YouGov puts the Lib Dems down at just 15%
December 24th, 2006
Ming’s party at lowest point since the Mark Oaten revelations
A new YouGov poll in the Sunday Times this morning has the Lib Dems down at their lowest point with the internet pollster since the Mark Oaten crisis during the leadership contest earlier in the year. The shares are compared with the Telegraph YouGov poll reported on Friday are - CON 37% (nc): LAB 32% (-1): LD 15% (-2).
This decline is in line with the trend from other polls. Earlier in the week the pollster which has been showing the best Lib Dems ratings, ICM, had the party down 2% at 18% and Mori was reporting a similar 2 point fall off in support.
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In the six months before David Cameron’s election as Tory leader what was then Charles Kennedy’s party was averaging more than 20% with YouGov - so according to today’s numbers support is down by a quarter.
This comes at a time when Labour has come under serious pressure following the loans probe and the Saudi arms case issue.
The Sunday Times runs the YouGov story under the headline “Women Flock to Cameron” and focuses on the differential male-female support that we have reported on here before. It notes that the Tories have an 8% lead amongst women but only a 1% lead amongst men.
This cuts both ways. With these same figures the paper could easily have put the focus on the apparent failure of the Tories to increase support from men
Also the Sunday Times chooses to compare Labour’s 32% share in today’s survey with the first YouGov poll of 2006 when Blair-Brown’s party was on 40%. That’s an unfair comparison because that poll was taken just after the Mark Oaten case when the Lib Dems had slipped to 13%.
Mike Smithson
MessageSpace Advertising
What was Labour’s poll position just prior to the Oaten scandal? That might be a better comparision.
Con short 11 of majority, even with only a 5% lead. I don’t know how Rod’s calculation that we stand only a 14% chance of having largest seats can be squared with reality.
Clegg as leader before the General Election? Ming must do the decent thing and retire
Because of a couple of polls, 3-4 years before next GE? Get real…
Today an Admiral speaks out against Labour’s Defence cuts - confirming once again the public’s suspicion that Labour cannot be trusted with defence.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/24/narmy24.xml
Servicemen give their all & risk their lives - Labour give very little but contempt. As Gordon Brown says “The military are 2nd in line to be taken down a peg or two after the Queen and the Royal Family”
If Generals and Admirals are prepared to risk pensions - things must be very serious.
Political egos never allow that, do they? He’s already stated he will be leader up to the next GE “and beyond”. I think he reprimanded Simon Hughes with something about the “Ming Dynasty”.
If the LDs could get their act together on this they could steal a lot of Brown’s thunder by announcing a leadership contest at the same time as Brown’s coronation/election. The Beeb would be required to cover both, and the sight of the LibDems with a young charismatic leader, brand new, would contrast very well indeed with jowly, tired, dour Brown.
It would benefit both LDs and Tories! think about it.
3 - increasingly likely now! Contest of Clegg, Huhne, and a stalking horse from the left (Evan Harris?), and possibly a female (Kramer?). Matthew Taylor seems to run for everything these days.
Ming has achieved a lot for the party in terms of organisation, and chairmanship this last year (ie. every that has been lacking since the second world war), but clearly is not a big hit with the polls.
Secret memo warns Blair of crime wave
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/articl…2517940,00.html
Key points:
From the party committed to tackle poverty: “There is an increasing wealth gap . . . the very poorest have got poorer since 1997”
From the party that was going to be tough on crime and the causes of crime: “There is still little chance that a crime will be detected and result in a caution or conviction.”
Nine out of 10 crimes are either not reported or go unpunished this is despite half of all crimes in England Wales being committed by just 100,000 people.
A desparate prison shortage as the prison population is expected to rise by 25% in the next five years far exceeding the number of places the government has planned for.
From the party who brought us 24 hour drinking, they now suggest alcohol rationing and a ban on alcohol advertising.
From the party who have been soft on drugs they suggest enforced heroin vaccinations.
From the party who signed up to European Human rights they suggest chemical castration and ID chip implants. These would never be accepted in European Human Rights Law, although I’m sure Blair’s big brother state would love to implant chips into all of us.
7 - I think if the LibDems had a leadership contest in the near future it could break all records for number of candidates!
8 - Of far greater delusion is the article in the Telegraph about ID cards. How delusional must the govt be to think they have any chance of enforcing such draconian laws without widespread public rebellion? Where’s Nick these days?
Could the Lib Dems Michael Brown nightmare scenario be about to become a reality?
“Lib Dems face demand to hand back £2.4m received from jailed benefactor”
“An Electoral Commission insider last night warned a police inquiry had found it “highly unlikely” that Michael Brown’s company was doing business in the UK when it handed over the cash to the party last year. The finding would make the donation, from 5th Avenue Partners Ltd, impermissible - and therefore require Lib Dem chiefs to repay the money… In a letter to [George] Foulkes, seen by Scotland on Sunday, commission chairman Sam Younger raised the prospect of taking the Lib Dems to court to get the money back… If the party cannot find another donor willing to cover the money, it would have to rely on the 77,000 members as the party is an unincorporated association - adding up to a bill of about £30 each.”
http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=1909012006
9- Yes the ID cards will be the new poll tax and it will do nothing to stop terrorism. There is not a shred of evidence this government is genuinely concerned about preventing terrorism.
The only thing they are concerned with is the process of creating thousands of new laws and reforms and in controlling the people, but they have no idea at all how to make anything better. To them as long as it is “New” and their idea then it must be better.
The fact that this shower are in full control on barely over a third of the vote shows that the one thing that should be “New” and reformed is our antiquated voting system.
