Are Lib Dem voters still being loyal to Gordon?
October 31st, 2006
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Will today’s YouGov data give a better pointer to tactical voting?
Detailed data from the October YouGov poll for the Daily Telegraph, due out sometime today, should provide an indication of how tactical voting might impact on the next General Election.
The poll, it will be recalled had a CON 46% - Lab 33% split to the question “If you had to choose, which would you prefer to see after the next election, a Conservative Government led by David Cameron or a Labour Government led by Gordon Brown?”. What poll watchers will be looking at is how the Lib Dem voters in the survey responded and the detailed data should provide the answer.
Two months after Cameron had been elected Tory leader, in February, the Lib Dems responded CON 22% - LAB 52% when asked this forced question. By June, when the question was asked again, Lib Dem voters were still overwhelmingly with Labour and split CON 28% - LAB 48%. In August this had moved to CON 35% - LAB 44%.
Could today’s figures show that the two main parties were nearer to level-pegging? Given the way the top-line figures have moved then there is a good chance that this might have happened.
I regard this as quite important because one of the factors that has given Labour more seats for its vote share has been anti-Tory tactical voting. This happened again in 2005 where Labour incumbents in Lab-Con marginals performed better than the party generally - a sign, it’s suggested, of Lib Dems and others switching to stop the Tories.
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If there are signs that anti-Tory tactical voting might not happen on the same scale then the seat predictors could be giving an over-optimistic view of Labour’s position.
Anthony Wells of UK Polling Report has now posted full list of polling responses to the question since since the famous 2003 survey that had Iain Duncan Smith trailing Tony Blair by just 3%.
UPDATE 10am: The YouGov data has now been published and the Lib Dems in the sample split CON 36-LAB 42 on the question “If you had to choose, which would you prefer to see after the next election, a Conservative Government led by David Cameron or a Labour Government led by Gordon Brown?”.
Mike Smithson
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The photo prompts me to ask what happens if Cameron’s hair recedes further before the election. Will the “baldies can’t win” subcommittee of the 1922 mount a coup?
Moving closer to the topic, if the stereotypes are valid (and I’m not sure they are) then surely LibDem supporters will be paying particularly close attention to the green tax issue. If so, it is hard to guess which way they will jump till both Labour and Conservative proposals are nailed down.
For the moment, I suspect the polls are correct and the LibDem support is as it is. We can expect it to be bolstered come the election by what are effectively protest votes (and recently we have observed that BNP votes in council elections are high where the LibDems do not stand, leaving protest votes no other home). So if Cameron has neutralised anti-Tory sentiment, and if Brown neutralises the Iraq and “civil liberties” issues (ie if these are held against Blair rather than Labour generally) then we can expect Labour to perform better, Tories worse, and LibDems the same as the polls now show. But that is a lot of if’s!
Mike, thanks for the link to polling report. Most encouraging when you glance down the list and see the numbers moving from red to blue like that. It rather puts DC’s appeal in perspective.
Mike. I think that it is very unfair of you to publish pictures of David Cameron and Gordon Brown just as they are both about to pass wind. That is the only explanation I can think of for the looks on their faces. For the sake of balance what about Ming doing the same thing?
I have rather a lot of experience of fighting Liberals and the one thing you can say about them (voters and activists alike) is that they are highly duplicitous. You can seldom believe a word they tell you when you canvass them - and I wonder whether the same doesn’t go for when they are polled for this kind of survey. Whatever they tell Yougov, I doubt it’s very meaningful.
Off topic for a moment, I see my (rather innocent) comments yesterday caused some stir and Labour’s old-fashioned class warriors were out in force.
I would have thought it was obvious that I was not talking about bloodlines or Eton or suchlike. Rather I was making a specific reference to David Cameron’s political and social hinterland and how it prepares him so much better than Brown for Government.
Indeed I recall I was even magnanimous enough to point out that - whatever his other faults and my disagreement with his policies - the current Prime Minister also came well-prepared for the challenges of leading our country.
Just like Blair, Cameron has real experience of dealing with people at the most senior levels and - unlike Brown - the ability to work with them constructively. His upbringing means he is not constrained by an inferiority complex or excessive self-doubt.
My thesis is that the enormous chip on Brown’s shoulder clouds his judgement and would make him and unstable and ineffective leader. Judging by the comments from Labour posters here yesterday his attitude is widely shared within the Labour party.
The key to being hailed as a strong leader is perhaps not breeding but a large majority in the Commons.
Eleanor, I reckon you are another tongue in cheek person, here to wind some folk up.
Aye David, but whose cheeks?
Which most senior people has Chamereon ever ‘got on with’?
Gordon Brown may be dour, dull as dishwater but he has one thing going for him. He is not a narcissistic Blair-Chamereon - hence what he says he may actually be true once in a while.
2
> … recently we have observed that BNP votes in council
> elections are high where the LibDems do not stand, leaving
> protest votes no other home …
re 8. Truth from GB! Like his explanation of what went on when Tom Watson visited his house on the day before September’s coup, or his declaration during the World Cup that he was an England fan.
