Does the latest poll under-state Labour’s plight?
November 30th, 2007
What if the fieldwork had taken place yesterday?
As has been noted often here a key element when assessing a poll is the timing of the field-work. In fast-moving political situations like we’ve seen this week the “when” can play a critical role.
So the overnight YouGov poll in today’s Telegraph has to be looked at in terms of when it took place. The figures, as discussed on the previous thread, were with changes on the previous survey from the pollster - CON 43% (+2): LAB 32% (-2): LD 14% (nc)
There’s no doubt that Labour has had a terrible week in the media - but it has been a week that has got incrementally worse almost with each news bulletin. Last night’s move by Harriet Harman to implicate the Brown camp, the splash in the Guardian this morning, could take this to a new level.
As Anthony Wells in UK Polling Report notes the fieldwork for this latest YouGov poll took place from Monday to Wednesday - but the experience is that half the respondents complete and submit their forms on the first day with probably only a small minority, in this case, waiting until the end.
On Monday the proxy donations story had nothing like the potency that it reached last night when the Harman split emerged and news of the two police investigations came out.
Fortunately for Brown when the news is less bad and less relenting the chances are that some of the lost ground in the polls might be recovered.
In the betting there’s been a move against Labour and to the Tories on the commons spread markets - where the number of seats the parties will get at the general election are traded like stocks and shares. The Tory “buy” price is now about 306 seats. I increased by Tory buy position last night and now have £150 a seat at risk across three bookmakers at an average of 293 seats. With spread-betting you don’t start making money until the price has moved to cover the spread which is usually six seats.
UPDATED 0905 “The boss of YouGov, Peter Kellner has emailed me to say “the full details of our Telegraph poll will be up on our site later today; but in the light of your comments, I thought you should know that the voting intentions were the combination of two separate polls, one Monday-Wednesday (the monthly tracker poll), the other Tuesday-Thursday (when we also asked the questions about perceptions of party sleaze, which the Telegraph commissioned after Monday evening’s disclosures, by which time the tracker poll was already under way). As it happens, there was no material difference between the two surveys - both showed an 11% Con lead, 43-32.”
Mike Smithson
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Why on earth did Anthony King get so excited about a government party getting 32% in a mid-term opinion poll?
Mike, I find it a tad odd that you fail to mention the first frontbench casualty of this criminal donations scandal: Charlie Gordon MSP, former leader of Glasgow City Council, and, until he fell on his sword yesterday, Labour’s Shadow Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change.
The Herald newspaper has amazed me by breaking this story on Wednesday. If Scottish Labour start to lose the support of the Herald and the Scotsman then things could change very rapidly in Scotland. It must surely be caused by internal Labour leaks? I just do not believe that the Herald just started digging around without a tip-off, because if it was genuinely interested in investigative journalism then it could fill the front pages for months with west-coast Labour’s filthy secrets.
Wendy Alexander has been almost invisible in recent weeks. Is this why? As Roseanna Cunningham (who thrashed Wendy’s precocious brother Douglas in the Perth and Kinross by-election in 1995) says “(the case) casts a huge question mark over Wendy Alexander’s judgement and her leadership abilities”.
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.1867076.0.0.php
http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1876002007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/7120096.stm
Oh! … and a very, very Happy St Andrew’s Day to one and all!!
When will the Yookay be getting a “national” day Mr Brown? Expect to see a re-doubling of his eye-rolling “Britishness” campaign in the near future. Last refuge of the scoundrel etc…..
As RodCrosby succinctly put it in last night’s pb thread:
“If a Scots Labour opposition spokesman resigns over an illegal £950 donation, how can a UK Labour government minister survive an illegal £5,000 donation (and total sums involving £650,000)?”
For those who prefer a musical exposition of Labour’s fundraising strategy, here’s Abba’s take:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOxPcLCxjxw
Good to labour’s standard play book being put into action-
When you’re in a hole, raise the terror threat
So this morning we have Jackie Smith talking it all up
The chances of the terror threat being especially relevant today are less than zero
Good to labour’s standard play book being put into action-
When you’re in a hole, raise the terror threat
So this morning we have Jackie Smith talking it all up
The chances of the terror threat being especially relevant today are less than zero
The front pages of the papers are interesting http://tinyurl.com/2af5lw. Guardian and Mail hit the spot. Express -House prices and Diana Weirdest is Independent -House Prices!!! Worst is the Times - No idea what it means!
I assume the picture in the Guardian is next weeks Private Eye front page.
One bubble coming out of both mouths -”You stupid Bastard”
1 - King was probably looking at the internals and they are more dire than the headline figure, I am no expert but it probably foreshadows more movement in the headline results over time if the opinion of the govt from the details of the poll are maintained.
Interesting By-elections last night. Good to see some solid Labour holds despite the crazy news circus.
JohnO’s 75% Tory vote in Cobham is almost worthy of a banana republic. The Democratic people’s republic of Cobham show their greatful thanks their merciful leader JohnO.
One downside of the revived Tory fortunes is that their one-party hegemony in certain parts of the South looks more secure. Very bad news. Doesn’t make for good local govt.
Play book ploy number 2 - try to involve the tories as well
No doubt, there are lots of civil servants pouring over the tory accounts trying to find dodgy donors, directed by their labour commisars
Completely illegal use of the civil service of course, but its par for the course these days
2: I think we would all switch off if Mike started covering the tedious comings and goings in local government.
