Communicate Research boost for Brown
December 28th, 2006
But why no voting intention figures?
The December poll from Communicate Research is out this morning in the Independent but the online edition, at least, does not appear to feature voting intention figures. These were clearly asked because breakdowns of how supporters of different parties answered some of the questions are included in the story. Maybe that detail will come tomorrow.
Andrew Grice, the paper’s political editor, puts the focus on the “who would make the best PM” question where Brown was rated at 39% while Cameron scored 36%. Lib Dems divided by 37-31% on this question while those saying they intended to vote Green went for Cameron by 40-30%.
But is Grice correct to state in his introduction that that the answer to the “best PM” question means that people “prefer” the Chancellor as their next PM? That question was not asked. Alastair Campbell could rate Manchester United as the “best football team” but still say he prefers Burnley.
The finding on “best PM” is consistent with other surveys. YouGov last week reported a 28-27 Cameron-Brown split on the issue while ICM had Brown had Brown 5% ahead on the same question at the end of November.
Clearly this is an area where the Chancellor is seen positively - the challenge for Labour is to convert that into a desire to vote for the party. For the former poll had voters wanting a Cameron-led Tory Government over a Brown-led Labour by a 13 point margin while the latter reported a 9% overall Tory lead.
The poll also found that two thirds of people think Gordon “grumpy”, against only 18 per cent who think the same of the Tory leader.
As we discussed in November CR does not use past vote weighting to ensure a politically balnced sample and their methodology is “currently under review”.
Hopefully we will be able to get the voting intention figures either tomorrow or when CR publishes the detailed data.
Mike Smithson
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A worthless question and a worthless pollster (unless they have changed their methods to industry standard).
It seems British and Australian politics have very different dynamics. In Australian polling, the preferred PM and “better economic manager” questions as polled by Newspoll (as seen in the Australian - http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au) are all-important “baseline” predictors on how people will vote in an election.
I’m keen to get advice from UK residents on the significance of “preferred PM” polls to the British electorate on how people actually vote …..and whether value on the Communicate Research “preferred PM” question should have more, less or the same attached value than the “forced question” posed by other pollsters on voting preferences.
cheers from a sunny sumer Sydney…
I’m keen to point out that it’s not the figures as presented in the CR polling that make me wonder whether they are of lesser value…but the story associated with the polling itself.
Suspect a big Cons lead, hence not published, what say folk?
re 4. No way. My guess is that CR will be showing a significant Labour lead - maybe 3-4% or more. If this month’s ICM and Populus surveys had not had past vote weighting they would probably have reported Labour leads
re 2. The question with CR was not “preferred PM” - but who people thought would make the “best PM”. This is totally different.
Mike, last month when you got in contact with CR and the Indie they all but assured you that they would change to industry standard weighting.
Why are they persisting with this farce of unweighted numbers?
It’s so useless.
7 - what are you talking about “industry standard”? Mori don’t weight by past vote, nor do YouGov, nor do BPIX and (I think) nor do NOP.
I assume you mean past vote weighting, but then there is no “standard” - Populus and ICM both apply different formulae meaning that they will give different results for the same data.
re 7. No. The Indy told me last month at the CR methodology was “under constant review“.
Last week Mori reported a Labour 6% lead amongst all respondents naming a party. By the time they had filtered out those not “100% certain” to vote there was a small Tory lead.
My guess is that the CR figure could be closer to Mori’s “all naming a party” figure which is why I think that they have found a Labour lead.
9 Mike, thanks, but they do not weight by past vote recall (which Alex, is the standard for a serious pollster. Differences in the exact method of *how* the weighting is calculated not withstanding, the basic principle of past vote recall weighting is required for it to be a serious pollster. Which is why pbers only pay attention to YouGov, ICM and Populus), right?
Please note, the 7% lead for Brown amongst the over 65’s. The £200.00 heating allowance (Brown money) has had its affect. David Cameron should up the bidding for the grey vote. Lets see now,’ I am moved by the plight of the elderly in this country, £200.00 heating allowance is not enough! I propose at least £500.00 or even more if it gets the geriatric vote,’ Or am I being cynical?
Thank you Gordon Hamish Brown !!!!!!!!!
Tax burden ‘will rise for 50 years’
QUOTE
Taxpayers will have to pay an ever bigger slice of their earnings to the tax man for the next 50 years - the equivalent of a full working life - a report produced by the Treasury has revealed.
QUOTE
Mark Francois, the shadow treasury minister, said: “This document appears to imply that Britons are to face a lifetime of tax increases - a prospect that most taxpayers will find alarming.”
“This is yet another example of how Gordon Brown’s policies have set in train an ever increasing tax burden on the people of Britain which is made all the worse by the fact that much of the extra money has been so poorly spent.”
QUOTE
Matthew Elliot, chief executive of the Taxpayers’ Alliance campaign, said: “Gordon Brown used to claim that his tax increases were a short-term measure to boost public services. Now it’s clear he wants to turn Britain into a permanently high-tax economy.”