10 - that would still leave us £18 - £20m behind the Tories and Labour in terms of total debt
In term of Ming’s performance, it is interesting that (Simon apart) there are no rumblings from the MP’s camp which indicates they feel confident about holding their seats (at the very least). The big test will, of course, be the locals next May. A poor performance there could see the start of mutterings.
OTOH the intense localism of LD activists (which I see in my own local party) means most are focussed (if you’ll pardon the pun!) on fighting their own locality. It’s not that the national party is irrelevant, just that it seems more distant.
There may be legs left yet in the story about the UK government’s decision to drop the Serious Fraud Office inquiry into the Saudi Arabian Al Yamamah arms deal.
I am absolutely fascinated to know what the letters of reply from Peter Mandelson and Franco Frattini are going to look like!
“SNP demands EU probe on halting of Saudi arms inquiry”
http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=1908982006
Pax vobiscum!
Am off now to the in-laws, have a great Christmas everyone.
Well, what a jolly mood we’re all in this morning! Must be the prospect of fighting off the other shoppers for the last minute rounds at Tescos?
I wonder whether the Lib Dems are getting a touch of electoral vertigo if the early posts are anything to go by? They’ve been on an upwards trend fairly consistently since the 1950s and the odd downturn could be blamed on specific incidents - the Thorpe trial, the 1988 merger etc - and from being a party that always looked to gain seats, they’ve now realised that if something goes wrong they could lose a lot of them. And something will go wrong sooner or later; it always does.
That’s not to say this poll is proof that such a crisis is imminent. YouGov have a record of scoring the Lib Dems low and Others high - probably too high, as not everyone will get the chance to vote for some of the minor parties on offer in the poll. Even so, it can’t really be the sort of result the Lib Dems were after a year after they booted their last leader out. It’s perhaps worth reminding them of the famous section of FDR’s first inaugural: “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance”. Were they to ditch Ming off the back of this, and other poorish polls they will look absurd. (btw, I’ve just re-read that speech. It is astonishingly left-wing for an American president: socialist, verging on communist at times. The link is http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5057/ )
Their problem is not just the leadership, it is structural. It is the first time in fifteen years they are facing a Tory party with a serious prospect of forming the next government; they can expect to lose seats to Conservative opponents. The logical solution would be to seek gains from Labour, but the problem is that that strategy is of no comfort to MP’s and councillors defending against the Conservatives. That is Kennedy’s principal failing in office - not his drinking. He had the chance to realign his party during the Iraq debates in 2002-3 but instead talked about replacing the Conservatives who were at the time lead by IDS. He should have known, and Lib Dems should have known, that the Conservative Party would not tolerate that level of leadership for long and that replacing a party on the centre-right was never going to be possible while it simultaneously pursued policies of the left.
The Lib Dems still have a solid local base - they have to have to campaign using their favoured and effective techniques. As a result, what happens in Westminster is for them of less importance than for the other major parties’ fortunes. To seek a Westminster solution to a problem whose causes lie elsewhere is bound to fail.
On a seasonal note, I’m signing off for Christmas now, so thanks to everyone for their kind comments yesterday, thanks to Mike and family for this wonderful site, to Andrea for his incomparable knowledge and research abilities, to Nick for his insight and tolerance, to SeanT for his humour, quality and style, to Sean Fear for his Friday / local election columns and to everyone else just for being here and making it the place it is.
Merry Christmas.
Sorry, Mike. I’d forgotten about the advised non-use of “soc*al’st”.
According to the baxter website, these figures mean that a tory/DUP/UUP coalition would just about get a majority. Wouldn’t that be interesting?
You Gov presumably now has others at 16%, their highest rating since God Knows when! It seems everyone is suffering at the hands of the “Others”, sounds like a film I recently saw.
Re Stewart Dickson and the £2.4, this is really an old story, their members will no doubt cough up, most are aware of the situation, some will pay £5 some a £100.
The paying back is not a problem, 15% in the polls maybe.
Stuart @ 13: as you’ve raised the Saudi topic, are you able to shed any light on why the Conservatives + Cameron have been so quiet about the dropping of the corruption investigation? Blair axing polic inquiry into corruption surely should be something the party would be shouting from the rooftops about? Or is the party really too embarrassed by having been the ones to negotiate the deal in the first place?
Thanks for the article Mike. Interesting numbers. It is also interesting to see a slight drop in Labour support. That said I suspect it is all just polling noise.
As for the cash for peerages issue, I have said that I suspected that breaches of the PPERA were far more likely to lead to prosecutions that any smoking gun on the Honours, Prevention of abuses act. More interesting still is who woul be in the frame.
15 - Socialist is not a dirty word!
Alex [9] - Nick Palmer’s having a holiday from all us rude Peebies
The ID card fiasco will run and run, I have no doubt. Here’s a couple more points which the papers haven’t picked up on yet.
(1) Applicants for parking permits etc may be required to send in their ID cards with their application with no undertaking on the part of the local authority as to its safe-keeping - people who complain that they will not be able to comply with the law on producing a card to the police will be told that they don’t have to apply for a parking permit!
(2) Residents of long-stay homes will be required to have cards even if they are physically incapable of moving outside the home. Homes which do not pay the (undoubtedly enormous) fee to have the retinal scanning kit brought into the home will be closed down; they will be expected to pass the cost on to the next-of-kin - I am a little concerned that the Government has forgotten to include powers to do so in the legislation, but, hey, the “Henry VIII” Bill is still in the works so that’s all right then.