Jonathan - was this the solid Labour hold?
Rochdale
Lab 41.6% -9.8%
Lib Dem 39.1% +21.3%
Con 19.3% -11.5%
Looks like another triumph for Vince and Tories North of Notting Hill fail again.
14 Indeed. In the context of the last few weeks, the result is good for Labour. I can’t imagaine convincing anyone to get out and vote Labour in November after all this - let alone enough to win a seat. Of course it’s good for the LDs too, although winning would have been better.
It’s good that these elections are competative, unlike in the south where we increasingly face the prospect of one party govt.
You mean like the North East?
and Newham
14. Ah, another supporter of Mark Senior’s ‘real elections’ line I see …
Well, I dunno, Mike - recent months have seen an awful lot of posts here saying that poll X didn’t show Labour’s true decline because it was taken before news Y, and we’re still not much below the GE level. If someone tells YouGov he or she is going to vote Labour after all that’s been in the media in the last few weeks, is it likely that they’ll call for the smelling salts and a Tory membership card because a bloke in Newcastle didn’t declare his donations properly? Yes, I know it’s possible to portray the issue more seriously, but core Labour voters are unlikely to do so.
Of course, the Tories can win anyway if they hoover up ex-LD votes even if Labour gets exactly the same share in 2009/10 as we did in 2005. So the fortunes of the new LD leader will be interesting all round.
The latest stuff will not affect this poll. The next one will be s***e.
32% is not bad
Jack Straw coming on to Today Prog. soon - Perhaps to “more in sorrow…” to launch his leadership campaign.
“Gordon has been a great servant, but for the greater good of the party….”
“I do not seek the leadership for myself but….”
Sorry Nick. Too blase
When is the ICM poll due and when will Nick have to pay the cats?
I just love that picture. Lots a little contrived now, doesn’t it!
http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com
“….and we’re still not much below the GE level.” Nick perhaps the problem is the legitimacy of a government, of any party, having total control with the support of only just over 32% of the votes cast (and only 60% of the electorate (which in turn is only 90% of the population).
I think, Nick, we would quite understand if your posts here were limited to commenting on the weather over the next few weeks.
Now that Knacker of the Yard is feeling the collar of another Labour PM, what seemed like a fairly wasteful couple of questions by Dave in the Commons on Wednesday now looks like a tactical masterstroke.
Brown refused to call in the police, preferring to leave it to some partisan internal enquiry and referring it to a Government quango.
Now that Knacker has gone in there himself, Dave can rightly say:
“We told you to call in the police but you refused to do so. You bottled out of calling a general election, now you’ve bottled out of doing the right thing by reporting your own party’s wrongdoing - which you admitted had taken place - to the police. Can the British public ever trust your judgement ever again?”
GB is well skewered.
8: “The front pages of the papers are interesting”
Blimey, the Daily Star one certainly is!
Is it possible to go into a shop and purchase it whilst retaining some degree of pride and self-respect?
Mind you, no worse than buying the Independent I suppose…
The person to ask if he knew about all this is Dave Anderson the MP for Blaydon. He must have been told by someone that one (or three) of his electors were being very helpful to the party. He would be told if only to stop him canvassing someone (do they bother canvassing in the NE?). I would imagine that there is nothing worse than being asked if you support a party that you have just sent a very large cheque.
Who told him? Did they mention Abrahams? I have tried but he wont answer me because he is not my MP!!
My first question would be
‘He has failed to enunciate a vison. He has failed to govern with basic competence. He has failed to uphold the integrity of the office of Prime Minister and will become the subject of a criminal investigation. Will he now have the honour to call a general election?
26 Easy to kick people when they’re down. Tactical masterstroke? I’ve certainly not seen anything meriting that description from DC yet.
And while on the subject of young Dave, why has he become so ludicrously aggressive at PMQ recently, when he promised at the outset of being leader that he would avoid “yah-boo politics”?
30 - you missed Blackpool then?
The dead-cert election and the massacre of the Tories, grinding the b*stards into the dirt - that never happened once the Tories had convened for 4 days in the bracing air of the Fylde coast?
31 - you’ve clearly not been watching PMQs then either. You couldn’t have got DC’s recent approach more wrong!
It is just about arguable that Labour are “not much below” their GE level. This does kind of ignore that Labour only got 36% in the GE!! In the context of the Tories doing well 36% would be a pretty poor performance in a GE. And Labour are a full 4% down on that!
Consistent polls of this sort are worse than Thatcher got at her lowest ebb. Not quite as bad as Major (although the underlying figures are) but then that’s hardly cause for celebration.
If the outcome of all of this is that there are tighter rules on giving to political parties, and if affects the ability of trade unions to bank roll labour, what will be the long term implications? Presumably the BoE won’t bail them out!
30 Fine - but he can’t live for ever on his internal achievement of becoming leader in the first place.
31 Perhaps, Bob, you are among those who watch PMQ in its entirety every week. I freely admit I don’t. But the edited versions certainly show unwarranted aggression on DC’s part - whatever his “master strategy” may dictate. Which I am sure you are more likely to be privy to than me!
Straw blames Blair!!!!!!
I agree, my wife completed the Yougov poll before the donations issue broke. It probably should be more like:-
Conservatives 44
Labour 27
Lib Dems 18
If there is any reason why that won’t be the case, I can’t think of it…
19. As Labour’s fortunes wane, Nick Palmer’s posts become ever more snide, flippant and sarcastic.
36 - i’m privy to nowt! I’m not even a member of the Tory Party let alone close to the leader!
