that sense of certain politicians probably an equal number from all parties-but not Brown. Infact less mud seems to attach to him than almost any leading politician I can think of. Galloway is the example for your definition and to me Brown is the very antithesis of Galloway
For anyone whos interested, Ruth Kelly seems quite well dressed today.
20 My point entirely, whether we political obsessives liker it or not most people -and I mean 95%- are not interested most of the time and form opinions mostly on ‘feel’ for the personality of the leader and by the second-hand impression given to them by the media and press opinion makers.
On both counts Brown is not good news for Labour. He looks feels and sounds like a throwback to the 1950’s.
It’s hard to see Labour retaining its remaining Southern marginal seats under Brown. He really doesn’t approve the people who live there very much (”the grab it all society”) and I suspect they know it.
25 - And he’s unlikely to be able to compensate by winning additional seats in Scotland, Wales and the North as Labour hold nearly all of them allready.
I noticed that a few interesting council by-elections are coming up. Tomorrow in Guildford and Sunderland and a couple in London in a few weeks time. Perhaps these more urban (allthough I accept Guildford isn’t particularly urban) will give us a better idea of the prevaling political trends than some of the more rural contests we’ve had recently.
I also think Brown will prove to be the John Major to Blair’s Thatcher.
No-one likes a grumpy bore as prime minister.
25.”It’s hard to see Labour retaining its remaining Southern marginal seats under Brown. He really doesn’t approve the people who live there very much (”the grab it all society”) and I suspect they know it. ”
yes, in some of those marginals they prefer to vote for Bob Marshall Andrews…..maybe Brown is too moderate for them.
[17] 70% for entertainment, 30% for information - sounds right to me - if I’m going to learn one thing I probably need to chuckle twice…
My vote for Cameron was posted, at last, on Monday. At risk of appearing self-obsessed (or even irrelevant) I thought I’d outline briefly why I’m confident about him as Leader and potential future PM.
1. Policies
Yes, really. Cameron’s campaign literature contains MORE policies than Davis’s. Furthermore, he has constantly written pieces in the Press recently outlining his policies in the face of this banal and incorrect criticism that he has none (from characters like Simon Heffer). He is far clearer on policy than either Gordon Brown or Charles Kennedy. Having a good PR team does not equate to lacking substance.
2. The Voluntary Sector
One of his policies is to encourage the role of the voluntary sector in public policy and to maintain issue networks being state and voluntary bodies that have developed in recent years. This is one of the most ignored and yet important areas of policy and in spite of the fact that it holds very little electoral capital Cameron is dedicated enough to include it in his campaign literature.
3. Liberalism
It’s not easy being a Conservative leader with socially liberal views. However, Blair has managed to be a Labour leader with economically liberal views; and just as Blair has cleverly convinced (part of) the Labour Pary to adapt, I am confident Cameron can do the same with the Conservatives. For example, his recent assertion that drinking-hours-liberalisation is a good thing, but not wise to be introduced before Christmas, shows an ability to find a liberal-yet-sensible half-way argument. For years I’ve wanted an end to a Daily Mail-esque table-banging Tory Party and Cameron’s the person to deliver this change.
Low Tax
As a Tory I naturally favour a low tax economy. We will move in that direction with a Tory PM, whoever he is. Furthermore, Cameron has constantly stated that he supports a low-tax economy and right-hand-man Osbourne has been advocating flat tax for the past 6 months; I have no idea where this idea that the Notting Hill set are some kind of nouveau-Keynesians came from. Davis’s throwing around of figures shows he’s learned nothing from the last GE.
18-Agree local elections in May next year will be a first indicator.
Certainly in London forecasts for council tax increases are for double digit increases and I assume that it is a similar picture for the rest of the south to ensure subsidies are maintained for northern England and Scotland.
I would expect a strong anti Labour swing in London and the south,but maybe more to do with council tax fatigue than who is leader of the Tory party.
I’ve looked at Ed Balls for months thinking he reminds me of someone. It clicked today. He looks just like Piers Fletcher-Dervish in The New statesman. Is Brown his B’stard
Re : strange - I’ve yet to meet a useless classroom assistant in a primary school (etc, etc).
18/31 - As I have said before , the Conservatives should do well in London elections next year but we should expect modest Labour gains in other areas where the elections were last fought in 2003 and especially 2004 which was a very bad year for them .
33 - Really? When I was at primary school I never had a classroom assistant and frankly two teachers in the same class would have irritated the hell out of me. Especially when one of them wasn’t a real teacher and qualified.
In fact, considering that we can’t get the brightest people to become teachers what is the standard of classroom assistants?
Julian
“It’s not easy being a Conservative leader with socially liberal views. However, Blair has managed to be a Labour leader with economically liberal views; and just as Blair has cleverly convinced (part of) the Labour Pary to adapt, I am confident Cameron can do the same with the Conservatives. For example, his recent assertion that drinking-hours-liberalisation is a good thing, but not wise to be introduced before Christmas, shows an ability to find a liberal-yet-sensible half-way argument. For years I’ve wanted an end to a Daily Mail-esque table-banging Tory Party and Cameron’s the person to deliver this change.”