[8] ABBMM, that’s only half an argument. It might be thought that ID cards are designed to fail so that the securocrats can campaign for ID chips. A “soft” way of introducing them would be to offer early release to any prisoner who agrees to have one inserted, as a condition of an ASBO, police caution etc. I would expect a careerist Chief Constable or three to be calling for this before too long.
Ah, but it contains a dirty word according to Mike’s spam filter (how did yours get through - my long post at 15 is still showing ‘awaiting moderation’. Can you see that one?)
Oh, and Lib Dem figures are so low because they are simply not in the news right now. Not at all.
Merry Christmas to all! Starting from Mike who provides us this site and then all all who make the debates interesting.
New 2006 Quiz:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/24/nquiz24.xml&page=1
(they don’t give the answers though)
22 - That’s a secret!
(Hint: use some superfluous html)
26. Well, I’ll submit it again. Apologies for doing so on a long post if both turn up.
I wonder whether the Lib Dems are getting a touch of electoral vertigo if the early posts are anything to go by? They’ve been on an upwards trend fairly consistently since the 1950s and the odd downturn could be blamed on specific incidents - the Thorpe trial, the 1988 merger etc - and from being a party that always looked to gain seats, they’ve now realised that if something goes wrong they could lose a lot of them. And something will go wrong sooner or later; it always does.
That’s not to say this poll is proof that such a crisis is imminent. YouGov have a record of scoring the Lib Dems low and Others high - probably too high, as not everyone will get the chance to vote for some of the minor parties on offer in the poll. Even so, it can’t really be the sort of result the Lib Dems were after a year after they booted their last leader out. It’s perhaps worth reminding them of the famous section of FDR’s first inaugural: “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance”. Were they to ditch Ming off the back of this, and other poorish polls they will look absurd. (btw, I’ve just re-read that speech. It is astonishingly left-wing for an American president: soci*list, verging on communist at times. The link is http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5057/ )
Their problem is not just the leadership, it is structural. It is the first time in fifteen years they are facing a Tory party with a serious prospect of forming the next government; they can expect to lose seats to Conservative opponents. The logical solution would be to seek gains from Labour, but the problem is that that strategy is of no comfort to MP’s and councillors defending against the Conservatives. That is Kennedy’s principal failing in office - not his drinking. He had the chance to realign his party during the Iraq debates in 2002-3 but instead talked about replacing the Conservatives who were at the time lead by IDS. He should have known, and Lib Dems should have known, that the Conservative Party would not tolerate that level of leadership for long and that replacing a party on the centre-right was never going to be possible while it simultaneously pursued policies of the left.
The Lib Dems still have a solid local base - they have to have to campaign using their favoured and effective techniques. As a result, what happens in Westminster is for them of less importance than for the other major parties’ fortunes. To seek a Westminster solution to a problem whose causes lie elsewhere is bound to fail.
On a seasonal note, I’m signing off for Christmas now, so thanks to everyone for their kind comments yesterday, thanks to Mike and family for this wonderful site, to Andrea for his incomparable knowledge and research abilities, to Nick for his insight and tolerance, to SeanT for his humour, quality and style, to Sean Fear for his Friday / local election columns and to everyone else just for being here and making it the place it is.
Merry Christmas.
23 - you’re right about the LDs not being in the news at all. I don’t know if this is laziness in terms of the party, or laziness in terms of reporting - probably both!
This does often happen mid-term, but did not after 1997 and 2001 as the Tories were so useless.
It probably is a good time for a bit of contemplation by the party. I expect things will pick up towards 2010 as more publicity is generated, but am not too alarmed at the moment if the polls continue to stagnate. The LDs did not pick up much during the 2005 campaign as they already had a reasonable media profile. They have no profile now, so the profile generated in an election campaign will be worth something.
In terms of the Michael Brown money, I don’t think paying it back would be a problem. The party hardly has any debt. I recently got a begging letter asking for money so the party could end the year in surplus.
Politically, an interesting year. Cameron continues to look very good, but I think will start to struggle to carry his party with him. Too many of my fellow LDs here dismiss Cameron as being opportunistic and principle free. I find that a bit rich since CK only ever made a principled stand once (on Iraq). Blair continues to amaze with his survival instincts. And the LDs seem to have gone underground for the time being.
I am off to get my goose.
Hyvaa Joulu kaikille!
21 IA - I’ve always been mystified by the fuss over ID cards. Maybe you can help me?
My first and only real practical experience of them was in 1969 when as a student I first visted the USA. I was twenty and was advised before I went that I was underage for buying alcohol and visiting topless bars, so I ordered a new NUS card (do these still exist?) and lied about my age. I used it without trouble for the whole three months of my stay. I was struck however at how rigorous the checks were at the stores and bars. All my US friends, notably a couple of Marines in their mid-thirties were politely but routinely refused service/admission when they forgot to bring along their ID.
I remember thinking at the time the system seemed to work well and assumed it would be merely a matter of time before it was introduced in the UK. OK, how it was introduced would be pretty important. I could see that if people were charged a lot for it, or it was monitored with Gestapo-like authoritarianism, it would be unpopular and probably ineffective as a consequence. But I saw no reason why it shouldn’t be cheap, simple and informal and if it were, it would help greatly with the administration of local regulations, as appeared to be the case in the US all those years ago.
So what’s the problem?
“I could see that if people were charged a lot for it, or it was monitored with Gestapo-like authoritarianism”
Therein lies the problem.
Things have changed since 1969 and the data chip in an ID card could be abused. I don’t care for this government that much, but they haven’t quite reached the stage of “Gestapo-like authoritarianism”. But a future government might. We should not provide a future government with such tools that they could exploit.
