Ming backers should check out this Tory poll
February 28th, 2006
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Why I’m sticking with YouGov?
With a sharp move back to Ming Campbell on the Lib Dem betting markets there’s a lot of focus on the one members’ poll that has been published during the campaign - the survey by YouGov commissioned by a rich Huhne supporter.
This showed on first preferences Huhne: 38%: Campbell 34%: Hughes 27%. The run-off figures based on second preferences, eliminating Hughes were Huhne 52%: Campbell 48%.
Much has been made of the fact that the survey was privately commissioned and that the voting intention issue was put last after a series of other questions which it is suggested might have conditioned the response.
When I raised the configuration issue Yougov’s Peter Kellner he responded by pointing to this poll in the Tory leadership contest taken just after the first TV debate.
This was configured in exactly the same way as the Lib Dem survey. After answering a series of questions some of which could be said to “condition” views on David Cameron the Tory members split 68:32 for the younger man. As it turned out Cameron got just under 67% of the votes so this poll, less than four weeks before the ballot closure, came out remarkably well.
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It’s very difficult to argue with YouGov’s remarkable success in this niche polling area and only a fool would bet against them. Even though the Lib Dem poll was privately funded it’s the firm’s reputation that is on the line.
Kellner’s view on the February 9 survey was that the contest was “too close to call”. In the absence of any other hard evidence I share that assessment. It looks like Huhne but the gap is too close to regard it as a certainty.
If you want to make money betting on politics you have to detach yourself from your own desires and try to take an objective view of what is going on. As a Lib Dem member I voted Huhne-Hughes-Campbell in that order. But I have arranged my betting so that I win the same from both Huhne and Campbell victories.
The 0400 prices were Huhne 0.95/1 and Campbell 1.18/1. This seems about right.
Mike Smithson
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it will certainly be a facinating result in this respect. If Huhne wins then Yougov will carry all before it. Even if its a ming win by a few points then they seem the only pollster to have picked up the huhne surge.
its only if its a big ming win then its egg on face time. I must say i read the questions and they didn’t seem that leading. anyway after months of sitting on the sidelines I have finally opened a betfair account! sadly i don’t have any money to put in it till pay day so I will sit out this leadership election. but next week I may take a flutter on the blair swicth project.
you’ve made a gambler out of me!
“It’s very difficult to argue with YouGov’s remarkable success in this niche polling area and only a fool would bet against them.”
That’s fine, but what about the larger YouGov poll conducted at the same showing Ming way ahead - 64% - in Hughes second preferences?
Which YouGov poll should we not bet against?
The one that shows Huhne winning or the one that looks like it shows Ming winning?
It’s all out-of-date anyway. Both polls took place before Question Time. I think that just before that started represented the high point of Huhne’s campaign, and there has been a steady movement against him ever since.
re 2. I would suggest that the later poll is more likely to be accurate. The two surveys followed directly on from each other at a time when the Huhne campaign was starting to attract momentum. The reason that the first poll was not published was because the Ming-backer said to have funded it did not want to give any credence to the fact the Huhne was doing well.
As each day went by during that week in February more Lib Dems returned their ballot papers and for them the election was over. Huhne was surging just as the main voting was taking place.
As to sample sizes the first was 432 the second was 401 which is hardly a major difference.
You might recall that the Jan 7 poll had provisional results based on 280 responses. When the full figures came in with more than 400 respondees the only change on the main figures was a one point drop in Oaten’s share.
What impresses me about YouGov’s Tory poll referred to by Peter Kellner is that this took place four weeks before the ballot closed and got it to within one per cent. The second Lib Dem YouGov poll happened with barely three weeks to go.
My betting position is that I make the same whether it’s Ming or Huhne and that’s how I’m viewing it.
OT. I can’t understand why politicians never learn that we have a cynical press in this country. Mr Cameron’s new paper has predictably been described as drivel. Simon Carr in the Independent has gone further and said little even reaches the level of drivel. The BBC’s correspondent said it was ‘North Korean’ in it’s blandness. Even Norman Tebbit couldn’t argue with it.
Question; Why would an intelligent new leader be prepared to throw away the chance of a reputation for subtance when they have seen the damage ‘eye catching initiatives’ has done to the standing of Tony Blair?
Just because the results of one YouGov poll four weeks out accurately represented the final result, doesn’t mean the same will happen with another. And it would say nothing for YouGov’s credibility if it didn’t. The only thing that would probably affect YouGov’s credibility would be if it turned out Huhne and Hughes were scrapping it out for second, rather than Huhne and Campbell fighting it out for first - since it would suggest that YouGov have failed to reach the armchair vote in their methodology.
5 - this isn’t an eye-catching initiative, Roger. It’s just mood music. It’s very easy to say that this is something that all Conservatives could sign up to, but the point is that the public probably don’t think that they could!
Take the line against the test of Conservative policies being how they affect the poorest in society. The public view is that a substantial number of Conservatives think that the poor brought many of their problems on themselves, and should be given less help (in the context of the welfare state), not more!
No one will read the contents. The only mood music will be a rubbishing in the press and possibly a vague sense that The Tories are aping the values of New Labour/Lib Dems. Neither of which will do them much good. It is well known in advertising that the market leader always benefits disproportionately. Therefore selling center ground policies will do the other two parties more good than it will do for the Conservatives.
William Hague and Michael Howard both understood this. Camerons best bet would be to show HE is different which he was doing reasonably well and hope that people would see Tory values in that light.