Well there you have it. For ten years Gordon made himself out to be the miracle Chancellor in the eyes’ of the lumpen and future generations will pick up the tab for the next half century.
It’s a miracle economy alright! Never before has one man managed to wreak so much destruction to a nation’s prospects for as long a period, not even Robert Mugabe IMO.
Thanks Gordon…
12 - I’m certainly no fan of Gordon Brown - but for you to compare him unfavourably to Robert Mugabe (one of the most evil men on the planet) is simply daft (to put it politely).
“But is Grice correct to state in his introduction that that the answer to the “best PM” question means that people “prefer” the Chancellor as their next PM?”
I’m sure if we were choosing a bungee jumper, tobogganist,sky diver or cyclist our globe trotting action-man might get the vote. But the job description is so specific that “Best PM” is the only one that counts.
My fear is that Brown will try to lighten up and project an image that doesn’t fit. It would be a huge mistake. Always look for the USP in the product you have and for a PM Gordon has several. Remember the Renault “Shaking your ass” ad? Huge success! How you make an ugly motor attractive.
As for Cameron….I heard Zak Goldsmith edit the “Today” program. It’s through the people that surround him that Labour should expose the privaledge and elitism that is the New Tory Party leadership.
I see the Conservatives are talking about promoting the Hover train
see this, note the year it was cancelled, the Minister was a certain Michael Heseltine.
http://www.imperial.ac.uk/publications/reporterarchive/0055/feat03.htm
Well said Steven 13 - what a ridiculous comment by HP. I am not so sure I buy the prefer-best argument. Gordon has built up a great reputation and I would be worried if I was a Tory that Cameron continues to trail him on this. When people actually get to voting then surely their first priority is to try to ensure that the person they think of as “best” is elected. Or are we saying that voters will decide to support the party led by the “second best” ?
Alex @ 8. NOP do weight by past vote while YouGov and, I think, BPIX weight by how those on their panels said they voted in the two weeks after the election in May 2005.
12. Yes, it’s ludicrous to compare NuLab and ZanuPF. One is a corrupt and authoritarian regime presiding over a worn out and fractured country whereas ZPF…
Mike, I have noticed a lot of far right rants on this site of late that seem to come from different users but all sound like the same sort of narrow minded drivel, they all seem to start around the same time as well. Are they different users or are they the same people?
Now that I’ve got a Betfair account (and Mike I did do it by clicking on the link) has anyone got any advice on how it works without my losing my shirt. I think I can cope with backing, its laying that difficult to get my head around.
Don’t you think it’s weird to post a message and then answer yourself using a different username? And whatever the subject managing to mention Mugabe or ZanuPF? Exacxtly the same happened yesterday but using the username “Eastern Eye”.
21. It’s probably just a manifestation of someone’s post-Christmas boredom. Too much turkey makes it harder to get out of the computer chair…
The best PM question is all about proxiity to power, Brown is closer to power ergo he gets a boost on this question.
CR poll, it’s barely conceivable that there can be a labour lead, if a pollster finds one then they may be embarrassed about it. It is Christmas though, which might be the get-out if they come up with such a figure, strange things can happen with sampling around this time.
A mate asked me last night “if I vote for Cameron’s Conservatives, am I voting for Cameron or for the Conservatives?” The sub-text obviously being that the former was the sort of thing a decent person might well do, the latter not. (You won’t be surprised that my mates have those kind of views … )
My reply was that the larger his majority, the more Conservative (in the accepted sense of the term) his government would turn out to be. I speculated that he might actually prefer to lead a minority government, knowing that his was the only party that could afford a second election short of a full(ish) term. The other difference (as I saw it) between Cameron now and Blair in the mid-1990s was that Blair had a far better front-bench team - NuLab was never a one-man show in opposition. Of Cameron’s team, and discounting Osborne because I can’t remember a single post here praising him, only Francis Maude strikes me as an asset to his boss. (Although in fairness the Labour front bench is also weak by comparison with the past.)
One point I didn’t get onto (since my mate isn’t that interested in politics AFAIK) is whether we will also be voting for (a tranche of) the Upper House next time. Indeed, I don’t seem to be able to persuade anyone I know (including Labour Party members) that it’s actually going to happen this Parliament after having been kicked into touch so often before. If indeed it does come to pass, I wonder if it won’t help Cameron, with people being willing to give him the benefit of the doubt in choosing an MP while voting in some other way for the Lords. In consequence, Tory candidates for the Lords may face a very uphill struggle, with some Tory voters refusing to vote for a Lord on principle, others going UKIP whilst the Cameroonies vote Lib Dem as an insurance policy …
As someone who works in the ‘industry’, can I just tackle this idea of an ‘industry standard’.