26. thanks David Herdson…Merry Christmas to you too!
The differences in the 2 Yougov polls in 3 days are clearly sampling variations are to all intents and purposes can be averaged to give a combined figure on a larger sample . Comparing YOUGOV with ICM , the former are clearly showing higher Others figures and lower LibDem figures than the latter . Looking at the ICM detailed figures it is also interesting that as in most of their recent polls they do not support the headline comment in the ST as tthey give the Conservatives a higher level of support among men . This is another clear difference between Yougov and ICM which seems to defy logic and explanation .
PtP - I’ve had an ID card that simply confirms my identity and my citizenship status. But it wasn’t linked to a whole stack of other databases, wasn’t a means of permitting access to services or the diverse other rules & regulations the HO plans.
The UK ID card changes the relationship between the citizen & the state - at the simplest level it will be illegal not to tell the state where you live or when you move. Currently if you want the state’s services you have to provide an address but it’s a choice. We used to atack the USSR for internal passports, South Africa for passboooks or France for its huge internal security apparatus. Now we have cameras that can do face recognition, number plate recognition, databases on health, wealth and things like the CRB and other lists. The ID card ceases to be a confirmation that you are who you are and becomes the link that changes us from people allowed to do what we want except that specifically made illegal to subjects whose rights are those the State permits.
At a base level I can’t see that it is the governments business to know anything about me except what is required when I want to use it’s services.
I’m not so sure about LDs not being in the news as the cause of our slippage. I think the pics of a lecherous leering Lembit and his new babe would go a long way to putting off women voters. And empathy with the casually dumped weather girl.
Even in the Guardian! And all over a centre spread in the Mail.
I’m no fan of Ming, having voted Huhne, and I shudder at the studied phot=ops that greet me on the front page of LD News every week; he shares with Gordon Brown the personality faults that make a very good specialist, foreign affairs,chancellor, respectively, but do not add up to a good all round leader. However I think it is more Lembit than Ming this time. We need a good woman like Kramer in charge
Beth
[28] The problem is exactly as you describe it, Peter.
I almost never go out without my wallet, in which is my driving licence, on which is my home address, photograph and date of birth. So in effect I carry an ID card. Why isn’t this good enough for the government?
The American experience you describe is a contractual one - the operators are protecting their own licences, of course - the American government doesn’t require people to visit topless bars!
I don’t expect a Cameron government - or even a co-alition administration with Lib Dems and Greens in it - to scrap the plans, actually.
28 - There’s nothing stopping “stores and bars” enforcing strict ID policies if they so wish.
What also worries people is the risk of officious and petty application and administration (as with the police stopping minority ethnics in sportscars, or the anti-p**dophile hysteria leading schools to ban parents from taking photos of school nativity plays). ID cards were abolished in the first place when an ordinary citizen took umbrage at the police asking him for his ID card for no particular reason (just because they could). I’m not anti-police (I thought Ken Clarke’s refusing to give the police side-handled batons was reprehensible), but the use of terrorism laws against Walter Wolfgang (and against anti-war protesters at RAF Fairford) shows that they will often abuse new powers. So it would be with ID Cards.
Plus, of course, there’s the cost (particularly given the track record of government IT projects), and the risk of terrorists and fraudsters hacking into the database.
Also in Sunday Times Bob Marshall Andrews reporting his own party to the police over the loans for lordships for possible breaches in accountancy rules
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2517949,00.html
Re. 32, and I seem to remember the current plans include a right for the Secretary of State to cancel someone’s card, therein denying them rights to a whole range of services.
29 and numerous others.
Well I’m glad I asked! Some of these points had not occurred to me.
I merely asked because the UK seemed to be making a big fuss of something which is routinely accepted elsewhere without apparently ushering in the Totalitarian State.
Thanks for all your comments.
Has anybody got a link to a site showing the breakdown in terms of votes between the parties in Scotland at the 2005 General Election?
Many thanks
28. Leaving aside the egregious civil liberties issues (as bad as they are) the main problem with ID cards is that the track record of this coven of corpse eyed idealogues on managing such matters is appalling. Is there any doubt that the ID card project will go massively over budget and generally be a bad idea, poorly executed at great expense to the tax payer?
39. I hesitate to step on Andrea’s toes, but…
http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/elections/generalelection2005.cfm
Re. 40, still less if the usual ‘consultants’ are involved.
ROLL ON THE GENERAL ELECTION !!!!!!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/portal/index.jh…MGCFFOAVCBQUIV0
£1,000 fine for failing to update identity cards
By Melissa Kite, Deputy Political Editor, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:37am GMT 24/12/2006
A draconian regime of fines, which would hit families at times of marriage and death, is being drawn up by ministers to enforce the Identity Card scheme.
The first cards will be issued by the Identity and Passport Service to passport applicants in 2009
Millions of people, from struggling students to newly-wed women and bereaved relatives, will face a system of penalties, netting more than £40 million for the Treasury.
Roll on the general election.
39 Mike Smithson
http://www.alba.org.uk/ge05/index.html
Mike, do we know yet the breakdown of that record-high 16% “Others” figure? Is it just the SNP/Plaid Cymru advance; or is it also a swing to the Greens, Respect, UKIP, EDP, BNP etc down south?
As I pointed out yesterday, the big issue politically over the next few months will be the ‘Ming Factor’. It is fairly obvious, that Libdems cannot go into the next election with a 67 year old man at the helm. Do it in March, good month for back stabbing.
Get odds now!