I think the attempt to change this figure is the centre of the Cameron strategy - if he can get tactical unwind he hardly needs any swing to demolish Labour.
Mike, don’t forget that Gazza’s goal against Scotland in Euro ‘96 is one of Brown’s “favourite sporting memories”.
Mike - re. the contention in your article that Labour incumbents in Lab-Con marginals did better than the party generally: couldn’t this just be due to Labour targeting its resources more heavily at marginal seats rather than tactical voting?
6-By historical standards TB’s present majority is large, yet no one would characterise him at present of being a strong leader, all the opposite in fact.
10 Mike re ‘truth and GB’ - I did say ‘once in a while’ !!!
14 Peter, I would say that Blair is a ’strong leader’ of a pathetically weak Party. Let’s face it, the Tories (or even Lib Dems) would have knifed him long before now if he had been their ‘boss’. He gets away with ‘murder’ on an almost daily basis.
Another excellent caption picture Mike …… taken I presume as news filters through that Tony Blair has been knocked over by a Clapham omnibus driven by a certain Ms. C Short !!
…………………….
13 PM. Tories target too. IMO tactical voting saved around 2 dozen Labour seats at the GE.
The Liberal Democrats moved at the last General Election into second place in a far larger number of Labour seats than ever before, so in many places it will be them and not the Tories who will be the main challangers to Labour.
13. Indeed they do, Jack W as the tally of gains versus the small rise in vote share showed. Have you got any evidence for your view or is it just a hunch?
A good article and classy photoss. But I would treat anything YouGov says with great suspicion.
5 Duplicitous? I wonder if the real gulf is not between parties but between political activists and voters. But I shall be happy to assure any Tory canvassers that care to call that I shall not be voting for them.
18 PM. IIRC the polling showed the Lib Dem voters split 2/1 Lab/Con at the GE in those marginals. Then look at the number of sub 2,000 Lab majs.
O/T, but:
Judging from today’s headlines over Labour’s proposals for “Green taxes”, it would seem to be a massive masterstroke from Cameron. It banging on and on about environmentalism himself, he has panicked Labour into coming up with a set of proposals which, contrary to those parties not in government, is reported simply as “new taxes”. So not only does he put the final nail into any pretence from Labour that it is not a “big tax” party, but he also bounces the government into undertaking the majority of actual tax-related reform, sparing the next Conservative government from the inevitable unpopularity of them amongst “real people”. At the same time, he has assured the chattering classes, the only people who would be prepared to pay them happily, that he is “sound” on such matters. This kind of thing is, collectively and over the long term, election winning. Can there be any doubters out there that think the Conservatives will not at the very least be the largest party after the next General Election?
10: Interesting to see a degree of personal antipathy to GB, Mike - I’ve often suspected it but you’ve hitherto maintained that you’re just reporting the facts as shown by the polls?
Eleanor: “My thesis is that the enormous chip on Brown’s shoulder clouds his judgement and would make him and unstable and ineffective leader. Judging by the comments from Labour posters here yesterday his attitude is widely shared within the Labour party.” Humph! Shan’t bother to defend you next time.
5 Eleanor (assuming your posts aren’t a spoof!)
You have catagorised around 20% of the electorate as highly duplicitous. That is very nice of you. The vast majority of them are not even political - just ordinary people who make a choice on election day. But we now know they are a bunch of liars.
Nice of you to throw that insult at me also (after all I am a LD) before I’ve even woken up and having never even spoken to you.
Also it is good to see that the theme I have been complaining of over the last few days is still present in your post. That is people criticise your comments yesterday and therefore you dismiss them Socialist rather than argue the point.
The fact that many who reacted (including the first I think) were Conservatives, Lib Dems and others is neither here nor there. Just ignore the facts.
The BBC reports: SNP leader Alex Salmond said: “Even if the government wins it by a narrow margin - which I think is the reality - then [Tony Blair] would be in a Neville Chamberlain situation where you win the battle but lose the war.”
I know Dear Alex likes to bend the reality to his own victimhood phlosophy, but that is ridiculous.
25. Although the SNP has a certain degree of form with regard to politically and morally bankrupt Labour governments!
17 : For your information
Where Labour is first, the party in second place is as follows
Con - 220
LD - 99
Where Tories are first, the party in 2nd is:
Lab - 128
LD - 85
Where LD are 1st, party in 2nd is:
Con - 42
Lab - 17
The ones missing are where a different party is in second place.
PS - And those are on the notional new boundaries
Andrea, look to your laurels
From the blue side, I’d quite like to disassociate myself from Eleanor’s ‘Lib Dem voters are duplicitous’ statement. I know how annoying it is when people on the left tar all Tory voters with those characteristics that they find most unpleasant.
Besides, I’m not sure it’s true - I know a few Lib Dem voters, and none of them strike me as duplicitous.
Maybe there’s a point that Lib Dem voters are maybe likely to be less committed - so more likely to change their minds, or less likely to care what they so to other parties activists? Maybe that’s the point? Though I’ve no evidence to tell whether this is actually the case.