Interesting views and I hope you get your wish. But will it just mean you get ignored by the Daily Mail? Will they prefer the (not very socially-liberal) Gordon Brown? Will your core vote start wandering elsewhere?
I wasn´t very impressed with the liberalise drinking hours but not until 2 January argument myself!
re 7 cannot think there will or could be a fairer summary than that, James. And GB works incredibly hard. A former senior Treasury civil servant (now a Chief Exec outside govt, so not afraid of long, hard hours) was metaphorically shaking his head as he told me how much GB gets through. Leaving aside the rights and wrongs of policies, he felt the country was very fortunate to have someone like that as long-term Chancellor.
26. Max FYI the Guildford ward being contested covers the town centre, and the Lib Dems have a very big majority there, over 1000. Its probably about as ‘urban’ as you get in that part of the world.
36. I think it’ll be the same as New Labour as the Left. There will be groans of disapproval from the statist/moral centre-Right but if Cameron’s successful they’ll put up with it on a basis of “it’s better than Labour”.
Re 28 yes. the southern marginals are actually quite diverse. Nevertheless, while I expect net vote gain for Labour under GB (other things being equal), that is not inconsistent with seat losses and I would also expect quite a lot of coming and going.
40. yes, the same thing could happen in London too.
On the subject of Gordon Brown does anyone else notice the striking resemblence he was to the ‘good-looking’ version of Shrek in the film Shrek 2?
Could there be a connection?
I agree that these hypothetical presidential match-ups should be taken with caution, particularly those concerning options unlikely to be available (Blair, Davis). And they reflect current standings and can’t take into account future changes in personal reputation (when Cameron is a bit more shop-worn, when Brown has been seen in a different context for a while). I think Blair probably does have a special rapport with voters in some marginal seats, who would be winnable again for the Conservatives in a post-Blair election. But I’m sure many of the Conservative contributors back in May would have emphasised how many people were sick of Blair, and Brown can regain some of those. Also, there is the vast reserve army of the non-voters who didn’t turn out in 2001 and 2005 when it seemed in the bag for Labour, but would be motivated to stop the Conservatives if they seemed likely to win (I believe this is called Palmer’s Paradox in these parts). Just as weakly Conservative voters deciding to turn out actually made the Conservative vote rise in 1992 even though the government was in much worse condition than in 1987.
Note also that a three-point Conservative lead would probably deprive Labour of an overall majority, but it would almost certainly make formation of a non-Labour government impossible.
A point on some comments above. If Conservative posters think that Roger’s polite, argued contributions deserve such baiting, it’s utter hypocrisy. The level of abuse (e.g. of Brown above), wishful thinking and partisanship from the massed ranks of the right is startling (but there are also lots of good arguments out there). We do not all share the same assumptions, this is not (as far as I am aware) a pro-Conservative site, and it would be a lot duller if it were.
39 - I agree. If the Tories start to look like winners again I don’t think the right wing press and right wing MP’s will be too bothered if the party becomes more socially liberal. There does seem to be a far greater will to win (especially amongst the membership) so the next leader may well be able to change the parties stance on social issues without too much grumbling from backbenchers and the grass-roots.
38 - Thanks Fred. Although when you’ve grown up in a small village in the Borders most places seem pretty urban!
34-Mark
What’s the situation regarding seats that will be contested at the 2006 local elections in the south east / west regions?
Are there many Labour seats that could be vulnerable to the Liberals / Tories ?
40-A net vote gain under Brown? Really am not sure, I think he just puts off too many people. People think they want him as leader on the basis of name recognition, too much of him will turn people off. I accept there is likely to be some churn at next GE with Lab/LD>Con, LD<>Lab. And as always local campaigns giving Lab/Con>LD!
James at 7 seems to me to sum up Brown quite fairly. I think that Marcus at 4 is expressing the same kind of honest bafflement that many of us on the Labour side felt about people actually *liking* Mrs T. The danger for Tories is that this then leads on to the alienation from the electorate that EU Serf expresses at 1. (”The people have spoken, the bastards!”) We’ve been there, done that, guys. You don’t want to do it.
Dave at 27: er…you do remember that Major won, don’t you?
43-Regarding “lost votes”, there are probably more “lost” Tory votes, as evidenced by their actual number of votes lost since 1992, than Labour.
2005 Lab 9.5m
2005 Con 8.8m
1992 Con 14.1m
1992 Lab 11.6m, 1997 13.5m
This would mean since 1992, Conservatives have lost 5.3m votes, Labour 4m (from Tony Blair’s 1997 heyday). Though some of these votes are “lost forever” for a variety of reasons, I think they may suggest the Conservative potential vote pool may be larger than the Labour vote pool.
Oh dear, seems like a paper on differential turnout again!
43. Calm down Lewis, I thought we had established this was all a bit of knockabout fun. If you carry on like this we will have to start baiting you, not Roger, who at least appears to have a sense of humour.
