ICM: Brown rated a “good PM” over Cameron by 45-32
February 26th, 2006
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But were too many Labour supporters in the sample?
In an interesting ICM poll in today’s News of the World Gordon Brown is rated against David Cameron on a whole series of measures including who would make a “good Prime Minister”.
In spite of what some of the headlines are saying the question of who would make “best Prime Minister” was not put.
This is not a conventional opinion poll; no questions were asked about voting intention; the only options were Brown and Cameron without any reference to the Lib Dems; and the findings were not, as in normal ICM surveys, weighted by past vote recall.
To a question ICM asked about which party those in the survey had considered themselves to be a supporter of in the past the split was LAB 50.1%:CON 31.5%: LD 17.2%. At the last General Election the three parties got:LAB 36.2%:CON 33.2%: LD 22.7%.
Those surveyed were asked “Putting aside your own party preferences I would like to to think about David Cameron and Gordon Brown. Which if the two do you think….”
Telephone polls like this one involve making randomised unsolicited telephone calls with only about one in six resulting in interviews. For whatever reason this approach almost always produces samples that are heavily pro-Labour. To counteract this in its General Election voting intention polls ICM has pioneered weighting findings on the basis of how people said they voted at the last election. This has not happened with this poll.
So on the final two Prime Minister questions Brown polled 43% and 45% against the 50% of those considering themselves to have been Labour in the past the survey. Thus Brown, it could be said, is not even attracting full Labour support.
This is all very interesting but what we really need are proper voting intention questions along the lines of ICM’s “Suppose the Conservative Party were to be led by David Cameron, Labour by Gordon Brown and the Liberal Democrats by Chris Huhne/Memzies Campbell. If there were to be a General Election tomorrow how would you vote, would you vote Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat or for another party?”
Finally - well done to ICM for making the full data-set from this poll available immediately.
Mike Smithson
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I was never much good at maths, but does these figures on p.9 not show a certain, though rather odd, amount of weighting, as was discussed on the previous thread?
Party Support
Other
Total Con Lab LD Party None Refused
Unweighted base 1025 224 383 128 91 164 16
Weighted base 1025 238 379 130 86 160 14
(after LD should read ‘Other Party’)
Last night’s thread John T 294(?)
Lib Dems do train selection committees for shortlists. this training does include ways of reducing bias. IMO, and research in the Lib Dems does show that it is mainly about less women coming forward. Which, I and others have always argued, means that it is about what society (including women) still expect of the two genders - which is still different! Which leads on to the conclusion that all women shortlists etc are only a device to hide the symptoms, not the disease. Every time this comes up in Lib Dem circles, people oppose its introduction - and the most vehement opponents are women, who wish to be selected on merit.
Apart from filling some space in the NOW & grabbing some headlines,a complete waste of time and for the reasons detailed in your introduction,tells us nothing.
Meanwhile, in the Lib Dem leadership race we now have canvass returns from Team Huhne and Team Menzies;
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article347810.ece
Team Huhne estimate in the Indie that they are 2% ahead of Ming on first prefs. Team Ming say their man is “marginally” ahead on first prefs. Notice that there’s no metion of 2nd prefs in the comment from Team Huhne in that article. If you only half believe that Ming has around 60% of Hughes’ second preferences as they claim then ladies and gentlemen we have a winner… no wonder Ming is planning his first front bench already. The lumps of Huhne available to lay at 1.8 look very generous.
[3] Leaving aside the question of Party, surely the problem is one of “differential legitimacy” - why should women MPs adopted as PPCs against male competition regard the beneficiaries of positive discrimination as equals?
On the poll itself, I’m unsurprised by Brown’s figures (some of which - the “buying a round” question comes to mind - may simply be anti-Scottish prejudice, although I’d've thought the late John Smith would’ve done better) but either the sample was very biassed or else Cameron won’t be too pleased…
I don’t think this poll tells us nothing. It tells us that by a large majority Brown is reckoned to be a better future PM than Cameron. After nine years as chancellor quite an achievement.
Roger, yes let us not ignore that, it is surely pretty relevant.
Going to be interesting to see how Cameron tries to recover when next at PMQ, he has a lot of ground to make up after that mauling he got the other week. I suspect he will manage it.
Amanda Platell has just said on Marr’s programme that people were supporting Cameron because they thought he was a winner. Now that he’s shown he isn’t the knives are going to come out.
Obviously some people take this poll seriously!
3. “all women shortlists etc are only a device to hide the symptoms, not the disease”
I haven’t heard it put like that before - a very good argument.
Re Lib Dem leadership: presumably 99.99% of the votes have been sent in by now. No change in the web site polls in this Region.
Huhne well ahead. Be interesting to see how relevant they are or if they are completely out of context. However it is not a planned cross section of the electorate, just individuals who have voted and how they voted. Could mean one group is keener to record their vote than the others or……
Thankfully we shall know in four days.
On the contrary this poll tells us a great deal. If the NoW is going to promote this kind of story now, it means that A) Cameron is failing to convince some parts of the media and B) Brown is seen as a credible successor. The emphasis that different papers (& websites) give to different poll results at the moment is very interesting and a useful betting tool.
Overall this means that, Brown and Labour are probably in a stronger position for the next GE than you or the polls think. IMO Cameron is already looking a little dull. A big shame for politics and his worst nightmare.
