Sunday papers round-up
December 9th, 2007-
Stories from today’s newspapers
Firstly, very best wishes to Mike for a speedy recovery and thanks to everyone for their support and comments on the previous thread. I’ll aim to keep pb running in Mike’s absence, but would welcome any guest articles that people might like to contribute on any aspect of UK/international politics or betting, or indeed anything relevant on finance and economics.
In particular, would any of the site’s many US experts like to contribute a beginner’s guide to the intricacies of the Iowa caucus, to cover such things as the 15% rule, how the convention delegates are elected, and what to look out for on the night of 3rd January.
Please send guest articles to electiongame@yahoo.co.uk
In the papers, John Rentoul in the Independent suggests that some of the September 2006 plotters are “bringing forward their plans to organise a leadership campaign for Ed Balls”, while the Sunday Times reports that Charlie Whelan, Brown’s former spin doctor, has been brought back to “dig dirt” on Lord Ashcroft.
The Sunday Telegraph reports that David Abrahams received beneficial planning status from the Government just weeks after he gave the Labour Party more than £100,000 in concealed donations.
In the Observer, Andrew Rawnsley warns that it’s “far too early” to pronounce the political death of Gordon Brown, while the paper also reports that voters may be entered in a lottery in a bid to increase turnout.
Finally, the Mail on Sunday reports that David Miliband tried to stop the mission by two Muslim peers who rescued Gillian Gibbons from jail in Sudan, and away from politics, that Jose Mourinho is to be offered the job of England manager.
Betting markets latest:
Lib Dem leadership: Clegg 1.29 Huhne 4.2
Democrat nominee: Clinton 1.5 Obama 3.75 Edwards 21
Republican nominee: Giuliani 2.42 Romney 4.7 Huckabee 5.4 McCain 14.5
Betfair have now opened up markets for all the early primaries and caucuses, although trading volumes are extremely thin at present.
A full rundown of the markets can be found here.
Paul Maggs “Double Carpet”
Guest Editor
MessageSpace Advertising
Excellent- I get a chance to comment on the Balls succession story. I thought Andrea and Benedict got this about right- Balls would be marginally less effective than a combination of Claire Short, and John Prescott.
Someone must be having a joke here. Balls is a joke, and a unlikeable, uncharismatic one at that.
A Balls leadership of Labour should be opposed by members of all political parties, as it would destroy the party so much it wouldn’t be good for democracy - leading to stagnation among all parties.
Incidentally, I would also like to say that these suggestions to increase turnout are a joke. People should be voting because they care enough about politics to hope one candidate beats another, not because they are hoping to get rich quick. The Labour party knows they are disproportionately popular among the uninformed and are hoping to exploit this.
Far better would be to introduce the study of politics and economics in schools from about age 16, encouraging discussion and debate. We could drop the citizenship classes to make room for it.
I meant 14.
Thanks for stepping in Paul. I’m about to board a plane to the middle east, where both politics and betting appear to be frowed upon in their overt forms. So I might not have anythnig to contribute for a few days.
But I leave one thought. Looking through the details of the Newsweek Iowa poll (the one that shows Huck miles ahead), I was stunned to see GOP caucus-goes rating a candidates views on the economy as being more important than all the value issues. This to me speaks volumes about voters’ growing sense of economic insecurity. Although the headlines are currently dominated by Oprah, Mormonism and the rest, come next November it really could be “the economy stupid” all over again. Hitherto, not one of the candidates has really tried to define themselves as an economic candidate, bar Edwards and my sense is that the economic downturn will bite too late to help him in the primaries. Hilary’s flirtation with protectionism in the FT last week is quite interesting in this context, though I can’t really draw any betting conclusions from this move.
What the Balls story shows more than anything is just how clueless the plotters were, and still are? I mean who seriously would plot on behalf of Balls. Ah yes- the people who plotted on behalf of Brown and quickly discovered him to be a duffer.
What about the liberals who plotted against Chaz, and replaced him with Ming. What a good job they did. And the Tories have had plotters plotting against plotters for years.