Even though the Tory poll might have predicted the win of Cameron, the difference is, that this LD poll was conducted after another one, which is said to have put Ming on the lead. In that case the conditioning would have indeed worked in favour of Huhne.
roger - luckily not that many people any more rely on the Grauniad and the “Indy” for all their news.
Even more OT. I’ll bet Tessa Jowell isn’t in office by the end of the week. Quite loyal to stand by that sleazeball of a husband but what could she have been thinking about! And will she be able to concentrate with her husband in a Milanese jail?
11. Intriguing - so this time Roger you are predicting a minister’s departure. Given your astonishing record as a reverse indicator of actual events, this puts me in a quandry as I was very much of the opinion Jowell would have to go. You do seem to have flip-flopped a bit on this one though - the other day you were loudly condemning the press for doing a ‘hatchet job’ with the story. So this perhaps means I can stick with my initial thoughts on Jowell’s fate.
I though you Tories were in favour of a bit of smart free enterprise? I was against the press trying to use innuendo to implicate her in her husbands affairs. I think this is a question of bad judgement in choice of partner.
Because Roger is usually wrong, it does not follow that he is always wrong.
[7] feels right to me. You only have so many chances as leader of the opposition for air-time, and you can’t afford to waste them. This doesn’t move anything forward, and is neutral at best in terms of ‘mood music’. Because DC is a PR professional, that doesn’t mean he’s error free in that department.
Back to Ming
So on one side we have Mike S (for CH) on the other we have Guido, Specialbets and Jack W (the Ramper).
MC only came back to evens after some serious ramping on here last night - but now he’s on the drift - if CH’s mystery money market manipulator was the only thing keeping his price down why is Ming on the drift ?
The manipulator is pouring money slowly to the market?
Why manipulate now - the votes are all in surely ?
How thrilling to be watching the final hours of a contest that looks set to prove only one thing.
There is no clear front-runner to lead the Lib Dems.
Back to the topic. I have now to chose between Jack W (always right - eventually) and Mike’s judgement. As Mike has cleverly mananged his betting affairs his judgement should be untarnished, though he has voted for Huhne. I would be surprised if the vote is as close as the YouGov poll suggested, but would not be too critical of YouGov if it was wrong. The small sample size, the slightly self selecting nature of the poll, and the distance from the result make it almost meaningless. Jack of course will no doubt, through his sources, have the correct result at 11.30 on Thursday morning.
Until then the poll of PBers on “Who do you think will win?”, though also self selected, is as clear a guide as we are likely to get.
Mike, I think Huhne would be the best person to lead the LibDems. Ming is too old and too close to Brown and Labour. But my money is on Ming as a result of cold calculation.
First the whispered YG#1 poll which we both reported and which I believe is basically on the money:
Ming 44% Huhne 34% Hughes 14%
YG#2 with the leading questions paid for by a Huhne backer :
Huhne 32%, Ming 29%, Simon Hughes 23%, Undecided 16%
The percentages you give (Huhne: 38%: Campbell 34%: Hughes 27%. The run-off figures based on second preferences, eliminating Hughes were Huhne 52%: Campbell 48%.) exclude the 16% undecided - is that wise with only a 3% differential between Huhne and Ming?
Factoring in the second preference for Ming I have switched from a green-on-all-but-Hughes to an all-on-Ming punt at better prices than prevail this morning. I have at one point also been all-on-Huhne. We shall see…
Ultimately it all still comes back to the fact that pollsters don’t have access to parties’ membership lists. The polling companies have spent many years (and presumably large amounts of money) coming up with polling techniques which ensure that they are basing their polls on a representative sample of the electorate. This is why their polls are, by and large, pretty accurate. Obviously, none of this is going to work for internal party elections, where they don’t even know who the electorate are.
We can’t ignore the YouGov poll (it’s still the only concrete evidence we have, however flawed), and the result of the similar poll for the Tory leadership election was impressive, but as Alex says @6, the fact that it happened once doesn’t mean its going to happen again.
Sorry correction : YG#1 was reported Ming 40% Huhne 34% Hughes 24%
Ming: Now almost nothing layed at BF above 1.91.
“How thrilling to be watching the final hours of a contest that looks set to prove only one thing.
“There is no clear front-runner to lead the Lib Dems.”
Indeed, how edifying to know that even arch-Tory sceptic Marcus Wood recognises that we have a choice of three fine candidates.
What a shame that your own contest turned out to have a bunch of non-entities running poor second to a Balloon with a smile drawn on it, eh
Guido - I have been considering whether to go all on Huhne or all on Ming but the evidence is not strong either way. In any case we’ve got another wedding in the family coming up and I could do with a few thousands pounds right now. Taking half a certainty seems an attractive strategy.
Richard F - are you clinically insane?!? The LibDems have a poor choice of candidates on all fronts; at least the Tories had one credible choice.
Sir Ming is too old (”elderly toff”, to quote one Labour MP), Hughes is a swivel-eyed loon and Huhne is a euro-nutcase. I’d be highly surprised if either the Tories or Labour are in the leats bit concerned about any of them.
p.s. Cameron was elected with c67% of the vote and has a commanding majority in the party. The LibDem leader may well have to heal a party split almost down the middle.
Richard F at 24.
“Marcus Wood recognises that we have a choice of three fine candidates”
Correct.
I shall be a very happy bunny whoever you choose.
Mike
We remember that there was a survey. There is a questionmark over the questions (so to speak) - and the comparison with the Tory poll does not settle those doubts. There is a questionmark over the representivity of an online, self selecting survey group - and always will be. The gap between the candidates shown by the second survey was within the margin of error - and it does not make sense to claim that YouGov are capable of being more precise than that (this would be voodoo statistics).