23 Mike has a position on GB and will make money if he loses the leadership election. I have long maintained, and this is entirely without impugning Mike’s integrity in any way, that if you are financially invested in the success or failure of anything - be it a person or a football team - it will cloud your judgement. That said, I totally agree with Mike’s ongoing assesment of GB, but I am a Conservative activist.
Just to clarify: I don’t in any way suggest that Mike or other posters are “talking up their book”. I think the relationship is more subtle and is subconscious, ie “I’ve bet on this guy” gives an internal incentive to fit facts to support that position - they must have been hugely convinced of it in the first place to bet on it, and it’s hard for any person to admit they were fundamentally mistaken. But the relationship is nonetheless very real.
30 I wasn’t offended myself. I have always wanted to shave off my beard take off my sandals, put on a blue rosette, and canvass a couple of streets a second time. I imagine that a lot of those people who squirm and tell you they enjoy the newsletters would then happily say that they have always been Tories.
[5] Eleanor- what an evil sense of irony you have
Of course Blair as a junior lawyer and Cameron as a PR merchant were rubbing up against the very finest figures in Britain: criminals and coke fiends…
So when is the Yougov poll due out?
Might I commend snowflake5’s blog on Adam Smith, especially the final paragraph. http://snowflake5.blogspot.com/2006/10/adam-smith-to-grace-20-note.html
I’m not sure your point about Labour incumbents is correct, Mike. The Labour vote fell on average by 7% in seats where the Tories were second (compared to 6% overall), and the Tories gained about 12 seats more than they would have done on a uniform national swing.
Certainly, Labour benefitted from tactical voting in 2005, but to a smaller extent than in either 2001 or 1997.
36. If it was up to GB he put himself on the front and the back.
Those of us gathered to listen to the chief economist’s conclusion that we could not afford to delay for a decade tackling climate change caught ourselves thinking back 18 years to when Margaret Thatcher became the first leader to grasp what climate change would mean to the world ….. we fell to musing what had actually changed between Mrs Thatcher saying we had begun “a massive experiment with the system of the planet itself” and Gordon Brown saying: “The scientific evidence is now clear.”
30. Of course there is a simple explanation that many people who are canvassed just politely want to say ‘it is none of your business’ by saying ‘I haven’t made up my mind yet’.
I live in a strong Tory area, where the LDs are the challengers. We find this with a lot of Tory voters (confirmed by supplementary questions or comparing results to canvas returns). I assume the reverse happens when Tories canvas LD voters.
The worst canvassers are those not trained to spot this so mark many incorrectly as ‘Undecided’. Candidates are often the worst at canvassing as they will often get a posiive smile as it is even harder for a nice person to say sorry I’m not voting for you, particularly if it is very local and everyone is well known.
This isn’t duplicity. It is being politely told to go away.
27. What notionals did you use?
Looking at the LD figures, there’re more than 17 seats with Lab second: Oxford East, Rochdale, Withington, Bristol West, Leeds NW, Hornsey, Yardley, Chesterfield, Camborne and Redruth, Dunbartonshire East, Inverness and co, Cambridge, Argyll and Bute, Cardiff Central, Southwark North and Bermondsey, Caithness Sutherland and Easter Ross, Gordon, Ross Skye and Lochaber, Orkney and Shetland….+Dunfermline after the byelection
It really makes little difference if you mark people as “Undecided” or “Against”. There’s no point calling on them on polling day.
21. & 37. I just looked at the top 50 or so ‘near misses’ for the Tories in 2005, where the Lab majority was less than 3000. The average vote share changes were Tory +1.4, Lab -5.8, Lib Dem +3.2, compared to GB wide share changes of Tory +0.5, Lab -5.8, Lib +3.8. In the ultra marginals with majorities less than 1000, the vote share changes were Tory +2.2, Lab -6.6, Lib Dem +3.3.
So there is not much evidence here that the Labour vote held up better in these tight contests overall. The difference in the change in Lib Dem vote is very small, so not much evidence of TV either.
polls, three years to go blah blah
Re the tactical voting debate, what we don’t know is the situation with UKIP/BNP at the time of the next GE, this is another variable to put into the pot. There could be marginals that will be unfluenced by a forth, or even fifth party vote. It may be they will only attract a few hundred votes in each seat, but that could be crucial!
UPDATE 10am: The YouGov data has now been published and the Lib Dems in the sample split CON 36-LAB 42 on the question “If you had to choose, which would you prefer to see after the next election, a Conservative Government led by David Cameron or a Labour Government led by Gordon Brown?”.
43 Yes, although if you were to compare such seats with the results in 1992, you would see a below average Lib Dem vote increase, I think.
Contrary to the view of Lord Ashcroft, I think the Conservatives’ targetting strategy worked fairly well in 2005.
44 Undoubtedly so. Overall, I think the BNP tend to draw votes roughly equally from Conservatives and Labour, but in individual constituencies, it’s clear they draw their support disproportionately from one or other party.