To be honest there are so many debates surrounding:
a) Fieldwork methodology e.g. phones = quicker, broad sample, lower response rate; face-to-face higher response rates, more thorough sampling frames, slower and more susceptible to interviewer bias; internet fast and cheap, but open to self selection problems and panel surveys run into debates about proper sampling theory - no interviewer bias - but ‘layout bias’ (questions across the page, top to bottom, individual questions per page vs seeing the next question).
b) Weighting and filters: this is always going to be a difficult area. As researchers, a ‘perfect sample’ should never need any weighting or filters, but lower response rates and self-selection mean that this is an impossible feat. But even so the debate as to what to weight on to an extent makes this alchemy. It is a judgement. The past vote debate is difficult, as it is fairly obvious that past vote ‘recall’ is at least partially dependent on current factors (people want to remember that they support the winners / leaders - i.e. and amazing surge in ‘lifetime’ Chelsea supporters in the last 2 years - and vice versa).
c) Question wording. Is it right to prompt people or not? Does ‘best’ mean the one I want? Can I really say I would vote this way in a ‘General Election tomorrow’ if I am not in the middle of a campaign and the pressures, focussing on issues and contemplation of what that vote means?
d) Question order: Does asking whether I like strawberries more than raspberries change after I have been asked whether I think it is right that most winter strawberries are grown in Spain? Does my view on Cameron as PM change if I have just answered that I don’t think he is as honest as Brown, or conversely said he is more likeable?
e) Timing. Could go on and on about this one. Short fieldwork times vs long ones. Recent events. The weather (i.e. older people disproportionately more likely to be in on sunny days). Time of week - interviewers tend to find more Lib Dems during weekends as they tend to be slightly younger and in professional jobs.
f) Sampling frame. too many factors to state.
Anyway, without waffling on anymore. You can see my point. This ‘industry’can never be pure ’science’ as there are so many factors that you need to weigh up. What is important is that all people carrying out polls are clear about what they did and what they asked and when. Then we have a huge pool of data across each month, and across each year.
To rely on one company because they are the ‘industry standard’ is probably not the best approach. It is better to embrace the fact that all the major companies are giving us shots from slightly different angles that give us a more three dimensional image of where the voter landscape lies at the minute. If it was clear that only one polling organisation had the true philosopher’s stone as to what exactly needed to be measured, then all the other polls would fade away and our lives would be less enriched by the diversity of takes on the situation that there are.
24 - I would have thought, with the A list, that a larger conservative majority would have made the tories *more* Cameroonian not less. I thought that the idea of this list was to stop them electing more extreme MPs.
“NuLab was never a one-man show in opposition.”
All the more ironic given what has happened since. Osborne is praised by none other than Mike Smithson, I also give him much credit for the successful tactics used in neutralising Brown, people forget how Brown was thought, even at the election, to be way ahead of Blair in terms of popularity. No longer.
24. I’d have thought the opposite - the smaller the majority the more right-wing the Conservative party will be as most of the newly selected candidates are Cameronite modernisers. With a small or non-existent majority the likes of Bill Cash, John Hayes, Edward Leigh will be much more influential (as in the 1992 parliament).
Thanks for the article Mike, however I am not sure there is much to comment on as yet.
Do we know how long this review of methodology is likely to go on?
We shall of course have to see the unweighted figures tomorow. There will be a bot of an inherent pro Labour bias in them so any Conservative lead will be a bonus, albeit that the figure still won’t mean much.
26.”I would have thought, with the A list, that a larger conservative majority would have made the tories *more* Cameroonian not less. I thought that the idea of this list was to stop them electing more extreme MPs.”
Is Priti Patel an example of moderate Cameroonian?
It would be worrying!
I forgot to add this in my post at 12
Labour likes to tax and spend. What’s the sudden surprise?
This was well known in 1997 but people still voted for them… (I didn’t vote for them BTW)
Heaven help the UK if Gord becomes PM
The questions I would like posed is what is the purpose of these particular questions and what will be the effect of the answers.
The people funding CR are clearly close to Brown. My interpretation is that the people commissioning this are seeking to show polling numbers that enhance him, but he has no rivals so it i s not about getting him a victory but looks to be more focused on getting Blair out quickly.
The unions provide 80%+ of Labour’s donations. If they were to tell Blair he must go now, or they cut off funding, he would have to go. The other people with power are cabinet colleagues. Both unions and the cabinet can look at this “research” and feel justified in moving to get Brown in quicker. But because 1/3 of the cabinet will see their careers ended with Blair’s removal, it is the unions who hold the key.
In January we are entering a limited 6 week window of opportunity to start the process of getting Brown “elected” before the May elections kick off. For Blair to be gone by the start of April, Labour’s tortuous election process would have to start by mid Feb.
21. How dare you impugn my integrity? I know it must be hard for you to comprehend that there can be multiple people who don’t share your sense of arousal over ZanuNL but there was no sock puppetry today or yesterday.
It will be very good news indeed if Gordon Brown, boyed up by the kind of ‘anything you like, mate’ polling results that seem to still be offered occasionally by some pollsters, convinces himself to risk an early GE on the back of it.
