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Is the US pollster right on the language that both men are adopting?

This, I know, is getting into dangerous territory because two words that lead to the biggest explosions on PBC are “Frank” and “Luntz” - ever since the US pollster’s famous “focus group” screened on Newsnight during the Conservative Party conference in October 2005.

In this week’s edition of the Spectator, out this morning, Luntz is the author of the cover feature on how both men use language and how Gordon is having to catch up with Dave. No surprise there then I can hear you say.

His argument is interesting and the piece is well worth reading.

Luntz write: “… Today’s voters will punish their leaders for trying to score political points at the expense of getting work done. Message: reach across the divide with words and intent when there is success to be had, progress to be made and prosperity to be achieved…Incredibly, Mr Cameron, a relative novice, is defining the words and themes that the Chancellor uses and, by extension, his political agenda. And it shows. That is why — as my research has consistently demonstrated — the British people aren’t buying into the new, ‘cuddly’ Mr Brown, the one who listens to the Arctic Monkeys in the morning before heading off to a photo op at a nursery school. They know it’s not the real him.”

In the Labour leadership betting the Gordon price has eased sharply in the past 24 hours to 0.24/1. This is down a touch on last night when I got £400 on the Chancellor at 0.25/1. The announcement that veteran Labour figure, Michael Meacher, is going to mount a challenge has had almost no effect.

Mike Smithson

Is Hoggart right about the exit?

A throwaway line at the end of this morning’s Commons sketch by Simon Hoggart in the Guardian has got me thinking about Tony Blair and when he will step down.

For when asked at PMQs yesterday what he hoped to be remembered for Hoggart notes the “extraordinary” fact that Blair ..”didn’t have anything prepared… he hasn’t worked out what his own legacy is..I’ll believe he’s going when he goes.”

Usually a good litmus test on what’s going on at the top of the Labour party is John Prescott. The picture strip are screen shots of the leader and deputy during yesterday’s encounter with Cameron when I thought that Blair just got the better of the Tory.

Yet rather than his usual cheering his man on giving him forceful vocal backing Prescott seems very detached and at one stage looked as though he was falling asleep. He certainly does not appear happy and content.

For has Prezza realised that Blair has still to make the decision to actually go and that there’s still a lot more to come in the drama of Labour’s succession?

Is Tony trying to hang in there as long as possible in the hope that something will emerge that will make his exit more palatable and help secure his place in history.

Have we all been wrong in thinking that Tony is following a settled plan and that the removal vans will arrive in Downing Street in late June/ early July so Gordon can take over then?

Quite simply has Tony still to make the final decision?

My sense is that he’s looking for anything that will put back the date by even a short period and maybe there will need to be a September 2006-style rolling resignation threat before he’s finally shifted.

In the betting Q3 2007 has now become favourite again for “when he’ll officially cease to be leader”. That’s at 1.14/1 while Q2 has eased to 1.2/1.

Mike Smithson

What does this all mean for the Republican race?

Lots of interesting polls coming out of the US at the moment on the 2008 White House race. For the latest check here.

The above one, which came out a few days ago, is perhaps the most interesting in that it looks at negatives in a theoretical sense. For the Democrats the lack of negatives for a black or a female nominees looks encouraging.

It’s the Republicans who have the biggest problems. Of the three front-runners:-

The main White House betting markets can be linked from here. I am now laying (betting against) both McCain and Giuliani for the Republican nomination.

Mike Smithson

Do both men share the same weakness - having low flash-points?

Politics is going through an appalling period which must be equally frustrating for all the parties. For we know that barring a political earthquake the next election will be the Gordon and Dave show yet even the most experienced observers cannot predict confidently how this will pan out.

This encounter has been on the cards since Cameron’s likely victory in the Tory race became apparent October 2005 and yet it looks as though we might have to wait until October 2007, almost two years on, before the two are facing each other across the chamber at PMQs.

