At last! Poll shows Labour doing better with Gordon
January 9th, 2007-
Tories now open up a 7 point gap
A big boost for David Cameron’s Tory party and some better news for Gordon Brown are the main features of the first poll of 2007 - from Populus - in the Times this morning.
As the extract reproduced from the Times website shows, the shares and changes on the same poll in December are CON 39% (+5): LAB 32% (-1): LD 18% (-1).
Putting these shares in the Anthony Wells seat calculator shows the Tories would be 22 seats short of an overall majority. The Martin Baxter calculator comes up with a Tory shortfall of 3.
But for the first time since David Cameron’s election a poll shows that Labour would be doing better with Gordon Brown as leader than the headline figures
This is a figure that we have tended to focus and the split is CON 39% (nc): LAB 34% (+2). Last month the Tories enjoyed a 7% gap when this questions was asked. Even better for Gordon are the shares that Populus found when it asked the same question with John Reid’s name substituted for Brown.
An element of the poll that should cause some concern in the Brown camp is the response that Populus found when it asked about whether there should be an early General Election. A total a 56% said “Yes” while 38% felt that “that the new prime minister should continue until 2009 or 2010″. The Cameron campaign to press for this seems to be resonating and might impact on how the incoming Brown government is perceived.
Generally polls only show large support for an early General Election if the mood of the country is “it’s time for change”.
My £200 wager proposal. Would those people who said they wanted to take up parts of my wager offer yesterday please contact me directly by email? We need to exchange details. The offer is now closed.
Mike Smithson
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As I said at 48 on the previous thread, I thought Mike would be pleased (in terms of the story) of a poll that finally puts Brown slightly ahead of Blair when against Cameron.
This will be joy to the Brownites but they shouldn’t count their chickens just yet.
The Brown story may overshadow the actual poll. This is a Populas poll, which has weightings that favour Labour compared to ICM and YouGov. 39 Con and 32 Lab in a Populas is bad bad news for Labour.
Brown will be gaining control of the Titanic with the flood waters already up to the top deck. He will sink it even quicker and put New Labour out of their misery for a decade.
Rejoice!
I’ve not seen the details on the Populus website, and obviously a new Labour leader would mean some voter ‘churn’ in different directions, but I’d be interested to see if the swing back to Labour under Brown (from 32 to 34) comes mainly from Scottish voters moving/returning to Lab from SNP to support “one of their own”.
2. Interesting, and very plausible, though it wouldn’t help Labour at all. Maybe they would win back a few seats in Scotland, but no more than 3-5 net.
I think that if Labour won 27% of the vote next time under the extremist neo-con Reid, that would be good as they would at last have a little bit of humility after making what George Bush seems to have admitted is a “terrible mistake,” in Iraq.
BREAKING NEWS
Bush Admits Iraq was “terrible mistake.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spXMfBud0lQ
Wow. Wonderful poll. Never thought to see anything like that from Populus.
DDC has it right. Stuff the ‘with GB’ thing, this kind of gap in a Populus poll will rattle Labour as will the mood for an election. Tony Blair’s bee gee FL holiday and Saddam’s botched execution won’t have helped. I also think the Ruth Kelly affair will have serious deleterious effects in the future, not because of the correct choice she made for her child but b/c the fact a Loabour Education Sec had to do it shows that Labour have failed on education.
A “Bog Boost”. Shome mishtake Mr Smithson Shurely.
Polls are addictive. With such a large shift from Populus (sorry YouGov boss, this is a substantial jump) I want to see YG and ICM to see if there’s a trend or this is some sort of anomaly. When are the next polls out, Mike?
I’m a bit surprised Mike hasn’t linked this to the move in the betting markets on the leadership. With Betfair, Gordon is now in to 1.18 (i.e. about eleven to two on) and within an ace of his shortest odds since the market opened. By contrast, Reid is now out to 14/1.
