Tories 2 points down with YouGov
March 31st, 2006-
But the attacks on Gordon Brown appear to be hitting home
In the first voting intention survey by any pollster since Gordon Brown’s budget nine days ago YouGov’s March survey for the Daily Telegraph has Cameron’s Conservatives and Labour level pegging with the Lib Dems down one point. 
The shares are with changes on the last YouGov poll twelve days ago are CON 36 (-2): LAB 36 (+1): LD 18 (-1). Note that the comparisons are with the last YouGov survey not the February poll in the Daily Telegraph.
These figures are exactly the same as those found by the internet pollster on the day of David Cameron’ election as Tory leader on December 6th 2005.
Tory disappointment at the declining poll share will be partly tempered by the fact that the Cameron-Osborne strategy of focusing their attacks on Gordon Brown appears to be bearing fruit.
In a commentary on the poll under the heading “The Iron Chancellor is starting to look a little rusty” Professor Anthony King notes that Gordon Brown’s ratings are on the decline. “…a year ago, three times as many people thought Mr Brown was doing a better job as Chancellor than Mr Blair was doing as Prime Minister. That gap has now closed from 35 points in Mr Brown’s favour to only 15…In March of last year, 63 per cent of YouGov’s respondents regarded the Chancellor as one of Labour’s assets. The corresponding figure today is only 50 per cent.”
We are now able to start making an assessment of the impact the new leader has had on all three parties since the Tory changeover.
The average of all YouGov polls from September - November 2005 - the three months before Cameron was elected was CON 33%: LAB 38.5%: LD 20%. So compared with the pre-Cameron period the Tories have seen a three point improvement with Labour and the Lib Dems dropping back a couple of points each.
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The change is significant and starts to look quite permanent but is certainly not as great as many Tories had hoped for. It is nowhere nearly enough for the party to win most seats at the next election - never mind having a majority.
If it had not have been for the loans crisis then Labour, surely, could have expected a budget bounce. That has not happened and there must be relief that support is being more than sustained in spite of all the bad publicity.
The problem for David Cameron, of course, is that he’s not been able to capitalise on the issue because his party has operated in a similar manner.
Mike Smithson
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According to today´s Guardian, Blair connot control his ministers. A lame duck premier, or something a bit more dead than that? And even so, Cameron´s Tories cannot make any headway….
Interested to see how the Tory posters see this one. Not what they were hoping for and even Marcus nd RikW might not be able to suggest that it is what they expected. Still all to play for and clearly a return to competitive politics. But no evidence of a precipitate Labour slump or (as I’m sure DC had hoped) an unstopable NuCon rise. Not certain but think Blair had double digit leads after four months….?
2. Well, virtually all of Tory high command has been invisible for the last couple of weeks, presumably to avoid having to answer (or not answer) questions on funding and to focus that issue on Labour. While I can understand that decision, no-one’s going to vote for an absent opposition. There’s certainly no evidence of a Labour slump, but the number of trump cards they have is diminishing and may be down to just one - the economy.
[3] Labour have another trump card - the compulsory ID card
re 2. That’s a ridiculous comparison Laptop. Labour had a 15% ICM lead in the week BEFORE John Smith’s death in 1994. The challenge for the Tories is so much more daunting because they start from such a bad position.
As I write above you have to look at a range of polls over a period and there has been a little Labour slump, a little LD slump and a little Tory increase.
The real Tory success has been the strategy of attacking Brown which is now being shown in the numbers. That he should get such numbers after his budget must be worrying.
I’m doing an analysis of how YouGov compute Lib Dem shares which I’ll be writing about in the next few days. It is not as gloomy for them as it looks.
DC sees his role as re-building confidence in the tory ‘brand’. Nothing more.
He has made a reasonable start. The excellent Roger on here (who works in PR) thinks that it may take 3/5 years. If that were the case, then the progress DC has made is actually rather better than it appears. If he is able to re-build the tory brand (a big if), then it is a long uphill slog. And the benefits will only show slowly. That should provide plenty of time to lose his unattractive shrillness.
The received wisdom is still that govts lose elections, rather than oppositions win them. How will GB look in the Nulab hotseat? Will he make it look more appealing? Will he be sure footed when he has to deal issues like the scammy loans? TB is such a class (political) act, it will be hard for anyone by comparison. Yougov thinks GB may struggle. They could be right.
4 - I still just can’t see how Labour think this thing is going to sustain any sort of popularity. People just will not have time to go for interviews at “their local passport office” (how local is local?).
Perhaps when the party begins standing for something (anything….) and keeps that policy for more than 6 months the polls may begin to improve again.
As a Tory who supported Davis in the leadership election, I always thought the idea that a young smiling well mannered chap was all we needed to win an election.
More or less what I expected is happening. Cameron’s likeability has improved Conservative fortunes and the media is now prone to listen. That’s just a foundation though. If he can build on it, the party will be successful, if he can’t it will be a false dawn.
Very good news on Gordon though.
Morning - last night I erroneusly said I didn’t know anyone involved with the Avondale South by-election.
Got a text at 3:15 this morning but only have figures for the top 3 places. IIRC there are 3 or 4 more candidates
Conservative - 775
Labour - 315
SNP - 221
I don’t know turnout or %age movements but last time round the result was
Conservative - 841
Labour - 557
SNP - 441
Lib Dem - 182
Thats should read
I always thought the idea that a young smiling well mannered chap was all we needed to win an election, was a bit over optimistic
At the risk of sounding like a broken record (there’s an archaic simile, eh?), the poll shows once more that the parties are level pegging and nothing that has happened since the New Year has really changed voting intentions. If you look at all the polls since then, they display random variation around that picture. But FWIW the Tory score is actually 3% down on the last YouGov poll two weeks ago for the S Times (the headline comparison is with last month in the Telegraph), with Labour unchanged.
As a Labour partisan, I feel this is an OK position, since we’ve had the Cameron honeymoon (now clearly starting to wear off), we’re at the bottom of the economic cycle, and press coverage is unusually hostile even by their standards. The Labour General Election vote seems to be holding pretty firm (except, to judge by recent by-elections, in Scotland).