What I find funniest in the ICM poll is the yawning gap between DC and GB over who’s most presentable. True, GB has a few bad hair days and occasionally looks a little dishevelled, but a 39-point gap still seems a little unfair.(It also makes me glad we have three pretty presentable candidates for Lib Dem leader, if voters are going to be this finicky…)
What a question. Who makes the best dad?. How does the general public know the answer to this unless they know David Cameron and Gordon Brown. It is very silly.
[13] It depends what respondents understand by “most presentable” - if they interpreted it as “better looking” (as I’m sure some of them did) or even “younger” then it’s not so surprising.
[14] There’s no way to break this to you gently, Anna K, but people all too often vote for “very silly” reasons.
The Telegraph is in Cameron bashing mode again talking of a ‘fight back’ and ‘getting his leadership back on track’ and it has this gem of top spin:
Two opinion polls last week have given further grounds for concern. One put the Conservatives three points behind Labour, the same gap as at last year’s general election, while another suggested voters were unsure what Mr Cameron stood for.
You would think the Tories were behind in the polls and sinking fast rather than ahead with a leader who, compared to his potential Labour rival, a vast majority would prefer to have a drink with and see as most presentable and an equally good future PM.
Crappy journalism as well as Hefferlump spin.
Mind, I would guess the whole of the NOW ‘poll’ is a Brownian Motion spin barrage. Unfortunately for the Dour One it does emphasise the difficulty he has being an MP from a Scottish constituency, I suspect.
If these figures are in anyway indicative then The Dour One has a major problem in Middle England, and for a Labour politician that hs always been a terminal condition in the past.
Hello again (yes, nice hoiday, thanks!). I tend to agree that the lack of apparent significant weighting and the fact that the party question was not current intention but past voting makes the raw figures pretty useless. The overall picture is interesting, though - basically Brown winning on ’serious’ virtues and Cameron winning on ’softer’ virtues. I think the danger for Cameron is that people are beginning to think of him as likeable and modern but lightweight and of no fixed views, which isn’t a good long-term position to be in - the Teresa May niche, so to speak. The poll is also interesting for the spin the NoW gives it, with the accompanying photos decidedly favourable to Brown.
To give a Labour-biased perspective on the LibDem leadership: I think that Hughes would be worst for us, both because he’d offer a left-wing alternative and because defections to the Tories would then be a real possibility. I think it’s finely balanced between the others. Huhne would have the better honeymoon - interesting new face, alternative to Cameron as the Young Pretender. People would be mildly curious about him, which is a Good Thing. Also, there is a market for Europhilia out there - remember the LibDems only need 25% to get a great election result. Campbell wouldn’t get such a good honeymoon, especially if he wins narrowly (’Elderly caretaker hangs on’ will be the story in the hostile press), but I think that many posters here underestimate his sharp eye for positioning and issues that matter to people, and he might be the better LD bet in the medium term.
[12] ‘Brown is seen as a credible successor’. This reflects GB’s supporters well. Step 1, damp down expectations. Step 2, return to step 1.
GB has been number 2 for a long time. And a very long way behind the number 1.
Will he be able to lose his runner-up tag, except as a favour by TB? Possibly, though he’d have to graft at it. He has no track record for working hard at appearances.
re 12. It is interesting how it seems to be the Murdoch press which seems to highlight what I regard as flawed poll reporting. Two weeks ago it was the Sunday Times on YouGov and now we have the NOTW today.
What gets me is the band of the ignorant like Amanda Platell, as Roger related, who just take the line without probing a little.
If Cameron has failed with the great Lord Rupert then he has an enormous fight on his hands.
7 - For the purpose of extrapolating these results into general election voting this poll is meaningless. There are none of the usual adjustments like intention to vote etc. If anything Cameron is doing well to be performing as well as he is in this poll.
Oh and “makes the best leader of his party”. Some problems with the tenses here?
16: I know that people vote for silly reasons. If I was asked the question who is the best dad I would answer don’t know.
[22] So would I - but it’s by no means the silliest question ever asked by a pollster. My favourite (I think it was NOP) was the one I was asked in a face-to-face poll in 1992 - “how would you vote if there was a General Election to-morrow?” after the date of that year’s GE had been announced!
[18] Welcome back, Nick.
20. You don’t appear to know many journalists, Mike. This kind of lazy approach is typical. 95% of them are not interested in doing any work to develop a story - they just want to be spoonfed any old rubbish that will make a headline.
Also - sorry to say this yet again, but doesn’t this crude poll once more illustrate that the pollsters are happy to feed rubbish to the press, without much concern about what is made of it?. ICM know providing unweighted figures is misleading - so why do they do it? The only answer can be that this is what the NOTW wanted - a poll showing Brown ahead. Weighted by past vote DC and GB would be pretty close on the PM question.
24 - I think they did weight it by past vote/allegiance didn’t they? What they didn’t do is make any allowance for likelihood to vote. So they effectively sampled the general public rather than the voting public.
Just bought the Sunday Times Tessa Jowel now seems to drawn into the scandal engulfing her Husband - wives dont normally sign mortgage papers on their homes without asking their husband some questions - do we just add this to the list of entaglements between shadier parts of the business world and new labour project leaders ( Blair , Blunkett , Mandelson etc the list is getting long ! I am sure others can complete the list ) or will the public stop voting for them - Is there a market for the local elections in May . I think Labour could take a beating certainly in London and the south and it would be good to back this view up with a bet .