It’s pretty desperate stuuf from Polly in the Guardian. Seems to be proposing forcing through about ten years worth of constitutional reform in a matter of months, without any sort of mandate, and also appears to have identified some previously unknown unlimited revenue stream for the Government.
There comes a point, when you reach bad news saturation, and the public switch off. Once the initial shock of bad news wears off, there is a rationalisation, then a prioritisation, then a sort of shrug of the shoulders acceptance, followed by the usual statement, ‘Politicians they’re all the bloody same’
As my dear old dad always used to say, Doesn’t matter who you vote for, its a government that gets in’
The Labour party should now go for a radical, root and branch review of party finances. Chinese walls between the party and its money. Hand all its cash over to an independent body, who will ensure that all donations and contributions comply with a very strict legal criteria, even stricter than the legal controls we now have.
41: I thought everyone knew polly was an idiot.
Things are by no means terminal for Labour. It’s crucial that Brown gets a grip and starts looking like a leader and if there are missiles to deflect he’s at the front to deflect them.
He has two weapons. The first is that he’s run the country efficiently over the last ten years and improved our public services beyond recognition and secondly the opposition is untried.
If I was running Labour’s election campaign I’d run an unmercifully negative campaign reminding voters of the Tory past and I’d paint the Tory front bench as good time Charlies. If we face the predicted downturn then the reliability of the last Labour governments-despite the trivia -should trump this comfortably.
44 - “New Tories, New Danger”
Roger: “If I was running Labour’s election campaign”
Ah, we can all but dream!
Presumably you wouldn’t be on the battlebus for Geordieland though after yesterday’s outburst?
The poll details are truly awful for Labour.
‘Poor or awful’ scores for government work is disastrous:
- Datagate gets an 86 and that is not surprising but
- the NHS gets 56
- the armed forces 64,
- criminal justice 68,
- NR 54,
- floods 43
- Immigration 78.
And it gets worse:
- 59% see the government as lightweight,
- 60% see the government as sleazy (and only 28% do not),
- 52% think it could not ‘run a whelk stall’
- 62% do not approve of the government’s performance.
So while the poll gives the voting preference close to the core Labour vote (as distinct from the lowest possible poll score) of 29/30% the likelihood of those voters turning out must be reducing sharply.
44: “It’s crucial that Brown gets a grip and starts looking like a leader”
Wasn’t that the plan on Monday with his “big relaunch” speech to the CBI?
That never even merited a mention on the news as events, dear boy, overtook it.
No doubt when the next relaunch takes place, something else will come of the closet to haunt him.
Roger @ 44 “If I was running Labour’s election campaign I’d run an unmercifully negative campaign”
The Conservatives tried that in 1997 - it didn’t get them very far.
If I was running Labour’s election campaign…
A Tory landslide would be assured.
44.’and improved our public services beyond recognition’
Do you use these public services Roger?
Just a thought,All the big problems for the Labour Party from “Donorgate” are now coming not from the general donations to the party from David Abrahams which are about 650k, but from the donations to the Deputy Leadership campaigns and the attempted donation to the Leadership Campaign fund which total about 10k.
Watt has already, rightly or wrongly been, the patsy for the main money so we are left with about 10K which is causing all the problems.
Just seems like small beer to cause all these problem for Labour. Not that it makes me any the less amused watching them roll about in the mire.
P.S. Roger, at 44 “Brown” and “efficient” is an oxymoron.
49 - Yep, the real test for Labour’s polling scores will be when the ones that weight for certainty to vote come through. YouGov polls can not easily pick up reduced enthusiasm among core Labour voters. Even if fewer of them (as a result of this reduced enthusiasm) don’t bother filling in the poll, then their score will simply be weighted up to compensate.
38 Matt
You posted just before Peter Kellner’s clarification. Like you, I would have expected even worse polls for Labour to come but Peter’s comment suggests maybe not.
King keeps up his partisan stance even in the face of these poll figures that would deliver a good Tory majority if it were to be repeated at a general election.
“According to Mr King, the professor of Government at Essex University, if the results of the opinion poll were repeated in a general election, it would certainly lead to the Tories being the biggest party in Parliament, probably with an overall majority.”
53 An add to 532 is of course that here in Scotland it only costs 950 pounds to cause a leadership troubles for Scottish Labour, just goes to show how cheap it is to live here!
57) for 532 read 53)
44
Unfortunately that was the plan for this autumn’s election campaign. He has already blown that one.
49. “No doubt when the next relaunch takes place, something else will come of the closet to haunt him.”
I have a theory about this, which is that life in Whitehall is a constant stream of cock-ups, near misses, embarassing failures and demi-scandals. However, usually Sir Humphry is on hand to smooth things out and make sure the bodies are buried before anyone notices.
However over the last 6 months Gordon McHacker has, due to his personality, succeeded in completely alienating all the Sir Humphries, and has even managed to make enemies in the No. 10 typing pool (pace Peter Oborne in yesterday’s Speccie).
In the circumstances I would not be at all surprised to see “events” intervening each time GB tries to regain the initiative.
O/T Sean T has a whole page in the Times! Page 11 in Section 2. All about how kinky Euro Referendums ruined his relationships, or something. Apparently, weird relationships are all over the internet, and anything goes, and not only with regard to European referendums. Or something like that.