It’s hard to penetrate the Telegraph spin (to get to the poll online you have to wade through three tendentious pieces on the NHS and Brown) but from memory the figures for Gordon Brown are slightly better than the last time similar questions were asked, and he’s seen as a clear asset. The comparisons shown are all with last May, but if you compare with the S Times YouGov poll (accessible via the Anthony Wells link) there has been a 5% rise in Tony Blair’s rating as doing a good job in the last two weeks - haven’t time to do a more detailed point-by-point comparison. (Mike, the Data Point link for YouGov Jan03+ on this page is broken).
Tory posters here have clearly been expecting better and it’s silly to deny it - I’ve lost count of all the predictions of Labour meltdown, Blair being toast, etc. Part of the problem is that the only Tory policy announcements of significance have been U-turns to agree with Labour, while their frankly nasty attacks on Brown are damaging their shiny new ‘nice’ image more than
they’re damaging Brown (whose rating seems to me to rise and fall with opinion on the economy). If you ask most people for a single *positive* reason to vote Tory (as opposed to “getting rid of the other lot”), I think they’d be a bit stumped at the moment.
The budget seems to have been given the thumbs-down, though, whereas last year there was a short-lived budget bounce for Labour (ICM briefly gave Labour an 8% lead, and Yougov a 5% lead IIRC).
The local election results will probably give a small boost to the Conservatives.
Overall, I suspect that David Cameron has won over some leftish voters to the Conservatives, but lost voters on the right, at the same time.
Nick - the Sunday Times poll the weekend before last was C 38: LAB 35: LD 19. My comparisons are with that and the Tory share is two points down. This is confusing because papers like the Telegraph assume that no plls take place except the ones they they themselves commission.
Firstly to credit Osborne and Camerons attacks on Brown for the latters apparent dip to +15% (with 50% thinking he’s doing a good job) is bizarre. What it reflects is that over the last few weeks there have been some problems with NHS funding. infact if anything the fact that Brown still has such a rating with such an uncertain eccopnomic climate shows if anything how little notice voters have taken of them.
After all the sleaze revelations of the last few weeks this must be a disappointing poll for the Conservatives. My theory (which has twice been sensored on here) is that it is a fact that generic advertising always helps the market leader disproportionately. Unfortunately for the Tories (and possibly unfairly) they are the market leaders in this department. So if anyone would lose votes on the issue of cash for titles, party funding etc they are likely to do so disproportionately.
David. If i’m the”excellent Roger” you’re talking about I work in advertising but I did say that to turn a brand round is likely to take that long if you throw enough money at it and your approach is right. John West didn’t manage it in a lot longer than that!
Nick,
I appreciate your desperate rearguard action, I really do. But the fact is that you are going to get the most almighty kicking at the locals, that your party is ripping itself apart over the succession, and that G. Brown is a dour, dislikeable Scot.
You’re going to dump the greatest politician since Thatcher for an utter loser, you’re swapping sunshine for rain, and you are going to lose the next election.
I suspect you know this.
Result of byelection from Exmouth. Sorry not posted earlier but offline due to another computer running the election at Committee Room here.
Town Council - Town Ward (2 vacancies Lib Dems defending)
Steve Gazzard (LD) 599
Ann Raymond (LD) 589
Terry Darvill (Con) 449
Sue Wilson (Con) 411
Turnout 23.2%
A bit of background. This is the town centre and “old Exmouth” ward - one of 5 in the town. In 2003, 5Town Cllrs and 3 District Cllrs were elected in the ward, and last year a County Cllr won in the combined Town and Littleham Division. So it would have been expected (unless the Cameron effect had really taken off!) to be a shoo-in for the Lib Dems. Three things could have militated against that : 1) One of the former LD Cllrs was - technically - disqualified under the 6 month rule, and the other resigned having had an indifferent attendance record 2) Neither of our candidates live in the Ward 3) There has been a high profile issue around the possible development of a supermarket on the Exe Estuary and of a Visitor Centre on open land near the same area. Both have proved controversial in Exmouth, and both Tories and Lib Dems have been blamed by some people publicly. There is in this ward a strong Liberal / Lib Dem, Tory and Labour tradition, and all parties have to fight very hard to win. Many of the Labour voters are not given to tactical voting.
The turnout, under these conditions in a ward with huge multi occupancy, a transient population and many students registered from last year etc was quite good, and speaking from the Lib Dem viewpoint this was a very good result.
Is there any regional breakdown of the Cameron support? There have been rumours that the increase in Tory support is greater in the SE of England than elsewhere. Has anyone any evidence to confirm this?
Early on the polls showed the lift had come from women voters…mostly middle class women at that….again is this still the case?
17 I am campaigning in an SE marginal for the locals and doorstep opinion even in hardcore Lab wards indicates a big, big swing to the Tories.
I feel the vibe on the ground and I am telling you to expect a Labour meltdown at the locals.
[13] Sean, are you sure that your last sentence isn’t a case of post hoc ergo propter hoc? (Or perhaps we could have a comp on how many local by-elections UKIP would have to win in Brent before you’d consider defecting to them
…)
[14] I thought all papers were like the Telegraph in that respect - isn’t it a cardinal rule of print journalism that you write for the only paper there is?
Refering back to prior days discussions:
a) Thank you Marcus for your analysis of your GE result as I requested which resulted in feedback from others also. My apologies for not thanking you before but my day got taken over by real work!
b) Sean, In the discussion we had on Waverley following the Independent’s success in the by election I assumed it was LD controlled (because of the background to the Independents). You were sure it was Tory controlled and made the good point that personal conflicts often out weigh political leanings, so I did assume you were right. I’ve not bothered to check, because I’m not really bothered, but today I saw some campaign literature comparing ‘Lib Dem Waverley Borough Council’ to ‘Conservative Surrey County Council’ in Lib Dem literature.
Are the Lib dems deluding themselves that they run the council or is it really minority Lib Dem controlled?
18 - Which one and are any local factors at play? I suspect you are generally right but it would be interesting to know a little more detail.
12. Not rocket science to work out that the polls show the two main parties as being pretty close. The real question is whether this is an accurate reflection of how people actually intend to vote when given the chance. No real clues here until May’s locals.
Looking at the details of the YouGov poll, there looks to be some very bad news for David Cameron - his net rating is down from +27 to +14 in just a month. A drop of 13 net points is a big drop.
17 My opinion from the council byelection evidence is that the DC lift is being seen most in strong Conservative wards . Many of these are of course in the SE but see also the result in the very safe ward of Stockton recently or even the result last night in Scotland where they did well in the safe seat they held but badly in the other seats . He seems to be appealing to a relatively small proportion of the voters who are naturally the most Conservative anyway .