UKIP draw their support disproportionately from the Conservatives, but the Greens and Respect draw theirs disproportionately from Labour and Lib Dems.
45. So a 9 point differential is now a 6, and down from 13 at the last GE ?
48 Sorry 30 !
45 So “Yes” is the short answer to the thread question posed. The Lib-Lab is still a wildcard.
RE 45 Mike Smithson so a slight shift to the Conservatives but nothing major or outside of the MoE then.
42. I agree with that Sean, but there are other uses other than knock up eg deciding on targeted literature, deciding whether to abandon a target or put more resources into it, etc. There are obviously some Antis that are pretty clear! However there are a huge number who won’t say who tend to overwhelm the other figures. My view is that the majority are either not going to vote or vote for your opponent (so you are right). A small number really haven’t made up their mind and an even smaller number are going to vote for you, but won’t tell you because it is a secret poll.
The worst are those that tell eveyone they are going to vote for them, usually to get rid of the canvasser not realising they are going to be knocked up endlessly. I’ve gone to give someone a lift only to find the opposition turning up at the same time to do the same thing. Embarrassment all round.
Of course the tactics depend upon whether you need to turn voters or get your vote out. As I have normally been involved in campaigns where we are trying to turn Tory voters our priority is different to the Tories who have been ensuring they get the vote out. Of course we both do both, but there is a different in focus.
41 - The ones provided on UK Elect!
I’ll give you the 2005 boundary figures, to compare
Labour 1st, party in 2nd is
Tory - 221 (-1 with notional boundaries)
LD - 104 (-5)
Con 1st, party in 2nd is
Lab - 115 (-22)
LD - 83 (+2)
LD 1st, party in 2nd is:
Con - 43 (-1)
Lab - 18 (-1)
I’m not sure if these include the by-elections since the 05 election, but they should give you a rough idea of how many seats the LDs are in second in
I wouldn’t say that LibDems voters are dishonest in anyway, because any good canvassers knows that people who say:
“Don’t worry, I’ll vote”
“I make my mind up on polling day”
“We’ll see”
“I’m reading the leaflets”
all vote LibDem. I’d rather people be honest (and say, “go away eveil Tory scum” or the like) but this is the real world.
Another good way of flushing out the voting intention of non-Tories is to ask this follow up question after they have said that they are not voting Conservative: “So, you’re sticking with Blair’s lot then?” - a Labour voter says yes, a LibDem will choke on his/her museli. That way the canvass becomes more accurate than just putting down “against”. Try it … it works!
“The worst are those that tell eveyone they are going to vote for them, usually to get rid of the canvasser not realising they are going to be knocked up endlessly.”
That is frustratingly common among Indian voters, who are just being polite. In Fryent, in May, we supposedly had 2,300 pledges, but in reality I’d say it was nearer 1,600.
Overall, I don’t think it is very common, though.
46 Sean “Contrary to the view of Lord Ashcroft, I think the Conservatives’ targetting strategy worked fairly well in 2005.”
I agree. Previous elections - hopeless. 2005 good. Guildford and SW Surrey were a big improvement sadly!
51 - -18% when cameron first came to power, to +13% now is a big shift!
Sean - it all come down to how confident the canvasser is on putting a C or P down on the card. I only use C for an out-and-out Tory voter who declares undying love for the party. If a voter says yes but seems unsure on the doorstep then it is either a P or a case for recanvassing later?
53.Ah, I used the Anthony Wells’ estimations of notional results.
(btw, did UKElects produce their own version of notional results?)
47. Yes - talking up green issues might be a very clever plan indeed. It may not only attract some middle class softies to the Tories, but also push some green-minded lefties toward the Greens and away from Labour and the Lib Dems.
I once worked on a computer program, calculating energy demand re temperature. Simple you would think, if temp=10 deg c demand would be x and would always be x if temp=10 deg c. No lots of other factors had then to be taken into account WCF (wind chill factor) solar induction a 10 deg c sunny day less demand, (MF) misery factor, Q factor (insulation) and so on and so on. Trying to forecast a GE result as we move further and further away from two party politics is getting to be a little like that.
54. Anthony - made me laugh as of course we get exactly the same replies (but of course from different voters) and know they will vote Conservatives. They are classic stock replies.
And your suggestion is on what to do to flush out the uncommitted is so true as well. I wasn’t going to say it as I didn’t want to give it away - but you have done so now. A slight improvement is to weigh up what you think they will vote (gut reaction) and make a delieberately positive comment the other way (so you will be voting….) to get a reaction. Suddently a ‘Don’t know’ becomes very clear!
And yes I would prefer people be honest, but they are after all only being (annoyingly) polite.
59 - I couldn’t say, sorry
Do we think tonight’s Iraq vote could affect the Blair switch market on Betfair?
kjh - of course I expect LibDem and Labour canvassers up and down the country fume about secret Tory voters who won’t admit to it! Am glad you use the trust-test as well! Having spoken at length to my council labour counterparts, it does seem that on the whole Tory and Labour voters are more out-and-proud. Anacdotal evidence suggests that it is LibDem voters who are the most “slippery” in canvassing terms. I’d be interested to know other people’s views.