Thank you Simon @ 41. I am working on a theory at the moment that both the Baxter and Wells seat calculators are giving a distorted picture because of Scotland where the polls that identify the shares north of the border are showing the Tories to be doing worse than at the General Election.
By applying the uniform national swing to the latest poll numbers across the GB, including Scotland, they are both including a disproportionate number of Tory gains there. At the same time the calculators are probably underestimating the swings south of the border
2007 prediction that Ming will announce his retirement from politics for ‘health reasons’.
An extraordinary number of people in rented accomodation build up large arrears and after several months just before legal action is taken they leave without any forwarding address owing thousands which are invaribly written off. If this card makes people easier to trace then I can only see it as a good thing.
46. Mike Smithson
Yeah, that is a flaw with Baxter that I have noted before. If you just pump in GB voting intention figures to calculate results yourself, it ignores the strength of the SNP, and predicts for example that North Perthshire would be a Tory gain from SNP. Whereas if you look at Baxter’s own “Scotland” pages, he himself predicts a significantly increased SNP majority in that seat, and others.
On the You Gov figures, “others” seem to continue their relentless rise, which seems excellent Christmas Cheer for my party
Seasons good wishes to all
Dr Barry Monk
Save Bedford Hospital party
PS if you want a seriously good laugh, go to http://www.drrant.net and then look under “difficult decisions”. Not good for your health if you still believe in Nu Labour
As a confirmed self-publicist, can I repost my post from late last night? It is the season of goodwill after all!
“Mike - any Christmas competition?
Can I suggest The “Twelve Days of Labour Christmas” - dedicated to JackW who no doubt would have come up with a more comic response than my effort below…
On the 12th Day of Christmas, Labour gave to me:
12 deaths in Baghdad
11 buried headlines
10 Lords a lending
9 Deputy Leader candidates
8 point tory leads
7 more months of Tony
6 prison places left
5 golden bungs
4 ill-judged wars
3 homes for Prescott
2 feuding neighbours
and a Cash for honours en-qui-ry
Merry Christmas all.”
51 - excellent post!
Happy Xmas Everybody …..
Like others above, I would be fascinated to learn more about the
‘missing 16%’ if anyone has an insight….
Seems indicatively as if the leach to smaller parties could be picking up steam as the long await churn starts to materialise. Are,’real’(ahem)Tories beginning to be lost to UKIP, abstentsion or worse, Labour fracturing in all directions, and LibDems leaking votes to the Tories, could be…………
An interesting 2007 lies ahead for sure. ‘Others’ will soon have to be reported individually if this trend continues for commentary to be meaningful.
Thoughts are still with you JackW if you are reading these postings.
Hang on in there buddy.
Regards
46. Mike, one of the problem of Baxter seat calculator regarding Scotland and Wales is the presence of SNP and Plaid. They’re held unchanged and so gains and losses are just based on their challenger performance.
54. I meant Nats gains or losses.
46 & 54 - Baxter also has a page specifically for Scotland that only uses Scottish Westminster polls. The results - based on the only Westminster poll done up here since the election would be:
Labour - 41 seats
Lib Dems - 8 seats
SNP - 7 seats
Tories - 3 seats.
Unfortunately it doesn’t say which ones would change hands and I can’t be botherd too work it out!
You can find it here:
http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/index.html?scotland.html
56. Max…the changes would be the tories gaining Argyll and Bute and Berwickshire and Roxburgh and Selkirk. Labour gaining Dunbartonshire East. SNP gaining Ochil and South Perthshire.
IMO the only one which is likley is SNP gaining Ochil and South Perthshire.
Re 48, I see Roger, any excuse to support authorararianism.
56 - I think it’s unlikely that the Lib’s would lose Argyll & Bute and East Dunbartonshire but I think BR&S is a fairly decent possibility.
60. Max, I see they didn’t perform well in 2005 GE. Do you know why? I suppose that partly it can be down to the fact that the majority of the new seat came from the old Roxburgh and Berwickshire and so they can have lost the “personal vote” Kirkwood had. Is there some local dynamic that can explain the decent swing to the tories there?
59. An odd comment from a Tory. Just this morning I heard David Davis say it was an outrage that people should be allowed to leave the country without checking and recording their details first. Yet within the country it should be possible to disappear into the ether whenever an unwelcome bill arrives
46 - I’ve said it before, but the practice of using opinion polls to predict electoral outcomes will remain in the dark ages until the pollsters agree to standardise the regions that they use for weighting, and electoral models are developed that allow the input of regional swings.
62 - I don’t really see the problem with people leaving the country undetected (to the extent that millions of pounds are spent to prevent it). It’s the ones coming in that the checks should be focussed on.
61 - I’m sure Archie Kirkwood had a personal vote but they did fine in the Roxburgh & Berwickshire seat at Holyrood which was on the same boundaries as his old seat so I don’t think that fully explains it.
I think what helped was that we have a local goverment base in the Borders for the first time ever and it’s largely concentrated in Roxburgh & Berwickshire (8 or 9 out of 11 seats IIRC). I also understand that the Borders population is getting older and more English which probably helps us too.
2. Anyone can take their best poll and make of it what they want…
As I said on a previous thread, even if this poll was the central prediction(it isn’t) you would still have a 50% chance of doing WORSE in reality. For those who still can’t get their heads around the probabilistic approach, it’s a good time to be reminded that the BBC/ITN prediction of a 66-seat majority in 2005 used a similar method…
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/statistics/staff/academic/firth/papers/curticefirth.pdf
On page 11, you will notice they example they give. Their extrapolation of nationwide exit polls predicted a 4% Labour lead in Ribble South. Their probability distribution ascribed a chance of “only” 27% that the Tories would win the seat. To some people no doubt that figure would also be hard to “square with reality.”, but as it happened Labour won by 4.6%. It should also be pointed out that the authors freely admit their distribution was an ad hoc guestimate, with no rigorous statistical basis. However, overall it proved spot on.