15 - popular tony unpopular gordon eh?
Was that why in the 2005 campaign blair lost labour about 3% vote share and had to have his normal leading role watered down by upping the prominence of….yes…you guessed it….gordon brown…who was polling better with voters at the time.
You keep clutching onto those silver linings
Nick Palmer seems to be quite insouciant as to Labour’s prospects - but, if I can be just a little mischievous - he also predicted Labour would win Dunfermline and West Fife in the by-election with a 1500 vote majority! I am prepared to predict that the Conservatives will poll around 40% in the local elections and Labour under 30% and that they will sustain the worse local election results since 1992 on May 4th. The dynamics of that situation with regard to the Labour leadership will be impossible to predict but my instinct is that it will be truly horrible for Tony Blair to hold together a fractious and angry party coalition.
Mike - If you look at it from the last Telegraph YouGov poll then both the LibDems and Labour stay as Jan - 18%-36% respectivley. It is the Tories that have dropped 2 from 38% to 36%, no great movement but it is a trend downwards in the last couple of minths.
It could be the honeymoon is coming to an end, the Loans “scandal” or people just getting used to DC face and no longer thinking he’s new and funky(not that he ever really was)
I think the only true test will be the Local Elections. As usual the sitting governemnt will prbably get a kicking, but will it be the Tories that profit from it?
Mike. For the third time you seem to have moderated a post of mine. I’m really at a loss to understand why? I’ll try reposting it losing two lines;
Firstly to credit Osborne and Camerons attacks on Brown for the latters apparent dip to +15% (with 50% thinking he’s doing a good job) is bizarre. What it reflects is that over the last few weeks there have been some problems with NHS funding. infact if anything the fact that Brown still has such a rating with such an uncertain eccopnomic climate shows if anything how little notice voters have taken of them.
After all the sleaze revelations of the last few weeks this must be a disappointing poll for the Conservatives. My theory (which has twice been sensored on here) is that it is a fact that generic advertising always helps the market leader disproportionately. In the public’s mind this is a label which has most often attached itself to the Tory party.
David. If i’m the”excellent Roger” you sarcastically refer to! I work in advertising not PR but I did say that to turn the negatives of a brand round is likely to take that long if you throw enough money at it and your approach is right. John West didn’t manage it in a lot longer than that!
26 - labour to perform badly at the locals is quite an easy prediction to make. But, how worried are you that Cameron, in today’s telegraph poll, gets the same rating as Michael Howard in the “best pm” question, and has dropped by 8 points in a month on the doing a good job question….!?
Summary so far - Camerons effect on our poll is positive, Browns effect on his party is negative, Campbells effect on his party has also been slightly positive.
I am relieved that our figure is still 36% given a couple of polls that saw us drifting back towards the ‘flatline’ zone of 33-35%
As I have said before, there is going to be little chance of a ‘black Wednesday’ poll switch in our favour and our climb to the top is going to be slow and steady - even slower if the economy continues to grow.
I have said before that the acid test for Cameron is not going to be the locals (because there are so many differing interpretations of the results) but the Autumn polls after the conferences season is completed.
28 - Not worried at all. Labour have no alternative to Gordon Brown and he is already seen as shop soiled by many voters. On the other hand, people like David Cameron and with a fully developed and well communicated set of policies, he will make Labour look exhausted and bereft of any vision or ideas for the future, by 2009.
29.”Camerons effect on our poll is positive, Browns effect on his party is negative, Campbells effect on his party has also been slightly positive.”
where did you get the “Brown effect on his party is negative” part from this poll?
26 Stewart J. Skating on thin ice there Stewart. Our very own chamber pot bedecked Rik said that the Lib Dems would perform badly at Dunfermline ! …… and dare we mention Tory predictions on Cheadle and then there was the General Election.
32. JAck, those posts by Stewart Jackson made me realized it’s a long time since the last time I posted a photo of the Venerable Helen!
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41122000/jpg/_41122965_helenclark203.jpg
Andrea, have you read the summary of Prof Anthony Kings comments in Mikes piece at the top?
Most recent polls that have asked the question have suggested that Brown as leader will have a negative effect to some degree on Labour voting intention; the trend is very clear.
Mike. I’m not sure what is wrong but I’ve now had a message moderated fot the fourth time. I’ve rephrased it so many times I’ve just run out of words!
I’ll try something different. Ming is great! Dave is going to make a great PM with Mings help
[29] I agree with you, Marcus, as far as the local election results are concerned - all the parties have got so used to spinning them that they have become what they are supposed to be - local results for local Councils. I am not so sure about opinion polls - I can’t think of a single leader of any Party who has been forced out on the back of opinion polls. The “acid test” surely is still what it always has been - Parliamentary elections, including by-elections.
34. Marcus, I read it and it doesn’t say that he’s having a negative impact on Labour. It just said that his positive figures are down compared to last year.
30
is that paragraph 6 on the tory “lines to take” email.
I think on expectations that the Budget may have provided a poll lift. Not sure looking at last year’s budget is comparing like with like. Last year’s was a pre-election “goodie bag”, whereas this year’s has been a more cautious mid-term “wait and see” kind of effort.
24 - Mark but doing well in safe wards that are part of Westminster/Hollyrood seats you don’t hold is still a positive thing. In any case I very much doubt that the leadership of the Conservative party was top of the voters minds in Avondale.
The poor showing in Stirling is primarily for local reasons - see some of the press the council has been getting - and the drop in vote share in the Glasgow seat was negligible.
I’m surprised Labour did as badly as they did but you have to bare in mind that many of the seats and councils are labour held and run giving much bigger scope for losses. Since 2003 the Libs have only had one seat to defend and the SNP two - compared with a few more for us and a lot more for Labour. The SNP have two seats to defend coming up soon and I’m pretty certain in one of them they won’t do as well as last time out.
33 Andrea. Not long enough …… !!
More on Avondale South -
Independent - 79
Green - 71
Lib Dem - 59
41 - Can someone with more time on their hands work out the %age change?
41 - Is there a special reason why the Lib dems did so badly?
