Will 12% from Populus put the pressure on Ming?
October 9th, 2007
Are the Lib Dems the big losers from the conference season?
The regular monthly Populus poll for the Times is out this morning and the shares are, compared with the last survey from the firm last week CON 38%(+2): LAB 40%(+1): LD12%(-3).
It is important to note that the fieldwork took place over three days, from Friday to Sunday, and all but 200 of the interviews had been carried out before news of Brown’s election retreat became known.
The big story is that, like the YouGov poll on Sunday, the Lib Dems are in sharp decline. This is the smallest share by the telephone pollster since well before the general election and is only one point above the YouGov figure.
Populus carries out its surveys by telephone and applies both past vote and “certainty to vote” weightings. Its past vote methodology is marginally more favourable to Labour than ICM and its “spiral of silence adjustment” - a complex means of making an allowance for the don’t knows and won’t says - is less favourable to the Lib Dems.
Generally speaking the pollster with the most favourable methodology to Ming’s party is ICM and a poor showing from that firm could start to cause problems for the leadership.
Labour strategists will be delighted that it is the Lib Dem party that appears to be taking the hit for the Tory resurgence and not them. Given that the firm had Labour with a 10% margin just a week and a half ago the Tories will be reassured that they continue to progress and will be hoping for even better figures when the first full post-Saturday survey comes out.
As I have been saying for months, though, we really need to wait until November at the earliest before we can confidently start to measure the impact of Labour’s change-over.
In my betting I have now closed my £100 a seat Labour sell spread betting position. I had “sold at 332 seats, 320 seats and 312 seats. The close-down prices were 304 and 306 - so a very nice trading profit which, unlike other forms of betting, I can pocket immediately.
I think that Labour might now drift up a touch. Also I’m off to the US on business on Thursday where there are legal barriers on betting and I did not want to have open positions when it was going to be difficult to trade. Combined with my spread betting on the general election date my overall profit in the past two and half weeks amounts to just on £5,000 - all tax free.
If only we could have this level of polling turbulence all the time!
Mike Smithson
MessageSpace Advertising
Labour to increase its polling a tad? Labour will be next to suffer the effects of having chosen the wrong leader. Where the Lib Dems have led, Labour will now follow. If a Party has a poor leader, there is nothing that can be done to resurrect its position until that leader goes. Brown is damaged goods, a ditherer out of his depth becoming increasingly unpopular both within and without his party. There is little sign that Labour have anyone able to launch a bid for the leadership against Brown, so the ship will quietly list, as it is badly holed below the water line. The sycophancy of the media ensures that Brown will be very hard to shift, but the longer he stays, the more assured is Labour’s decline and fall.
I seem to recall commentators at the time describing the 2007 local election results as particularly bad for the Lib-Dems as they lost councillors where they needed them for general election contests, and gained councillors in areas where they had no hope of winning a Westminster MP election.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/uk_politics/2007/election_2007/default.stm
Is the redoubtable Mr Maggs going to mind the shop in your absence, Mike?
The other half of Ming’s double whammy is that, since Gordon has ruled out an early election, there is now ample time for Ming to be replaced.
2. This actually isn’t true, the opposite is. With the exception of Torbay, the Lib Dems did well in the areas of seats they hold but poorly in most of their targets.
@2 Tom
I found a brief analysis from the Telegraph:
“Despite a few high-profile successes - snatching control of Hull in Labour’s backyard and taking Eastbourne in the Tories’ traditional southern heartland - the party lost more than 200 councillors.
It was the largest single loss of councillors the party has suffered.”
6. (above)
My mistake. That should have been attributed as a reply to comment #5 from Tom. Sorry.
Seems that Ming’s days are numbered and the betting will focus on his successor.
I will take the birthday wishes of pbc.com to David Cameron with whom I fully intend to get pi**ed tonight.
I feel Mr Darling’s speech will ruin D.C.’s birthday celebrations.
Be lucky all
6 Factually incorrect , LibDems had a greater loss of councillors in 1997 . As Tom says in areas with LibDem MP’s the party generally did well .
How soon until the headline, “Can Ming survive speculation on pb.com about his leadership?”
Happy birthday to David Cameron, Britain’s next PM.
I suspect that with his announcements today on Non-Doms, Stamp Duty and Inheritance Tax, Alastair Darling will finally confirm that the Labour Party has given up all pretence and become Tory-Lite. However, this will prove futile as the population is developing a taste for Conservative-Max…..
2: I was going to post a rebuttal but others have got in there before me. However the only party who have really done well out of conference season are the Tories; Labour seem to have taken some big backwards steps, largely of their own doing, and the Lib Dems don’t seem to have picked up any momentum. Given that Ming spent his big speech, which deservedly went down well in the hall, talking about how he wouldn’t be shouted down on the issues he cared about, he seems to have been very quiet on most of them since! But as I’ve posted many many times before, while Ming has the confidence of his MPs there will be no coup, and the rumours of plotting just aren’t there at all. Even Simon Hughes was 100% suportive on Andrew Marr on Sunday. So it’ll take more than poor polls to put Ming in trouble.
12 - Labour have a massive issue with this, if they do something about it. Then the Conservatives can make the case that what is the point of Labour all the good ideas come from our side etc. If they do nothing about it then the Conservatives will merely say that Labour are failing to respond to the needs of large sections of the electorate.
Be interesting what happens when Labour finally bite the bullet and make tax cuts funded by growth in the economy.
Off topic, but when is the new policy on school leaving age coming into effect?
Cobblers. No-one is making any excuses for Labour’s weekend debacle but it’s already clear from a quick scan of the blatts that the story hasn’t got “legs” and will soon be forgotten.
For example, both the Sun and Mail ask readers to “judge” the decision in their on-line polls, (alongside questions such as, “X Factor or Strictly Come Dancing: Which do you prefer?”) which implies that they don’t have a particular editorial line either way. The press aren’t “sycophantic” but they don’t want to bore their readers, and the timing of elections is only a matter which obsesses a small core of political activists, pb.com people etc.