And I say that as a Conservative candidate.
20 Chris A
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24,26, 29 - One shouldn’t assume that Conservative candidates who are female will necessarily be on the Left of the Party.
A big Conservative majority would also mean that a substantial number of candidates who weren’t on the A List would have won the less sought after seats.
[24 et seq] On the “behaviour of the dog in the night” principle, I’m fascinated that no Conservative here has been able or willing to name a single Tory front-bencher, other than Osborne or Maude, who they consider to be an asset to their Party Leader.
35.”One shouldn’t assume that Conservative candidates who are female will necessarily be on the Left of the Party”
Another wrong assumption is that female candidates will necessarily be “cuddly” or have a soft image.
British politics have a good tradition of female politicians who aren’t either cuddly or soft!
36.”no Conservative here has been able or willing to name a single Tory front-bencher, other than Osborne or Maude, who they consider to be an asset to their Party Leader”
Alan Duncan, naturally!
Many of the young women candidates consider themselves both Cameroon and right wing from what I can gather on Conservative Home. There are some exceptions like the Battersea candidate.
RE 36, Innocent, in no particular order, David Davis (Shadow Home secretary) David Willits (Two Brains, education), Liam Fox (seems to be doing OK now), I could go on, but I am in the middle of other things.
36. There are many. Theresa May (I admire the A list). David Willets. Andrew Lansley. I was impressed by the junior whip Tobias Ellwood’s proposal on Afghanistan. Plenty of others. David Davis has been the most impressive perhaps, seeing off plenty of Labour opposition and providing lots of traditional robust Tory values at the Home Office. The sight of Cameron and Davis working so well as a team reinforces the unity of the Tory benches vs. the disunity of Labour.
41. “David Davis has been the most impressive perhaps, . . . providing lots of traditional robust Tory values at the Home Office.”
And there I was thinking that the guy presiding over the traditional Tory values, including gross inefficiency and operational racism, at the Home Office was called John Reid, not David Davis!
36. It’s a question of horses for courses. Cameron is the best leader we could have at the moment because of all the front benchers, his skills and qualities are closest to those ideal for a leader in this position. That doesn’t mean others aren’t equally good in their job. David Davis has an excellent record shadowing the Home Office and is clearly an asset in that role - but it doesn’t make him a leader in waiting. Osbourne has a very good tactical sense of the game, but has a tough job shadowing Brown - whose experience and record is far above any other minister on the Treasury Bench. Hague is a great parliamentarian and has a fine intellect but was the wrong choice at the wrong time for leader in 1997 (perhaps the closest parallel to Labour pre-97 would be Robin Cook); he still has more to offer. I don’t want to go through the whole shadow cabinet, but matching man-for-man against Labour, I’m not that worried.
Davis is good shadowing the home office (I prefer Clegg but it’s a close thing), Hague has been good shadowing foreign affairs (during the Lebanon affair he talked much more sense than the craven government) and as a non-conservative I don’t mind Osborne either (although I know I’m in a minority on that). The rest haven’t made too much of an impact, can’t stand Fox but Grayling, although unassuming, seems to be pretty successful.
As for labour ministers I would say Benn (although he gets the nice job) and Miliband is beginning to fulfil his early promise, you can almost see him planning a post Brown party like a chess player planning moves ahead. Although he was useless as a campaign manager I was surprised to read things by the newer, softer Milburn which I could only agree with. Cable and Laws (with Clegg) stand out from the lib dem front bench team with their perspicacity.
41. IMO Andrew Lansley has underperformed. I think he could have made much more inroads in Labour’s troubles with NHS.
Re Shadow Home Secretary…sometimes I get confused and I assume that Bob Marshall Andrews is covering that role
20. Chris A. Very useful advice from peter the punter on exchange betting. I am largely self taught too. I would add the advice to always remember to cancel any of your unmatched bets unless you intend to leave them, hoping to be matched. If for example you attempted to put a bet on GB today as next labour leader at 2.0, even money, it would be unmatched. However if you left the country for a week and then GB announced he was not going to stand for next Labour leader, you would find someone had happily accommodated the bet in your absence!
IMO, the most impressive members of the shadow cabinet (aside from Cameron himself) are Letwin, Hague, Duncan, May, Grayling and Spelman.
Most of the others haven’t really made much of an impression on me (except for Davis who’s been a complete and utter disaster).
re 20 Chris A My suggestion is to buy a little book called Betfair for Dummies RRP £5.99 ( less on Amazon but you will have to pay p&p unless your total order is over £15 ). It it is specifically for the betfair site and covers everything from the basics up to more advanced stuff. Good luck!
It’s an indication of how under the spell of big business Labour is now that Green supporters prefer a Tory PM to a Labour PM! Astonishing! Green voters tend to be pretty socialist in economic world-view, and there they are preferring Tory to Labour.