11. “Doesn’t make for good local govt”.- Jonothan
After addressing a local council yesterday and being openly accused of being racist by one councillor who seemed to have a particularly low IQ, I think good and local government are a contradiction in terms.
Local politics just seems to attract a selection of oddballs, and wierdos, whichever party. A bit like the magistracy as well- the strange type of people who would joint the masons. Something oddly genetic (and eccentric) about the British political class.
61 Augustus
WHY would I buy the Times, when I can read the guy here for free?
53 - I don’t think Labour can take comfort from that. The only reason that the focus in on the “small” donations at the moment is because those are the ones which have clear ministerial connections. They are also the ones which are likely to be largely ignored by the Met Police - other than perhaps the issue of HH’s loans raised last night there has been no established case of lawbreaking (on the Labour, as opposed to the Donor, side) with respect to these.
Labour might like to think the £650k issue is settled with Watt’s resignation (with the implication that he will take the rap in the police investigation as well) but that is not credible. The donations were going on long before Watt became General Secretary, and SOMEBODY told him about them. Both previous General Secretaries deny all knowledge, which means that this is a person as yet identified.
Don’t also rule out the possibility that this latest Police investigation could lead to a re-opening of the Cash for Honours investigation. True it probably won’t touch members of the current govt, but it’s doubtful that Gordon will be the man to offer himself as a clean break to that.
60
I agree. Gordon appears to have an ability to make enemies. Real enemies. People whom he upsets but who have to endure it because of their job.
The result is a festering relationship where no-one tells them bad news because they know they will be shot as the messenger. Or crapped on. Or ignored.
So whereas normal relationship mean there is give and take and help when times are bad - which always happens - in bad ones people just leave the boss to stew in his own mess.
See Sir Ian Blair and the De Mendes shooting - no-one told him for 24 hours.
Incidentally, has nobody else noticed the persistent mismatch between LD Poll ratings and their success in local by-elections*?
My theory is that with so much hot news, they can’t get any publicity and this affects questionnaire responses; it affects real voters less.
* I exclude of course from this sweeping generalisation the voters of The Democratic Republic of Cobham.
63 Please, pTp, I wasn’t suggesting that anyone should BUY the Times! It’s just that Sean T hasn’t been around here for ages, and some people might be interested to see what his self-imposed European exile has produced. His article is like his posts; the sort of thing I might go back and look at it in detail, but I probably won’t.
62 - There is plenty of good local govt. It just needs a high quality set of council officers, and the oddballs not getting their hands on “power”. And some of the best councils in the country (focussing on administration, to leave aside arguments about partisan policies) are “one-party” states, so one party local govt and bad local govt don’t automatically follow.
66 I am sure I have pointed this out once or twice usually to get the response from Conservative posters that real votes don’t count .
Given the choice between their local council running things and central govt running things, large numbers would plump for the former every time.
As far as I understand it the Abrahams donations were being made when Levy was the chief fundraiser.
If so it seems likely that this new police investigation may cross the trail followed by Yates investigating the Cash for Coronets farrago.
I notice that certain lefty journalists and some Labour politicians keep saying Blair and the Labour party were ‘proved innocent’ by the Yates investigation. In fact, of course, it did no such thing, as the CPS decided that a prosecution was not appropriate on the evidence available. And that is a very different thing.
This latest desperate spin from various Brown supporters (inc. Abbott and Straw) that it’s all the fault of Tony Blair and his mates is going to backfire badly on them IMO.
The “undead” are stirring from their slumbers and the inevitable Labour descent into civil war is looming.
Bring it on!
Madafish @ 60. Exactly - just leave the boss to stew!! The sad thing for Brown is that Sir Humphrey doesn’t need to do anything illegal (like breach the OSA) in order to stitch up the boss. All he has to do is sit back.
I think I’ll re-watch a few Yes Minister episodes this evening.
Someone somewhere made the excellent suggestion to start reading the Brandreth Diaries again.
OT. the Political Betting Tote Ten to Follow syndicate are joint 12th on the leaderboard — 13 points behind the leader. Heady days!
Well done to Peter for all the hard work.
61 seanT
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article2968706.ece
64) I should maybe have said that the big problems “in the Press” are coming from the smaller amounts. As to what happens when Knacker of the Yard gets his hands on this little pile of problems is anyone’s guess. You got the feeling after Yates’s grilling by the select committee that he might have a few favours to repay, as well as the big secret that he referred to that had not been leaked.
77 - “as well as the big secret that he referred to that had not been leaked.”
I think it has now
re75. we’re also joint 216 with another line.
[38] Don’t confuse people leaving Labour with people switching to the Tories. While I have little doubt that we will get a poll with those numbers or something much like them, 40-41% is almost certainly the ceiling for any one party in our system. The number of voters who will back the Tories despite their policies and personalities, just to be rid of Labour, is probably very low, and the Tories probably already have their support.
[44] Looks like my Apocalyptic Scenario has gotten to Our Roger. There really is no way back for the Government. What concerns me is not so much that the Tories are Tories - after all, it’s a broad church containing both perfectly decent people and borderline psycopaths (although how this distinguishes it from other parties I dunno) - but that, unlike their predecessors in 1979 or Labour in 1997, there’s no evidence that they have any more depth of talent than Labour. Despite winning big, I expect Cameron to have this kind of trouble in his second, not third, term - not least because the changing nature of the media demands such a narrative. To some extent, everyone here is part of the problem.