The strongest evidence against a Ming victory seems to be that one poll. The strongest evidence against Huhne seems to be the suspicion that Question Time was not good for him (after the poll) as discussed here.
At these prices I would not back Huhne, and I would be doubtful about sticking more money on Ming. My prediction is that Ming will win comfortably - but there is not a lot of evidence one way or the other.
26. Or indeed split three ways….
There’s a small free money oppy available. - Check pbetting odds comparison. Back Ming at Hills 2.5 lay off on here - free money. PS Hill are only accepting £40 or so online for me..
a 2nd preference leader for a 2nd preference party ?
If Huhne wins marginaly on 2nd preference votes how do Lib dems feel about that ?
To me it seems apropriate and can be viewed either as an example of the Ld’s as’ civilising’ and ‘moderate’ (They get the most democratic result )or as a 2nd preference leader for a 2nd preference party ?
To what extent has this Campaign and its result shown us what the LD’s are about ?
If Hughes or Huhne win after all then poor old Ming will have been effectively dismissed after less than two months on the job.
At least we gave IDS a couple of years.
32
Sorry Marcus, but are you trying to claim that having IDS as leader for 2 years was a good thing… 
30 Hills taken down odds now - doubt we will see 2.50 when they come back.
31. Well in policy terms I would say surprisingly little. I had expected the campaign to see more of a public airing of the debate between Orange Bookers and others seen on this site. In personal terms, aside from the rather tragi-comic stuff about Oaten and Hughes, the real revelation is about Huhne - the figurehead for an entryist campaign by wealthy euro-fanatics to take over the Lib Dems.
Of course there will be no LD splits. They’ll fall in behind whoever wins.
But the big interest in the contest for non-anoraks, and non-betters (approx 95% of the population) is how each would handle a hung parliament. And they have given us a flavour of….well, I’ve seen nothing.
Three modest candidates, with plenty to be modest about?
34/Jan - No sign of Paddies this morning either after taking a big slug of 2.5 Ming last night…
The YouGov poll is a few weeks old. My view is it was correct at the time (and that it was very close) but that QT swung it marginally but by enough to Ming.
From a political point of view I hope Simon wins and from a financial one Ming.
The shortening of MC is more down to ramping than any concrete knowledge. My bet is that many ordinary members (not those who go to the hustings) voted a few days after they’d received their ballot papers.
Like many others I can’t lose whoever wins. But a Huhne victory will provide a good bank for the Cheltenham NH Festival.
Roger, last time I was here you had stalked off pb.com in a girly fit, and tried to kick over the stumps on the way. Now I return from a fortnight abroad to see you back in all your glory.
Welcome back! Really! We need all sorts on this site to make it peppy, even chippy ranters like yerself and libertarian loons like me.
As for the Cameron thing tho, you are 100% wrong, as per. DC isn’t trying to change the world, he’s just switching the muzak in the political supermarket, so people will feel happy when they buy New Tory Washing Powder.
The problem with the Tory brand is the brand, not the product. That’s what Cameron’s changing. And good for him.
Huhne may lose this time - possibly on the redistribution of Hughes’s second preferences - but surely he has the reversion?
re 28. Things might have changed in the past three weeks which is why I’m following a very cautious betting strategy. But Peter - your comments on YouGov simply don’t stand up.
Accurate with the Tory membership to within one per cent in BOTH 2001 and 2005 - that is a pretty impressive record.
I would argue that with the Tory membership profile being much older than the Lib Dems then any tendency for internet poll distortion would be greater with them. This was argued by the David Davis team during last year’s election and we all saw what happened.
The form-book says back YouGov in this form of race.
Hasn’t Huhne revealed himself to be a bit of an Al Gore-style fantasist, claiming his mother played Superman’s mother in the movies - something she herself denies?
Remember Gore’s claim that he was the inspiration for “Love Story” which had the American electorate laughing all the way into the arms of George Bush?
Combined with reports of his aloofness from those that have worked with him and his lack of memory over whether he is a multi-millionaire (I thought he was supposed to be a numbers man?) and you have a leader that the other two parties could elbow aside as an eccentic egotist.
If I were a Lib Dem I would be praying for a Ming victory.
Lennon at 33 - No, I wish we hadn’t elected him at all.
I remember saying to our (very depressed) agent at the 2001 election count at Windsor and Maidenhead ‘this is the low point, don’t worry well be on the way up again soon…’.
A few weeks later, at the very beginning of the leadership election, we had a constituency function on the HoC terrace and several of the contenders came to mingle. IDS spoke and he was utterly awful - I mean toe curling.
We just dismissed him - nobody even considered he was a serious candidate; if I remember we did a straw poll after they had all gone and IDS didn’t get a single vote - out of about 50 members.
Then later - when Portillo was illiminated there came the horrible slow dawning of what we were about to do. Like watching a train crash in slow motion, terrible, catastrophic destruction but somehow inevitable.
I had to say to my (even more depressed) agent when he finally got elected “*This* is the low point, one day we will look back and laugh…”
Whatever the Lib dems do this week they are just not in that much trouble.
None of the candidates are keeping me awake at night but I am not pretending that Lib Dems are about to have an IDS moment of their own.
Re 42 Mike, your strategy is to be commended. Still not quite sure why you’re calling it for Huhne (just). The YouGov poll was effectively a draw. My reading of the rest of the ‘evidence’is it’s just tilting towards Ming.
Marcus, are you throwing your hat in the ring for 2009/2010?