43 - Lewis - the Conservative leadership contest unquestionably contributed to a lot of Tories finding and using this site. At present their is undoubtedly a pro-Tory bias. In the past a large number of users were Lib Dems with only a couple of Tories. It;s not our fault if other party supporters don’t use this site.
Incidentaly I got your book on the 2005 election - and very good it was too.
And without wishing to bait Roger - his previous comments, as I’m sure he’d accept haven’t always been as reasoned and polite as the ones above. Such as when he implied I was a racist!
49/50: Fair enough, but there does seem to be a bit of a pack mentality sometimes. As a veteran of vote-2005, having struggled to retain some vestige of civility there, I acknowledge I might be a bit sensitive…
48. Wonder how many of our 92 voters have died.
47 - I do Nick of course! I fully expect Brown to win the next election narrowly and then preside over the type of monumental collapse in goodwill that Major suffered from. In fact it could be even worse as I can’t see your current crop of MPs being as disciplined (voting wise) as the Major Tories were. A tiny majority and you’ll backslide badly to the left and will lose the centre ground. If you don’t then your campaign group may well bring down the government.
50 Max. I hope we (the site, that’s the Royal Stuart “we”) retain a healthy contingent of Tories here. They’ve got to get a majority somewhere nationally ! ……. BTW is Tabbers still in Oz or has he been kidnapped by a dingo ….. bar charts would never be the same.
On Brown, I think we (again) underestimate him at our peril. I can forsee a perfectly reasonable scenario where GB becomes PM in Spring 2009 and during a honeymoon period wins the GE with a few exchanges of seats at the margin as 2001. We shouldn’t run away with the idea that all the positive media for the Tories will necessarily last ….. I fear the DD refuseniks are sowing the seeds of discontent already !!
53.”A tiny majority and you’ll backslide badly to the left and will lose the centre ground. If you don’t then your campaign group may well bring down the government.”
Dave, you’ve to consider that some Labour left wing MPs are already pretty old and they could not be in the Commons after the next election. Always assuming new left wing rebels will be selected in the future (a couple of them usually manage to be selected at each election)
54. Jack, are you an anti-Gordon too?
45 - Hi John , The majority of Councils in the South and West will not have elections until 2007 . Of those that do a few such as Brighton polled last in 2004 therefore Labour should make a few gains whereas others such as Portsmouth where the councillors were elected in 2003 should not be bad for Labour as it was a poor year for them anyway . All the Metropolitan Boroughs had whole council elections in 2004 so again Labour should make gains here .
55 - A lot of the rebels are not that old Andrea. A lot have nice safe seats too.
Does Crawley come up next year Mark? It’s one of very few Labour councils left in the South East, and held on a one seat majority.
58. well, I meant the serial rebels, the ones no-one could try to find an agreement to try to calm them.
John McDonnell (not old and in a nice safe seat) and Jim Cousins are two different types of rebels.
Interesting polls, though I can’t help thinking that if you had added Kennedy in their especially to the Brown-Cameron one, you would have got different results. It is very unlikely that the two main parties will corner 81% of those who vote next time. The key positive as a Tory is that Cameron improves our figures and provides the first real opportunity to rise above 35% which is the benchmark for competitiveness in an election. Likewise for Labour, Brown pushes them above 40%, though I could not see that sustained once you factor the LD’s in. However these polls are good fun, but do not tell us much, other than that both Cameron and Brown are likely to enjoy honeymoon periods as leader in terms of poll figures. The key is how long they last.
On a more general point Brown’s dourness is probably an advantage with older voters, who do not necessarily like slick, polished politicians, whereas Cameron’s youthfulness assists us amongst the young.
56 Andrea. For a politician of his standing and tenure, I remain, perhaps bizarely, somewhat undecided about our Gord. He has in many ways been a successful Chancellor and yet contradictions remain. On balance most of us are better off now than in 97 and on balance most voters appear to view GB benignly. He also has the advantage and disadvantage of not being Tony ! It’s something of an enigma that many voters share I think …… so I’m very firmly in the don’t know column here !!!!!
51 - I’m sure none of us would ever want Pb.com to be like Vote-2005. Especially those of us with memories of the Battle of Medway! Bristol South was another classic IIRC.
Reading is worth watching next May. The Tories are defending a couple of narrow wins from 2005 in Peppard (against Lib Dems) and Caversham (against Labour).
However, Labour look vulnerable in wards like Kentwood, Minster and Church to Tory gains and possibly to the Lib Dems in Park, Redlands and Norcot (although these look less likely).
If Labour is doing badly in the South East they could lose a number of seats to the Tories in Reading.
53 - I remember once I started a vote-2005 thread with a poll on which thread was the most deranged. Watford, Telford and Romford were strong contenders.
Hi Sean ,
Crawley had whole council elections on new wards in 2004 so ( unusually ) no elections until 2008 .
65 Lewis. Deranged of Watford
Certainly the voters of Watford were confused !
On Vote 2005, I remember one particularly charming (purported) Lib Dem supporter was in the habit of calling Chris Smith “AIDS man”.