20 - If Cameron does have to have a ‘Clause IV’ moment, he could do worse than openly take on the Lizard of Oz and the primeval slime of gutter obscurantism he represents. The alleged power of the Sun/NOTW, still less the Times, is vastly overrated in the modern media age.
The press plutocracy is a highly vulnerable paper tiger (DC might perhaps drop a few non too subtle hints about an MMC investigation). 75 years ago, when newspapers were practically the only source of public information, Stanley Baldwin smashed the their proprietorial pretensions for power with a vengeance seldom seen in politics.
Crawling to Murdoch would be suicidal: go for his go*llies!
17.”If these figures are in anyway indicative then The Dour One has a major problem in Middle England, and for a Labour politician that hs always been a terminal condition in the past. ”
Blue2win, Labour was way behind the tories in the South last year too, so it’s normal that DC is better seen than GB there.
An interesting aside by the other ‘Lizard of Oz’ Amanda Platell happened at the end of the Marr programme. With all the guests sitting together Ruth Kelly predicted that Cameron would be forced to move back to the ‘right’ to which Platell said “Yippee”!
David. Don’t you think condemning Tessa Jowell on a hatchet job of a story in the Sunday Times is a little over the top?
29. Ruth Kelly won’t be so happy if DC’s move to the right includes not supporting her education bill (but well, maybe he would still support it because it’s rightwing enough
29 - It’s outrageous - how could anyone wish to raise questions about a Cabinet Minister signing a document that enabled £350,000 to be brought into the UK that had made it’s way through seven accounts allready.
31. what are the chances to see her as a witness at the process (if Mills will be indicted)?
23. The stupidest question I ever saw in a poll was in the Mail by Yougov. It asked ‘which of the three party leaders wives-Mrs blair, Mrs Howard or Mrs Kennedy was most likely to make you NOT vote for their husband? I emailed Stephen Shakespeare at Yougov to ask him how he justified such a question and he said he had to do what his clients asked but added that less than half the people answered the so they obviously found it as offensive as I had.
re 25 Alex. ICM carried out the usual demographic weightings that all pollster use. They did NOT, as far as I can see from the data, weight their results by the the party allegiance question on page 18 of the spread-sheet.
A quick back of the envelope calculation suggests that if they had used the past vote weightings from their standard polls GB and DC would have been level on the “good PM” question on 34-35% each.
33. Cherie Blair would be my answer.
35. What-Not pretty enough?
36. yawn!
you probably think to be cleverly ironic, but you don’t succeed really well.
37. Mrs Booth-Blair, are you sure you don’t need some spelling lessons?
34. That’s right Mike. Alex - you might want to compare the raw data for this ‘poll’ with that available from the February ICM poll, which is on ICM’s website.
I’ve thought about this before, but does anyone think that one of the reasons why Brown gets good “potential Prime Minister” ratings is that nearly everyone thinks he will be the next Prime Minister?
38. Well answer it in an uniroic way then or people might think you’re shallow.
41. but to arrive in such position you shouldn’t be so bad afterall.
42. “uniroic”? well, maybe it’s time to buy a dictionary…..Roger, before accusing others to be shallow, it would be nice to manage to write down some words in proper English!
Sorry it was a typo.
“non-ironic” or unironic?
45. to answer your question I find Cherie Blair as one of the less classy woman after Camilla.
What do you know of Camilla? I know nothing other than she married HRH.
What’s wrong with Camilla?
48. Not like you to refrain from expressing an opinion in an area where you have limited knowledge, Roger.
The good news for Cameron is that there are significant real elections in only 2 months time. When the Conservatives do very well in them, a few misreported polls are likely to be forgotten.
People also significantly overestimate the importance of newspapers. Newspaper circulation has fallen massively. I know people say newspaper readership is much higher than circulation, but how many of these supposed extra readers really do actually properly read the paper.
We know there are an average of 2 people per household in the UK. So I strongly doubt that a newspaper’s real proper readership is more than double its circulation.
Daily Telegraph circulation is 900,000. So it maximum real readership is 1.8 million - ie just 3% of the population. Its effect on the electorate as a whole is so small as to be almost totally meaningless.
Cameron will know this. He will stick to his guns.
51 - 3% of the population; perhaps 4% of the electorate; perhaps 6% of those who actually vote; and an much larger % of those who vote Tory.
47-Andrea
‘45. to answer your question I find Cherie Blair as one of the less classy woman after Camilla.’
Whilst neither can do anything about their looks,I would put Cherie ahead in terms of vulgarity and money grabbing.
53. I think, considering who her dad is, it could be far far worse.
53. it’s not a “look” thing, her performance at last Labour’s conference was appaling. she looked like a clown!
[51] You are under-estimating Rupert.
The torygraph is getting worse, and talking to itself.
But the Sun…still seriously influential. I talk to Sun readers every day, and the daily drip, drip has massive impact. 24 hour TV news? Not for the man-in-the-street I know.
50,51. If it was just a straw in the wind…but I was listening on the radio before and the commentator said there was murmering going on in the party about the influence of the ‘Notting Hill Set’.
He said he had heard from a ‘Senior Tory MP’ last week that there was resentment about their influence and he felt they spent their time outside their large mansions dreaming up popular gimmicks. He said the rest of the party wasn’t necessarily in tune with this ‘Metropolitan elite’.
Surely they wouldn’t have been sitting outside their large mansions in January!
“53. it’s not a “look” thing, her performance at last Labour’s conference was appaling. she looked like a clown!”
And what did Camilla do to offend?