42 I agree that getting to within one percent is very impressive. But the margin of error is larger than that and my understanding of statistics is that the final few percent would just be luck.
43. Yes he will be claiming to have invented the internet next…. In fact some of the stuff doing the rounds about his business career - ‘founder of a rating agency’ and ‘city economist’ are not wholly accurate descriptions of his past. And as already noted those who have worked with him do not rate him highly.
The Tory members’ poll is of course a stunt, but will get them some mildly useful coverage today/tomorrow and when the 95% yes result appears. It really is pretty motherhood stuff: at a glance I can’t see anything that I wouldn’t endorse as someone who has been Labour or further left all my life; nor is there anything that I can see Norman Tebbit strenuously opposing, though he might mutter privately that it’s wet.
Like Cameron’s previous initiatives it shows the strengths and weaknesses of his marketing background - it strengthens both the ‘new improved’ brand image and the sense that they are more about branding than substance. Even Tories on this site are describing it in “soap powder’ terms. It’s arguably a missed opportunity - if he’d included one controversial item (say his opposition to academic selection) then he’d have had a Clause 4-style fight (which he’d have won anyway) and that would generate much more media interest.
11-Roger
‘Even more OT. I’ll bet Tessa Jowell isn’t in office by the end of the week. Quite loyal to stand by that sleazeball of a husband but what could she have been thinking about! And will she be able to concentrate with her husband in a Milanese jail?’
Looks like another of Tony’s cronies is about to be dumped,hopefully we will not have the prolonged foot dragging and delays as with Blunkett.
Seems to be very similar to the last years of the Major government,sleaze,disunity in the party and defeats in parliament.
The only missing ingredient is an economic crash which is only a matter of time despite best efforts to massage and downlplay the economic indicators.
Mike - “The form-book says back YouGov in this form of race” - Which YouGov poll do you give more credence to and why?
What’s your estimate of 1st prefs in YG#1?
43: I think you’re being a bit hard on Al Gore. His much-ridiculed comment that the hero of the movie ‘Love Story’ was modelled on him turned out to be true.
There is nothing in the slightest comparable to the dying days of the Tory administration. firstly this administration isn’t dying and secondly you havent the slightest evidence that Tessa Jowell has behaved sleazily. She has just shown awful judgement in choosing to share her life with a greedy opportunist.
Wotcha NickP. Hope you enjoyed your hols. You are, I fear, factually wrong on the Tebbit reaction to the Cameron rebranding - Tebbit does find it objectionable, indeed he has already come out and denounced DC’s move as a ‘mere marketing exercise’.
Of course, this might all be part of the strategy. Lacking a core issue (like Clause 4) on which to take a stand and thereby demonstrate his New Tory-ness, DC’s best hope for proving that the Tories are New is precisely by antagonising the old right - like Tebbit and Widdy etc. Tebbit and Widdy presumably know this, and are happy to go along with it. The whole thing was probably planned by a brainiac at Central Office.
Then again, I suppose it could be an honest disagreement with no spin or subterfuge. But in this post-Blair post-Iraq spinsational new era I find that very hard to believe.
See what your Tone has done to our discourse! Tut.
53. Indeed…but perhaps as a Labour supporter Roger you can explain the siren-like attraction of NuLab politicians to this kind of highly dubious businessman? This bad judgement thing seems awfully widespread, doesn’t it?
I’m surprised at you SeanT. I would have thought you at least among the tip-toing Tories on this board would have had the the plain speaking capacity to denounce this new initiative for the vacuous tosh it is.
re 51. See comment 4.
On the first poll John Rentoul in the Indy on Sunday a couple of weeks back reported that Ming was five points ahead. It was rumoured to be six.
I’m a party member and I’ve talked to many others in the past weeks and have not noticed any real movement since the polls came out. Most of those I know got their ballots by the end of the second week of February.
What I have observed is little enthusiasm for Ming but a resigned acceptance on the part of his supporters; a big move to Huhne in the first part of the month and Hughes supporters staying solid.
We used to live in Twickenham and still know a number of members there and I’ve been impressed by how much support Huhne has there. This is in spite of the fact that this Vince Cable’s seat and he has been working hard with his members for Ming.
“….She has just shown awful judgement in choosing to share her life with a greedy opportunist.”
But surely she knew he was a lawyer.
“you can explain the siren-like attraction of NuLab politicians to this kind of highly dubious businessman”
Unfortunately I can’t. I just hope that when Mr Brown takes over he uses his good Scottish sense to rid the place of all those who learnt too well the moral lessons of Thatcher
56. As our resident expert on ‘vacuous tosh’ Roger, we can leave that to you.
48. He founded IBCA’s sovereign ratings section.
56 Ohhhhh, yes, Roger, you speak the truth! Only the Tories are going in for that sort of stuff, and there isn’t a man amongst our gallant Labour lot who would spout vaccyus toss or tosh or whatever you call it. I read this piece of brilliance from Flash Gordon yesterday, and it just shows that our thinkers are streets ahead of the bunch of hypocrites that that pinko Cameron has assembled. Read this and weep, Tories:
Founding our constitution on liberty within the law means restricting patronage wherever it is, in any way, arbitrary - at all times building trust by making it clear that government is not the master but truly at the service of British people.
It just goes to show how necessary our new enabling law is! We can’t have Parliament getting in the way of Government for the people! Roll on the next 991 years of Glorious New Labour!