41. Con 50.9%
Lab 20.73%
SNP 14.53%
Ind 5.19%
Green 4.67%
LD 3.88%
44. Changes:
Con +9.2%
Lab -6.77
Snp -7.27
LD -5.12
43 - Yes and this is why it’s difficult to draw many conclusions from these results. The candidate was from East Kilbride - Avondale South is a rural area in and around Strathaven (which is near but not part of EK) and I doubt they’d vote for someone who isn’t local. Labour had the same candidate as last time though.
44&45 - Thanks Andrea, I suspect the local Tories over there will be happy with that as the councillor who died recently was popular and long standing and that can sometimes be hard to replace. In the dark days of ‘95 we came within 19 votes of losing the seat to Labour!
46 - This goes to show the danger of drawing too many conclusions from single local by-elections. There are too many local / personal issues. Our (3 member, elected by thirds) ward has a Tory councillor who has held her seat since the late 1970s (apart from a brief break when she retired in the mid 1990s), despite the Tories never having finished better than 3rd with any other candidate. It’s fairly safe Lib Dem the rest of the time, but anything up to 50% of our vote simply switches to her whenever she stands.
MESSAGE FOR ROGER
Please can you try another email address when you post.
We currently get 50-100 pieces of spam every hour and it has become impossible to go through every item.
I fear that you might have been permanently marked as a spammer. It happened to Nick Palmer a few weeks ago and he solved the problem when he changed his email details.
If you have any further problems drop me an email.
Epson and Ewell-Town ward
LD 438
Resident Associations of E&E 373
Con 205
Lab 102
Turnout 25.6%
LD Hold
http://www.epsom-ewell.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/76CC158E-83BD-4DF1-9FAC-8DA20FBA749E/0/Results30Mar06.pdf
41 Hi Max , Was really just giving a couple of examples to illustrate what I think is a trend . Spoke to an old friend in Glasgow this morning who described to me one of the reasons for the bad Labour results last night as smoker’s revenge . No idea if he anywhere near has a point .
21 (b) I’m willing to be corrected, but I was sure that Waverley was run by Conservatives with Independent support
52. It’s difficult to say because it’s a 3 member ward and it depends on what candidate you look at, but LDs seem down, resident associations up, Con down and Lab almost unchanged
51. Roger permanently marked as spam? classic…
It’s going to be very interesting to see what happens in the Moray bye-election. Last nights Scottish council bye-elctions [which saw the Lib Dems leapfrog the SNP to take a seat off Labour] and the Dunfermline result, suggest that the Lib Dems could have a very strong result, even though they are currently in fourth place.
A collapse in the Labour vote, and softness in the SNP vote [some of their previous vote may well have been personal for Margaret Ewing and could be up for grabs], could well see the Lib Dems catapulted into second place, above the Tories.
It really looks like a problematic contest for the Tories, as it is hard to see them making up a lot of ground on the SNP, yet they start the contest in second place, so have a lot to lose if the Lib Dems keep up their recent exceptional performances in Scotland.
53 - I’d love to think that was the case Mark believe me! I think if there was a smokers revenge it would come in a place like Castlemilk rather than King’s Park which is quite a nice area.
I’m very surprised Labour did so badly and the Lib Dems so well. Glasgow isn’t a particularly badly run council with a 0% rise in Council Tax this year. I know at the Cathcart by-election the local Hospital closure was a big deal but other than that I’m unsure of any local factors.
12 - “At the risk of sounding like a broken record (there’s an archaic simile, eh?),”
Nick - I think you mean a “stuck record” - an even more impenetrable simile for those under thirty!
55 I make it Residents up 9%, Conservatives down 4%, Lib Dems down 3 % and Labour down 2%.
If you exclude Residents and just look at the performance of the three main parties Lib Dems are up 3%, and conservatives 3% and Labour down 1%
57. recent Scotland by-elections results seem a bit mixed for everyone (except for Lab). The LDs had great results, but less spectacular ones too (Livingston for ex). The same thing for SNP and Con. Lab results just tend to be bad!
“It may also owe something to a widespread suspicion that Mr Cameron is not truly representative of the Tory party”
A very strange end line to the piece by Anthony King. There is an implication that if the voters thought the party was like the leader then the Tory vote would be higher. I would argue the other way. It has always been said that Tory policies are popular it’s just the messenger they didn’t like.
The difficulty with accepting Labour’s policies is that it gives no one an incentive to vote Conservative. Cameron is offering New Lab policies with him at the helm! A ridiculous proposition that explains why his personal rating as the best PM has sunk below that of his party to the upper 20’s.
It might also explain why tax cuts as opposed to public spending are less popular than they were at the last election. No-one is selling tax cuts at the moment and this gives a huge boost to Labour who are seen as the market leaders on public spending
If he doesn’t change tack soon it won’t be ructions in the Labour Party that will be excercising the press.
60. taking in consideration just the best result in 2003, I’ve:
LD 574 ,42.17%
Con 305, 22.4%
Residents 333, 24.45%
Lab 149, 10.94%
yesterday was:
LD 39.17%
Resident 33.63%
Con 18.33%
Lab 9.1%
61 - Andrea prior to the last election I thought we’d do better as we had won a number of contests - with particularly good result in Ardrossan (coming from third) and Bothwell South. But the reality is that opposition parties target the individual ward (often seconding full time agents) very hard and Labour simply do not seem to have the people on the ground to counteract it anymore.
I also made the point that the Lib Dems and SNP have had to defend very few seats compared to ourselves (relative to the number we hold) and the Labour Party.
30. Stewart Jackson: “people like David Cameron and with a fully developed and well communicated set of policies”
Yes, when IS he going to get one of those?
63 That is what I had. (I then rounded the figures to the nearest percent))
63/6. Resident Associations candidate stood last time too.
The general election of 1966 was 40 years ago today. For people who like this sort of thing, and have satellite but no social life, the highlights of the election night coverage are on BBC Parliament tonight at 10pm.
How many seats did Labour win in 1966 but never since? I can think of several - Norfolk North, Bedfordshire South, Uxbridge, Chislehurst (!). Any offers?
Buckingham? Won for Labour by Capt. Robert Maxwell? Or was that later?
69. yes, you’re right. Buckingham was Labour in 1966 and then lost to the tories in 1970.
re 62. Roger- good to see you able to post.
I’m currently looking at “Brand Cameron” and its relationship with “Brand Conservative” and there is little doubt that the former has much greater appeal.