66 Mark. Would it be possible for you in the fullness of time, and aside from searching for gold dubloons and pieces of eight in the Oxfam shop, to give us a rough guide to what might represent good/ok/poor returns for each party at next years locals …… more so before the parties all start saying that a loss of 500 seats would be an unadorned triumph !
62 - Brown is treated by most voters as an empty vessel, someone who they can pour their hopes into; considering his visibility for years he remains strangely elusive (Cameron similarly but with greater reason).
The test comes when he takes over, I can’t believe that he would want to take over after four more Blair years and carry the Blair ‘can’, wanting, instead, at least a couple of years to show what he can do. He might be best placed to win if he remains an empty vessel but ego will play a bigger part in wanting a longer run in.
Those years will make or break him, is he still all things to all people or as divisive as Blair has become?
58. Dave, the average age in 2009 of the top 20 rebels in this parliament is 65 years old. I think some of them could retire. Actually I’ve realized there’re more potential rebels outside the top 20…..
Btw, I was a bit surprised that the average age of MPs who did not stand last may was 60.6 year old. I expected an higher figure, but probably Scottish MPs without a seat, Jane Griffith and Howard Flight helped to lower the figure.
70 ukpaul. It’s tricky and the timing of TB going is not (entirely) in Gordons gift, and who knows what “events” may occur in the coming years. It may be that the voters take to Gordon’s dour but worthy countenence in contrast to TB. After all John Major wasn’t exactly Mr.Personality and initially the voters took to him well enough. Perchance GB will be Labours’ Stanley Baldwin.
The Sky poll has figures for the Tory leadership amongst Tory voters - I think these are the first since the infamous Populus poll of Tory voters which sent the betting markets crazy.
The Sky figures amongst Tory voters are:
Cameron 52
Davis 31
Excluding don’t knows that would be 63-37 for Cameron. A slightly lower lead than the YouGov survey of Tory members but still a clear lead.
They’re an unusually complicated bunch Jack, because the starting points are so different. The London Boroughs are the easiest for a like for like comparison, because all the councillors are elected at once, and they were all elected four years ago. The Metropolitan boroughs (outside London) were all elected last year, but only one third come up for election this year. Some Shire Districts are also seeing only one third come up (but most Shire Districts have all out elections, next due in 2007) rather than electing by thirds. In addition, the Unitary Authorities are constantly varying their election dates - again making like for like comparisons difficult.
I’ll stick to London. For the Conservatives, a good result will be a net gain of four boroughs or more, a lead of 5%+ in vote share across the Capital, and a net gain of 100 + seats. A poor result would be to perform no better than in 2002 (barring another Falklands War, it’s safe to assume the Conservatives won’t slip back on their 2002 result overall).
For Labour, a very good result would be to hold their position of 2002, but that’s generally agreed to be unlikely. A good result would be to hold at least 10 boroughs (compared to 15 now), come within a couple of percent of the Conservatives in vote share, and keep their net losses down to about 60 seats. A poor result would be falling below 8 boroughs, a seat loss of 120 + , and being more than 5% behind the Tories.
For the Lib Dems, a good result would be a net gain of 40+ seats on their current total, and another couple of boroughs overall. Falling back on their current seat or borough totals would be a poor result.
Vote 2005 was indeed, awful, and I would hate for this site to go down that route. The West Dorset section was hopeless - loads of wildly uninformed commentary and virtually no posts that indicated any knowledge of the area at all.
63/65. I remember the Bethnal Green and Bow thread.
Chipping Barnet was another strangely virulent one.
76/77 - I can understand BG & B being vicious, but Chipping Barnet? What on earth did people find to argue over?
74 Sean. Many thanks for the London picture Sean. Perhaps over the coming months an agreed pattern will emerge and Mike might open a thread on the locals party expectation prior to polling. It might even be seen to be more widely as the mark by which the parties will be judged.
77 - I remember some very nasty comments being made about Theresa Villiers. Stirling was pretty bad too. I remeber a few threads were totally deleted before the whole thing collapsed. It’s a shame - if they’d run it on the same basis as the Election Prediction Project it could have been quite good.
Paul - I agree entirely about Brown. He’s not all things to all people, but he has enough in him that people can see what they like (in my case, his (relative) Euroscepticism, his dour ant-image, his apparent grasp of economics) and hope that what they don’t like is just blather (his centralism, his belief in public spending, his pension tax). Like Cameron, he represents hope. I’m not sure about the earlier comment about his being ‘grubby’ - if the implication is that (in contrast to Blair) he is scruffy and unpolished, I agree entirely - in the sense of being on the make, he seems much cleaner than Blair.
On another point - if the ‘core vote’ (by which I take it we mean the acolytes of Edward Leigh rather than the undoubtedly core but less frightening types like AHM) abandon the party, it needn’t be a negative thing for the Conservatives. I wonder how many of the militant tendency abandoned Labour for the SWP and the like in the eighties? And as a result, how many more sane people who had previously despised the party felt able to vote for them?
There seemed to be a lot of haters of Theresa Villiers on the site.
A lot of people seemed to have strange sexual fantasies about Kilroy, on the Erewash thread. And I wasted a lot of time trying to persuade overenthusiastic Lib Dems that they had not a hope of winning Folkestone.