On the LibDems, I have long been intrigued by their pattern in the polls. They seem to “oscillate” widely around, becoming more stable as the election approaches. I would not be surprised if a new poll put them at 20% or above. It can be shown that using the median LibDem figure reduces the mean-squared error in “predicting” the next poll by amost 50%. The current 5-poll median is 18%.
The limitations of Baxter are, I think, fairly shown in its “prediction” that the LibDems would lose R&S (held for 41 years) and A&B (held for 19 years) to the Tories in, er… Scotland.
The most significant feature of this poll, imho, is the others on 16% - the highest, I believe of any poll. Who the hell are these others, and what does it say about the electorate’s alienation from the big three?
66. that should read “by almost 50%”…
65. Max - “more English”
Max, do you really think that that is an issue? I have always understood that English immigrants to Scotland have approximately the same pattern of voting behaviour to the indigenous population: ie. roughly the same number of English people will vote Tory as the Scottish population at large.
Some academic (John Curtice?) did a quantitative study ages ago, after the 1987 GE?, which studied this topic, and found very little difference between the English in Scotland and Scots themselves.
It may surprise people unfamiliar with Scotland, but it is very common to find people with English accents who are SNP supporters, eg. when canvassing. We have lots of English members too.
There was also a Dundee University academic who published a book a couple of years ago - “Being English in Scotland” - which studied the English immigrant population (the largest immigrant group in Scotland by a long, long way). It did no quantitative work, but was based on interviews.
Here is the book’s blurb:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/catalog/data/074861/0748618597.HTM
I note from that book blurb: “over 366,000 English-born adults live in Scotland”.
Some suggested odds for next year:-
TB to stand down 1/5
GB to become PM 1/4
Hazel Blears to become deputy Labour leader 10/1
David Cameron to become deputy Labour leader 15/1
Ming to stand down - 4/5
David Cameron to become Lib Dem leader 10/1
Lembit Opik to become Lib Dem leader 1000/1
Lembit Opik to go out with Jade Goody 4/1
There will be a General Election 3/1
I will resign my LD membership 6/4
I will join another political party 50/1
Mike Smithson to get a gong 5/1
Lord Prescott of Hull to go to the Lords 4/5
69 - It’s purely anecdotal Stuart but there are a couple of places in the constituency where it has seemed to help.
O/T Update on Welsh Grand National - Lou de Moulin Mas
I hear that Ruby Walsh has been switched from Kempton to ride LDMM on the 27th. This is a sign of increased confidence in its chances. Best price I could find this morning was 7-1. As I indicated earlier, this is likely to be shorter on the day so if you intend to follow my suggestion to back it (each way) you definitely ought to take the price now. Once the Walsh news becomes widely known, the price will start to contact.
This is probably my last post this side of the Festivities so have a Happy Christmas everybody, particularly Mike and his crew, without whom all this would not be possible.
Cheers!
SBS encouraging odds on the membership. We would welcome you in Cameron’s Conservatives.
70. Mine are:
Mark and Belinda to take part to Celebrity Big Brother 4/6
Simon Hughes to marry a woman (who’s not Councillor Ginger La Grange) 8/1
A LD MP to be outed as gay/bi/trans 1/8
Lembit to pose for Playgirl 1/3
Tommy Sheridan and Rosie Kane to fall in love 50/1
Ed Balls to win Morley and Outwood selection 1/2
Bob Marshall Andrews to be killed at the next PLP meeting 1/1
Widdy to have Harriet the Cow saved 2/1
Harriet Harman Deputy Leadership campaign being confused with “Save Harriet the Cow” campaign 1/2
Jane Griffiths being elevated to the Lords as Lady Jane of Riga 3/1
“I could see that if people were charged a lot for it, or it was monitored with Gestapo-like authoritarianism”
Picture this…
Someone has a past conviction or maybe even a ’soft’ caution for shoplifting. It may be long spent and weeded being 20 years ago when they were a kid and should have known better. Anyway, since then, they haven’t done anything wrong. No one needs to know, it’s in the past and forgotten about.
However, it’s on the ID card along with everything else about this person.
So, you want to go shopping in a mall or someone where else… to get in you need to swipe your ID card.
Bingo, refused entry or searched on exit. Your tagged as a ‘criminal’.
There are millions of other situations where anyone may be treated very differently than they would today.
Apart from that ID cards will cost a fortune, the system will not work properly for years and will over run on budget and cost. It won’t stop terrorest attacks.
Also, they will be hacked and copied within hours of being introduced renering the whole thing a total joke.
Everyone will trust 100% the ID card, that is worrying.
So what are ID card really for?
Why isn’t the current driving licence enough? + your NI card of you don’t have a driving licence?
Matt.
74 - Andrea to become engaged to his good friend the former MP for Peterborough: 1,000,000,000/1
Thanks ptp 72. This is going to pay for my Xmas!!
76 Max, if it happens, I’ll make sure you’ll be my bestman!
re 68. I can vouch for that. Close English friends of mine living in Edinburgh are strong SNP supporters - yet they still support England in the Calcutta cup.
78 - Excellent I’ll get working on my speech! I think you should probably invite Stewart Jackson to the wedding too. I’m sure they’d have plenty to talk about.