The reason why Cameron does so well in Cameron-Brown voting intention comparisons is that the Tories get a boost ranging from 1-6% if the question includes reference to him rather than just his party.
Whether this will be sustained I do not know but his “brand” is measurably better at the moment.
My reading of the latest polls is that various events have kept Cameron out of the news so that those surveyed are not linking him with the Tory party in the same way.
69 - Yes indeed. Although the Buckingham constituency then covered what is now Milton Keynes (Bletchley and Wolverton) so you can argue that the MK seats were successors to the Buckingham seat that was Labour in 1964-70.
There’s Bosworth too, which sent Woodrow Wyatt to Parliament for Labour in 1966 (though that also covered places in what is now Leics NW).
Some in North Wales perhaps?
69/70 - I had heard Buckingham had radically different boundaries in those days though (did it take in Milton Keynes until it grew too big?)
69. Correct, it was Maxwell. Labour were within 120 votes of winning Norfolk Sth, too.
72 - Ah, our posts crossed. Yes, that’s what I though on Buckingham.
75 - Those rural Norfolk seats have changed hugely in character with the decline in significance of heavily unionised agricultural labour. Labour’s North Norfolk MP was, I think, leader of the NFU or at least a very significant figure. The South Norfolk Labour vote is still remarkably resiliant given that they are nowhere on the district council.
There is one, and only one, over-riding reason why labour have kept a relatively high poll percentage at the moment. This is that Cameron is being positive towards Blair. The demolition job of Brown can only be successfully gauged when he gains power, everything else is the warm up act.
There are two difficulties with this; that Blair keeps going and that he starts to improve his image. Are any of these looking likely? I think not.
If I was Cameron I’d stop the nicely-nicely approach now, use the ammunition which is being stored up, go for Blair’s jugular and hasten his departure so that we can get to the real, not the phoney, war,
54 I’ve contacted a local. Here is my understanding of what happened and the current situation in Waverley. It might not be correct - I’m just passing it on.
The political views of the new independent isn’t known, but she asked the LDs and Lab to stand down so she could have a straight fight with the Tories and used the same type of posters as the other Indies used in the Counties (LD diamonds with same black strip, but with white rather than Orange backgrounds). The other Indies are ex LDs who have fallen out badly with the party really over personal rather than politic issues.
Waverley is LD controlled, but mainly because that control has never been challenged. The Indies are truely independent but generally vote with the LDs (this can not be relied upon and isn’t 100%) and the Tories don’t usually muster a full team for health reasons, therefore the LDs maintain a majority although they are actually short by 1.
76. Rushcliffe is another interesting Labour gain from 1966…won back in ‘70 and held since by Ken Clarke.
In my part of the world it’s intriguing to see how strong the Labour vote was in places like Taunton, Truro, Westbury, Bridgwater, and Yeovil - they were within 2-3k of winning these seats. Now, they are a bad third in all of them except Bridgwater and are in danger of slipping to third there as well.
79 - They were third in Bridgwater until last year - a rare example of an overall improvement in share and position between 1997 and 2005.
Re: 79 - I also believe Labour were only 1,500 votes short of winning Newbury. I believe (and again I stand to be corrected) that Labour won 48% of the vote nationally and the Conservatives 42% which just goes to show how much the duopoly has been broken in the past 40 years - at that rate, they’ll only poll 50% between them in 2046 !!
The YouGov poll, while interesting, only really shows moves within the statistical margin of error. The 36-36-19 split (with variations) is about where we’ve been for some time (small blips and dips notwithstanding). The LDs seem becalmed at or around 20% but the Tories have still to break and sustain a poll rating of 40% while Labour flirts around 35%. However, as I said on a previous thread, there’s a very long way to go.
I suspect May will as much be about the inability or unwillingness of Labour voters to come out and back the Party outside a GE. I suspect good Tory and LD results but with turnout depressed, it will be the cast that two more committed minorities come out and votw while the apathetic majority doesn’t bother. Again, those aiming to build GE landslides on their Party making spectacular gains should remember that
79 I disagree re Bridgewater. In recent history Labour have been consistently 3rd in Bridgewater and this has been a top LD target. Last time the LDs were pushed into 3rd and miles away from winning it so I would say this was an excellent recovery by Labour so I don’t see the trend here.
I have to say, without any local knowledge, I don’t understand this result, but you can’t say there is a trend in one direction when the actual opposite happened in the last election.
82 Bridgewater is next to Taunton. I imagine activists headed in that direction.
79 - Rushcliffe, quite right. Although I think quite a lot of 1966 Rushcliffe ended up in Broxtowe.
It is interesting to see Labour near misses of 1966, as Fred notes the West Country has a lot of interesting ones, including even Cornwall. The Labour vote plunged in these places between 1966 and Feb 1974 and never recovered. I think it was a sort of submerged Liberal vote in some cases, hence the emergence by 1974 of places like Newbury, Truro, Hereford as Liberal targets.
83 I would go along with that especially after so many attempts at Bridgewater and the fight necessary in Taunton. If true it paid off, better 1 win and a bad loss than 2 close 2nds.
79 By the way I was only disagreeing with the Bridgewater analysis not the rest.
76 - You’re right - for some reason the LD’s have never managed to squeeze the Labour vote in South in the way that they succeeded in doing in the North. I thought when John McGregor stood down that that was the golden opportunity but it never happened. Richard Bacon was mocked in the Guardian this week for some inconsequential question he raised in the House about the regularity of polishing of brass lift fittings in the Commons or something similar; perhaps South Norfolk LD’s can get the cutting into a Focus leaflet.
Labour are very resilient in Bridgewater. I think it was once part of the old Somerset coalfield, which probably explains why there was always a big Labour vote in the seat (even if always outvoted by the Conservative elements), and why that tradition of Labour voting has been maintained.
I think Labour even held onto Bridgewater Town Council in 1968.
#77 - The only problem with that strategy is that it is unremittingly negative, and that hasn’t done the Tories much good in the last couple of elections. There’s still plenty of time until the next General election, and though I’m by no means a Tory, I can appreciate that Cameron is holding his nerve and playing this game to the timescale of the next general election - not the next set of opinion poll figures.
His first priority is to establish a positive image for the Tories. The policy overhaul is part of this and would be intended to give people positive reasons to vote Tory. The next stage will be to go negative - once Brown is PM. They are already laying the groundwork for that by attacking Brown at every opportunity.