82. I remember people having strange fantasies about Rosindell too.
69 - Hi Jack , Sean has given a fair assessment of expectations in London . In the Metropolitan Boroughs , I would expect Labour gains of 60 - 80 seats from Conservative and Lib Dem in the proportion 1:2 . The other elections are quite a varied bunch but should be no worse than neutral to Labour and perhaps we should expect some gains .
I think people are underestimating Gordon Brown somewhat. He is the product of his political mentor, John Smith, and no one can be in any doubt how popular Smith was before his death in 1994. I think Smith would have made a fine Prime Minister but that wasn’t to be.
As I’ve remarked before, leadership “types” often counter each other. In the same way as a consensual leader like Major was the obvious choice to follow the more adversarial Thatcher, so Brown looks a more obvious choice to follow Blair. I think that if he is allowed to cultivate his own different style, the electorate will regard Brown as “new” in the same way as they did Major and there will be a short-term rallying of Labour support (i.e: enough to get Brown through the 2009 election). The question then is whether Brown will be able to politically reinvigorate Labour. After long periods of office, parties tend to require renewal and that usually requires Opposition. The failure of the Tories in 1964 and 1997 was not down to bad economics or social unrest but to a sense of political collapse and exhaustion. By 2013, Labour will have been in 16 years and will, I suspect, look very tired and jaded.
As for the Tories, replacing the adversarial Howard with the “smoother” Cameron may fit the Tory mood but it may not fit the public mood - we’ll see. The LDs went the same route replacing the consesnsual Steel with the dynamic Ashdown and then the consensual Kennedy. I suspect we will be looking for a more dynamic, adversarial leader next time round (which probably rules out my personal choice, Andrew George).
84 Mark. Many thanks Mark. Perhaps in due course you might put some numbers of the national figures.
85 Stodge. Good post. Who of the available Lib Dems are the action man candidates next time, as opposed to the present missing in action man.
24 Marcus I am not so sure that the electorate - especially, but not only, the greying part of it - would not prefer a retro politician in the Macmillan mode. Cameron might fit the bill: a charming, smooth, moderate and optimistic toff with a common touch. Brown looks more like the serious and workaholic Gaitskell, perhaps?
Blair and Brown have taken us into a more uncertain world ( and not always by choice). How comfortable was the cold war and its certainties?
Whether its retro 70’s fashion or ultra-modern radios made to look like 50’s valve units, or the rash of historical dramas or telephone ads that offer the chance to delve into your parent’s past, there seems to be an increasing market for the certainties of history, the reassurances of the rose tinted retrospective.
Re: 86 - I think it would be difficult for any LD leader to make headway in the current climate. The Press are handing out chunks of free, uncritical coverage to the Tories who must be lapping it up. do sense a greater tension between Cameron and Davis in recent days.
Reflecting further on the cyclical nature of politics, I was considering how the 2009 election was going to be a re-run of 1992 with the “Flat Tax Bombshell” as Labour’s weapon against Cameron and Osborne. The German election showed how a poorly-presented tax policy can be used against a party and I suspect Labour are already preparing their ground should Shadow Chancellor Osborne go full-square for a flat tax policy. It could make the difference and allow Brown to win.
85 - “no one can be in any doubt how popular Smith was before his death in 1994″
There is a certain amount of mythology about Smith. Labour was doing quite well in the polls when he died but nothing exceptional for the mid-term position and the Lib Dems were riding pretty high. Smith’s satisfied minus dissatisfied numbers were not consistently above zero - see http://www.mori.com/polls/trends/satisfac.shtml - it was only when Blair came in that Labour registered truly exceptional numbers, the Lib Dem support dropped markedly and his personal rating was huge. That is not to say Smith was not a fine man or that he wouldn’t have been a good PM - but there is a tendancy to remember his time in charge of Labour as a golden age and him as a much loved PM in waiting - which really isn’t the case.
Not much I can add to a very good debate - but although I am naturally sceptical of polls - I would say that if Cameron can beat Blair on these polls and he has only been around for a few months in the public eye - surely this is a very positive sign?
If he can ride out any first 100 day battering (it is a big if) then it could be a postive situation for the Tories at last. I tend to believe that quite often people want someone or something to believe in and if they see others enthusing about it (especially the press) they want to get wrapped up in that moment ala Blair in 1997. The key for Cameron, should he win the leadership, is to re-create some of that magic and keep it! Not much to do then!
89 James Very interesting statistics. Thank you for drawing attention to them.
It would be interesting to superimpose these ratings on voting intention figures and see whether that demonstrates the key ingedient in electoral success: leader satisfaction.
On first glance the Thathcer and Blair situations seem to be rather different, although as the figures beginning after Thatcher was PM might make them misleading?
Seems that GB is already trying to kick the Turner report on pensions (which has apparently taken 3 years to produce) into the long grass,even before its been published!
Maybe a sign that all is not well
89 - you are right, John Smith was nothing at all to write home about as a ‘personality’ leader. The ‘golden age’ stuff though is not a myth if you have a single value in you - since politicians value an honest man.