44: Marcus, as a non-partisan, it’s always baffled me why the Tory membership opted for IDS in the first place. He had precious little political experience other than being a member of a cabal of the extreme, the odd and the embittered that humiliated John Major. Surely even the anyone-but-Ken-Clarke considerations would have been put aside to avoid electing a man who, as you say yourself, was glaringly appalling from the outset. Or do you just possess a greater perspicuity regarding dud Conservative leaders than the average armchair member?
52 What about the wretched Gore’s claim to have invented the internet?
Dear Roger, a Labourite accusing someone else of spouting ‘vacuous tosh’ is like Jordan attacking Kate Moss for trading on her cleavage. You guys are the masters of vacuous tosh. As far as anyone can tell, New Labour invented vacuous tosh. In fact, ‘Anthony Lynton Blair’ is an anagram of ‘Vacuous Tosh’ in the political language of Meaningless Drivel, a strange and tedious pidgin spoken by New Labour ministers since 1997.
Cameron is just taking you on at your own game - and sneaking in a few neat little punches of his own at the same time - viz the reference to your party’s ‘ineffective authoritarianism’. Quite so.
63. Those of use who were activists knew in our bones that IDS was an accident waiting to happen and voted for Ken, despite our deep misgivings about his attitude to Europe and undisguised disdain for the party itself. However, the armchair members backed Iain because they saw a man who was a conviction conservative who respected party members and someone, above all, who was sound on Europe and the “Thatcher Legacy”.
This may give us a clue as to why it is so difficult to call the LibDem election, particularly for us Tory posters. These leadership votes are decided by the balance of armchair supporters and committed activists. Unless you have a feel for why people become members or activists in a particular political party, you have no chance of predicting their actions.
63: One of the reasons politics is so enthralling is the ability of an electorate to occasionally make spectacularily odd decisions. Maybe there is a ’stupid gene’ that gets the upper hand in collective decision making sometimes? - I don’t know.
The IDS contest is just such a case, the awful truth is we picked the guy solely because he wasn’t Ken Clarke. We knew in our hearts that IDS was going to be a disaster but nonethless we voted him into the top job anyway.
But Labour did it, too.
Whose idea was it to pit Micheal Foot against Margaret Thatcher?
And the Americans frequently select the worst Presidential candidates imaginable - and sometimes (even by just a few hanging chads and a Bro. who is Governor of Texas) they actually get elected!
Here is a link to the Internet story. Gore comes out of it rather well.
http://www.perkel.com/politics/gore/internet.htm
Al Gore never claimed to have ‘invented the internet’. He claimed to have been involved in it’s invention, which, once again, was actually true!
(This is all part of the interesting tactic, now very widespread in politics, of attacking alledged claims/positions of your opponents which never existed…errr, if you see what i mean…)
Mike, good to see you’re still forecasting a Huhne win. Before last night, the last trend in the Ming betting saw his odds lengthening not long after there’d been a flurry of declarers for Hunne in the election. Yesterday there was a majority of pb.com’ers thinking that Ming would win. Then Jack W came up with calling it in a major way for Ming and the odds moved.
Some of what I was going to write has just been written, it seems, by Baskerville. “These leadership votes are decided by the balance of armchair supporters and committed activists. Unless you have a feel for why people become members or activists in a particular political party, you have no chance of predicting their actions.” And so it goes with secret ballots. Look at Dunfermline. Jack W predicted that Labour would hold Dunfermline with a 1000-1500 majority.
Everyone seems to be talking about armchair members deciding, but what no-one seems to have factored in to that particular part of the equation is that the turnout at the leadership election which elevated Kennedy over Hughes was only approx. 2/3rds. All activists vote.
63: Oops, sorry for the solecism. As every good pedant would have spotted, I wrote ‘perspicuity’ when I meant ‘perspicacity’.
64: Apparently Gore never said he invented the internet, only that he ‘took the initiative in creating the Internet’: i.e. made some landmark speeches advocating funding the technology and so forth. The rest was Republican spin.
[48] Actually Huhne hides his light under a bushel. He WAS the founder of the IBCA rating agency- later merged with Fitch to form Fitch IBCA. I do not know how much he made from this deal, but I would be surprised if he was worth much under £10 million now. He was a very successful financial journalist- and is remembered with great respect by his colleagues at The Economist- who have endorsed him. I voted for Ming, but Huhne is formidable- as we shall soon see, whether as leader or not.
Still think MC will win, and that is not ramping- I think that the prediction competition tells its own story
66. I don’t think that you’re right - a great many activists voted for IDS; it’s far too simplistic to say that those in the know voted Clarke, the armchair lot voted IDS. In fact I would go as far to say that the reverse happened - activists tend to be more ideological, hence more likely to be anti-Clarke. I was Leader of a Conservative Group of 23 Cllrs at the time of the 2001 Leadership election and we did a straw poll at a group meeting; only 4 were voting for Clarke.
None of which answers the question of why the other 19 behaved so idiotically (myself included). All I can say is that the party really had lost it’s way; we were confused, we didn’t know what we stood for and we really did believe that IDS was the best choice…
“When I’m wrong I change my mind. What do you do?”
72. As I understand it - but I may be wrong - he founded IBCA’s sovereign ratings arm (IBCA itself having been founded in 1978). He then went on to become managing director of the whole of Fitch IBCA.
62-Annuitant
‘Founding our constitution on liberty within the law means restricting patronage wherever it is, in any way, arbitrary - at all times building trust by making it clear that government is not the master but truly at the service of British people.’
TB should be reading this as his extension of patronage is unrivalled in modern times ,how many New Labour luvies is it that have bought their places in the house of Lords based on their donations to the party? or being put in charge of the numerous ridiculous New Labour quangos irrespective of their abilities?