57.”He said he had heard from a ‘Senior Tory MP’ last week that there was resentment about their influence ”
“senior Tory MP” could be everything: from “I made it up to make my story look more important” to Widdy.
58. ROger, with all due respect, don’t you have realized I’ve no time for you today?
56 - HOW is the Sun “seriously influential”? I doubt if its readers - and I’m not disparaging them at all - buy or read the paper for its political insights or campaigns.
No one knows what the broader impact on public opinion if David Cameron publicly denounced Murdoch’s attempts - as a self-exiled billionaire foreigner - to try and dictate a Britsih political party’s agenda. But I have a feeling that this would strike a positive echo across the spectrum, and be gleefully adopted both by his media rivals and the dear old Beeb, naturally in its purely neutral non-partisan objective way
As I said last night this poll is a disaster for Brown.
Let me repeat that for the hard of thinking -
This Poll Is A Disaster For Brown!!!
If you ask, say, fifty labour supporters and thirty conservative supporters questions comparing each of their leaders you would expect Brown to trounce Cameron every time by twenty points. This is not the case and Cameron is polling extraordinarily well.
Anyone attempting to say that this shows Brown is doing well is doing themselves no favours. When you’re being beaten it’s best to admit it and work out a recovery plan.
Brown is in trouble and, if I was a labour apparatchik, I’d be working out how to get out of this hole quick.
61. One headline-grabbing initiative that might appeal to the Tories would be to restore Test cricket to terrestrial TV. This would have the effect of reminding people what Murdoch actually does with his money,
Sun readers will generally have their views in spite of the Sun editorial line, not because of it.
In addition, I would vote for anyone who takes on Murdoch rather than kowtowing and cosying up to him. If Cameron has the guts to do it I’d say that it would win him votes and, possibly, a majority. Attacking an unelected non British citizen for attempting to have the country run on his lines? A vote winner for sure.
If Murdoch takes against any party or leader what is the other option, ignoring him? That doesn’t work. Bring it out in the open, make him fight and expose the crude and undemocratic tactics.
63. It seems there’re more Lab MPs interested to bring cricket matches back on terrestrial TV thna tory MPs:
http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=28988&SESSION=875
63 - Excellent point as the first ‘populist’ shot. Completely agree with 64 and 65. Go for it, DC, Go !
66. But Labour MPs have no influence over their party’s policy. Only the Tories are in a position to put this on the agenda.
62. excellent.
the sun was very important in 1992 to a tory victory, but since that time, the daily mail has become at least as influential. The Mail is relentless pumping out a clear right wing viewpoint everyday & it’s circulation relative to the sun is up.
The Sun is less important because its editorial particularly around elections is pro labour with reservations, but its tone is right wing and its journalists are right wing, and its agenda is right wing!
Result: Media bound to be much friendlier to the Torys at the next election. Agenda will be right of centre, Cameron maybe perfectly positioned as Brown tries to show he’s not old Labour.
But the fact that 40% think that DC looks like a future Prime Minister is a good sign, when he has only been in the public eye for 3 months? It is also surely more than IDS or Howard earned?
Now I accept that Cameron needs to put some flesh on the bones or at least set out a catchy and understanble framework for our future policies.
That way he can respond to the flip flopping accusation with the line - well my party will make sure all our policies are “local in emphasis, low in regulation etc etc”
69 Chris, I agree to an extent with your second paragraph, but if it could be re-written excluding the words “less”, “with reservations” and “but”. Let’s see…
“The Sun is important because its editorial particularly around elections is pro labour, its tone is right wing and its journalists are right wing, and its agenda is right wing!”
Voila!
The Sun is vitally important because it is read by floating voters. The Mail and Telegraph are not.
71. and at the next election will the sun support a labour leader they may suspect of talking right but governing left or a tory leader talking left and governing right….or will they just toss a coin!
There maybe people who feel strongly about cricket being on terrestrial TV (although strangely (not) most of the politicians on the bandwagon only discovered this after the Ashes). However to extrapolate that into an anti-Murdoch rant is pathetic IMO. It’s not Murdoch’s fault terrestrial stations are not interested in covering cricket properly. It’s only Sky that have been prepared for 10 years to invest in covering England’s overseas tours and in covering county cricket. And now only them who are prepared (well until the others all discovered that there was actually some interest in cricket in this country) to invest in domestic tests and onedayers.
The BBC are particularly culpable in this matter and where the real blame should lie - what has happened to terrestrial sports coverage in this country is almost entirely due to successive heads of sport, obsessed by football, who have paid no interest in giving sport the coverage it deserves. They stick by the mantra that the big national events should be on the national broadcaster, and couldn’t care less for the less commercial meetings that keep sports going.
73 - The Sun aren’t bothered with right or left, they just want a hardline government that keeps the people ‘in their place’. Why do you think they hate anything liberal?
Rebekah Wade and David Blunkett are ‘good friends’. QED.
Some here think it is right to square up to Rupert Murdoch?
DC’s advisers could be soft in the head and still ignore that off-the-wall advice.
All in my opinion, for the sake of Mike’s lawyers…
Murdoch supports those who are most favourable to him. Sadly, doing the right thing is irrelevant. As is doing the Right thing, though that is appreciated. The News of the World ICM poll and the way it is couched makes it clear that right now, he’s for Brown. What interests him to the exclusion of all else is money, and if he can see that Brown will continue with a compliant Government that keeps the populous sedated and willing to throw even more money at Sky TV, then Brown’s his man. This sits very well with New Labour’s “we know best” philosophy.