Brown’s “masochism” strategy of taking criticism on the chin yesterday clearly worked.
And sorry to disappoint you Tapestry but no, there won’t be leadership challenge.
17. Whoops, my post referred to previous post 1.
The weakness of Brown’s position will next become apparent (if not before) when he tries to ram the EU Constitution through Parliament. If he loses that vote, then he might well face a challenge.
tapestry @ 19 re EU — was Brown’s handing a scoop to Andrew Marr really as ham-fisted as it seemed or a shot across Murdoch’s bows: make trouble for us and we’ll shut out your news teams. Or both?
16 - I don’t know but I can imagine truancy rates will rocket.
19. But if he wins a parliamentary challenge, he will be stronger. And the EU treaty is a risky area for the Tories because it’s a political trainspotter’s issue, not a real-people issue. When I canvassed last weekend the people I spoke to (roughly 50/50 lab/tories) talked about crime, the NHS, transport, housing and immigration. Europe? nope, not a single mention.
22 Captain Spaulding. “When I canvassed last weekend the people I spoke to (roughly 50/50 lab/tories)…”
Wot! No LibDems? Where is this earthly paradise of which you speak?
23. OK, maybe there were one or two LibDems amongst them!
I somehow doubt that the Lib Dem figures would be any better, if some other Lib Dem MP would be the leader. It’s more like a Tory thing to ditch the leader each time the polling figures will drop.
Good morning people.
Nice poll to settle the troops (not that they matter much now).
Many of the Lib Dems problems in the polls stem from facts outside their control - Iraq dropping off as an issue, both main parties having leaderships which are acceptable to larger parts of the electorate than in 2005, less media coverage as often happens mid-term - and so on. But part of it is not. Ming simply hasn’t been getting the coverage that Kennedy or Ashdown used to (though he did quite well after Brown’s election-dithering act). With no popular USP, a leadership in hiding and no ‘gift’ votes due to unpopularity with either of the other two parties, there was always going to be a substantial squeeze.
The question is: would anyone else do better? In fact, not just better, but enough better to overcome what would be the additional mess of changing leader twice in two years. I’m not convinced. Huhne is talked about as a possible - presumably on the grounds that he did quite well last time. But how much of that was him and how much was it that he (a) avoided the kind of stories that pushed Oaten out of the race and damaged Hughes, (b) was a good bit younger than Ming and (c) looked moderately competent? In other words, to what extent were his putative leadership skills tested?
Clegg is the other name often mentioned. But shadowing the Home Office should be a gift to any opposition MP - it certainly has been for David Davis, who has already faced four home secretaries across the dispatch box and will no doubt be looking to make it five before too long. In that time, how many blows has Clegg landed on the various ministers? Not many.
Ming’s problem seems to be that he seems too wedded to an older style of politics and is missing out on the coverage that he could get elsewhere. Obviously a replacement could put that right, but so could Ming. Either way, without a particularly unpopular Labour or Tory party, it will be some time before any Lib Dem leader takes their party back to 20%. And in any case, as no doubt the previous string analysed (haven’t read it), they can afford to drop votes where they’re not in contention.
Dan seems to be very quiet this week! Only last week he was posting the following:
“The Lib Dems will win nearly all of their held seats and make compensating gains for the handful of seats they lose (like 2005).
These polling results are bad for the Tories and mean a general election on 1 November.
To be as far behind as they were in 2005 given a week of supine press coverage means that in reality they are significantly behind - 35% is the maximum they can hope to poll in a general election - no where near enough to be even the largest party.
The Cameron is likely to gain 25-35 seats on these sorts of figures - the chances are fewer than Howard. Can he really stay as leader if that’s the outcome?
by Dan October 4th, 2007 at 10:53 pm”
For the past 20 years the main strategy of the Liberals/Lib Dems has been to attack the Conservatives.
For the past 10 years the Conservatives were not in Government but the Lib Dems carried on as if they were with more attacks on them than Labour.
The Lib Dems are focused on the wrong party to attack and have even tried to be more left than Labour.
It is a strategy that is failing as exemplified by their net loss of MPs in GE2005 vs the Conservatives and the waste of resources in their decapitation strategy against shadow cab ministers. What real opposition party focuses on shadow ministers rather than the Govt Ministers? That strategy was the one that an ally of Govt follows. The soft votes were with Labour not the Conservatives.
Ming failed to grasp that and is institutionally more favourable to wards Labour than the Conservatives as he revealed in that infamous speech. The Lib Dems have the Wrong Leader and the Wrong Strategy. It will only end in tears.
17- Captain Spaulding - did you actually read The Sun?
In fact their editorial is titled “You don’t fool anyone, Gord”
This editorial is very critical of Brown’s behaviour regarding elections and Iraq.
The last paragraph states that the only way out of his troubles for Brown is to block the EU treaty or allow a referendum…
Sounds like an ultimatum from The Sun…
I think the Captain has got it right. I said that this Brown episode would be forgotten in a month. Infact I think it’ll be forgotten in a week. After all the media smoke what is the charge that has stuck? That he’s ‘Bottler Brown’. In other words he’s cautious. Hasn’t he spent ten years being ‘prudent’? A ‘Dour Scot’ someone who wouldn’t take chances?
Compare with Cameron’s biggest discomfort over the last few months. Calling his party ‘Cameron’s Conservatives’ and appointing Tony Lit a Labour donor DJ with no previous connection to the Party as PPC in Southall. What were the public to read into that? It must be something because it cost his Party several points in the polls.
Both to an extent show a lack of judgement but the stereotype of the ‘Cautious Scot’ is never likely to be as damaging as the ‘Flash Harry’
Hardly an “infamous speech”, HF (29). Ming’s speech was rousing, consistent with the Lib Dem principles, highly critical of Labour and scornful of the Tories. A hundred times beter than Cameron’s.
The fact that it was given totally pathetic coverage by our totally pathetic press (whose representatives start, continue and finish with their own agenda regardless of what actually happens) is another matter, of course.