In the meantime they are being quite cuddly with Blair, which is also possibly shrewd inthe long term. People are unlikely to remember the details in a few years time, but they might have the impression that Cameron was a more reliable ally for Blair than Brown [and people in the Blair camp are helping Cameron with this by suggesting Brown is trying to sabotage Blair!].
Consequently, once Blair has gone, people may well start to get a bit nostalgic for Blair as PM, and Cameron’s past association with him will help him then when he attacks Brown. Blair did something similar by appearing to embrace Thatcher [in a political sense!]. This all makes it much easier for the Sun, et al, to switch their support, if the new ‘apple in their eye’, agrees with them over their past support for Blair/Thatcher.
The main challenge for Cameron would, I thought, be in overcoming the antipathy towards the Tories exemplified by widespread anti-Tory tactical voting. It’s therefore important for his strategy for them to be able to keep their powder dry for as long as possible.
This then raises the issue of who benefits from Blair remaining in office [apart from Blair, obviously]? Assuming that Blair does not do a U-turn and decide to fight the next election, we know that he has to go at some point, so his relative poll numbers compared to Brown are irrelevant.
I think it is in Cameron’s interests for Blair to stay for at least another 12-18 months, to give Cameron the time and space to create a positive image for the Tories. If Blair were to go now, and Brown was PM within a few months - by the time of the Labour conference - then Cameron would be pitched too quickly into the negative trench warfare of opposing everything that Brown did. It would make it much harder for him to project a opsitive image of the Conservatives.
This reminds me of the Bush campaign in 2000. Bush concentrated hard on creating the “Compassionate Conservative” image, whilst also mananging to “define” Gore as a Patrician geek and remorselessly attack him. However, the ‘attack’ doesn’t work unless you have something to fall back on - which was his cuddly conservative image [2004 was a bit different as Bush effectively only had his incumbency to fall back on].
87 And Labour hold 3 out of 4 County Council Divisions for Bridgewater.
77 - I realise that Cameron is playing the long game, personally I’d get too frustrated. Regarding being negative, the policy reviews seem to have been timed to happen at the time that Blair was expected to go, his dying swan act has happened a lot earlier than expected though which puts a spanner in the works; without the positives of the policy reviews can they afford to go negative before that? Tough call.
I agree with your analysis pretty much completely, I just wonder if ‘events’ will make it difficult to sustain.
90 - Was a reply to 88 not 77!
88 Timothy I don’t think that the Tories can hope for anything similar to the PR confusion that Al Gore managed to create.
In the 2000 campaign, Al Gore managed to look like a split personality with his team first attempting to make him look more “Southern,” then trying to brand him as an alpha male… It was a gift to the Republican’s strategy team!
89 Labour hold 3 out of 4 of the County Council seats in the town of Bridgwater but there are others in the parliamentary constituency outside Bridgwater itself .
Certainly, Mark. As I said, even when Labour support was at its highest, the Conservative elements were always able to outvote it. But it’s interesting to see a seat in a part of the World which is poor for Labour, but where the Labour vote has remained pretty solid.
Re the tory position, Shailesh Vara looking rather uncomfortable and rattled on the Politics Show just now. It’s strange - Labour and the Libdems to an extent seem “teflon”. I think it’s the old saying “it’s the economy….”
87 That is interesting. I heard a Radio 4 programme on the Somerset coalminers the other day. It was the first time I had actually heard there had been coal mines in Somerset and still had no idea where exactly they were. The miners were apparently very tough because of the type of mining necessary. After they closed a number went elsewhere to mine and they found the work easy (relative I appreciate!) compared to the Somerset mines because of the larger coal seams.
BTW, Bullseye has been hit by a bit of unpleasant coverage in the local papers (basically, a very similar episode to Chris Bryant’s one). While this couldn’t have come at a worse time politically, I very much hope the episode doesn’t hurt him in May (or beyond) and is soon forgotten.
I think the Somerset coalfield was more round Radstock, south of Bath. This made Frome labour way way back.
I know a lot of the old coalfield comes into the present Wansdyke constituency.
96: I don’t know about Bridgwater and mining, but Wansdyke/ North Somerset was a coalfield. There was a Frome constituency that voted Labour in 1929. The residual Labour culture of places like Midsomer Norton and Radstock helps Labour win Wansdyke, but it’s a diminishing asset, as it was in the Forest of Dean.
Midsomer Norton wouldn’t feature in the detective series - it’s not exactly beautiful and is rather a tough place. I remember a friend who lived in Bath saying that in the 1970s people came into town on Friday nights from the outlying villages like Radstock and had big cider-fuelled fights in the streets!
80. 82. Thanks gents I did indeed get it a bit wrong re. Bridgewater - the Lib Dems were second there in 1992-2001. I wonder if another reason for the relatively poor Lib Dem showing last year was that forthcoming boundary changes are going to make it a hopeless target. Fanatically Tory wards from Exmoor are coming in to the constituency from Taunton and on my estimates will make the new Bridgewater & West Somerset seat one of the safest in the SW for the Tories, with a 10k or so majority.
Sounds very much like Labour’s old NAUW farmworker vote in East Anglia, which is leaving a diminisihing trace.
re 92. Wasn’t a spoof bumper sticker produced during the 2000 White House Race stating “GAYS FOR GORE AND GUN CONTROL” ?
79,82,etc
The damage for the Lib Dems started a few years ago I think. Candidate change was a factor I think - the candidate who stood v successfully in 1997 tried for Yeovil when Paddy stood down, was not elected, and someone else stood in 2001. The very marginal situation from 1997 went into sharp decline. I know that the list of LD ethnic minority candidates in 2005 included Bridgwater, so (and I don’t know the situation or either the 2001 or 2005 candidate at all) I had wondered whether a degree of racism had been involved.
Sean Fear is right to speak of Labour resilience there and you only have to have a cursory acquaintance with “Bridgy” to see why that might be. And some of the rural areas thereabouts are VERY Tory - Tom King used to have massive majorities there!
100. Lewis - having lived in Bath in the mid-1980s I can confirm such incidents were still common then. Bridgewater has very rough reputation locally as well.
Fred
Bridgwater without the ‘e’!