55: Yes, generalising as naturally there are exceptions, but I find Asian-born voters almost invariably polite. I have never been told to sod off so nicely by so many people as when I was working in the Leicester South by-election. It was genuinely touching to see people bent on voting Libdem or Respect over the war, yet anxious not to hurt my feelings: “I am so sorry, but on this occasion…” I wish everyone was like that!
Eleanor’s comment “I would have thought it was obvious that I was not talking about bloodlines or Eton or suchlike. Rather I was making a specific reference to David Cameron’s political and social hinterland and how it prepares him so much better than Brown for Government”.
Unbelievable.
Cameron - a special advisor to Norman Lamont and then a PR man at Carlton.
Brown - 10 years as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
63. Ok, thanks anyway
The row numbers of second places are probably more or less what you said (+/- a couple of seats depending on the estimations)
Btw, I note the Sun headline about today’s vote: “Blair’s fury over Tory traitors”
I suppose today’s big questions are: -will Gorgeous George show up? -Who will Clare sit next to?
64 - No. I wish it would, but in reality it won’t make a jot of difference.
RE 66, Nick Palmer, it is nice to know some people are polite
67. Read PB.com for clockwork Labour supporters! wind them up, and off they go!
70 In my limited experience on the doorstep, the vast majority are polite (at least 20-1). And most of the “Mr Mad”s are entertaining rather than nasty. If you do meet a nutter - that’s always good pub talk.
Can vassing is certainly a hard thing to do, but when you’re into it can be great. Doesn’t it underline how few people most people get to know properly in the course of everyday life and how many parallel worlds exist around us.
I used to actually enjoy canvassing. The only things that annoyed me were:
1. Gross indifference
2. Pit bull terriers
3. Lifts that smell of urine
65. Anthony My experience has been mostly shy Tories when canvassing by a long way, but to be honest my sample is so unrepresentive as to be meanlingless as with the exception of Leicester South I have generally been canvassing in Tory/LD fights so I’m not experiencing many Labour voters and obviously because I’m canvassing for LDs the response from LDs/Tories will be hugely biased.
Without evidence to the contrary I would not have assumed any difference between voters.
I really hate canvassing because of the few occassions when people are nasty which really isn’t necessary. I am thin skinned. However I have had a number of truely entertaining experiences. Once while canvassing a note was marked on the card to indicate to the canvasser that the response at a particular house might not be pleasant. I decided to go for it anyway and it was ok. I then canvassed the next house and a very pleasant lady responded ‘I’m terribly sorry but I will be voting Conservative’ I was so relieved at the nice response I responded ‘Its ok at least you were very nice about it’ To which with a broad grin she told me ‘OK Sod off then’.
Ditto to what Antony says at 54 on flushing out non-Tory voting intentions. I always find a smile and a “You’re a Labour chap then?” gets people to either say yes (or release an indignant burst of LibDemmery). It’s like being a permission giver, people who are worried about offending you by saying they aren’t going to vote Tory realise that’s its perfectly OK and we’re not about to try and arm wrestle them into converting or burst into tears over the rejection.
I always assume “I’m not political” means “I will vote Lib Dem”, but then I know that Lib Dem canvassers swear that it translates into “I will vote Tory”. In Dartford we have very few Lib Dem voters to experiment on though
I think I’ve only ever had one foaming torrent of spittle laden abuse on the doorstep (I think it involved the phrase “spawn of Thatcher”), though obviously I’ve had a fair few doors in the face.
Our canvass data for the strongest LibDem ward in the borough (which they won comfortably this year and have done for several years) shows far more Labour and Conservative pledges than LD voters. Even in wards where the LDs are more-than-established, local residents are unwilling to tell opposition canvassers “I vote Liberal Democrat”…
72 There’s something of a class divide here. I never encounter rudeness in poorer areas (although I do sometimes encounter the mad). But I have encountered rudeness in some posher areas, from people who simply aren’t interested. As my mother once put it “They may have plenty of money but they still have the manners of pigs.”
Basically, if somone says “Conservative” I accept them as such, unless they’re obviously lying (which is unusual). The most pointless category is, IMO, “Possible”, as there’s usually little point recanvassing them, or knocking on their doors on polling day. I’ve never had the manpower to actually go to the trouble of trying to distinguish “Possible” from “Undecided” or “Against” and tailor specific literature to them.
Most of my canvassing experience is from local elections, where if you can get 15-20% of the voters to come out for you, you’re usually home and dry. That usually means just finding committed supporters, and not bothering attempting to win people over.
64. Looks like it might be a close call on tonight’s Iraq vote.
I am sure this all springs from my suggestion, on this site, last week, that the Tories support an inquiry. Such is the power of pb.com
I find it hard to think, in the light of recent history, how any Labour MP could morally vote against an inquiry into this bloody farce. I guess the excuses will be that they were whipped: ‘It was orders, guv’.
Pshaw. Have some backbone, you pitiful meringues. The country wants to know how we screwed up so royally in Iraq; people have lied, and people have died. Enough.