Perhaps the most useful opinion poll right now would be:
“If Tony Blair told you the time would you:
(a)look at your watch?
(b)wonder why he was trying to butter you up?
(c)look to see if he had broken your watch?
(d) all three?
Alternative answers might be (and no where as good as yours):
If Tony Blair told you the time would you:
a Look at your own watch to make sure it was the same one you put on this morning
b Touch your own watch to make sure it was still on your wrist
c Ask yourself why he was telling you the time when you had asked for directions
d Panic as the Mad Hatter behind him smiled.
Sky News now. Here we go again.
BBC news: Bush aides ‘double-crossed’ Blair
If its a ploy to help Blair and damage Bush (the source is a strong anti-Bushie) its certainly the dumbest attempt to get out of jail free that I have seen for some time.
Whichever way you look at this story its not flattering for either leaders or the source.
It sounds as if Wilson, the source, is following the Sun’s theme accusing Blair of being Dumber than Bush? But is Wilson the Dumbest?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4465810.stm
Woody this one might be interesting - some angry political journalists just looking for a fight!
And 70 undecided voters….
Alternative Answers Might Be :
If David Cameron told you the time would you :
a. Tell him you’d voted from Birmingham for David Davies 100 times.
b. Ask him if the butler was sure it was the right time.
c. Ask him if that was Eton Standard Time or the real world.
d. Tell him it was time to put his spliff out.
e. Tell him that a watched electoral kettle never boils.
95. Sorry, but I need subtitles when DD speaks
Re. 22, he didn’t scare the children at Haregate Community Centre. On the other hand, his dourness might grate after a year or two, and the public appetite for a smoother leader (Cameron) might return.
Re. 89, I agree. Labour was doing slightly better than in previous mid-term performances (winning Enfield and Croydon in the 94 local elections), but it was a very bad sign for Labour that it wasn’t until May 94 (or earlier that year) that a majority of respondents in polls said they expected Labour to win the next General Election (always the poll valued most by Harold Wilson, when the question allows shy Tories to express a preference by the back door).
Where would Labour have been if Smith had had his heart attack in the middle of a 96 or 97 GE? In deep trouble, had Beckett (with her left-wing past and lack of charisma) still been deputy leader. That (along with Smith resigning as leader if he’d lost the OMOV vote in 93) scenario is just about the one way the Tories might have won a fifth consecutive term.
100.” a majority of respondents in polls said they expected Labour to win the next General Election (always the poll valued most by Harold Wilson, when the question allows shy Tories to express a preference by the back door).”
I don’t see how that question could allow shy tories to express their preferences.
I think this debate has already overtaken the other two tv ones.
Some good questions, audiences joining in….
Re; 89 - Yes, James, the poll figures tell one story and actual votes cast another. In the 1993 County Council elections, Labour polled 41%, the Tories 31% and the LDs 24% as I recall. In 1995, Labour polled 47%, the Tories 25% and the LDs 23%. The “Blair effect” wasn’t huge on that basis though I know Labour poll ratings were in the stratosphere from late 1994 onwards.
The inponderable is the degree to which Smith would have delivered higher poll ratings as the Tories continued to collapse politically. I find it hard to believe Labour wouldn’t have won in 1997 - I wonder, however, whether if the Tories had still polled 31%, whether the LDs would have picked up more of the anti-Tory vote and been able to snatch a few more Tory seats while the Tories might have held on to some more seats lost to Labour (eg: Portillo).
96. I think this memo leak story is an attempt to boost Blair, albeit a cackhanded one that could backfire. The fact that it was leaked to the slavishly Labour Mirror is strong evidence for my suspicions. We are now, I think, supposed to believe that Blair is a statesmanlike ‘restraining’ influence on the ‘mad’ Bush. I imagine there is less to this story than meets the eye though.
Being 10% behind Labour in the County Council elections of 1993 was not a disaster for the Tories. What was disastrous (and a precursor of 1993) was the degree of anti-Conservative tactical voting in those elections - which cut us down to just one County Council, Buckinghamshire.
Likewise the 1994 London Borough elections were grim, but we were still about 10% behind Labour, whereas by 1997 we’d fallen about 20% behind Labour in the Capital (and we still “won” seats like Southgate, Putney, Brent North, Battersea in 1994).
I meant “a precursor of 1997″.
103 - For what it’s worth (and that’s not much) I agree Smith’s Labour would have won a fairly decent working majority, but more modestly with the Lib Dems doing a bit better and the Tories quite a lot better. The extra 6% swing from 1993 to 1995 is pretty big. As you say, Portillo probably would have hung on, I suppose which would have had some sort of impact subsequently. It is an interesting counterfactual but like all counterfactuals it is so heavily based on guesswork it pretty quickly turns into pure fiction.
OT: Just had a look at betfair’s next chancellor market - I think there are some bargains there. I won’t take any of them because I don’t like long term bets but I think 15-1 on Straw looks tasty.