I’ve met one or two councilors who I really respect. Good people, often retired with a lot of experience, giving a little bit back.
The ones I can’t stand are the tin pot tyrants who think they made it and strut like gods all because they managed to secure 400 odd votes in a minuscule turnout.
IMO all parties should be totally ashamed of their performance in local government. Any party who considers themselves successful because they win a seat say with 50% of the vote in a 30% turnout is totally and utterly delusional. They failed to win the support of 85% of electors. It’s just degrees of pathetic failure.
68 As for your defence of one party councils - the same argument can be used to justify dictatorships. In my area there are many seats that the incumbent knows will never change hands and they act accordingly. This is a very bad thing IMO.
77 - BTW i suspect the press focus on the larger amounts will come out on a vengeance on Sunday. The daily press have had to much to keep them busy with to go exploring it at the mement.
64.”Don’t also rule out the possibility that this latest Police investigation could lead to a re-opening of the Cash for Honours investigation. True it probably won’t touch members of the current govt, but it’s doubtful that Gordon will be the man to offer himself as a clean break to that.”
71.”If so it seems likely that this new police investigation may cross the trail followed by Yates investigating the Cash for Coronets farrago.”
That is something I have been wondering about over the last few days as this scandal unfolds. I am not linking this as such, but, Yates did imply that the *smoking gun* they uncovered was never leaked into the public domain. Maybe we will never know what it was?
75 Bloody hell! I thought we were doing OK, but 13th? Wow.
Big weekend coming up. Go Denman, go!!
That post was from me.
61. I’m still here.
I’m reading the site occasionally, posting once in a while, but I’m also working like a Stakhanovite on steroids. And travelling all the time to do articles.
I’ve just realised that if I don’t earn lots of money very soon my next tax demand is gonna bankrupt me, basically. Amazing how the thought of insolvency can concentrate the freelancing mind.
Anyhow. My only light relief at the moment (apart from the odd bellydancing club on Pyramid Street) is the spectacular implosion of New Labour. A political train wreck filmed by Brian de Palma.
Fabulous!
75.Wow!
Well done to Peter & Co for all the hard work.
85. Peter you’ll have to buy the paper in case we never feature again.
Go Denman go. Looking at top entry we need Harchibald in the Fighting Fifth.
83. Hmmm how about this accumulator - Sir Ian Blair, Harriet Harman and Gordon Brown all out of a job by Xmas, and Roger emigrates permanently to Venezuela?
81 - not sure what your point is. I’m not saying that One party councils are a good thing per se. Just that they don’t always lead to bad local govt. The good ones are the ones who have politicians who don’t make the assumption that their current lofty position is permanently guaranteed, and remain sensitive to the views and needs of their electorate. Ie. they remain grounded in the principle that they are accountable for their actions. Because no matter how safe a Local Govt seems, nothing is for ever, sometimes for reasons beyond their control (changes in Local taxation, changes in electoral system, whatever). As many of the Labour fiefdoms in the North (and Scotland - what a blow for them that was!) have discovered in recent years.
I don’t know about you, but i don’t know of too many dictatorships that have managed to retain an element of accountability to their people within their decision making, so that is a rather ludicrous comparison.
75 and 84- well done peter old chap. Maybe you deserve the tag name “punter” after all.
[81] For those who are interested in what really goes on in local government, the “Swale” thread on Vote 2007 is incomparable. Swale in Kent covers Sittingbourne, Faversham and Sheppey and it seems that local politics is based far more on the mutual antipathy of those three places than it is on party labels.
I don’t think there is any justification other than rewarding party hacks for the number of local councillors which we have. We have had elected Mayors for long enough now for it to be possible to see whether, by and large, they do a better job than “cabinet” Councils - and it will be interesting to see in due course whether PR has improved the calibre of Scottish local government.
80 Good post. But with the tories on say 40% and a strong showing by LDs (at the moment the most likely outcome in 2010, if things don’t improve for Lab) wouldn’t we be talking about a hung parliament?
I can also think of many poor local administrations whose main and defining/determining characteristic is that they swing wildly from one party to the other every four years.
The cash for honours didn’t do that much damage to Labour,(despite the rantings of some of the posters on this site) for the simple reason, that everybody knows that if you contribute cash to a political party, your chances of getting an honour are somewhat improved. I see one of Mr Hague’s nominations, ‘Lord Black’ is complaining he’s been the victim of a conspiracy, haven’t we all!
This time there is a notable difference, wrongdoing has been admitted, an offence has been actually committed, there is a possiblity, (almost a certainty) that charges will follow.
To me, most surprising thing in YouGov poll is that Tories are no more than 42% on forced choice question. It’s still ‘game on’ for the next election, with LDs and new LD potential likely to have much more pivotal role than seemed possible 2 months ago.
80
Well as Party funding is clearly the BIG issue, I can imagine cameron if/when he gets into power reforming it in the ways currently proposed INCLUDING a cap on union funding.
After that if there are caps on spending, he has basically lanced that boil and as long as internal party discipline on atht issue is maintained, he shouild be OK.
Given how sensitive funding and declarations are, I am surprised Labour do not have an internal auditor whose function is to check it’s all done properly and reports directly to the Leader.
I see no real alternative to being let down by muppets who fail to declare things: Harman loans, Hain donations. One thing the current shambles teaches is you cannot rely on your cabinet to follow the law.