I would suggest you have another look at it.
31 Roger. “Hasn’t he spent ten years being ‘prudent’?”
Er…no…actually.
He’s spent ten years being profligate with the nation’s resources, whilst chanting the mantra that he is being ‘prudent’.
Obviously, Brown belongs to the school of thought that if you tell a lie often enough, then people will believe it.
Surely you don’t believe it, Roger? You are much too worldly wise for that.
“Combined with my spread betting on the general election date my overall profit in the past two and half weeks amounts to just on £5,000 - all tax free.”
Don’t rub it in!!
It was a competent speech by Ming. Brogan said so and I respect his judgement.
However, the poll numbers tell their own tale. He’s got to go.
29 - It’s very difficult *not* to be more left than labour.
In fact, I think this is the only logical lib dem position now as there’s very little ground between labour and the tories on the centre right. Positioned slightly to the left of centre with the added bonus of liberal ideas and you contrast both the true rightism of the tories, the false rightism of labour, the authoritarianism of labour and the pale liberalism of the tories.
On the poll, all this tells me is that the Conservatives have narrowed the gap (again) and that it will be a straight two-party fight at the next election. Prob v. close. Bit of trench warfare and all that..
As I predicted last week (and they are SO predicatable) Labour will try to steal IHT proposals today in the pre-budget report.
You can set your clock by them.
Just goes to prove how intellectually bankrupt, visionless and rudderless this government is. Something tells me that, this time, people will pick up on the fact Labour is just stealing its opponents policies to cling on to power. It will be seen through the prism of cynicism and spin - and I expect that will be the media narrative too.
Be interesting to see how the polls react.
No, Test (35). The poll numbers are simply a reflection of the Tory/Labour Brown/Cameron polarisation that we have been seeing in the media in recent weeks.
As soon as a general election starts, with campaigning in individual seats, the polarisation AT THAT LEVEL, will be completely different - as we saw at the local elections earlier this year - which were of course the Lib Dems’ second best results ever, in terms of seats won.
It seems to me that the Tories would be better off getting themselves some solid policies. They won’t ever need to implement them in government, but at least they might be a bit more convincing.
Reading today’s papers it is clear that the news fully reflects my spin line for today, which is that the humiliation of my leader will soon be forgotten and double-digit poll leads will quickly return - leading to a 1997-style landslide next time.
“As I have been saying for months, though, we really need to wait until November at the earliest before we can confidently start to measure the impact of Labour’s change-over”
Mike the problem is however can the Lib dems afford to wait until November?
Granted some of the very poor poll ratings relate to the last frenzied two weeks when it has appeared a two horse race and the Lib Dems have disapeared from view.Some of the problem is the result of a different strategic environment-the Tory’s moving to the centre with a likeable leader,and Labour still in the centre with a less tarnished leader than Blair.But some of the poor ratings must be pinned on the door of the leader-a leader who is not particularly liked by the electors,is deemed to be be ineffective and most tellingly the opposition parties would like to stay in pace.
The polls may recover a bit for the Lib Dems but all the above factors will stay in place.The polls are likely to increasingly suggest hung parliament territory.And this is the rub- to take adavatage of this requires Lib derms to hold most their seats.
In this scenario a couple of extra points from a better leader can be the difference in holding the balance of power or not.
Therfore the big decision should be to change leader.Ming can say now that the next election is likely to be 2009/10 it seems appropriate to hand over to one of his bright young team.The best timing is now - so the contest can take place in the Autumn and be over by Christmas,keeping the Lib dems in the public eye and allowing them to showcase their excellent tax cut proposals and other policies.
Of couse there is a risk-but the biggest risk is surely do nothing!Its now or Never!
Rogerh
If Labour taxes the non-doms for another purpose (say put the money raised towards the reduction of child poverty, or to increase pensions etc) then the tories’ guns are effectively spiked.
These non-doms cannot be taxed again If the tories proposed moving this money raised from little kiddies and your nan to help some very well off people (mainly in the south), it will not look good at all.
Although, who knows what he will do.
Meanwhile the infighting starts within Labour, with talk of a new leadership contest….
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml;jsessionid=A5LDTDLPAFJRVQFIQMGCFFOAVCBQUIV0?xml=/opinion/2007/10/09/do0901.xml
The Libdems are in desperate need of revitalisation, only a new leader can do that, they really need a Paddy Ashdown MK2.
42 - Leadership contest? Per-lease! OK, Gordon may have made a mess of the past week, but he is still number 1 in my book!
COMPETITION:
How will Alasdair Darling try and nick the Conservative Inheritance Tax proposals today?
Prize: You’ll look really clever.
My prediction: He’ll announce a 2-stage step rise in IHT tax thresholds to £500K, through budget 2008 and budget 2009 and crow about how “affordable” it is compared to his opponents.
So predicatable
40. One additional comment.
Gordon has been acccuse dof poll dithering.The lib Dems will doing the same if they wait for November polls before grasping the Ming nettle.
Roherh
27 David. Have to disagree there David. Iraq remains a strong issue for the Lib Dems although its potency to damage the government has diminished.
IMO the reason why the Lib Dems have polled so badly since the end of their conference is that they have been utterly squeezed out of the massive media narrative of an impending election and the huge specualtion that has driven both Labour and the Conservative into the first stages of their general election battle plans.
The question remains whether it’s possible for Ming to stabilize the ship and head back to calmer waters. Politics is a harsh trade and despite many qualites I believe that the punters have decided that Ming’s age is a insurmountable problem and the media keep nagging away at it and that further reinforces the difficulty. It wasn’t a problem for Michael Howard but somehow that appeared not to matter.
Now the prospect of an election has receded for another 18 months I think it’s in the best interests of the LibDems for Ming to step down sooner rather than latter, and no latter than the Spring and thus give his successor a fair wind to the next election.
Clearly the oustanding candidate to succeed is Our Viscount, but sadly he’s decided to spend more time with his moustache in the country.
So it’s the member for Yeovil for me …. sings … Jack W speaks and the Laws won.