77 Depends whether you need to convert or not, but generally agree. However as I have usually been involved in campaigns where we need to convert voters to win we are concentrating on leaflets. If we don’t we know we will lose the knock up battle. So use targeted leaflets and if we can different ones for Definites, Possibles, Tactical, Undecided, but never Antis or Definites for main opponent. However of course the Undecided will contain lots of of Antis and Opposition because of the flaws in canvassing.
Agree re knock up, but also knock up minor opponent for tactical vote. At worst it is a waste of effort and rude comment on door step
one canvassing experience was a crazy bag lady asking me if i had a kitten whether i would stangle it or drown it if i couldnt afford the veterinary fees. I eventually conceded that if i could not afford treatment that I would indeed have to have the Kitten killed. somehow that striaght answer pacified her briefly and she then moved on to telling me about all the “sl*ts that get pregnant and take houses but no one cares about the kittens”
on a more serious note, a lot of what you get is “P*ss off you are all the same” when you are knocking on doors, I usually assume these are dissolusioned former labour voters who just dont like tories and dont know where to go with their vote.
RE 80 Jimbo Jones, the correct answer is that you take it to the PDSA (peoples dispensary for sick animals) who will treat it for free. They are one of those unsung charities who unlike the RSPCA give a t*ss about animals.
80 / 81.
http://www.guidestar.org.uk/gs_summary.aspx?CCReg=208217&strquery=PDSA
81/82 http://www.pdsa.org.uk/index.html
83. That’s you out of the running for Guidestar Italy
If going out in a team I usually volunteer to mark the cards rather than canvas (as I said I don’t like it). This usually means I get the job of talking to the loonies so the others can get on with the job in hand. It is sad how many there are! A comomon theme seems to be the number who think they were in the SAS and tell you about all the people they have killed with their barehands.
I was once told that the Liberal had done terrible damage. As I live in an area with a Conservative Borough, County and MP I thought ‘HOW?’. Go on give us a chance to cock it up.
85. Your last paragraph doesn’t surprise me. I had conversations with people who seemed to think the West Hill candidate was solely responsible for global warming, youth crime, corporate monopolising and the election of David Cameron.
Re 86, If he was a Lib Dem, totaly understandable.
A good friend of mine was confronted with a number of voters who angrily refused to believe that the Tories were not in control of the county council, even though they had been in opposition for a decade.
I had an old lady who swore blind that Maggie Thatcher was Labour.
I kid you not.
in 1997 an old fella told me, extremely forcefully, what a mistake the country had made electing that LABOUR PM John Major at the last election!
88 Yep had that one. Had people who thought the Tories were in power, John Major the PM, No point in voting LD in this village because only the Tories will win here (even though we were defending the seat!).
Had an estate agent convince someone to take down a LD poster board from a house they were marketing because this is a ‘Conservative’ area. The fact that the village didn’t have a single Conservative councillor seemed to be a surprise to them when one of our councillors gave them a piece of his mind. The site was lost unfortuately!
Sadly a large number of people have no idea who has been elected.
91 Don’t get me started on people being intimidated when they display posters. My previous local party treasurer would only put a Labour poster up on 2005 polling day . Such is the level of abuse you get for supporting a mainstream democratic politcal party.
76. Could it not be that you just have rubbish canvassers?
The same results can be seen in different areas for all parties. Indeed, I know a ward where the Lib Dem canvass is (on paper) in the eightie percent range. They only get 55 per cent or so of the vote.
news management will be the lasting legacy of this government see the amazing antics regarding the release of the Stern report to journalists
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6100724.stm
91. Estate agents are of course very sensitive to anything that might be seen to lower the tone.
Agree. I’ve seen cards, often produced by candidates, that you could only dream were correct, but sadly you know they aren’t. Nice smile and a chat and they go down as Ours when they haven’t actually been told that.
93 - I couldn’t comment on the accuracy of the canvass, as I’ve not been out in that area myself.
I would expect that any given party’s share of the vote is less than their canvass returns in the same area - that is to be expected regardless of Party.
What is undoubtedly true is that in most areas of Liberal Democrat strength, their support does not show up on opposition canvass returns in the same way that Labour or Conservative support would do.
The only exception to this I’ve encountered is when Labour have been blown off the map completely - my experience of this was canvassing in Harrogate in 2002 and 2003.
My previous post may have been misleading - I like canvassing, and like others here I find nearly everyone is polite and about half are positively friendly. But it’s fun collecting the strange ones, like the lady who told me in 1997 that she thought TB was wonderful and was praying for Labour to win, but she would vote Tory, because her husband would want her to. So i asked to talk to him: perhaps I could persuade him to liberate his wife a little? “He’s been dead for 6 years.”
What should one say to that?
Yes, the vote today is likely to be close. O/T: I can’t see the case for an inquiry at all. We’ve already had four, and people who didn’t agree with the findings just screamed ‘whitewash’ and demanded another one. Inquiries are good for establishing facts where people are open-minded and puzzled, as e.g. after a mysterious plane accident. They are useless where everyone has made up their minds already.