That expensive Millfield education and Roger has yet to master the subjunctive.
The campaign for Roger to run Labour’s election camapign must be got under way. However, we would have to exclude Essex and Barnet as well as Tyneside f rom his triumphal tour.
88 Buy it, Cheltboy? I’m going to frame it.
Yes, I just had a quick look. Unfortunately we don’t have a leading Hennessey contender in our best line. Harchibald in the FF is fairly promising though. (Remember he was a last minute addition? LOL. Millenium Royal was also an afterthought.)
The pack seems to be pretty well bunched, which is not surprising in view of the results, so we’re likely to see lots of movement this weekend.
90-Alex and Jonothan- local government relies on good policy people, leadership (professional) and administrators. The councillors are largely an irrelevance. sadly many councils do not have this, ergo they are badly run.
I have worked closely with members of all persuasions- but they have no power whatesover as to how the council is run.
Alot of councillors though are complete whackos. The type who would say we need to wage war on Sudan because of that silly mare of a teacher’s actions. They have a penchant for blazers, funny handshakes, and uselessness.
Woody at 52 Roger is currently posting from one of his homes in France.
Telegraph has this from a Radio 4 interview with Jack Straw
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/11/30/nstraw130.xml
Roger @ 44 “If I was running Labour’s election campaign I’d run an unmercifully negative campaign”
You can only seem to do that as a Lib Dem and get away with it…
Sling sh*t at the Lib’s and you are nasty with nothing positive to say… the other way round and people think it’s great and believe every word.
I’m not bitter, just battle hardened.
It really is so easy to be a Lib Dem agent, their job is a piece of p*ss to be honest. The price to pay is that they will always be the party of protest I suppose.
[93] Many thanks, but no, 40% is overall majority territory quite comfortably in a multi-party system. Must dash, the latte is calling me…
102
That’s a terrible article… basically says Brown is lying.
Does this mean Straw is angling for the job?
Well said Jack!
Mr Straw echoed the Prime Minister’s admission that the payments had broken the law.
“It’s not legal, and it’s not appropriate,” he said.
“And it’s not just a matter of profound irritation but profound anger to everybody involved in the Labour Party, the 99.9 per cent recurring, who are completely straight and upstanding,”
52 Woodygate - lets get this straight. The public services are immeasurably better under Labour.
As a heavy user of health, public transport and educationI can vouch for that.
That they make mistakes, spend the money badly at times and could be even better is equally true. The public services were going down the pan - particularly under Thatcher and usually involving Ken Clarke. They were being set up to become a default service for the very poor only. The model we have now for dentistry - which is poor - was to be the model for the lot
Please please no bland platitudes about how the public services have gone to pot.
95. What is so depressing about all this is watching Cabinet Ministers just lie through their teeth, on TV. But what can we expect from a party led by Gordon Brown, who told the biggest most pathetic fib in recent political history - “my decision to call off the election had nothing to do with the polls”.
Sheesh.
It’s wearisome and pointless. If you do something wrong/stupid - admit it, take the rap, move on. If you do something really wrong/totally stupid - resign or hand yourself in to the police.
Simple.
Why are we governed my desperate, immature, careerist litle w*nkers? Why is the elite of the Labour party so rancid and juvenile? What’s wrong with them? Why does political culture in this country produce such desperate jerks?
You can almost see this farrago as an argument for aristocracy. If the people who govern you are fabulously wealthy, they are much harder to corrupt. If they are poor, greedy, insecure, stunted weirdoes, like all Labour party people and leftwingers in general, then you are heading for trouble.
104. OK - enjoy your coffee. I’m just conscious that while 40% wd give LAB a big majority, for the tories it might not be enough. After all even if they gain 100 seats at the next election (roughly one in four of all the seats they do not currently have) they’ll still not have a majority.
97
I don’t think capping will in anyway improve the present situation. Even though I think its time for the Unions and Labour to part company, capping of Union support for Labour, whilst people like Ashcroft, (Lord Belize) continue to pump money into the Tory Party would be seen as highly partisan.
The only way to appease the public is for the, Political Parties to be seperated from their cash by a Chinese Wall. Money going in vetted and checked, money coming out, justified and recorded.
102. Related Telegraph article - “Abrahams met Brown as often as he’s eaten porridge for breakfast”
Straw refuses to rule out that Abrahams was a conduit for somebody else! Mossad?
re 27 having made a habit of buyinf the first editions of national newspapers, it reminds me of the time when I had to read the first edition of the Suday Sport by hiding it inside a copy of the Sunday Times on the train.
102 - Nothing like 99.9% (recurring) of people in real life are “completely straight and upstanding”, so i don’t why he thinks this is a fair statement of the membership of the Labour party!!!
100 - LOL Tyson, I know that but if you work for them you’ve got to flatter them a bit!
108. Why are we governed my desperate, immature, careerist litle w*nkers?
And the alternative is?
37 why not blame Blair? These illegal donations have been going on for years. I have everything fervently crossed that Blair will still be banged up in the Scrubs over this. Just like its unfair for Darling to take the rap for the HMRC fiasco it would be unfair for Brown to take the rap over this.
108
So how did the aristocracy become wealthy in the first place, the sweat of honest work? Think it was, robbery, murder, incest, (keeping it in the family) skullduggery of every sort.
Seant as a descendent of Perkin Warbeck you’d know all that!!