30. OK it’s easy to miss stuff if you read the on-line editions, but now you draw my attention to it, I reckon that the Sun’s leader is not unsympathetic to Brown. Their key quote is his statement that “I take full responsibility. I will not blame it on anyone else”, i.e. they have picked up on the contrite tone.
Yes, they comment on the EU leaders’ meeting in Lisbon next week but as they must know, this will give Brown a great opportunity to bang on about his red lines again, sound patriotic, maybe even have a row or two with other EU leaders - without actually conceding a referendum.
Peter Riddell’s, piece accompanying the Populus poll, is a pretty fair assessment of the present situation.
http://tinyurl.com/33xs6p
I’m sure the, ‘usual suspects’ won’t agree.
Tressage - is that meant to be a joke? You lost 250 seats.
48. After all that has happened over the last few weeks, Labour spinners appear to have learned nothing - they apparently still think the public can be treated like idiots and manoeuvred into position with a few bits of ‘clever’ media management.
Their arrogant belief in their own ability in this area also remains undiminished. Amazing.
45. Wouldn’t an obvious change be to introduce tax bands. That would be different to the Tory proposal (so reduces charge of copying), means that it does disproportiately bvenefit the very rich (a flaw of the Tory proposal) and largely relieve the tax on those so called people in Middle England.
40 Balls. They will have a tough time in the Locals next May, and if they are going to replace Ming they a) Don’t want to link it to this conference season b)would be advised to let Ming tak any hit next May and c)Once they’ve given him every chance withno 2008 Election the later it is the fresher their new Leader is
Ming’s was easily the best speech of the three. It even contained the best joke, the line about Gordon trying to be Maggie but not Tony and Dave trying to be Tony but not Maggie and Ming trying not to be like any of them.
The problem is got overshadowed by all the election speculation and the prospect of a presidential contest between Brown and Cameron. I suspect this would still have been the case had Nick Clegg or Chris Huhne been leader.
32 Tressage the “infamous speech” I was referring to is the earlier conference speech where Ming set out his tests for co-operation with Gordon but implied he could not co-operate with David.
Ming could not have been any clearer about which party he preferred.
So if a Lib Dem vote really was the same as one for Labour then why the surprise when voters decided to align directly with Labour rather than through an intermediary.
52 Silly me ‘doesn’t’ not ‘does’
roger: “In other words he’s cautious. Hasn’t he spent ten years being ‘prudent’?”
Prudent? Are you mad? He’s spent 10 years grabbing unprecedented amounts of our money and flushing it away. Latest is his “Lack of British jobs for for British trained doctors fiasco”.
48 is not unsympathetic to Brown
Corporal Spaulding - you should try and avoid John Majoresque language, the feartie’s leadership already has shades of Major without you adding to it.
44. Do you have a calendar of him, with pictures and poses or something?
January - Earnest Gordon
February - Dour Gordon
March - Gloomy Gordon
April - Serious Gordon
May - Sullen Gordon
June - Solemn Gordon
July - Short-tempered Gordon
August - Neurotic Gordon
September - Sinister Gordon
October - No election (thanks very much) Gordon
November - Sulky Gordon
December - Bah.. Humbug! Gordon
51
You’d have to be an idiot, not to see that the last week had not been incredibly damaging for Brown and exceptionally rewarding for Cameron. Cameron has now removed any threat to his leadership, until the next GE.
But what is amazing, is that the media, especially the Tory press, has not been as vitriolic as I think they could have been.
The Daily Mail, editorials, (while critical) have not been as scathing as I expected.
Ouch, that has got to hurt Ming a bit.
Ah well, Lib dems in meltdown shocker
45. He will cut the rate to 20 % up to 1 million and fiddle with the thresholds by 100k or so..
47 JackW regains form at last - I knew you could do it Jack.
49 Agree GOM - Riddell’s piece gets it right.
48. Captain Spaulding. I wonder if Brown’s contrition strategy will come back and bite him. “I take full responsibility. I will not blame it on anyone else.”
Next time the government makes a major strategic error hasn’t Brown put himself more clearly in the firing line?
I think “The buck” moved a bit closer to Number 10 yesterday.
60
This is the editorial that amazed me, those who remember the old Daily Mail, couldn’t imagine that a ‘Labour Disaster’ would be followed up by such measured comment in the, ‘Mail!’
http://tinyurl.com/2k7vne
interesting piece on the Brown posse in the Tele
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/10/09/do0901.xml
There is a growing feeling around Mr Brown’s top table that the Prime Minister has leant too heavily on “young turks” who have more enthusiasm than wisdom. “There’s a lack of experience in his immediate team, they’re bright people but they haven’t been in the trenches like some of us,” is how one Cabinet member put it to me.
A junior minister was franker still: “I’m in despair about the cack-handedness of these arrogant little sods,” he said. “These people don’t understand politics, they speak at think-tank seminars, not public meetings.”
59 -
Yes, the sexiest man in politics! Why go for a little boy like Cammy when you can have a *real man* like Gordon?
60 - do you think that Dacre and co will risk their pending knighthoods by slaughtering Brown?
I’d like to see the real circulation figures of the Telegraph and the Mail in its current editorial direction
54: Yes but with the others the dip wouldn’t have been as bad. People see Ming as a caretaker leader.
I was thinking of offering Mike an article on this, but will settle for a slightly longer post (sighs of relief all round).
What I think this poll reflects is, as Tressage says at 38, the two-party polarisation triggered by an apparently impending election. But I think Tressage is mistaken to think that will disappear in individual seats if an election happens. The electorate is reasonably sophisticated about tactical voting so sitting LD MPs will clearly be able to ride the waves to some extent, but if the media are dominated by a close Lab-Con contest, then a lot of people who might have lent them tactical support are goinng to want to ‘take part’ in the national contest by expressing a Lab/Con preference instead. So sitting LD MPs on medium-to-low majorities are in real danger.