OT but…
What about this scenario…
Police investigation gets REALLY bad for both parties. Blair resigns. Cameron is then either left as the corrupt leader who won’t resign (Labour: “Our leader did the honorable thing and resigned, why do the Tories stick with theirs”), losing forever his ‘clean’, ‘fresh’ image and with it, any chance of him reforming the Tories’ image OR has to resign himself, setting the Tory Modernisers back for another generation.
88- thoughtfull analysis, seems plausible to me.
Its important to stick with the ‘broad plan’ and Id have thought Cameron will be whatever it is.
Another issue is how ‘events’ are used in conjunction with ‘the plan’,this to me is where the arguments start.
For example Cameron has been given Jowelgate, loans for lordship’s and Lab Rebellion, have he and his team taken the right aproach in backing off?
After all, personal attacks on Brown is pretty easy but how is team Cameron managing the cards its being dealt ?
Especially when they seem to run against ‘the plan’
106. Apologies for that…
Labour byelection defeats in Scotland
Press Association
Friday March 31, 2006
Labour suffered two landslide byelection defeats in Scotland and lost its overall majority on Stirling council.
The defeats at the hands of Liberal Democrats and the SNP piles on the agony for the party north of border after two losses in February.
It also follows Lib Dems’ triumph in the Dunfermline and Fife West Commons contest.
The win by the SNP’s Scott Farmer at Borestone gives his party a foothold on Stirling council. Labour now has 11 councillors - with the provost’s casting vote - and Tories 10.
Article continues
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——————————————————————————–
Candidate Margot Clark took the Lib Dems to victory from fourth place in 2003 at Kings Park, Glasgow.
The increased Tory majority in their Avondale South enclave at South Lanarkshire highlighted an ominous trend for Labour.
So far this year it has lost five seats - including Dunfermline - with swings ranging from 8% to more than 19% to whichever party the voters think is the most promising challenger locally.
In the Moray Scottish parliament byelection, announced for April 27, it already starts in third place.
However there was better news for it in England at Nottinghamshire’s Mansfield District where candidate Keith Beastall recovered the Forest Town West seat of a former Labour member who became a “people’s councillor” after a row over the method of paying the party subscription.
Analysis of 18 comparable results during March suggests a projected 5.7% nationwide Tory leader over Labour.
A calculation based on 15 three-way contests gives a line-up of Con 37.6%, Lab 30.4%, Lib Dem 26.0%.
This would indicate an advance for Lib Dems in the May main polls, limited overall gains for Tories and net losses for Labour.
Results
Epsom and Ewell Borough - Town: Lib Dem 438, Residents 373, Con 205, Lab 102. (May 2003 - Three seats Lib Dem 574, 564, 548, Residents Association 333, Con 305, Residents 292, 288, Con 280, 277, Lab 149, 145, 139). Lib Dem hold. Swing 0.1% Lib Dem to Con.
Glasgow City - King’s Park: Lib Dem 572, Lab 472, SNP 431, C 222, Scottish Socialist party 44, Green 38, Ind 23. (May 2003 - Lab 1117, SNP 609, Con 355, Lib Dem 254, Ind 249). Lib Dem gain from Lab. Swing 19.4% Lab to Lib Dem.
Mansfield District - Forest Town West: Lab 365, Lib Dem 197, Green 187, Con 175, Ind 43. (May 2003 - Three seats Lab 472, Ind 452, Lab 429, Ind 401, Lab 389, Green 341, Con 316, 305, 304). Lab gain from People’s Councillor. Swing 5.7% Con to Lab.
South Lanarkshire Council - Avondale South: Con 775, Lab 315, SNP 221, Ind 79, Green 71, Lib Dem 59. (May 2003 - Con 843, Lab 557, SNP 441, Lib Dem 182). Con hold. Swing 8% Lab to Con.
Stirling Council - Borestone: SNP 374, Lab 335, Lib Dem 165, Con 57. (May 2003 - Lab 613, SNP 268, Con 141, Lib Dem 96, Scottish Socialist party 86). SNP gain from Lab. Swing 16.3% Lab to SNP.
Mansfield is really a Labour hold - and a good result for Lib Dems.
I’m getting very bored of this loans for peerages row now. It’s not exactly playing the game in the spirit it was intended, and thinking up new rules only to immediately come up with new ways to circumvent them seems a bit daft, but is anyone actually doing anything illegal? Surely with the half-finished House of Lords reform as it is, the Prime Minister can appoint whoever he likes (subject to the ‘fit and proper person’ test)? And is this really any worse than - say - parachuting Shaun Woodward into St. Helens?
It doesn’t look wonderful, but I can’t see how anyone’s going to look too bad out of this.
65 - Richard F - It is my understanding that various senior party members are currently looking in to specific areas. As soon as this is complete we shall have a set of good policies. Although I’m not sure of a time frame, I am secure in the knowledge that he is not rushing anything. I think it’s important to get things right.
103 Mike - I hadn’t seen that bumper sticker! Did you ever see the footage of Gore kissing his wife during the “Alpha Male” stage of campaigning? The poor woman clearly wasn’t expecting it…
Roger: changing my email address didn’t stop me being moderated - what worked is deleting my website entry (which doesn’t seem to appear anyway). So the spam check seems to be treating people who indicate a website as intrinsically suspicious, and perhaps frequent posters who do that all the more so.
Stewart Jackson: hello, colleague, nice to see someone else in our line of work willing to say who they are! You’re right, I sometimes make predictions that are wrong - unless one doesn’t make predictions at all, c’est la vie. For the record, I do expect the locals to be bad for Labour, but as others have said above the national polls are of more interest to MPs, and they seem to me OK for us at this stage.
I don’t myself think that it’s effective to embrace Labour policies while attacking Brown personally. The first has the subtext “we’re nice and new and yet not so different” and the second says “we’re tough and mean and we can’t stand that so-and-so”: however much you try to separate the two bits, they run into each other. But hey, keep doing whatever you’re doing that’s not working.
114 Mr Palmer: If someone has a website entered then when you click on their name it takes you through to the website. eg click on Peter Pigeon at 110.
Back to the poll, and does anyone else think that 10% for “others” is unrealistic?
As to the lack of “Budget bounce”, how do you know there hasn’t been a bounce? It might have been Tory 39%, Lab 34% etc otherwise. Although the Budget didn’t get a brilliant press it was “steady as she goes” with no notable tax increases and the axing of the £200 OAP bribe didn’t get anything like the coverage I expected - so maybe it has lifted the Labour vote after all?