Mind you, when you’ve got stuff like this in the press about Labour bending to business over the nation’s health then it’s hardly surprising is it:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/food/Story/0,,1979239,00.html
Also, I just couldnt stop laughing when I saw that Blears is campaigning against her own government’s health policy in her seat. Perhaps she doesnt have hypocrite in her vocabulary. She really has no shame! I thought she sat in on the closure meetings to ensure that the closures were not in Labour seats…she obviously didnt do very well!
Hazel Blears on TV demonstrating against New Labour NHS cuts in her constituency,clearly a p…ing competition going on in New Labour to see who can come up with the most childish stunt.
re many. Thanks for all the tips.
RE 49, John, What? A cabinet minister campaigning against her own government? Has she resigned yet?
Benedict the shocking thing is that you can find zero mention of it on Conservative Home
Well, I can’t say I visit Con home that often.
Any one got an online reference to the story?
53.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/publicservices/story/0,,1979262,00.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6213445.stm
Inflation,what inflation ??????
Today I heard this on the radio
Interviewer: “The estimated cost of hosting the Olympics has risen from to 2.4 billion to 6.2 billion. How do you explain this rise?”
Government spokesman: “Well of course the original estimate was made in year 2004 pounds. We always understood that inflation would lead to this figure increasing.”
Truth will out!
Answers please Chancellor !!!!
I make that rate of inflation 60%!
It is going to cost a hell of a lot more than that.
51
No,New Labour don’t do resignations,as per the ‘heat’ map produced by Patricia Hewitt,70% of the proposed NHS cuts will be in Tory / Lib Dem constituencies.
I suppose Blears was trying to show us that some of the cuts will take place in a few New Labour constituencies.
Chris Grayling. Sleazefinder General! I’m no great fan of Tony Blair but does anyone believe that hounding the PM over his holiday at the home of Robin Gibb is doing political harm to anyone other than the insidious Chris Grayling?
56
Hopefully at least one of the bookmakers will start offering us odds.
On the basis of this government’s history with major projects I would have put the final cost at 10/12 billion,however, with Livingstone and Jowell heading up this project 14/16 billion is probably nearer the mark.
You couldn’t make the Blears thing up, could you? Then again, nothing surprises me anymore with NuLab and their constant undermining of our constitution.
On the A List issue - I think it may spell some long term gloom for Cameron. The people who are on this list are likely to be very able, very talented and VERY ambitious career politicians. Of course, this could in the short term prove an asset to any Conservative government, but all Cameron has to do is fail to promote one of them, or demote one of them for speaking out of line, and bang! you’ve got a rebellion of very able people on your hands.
The A List are the anti-Cameron backstabbers of the future, you mark my words.
60 “You want gratitude. Go and buy a dog.”
Re roger “I’m no great fan of Tony Blair but does anyone believe that hounding the PM over his holiday at the home of Robin Gibb is doing political harm to anyone other than the insidious Chris Grayling?”
A £60,000 freebie from their “friends”, a couple of swingers, does speak fathoms about the standards of T. Blair and will cause some political harm to Labour. It is another page for the 2nd edition of the Labour sleaze book which must take it close to 40 entries for 2006 alone.
RE 51 Benedict White “John, What? A cabinet minister campaigning against her own government? Has she resigned yet?”
A very good question. What other examples are there of a Labour cabinet minister doing this?
What is Hewitt going to do? Is it just another sign that Labour’s internal discipline has broken down when even its Chairman will not support Govt policy?
You’ll have to explain what’s wrong with a Robin Gibb inviting the Blair family stay at his house? And where do you get £60,000 from? Don’t Conservatives invite people to their homes?
To be fair, HF, nobody yet has shown that Blears is opposing government policy, which is for fewer bigger maternity units. The logical conclusion of Blears’ action consistent with government policy would be to ‘beggar her neighbour’ - in this case Ruth Kelly, by having the Western ‘centre of excellence’ for Greater Manchester at Hope hospital rather than in Bolton.
Could this be the last ounce of honesty erupting from Hazel’s bosom?
Hazel B used to be the vice-Chairperson of Salford Community Health Council according to a mate of mine who served under her. You know, CHCs: those things that Labour abolished because they listened to the local people and told the truth about what was happening in the NHS!!
The really funny thing is that, following years and years of consultation across the NW region and a massive polyfactorial study, the Regional Association of CHCs recommended that Hope Hospital Salford should not only be a major maternity centre, it should also be the replacement site for the two specialist children’s hospitals in the region. The Minister (and the Regional Health Authority government lapdog) ignored this and plumped for St Marys, Manchester instead.
On your (mini moto) bike Hazel!
64 - Blair’s support for extending copyright is compromised by his use of popstars of a certain vintage. Thankfully the report on this has come out against any extension, the continued availability of our recorded heritage is more important than lining the pockets of those whose pockets are already well lined (don’t believe that it helps those who were less well known, they sell enough to buy the odd pint and no more).