68/ Peter, I’ve just read your link re Gore. Absolutely extraordinary. A powerful illustration is that what becomes ‘true’ in politics isn’t the ‘truth’ but that perceived version of the truth put out by one side or other most effectively, and then taken on board by the public.
My favourite more localised example is it took someone as strong as Maggie Thatcher to deal with the Falklands. In fact, it was under her government that the Argintinians received clear signals the UK would give up the Islands by scrapping HMS Endurance. This led to the invasion. Similar sabre rattling by Argintina in the 70’s met with a strong response by Jim Callaghan, and led to the A’s backing down.
Methinks the Huhnies betting strategy which gave enormous wind to his ‘front runner’ momentum story is even more up to date - perceived truth is what matters in this game. Brutal lesson number one in political campaigning almanac!
Ming of course will win on Thursday. Am I indulging in the same game. Perish the thought…….
SAC at 76 re. Falklands - this is utter tosh.
You are as gulty as anyone of re-writing history to suit your own political colour.
Galtieri invaded because his economy was in melt down - nothing to do with decomissioning HMS Endurance.
53-Roger
‘She has shown awful judgement in choosing to share her life with a greedy opportunist’
Just change the gender and youv’e come up with the perfect description of Cherie!
It does seem a little far fetched to suggest that the Argentinian’s were terrified of a converted merchant ship, armed with two helicopters a couple of pea-shooters, that wasn’t even present on a year round basis.
79 - sorry should be ‘and a couple of’.
77 SAC is right, I believe. Ridley went to Argentina to cut a deal and couldn’t sell it back home. Argentina saw the scrapping of Endurance and put two and two together.
I used to work with a lot of gauchos, and always told them their mistake was to send their unimpressive army instead of their ferocious taxi-drivers.
Marcus at 77 - rubbish!
This new initiative from the Conservative Party has obviously come from the same agency that came up with
“Put the freshness back , Do the Shake and Vac”
Selling a product that no one has the slightest requirement for.
Robusticus. He did say ‘I took the initiative in creating the internet’. Most people would reagard that as ridiculous and exaggerated self puffery for which Al Gore is rightly celebrated.
An intriguing letter in to-days Guardian by Michael Foot;
“Jackie Ashley’s brilliant article on Ken Livingstone should be the last word from a democratic point of view. But still a certain Simon Hughes seeks to continue the argument. What slogan did he fight his Bermondsey byelection on? Certainly not a democratic one”
What has Simon said? Surely not proving himself a bad loser by criticizing Ken?
SAC at 76 - you’re absolutely right. I had a very strong premonition just before the time of the withdrawal of the Shackleton that the Falklands would be invaded and that it would be lunacy to withdraw the ship. And even without any premonition, rune-reading that the Foreign Office goes in for would have made it obvious that Galtieri was sabre-rattling big-time. Max at 79 - the Shackleton was an RN ship and as such to take the islands that the Argentinians first went for, South Georgia, would have meant taking them with the risk of armed resistance. Once Shackleton had gone, there was none beyond a lot of penguins.
After taking South Georgia and finding no real problem internationally, it was but a short step to taking the Falklands. So yes, the then Tory Government was at fault and Lord Whatsisname was right when he did the decent thing and resigned.
69: ‘This is all part of the interesting tactic, now very widespread in politics, of attacking alledged claims/positions of your opponents which never existed…’
Very true. Alka Seltzer was doing pretty much that in The Times yesterday (quite possibly at the behest of his mate Gordon) in berating David Cameron for advocating a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, even though whenever I’ve heard Cameron speak on this subject he’s proposed the exact opposite: i.e. not a have a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.
Woops, for Shackleton please read Endurance.
Sorry Peter at 81, you believe wrong. Even the Argentinians agree that it was Galtieri’s attempt to divert attention from 600% inflation and collapsing GDP that prompted the invasion.
The raid was planned well in advance and was timed to coincide with their independance day.
The BBC history website says “The decision to use force instead of diplomacy was taken by Argentina’s brutal military Junta. It hoped to use the nationalist fervour a short successful war would arouse to divert attention from the country’s shattered economy.”
“Mrs Thatcher dismissed advice from defence officials who feared the islands could not be re-taken. She ordered a task force to be assembled to fight a war 8,000 miles away from the British Isles”
Even if Al Gore was an inspiration for one of the Love Story characters, wasn’t it an absolutely preposterous thing to do to try to make political capital out it?
Re. IBCA - their sovereign ratings arm was never taken that seriously by market observers, being seen as pretty amateur compared to Moody’s and S&P. At one point there was a widespread opinion that they tried to get business from sovereign borrowers by giving them flattering ratings. Good for a laugh in this regard is their report on Russia, published not very long before its financial crisis in 1998, which argued the country was ‘too big’ to fail…
87. And Heffer’s attempts (passim) to convince us that Cameron has “ruled out tax cuts”.
Icarus at 83, you’re just twisting words again! .
That advert ran:
“You do the Shake and Vac, you put the freshness back,
Do the Shake and Vac, you put the freshness back.”
Talk about putting the cart before the horse!
What an ad that was… those were the days…
86 - The Endurance was in Stanley at the outbreak of hostilities she hadn’t yet been withdrawn from service. IIRC she was able to land Marines on South Georgia.
Marcus at 89, “…hoped to use the nationalist fervour a short successful war would arouse to divert attention from the country’s shattered economy.”
You were referring to Maggie’s triumphalism, do doubt.