80. Don’t you think he can ruin the reception?
74 - “A LD MP to be outed as gay/bi/trans 1/8″
Any idea which one? Lib Dems are laws unto themselves.
test
79. Mike Smithson
I think that there are actually two types of English SNP supporters: those that vote SNP for the same reasons as other Scots: independence, they like the policies, or tactically. But there is probably a significant minority who vote SNP because they are English nationalists. If Scotland becomes independent then England regains her independence.
For example Gareth of the Campaign for an English Parliament blog, voted SNP when he lived in Edinburgh.
http://www.thecep.org.uk/news/
I can quite see why English people in Scotland vote SNP. They like Scotland, and have chosen to move there. They have made a lifestyle choice to live in Scotland. They probably prefer Scotland to England, and feel that they would like Scotland to be less English or less British, as this Britishness / Englishness may be something they wanted to escape. Ergo, vote SNP.
Re. 48, it was wrong for the government to make unpaid utility bills etc. in those circumstances payable by private landlords. Apart from being intrinsically unfair (it was the tenants who racked up the debts, not the landlords), it has also made private landlords extremely wary (or even more wary than they used to be) of taking on DSS (or, strictly speaking, DWP) tenants. So, if, for example, there’s someone with an autistic spectrum disorder on Incapacity Benefit who wants to leave social housing, where there are some anti-social morons making a load of noise (and the housing association just keep slapping their wrists, and giving final warning after final warning), then they’re going to find it much harder to move to a flat rented by a private landlord. As a Labour activist, I wish my government would think things through a bit more.
46, 49 etc.
These comments on Baxter in Scotland are very valid. For two reasons, firstly, unless someone pays for Scottish Westminster polls then the lack of polls will damage Baxter’s logic. Secondly the balkanised nature of Scottish constituencies. The fact that in the central belt a group of superficially similar seats like East Dumbartonshire, East Renfrewshire, Dunfermline and West Fife, Livingston and Stirling can all be so totally an utterly different in electoral terms and all have a different beneficiaries from a move against Labour is the key point.
I find the best approach to the predictions is to drill down to the actual changes individual seats and ask seriously if the moves can happen in each seat. This is actually really useful for the 73 Scottish Parliament constituencies too. For example take Argyll & Bute. For Baxter to be right in his prediction of a Tory gain from the Lib Dems (where there is a current LD majority of 5,636) the following net vote moves have to work. (1) The Tories need to go up by c1500 which is a credible sort of move, but (2) c4500 current LD voters need to stop voting LD and clearly the majority need to vote SNP - who go up c4000 votes (3) and of course Labour needs to drop by just under 1000. Now the moves to the Toris and from Labour seem the sort of credible moves that might take place in a general election, but can we really say that 4000 votes will move from the incumbent to the fourth place party. That sort of move does not happen in what would be a very tactical environment and that is the magic and risk of baxter.
Now there is enough data for Baxter on Scottish Parliament constituencies. That would be a great present for 2007.
Merry Christmas to all PBC posters
Matthew Parris said on 5 Live today that Campbell sees himself as ‘a transitional figure’, and will stand down next year, to be replaced by Nick Clegg.
re 72. Mike Smithson 5/1 to get a gong. It should be tighter than that given all the help PBC has given to Gordon in his campaign for the leadership. I’m longing to lead on the morning afterwards with PM Brown - it was PBC wot did it
70+74: now that’s what I call political betting!
With the LD leadership, again, the LDs have never been a one man party (unlike another I could mention!) MC never promised to be a young, energetic and high-profile leader, he stood as a safe pair of hands with experience and gravitas, and with ambitions to reform the party internbally to better prepare it for the future. So on the mandate he was elected on, he is doing a decent job. I also sense no whisperings from those around him.
Perhaps the past year simply serves to remind us how good CK was when at his best. Still not sure that Clegg is the wunderkid; after being so critical of him in the leadership contest earlier in the year, Chris Huhne has had a good year, and I am a fan of figures such as Davey, Cable, Featherstone and Lamb, all of whom I see as having leadership potential.
87 - As I said above my experience is rather different. The village I grew up in was found to be the most English place in Scotland. It’s also fairly strongly Conservative and the SNP vote is negligible. It’s probably something that varies depending on where in the country you live.
90. Clegg, Laws or Davey would be good choices. The LibDems need a leader whose personality and background is equidistant from dour Scotsman Brown, and Tory lightweight toff Cameron. Ming is a lovely bloke, but he comes across as a dour Scots toff! - the worst of both worlds….
The LibDems would do well with a youngish Mr. Normal as leader, all the better if, for the first time, he represents an English Suburban Seat…. So I guess that narrows it down to Clegg or Davey…
Or Huhne!
or the Cheeky girls
93. Max
That is an interesting possibility. I seem to remember that it is it Peebles you are from?
I suppose it could be the case that where there is a high concentration of English immigrants they behave differently from people who are well-integrated into mainstream Scottish society. If they live in a primarily English environment they perhaps adopt a more “us-and-them” mentality, which would be magnified in rural areas.
Now that you mention it, I think that there is probably a case of this in parts of the West Highlands, eg. Ardnamurchan, where you get “English” villages like Strontian, and “locals” villages like Acharacle. This is of course a gross generalisation, but I suspect that the Tories (and the Lib Dems) do disproportionately-well among the English in such areas. But in Edinburgh and Glasgow and most urban areas? Nah. I very much doubt that being English makes you statistically more likely to vote Tory in most of Scotland.