Being close to a couple of public domain labels I know that there’s little profit in it for them, just the love of the music, and the lesser known artists they release are grateful to be heard, never mind hankering after royalties for work they did over fifty years ago.
Up and down the country, Labour MPs are quaking as NHS cuts begin to bite and public pressure groups join opposition parties in protesting against them. Except, I suppose, in those cases where they manage to lead discontent against the government themselves. And I can imagine how the Bob Marshall-Andrewses of this world could make a legitimate case for having opposed the Government’s reforms from the start. It’s harder to understand how loyalists, like Andrew Smith MP, in my backyard, can oppose NHS cuts when they voted for Labours reforms and never raised a finger against the macro-policy that now comes home to roost in their constituency.
But the prize for audacity now goes to Salford MP (and - what a coincidence! - Deputy Leadership contender) Hazel Blears, who’s got her ten minutes of post-Christmas coverage by protesting against the closure of facilities at Hope Hospital, in her constituency. I’m less struck by her disloyalty to her own government, than by the fact that as a cabinet minister she accepts collective responsibility for that government’s policy. She may not agree with everything it ever does, but if she can tolerate the NHS cuts policy well enough to stay in the cabinet, it is sad she cannot now tolerate its effects in her own area. Her own spokesman probably hit the nail on the head when he said, “[s]he intends to campaign against it - it is a very hot issue locally.”
I’d have more respect for Labour cabinet ministers - who often, I’m sure, do believe their own policies are good ideas - if they actually stood up for them in public. By suggesting there’s one rule for her constituency and and another for the rest of us, she expresses more contempt than if she’d stuck to her convictions over “re-structuring” NHS services. As a cabinet minister she has a choice: back the whole policy, including its local effects, or oppose the whole policy, including its local effects. Picking and choosing is rank opportunism.
(from LibDem voice)
64,
Yes for sheperds pie and champagne, why do you ask?
66. Perhaps she should now be known as Hazel “crocodile” Blears.
64 No Roger Conservatives including their leader break House Of Commons rules and use taxpayers’s money to fund money raising dinners to build up Conservative campaign funds .
“TORIES CONSIDER 300MPH TRAINS” the papers tell us today. The London terminus will be at the House of Commons Dining Room and it will be filled with gravy! George Osborne has won the competition to wear the guard’s hat and sing “choo choo”.
69.
‘No Roger’ Conservatives, surely? Post-Ted Heath, a dying breed!
The liberal spokesman for foreign affairs was tying himself in knots over the decision by the Iraq appeal court to agree to Saddam`s death penalty, yesterday.
What is their position, that sovereign countries can`t decide their own justice system, because it desn`t relate to their own values?
72 For a “sovereign country” Iraq has a helluva lot of British troops on its streets.
72. No, that they oppose the death penalty and support international agreements against it - which is a far more reasonable position than Washington’s smug posing over an execution which will further damage relations in the region (to say the least).
72.
What sovereign country is that, Dez? State 52 (UK is 51) surely?
69
Have the Lib Dems decided whether they will pay back the £ 2 milion they received from their jailed donor,surely they won’t want to keep tainted money?
Why does it take them so long to make a descision on this issue?
74,
I agree with that position, why did`nt he say that as succinctly as you.
Instead of prattling on.
77. I do’nt know, I did’nt hear it.
73,
Not that many for the millions who live there in the southern provinces.
re 64 Roger “You’ll have to explain what’s wrong with a Robin Gibb inviting the Blair family stay at his house? And where do you get £60,000 from?”
Well.
1. Gibb and Cliff are trying to persuade Govt to change the laws on copyright.
2. “Florida estate agents said that a member of the public would expect to pay between £25,000 and £40,000 a week for a property like the elegant Gibb mansion with its ten bedrooms and nine bathrooms.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=425055&in_page_id=1770&ct=5
76.
“they won’t want to keep tainted money?”
Didn’t the crook insist that the Libs gave it to all those Tories who own the useless billboard sites?
76, because it`s a big wedge, if it was £20 he would have had it sent back sharpish.
80.
“a member of the public would expect to pay between £25,000 and £40,000 a week for a property like the elegant Gibb mansion”
Yeh, but you’d need a hefty hefty discount if you had to put up with the falsetto invading the bathroom/kitchen/bedroom!
Re 80 wage slave, “Yeh, but you’d need a hefty hefty discount if you had to put up with the falsetto invading the bathroom/kitchen/bedroom!”
Or the attempts to “swing” as Robin and wife boast an open marriage.
84. Are they friends of Boris?
85.
Does Boris have friends (as opposed to floosies)?
78 Probably for the same reason the Conservatives have not repaid the money given by the figitive Asil Nadir or returned the money brought back by some of them in suitcases from the Far East .
Is Gordon Brown a cert to be PM at odds of 2/13.
I think not and would expect the odds to be at least 1/33 for a cert.