The current state of British politics is appalling, the pits.
7- right only a few minutes now to the boxing event of the century.
Come on Ricky H- good Manchester lad, city fan. Gordon “Jonah” Brown is not there, the omens are looking good.
“There is only one Ricky Hatton”. Go on my son…
slec (in NY) @ 5 re US economy — maybe this is part of Ron Paul’s appeal. His solutions may be absurd but at least he recognizes there is a problem.
If I may rant a bit, I think the problem goes back to Reagan who was incredibly popular despite (or perhaps because of) the huge deficit he ran up. Hence Cheney’s “deficits don’t matter”. I fear too that New Labour also learned to live, and legislate for the short term, not just with PFI but also its botched constitutional reforms.
Donorgate could become interesting if the Telegraph really has found evidence the donations were a bribe.
I would certainly oppose Ed Balls for leader. Another story I thought was interesting was the split over pensions - almost certainly coming from Hain. I’m with Hain on this one.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/economics/story/0,,2224729,00.html
9. They haven’t and won’t.
A propos nothing, but according to the Australian Electoral Commission (http://vtr.aec.gov.au) there are still eight seats which haven’t been declared, three weeks after the election.
This may be a failure to update their website rather than an incomplete count, but either way, it’s pretty poor. Grrrr.
OT — boxing looking unpromising.
13. No it doesn’t. He won within 72 seconds. Our lovely Amir Khan valiantly defended his beautiful handsome face and his gorgeous muscular body by hitting the horrid traitor Graham Earl before being hit himself.
Is it my connection or is the Independent website down? If other’s can access it could someone paste the Ed Balls story?
15. The Indie has the worst website known to man. Horribly designed and links don’t work every single day. Of course it’s down
16. Thanks Test.
O/T
Some good betting opportunities,”in running” with Paddy Power for the test match in Sri Lanka.
Michael Vaughan is playing particularly well and should reach his 100 shortly.
I hope my post is not the “kiss of death”
Ed Balls as leader and PM…. I’m reminded of that US campaign commercial with a TV saying ‘Vice President Spiro Agnew’ on the screen and an unseen viewer laughing his head off. All the Tories need do is show a similar PEB.
More seriously, a Balls leadership could mean a Labour defeat not of 1983, but of 1931 proportions. A lot of Labour Party members would have trouble voting for the party with Balls as leader, never mind our core voters or floating voters.
It’s the sure electoral touch of ultraprat Sion Simon.
Are you sure that Grant Shapps didn’t have a hand in it somewhere, Test?
Perhaps Quentin Davies would be the way forward as new labour leader.
More seriously, perhaps the ultimate humilition for Brown would be for the party to ask Blair to come back
Re 3 Turnout will increase if we had a decent voting system like STV. Safe seats are the slow death of our democracy
Gordo in big doo doo ???
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30100-1296268,00.html
There have been three by-elections in Scotland under STV and, although it may be early days yet, the turnout was not encouraging to say the least and below that for most of the English by-elections at the same time. Do not automatically expect turnout to improve under a different voting system.
Balls up on Andrew Marr next.
2. Hmmm isn’t the lottery idea effectively offering people money to vote? Doesn’t that infringe some of the earlier Representation of the People Acts aimed at stopping bribery?
For obvious reasons you can’t have a PM called ‘Balls’ the comic possibilities are endless!!
Interesting poll in the ‘Bellylarf’ on Britishness.
http://tinyurl.com/2vmpzj
Re. the Sudan case, the most telling comment in the story is this…
“They were told the trip would never succeed, that Ahmed should not take a Conservative front-bencher and that it might make things worse.”
…so even where the safety of vulnerable British woman was at stake, Labour’s approach was being coloured by the basest partisan considerations. Appalling.
27 - So that proves it was Labour advice, rather than that of a misguided Foreign office?