The optimal LD position is a not-very-close GE where the other parties are strongly disliked by many voters anyway. Because the Iraq factor is fading (witness the small turnout at yesterday’s Stop the War event) and DC has partly detoxified the Tories, potentially none of those factors will be present.
The Labour scores in the 38-42 range that we’ve seen recently reflect the return of the Lib-Lab floating vote. Locally I reckon I got only a third of it in 2005 and 2/3 in 2001; it’s now back at 2/3. The Tories’ generally centrist stance (let’s leave aside whether it’s genuine) is enabling them to pick up much of the ‘fed up with Labour’ vote that might have gone LD. That leaves the core LD vote, and there isn’t a lot of it.
I’m not hostile to the LDs, despite what you might think - if Labour didn’t exist I’d certainly join them rather than, say, the Tories or Respect, so the advice I’d offer is intended to be friendly. Don’t waste time trying to change the leader - he isn’t the main problem. Instead:
(1) Build up the core vote by pushing a distinctive positive approach. The ‘freedom party’ line is probably the most promosing - there are people in both major parties who are socially liberal but keen on libertarianism and free markets. Don’t burn your tactical vote bridges by being too savage about either major party.
(2) Push all your resources into the seats that you hold, working hard on the tactical vote. I know that LD DNA is to attack, attack, attack. Sometimes you need to defend, and in my judgment the next election will be one of them.
It seems ridiculous to me to suggest that Campbell has come out of the conference season the worst of the 3 leaders whatever recent polls might suggest.
Anyone with half a brain can see that it’s been a disaster for Brown not only in the short term but also in the long term as any credibility he may have still had, with some people, for honesty and straight dealing has now been shot to pieces and this will stick round his neck like an albatross.
Campbell has performed reasonably well in the media over the last few days so this may be reflected in coming polls but the fact is, he was never any more than a stop gap leader before one of the younger brigade took over.
But let’s not get distracted by the minor, and over-hyped, side show. It’s “Bottler” Brown who’s been holed below the waterline and he will continue to sink right up until he is soundly beaten at the next election, whenever it may be.
68 - anonymous and dangerous “do you think that Dacre and co will risk their pending knighthoods by slaughtering Brown?”
Sad but true.
70 - I think this is an excellent analysis.
70. Best for Labour would be Clegg in charge of the Lib Dems. Best for the Cons is status quo - or even better Huhne
68
Somebody posted on here last week that the Mail’s sales have gone down 60,000 a day over recent months (ie since Dacre’s lover affair with Brown started)
In the same period sales of the Express (a bit of a joke paper but virulently anti-Brown) have incresed by 30,000.
It seems that support for Brown can be hazardous to your circulation for traditional Conservative supporting papers.
Telegraph editor please take note!
71. Agree.
I think Campbell has come out with some timely comments recently about Iraq stunt, the election that wasn’t, and various other things. Of course I’m happy because it has often re-inforced Tory positions, but nonetheless he has been in the press, and quoted. He is in a hopeless position during conference season, particularly when the Lib Dem one is the first. When the polls settle next month they should rise again to the high teens at least.
Not really, HF (55). Ming’s speech at the Spring Conference laid down five tests for Brown, which Brown - obviously - would not be able to meet (unless he changed his position totally). A parody of Brown’s five conditions for not joining the Euro….
As for Cameron, it is very hard for anybody - even Ming - to get to grips with anything as vapid as the Tory Party’s current policy proposals. Now that some have finally emerged, half of them are the traditional Tory headbanging stuff: and the other half are pale and partial imitations of Lib Dem policies.
So Cameron & Co were dismissed without a second thought - not worth bothering about really.
So that was a good speech of Ming’s too.
75 - yes, that doesn’t surprise me. I think the Sun lost a load of readers when it supported Blair as well, though could be wrong on that score.
70, a very good post from Mr Palmer. The point Nick makes about focusing more on a core message was supported in an article by Simon Titley in a recent Liberator.
http://www.liberator.org.uk/article.asp?id=121804034
“Because the party believes that it can ‘win everywhere’, it subordinates policy to short-term tactical expediency, and fails to target and cement the loyalty of a core vote. Hence support is so shallow that the party must campaign for most of its votes afresh at each election.”
That is like a consumer good which continually relies on “BOGOF” offers with massive marketing (campaigning) effort just to stand still.
Eventually the product will have so diluted its core values that it will just be seen as something to buy when the voter is prompted by the advertising. Possibly where the Lib Dems already are?
60
Of course Mrs T, was rather fond of rewarding, editors who, ‘pleased her’
The reason is much more interesting. As the pool of newspaper readers declines, under the impact of 24 hour news, the internet etc. newspapers can’t afford to, ‘offend’ potential readers by overtly supporting a particular party.
Newspapers can still support a political point of view’ right left or centre, but can’t afford to be too tribal.
In my own case, I’ve taken a daily newspaper for forty years, costing me at present, £30.0 per month, my broadband connection cost me £22.0 per month. Six months ago, I cancelled my paper, now I can read them all on line, and save £8.0 per month.
I know not everyone could do that, commuters etc, but its a straw in the wind.
See Clegg was ultra loyal on Newsnight yesterday evening, “Ming is leading us up to through and beyond the next election”.
Clearly this is nonsense, he will by 69 in 2010.
One presumes Ming will do the decent thing, suspect many Liberal Democrats hope it is done quickly.
Commonsense says that with every passing month the pressure will increase.
77
Whether it’s “traditional Tory headbanging stuff” or not, the voting public seem to like it and we’re likely to see Darling attempt to purloin some of it later today
77 Tressage, to me the point about the speech is that he revealed the true core of what he believed about preferring Labour to the Conservatives. That is what you believe as well.
So why not join Labour rather than be a Labour-lite party?
70. Yes. The LD MPs generally tend to be effective at Constituency level and once they take seats they can build strong positions which hold out against national trends (Bermondsey, North Norfolk). They are not in danger of losing seats like this. They are also working very hard in seats they consider targets. I live in one of them and we get a monthly 4-page tabloid paper which is professionally produced and delivered and they are also doing a lot of direct mail - again using paid-for delivery, not just activists. Because they only fight seriously in about 100 constituencies they do not need to worry overmuch about their national vote share.