Who’s going to come out on top is hard to predict but a characteristic that both men share is a low threshold level when it comes to losing their tempers. My guess is that both will try to find ways of goading the other to do just that.

We have seen how Cameron can get flustered and be on the point of losing it if put under aggressive questioning in TV interviews - an arena that Brown has studiously avoided for years. By all reports the Chancellor is notoriously sensitive about being criticised and we saw a flash of temper at Treasury questions a month or so ago in response to George Osborne.

At the time I wondered whether Osborne was testing the ground for when Cameron comes in.

For since David Cameron became Tory leader in December 2005 there has been just one occasion when the two have faced each other across the floor of the House of Commons - in the budget debate nearly a year ago when the Tory leader produced his “analogue man in a digital age” sound-bite. But the nature of that occasion meant that Brown was unable to respond.

So who’ll come out best in the battle of the titans. Will Gord be able to dominate Dave in the way he has dealt with successive Shadow Chancellors - or will he prove vulnerable in the very special situation that PMQs provides?

Clearly all parties have been game playing this for months and there’s no point now wasting material or giving your opponents a sense of what you will do before the real action starts.

In my view a big minus for Labour of Gordon getting a coronation is that he won’t be subject to the intense media scrutiny that a hard fought contest would bring. As well as creating massive frustration amongst newspaper and TV journalists, he would miss out on the process of actually running for the job - a good training for the general election.

Thus the losing candidate in the 2005 Tory contest, David Davis, has become a much more formidable politician after going through the process of running.

Mike Smithson

On a day like today it is perhaps worth recalling one of the worst polls ever for the Tories - this the January 1995 survey for the Daily Telegraph by Gallup. This poll did not use past vote weighting to ensure a politically balanced sample.

Just four days after the fieldwork for Gallup was completed ICM began their January 1995 poll for the Guardian. When the past vote weighting adjustments were made this came up with CON 30: LAB 48: LD 18. - quite a difference and not that far off from the General Election result two and a half years later. This had CON 31: LAB 44: LD 17.

Gallup no longer carries out UK political surveys.

Mike Smithson

Will Labour MPs respond to the Guardian’s call for Brown to be challenged?

This is the front page of the Guardian that will be screaming out across newstands throughout the UK this morning and it looks as though it has been designed deliberately to make it as damaging as possible for the Chancellor.

For as any newspaper man or woman will tell you it is what appears “above the fold” that matters - and with the numbers 29-42 splashed there against pictures of Brown and Cameron in the most sensational way nobody could accuse the Guardian of underplaying their ICM February poll this morning.

As I wrote when news of the survey came out last night - “A lot will depend on how the Guardian choose to report the poll tomorrow”. Well we have our answer.

For as happens so often with polls it is not the numbers themselves that matter but how the paper that commissioned the survey chooses to play it and what aspects it seeks to blow up.

In his report on the findings Julian Glover noted that “The result suggests that Labour hopes that recent stories about Mr Cameron’s past would drive voters away from the Conservatives have come to nothing…The poll was carried out last weekend, after press reports about the Tory leader’s use of cannabis at school and suggestions in some quarters that he had used hard drugs. The poll also follows the publication of a photograph of Mr Cameron dressed as a member of Oxford’s exclusive Bullingdon dining club, which prompted suggestions that the Tory leader, an old Etonian, would be seen as a elitist toff who could afford dress up in £1,000 jackets.”

In its main leader the paper notes bitingly: “It is usual for an outgoing party leader to be replaced by someone more popular than themselves, but in the case of the impending Labour succession things seem to be the other way around. Mention Mr Cameron’s name, and the Tory vote rises.”

My interpretation of the poll is that this is not so much about Brown but about Cameron. The more the Tory leader is in the news the higher his poll ratings go. Conversely the more that Brown figures on the news agenda the worse it seems to get. The Chancellor certainly did not help himself with last week’s World Cup bid announcement.

In the Labour leadership betting the Brown price has eased from 0.19/1 to 0.21/1 overnight. It might drift a touch more this morning.