111. This is the really big story one suspects..how dodgy must someone be to be donating via two layers of intermediaries?
is it Roger?
115 Actually, Carlotta, I am beginning to think that there is a lot to be said for government by a Whig Aristocracy.
113. Straw’s figure of 99.9% interesting. What he is basically saying is the other 0.1% of the party is totally dishonest. In other words: the Labour Cabinet.
But then we knew this. What is truly amazing, what is truly “irritating the 99.9%” of the party who aren’t in the Cabinet, is just how crap the top guys are - at being dishonest.
That is what is so stunning in this story. The sheer hamfisted amateurishness of all the venality. Deputy prime ministers soliciting illegal donations from extremely dodgy millionaires via Tory voters and then claiming it didn’t happen before immediately admitting it did.
Brilliant criminal minds. Not.
re 75 well done to all conerned
115 Good point!! Indeed George Osbourne, David Cameron and William Hague are all people with a great deal of experience of the real world outside the Westminster village! Production line politicians just like the other lot.
Back at 48 - the % thinking the govt lightweight should concern Labour.This is reflecting “recognition” as much as anything, and is usually a problem for the Opposition rather than Government.
However DC has got a team in place now (even if Osborne is lightweight) and in this sense Brown’s team have not established dominance in the arguement that all govenments should.
By 97, the punters had got used to seeing Blunkett, Cook, Brown etc not just Blair. They had all been around 10 years. Brown has to let the new appointments make their mark.
All I want through this crisis is for one, just one, of the young Labour ministers to shine. To take a risk, accept an interview and start showing some guts. There must be one political leader amongst the suits. Why are they leaving all the hard work to the old hands.
116: Why not blame everyone who should have or did know about this from Blair to Brown then downwards.
122 115
The LibDems tried a young leader and found he was an alcoholic.
They then tried an old one and found he raised as much interest as watching paint dry.
Now they’re splitting the age difference.
I blame TV.
124. He’d be skewered by Ed Balls before he left the tv studio - the last thing Brown wants is anyone with potential getting the spotlight..
122
‘The Real World’ Cameron, Eaton, a few years working as a PR man for a third rate TV company, I’m sure thats the ‘Real World’ for about .0000000000000000000001% of the population.
115 And the alternative is?
The alternative is much less government and what there is kept as far as possible at a local level so that the worst of the “careerist little w*nkers” will only be interfering with their neighbours rather than all of us.
124
Brown’s close cabinet: Balls, Alexander make compelling TV ..
they compel you to switch off.
It was not prime time, but if anyone recently saw Osborne answering (or failing to answer) two fairly straight forward questions from Jeff Randall on SkyNews about Northern Rock, but instead doing a passable impression of a goldfish, you would know that lack of straight talking is not the preserve of Labour spin doctors.
What would you have done Mr Osborne? What would you do now? Completely fluffed them both.
O/T If you want a real political funding scandal do try to catch up on the tribunal proceedings over in Dublin Castle. It’s becomming increasingly likely that Bertie Ahern will be forced from office sooner rather than later (admittedly I have thought this on a couple of occassions in the past) for his fairly unusual (let’s not get Mike sued) financial arrangements (well what else would you call not having a bank account while you were Minister for Finance?). Yesterday a businessman that Bertie previously said had made a payment to him as a friend in order to help him out told the tribunal that he did not consider Ahern to be a close personal friend.
Unfortunately there are limited betting opportunities. I would put money on ‘pre Jan 2009′ for Bertie’s leaving date on betfair but there is no money in that market. Brian Cowen is probably a shoo-in for next Taoiseach but the odds on him are not great value (particularly if Bertie holds on for any great length of time).
129. The alternative is much less government
In that case why is Cameroon always at the Despatch box demanding ‘Something Must Be Done! And isn’t the fact that the Prime Minister has not done it already proof of his blah blah blah…….’
Of Cameron’s ‘blahs’ I think the one that might come back to haunt him is the integrity one….I’m guessing, but I suspect Central Office is going over its donations with a fine tooth comb, waiting for the ‘oh sugar!’ moment. Truth is the daughter of time, for all parties.
107. John, I’ve used public services. I was in hospital for 3 weeks a couple of years ago. In that time, I was left for 48 hours with peritonitis because it was a weekend and no doctors were about. That was after ringing up for a doctor at midnight and not having one turn up because the new contracts meant I couldn’t get my local Doctor out but one 20 miles away. I used the ward toilet which had blood up the wall, and to cap it all I got my wound infected. It wasn’t just me either, so when I hear about Public Services being transformed, I just don’t buy it.
133: Wanting people to clear up Labour messes is not the same as wanting big government dear.
134 - You wouldn’t have been able to get your local doctor out at midnight under the old system.
And without denying your experience, there is nothing introduced by this government that says that hospital doctors don’t work at weekends.
136: until the changes in their contracts GPs were responsible for their own out of hours coverage.
10
Well there is one thing that cannot be denied.
Standards of reading and sciences in schools are falling.
So all these A level passes mean SFA… by absolute standards the education system is failing : rapidly.
131. I looked it up. Priceless:
JEFF RANDALL:
I’m glad you want to cut through politicians speak because you can’t just sit there on the sidelines and have a pop at Labour, let’s face it, what would you do? If you were driving the car now with your hands on the steering wheel where would you take Northern Rock?