I would not wager £26K to “win” £4K
I will end up losing £26k
John Edwards launches White House bid.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6213287.stm
90 No such thing as a cert, Prince: you should know that!
I reckon the true probabilty is now somewhere between 80% and 95%, i.e., 1/4 to 1/20 - so your figure of 2/13 is about right. I would be neither a buyer nor a seller at that price. Of course, at these very low odds you also have to take account of interest/opportunity costs and how your portfolio looks generally. I guess this is why you can still get a fairly generous 1.2 (1/5) with Betfair.
The market will also be distorted by people who managed to get on Brown to large amounts when the price was around 1.5. As the price drops, they start to unload their liabilities which helps to sustain the price for latecomers to the party.
test
91 Thanks Will. I took a small interest but it seems the ’secret’ was leaked yesterday so the price had already dipped.
I was singularly unimpressed by this guy during the last campaign. Specifically, I disliked his sly allusion to Cheney’s l*****n daughter. I hope he gets sh*t upon, my bet notwithstanding.
Hmm…I see the filter doesn’t like l*****ns. Wonder how it feels about homosexuals?
probably feels the same way that John Edwards does.
96 LOL!
Nice one, Jimbo.
Hazel on the picket line:
http://www.hazelblears.co.uk/images/uploads/100004/fe3cfc6e-efa6-9104-1907-1c52c7d28e92.jpg
http://www.hazelblears.co.uk/images/uploads/100004/412de516-4d6b-a574-8d56-27eac793fdda.jpg
Has British politics really reached the stage where the Chair of the Labour Party can protest/demonstrate in public against the consequences of Labour Party policies and there are no consequences?
“Ridiculous” doesn’t even begin to cover this one does it?
This looks like Blears testing out the water for the Deputy Leadership.
Even loyal MP’s don’t partciularly like the NHS cuts (for that is what they are). Blears seems to be popular within the party but also is seen as a complete on message loyalist within the Blair regime. She’s picked an issue that is fairly safe ground in terms of garnering wider support in the party to show her independence. Yes it will cheese off some ultra loyalists in particular at Westminster but probably not enough to stop her getting the signatures.
By calling the ‘I’m a constituency MP’ line she is using a legitimate point to defend herself. The only danger is how many people she cheeses off at Westminster. Out there in the wider party I’m not sure it will have done her any harm.
We shall see.
Edwards has a fighting chance of making the nomination.
100 And Hillary’s price, Yokel; at 2.14, too tight? Wadyathink?
100. Yokel, it looks more like an attempt to be sure to get selected for Salford and Eccles.
Ian Stewart was at the rally, if she was not supportive, he could have used it to start a credible challenge for the S&E nomination.
100/02. Re the “I’m a constituency MP” line….the full line was: “As a constituency MP, I am representing the strong feelings of my constituents. The people of Salford and Eccles come first”
The cynic in me noted the Eccles mention. Naturally the strong feelings of Eccles people are represented by Ian Stewart at the moment.
You can’t really blame Hazel for not understanding the job of a Cabinet Minister. If Tony Blair wasn’t so paranoid about his own position after his Lebanese misjudgement he wouldn’t have over promoted her in the first place.
I was going to predict that this would mark the end of her career but the way my predictions have been going lately she’d probably end up PM.
100. She recently came nowhere in an Ohio poll.
Andrea has it right as always. I just heard the MP for Eccles (A not very media friendly Scotsman) who said Hope hospital is in HIS constituency and he has been protesting for 7 years!
105. Hazel is going to win Ohio, Commentator!
104 You may not have had much success lately, Roger, but in a tipping contest between you and Commentator, I’d make you slight favorite.
101. At this time, I just don’t think she’d get the nomination so any price is feels too short! That small(!) detail aside her price is a touch too tight but not desperately so given that many judges think she will get it and she certainly does have seem to have a fair depth of initial support before the race gets properly under way. Depending on how the early primaries fall in terms of which states go first, (I don’t know someone can inform us) we could see her price tighten or go out with little actual indication of her actual final depth of support. Punters do over- react on a regular basis. At that stage I would enter the market if I thought punters were making a mistake in reading to too much either way into the early primaries, aiming to take a percentage gain later as the market regains a proper state, but I don’t think its attractive enough either way at this moment.
Hillary I believe will face as much opposition within the Democrats has she has backers and I think it may kill her off. Shes not exactly a middle course candidate. Despite the Democrats doing very well in the mid-terms, one of the most significant features was the almost wiping out of the so called ‘liberal’ republicans, moderate middle grounders who got the middle ground vote. It’s those people that Democrats really need to keep. They are less likely to do it with Hillary compared to others (assuming those others run and also have the resources & will to keep going).
The Democrats success was not some huge success for the Hillary style ideology. The hand of the ‘conservative’ Democrats may well have been strengthened by the mid-terms. Faced with the likelihood of a fairly moderate Republican opponent, putting up Hillary is probably not the best electoral move and I’d expect the Democrats to work that out.