Re: 105 & 106: Indeed, Sean, and the fact that the Tories scored 31% again in 1997 showed just how much the strong Labour vote had saved them seats. If, for example, the share of the vote and the scale of the anti-Tory tactical vote had been as strong in 1997 as in 1993, my guess is that the Tories would have done even worse.
Blair was able not only to concentrate a strong anti-Tory vote behind Labour but, apart from about 30 or so carefully targetted seats, also able to shore up potentially squeezable Labour votes in other seats. Look at the Labour/LD performance in Folkestone for example. Had the Labour vote moved tactically to the LDs in 1997, Howard might have been beaten.
Hence we can argue that Blair saved the Tories from an even worse defeat in 1997 by stemming the flow of tactical votes from Labour to LD. It will be interesting to see if Cameron is able to successfully syphon away anti-Labour votes from the LDs in the same way.
I’ve always thought that Blair was able to reach out to previous lib dem supporters in the south east (St Albans for example) and elsewhere (Tewkesbury, perhaps) in striking fashion. His disappearance will put some of these voters back into play.
But we don´t know what the next election is going to be about yet. I don´t think personalities is all there is to politics.
109 - Isn’t that simply a case of the Lib Dems doing better at local elections, and local elections being more about local campaigns than the air war? Blair effectively sidelined the Lib Dems in 1997 by presenting himself as a safe anti-Tory choice who might plausibly be PM. Ashdown was very attractive for disillusioned Tories when Smith was there, but what was the point when Blair came in? The Lib Dems might have picked up a handful of extra seats in 1997 had Smith been there because Labour would not have been seen as so magnetic to floating voters in Tory/Lib Dem marginals. But that isn’t nearly as important - in pure numbers terms - as the impact of disillusioned Tories in Tory/Labour seats going for Ashdown in preference to Smith, which I believe many would have done. We Lib Dems do tend to overestimate the number and significance of our own target seats and forget about everyone else’s.
Completely off topic, but I spotted an interesting item on the MORI website dating from May, about voting intention by religion.
Roman Catholics voted Labour 53% to 23% Conservative; non-Catholic Christians voted 41% Conservative to 31% Labour. Non religious people voted 38% Labour to 21% Conservative.
Any ideas what may lie behind such striking variances; there didn’d appear to be much of an explanation on the MORI site, save that Catholics tended to be younger than average, non-Catholic Christians older than average, but that in itself wouldn’t explain the degree of variance.
I would have thought that on most social issues, the stance of this government completely contradicts the stance of the Catholic Church, so I’m at a loss to explain the loyalty of Catholics to the Labour Party.
Sean is it not just that Catholics still tend to be concentrated in certain parts of the country. I think something like 80% of Catholics in Scotland live in and around Glasgow - a traditional Labour Stronghold. I would think Liverpool and Manchester would have similar concentrations of RC’s.
It often used to be the case (especially in Liverpool and Glasgow) that the Catholics voted Labour and the Protestants voted Conservative - which is why 6 out of 9 Liverpool seats were held by the Conservatives in the sixties. Communities were more starkly defined then, and the influence of the church was much greater. Echoes of that perhaps?
Most Catholic people in this country are of Irish heritage, and the Irish community has always been very strongly Labour (and indeed is vastly over-represented in the PLP).
I suppose the reasons behind this were that Protestantism is the status quo. Contrast this with elections in Europe, especially were Catholicism is the status quo, and the Catholics tend to vote for the right and the Protestants for the left (eg Germany, I think).
That would explain some of it, but London, for example, has a very large Catholic population (16% of the total), and Catholic voters tended to be quite numerous all around the country.
My experience of voters of Irish Catholic background in Brent North is that they are somewhat more likely than average to vote Conservative - obviously Scotland and Merseyside would be quite different.
But I think it strange that while Muslims should be quite ready to vote against a government that they believe to be working against their interests, Roman Catholics shouldn’t.
Re 86, Jack. This site seems very male orientated, what about action women?
Myself alone as a Papist Hibernian Greenie but Blue of Hue…
I think it may be a mistake to assume that the stance of the Catholic Church on social issues and the stance of British Catholics on social issues are at all the same.
117.”But I think it strange that while Muslims should be quite ready to vote against a government that they believe to be working against their interests, Roman Catholics shouldn’t.”
well, on social/moral matters Muslims views are usually closer to the tories rather than to Lab or Libdems, but they aren’t voting tories either.
113. Max, according to 2001 census, the top 10 constituencies under the “non religion or not stated” are almost all Scottish (9 out 10). do you think there’re many not religious people or the majority of those people just didn’t want to reply that question? if so, why?
117. Sean, you should also take care not to confuse the position of the Church hierarchy with the views of the parishioners, or of people who state their religion of birth as Catholic but do not attend Church.
This does, of course, highlight the small but relatively vocal group of Catholic Labour MPs, who often lead a socially consevrative rearguard within Labour, including MPs like Joe Benton and Clare Curtis-Thomas, and even George Galloway when he was in the PLP (and people like Ruth Kelly in government, I suppose).