GEORGE OSBORNE:
Well I mean I am tempted to say I don’t think I would be where we are at the moment but I’ll take it that we are in this car, as you put it. I think there are some things we need to be doing now. First of all there is the whole issue of the medium term note holders and the bond holders in effect, who currently are covered by a very generous guarantee which was really put in place to protect the individual savers in Northern Rock, the people listening to this programme who have their life savings perhaps in Northern Rock but they are also at the moment, the government, guaranteeing the very large lending of very large institutions and I think we need to set some future exit from this guarantee because I think that would start to minimise the risk to the tax payer. I think we need an accurate statement of the free assets of Northern Rock. You hear Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown going around saying look, there are £100 billion worth of mortgages out there which is the collateral against the taxpayer funded facility but of course quite a lot of that collateral is already committed elsewhere so what are the free assets that are available and what are the terms of the facility? I mean you and I, Jeff, have entered into this facility as tax payers and yet you and I, although we pick up rumours from the City and we read stuff in newspapers and on TV programmes, listen to TV programmes, we haven’t actually been told by Alistair Darling what are we in this for. The figures that you have been quoting for example at the top of this show of £900 per tax payer I am sure are absolutely right and I’ve used them myself but they haven’t actually come from Alistair Darling himself, he won’t give us the information and I think if the government is going to restore some trust in its handling of this crisis it needs to be much more open with the public.
There was a phrase someone used earlier about “desperate, immature, careerist little…..
138 - and you wouldn’t have been able to get your local doctor out at midnight under the old system.
25. Icarus wrote: “Nick perhaps the problem is the legitimacy of a government, of any party, having total control with the support of only just over 32% of the votes cast (and only 60% of the electorate (which in turn is only 90% of the population).”
Hmmmm… that’s voting support of a whopping 17.5% of the population!
More than worthy of another Labour landslide, then.
134 et al, Labour has spent everything it had (and borrowed more) on public services. I’m willing to accept that there are areas where they’ve improved since 1997, but in relation to the amount of money spent on them, the improvement has been disappointing. As with any organisation, if you expand at too rapid a rate, all sorts of problems develop. And in any case, they’ve run out of money now.
WRT local government, my experience is that all local authorities depend enormously on a relatively small number of competent councillors and officers. A quite significant minority of local councillors are capable of purely animal functions - and indifferent at those.
Under the old system doctors were responsible for their own out-of-hours coverage. They didn’t have to provide it personally, but if they passed it on to a third party then they had to pay for it. Hence a lot of them preferred to combine together and operate a rota system to provide coverage in the evening. But, certainly in London, and probably elsewhere, most would have passed it on to a third party long before midnight.
Some people seem to think that Doctors should be obliged to work 24 hours a day. For non-emergencies!!!
141: You could here and the two doctors in my family used to provide 24 hours coverage for their patients.
145. Goodness. Did they not sleep?
PA reports:
Tories made one gain from independent and Labour saw its majority slashed by Liberal Democrats in another contest in the latest council by-elections.
Lib Dems came from third place in May to miss by just 37 votes at North Middleton, Rochdale Borough.
The ward is covered by the safe Labour Heywood and Middleton Commons constituency - not the next-door Liberal Democrat-held parliamentary seat which carries the same name as the local authority.
Labour relief at holding on in what must be the worst week of Gordon Brown’s premiership so far is tempered by analysis of 11 comparable results this month which suggest a 14% projected nationwide Tory lead.
A calculation based on seven wards fought both times by all three major parties gives a line-up of C 40%, Lab 30%, Lib Dem 22.9%
Conservative Linda Taylor took a Helston North seat at Cornwall’s Kerrier District in a ward where three non-party runners were returned unopposed in May.
Fewer than one in five of the voters made it to the booths in this week’s three by-elections.
Labour will need to stage a recovery by next May’s polls if it is to block Tories from making council seat gains for the 12th year running.
RESULTS:
Elmbridge Borough - Cobham Fairmile: C 418, Lib Dem 45, Lab 38, Ind 32, Ind 18, Monster Raving Loony Party 9. (May 2006 - C 657, Lib Dem 153, Lab 75). C hold. Swing 4.8% Lib Dem to C.
Kerrier District - Helston North: C 315, Ind 226, Ind 194, Mebyon Kernow 115. (May 2007 - Three seats Ind unopposed). C gain from Ind.
Rochdale Borough - North Middleton: Lab 603, Lib Dem 566, C 280. (May 2007 - Lab 921, C 552, Lib Dem 319). Lab hold. Swing 15.5% Lab to Lib Dem.
Helston North ward, Kerrier DC
Con 315
Ind 226
Ind 194
MK 115
Con gain from Ind
beat me to it richard
Kerrier DC by election maybe interesting because of reports of disaffection towards the LD run Cornwall County council.
Conservatives seem unafraid of fielding a candidate whereas LDs chose not to against the Independents.
147 Thanks Richard
“A calculation based on seven wards fought both times by all three major parties gives a line-up of C 40%, Lab 30%, Lib Dem 22.9%.”
You know this strikes me as a plausible estimate of where we are at the moment.
For the punters out there, LD seats must be a sensationally good buy at 50. The downside is so low. They are so good at holding on to seats that in all but a firestorm, they are unlikely to go below 40. The upside is, by contrast, huge.
143
I’ve just read your piece in the Times seant, with a sex life like yours, you’ve got a vested interest in your local hospital having a really good A&E department.