82 - The editorials would probably just go with a line of ‘Darling thieves Tory policy’
80 - “Of course Mrs T, was rather fond of rewarding, editors who, ‘pleased her’ “. What a gruesome image that has just been planted in my head.
Even though papers (in their traditional form) are on the decline, there’s still a lot of brand loyalty about. And obviously brand dis-loyalty. If you’re a dyed-in-the-blue-wall Tory, you wouldn’t buy the Mirror. Likewise if you want to reclaim the Labour party you wouldn’t have the Daily Mail on your lap.
If anything, papers are going to need to stick to what their readership expects more and more now just to keep alive.
83. Lots of Lib Dem members would join Labour if they lived in an area where Labour had any chance of winning. Some of the people you meet in local Lib Dem parties in the rural SW for example are so left wing they are verging on Dave Spart-style caricatures.
What was it that Brown threw at Blair? “I’ll never a believe a word you say, ever again.”
Could be that all Darling’s efforts to take back the initiative over IHT and the super-rich will be damaged by the media’s new attitude and overshadowed by previews of Wednesday’s PMQs.
That was the message of yesterday’s press conference. Brown speaks of vision, the media see through him.
I find it interesting that Brown’s ‘clearing the decks for an election’ tactic - bringing forward the health review, the PBR and the CSR - may ultimately mean that none of them receives any positive coverage at all. Anyone feel the health review had much impact?
I think one of the attractions of ‘The snap election that wasn’t’ was that a quick campaign squeezes out the LD’s.
From talking to people involved in the Sedgefield byelection its clear that they thought this a factor in what they considered a prime LD target.
71 I think your wrong Nick. All your recommendations hinge on whether the Lib Dems can attract the oxygen of publicity. With Ming, however great a person he is, the only story going is that he is a bit grey and too old for the job.
If I were the LibDems I would vote for a woman leader. Instantly the media would be bound to give them coverage. They would be interesting. They would have a unique voice and if they pick the right woman could seriously damage Cameron’s soft focus strategy. It would be wonderful to see it.
To answer James point on the last thread. Politics is a 50:50 a mix between policy and personality. And rightly so. You wouldn’t for example accept a child welfare policy from Gary Glitter to take an extreme case.
nickc, yes most of the Lib Dem MPs do dig themselves in but eventually they can be defeated once the other parties get themselves organised. Look at Newbury, a well entrenched MP was finally replaced by a Conservative against the national swing.
To maintain themselves LD MPs also have to focus on more local activity than Westminster activity. 10+ years of that type of work can take its toll. We see in Cornwall that 2 of the Lib Dem MPs are standing down at the next GE.
It also needs a strong base of activists and deliverers and I know that in my area the LD deliverers are thinning out due to age and their enthusiasm waning. It is reaching a tipping point where they will soon be unable to regularly deliver.
In 2004 the Lib Dems were boasting about becoming the main opposition party. That goal has now gone for maybe a generation.
27 - actually CK and Paddy didn’t have more coverage at the same point (except of course what CK had had in the chat shows).
OT- Now the election is off, when is the Croydon Central by-election?
81 and others , Ming will step down early next year Jan or Feb . There is nothing to be gained by doing it earlier with Xmas already on the horizon .
At what level of support in the polls should the LDs be relegated to the status of a fringe party like the Greens or UKIP ? 8%?
I’m convinced that Ming will not step down and will not be challenged anytime soon for the simple reason that nobody ambitious is going to be in a hurry to be in charge before the next election.
The Lib Dems poll problems will not be solved by a new leader. They are the only main party left that has not had a root-and-branch review of exactly what they want to stand for in the 21st century.
A patchwork of cobbled together ‘niche’ policies in most cases left over from the days when Mrs Thatcher was in No 10 is simply not enough to protect their support in a closely fought general election, they need a unique selling point which at the moment they haven’t got.
Simply banging on about breaking the two party ‘consensus’ which is about it from them at the moment really isn’t inspiring anyone - partly because the idea of the two main parties having a consensus about anything at the moment is risible.
27/47 - Laws is still an incredible 66/1 with William Hill.
The 7/4 Clegg and 4/1 Huhne are more than fair too.
“I needed money cos I … had none;
I backed Dave Laws, and Dave Laws won;
Came in big - sixty-six to one;
I backed Dave Laws, and Dave Laws won”
We can but dream
Apart from Darling’s efforts to “theive” Tory policies this afternoon he is also expected to downgrade projected growth figures.
We became used to Chancellor Brown trumpeting umpteen quarters of growth, growth that was largely based on the easy availability of cheap credit. Now that the loose money has dried up and Britons, and the Government, are left with record debt, it wil be interesting to see how the fall-guy Darling tries to spin it.
94 - As long as he doesnt go on top of Christmas becaues headlines like ‘Lib Dems sacrifice their election turkey’ would beckon.
70. “if Labour didn’t exist I’d certainly join them rather than, say, the Tories” - How can you SAY such a thing!
A point no-one seems to have picked up on yet, is that many LibDems are very wealthy (and smug) people. Think Bristol, Bath, Cheltenham, Richmond, Winchester, North London etc.. They vote LibDem for a sense of moral superiority; something which they don’t hesitate to rub-in at dinner parties, or to canvassers, or their work colleagues.. you name it. I’ve heard it.
However, because the IHT cut is so blatantly in their own self-interest, they are switching to the Conservatives in their thousands.
*This* is where most of the extra Tory support is coming from.
88 - I think thats probably the case, the health review and crossrail were both swamped .
I hope darling plays the CSR boringly safe, I think Doing anything major to IHT will be a mistake, better to take the hit and move on.
As Casino royale suggests 2008 would be better timing.
The other possibility is that Darling will use the CSR to attack the Tory proposals - if Lab are confident they have enough to demolish them then it would make sense to start the ball rolling.