102. Could be both I suppose certainly.
109 Thanks, Yokel, that’s sounds well reasoned.
Looks like the Democrat nomination is becoming a fairly open race.
Did you notice The Listener won in Ireland? I saw him run at Sandown and was very impressed. He’s got a Gold Cup look about him, although Leopardstown is a very different course to Cheltenham.
Kauto Star is down to 2-1. Can’t believe people are backing him at that price. I’ve layed him to lose £300.
110. It was a good performance definitely and he appears thoroughly genuine. I didn’t see it coming. I’d agree, how it relates to Cheltenham I’m not sure yet. A peat bog in December is far away from a fast draining Cheltenham in March. War of Attrition showed signs of life on totally unsuitable ground so I’m pleased there as he’s a real beast at his best.
Also, is it just me or do the British seem to have a stronger hand overall than the Irish this year? There’s been a lot of farming of British races from this side of the sea over recent years but maybe there’s signs of a re-positioning.
September 2006 - Blears calls for the Labour party to become “really united”.
December 2006 - She campaigns against her own government’s policy while being Labour chair.
You couldn’t make it up!
RE 108, Peter, now that is not very nice
Hazel is not the only cabinet minister protesting, John Reid and Jacqui Smith are also at it.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=11RPQDB4ZZHUXQFIQMGCFFWAVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2006/12/28/ublears128.xml
“Hazel Blears, the Labour chairman, John Reid, the Home Secretary, and Jacqui Smith, Labour’s chief whip, came under fire after critics said they were opposing cutbacks which were being driven by Government policies.”
Whatever happened to the principle of cabinet govt?
114. I have a reply to you at 27 on the “Competition” thread. Any thoughts.
111 Yokel
Well, Detroit City is the real biz and we’ve got a few decent stayers now. Add in B J Ketchum and I suppose we have got a stronger hand this year. That’s not saying too much though. I made a mint at the Festival backing the number of Irish winners and it could easily have been more. There were a couple of close finishes on Day 4 that went the wrong way.
Looks like the pendulum might be swinging back a bit but don’t overplay it. For every budding star we have, Ireland has three. When I look at the prize money across the water, I’m not surprised.
113 LOL! Don’t worry, Benedict, they know I enjoy their posts and respect their opinions, but I think even they accept that between them they would have difficulty finding the winner of a one horse race.
116. Ireland does have the money these days and its being spent whilst the good times are going on.
Detroit City, what a killer horse. I see The Listener’s trainer says he wont go to Cheltenham if it comes up on the firmish. Cheltenham these days is always coming up on the faster side though they constantly seem to call it good to soft on Day 1 when it isn’t. I suspect though he will run The Listener there unless the stewards, and it would break their hearts, actually honestly call it good to firm for the festival. They need to use those meters they tested out at Kempton I think.
114. Get a few more ministers doing it and hey presto it will be as close to cabinet government as it probably will get at the moment. Admittedly most cabinet minsiters do their lobbying behind closed doors and I’m sure all of them with NHS facilities under threat in their backyards will, but a bit public grandstanding these days seems to be considered a pre-condition for looking effective.
Poor Tony eh, turns his back and more trouble.
re 115?
27 on competition thread is from Julian H?
119. Sorry actually Criddas thread.
re 114. Why shouldn’t John protest - the health policies of his constituents has bug*ar all to do with him anyway.
RE 117, Peter, Now that is harsh, but funny and fair at the same time
Catching up late.
Re The Listener in today’s big race in Ireland.
I was hugely impressed. Before the race I was surprised he was as short a price today based on what he has achieved so far. But his trainer Robert Alner is a giant of a trainer. He knows when he has a quality horse, despite only having a small stable and the fact that many of his horses only have limited racecourse experience before he astutely pitches them into the deep end. He has already won won one Cheltenham Gold Cup with Cool Dawn and nearly sneaked a second with Sir Rembrandt.
Having said the above I doubt he will run The Listener in the Gold Cup if he truly feels he needs soft ground, because he undoubtedly puts his horses welfare first at all times.
But a man to keep on your side at all times especially at Cheltenham. And if The Listener does handle the prevailing conditions I wouldn’t want to back against him.
Once we acquire enough data from the Rhapsody API, we should have pretty decent matching.
People are making a key mistake here in their assessment of what newly selected potential Tory MP’s will mean in terms of the left right tug of war in the Conservatives. The Cameron A List is about cosmetic change, many of those selected, Priti Patel for example, are anything but Cameroonie in their views, they are simply visibly more diverse that’s all. Don’t forget that, unlike the Labour Party, the Tories have far less central control over local party organisations and so CCHQ can insist on, say, all women short lists or open primaries but unlike Labour cannot insist on vetting potential candidate views centrally.It is therefore not really possible to accurately predict what these new candidates, if elected, will mean to the positioning of the Tories or to the future of the Cameron project.