Personally, I’d be a bit wary of the ‘how would Labour do under Brown’ scores until we get a second poll producing the same result soon. He’s produced worse figures for ages, and while this might be evidence of an improved view of him or of Blair now finally damaging Labour personally, it could equally be a bit of a rogue result.
Perhaps of more relevance is the comparison with Reid - a more legitimate question as both are hypothetical which can never be the case comparing either possible with the current situation - a question that hasn’t been asked much before (if at all).
8 Sorry Commentator - what large shift ? This poll and the December Populus one are consistent with being outlier samples at opposite ends of the range within Margin Of Error of public opinion that has been virtually static for many months now see for example Populus May poll Con 38 Lab 30 LibDem 20 . I doubt whether we will see any significant shift in public opinion until GB has had a few months in power .
I am a little surprised by Reid’s low vote. Another interesting snippet buried in the article was that amongst Labour voters, Blair has a huge approval rating, easily the biggest of any party leader with their own supporters.
I think this is ominous for Brown. When Blair leaves, the valedictory tributes and reminders of his political brilliance will not contrast well with Brown, and Labour voters/activists will feel unsettled that the parliamentary party - OK, Brownites - have ditched an electoral colossus, much as Tory voters were gutted at Thatcher’s ouster.
Imagine all the ‘Blair tsunami’ pieces. Of course the same pieces will review the stormy Blair/Brown rel’p which will remind the country that Brown was always there. No real renewal at all.
Mark, a five point jump in one poll in one month is significant. Or to put it another way, as the Times says, this is Populus’s highest ever recorded Tory share.
10. How many polls have had the LD’s at 20% recently?
20. Not many. They are down one in this to 18%.
14. and with Ming things will only get worse, I am just praying that people in the party wake up and smell the coffee before its too late.
15. The whiff of panic from the Lib Dem corner becomes ever stronger…
Repeating a point made for night owls last night: the decline since the GE in LD vote, the rise in Tory vote, and the marked preference in the poll by LD voters for Labour over Tories, suggests that what has happened is that some anti-Labour LD voters think Cameron seems a nice fellow and are switching to the Tories, leaving a LD core which tends to have Labour as its second preference. The underlying problems for the major parties are summed up in two statistics:
a) Only 15% are satisfied with the Government
b) Substantially more voters (47-40 IIRC) prefer a Labour government to a Conservative one.
I think there is the potential for a major squeeze on LD votes in Lab/Tory marginals at GE time (though it won’t be reflected in local elections).
Thanks for the article Mike.
RE 17, Nick Palmer, Again I broadly agree with what you say. Thanks for the link yesterday BTW, I blogged it with “Rats join sinking ship”
It has attracted a couple of UKIPers.
I think the government 15% approval rating has to be Labours biggest worry as it gives the opposition plenty of pottential for gaining supporters.
Reid’s numbers are interesting. I don’t think he will now stand at all.
12 Commentator if the 7 point lead is significant this month then presumably the fact it was only 1 point last month is also significant though I seem to remember at the time the Conservative posters writing that one off as a rogue .
I still maintain that there has been no significant shift in public opinion since late May .
19. There has been a significant shift downward…in Lib Dem support.
Let’s not read too much into one poll. At the moment the only declared candidate for the leadership race is Gordon Brown so its inevitable that he will outpoll Reid since the public will generally choose the candidate with the higher name recognition. I would expect that when Reid formally enters the race his poll ratings will increase.
16 The whiff of the usual unintelligent sarcastic post from this poster .
20 - Then why has this not been reflected in real polls when people have to get off their backsides and vote . LibDem support is generally up on their performance in May . I am still waiting for your detailed assessment of the likely outcome of May’s locals but that would mean you actually had to forecast something properly instead of just making an inane comment .
Glad to see that the Times overshadowed this good news for the Tories with the really important news of the day - two tory peers defecting to UKIP - a “heavy blow to Cameron” Having heard one of the lords on the radio I should n’t think Cameron’s losing much sleep over it.