Enquiries are useful and democratic per se. Strength of opinion surrounding the issue is irrelevant.
Re 98, Nick Palmer I think we have had no inquiries with the remit to answer the questions people want answered.
We have had lots of inquiries though. Perhaps it would have been cheaper to just have the one every one else wanted?
Re Bizarre canvassing experiences
From the Guardian…Medway, run up of 2005 GE…Gilian Marshall Andrews (wife of Bob) out canvassing:
“She knocked on a door. “I see you’re one of us!” said the woman who answered.
“How do you mean?” asked Mrs M-A.
“You’re a witch, like me!” said the woman. I can see it from your necklace.” (This featured an ankh, the shape like a crucifix with a loop instead of the top bit. “And your earrings prove it!” the woman added. These were five-pointed stars.
Hopes of getting the necromancy vote quickly faded. The witch said that her son had nearly died thanks to shoddy NHS care, and she wouldn’t vote Labour again.”
Nick Palmer We have not had four enquiries into the war and its conduct. We have had none. The ones you refer to were tightly defined to very particular aspects.
In the 80’s Labour were keen to have an enquiry into the Falklands war and the Conservative government agreed, and several key lessons were learnt (including keeping a demonstrable commitment to defend the Falklands: something the government seems to have forgotten and the consequences could be serious).
An enquiry that is not so tightly defined as usual under this Labour administration led by senior privy counsellors form all parties, would be very valuable.
Labour spin about ‘traitor Tories’ for wanting such an enquiry may please the Sun but will probably alienate many more including many in the military who want such an enquiry to bring some accountability to those that sent them to fight under-equipped and ill prepared on a mission planned on the couch in Downing Street and sold to us all on the basis of falsehood supported by spin.
94.
Depending on individual opinions relating to the integrity of many newspapers and journalists, the story is either hillarious or extremely sad. The obession with controlling and reporting news seems to be creating some very odd moments! Journalists, wanting exclusives, being deprived of their phones, kept boxed up, given minimal reading time, not allowed to ask questions are having their free speech impinged upon! The government spin machine, although less in the news is still working quite effectively it sems.
100. Absolutely. The shameful attempt to wriggle out of an Iraq War inquiry by saying ‘we’ve had four already’ is like a burglar avoiding a trial by saying ‘but I paid for the window I smashed in’.
Moreover, since the last so-called inquiries - which looked at narrow bits of the war, rather than the entire bloody mess - a few things have happened.
We have discovered that the head of the British army has doubts about the war. We have discovered that the Foreign Secretary herself thinks it ‘might be seen as a disaster’. In particular, we have also learned that maybe 650,000 Iraqis have died as a result of our invasion.
Perhaps this last fact doesn’t matter to some people. It matters a lot to the rest of us.
Those pro-war MPs who still seek to oppose what everyone else in the UK wants and needs: a proper, full-blown, no-secrets-withheld public inquiry into the greatest foreign policy disaster of our time, are merely adding dishonour and duplicity to their original disgrace.
O/T - Baxter website has now completely recalculated all 2005 Notional results based on local election wards. I haven’t had a chance to look in detail but at first glance this has produced results much nearer to the Anthony Wells site.
For example if you input vote shares of Con 38, Lab 33, LD 20, you get:
Baxter - Con 289, Lab 286, LD 43
Anthony Wells - Con 277, Lab 294, LD 49
ie not exactly the same but pretty close.
Re the Iraq inquiry, any MPs hanging around pb.com, wondering which way to vote, might like to take note of the latest BBC online poll. This asks whether there should be a full public inquiry into Iraq.
So far the results are:
84% Yes
16% No
But maybe the people are just stupid, eh?
106. SeanT - please no reference to voodoo polls. The case for an inquiry does not need the support of such dubious evidence.
107. Voodoo is too strong. These polls are not scientific - but I think they are indicative. Only a fool would completely ignore that kind of breakdown - 84% to 16%?
I suspect the support for an inquiry out there is very very strong.
But I agree with you that the case for an inquiry doesn’t need polls like this to be persuasive. The moral argument for an inquiry is, by itself, overwhelming.
re-107:
“The case for an enquiry does not need the support of such dubious evidence”
Unlike of course the original decision to go to war……….
My favourite bizarre canvass - the one where I rang the doorbell, lent back against the wall and fell through it - wet cement! The owner opened the door to see me, in a huge blue rosette, lying in a pile of bricks and cement. He just said: “I’m voting Labour” and slammed the door shut.
What’s the point of an inquiry when everyone has made their mind up about Iraq (one way or another). What scope is there for objectivity. Certainly, many people including Sean don’t want a genuine inquiry, they just want to fast forward to an offical condemnation of the war. Others feel that the opposite outcome is obvious.
So then it depends on the question and the inquiry team. We don’t need any more egos or theatrics. Best to look at this five/ten years hence.
So now is not the time for an inquiry. All that matters is how best to satisfy the military’s requirements for the best, least costly exit. Technical problems are more pressing than politcal ones.