97. Perhaps the bookies know something the wider public is unaware of.
98 - I know and he can’t try the Brown trick of blaming his predecessor.
96 Marcus Your comments in the last 3 paragraphs are valid and are the reason why your first paragraph will be proved wrong early next year .
Vox pop. It seems to be forgotten that the Conservatives went from pushing 40% to barely 30% in the short space of two months. What’s more their leader’s personal ratings fared even worse. Now it’s possible to blame all that on the ‘Brown Bounce’ and think it’s been wiped away by a successful conference but that would be simplistic.
Whatever the factors that made voters go off the Tories in such a big way are still out there. They made some crass decisions and if it wasn’t for Brown’s own goal It’s likely they’d now be looking for a new leader. If you think Cameron can avoid showing his inexperience and hide his unattractive hubris for two whole years then I think you’re dreaming.
63 Kingbongo praises Jack W shock !!!
I’ll need to take to my bed after reading your post. Either your on mind bending drugs or I’ve dropped a boo boo ???
101. But can you imagine Polly Toynbee’s reaction if Labour were to cave in on IHT? That alone would be worth waiting for!
I’m amazed the report of the European Scrutiny Committee hasn’t provoked a vigorous debate yet. Sean t are you asleep?
Btw surely the value bet at the moment is the date of Gordon Brown’s departure as labour leader q2 2009 : 6s or q2 2010 10s
107 She’d probably have to hold her nose with both hands
93 simon9999 “Now the election is off, when is the Croydon Central by-election?”
An interesting question as that will be a very tough one for the Conservatives to keep and relatively easy for Labour to win. An impossible one for Lib Dems to win.
100 Most Lib Dems I know - and I was on the the Council with quite a lot of them - are well-meaning, often not very worldly community activists who are very good at campaigning against things but less good at being in favour of anything. The vast majority seemed to me to be much closer to Labour than the Tories in their political outlook (inasmuch as LDs have a political outlook, which is not much - that is why they are LDs!).
111 - assuming a by-election is in the offing.
102 - without wishing to sound arrogant, I seriously doubt it. Last time Ladbrokes had this market up, they had Laws around 12/1.
Moreover William Hill have consistently been the most generous (bad prices) and stubborn (holding those prices, and laying decent amounts) bookmaker when it comes to politics - witness the Sarkozy 10/11 which lasted for days as everyone on here cleaned up.
97. Bravo Aaron!
Quick couple of thoughts on the poll- it’s now quite clear that after tory conference Labour held a small but consistent lead, and that Brown was likely told he’d win an election but with a reduced majority. No idea where we are now, but i’d imagine a small tory lead..
The other question i’m interested is which LDs are going tory. is it LDs in LD/tory seats or in lab/tory seats or both? in terms of the electoral impact it makes a huge difference…
109 - or his departure as PM - 2009 @ 7/2 and especially 2010 @ 10/1, both Hills
86
Don’t agree! as tribal politics and the party political system that underpins it, is in decline, the tribal/political newspaper will mirror that decline.
Re the papers, I think it is now indubitable that ALL of them have become more hostile to Brown than they were just a week ago.
The Guardian and the Indy have, if anything, been more critical than the Mail. Which just goes to show how quickly and unexpectedly things are shifting. Some of the language in the Guardian - “opportunist” - was nakedly anti-Brown.
Talking of news (ta-da!) surely the big news of the day is the report on the European Constitution by the Commons Committee. This is incredibly negative about the Treaty, especially when you consider it was largely written by Labour MPs.
Mark Mardell does a good summation in his blog:
http://tinyurl.com/3xdt23
For those that can’t be bothered to link, he starts his essay with this comment:
“Heaven knows what the whips are coming to. In my days in Westminster there would have been trips to St Lucia here, a murmured word about a knighthood there, and perhaps the odd broken arm. At any rate, it’s rare for a Labour-dominated committee (nine out of 16 members) to produce a report quite so unhelpful to the government.”
Then he goes on to list the points made by the committee:
The new Constitution is virtually identical to the old one, whatever the government says
Only about 2% of the clauses have been changed
Britain does have a special situation with her opt-outs and red-lines but these might not be worth anything
It says the government’s approach to the Constitution could be “misleading”
It stresses concern over the ratchet clause which allows the EU to take more power without any more Treaties
It is concerned about European courts overruling British courts, despite our red lines etc
They are angry about the way the Constitution was rushed through
They demand that Brown changes the Treaty to prevent further erosion of transparency and accountability
They finally are very concerned that the Treaty, as a whole, infringes the sovereign rights of the British parliament
Nice.
I know you guys are bored by Europe. But please, listen up. This is Labour MPs who have concluded this. Not Bill Cash and Rupert Murdoch over a pizza.
This Constitution is a serious threat to the way we conduct our affairs as a democracy. Brown wants to ram it through parliament without even granting the referendum he solemnly promised in a manifesto on which he was elected.
This isn’t just bad politics. It is simply wrong. Enough.
Give us the vote we were promised. Let the people decide.
Roger, you start off well, then fall into the same trap as those you criticise.
Yes, the Tory/Cameron polling figures fell during the Brown Bounce but they recovered all that ground during the Cameron Comeback. This was all totally predictable. I know it was totally predictable because it was regularly predicted on this site.
What wasn’t predicted was the scale of the Bounce/Comeback and the polling weakness of the LibDems.
We all agreed that it was only in November that we would be able to judge Brown’s position. I would say the chaos of the past few weeks means we will now have to wait until February before we are back to ’stable’ polling.
With the greatest of respect, using such unstable polls to criticise Cameron and exonerate Brown is, frankly, what I’d expect from an advertising hack.
[NB. 'With the greatest of respect' is used in the same context as Gordon Brown uses 'to be honest'.]
97. Thanks for the spot. i can’t believe 66-1. Couldn’t resist the price. He should be 8-1 -12-1.
Lost amongst the avalanche of tosh and wild conspiracy theories that have consumed the site for the past few days a few relevant points seem to have been overlooked.