39% for the tories from Populus is interesting. If supported by ICM and YouGov then it does mark a firming of opinion but we tories are still 2 or 3 points away from where we need to be.
Mark Senior is right that this could just be Populus getting a poll at the extreme of the range. However, a 7 point lead for the tories in a pollster which has traditionally produced better results for Labour must be worrying for Labour strategists a few months before the local elections.
24. The Times article is hilarious, especially the list of ‘Conservatives who moved’ on, which includes Oswald Mosely and Winston Churchill. No doubt Cameron will be horrified to learn of those two defections.
24 Do wonder how two peers who had the whip withdrawn in 2004 for supporting UKIP can have been said to have defected?
24. The “defections” are hardly that, they had the whip removed after urging people to vote ukip in 2004. Three year old news.
28. Arguably older still than that. This link shows Lord Pearson has been close to Nigel Farage since at least 2001. His aim has consistently been to use UKIP as a tool to reinforce euroscepticism in the Tory party. This latest move is essentially aimed at the same goal.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,4145537-106745,00.html
RE 29 Runnymede, Or there is this from my blog:
http://aconservatives.blogspot.com/2007/01/rats-join-sinking-ship.html
31 There were some amusing comments on the UKIP piece on your blog, Benedict. You seem to get a weirder type of nutter on your site. We have to make do with Mystic Moon.
Perhaps you and Mike could trade?
Re 31 Peter
Yes I do seem to have attracted some nutters!
Well done for working out how to comment, and thanks for the comment. The Africa story is a good news story from a place where we don’t hear much.
33 There’s a lot more good news in Africa than you might think, although the word the dealers at CDC tend to use is ‘patchy’. South Africa is obviously the strongest economy but there have notable improvements elsewhere, e.g., Tanzania,Uganda and many of the smaller States.
Kenya is critical and it’s hard to see which way it will go. Moi was a disaster but his successor has been disappointing. It has enormous potential but corruption and security are massive issues.
I was there recently to thrash out a deal with the Tax Authorities. They were a highly professional bunch, reasonable, likeable and no hint of graft anywhere, so I was much encouraged by what I found.
On the other hand, when I told my colleagues I was going to walk back from the office to the hotel (The Norfolk, a fine place which features in The Constant Gardener) they insisted on organising a car. “You might make it without being mugged”, they said, “but why take the chance?” The journey must have been all of two hundred yards.
Re33, Peter, yes there is some good new comming out of Africa, but I am convinced that the only thing that will actually help is Africans becomming wealthy. Only then will they have the power to question the bribary and corruption that goes on. The buety of the mobile phone thing for me is that it shifts and widens economic power.
As for the threat of mugging, my Father once had a house break in whilst in the Sudan. The Police tracked them for 3 days until they caught the culprits. Oh well.
ptp - interested to hear that you’re a fellow tax practitioner - are you still at CDC or did you say you’d moved on?
35 Oxonian
I’m semi-retired and work a couple a days a week for them as a consultant now. It’s pretty specialised stuff - mainly to do with permanent establishments and DTAs. That’s about the only kind of stuff I can do now and there isn’t a lot of demand for it in Wanstead High Street. I fill out my time with betting and posting here. Doesn’t pay as well, but a lot more fun.
34 What caused the economic breakthrough in India? It was the power of Private Equity, Benedict. It’s starting to do the same in Africa too. Of course, the local politicos have to set up the market conditions which will allow it to flourish. It was the liberalisation of the capital markets in India which opened the way and the same is happening throughout much of Africa.
You also need to do something about corruption, of course, but there’s no need to be negative. If the capital comes, the corruption will draw back because proper companies just won’t have any truck with it. Even crooks like Moi understand that. Hilary Benn really laid it on the line to the Kenyan Government recently and spelled out their future if they didn’t play ball. They’ll listen. They know their futures are in jeopardy if they don’t.