111. Indeed, and why have any more elections at all when everyone knows things are going fine?
NEW THREAD
Er. There was election last year, which the Labour party won. There will be another election in 2009/2010. Don’t get carried away, this has got nothing to do with elections. Do you really want the MOD civil servants and Army generals running around on a paper trail right now?
105 - so Baxter still biased towards the Tories…
I fully expect spineless Labour MPs to put career before principle for the umpteenth time and defeat the call for a proper enquiry. Nick P is reasonably principled, but even he trotts out the same nonsense line as others will about “4 already”; which anyone with any sense at all (actually most of the population) can see right through. I think Nick has fallen - in the same way as Blair - into believing this defensive rhetoric to be actually true, rather than just a synthetic counter-argument, which is what it actually is.
The latest rounds of PR blackmail being put out are an utter disgrace: “very real consequences for British troops if MPs defeat ministers over an inquiry into Iraq”. I never thought I’d see a Labour Party’s PR machine sink so low as to blackmail MPs over the lives of our youngest and bravest. These comments and are in fact exactly on a par with Cheney’s shameful electioneering comments in the US yesterday that “Iraq militants are seeking to influence mid-term polls” (i.e. if your vote is swung by Iraq it is because the terrorists have gotten to you). I hope Nick P and others can sleep at night knowing that their own party’s PR strategy is being cloned from Karl Rove….
As we seem to have moved onto canvassing stories, here’s mine. I knocked on the door with my clipboard and was greeted by a lady who told be that her husband was waiting for me inside (new to this I now know never to go inside a house!. I was shown in to meet her husband who asked me to follow him down the hallway. At this point he showed me the Gas meter!
As a LD the one thing I always try to do if a canvasser calls on me is ask them in. Give them a cup of tea, promise them the earth, just stop them continuing up the street onto the next house.
If you want to stop canvassers simply put up a poster in the window, most will just put the whole family down to that party.
And that is the difficult thing about canvassing - you call on a house of 4 people and only see one - how many canvassers them put the whole household down to the vote of the one person they saw.
And isn’t it amazing how many parties canvas wards but then don’t have tellers or knock up. Even move amazing is that I’ve known people to sit out side polling stations as tellers and spend hours ticking off voters when no canvassing has been done and the telling records are just binned.
I remain convinced that except in tight marginals, and then only if you are going to have a full canvas, tellers and knock up, that the main reason to canvas is just so that the voter can see that you’ve called.
And then the are the canvassers who don’t actually knock on the door but quietly tip toe up the path in order to leave the “sorry you were out leaflet!”
An inquiry on Iraq is absolutely essential, there are consultants who need the work. As someone who knows of one large consultancy who worked on the IT side of the Bloody Sunday inquiry in Derry, there’s imeensely good money it.
Amazingly enough the result after years and oh hundreds of millions apparently is that no one is going to get a decisive rap. At least with an Iraq inquiry there is a convenient scapegoat, the USA.
114. It is exactly the same argument, Jonathan. You are suggesting that a vital means of democratic transparency is dropped because “everyone’s made up their mind anyway”. This is an illogical argument that I can only assume rests upon political partiality. Your latest argument (@ 114) seems straight out of the John Reid textbook - fear the terrorists everyone, and dare not disturb our leaders. How dare we expect our leaders to be accountable when they purely have our best interests at heart? Run along people, nothing to see here. It’s rare that anything posted on here disturbs me but Nick Palmer’s argument against an inquiry and your bizarrely loyal repsonse are at best worrying.
119: Yes, it’s bizzare. It’s as if a WAR that we started which has cost thousands of lives and billions of pounds is just “move along now - nothing to see here”. If Labour had been in opposition and the Tories had done this, the Labour party would be spitting fire and absolutely hysterical! But then, he who wears the dark crown…
In the run-up to the 1992 General Election when I was standing for the Lib Dems in Bedford the incumbent Tory MP, the late Sir Trevor Skeet, knocked on my door. The house, as you would expect was covered in posters.
Sir Trevor asked of my wife, Jacky, if he could count on her support to which she replied, “Well my husband is the Lib Dem candidate”. He looked down at his list and then responded “OK then - but what about Mr. Smithson?”
121 - At the last election, when canvassing a new housing estate in Watford, there were an extraordinary number of married couples sharing a house with one other person.
Evidently, I had discovered the swingers’ capital of Britain.
RE 120, MBoy, we were asked for an inquirery and so set up the Franks one. No quibble. It was also the right thing to do. But then we had nothing to hide.
122
I was myself telephone canvassed by a CCO call centre in 2005 - I was also the Conservative candidate in the self same constituency. To cheer up the call centre staff I enthused about voting Tory and declared undying love for the party. When the results came back to the office, I was down as a “P”!
My canvassing story is I suspect one of the more curious ones….
I knocked on a door, and it was answered by a gentleman who put his head around the half-open door. He appeared to be undressed and was shyly hiding behind the door. Unfortunately, he had forgotten that it was a glass door.