Despite the scorn with which the point about labour winning an election in November was received in certain quarters today’s populus poll reinforces the point, academic though it is , that labour would have almost certainly won any election held in November. Even polls showing labour behind the tories still point to at the very least labour being the largest party if not a majority. My view is that labour probably would not have managed to equal the current majority but would have won.
Gordon Brown is in the process of withdrawing from Tony Blair’s Iraq adventure. The force will be down to 2500 in May 2008 and potentially down to 0 by the end of the year. This is bad news for Ming Campbell, his USP is that he is against the Iraq entanglement if that is going he has a real problem beyond the plummeting poll ratings.
The real issue for Gordon Brown and labour party is that the original strategy was never for an election in November but on the 1st May 2008. Unfortunately the party machine and some of the younger members of the cabinet got carried away by some favourable polls, the rather odd atmosphere of a party conference and the prospect of keeping the cost of the campaign to a minimum ( thus removing a potential tory advantage ) and made rather a bad tactical error, which Gordon Brown did not spot and did not shut down the froth and speculation soon enough. This unfortunately has meant having to drop the original plan of a spring 2008 election, which would have allowed sufficient time for various policies to be implemented most noticeably the Iraq withdrawal noted above.
So yes the past few days have not been brilliant for the labour party and with no one to blame but itself has had to drop its favoured electoral plans, however it is still ahead in the opinion polls and must remain favorite ( a point with which the betting markets concur ) to win in 2009.
100/112. What a load of patronising twaddle.
120 With the greatest respect , it is equally wrong to use unstable polls to claim that the Cameron polling figures have recovered to pre Brown bounce levels .
122. However you completely overlook campaigning, new policies and strategy. The reason the polls switched BACK to the Cons in the lead was their tax policy - they now have 2 years to fluff up some other rabbits to pull out of the hat on tax and other issues. If they go down as well as the minor IHT announcement then the Con lead will stretch again.
119 Those who bang on endlessly about Europe being a defining issue, the EU is destroying the Britain we know & love etc etc etc should perhaps reflect on the fact that every general election since 1974 has been won by the party which presented itself as closer to Europe than its main opponent.
126 Not true. 1992 Labour were more Euro friendly than the Tories. In the early 1990s the Eu was very popular on the left.
125 - Indeed, and Cameron’s strategy could be the mirror of Blair’s. Blair took the Conservatives policies and pretended to adopt the popular ones and disowned the unpopular. He then presented the electorate with a choice. Have the moribund and flavourless genuine article, or a knocked off version that at least tastes ok. Cameron could force Brown to adopt popular policies where he can and disown them where he must and then present the electorate with the choice of an insipid fake or an inspirational genuine article.
124. No, Mark, the polls DO show Cameron recovering the ground. What I am saying is that they are unreliable and shouldn’t be used to project into the future. Cameron may have overcome his character issues, Brown may do so, but these polls don’t give us any reliable data.
127 I would accept that in 1992 there was very little to choose between the parties on Europe. But I am right about 1979, 1983, 1987, 1997, 2001 and 2005.
If Ming goes, the absolute worst thing the LDs could do would be to appoint a young leader on the left of the party who gained his/her seat from the Tories in the nineties/noughties.
With the political landscape shifting, their best chance of shoring things up is to ‘fight from the right’ for the first time in 20 years.
When the momentum is with the Tories, they would do best to write off some of their home counties and suburban seats (where Labour are nowhere to be seen, even in landslide years) and ludicrous ‘decapitation’ strategies, and focus on hitting Labour instead with moderate candidates in areas where it’s a Lab-LD fight.
They’ve made a reasonable start over the last few years, in Brent and Birmingham and Liverpool etc. Now they need to make this their focus. If so, I believe the LDs won’t be in any danger of losing seats to Labour (as the Baxter swing suggests) and will have a chance of winning a few, to make up for the southern seats they lose back to us.
I can see a head count of around 45-55 LDs in the next parliament, but with plenty of big names from the 97 and 01 intake absent.
126. So Europe is popular then?
In which case, give us a referendum.
What’s the problem?
Can I just nominate Captain Spaulding’s comment upthread, which says today’s Sun editorial is “not unhelpful to Gordon Brown”, as the most ludicrous comment of the morning.
The editorial is actually entitled, YOU DON’T FOOL ANYONE, GORD
And it then goes on to say our dithering PM is a twit of the first water, who must give us a referendum. Here it is in full:
http://tinyurl.com/32mhab
“not unhelpful to Gordon Brown”.
lol
106 Jack - think of me as a critical friend !! I want you to win next year’s poster of the year so be prepared for ‘tough love’
The last time I did mind bending drugs was a Night Nurse overdose in 1987, admit I might never have fully recovered.
97/121 Aaron/cheltboy. Indeed. 66/1 is massive …. but don’t tell everyone.
It’ll not last for too long. IMO around 8/1 would be about right.
As a possible indicator of enthusiasm for the future.
The list of retiring MPs on Anthony Wells site has
26 Labour, 8 Conservative, 4 LD (5* including Colin Breed).
This translates as a % of all their MPs,
7.3% Labour, 4% Conservative and 7.9% LD (5*).
Voting with their feet?
130. I repeat. You claim the EU is so wildly popular with the people it has always ushered the most pro-European party into power.
It’s certainly a point of view.
But if Europe is so popular, why can’t we have a referendum?
You would surely win in a massive Soviet style landslide, as the people hoist Jose Barrosso on their shoulders, and take him to live in a palace made entirely of silver, paid for by grateful widows? No?
131 In your vision that maybe on the low point for them. If they are gaining seats from Labour but not shipping any back, then the Tories would have to be making strong gains against them. I can think only Ten to be really at risk. After that we get to people like Bob Russell who will be really hard to get out regardless of the Tory swing
119 seanT. are you not worried by Hague’s offer of referendum on all future treaties that transfer power? we all know the reform treaty makes explicit provision for transfers of powers WITHOUT the the need for a treaty in the future. without a specific pledge to repeal the current treaty (which i havent heard) his comments are worthless.