Tim Z, SAC and Peter Pidgeon. Read this synopsis of the Falklands war provided as a resource for a university course:
http://guest.xinet.com/ignacio/polsi342/falklands.html
Ah, back again to the perennial ‘why IDS?’ I’m still not convinced he was the disaster he’s made out to be. Well, actually, I am, but I’m not convinced that the Conservatives would have been any better off under Ken. In 2005 he toned down his approach a lot and only held the party in barely-disguised contempt; in 2001 he didn’t bother with the disguise. The one thing which could have launched UKIP as a serious political force would have been a Conservative Party led by Ken Clarke.
And he would have been removed in a putsch two years later, except it would have been considerably messier than the one that ousted IDS.
I can’t imagine Labour were trembling in their boots at the prospect of Michael Portillo - but I bet they couldn’t believe their luck when the Tory MPs voted him out.
[67] Marcus - surely you haven’t forgotten that Michael Foot was elected by Labour MPs - his (wholly unexpected) majority consisted of those who had already made up their minds to defect to the S.D.P.
Tim Z 92 -Touche!
May also have to admit shortly that the market is still favouring Huhne despite the fact that it would be pointness at this stage for Chris Huhne’s backers to “artificially” keep him as favourite.
MC&CH both evens on BF
95 - Marcus you miss the point. We all know why the junta went to war. Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundral!
My point is the scrapping of the Endurance sent a clear message to Galtieri that the UK would not fight….in the 70’s when yet another Arginitian junta was in trouble the Labour government sent a nuclear submarine to the South Atlantic and made damn sure the world knew about it.
Do you really beleive Galtieri would have invaded if he didn’t think it would be a pushover - as demonstrated by HMS Endurance.
96 Totally agree about Ken Clarke. He would have been an absolute disaster for the party. Michael Portillo would have been too, though.
Ultimately, you need a leader who is not a characterture, which is why Hague, Howard and Ducan-Smith have all been “failed” leaders.
98. they need to keep up appearances
Still, it does look as if they’ve gone for lunch at the moment.
On the Daily Politics Huhne was accused of, and denied, manipulatine betting markets.
The market is flipping again to Ming… here we go…
Anna! “Caricature”. Come on now. You are at Oxford.
95 Thanks, Marcus.
104 Commentator… apologies, the sentence was originally going elsewhere…
Re 9 yes it’s now even money Campbell vs Huhne. best value is laying Hughes…if you have deep pockets. But will there be a rush to get on Campbell pushing him into the odds on territory that Huhne has occupied for so long?
SAC at 100, you are changing your position. You said in your original post that it was a fallacy that it took someone as strong as Thatcher to deal with the Falklands.
It is not.
Galtieri calculated (partly correctly) that the British civil service would be inclined to ‘roll over’ if he invaded. It was Margaret Thatcher who refused the civil service and defence secretary’s advice and insisted on standing up to Galtieri.
So it is correct that “it took someone as strong as Maggie Thatcher to deal with the Falklands.”
Marcus - thanks, but I studied politics and international relations, and have done a fair amount of work on the Falklands crisis.
I note that the piece you link to cites the decision to withdraw Endurance as one of the factors leading to the invasion. But the Ridley negotiaions (with the government “disappearing” thousands of Argentinians) were more important.
109 Peter, the fact that Reagan was advised on the eve of invasion that there was no chance of Argentina invading the islands and therefore did not call the Ambassador to make America’s disapproval plain, might also be a factor.
I agree this poll shouldn’t be ignored, but only a fool would disregard a 5% margin of error.
Ming could still win and YouGov would still be able to claim that, as far as is possible, their poll was accurate. Only a Hughes victory would damage their credibility.
Peter, you are entitled to your view which seems to be based on the (slightly obsessive) highly coloured opinions of Tam Dalyell who never let up on his opposition to everything to do with Mrs Thatcher and the Falklands and iirc wrote a very one-sided book about it in which he makes the claim you repeat about Nick Ridleys 1980 negotiations.
My objection is that in an attempt to re-write history SAC was saying the opposite of the truth.
It took a woman to have the balls to launch the re-taking of the Falklands by force.
110 Anna, there are many factors of course. One of the pieces of British luck was that Haig (Secretary of State) was very pro-British. Someone else in that post might have made things impossible.
110. also reagan was trying to improve relations with anti-communist s.american leaders, even if that meant giving tacit support for dictators….he came through for us in the end however.
As an act of statesmanship and to show how seriously the lib dems are taking the latest sabre rattling from buenos aires ming campbell is rumoured to be sending chris huhne on a 6 months falklands fact-finding mission…
113.Haig was a disaster! Casper Weinberger was our man, and he received a knighthood in recognition
Marcus @ 108. No I’m not. It was on Maggies watch that indications of UK weakness were sent to Galtieri. Callaghn - who had the same civil service sent a nuclear submarine - no invasion. Maggie scrapped Endurance giving a clear message the UK was not prioritising the Falkans - invasion!
The Tories keep burnsihing the idyll that it was only Maggie who stood up to the Argies. This, factually is b/shit.
As to whetehr another government would have launcehed a counter-invasion force; we have no idea. My point all along is it should not have happened in the first place and the key reason it did….well, I’m not going to repeat myself.
For the record, as a Lib Dem, I hold no brief for a Labour government but facts are facts.
Ok - who broke Betfair ?
112 Thank you, Marcus. I never had much tie for Dalyell, though. I thought at the time that it was correct to send a taskforce. I still believe this to be the case.
The Ridley negotiations certainly happened. You will find them reported in Hansard.