Can you seriously imagine Murdoch wanting to cosy up with someone who is interested in finding out how best to look after the environment and other important areas and only *then* framing policy? To him, David Cameron is potentially very dangerous. Some of the policy changes might affect the way people think and that must be avoided at all costs, as some of his subscribers might decide that Sky TV is rather like mogadon.
74. The more things Murdoch controls the more powerful he becomes and the more dangerous it is for democracy. Cricket has been well-rewarded for its roll in this process, but that doesn’t make it any more acceptable. I understand the Labour Party is even more cash-strapped than county cricket these days - another obvious outlet for his munificence. Rather than make a direct financial contribution (which would be illegal) he can donate free advertising in his papers such as today’s NOTW. If you can’t see how the whole thing stinks you must have a bad cold.
75 Paul, whatever’s going on? We agree!
79 - Hatred of Murdoch - a core liberal value!
Hello again (yes, nice holiday, kop chai lai lai!)…
I know this is O/T, but I thought I’d let you see this. It’s another To Do list from Blair’s filing cabinet; it just fell into my lap. This one’s his checklist re the Iraq war, I’m not sure of the date, but looking at the fresh new ticks, he’s been re-reading it.
1. Invade a sovereign country (perhaps Iraq?). Check.
2. Make sure this country poses no direct threat to the UK. Check.
3. Do it with a Republican US President and virtually no other international support, thus dividing Europe and the West.
Check.
4. Lie, or at least wildly exagerrate, to the people and the press and the Commons, about the threat posed by this country. Check.
5. Claim there are weapons of mass destruction in this country, as my sole excuse for invading this sovereign country, but then discover there are no actual weapons of mass destruction in this country. At all.
Check!
6. Toally ignore massive opposition from my own party and the public to my war.
Check.
7. Once the war is won, grossly mishandle the aftermath, so that the country is left in a shambles, with looting, followed by widespread terrorism, murders, beheadings, bombings, massacres, and low level civil war. Check.
8. Soil forever the reputation of the US and British armies by asking them to do an impossible job, then throwing up my arms in angst when they themselves resort to torture and beatings, having been brutalised by the unnecessary war I asked them to wage. Check.
9. Try and reinstall some of the hated previous regime in a desperate attempt to put all this right. Check.
10. Screw up the invaded country’s economy. Check.
11. Thereby increase the oil price, endangering the western economy. Check.
13. Increase the likelihood of Britain being attacked by outraged Muslims. Check check check.
14. Radicalise the entire population of the invaded country, so that they vote into power fundamentalist Muslims, this making the country actually more of a threat than it was before, and more inhumane to its women, and more inimical to the West than Saddam Hussein, if that is conceivable.
Check.
15. Get 100 British soldiers and thousands of Americans, and literally tens of thousands of Iraqis killed, for no discernible geopolitical gain whatsoever.
Check.
14. Try and encourage such instability in the country that it begins to topple towards a grotesque civil war, that threatens to engulf the entire region. Check!
15. Despite all the above, despite my personal lies, deceit, evasions, and world class political ineptitude and misjudgement, which will leave my party ashamed, tainted and embittered for a generation, laugh off all the trouble and manage to stay in power due to cowardly and toothless MPs on my own side, and a feeble opposition.
Check.
As we can see he’s doing pretty well.
78 - you really do have an exaggerated idea of cricket’s importance.
As far as I am concerned, the biased weighting (or lack thereof) this poll is based on makes it entirely unworthy of intelligent commentary. It should be quite clear to anyone who thinks about it objectively for two minutes that no pertinent conclusions can be drawn from a load of codswallop like this.
IF the Lizard of Oz is playing at something here, he would do well to remember that Labour (whatever their pretensions) will not be in power forever, and are probably on the downward slope already. Any good businessman understands the importance of hedging where his interests are at stake…
81 - SeanT - that is ridiculous and sounds more like the Independent!
81.
1. even Chamberlain eventually declared war on a sovereign nation
2. you missed the energy crisis reports while you were away..
3. if your going to war make sure it’s with world super-power rather than with luxembourg
4. guilty
5. not sole reason, non-cooperation with inspectors including excluding them from the country just 1 other reason
6. labour luvvies against war…quelle suprise
7. before the war iraq was a kind loving peaceful nation, riiiight
8. soil forever….ok we are now into the realm of hyperbole
9. nope saddam is on trial and his sons are dead
10. was iraq once part of the g-8..missed that
11. leave oil in saddams control…and allow him to continue to threaten neighbouring countries oilfields
12. oh no point 12
ok 13. lets now brand an entire faith..
14.give vote to the great unwashed for 1st time in 50 years..the very idea
15.smile
84 - SeanT is Robert Fisk and I claim Jack W
74 - Have to agree Alex. If it wasn’t for the investment made my Sky then County Cricket would be in a terrible state. Similarly the BBC, ITV, C4 have never shown any inclination to cover club ana provincial rugby whereas Sky at least do put the money in.
Just found a PS from Tony’s list.
16. Strengthen the hand of Iran, by allowing them to interfere in a war-torn Iraq, and making sure America is too scarred by Iraq to want another confrontation. Also try and make Iran more likely to want nukes, if possible.
Check.
17. Persuade a remarkable number of reasonable people, some of them on that website (politicalbetting.com?) that this whole sad, cack-handed, and tragically misguided adventure somehow makes a kind of ’sense’.