There’s a long way to go but I remain optimistic.
…We should be replicating these posts on your blog, Benedict.
You do still have a blog?
Re 36, I agree. Capital did for the mob in Las Vegas as well. Free markets are the answer, much more so than aid. (Aid can play a useful part, but is no substitute to building the wealth of your average African).
Makes me so pleased to see Conservative polices helping Africa just as soon as they adopt them
RE 37, You are quite right Peter, we should! Now what was that blog address?
Ah yes, its:
http://aconservatives.blogspot.com/
Perhaps you could check it is still there
5. Careful populus is a step above Mori re volatility but its only a step. Stick to ICM and YouGov.
17. Nick P - don’t get too excited about the results of Populus’ ’squeeze question’ on whether voters prefer a Labour or Tory government. In May 2005 Labour’s ‘lead’ on that question was 33 points rather than the current 7, and even last May the lead was 13 points.
Another interesting detail was that the Lib Dems drop to just 15% when the ‘Brown-Cameron-Campbell’ line up of leaders is specified. This is down three points from December and equals their worst ever rating on this measure.
39 Free markets are indeed the answer, Benedict. I do not see that as a political point; it’s just a fact. Aid should not be discouraged but the sheer scale and power of Capital dwarfs anything that can be achieved through charity. It also sweeps aside the dependency culture and other undesireable side-effects of soft money.
Conservative policies, Benedict? I don’t give a fig whose policies they are. There’s too much at stake for petty Party politics to enter into consideration. For what it is worth, I can tell you that CDC was founded in 1948 by the Atlee Government but has been supported by all administrations since, regardless of political colour.
The company pottered along quietly and unobtrusively for fifty years, making a small profit and doing much good, no doubt, but without setting the world alight. Its rebirth dates from a speech by Tony Blair in 1998 when he announced in effect proposals for its privatisation and a redirection of its strategy towards private equity investment. It was like turning round a supertanker and there was a bit of a false start. The privatisation idea was shelved and the company restructured along industry standard lines with CDC remaining as a ‘Fund of Funds’ (piggy bank to you and me) whilst the bulk of the staff transferred to a Fund Management Partnership which acted as its principal advisor.
The new arrangement has been spectacularly successful. (See website for evidence: cdcgroup.com ) Its profile has been elevated both within Government and the emerging markets investment industry. Hilary Benn writes nice letters to the Chairman and takes a keen interest. The company is winning the development argument hands down. Its own financial contribution is not small (assets under management of about £1.5bn) but the example it sets carries much more clout.
Believe me mate, it’s the way to go - whatever your politics.
RE 41, Peter the Punter, Sorry for the cheap shot!
Otherwise I agree. Private equity for private profit seems to be doing all sorts of good things. (Obviously a free market needs some oversight and regulation though, to stop Liberals sending children down mines
)
It’s the return of two party politics thats all. It is what the FPTP system is designed for, not that i necessarily agree with it.
43 Cheap shot, Benedict? I didn’t even notice.
As you will have worked out I’m sure, I’m not much interested in Left or Right; it’s what works and what doesn’t that really matters and I’ll pick and choose from whatever doctrine I like if I think it’s right. Yes, Party politics does matter and so too does striking the right balance between freedom and regulation. There are no easy answers and the only principle I would be dogmatic about is the avoidance of dogmatism.
Anyway, thanks for helping me publicise my views on your blog and for giving CDC a bit more publicity. It’s doing well but it can never have too many friends!
RE 44, Peter, Many thanks. Perhaps you are a closet Conservative?
47 LOL, Benedict! I find I am becoming less and less concerned with what people think I am. It seems to be one of the pleasures of growing old.
Must go now. Couple of interesting races coming up at Sedgefield.
RE 46, Peter, I have left a reply to your comment on my blog
Good luck with the races!