95. ‘fraid to say Huhne doesn’t exactly seem “Mr.Normal” to me…. weird name too… Not a good choice, imho….
97 - A village called West Linton which is in Peeblesshire Stuart. I think the same survey found that Barra was the most Scottish place.
I’m not sure it’s a case of being less integrated - more just following existing voting paterns. An interesting subject all the same although I don’t know if all that much research has been done on it.
99. Max
Another factor here Max is that in places like West Linton and Strontian the English immigrants as a whole are much wealthier and older than the average population in the wider area. But you have to remember that in Scotland overall the socio-economic and demographic profile of the English population is very similar to the nation as a whole (this was discussed at lengthy in the Dundee University book).
Far from the stereotypical image of the retired Home Counties Telegraph-reader, most English people who move to Scotland do so to work, and to build up a family and a great lifestyle in one of the best environments in the world. They activelly integrate into, and enrich, the communities they move into: they like Scotland and the Scots. They are younger, positive-thinking, and more C1, C2, D than the media-promulgated image of the classic toffy, reactionary “white-settler”.
10. Under English law, members of an unincorporated association are not liable for the organization’s debts - liability is restricted to their subscription. - Wise v Perpetual Trustee Co.[1903] A.C. 139.
On the other hand the liability of the association’s “officers” is a good deal wider. e.g. Re St.James’ Club [1852] 2 De G.M & G. 383….
101 Rod
As a constituent of a federal organisation, would the Scottish Liberal Democrats be free from any liability. Is Scots law relevant to this case?
50. That’s a completely facile argument. The state needs an 18 billion quid quasi-totalitarian ID card scheme to stop Farepak victims and other assorted chavs doing a moonlight flit on the rent? I’m sure you welcome the firm, guiding hand of the altruistic state in every aspect of your Guardianista existance but the rest of us aren’t so keen.
104 Interesting in the Litvinenko case they have arrested an Italian spy. Maybe it was the Prodi claims they were out to silence and nothing to do with Putin after all….
“A member has a joint right with all other members in everything that belongs in property to the club. NO-ONE CAN BE DEPRIVED OF HIS PROPERTY EXCEPT BY HIS CONSENT OR BY THE ACTION OF THE LAW, and consequently the majority of the members of a club cannot deprive the minority of what belongs to them.” Murray v. Johnstone 1896 (Scottish Court of Session), 981.
It will ultimately depend on the Rules. If the Rules say they can do this and that, you will be deemed to have consented to them…
104 - I have said this on this site before. I am sure it was nothing to do with Putin.
Sarah Teather for Leader I say…by all acounts an outstanding individual with real get up and go and a quite gifted parliamentarian.
On the ID card issue, I am amazed at the number of problems to which they are proposed as a solution. Personally I think it shows a very scary state knows best mentality, when clearly that is not the case.
A bunch of amateurs rotten to the core
Like me, you will have been stunned by the latest YouGov poll in this newspaper yesterday. You will have reeled at the statistic that 58 per cent of those questioned thought the Labour Government is sleazy.
What planet, you will have asked yourself, must the other 42 per cent be living on, if they don’t think the Government is a bunch of sleazeballs?
Where can they have been since 1997? Who can forget the case of Bernie Ecclestone, the Formula One king, whose donation of £1 million to the party (later returned) seemed to help Tony Blair postpone a ban on cigarette advertising on racing cars?
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Who can forget the way in which Peter Mandelson, now our most distinguished representative in Brussels, forgot to declare the small matter of a £373,000 loan on a mortgage application form?
And whose memory is so short that they have forgotten the visit to Number 10 a week ago by Scotland Yard’s finest, to question the Prime Minister about alleged selling of peerages?
And never mind manifestations of other forms of scandal, such as high-profile sexual shenanigans of the sort that, when practised by Tory ministers, Labour used to deplore; or the fact that the Culture Secretary accidentally finds herself married (for the moment) to someone arraigned on serious fraud charges in an Italian court. No: perhaps that 42 per cent of respondents had simply forgotten the litany of shame.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jh…2/23/do2303.xml
The Tories can make huge hay out of the problems facing the military at this time. There is strong evidence that the defence budget is to get cut again.
Cutting a budget is one thing, cutting a budget when the miltary is actively engaged in two conflicts is a joke. The conflicts themselves are not the issue, its that budgets are being cut in the middle of British forces being at their most active in a long time.
Most people in UK, whether they particularly like the conflicts or not won’t have much time for Gordon deciding to cut the budget in real terms..again.
As regards the LD’s, Their downturn is not surprising, with the Tories a credible altrernative again, politics will turn more towards a two party fight. Despite the great protestations of LD posters and I understand why those protestations are made, the LD’s will get squeezed and it has actually very little to do with Ming himself.
Why are the Libdems slipping a little in the polls? The usual reason, it’s been a long time since the last bye-election.
Ming too old? Maybe but I see he is five years younger than the man who might be the next US President, John McCain, yet another political scion of the Highland clans I see.
Of course Ming might not be too happy to see McCain elected. From http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/524926.stm
This refers to McCain saying: “…that he had just read John Keegan’s history of the First World War. He spoke of the McCain clan being driven out of Scotland in the 17th Century by the “dastardly” Campbells.
“I can fly into a rage when I meet a Campbell,” he joked, in reference to his well-known and well-criticised temper.”
I wonder how the McCains got on with the Camerons?
Merry Christmas everybody
A happy Christmas to all the PB.C community.
5.
>Labour cannot be trusted with defence.
Indeed not, with de Conservative party sitting on it all de time there’s no room for dem dere anyway!