Check.
18. Make people like that little-known Cornish novelist, whatsisname, Sean something, hate and revile me because they were stupid enough to believe me when I said ‘we should invade Iraq because of the reports on my desk, if only you knew what I knew’.
Check.
88
against war with iraq but favours by implication war with iran…ok well i agree with you iran next and then blair can retire.
89. Hm…!
You know I feel about Blair/Iraq the way I felt about crop circles. I confess I was once deeply intrigued by crop circles, in the late 80s, and felt there was, here, a genuinely inexplicable phemonenon (and to be fair, the two main crop circle experts at the time had never been successfully hoaxed - or so we thought).
Then, of course, it was revealed that all the circles were made by a couple of beered up Hampshire pensioners - Doug and Dave. I suddenly realised what a dupe I had been. Of course they were bloody hoaxes.
Iraq is the same for me. I wanted to believe Blair and the government on this because I have a residual respect (or I did) for the veracity of the UK Establishment, the government and the top civil service. Also I tend to dislike New Labour luvvies and all those useful idiots - anything they were against I was for, instinctively. Similarly, I am pro-American and eurosceptic, and anything Jacques Chirac thinks is bad is usually good (and it is).
But this time none of my antennae twitched, and the world was turned upside down. Blair really was lying through his teeth. Just blatantly and astonishingly. And he roped in the civil service. MI5 et al were wrong, too. And France and Germany and Harold Pinter were all right, for maybe the first time in history.
The war has been and is a complete geostrategic disaster. Of unparallelled proportions. I know there have been some good things - Saddam on trial, the election, his ghastly sons killed - and there are some very tentative signs of democracy spreading in the mid-East…
But there are much more than tentative signs of violence spreading, and terrorism, and hatred, and despair. It’s shocking, and it’s even more shocking that no one has carried the can. Why can’t Blair just say: OK, I made a terrible error, we all did, and I am going to resign, along with my Cabinet.
At least then we, the people, might regain some respect for the British political elite. Who forced us into this bloody shambles.
Sorry for being so O/T. But likesay I’ve been in the jungle for a fortnight and sometimes when you get back home wider truths hit you with extra force. I’ll shut up now.
90
i think you have been sipping various jungle concoctions..french & german intelligence services reported that iraq had wmd…you are giving blair far, far, far too much credit, he can be persuasive but come on!
Blair recognised Bush was serious about tackling the middle east after 9/11, and he jumped aboard what he thought would be a winning ticket…it, as history has so far proved, to have been a dicey call…more cock-up than conspiracy.
83 I agree your point. Murdoch is really only interested in what he can get out of things. If he is banking on Brown I don’t think he has chosen the right horse this time.
92 - I think you’re right, Marcia. It’ll look good on Big Rupe, won’t it?
91. Well that’s kinda my point - we agree. I don’t think it was a huge conspiracy either - beyond Blair’s putridly casual mendacity (the dodgy dossier, etc). However I do note that some cabinet ministers, like Robin Cook, weren’t taken in by the ‘intelligence’, and somehow managed to work out beforehand that the ‘WMD’ stuff was just crap. How did Cook know that, but not Blair? Was Cook a telepathic genius, or was Blair pulling a fast one and Cook knew it?
But, as you say, let’s give Blair the benefit of the doubt and say he is just a lying incompetent, rather than a devious plotter.
In other words - it is a cock-up. But still: what a cock-up. In terms of cock-up this has to be right up there with Michael Barrymore deciding to have a latenight pool party.
This is, in fact, the cock-up of cock-ups. This is the cockuppiest cock-up in the history of upcocks. It’s a biggie. It’s a fatal and catastrophic error of geopolitical judgement, for which Blair must take most of the blame but his Cabinet also.
And yet they don’t. They sail blithely on while Iraq burns. It’s a funny old world.
I miss Robin Cook.
How does the theory that Huhne’s betting odds have been ‘bought’ by his rich pals square with the fact that more than twice as much cash has been bet on Campbell than on Huhne?
Good to see a lot about Labour on the postings today, gets away from the boring Cons/Lib Dem discussions.
“6. The lumps of Huhne available to lay at 1.8 look very generous. . . by specialbets”
Question: If this were really believed by the poster (who has repeated it here N times) wouldn’t he have gobbled all the bets up by now and be planing to buy Tottenham Hotspur with his winnings?
Blue2win: “Two opinion polls last week have given further grounds for concern. One put the Conservatives three points behind Labour, the same gap as at last year’s general election, while another suggested voters were unsure what Mr Cameron stood for.”
So the voters are 100 percent ‘with’ David Cameron on that one!
Sure, only 3 percent of UK reads the Hellograph - but this includes 80 per cent of Tory MPs and 90 per cent of Tory Party chairmen! I think DC will be riding that bicycle backwards and shooting the traffic lights as he hears the sound of steel being sharpened.
99 - I think that you think too hard, Tony. Do you find that your head hurts?
Re 99 Fair point…but there are probably quite a few people like me who don’t take risks on close calls, even when the odds look generous. Plus I’m already well in the red on Hughes, so reluctant to put more cash into the market.
If Huhne’s own figures have him just 2% up, this confirms my view that Ming is odds-on favourite but far from certain winner. In other words, the odds seem to be about right - just the wrong way around!