Stewart J,
Did you get a response to your question about Ruth Turner?
BBC and Telegraph reporting today that Blair aides are saying he’ll be gone by year end.
My money is on September (as is Iain Dale’s dosh).
107 - If that really did happen Cameron’s defence surely would be that he wasn’t leader at the time of any of these loans and therefore didn’t know about them until now.
97.”BTW, Bullseye has been hit by a bit of unpleasant coverage in the local papers (basically, a very similar episode to Chris Bryant’s one). While this couldn’t have come at a worse time politically, I very much hope the episode doesn’t hurt him in May (or beyond) and is soon forgotten. ”
well, Bryant increased his majority, so it could be a vote-winner.
But it certainly could be unpleasant for the people involved.
Anyway, I’m amazed by how many gaydar users are so politically experts to spot MPs and councillors!
117 - Guido - answer at:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/cm060329/text/60329w26.htm#60329w26.html_spmin0 or on http://www.TheyWorkForYou.com
if you can’t be bothered, it was “None”!
107: Labour: “Our leader did the honourable thing and resigned, why do the Tories stick with theirs”
Well, if Tony Blair had to quit in disgrace having been caught selling parliamentary seats to the highest bidder, it would be one of the greatest political scandals in history, and I can’t imagine even Alistair Campbell having the gall to go on Channel Four News and say, ‘Ya know, Tony made a mistake – as we all do – and he’s done the honourable thing and resigned. So let’s draw a line under it. But the real question now is for David Cameron and the Tories…’
On second thoughts, perhaps he’d do just that.
116 most of those surveyed regarded the budget as being unfair.
“Anyway, I’m amazed by how many gaydar users are so politically experts to spot MPs and councillors!”
I’m not amazed at all.
116 Bob S. As I said last night 10% for “Others” is well within the margin of error and “Others” have reached that figure or close to it in some recent polls.
The figure that should give cause for concern to the Tories is the 13% loss in Cameroons net rating from 27% - 14%. It’s possible it’s an accentuated statisical glitch. On the other hand it may be that that the more the public see of the Tory leader the more they are less impressed.
Certainly Cameroon cannot continue to leak numbers like that, especially if the project is to succeed.
114 Nick P. Now that we have a Tory MP and a Labour MP out of the PB closet ….. I think I’ll encourage one of the two Lib Dem closeteers to open the door ……. step forward $*&^”£ (*!:@)(.
123. Sean, do you think you can find more people with knowladge of MPs/Councillors on gaydar than eleswhere?
July would be by far the best time for him to go. It avoids the need for a special conference, and avoids being a lame duck at the Despatch Box.
125 Without a doubt.
Cookie, the reason why nobody should be ‘bored’ of ‘loans for lordships’ is that a) ‘boredom; would have allowed for more tory sleaze so why should they be treated any differently and b) the little matter of the potential criminality involved.
I should think its got a month or two to run yet, and that’s if nothing is found. If there are more questions to answer it could last a lot longer than that.
On Bridgwater I am pretty sure it was outside the coal area - it was more known for manufacturing brick and so on and at one time as a shipping and later canal hub. Tim is right that there was a very strong Lib Dem candidate at one time whom they lost. Sean is also right that Bridgwater town itself has a very strong Labour tradition and tend to think as a general point it is easier to hold up your vote if you know exactly where it is and have a bit of a fiefdom somewhere - it is all a bit dispiriting if you have to trek over a vast area to find little pockets of support, and that is when you are most vulnerable to squeeze.
Something completely different on the local elections in London, I couldn’t help noticing, after reading that high quality newspaper that is Lib Dem News, on a section about Richmond it was asking helpers to call a ‘Michael Wilson’. I wonder whether this could possibly be the same Michael Wilson who was the Liberal Democrats agent for the general election in Torridge and West Devon - if it is, well, I’m glad their in capable hands ;D
97 - Yes, with the title “A very liberal democrat”.
I agree with him, that it is his private matter, and he has been open about his sexuality. However, I think that if he wanted to show what kind of body he has, it might have beenwise to leave his face out from the picture, given that he is quite well-known in Lambeth.
I hope also, that this doesn’t hurt him in the election. Does anybody know if his ward has a large gay vote? In that case it might even boost him.
119, 125 - Gaydar is a very popular site among gays - that means that also many of the politically aware gays use it.
132. but I think you’ve to be unlucky to meet them among all users!
Interesting You Gov poll. The headline figures don’t tell us much but the personal numbers are v.interesting as Jack W states. A 13% fall in DC’s approval ratings is not good news even if a lot of it is just people unable to make their mind up on DC yet. I notice that GB seems to be on a slow downward trend as well. I don’t think people like the idea of an anointed leader in waiting. I think GB needs to get a mandate to become PM in some sort of labour party election. I don’t think a coronation would be popular.
I do think DC and the Tory party are getting boxed in a lot at the moment. They aren’t helped by a more fair-minded (perhaps biased) media that applies the same standards to the opposition as to government something noticeably lacking over Maastricht and the ERM in the early 90s when labour u-turns went unnoticed. It is also a credit to New Labour that they refuse to serve up obvious left-wing dross (most is well-diguised or found in obscure areas like company law) with the exception of Northern Ireland which makes opposition hard.
However I do think DC is in danger of getting boxed in too much and is waiting too long for policies. He should have opposed the education bill on the basis that it did not go far enough and sought to undermine TB. He should also be arguing for tax cuts rather than waving a pathetic white flag on the issue.
I do though accept to a degree that he has landed some tricky cards. The whole loans row is difficult for the Tories because of what happened under Howard. Likewise ID cards are not an easy issue, as the vast bulk of the public seem to think they are a good thing.
132 - the trafic is very busy in Gaydar, so I would say that you’ve to be lucky not to meet them among all user. Especially given that gays seem to be politically more active than the average population.
Anyway, Outrage and Pink News have defend Bullseye, so maybe he will even benefit from this (in the case that there’s a large gay vote in his ward. I know there are a lot of gays in Vauxhall, but I don’t know about his ward.)
135. Are Lambeth councillors so famous?
I think people will forget this story soon. if he had been a good councillor, it won’t have any impact IMO.
In terms of ratings the drop in Gordon Brown’s ratings is much worse than A