I have forwarded that request to a friend of mine I know who was a cacuser (or however the word is spelt) in Iowa in 2004. He’s currently in Missouri studying at a theological college
Off Topic. After a month of polls where the Conservatives achieved “record leads” and “all time highs Vs Brown” the following online article Poll Watch, by the BBC’s political research editor David Cowling manages to avoid mentioning those facts which give a historical context to the figures and instead talks about other things.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7132364.stm
This is a classic piece of BBC bias of talking about other issues than the fact that the Conservatives are doing well. It should be Cowling’s job to put a historical context to the figures. Clearly Cowling does his version of “ignoring the elephant in the room”, in this case its “dont mention the Conservatives record leads/Brown all time lows”.
He also talked up in October Brown’s 20 point lead in Yougov and then does not report the slump (with Yougov) in Nov to a poll rating lower than any Blair had. (source Anthony King, Telegraph).
Why write on here? Answer, Cowling’s page does not allow comments. On PBC.COM I can at least rely on people writing on this site to provide real insight into each poll, which the BBC’s “expert” fails to do.
For a change, lots of favourable coverage for Government initiatives in The Observer and Independent (home care and wind farms respectively, with a supportive editorial in the former, though I’m not clear how it differs from the existing Direct Payments scheme). Rentoul’s piece is IMO very thin - he’s met a few muttering MPs, shrug. However, all the stories, positive and negative, are going to get even less attention than usual, as most people aren’t following politics much just now. What the parties are currently trying to do is leave a lingering positive trend as people go into Christmas.
The Ashcroft story interests me, of course, but don’t get me started on the spending limits stuff. I will say that he’s had some positive effects. On our side, he’s getting the troops into action - we had half a dozen people leafleting in the pouring rain in Tory Nuthall yesterday, following the dozen canvassers last weekend and another batch this afternoon, and several of them were only there because they feel we’ve got to compensate for the Tory money with Labour legwork.
On the Conservative side, I detect a certain Soviet Army effect - because the Ashcroft money comes with well-defined strings, every offensive has to be planned and documented in great detail, so they’re slow to respond to any local issue. For instance, when a post office closure was announced in a predominantly LibDem/Tory area, we had a petition out within two days. It was single sheets of photocopied b/w paper, and gathered hundreds of signatures in no time. Three weeks later, the Tories brought out their own petition. It was in full colour, and a very handsome and expensively-produced objet d’art - I’m sure the noble Lord will have been impressed when they sent it in. But people noticed that it was late (and it even drew attention to its reactive nature by whinging about our petition for not showing the deadline).
Ball’s isn’t as articulate as you’d expect from someone who’s risen so meteorically. Though yesterday on ‘Any Questions’ I heard a Tory front bencher called Nick Herbert who was awful.
He had that Nigel Farage fault of believing he was speech making to the Nuremburg rally when really he was answering audience questions into a microphone. I know it’s possible to be tutored in the dark arts of not sounding ridiculous but wouldn’t it have been wise to have that lesson before representing the Tory front bench on radio rather than after?
Vince Cable was on the same program which rather emphasised the point. He really is a class act and for the first time I could see what the Libs have passed up.
Is this the the same David Cowling who was once a Labour councillor in Merton?
19. Reminds me of the much awarded Economist ad;
“I NEVER READ THE ECONOMIST”
(management trainee aged 42)
Others in the series included
“What exactly is the benefit of the doubt?” and “Great minds like a think”
There is no point in getting too excited over the reporting of opinion polls by the BBC, HF (30).
For a start, it is very clear that Cowling is concentrating on issues, and the standing of the Labour Government on these issues, rather than the relative standing of the Tory-Labour Parties that you would like him to write about. For my part, I find it interesting and a pleasant change to read about something else.
Secondly, you are labouring under a misconception. Recent polls show a considerable lead for the Tories over Labour: but this is because Labour is doing badly, not because the Tories are doing particularly well. This has been the case for several weeks now, and it was the same in the spring, before Blair finally gave up and Labour perked up a bit.
This story is not even as interesting as the “small earthquake in Chile”: it is more of the “the paint continues to dry” variety.