Here is an article in today’s Scotland on Sunday - from a friend of Gordon - Captain Beekie
http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=296122006
According to the BBC website results for last General Election are LAB 35.3%, CON 22.1%, LD 22.1% not what is quoted here. Is it a mistake or am I missing something? Thanks.
Well what I meant was LAB 35.3, CON 32.3, LD 22.1!
104. I think that the figures quoted by Mike Smithson are Great Britian figures, while the ones quoted by you are UK figures (so with North Ireland lowering them).
With the Heir to the Throne, giving his unreserved support to Cameron and the new Liberal Conservatives, who needs Murdoch support.
However, I would prefer Murdoch suppport as he knows a winner.
Two charlie boys may not be a succesful combination.
“Cricket has been well-rewarded for its roll in this process, but that doesn’t make it any more acceptable”
The TCCB received derisory offers from terrestrial channels. You can’t blame them for accepting they only serious offer that was made to them.
TCCB? Showing your age a bit there, Sean?
106 - Dez, that is the second time in the past few days that you have asserted that the Prince of Wales is open in his support of David Cameron. What exactly is your proof of this?
As always some very, shall we say, unusual interpretations of this piece. Brown has been in the spotlight for the past 9 years, he has a higher profile than Cameron at present, of course people will opt for the one they know more about. If they did’nt useless MP’s like my local Lib Dem would’nt get elected.
Some very interesting views on ‘all women’ shortlists. I have never heard DC back all women shortlists, but he has made it very clear he believes in everything but. I strongly disagree with any selection which is not based on merit. I hope DC rethinks this approach and simply follows his ideas about ‘head hunting’ the best female candidates.
110 - and an ascertion about ‘charlie boys’, you must be a Labour supporter, all fart and no wind.
109,
Mark Bolland , court case , journals, more to come.
If we had access to all his ministeral lobbying, over the years.
It would become absolutley clear of his position.
As some of the media have said, the public should have access to letters written by him to ministers, because of his privileged postion, has obvious influence.
Many politicians of all parties are frightened to raise the issue, because they are frit to complain about Royal pressure influencing public policy.
He should take an example from his mother, who has been exemplary in her conduct of not been partisan.
112 - Yes, Dez. I watch the news and read the papers as well, and I have yet to see any proof of over support for the Conservative Party from Prince Charles. Again, do you have proof or is this just fallacious conjecture?
“How does the theory that Huhne’s betting odds have been ‘bought’ by his rich pals square with the fact that more than twice as much cash has been bet on Campbell than on Huhne?
by Park Town Boy February 26th, 2006 at 2:40 pm”
Hello Park Town Boy. More money has TRADED (backing and laying) on Campbell as;
1) He has been in the race longer (there was no betting on Huhne earlier in the race.
2) He was odds on earlier in the race for a long time. This means more money is traded. I can explain this further if you like.
3) Do not confuse “traded” with “bet on”. All money on betfair is the matching of two bets -all volume is both a bet FOR, AND a bet against.
4)The reloaded £1000 that gets placed at 1.8 for Huhne discourages trading. Punters assume the bet is placed by someone with superior knowkedge of the outcome. Trading punters that lay bets to trade them will not be able to lay Huhne to make a quick turn back him after at better odds because the 1.8 blocks all movement that their would other wise be in a normal market.
——————————————————-
“6. The lumps of Huhne available to lay at 1.8 look very generous. . . by specialbets”
Question: If this were really believed by the poster (who has repeated it here N times) wouldn’t he have gobbled all the bets up by now and be planing to buy Tottenham Hotspur with his winnings?
by zebidee February 26th, 2006 at 2:56 pm
Hello Zebidee. I am -£5000 on a Huhne or Hughes win. That’s my lot at the moment! If you search on my posts you will see I offered £1k to someone on here who was pro Huhne at 1.78 yesterday. They declined and I so I took out Team Huhne’s £1000 at 1.8 - which was quickly replaced soon after! When I am “Baron Specialbets of Crouch End” I might be able to counteract these schemes personally.
———————————————————
To all. Do people really think that Huhne’s own 1st preference canvass returns of being “between 1 and 2% ahead” justifies his price - a 57% implied probability of his victory? You would need to be VERY confident that Hughes’s 2nd prefs are not in favour or Ming to justify that….As Mike has rightly said a number of times, Ming is the value bet.
http://specialbets.blogspot.com/2006/02/team-huhnes-phone-canvass-shows-they.html
99 Zeb What on earth are you on? And I don’t want any, thanks.
“He should take an example from his mother, who has been exemplary in her conduct of not been partisan.”
In public, no. But none of us has a clue what she gets up to in private chats with Tony Blair and his predeccessors.
112. Btw, a couple of days ago Alistair Campbell launched an attack toward Bollard in The Times:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,6-2057290,00.html
a bitchfight between spin doctors?
Or a doc-fight between spin-bitches?
Mark Bolland has been appallingly disloyal. He and Alastair Campbell deserve each other.
There’s no constitutional precedent that says the Prince of Wales can’t get involved in politics.
118. a spinfight between bitch-doctors?
120 - Indeed not, and I for one find many of his views quite refreshing and sensible, but I am still at a loss to see what proof there is for Dez’s assertions.
110,
No quite,
I am in support of Cameron, as I am very impressed with his postioning of the party.
Nevertheless, I think it would be a mistake, for him to turn turtle and go back to the support of the reactionary right such as yourself.
He should stick to what he is doing and attract new supporters, who are not deferential, to the traditional elite.