113 Our close relations with the US meant the US’s strategic aim of bettering their relations with S. America took a bad seat during the conflict. I don’t think it’s entirely down to luck that a pro-American British administration managed to gain at least tacit American support…
119 We almost always have a pro-American government. We don’t always have a pro-British Secretary of State.
PS: Brazil’s role is also significant, if shadowy.
116 Facts may be facts, but you seem to be confusing them with opinions…
It’s possibly apocryphal but when the Argentine diplomats were trying to get America to prevent Britain invading, the reply apparently was along the lines - “Of all the nations in NATO you managed to attack the most war like…” Any government would have defended British sovereign territory or got kicked out at the ballot box.
119. I always thought that the people involved regarded the French as much more reliable allies than the Americans in that conflict.
O/T - There’s an incredibly stupid column in today’s Times about Ken Livingstone: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,6-2061328,00.html
122. So people would have rushed to elect that staunch defender of national security Michael Foot???
120 One thing to remember Peter, Secretaries of State are not elected in America, but appointed by free choice of the President. It is a pro-Brit president that we need to be thankful for…
Bizarre of the Daily Politics to put out a candidate special the day before polls close…
Ming best at remaining unfazed, although he didn’t get the toughest ride.
BF now has significantly better prices for the forecast than the single (assuming you accept Hughes is 3rd)
The most astounding aspect of the Falklands conflict was Michael Foot’s contribution to the emergency Commons debate on the Saturday following the invasion. Long assumed to be a bit of a pacifist he came out all guns blazing, lambasting the Tories for being supine in the face of fascist aggression. The anti-war party were decimated and Thatcher had carte blanche to retake the islands at any cost.
Lord Carington’s immediate resignation (as Foreign Secretary) after the invasion looks like an admission of culpability, but these events took place against a background of sustained British withdrawal from almost everywhere else. If the Brits were prepared to withdraw from Aden (which really mattered, geopolitically) why would they protect the Falklands (which did not).
122 Precisely why Michael Foot didn’t get elected. The “longest suicide note in history” jibe stuck so well because you couldn’t have trusted that prospective government to defend British interests… or so I’ve always understood…
Have tried to break Betfair many times, alas….
They crashed last night as well. Teething as they upgrade.
Am fully invested and have no more money left to lay Hughes or back Ming.
..but why was the General Belgrano sunk when it was steaming away from the Falklands?? eh? eh? eh?
131 The Belgrano had been given orders to sail on a bearing of 270, not to return to dock. It could turn around just as fast again. The real tragedy of the sinking of the Belgrano was that her escort ships scarpered as soon as she went down. In the storm liferafts we lost and 100s of sailors died.
97 - You are rewriting history. It was the Deputy leadership election between Healey and Benn which is alleged to have had SDP defectors voting for Benn as opposed to Healey. This is a complete myth too. Knowing some of those who did defect I can tell you that such tactics did not occur.
Dont know about breaking Betfair but the falklands war seems to have killed discussion on PB.com!
Indeed.
I see we are back to “straight choice” territory. 1/1 v 1/1.
134 Icarus, on the other thread, why do you think Ming is going to get 46.5% on first round? Is it just latent optimism, or do you know somehting everyone else doesn’t?
136 sorry 46.2… can’t copy…
Isn’t it time we had a thread on the Harborough by-election?
If you believed the Huhne conspiracy theory (which I don’t) there would be a very obvious reason why the markets are moving back now the contest is over.
I think the real reason has to do with the kind of people, weighted by the depth of their pockets, that have access to the betting markets. It is the same reason why the seat markets for the last three elections have always overstated the Tories a long way out.
39 Please give me a rational explanation why you think on average Huhne supporters are much wealthier than Ming supporters
Have you predicted, Jon?
139 Jon, look at the Huhne volume over time graph. The most spikes don’t correspond to anything positive in the news about Huhne; to a certain degree they correspond with negative stories such as the expenses in Brussels saga.
The whole market has been bizarre and erratic. This can be explained by the scarcity of information, but some of the anomalies are ever stranger than would be expected.
140 Goupillon, he only needs one rich supporter to do this. On Guido’s blog he estimates that said supporter is looking at 5 figure losses - that’s sustainable for a millionaire…
Anna - I have spoken to about a dozen Lib Dem members and carried out a telephone canvass to about another 30. My first bet was on Ming the Certainty at 1.48 0n Betfair (1-2 on in old money) - though my average odds are rather better now.
I am baised beyond belief - do not listen to a word I say! But though quite a keen Lib Dem I had hardly heard of Huhne before the contest and am afraid that Hughes didnt seem a credible PM (rather like CK but different if you see what I mean) which with Cameron as the opposition is what I think we need.
[133] History’s not your subject, is it, GA? The Healey/Benn election for the Deputy Leadership was conducted by the electoral college method after the creation of the S.D.P. It was not a Parliamentary Party election.
133 - that’s interesting, I know some who have said that it did…
144 “I am biased beyond belief…” Never mind… Your survey is probably better than Jack’s. Your sample size: 42 - Jack’s sample size: 69,592,483
43 OK but say that person had been a Ming supporter and then the market would have been skewed the other way - I am querying the unfounded suggestion that Huhne’s supporters are richer than Ming’s.
145: Er, that wasn’t me that posted that [133]
148 Having been bored by all candidates within the first week of campiagning, I’m a little sketchy on what each of them stand for… Is Huhne an orange booker, or did I imagine that?
150 Yes he is very much “an orange booker” so I am told.
Re Harborough By Election read some old postings of Riks from the last election - Anyt