The only people who are interested in such a non-story are you Tory cheerleaders who have immigrated to PBC from Con Home. You have to keep repeating to one another how well the Tories are doing, and how you are bound to grab power again, because otherwise you would come to recognise that there is not much point in having Cameron as your leader.
Sayeeda Warsi’s ratings over the last four months in the ConHome members’ survey… -20% | -14% | -4% | -2% - she is still last in the Shadow Cabinet. What are the odds on her moving into positive territory next survey?
30 - I get fed up with people complaining about BBC bias. I cannot see how anybody can seriously claim there has been an a pro-Labour bias in recent weeks. I think that some of the Tory tubthumpers on here would say anything without “I love Camo” written on it in triplicate was “anti-Tory bias.”
At least I have now heard of her!
Trust Mike is tucking into NHS bacon sarnies this morning. Get well soon, Mike and thanks to Paul for stepping in so well
32: And yet Herbert still makes Balls look balls.
36: The BBC is biased but they are also not stupid enough not to report the main political story at the moment, the Labour meltdown.
38 re 36 spot on Ralph.
35 Tressage, I would give Cowling the benefit of the doubt on “talking about the issues” if he had not triumphed PM Macavity, in his round up of polls in October.
“it also found Gordon Brown 20 points ahead of David Cameron on being the strongest leader; and 11 points ahead on managing the economy properly.”.
When this lead fell away in Nov Cowling did not point that out.
Lastly I do try to point out the Conservatives performance in a historical context for that poll. Posters on here rightly pick me up when I make a mistake. Nothing beats peer review!
36 SBS, the BBC have admitted that they have a problem with bias and do not reflect the views of the population. They have made improvements this year.
33 Peter, no idea if it is the same Cowling, there are 74 David Cowling’s on the electoral roll for 2007. He has been the BBC’s political research editor since at least Sept 2000.
40 what improvements?
31 - Nick, without getting into the spending limits debate, can you explain why Labour does not copy the Ashcroft model if it’s so effective, and dole out some of its centrally raised funds to marginal constituencies.
Most people on the Tory side (well they would say that) say that it’s not the money that’s so important as the disciplined and highly focussed organisation that has been instituted so that it is spent effectively.
35 Tressage “Secondly, you are labouring under a misconception. Recent polls show a considerable lead for the Tories over Labour: but this is because Labour is doing badly, not because the Tories are doing particularly well.”
Yes it is more to do with Labour doing badly as it always is with a Govt to lose an election. But the Conservatives have still done relatively well to hit some all time highs and all time biggest leads “in past 10 to 20 years etc” with some pollsters.
So Conservatives are doing well and would like to do better to get into the 45%+. I think that it will be very hard to get much above 45% as long as the approx 10% of voters in Scotland only give ratings under 20%.
43 - Yep. Basically people have to decide whether “Conservatives not doing particularly well” means
a) they should be doing better, or
b) they need to be doing better.
An important difference if using the polls to judge, for example, the current leadership team.
Guido worth a look at this morning.. and I wasn’t thinking about Hugh Grant…
He has two new threads
http://www.order-order.com/
… as I said Tory tubthumpers… all echoing each other.
41 Maggie Thatcher Fan “what improvements?”
There have been some signs such as the invitation to Eurosceptics to go on some programmes and not attacking people as racists when they wish to talk about the problems of mass immigration. But there is a long way to go for something that is institutionally biased against any right of centre opinions.
47
Thanks HF, But no where near being equitable in treatment of political parties.