A new Liberal Conservatives, looks a winner to me,however he needs to challenge tradition, like Disraeli did with the reform acts of the last century, and modernize Britain, fit for a new century.
119. Alistair, he just married Guy Black…..AC should wait before getting him
Rebekah Wade was the witness
It’s a culture whereby everything in politics is seen throught the prism of binary “party politics” i guess. The journals reveal criticism of the Government ergo he is a Conservative. Not so long ago many had him down as the original Blairite. Blairite before even Blair.
124 - Really?
126. yes, it was in the press. they had their civil partnership in Islington this month.
122,
The whole point of a constitutional monarch or future monarch, is to be above party politics.
By his actions and his scribblings, he could be putting this at risk.
However sensible you think his opinions are should tell you how he is being percieved.
This is where the danger lies, if he is tainted at a Tory Toff only intrested in Fox Hunting, farming, and a cheer leader for the country side alliance, the damage is done.
As he doesn`t seem to be banging on about such subject as the minimum wage for the working poor does he.
What do you think the Princes Trust is all about?
And who said there was any point to a “future monarch”? Anyone in the Royal Family could end up as King/Queen. The point is how they conduct themselves once they ascend the throne. There is zero suggestion that he is getting involved in party politics anyway.
Until very recently the Prince of Wales had a seat in the House of Lords.
128 -As Alex said earlier, it was not so long ago that Prince Charles was thought to have been sympathetic to various left of centre ideas and he famously had several high profile run-ins with Mrs Thatcher over poverty in the inner cities when she was Prime Minister. I think he is a man with a great breadth of very independent and nuanced views, and I see no evidence of any party political leanings at all.
129, 130 - Exactly!
129,
Charity, which is an honourable activity.
However, this still does not give him carte blanche on public policy of the government of the day.
If he wants to do this, he can give up his royal position and become a public figure in his own right, and stand for public office, like Tony Benn did.
132 - The two cases are hardly comparable. Tony Benn was a minor noble; Prince Charles is heir to the Throne.
132,
Yes, that`s the point he should be more discreet.
If he wants to be a sucessful constitutional monarch, with support from all sections of society.
Especially if he does become King, the question of his conduct, and a resurgence of republican views, helped by the Murdoch press will be at its zenith.
128 - I promise you I am not ‘reactionary right’, I’m very much sat in the centre ground my friend! So we are on the same side when it comes to re-allighning the Conservative Party. I can’t see why you though I was a righty from my above posts? I thought disliking New Labour was something most people felt!
134 - My point was that it wouldn’t be as easy to ‘renounce his title and stand for Parliament’ for HRH as it was for Tony Benn. I don’t see where Prince Charles has gone wrong here. He is as entitled to his opinions as anyone else, as long as they are not party political, which they haven’t been.
‘If’ he becomes King? Surely, barring some unforeseen tragedy, you mean ‘when’?
I think you also over-estimate the Lizard’s influence. We’re not about to junk 1000 years of history and tradition, not to mention a perfectly functional system of constitutional government simply because Rupe the Immigrant Republican thinks we should. He can go jump.
136 - That’s my toff!
Floggin’ is too good for ‘im. String ‘im up is what I say.
(PS. I ‘ad that Duke Matlock in me cab…perfect gent ‘e was, tipped wonderful like. (Apologies to Baron Gnome)
137 - Gratified as ever to have your support, John
138 - The usual fiver(grand that is), my Lord
135,
Good Sir,
One thinks you jumped to conclusions regarding my post on the future heir to the throne, and a bit of jesting.
However the instant reaction you gave to Labour Supporters, was uncalled for.
There is a lot to be learned from New Labour, mistakes and succcesses.
My maint point is that I think Cameron is a winner, and his postioning of the party, so New Labour supporters can make the change is well underway.
By challenging the so called traditions of the right, and making them feel welcome, would be more beneficial.
139 - Yes, yes.. Alright.
Good help is so hard to find these days.
139/141. You’re planning a cerimony in Bromley and I claim my 5 wedding hats!
142 - What’s with all this naff music you lot are playing at the Closing Ceremony, Andrea? Can’t we have some more Pavarotti?
A few weeks ago the Telegraph were suggesting that the first thing
Gordon Brown should do if he became PM is call an election. Does
anyone think he would do this? and if he did would he win?.
143. Alistair, the opening cerimony had 70’s and 80’s disco music for the nations parade!
144 - I think if he called an election for blatantly political purposes only half way through the life of the current Parliament, he would be pay an electoral price for it.
131. Accoprding to an article in the Observer of several months ago he has a coterie of five or six advisers who help shape his opinions. Foremost among them is Melanie Phillips Dominic Lawson and Penny Junior. All honest to goodness socialists I’m sure you’ll agree!
147 - An article published in The Observer (hardly known for it’s Monarchist sentiments) recounted and summarised by you, Roger… nothing could be more reliable, I’m sure.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4752106.stm
147 - I imagine that Prince Harry’s advisers are David Irving, Nick Griffin, Lady Renouf, and Martin Webster.
150 - OK, that’s the left wing advisers….
Well if you want my opinion rather than the Observers…..I’d say that Murdoch and Charles have quite a lot in common. both exert influence which is wholly undemocratic. I agree with JohnO that Cameron taking on Murdock would be a master stroke. He’d possibly even get my vote. But to really secure it all he needs to do is to say that after the Queens passing the Royal family will be closed down for good.