Good point Lorcan. 471 people describing themselves as Catholics were surveyed, but I suspect a very high proportion of those are nominal Catholics. It would have been interesting to take a larger sample so that one could actually work out the voting intentions of practising and non-practising Catholics.
The reason shy Tories can admit (if by the back door) their own voting preference is that they can ‘project’ their own preference (which they wouln’t admit in a standard voting intention poll) onto other people, or say that they expect the Tories to win because that’s how they’ll vote themselves.
I admit this logic is slightly byzantine (I don’t even have the excuse of being raised by the Jesuits, though I was baptised a Catholic) but Harold Wilson understood it. When people in my neck of the woods say ‘They won’t get in again’ (as they’re doing now, and did during the fuel crisis), it’s because they themselves don’t intend to vote Labour again, or they know plenty of other people who won’t do so.
Todays Cameron revelation - He likes his joints rare.
123. Jim Dobbin and Geraldine Smith too.
125 - A similat logic is often used when trying to measure level of racism, as it is assumed that a proportion of people with feelings of hotility to other races won’t wish to admit that they, themsleves are racist; so people can be asked “Are your neighbours racist?”, for example.
127 - Yes: a definite concentration in the North West, as well as the West of Scotland contingent. Blair’s leanings toward Cahtolicism might also help here.
Andrea @121, I think that some evangelical Protestant sects deliberately refused to answer the question on religion, although I don’t know if that’s the case here.
112. The Irish factor is certainly very important. Given that for many generations Irish immigrants, the vast majority of whom were Catholic, ended up living and working in socially deprived areas in low paid and public sector jobs, so the natural tendency was to make them Labour voters. Furthermore, the Conservative Party was often seen as the political wing of the Anglican Church, and vice versa, so (Irish) Catholics who felt outside the mainstream of British life until relatively recently would instinctively not vote for the party of the establishment. Also, historically, the Conservative Party’s Irish policy would not have stood them in good stead.
Combine that with the development of a strong doctrine of social justice in Catholic teaching over the past 40 years and you get to why most Catholic voters vote Labour.
Which is nuts really, when you consider that the Labour Party gets 12% of the vote in Ireland.
Did anyone see Cameron interviewed on Richard & Judy this evening? I missed it and wondered how cringeworthy it was.
129. Outside the North West/Scotland aread there was Kerry Pollard from St Albans, now defeated.
130. Thanks Sean Fear. The 10th constituency with the biggest proportions of “no religion or not stated” was Brighton Pavilion, the other 9 were all Scottish seats. I was pretty surprised by seeing all those Scots constituencies there.
81 - I did mean grubby as in unkempt. I don’t doubt his personal integrity; although his stealth taxes and manipulation of his ‘golden rule’ could be portrayed as less than transparent.
Kevin Macnamara was, until he retired, an excellent example of Labour Catholicism: a strong Irish nationalist and also an opponent of abortion. He fell out with Blair early in the latter’s leadership because he thought he was conceding too much to Unionism.
re 125. The notion of “shy Tories” who are reluctant to admit their allegiance to polling interviewers does not seem to exist anymore. In May the pollsters were pretty good getting the Tory share. Where they have a problem is with Labour support which still tends to be over-stated.
Labour supporters are much more likely to say they are certain to vote when they won’t and the pollsters are devising new ways of dealing with this.
118 david. Apologies for my male centric post ! Are there any Lib Dem Action Women.
133 Andrea. Kerry Pollard, St Albans former Labour MP until the GE, social conservatism was certainly at odds with the many in the local Labour Party and the general “feel” in the constituency, which I would equate as a “university seat”. However to counter his social conservatism Pollard was seen as a very hard working if irasible MP.
I could see that as a strong factor 30+ years ago, Chrisco, but why now?
Bob Worcester made the point that the social status of Protestants and Catholics is now pretty similar, and Protestant/Catholic rivalry is hardly a dynamic factor in British politics (outside Northern Ireland).
It seems curious that as social class and gender have declined markedly as determinants of Conservative and Labour support, there should remain this sharp religious divide.
I should think Anne Main is pretty socially conservative, Jack.
138. As I said, you had these historic factors, which then became buttressed by the Catholic Church’s social justice doctrine. It would also be interesting to see if there still existed a corelation between areas with high densities of Catholics and deprived areas (beyond the obvious candidates in Glasgow and Liverpool).
139 Sean. Yes, Anne Main is on the more socially conservative wing, although not widely recognised in the constituency. She owes her seat to the surge in the Lib Dems at the GE - up over 7%. She added only 2% which was one of the poorest Conservative showing in the M25 area. Long term she may be in trouble from the Lib Dems as the yellow peril advance, along with Watford, in that slice of Herts. Pesky Lib Dems, there’s little that shifts them along with 99% of household germs !!
133 - Andrea what are the 9 Scottish seats?
If they are all in and around Glasgow y guess wold be that it is the effect of sectarianism. People who elsewhere might admit to vague religious beliefs, prefer to say none to keep out of the ‘party games’.
Davis price has lengthened significantly in last couple of hours. He had been around 16-1 for several days but money has just gone through at 23-1 (his longest ever odds). Does anyone know what has caused this change?