Its got to the stage that I just wont watch news 20bore any more, even if its reporting bad news for Labour.. There always seems to be a subtext. C4 News and Sky are my preferred choices , and occasionally ITN
“86. Unlikely they will lose any seats at all. They may well gain. They are breathing down Labour’s necks in Aberdeen S, Edinburgh S and Edinburgh N & Leith and are the obvious recipients of further tactical voting in those seats. They are probably odds-on to hold the Dunfermline by-election gain, and none of the seats they currently hold look particularly vulnerable. A similar “collapse” in the Liberal vote occurred between 1983-92, yet they gained a seat…
by RodCrosby December 8th, 2007 at 6:51 pm ”
Not quite sure. I think Roxburgh may be at slight risk. But overall I agree they are quite likely to be a net gainer in seats in Scotland even if there overall vote takes a major squeeze from the SNP in seats where they are not already in contention
I would not have thought Mike Moore will lose Roxburgh. A 13% majority looks pretty good to me.
Is there a poll due out? Sporting Index have suspended their prices.
Shhhhh! don’t let seant see this, let the, ‘Beast of Bodmin Moor’ have his Sunday slumber undisturbed.
http://tinyurl.com/2j2sp9
50 I did say slight. But the Holyrood result and yes I know different Westminster boundaries favour the Lib Dems means it is merely improbable rather than impossible. O/T but I was staggered by Dale saying Clegg is considering axing Rennard?! My reaction is completely the same have they gone out of their minds…..
46 SBS If you have said it once, are you not echoing yourself??
;)
[47] Surely one reason why the Beeb might have a “left-wing” bias - I don’t think that it does, myself, but then I wouldn’t, would I? - is that it is able to attract high-calibre people on relatively low salaries (thereby providing the licence-fee payer with value for money) because it offers them status. Clearly the people who are willing to trade cash for status in this way are likely to have a certain set of values, which in general associate with a left-of-centre view of the world.
I’m unclear why anyone should want to discourage people from preferring non-pecuniary to pecuniary benefits in their choice of employer.
42 alex “can you explain why Labour does not copy the Ashcroft model if it’s so effective, and dole out some of its centrally raised funds to marginal constituencies.”
You raise a very important point and it is one that speaks to the different approach to running campaigns in the two parties. Labour prefers to spend the money on national call centres, polling, national campaigns to support its targets, whereas the Conservatives have shifted expenditure to the front line.
Of course it does raise the question as to whether a telephone canvass in a constituency by Labour Inc, will be in these “local limits”.
This lack of central funds combines with the double whammy of the collapse in Labour’s activists. Therefore many of its constituencies are unable to run effective campaigns themselves, although Nick P seems to be the exception.
What is the proof for my view on Labour activists? In GE2005 the Conservatives deployed 3 times the number of volunteer workers in each constituency compared to Labour. Although the Conservatives only had 0.5 times more members. The LDs also did well deploying on average just a couple of helpers less than Labour’s average from a membership base that was about 1/3rd of Labour’s. (Source Labour Will Parbury report from a Uni study).
The Scottish Tories need a new leader.
And quickly. A recent poll gave them 12% for Holyrood.
They spent £600,000 and stil had a net loss of one seat at Holyrood. The Tories need to be winning in every part of Britain if they are going to form the next governmnet. Scotland is clearly the weak link.
Aberdeenshire West 99%
Argyll & Bute 60%
Roxburgh and Selkirk 75%
Caithness Sutherland99%
Dunbartonshire East 75%
Edinburth West 99%
Fife North East 99%
Gordon 60%
Inverness 75%
Orkney & Shetland 99%
Ross Skye and Lochaber 99%
Aberdeen South 40%
Edinburgh South 40%
Edinburgh North & Leith 30%
Dunfermline & West Fife 50%
53 I am sure that Rennard is not going to be axed though it is likely that his responsibilities will be changed , there is feeling that the Chief Executive role dilutes his election organisation efforts .
57 - But they were at 19% (+3%) on General Election in the Westminster poll
58 I presume that is your suggested chance of them holding on rather thantheir % of the vote. I doubt even Ming gets 99%. But you really think they have only a 30% chance of holding Edinburgh North
50. The Tories gained the Holyrood’s Roxburgh & Berwickshire with a 9.4% swing last May. Westminster’s Roxburgh & Berwickshire include all Holyrood’s one + some wards from Holyrood’s Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (LD did well in Tweeddale, etch)
Another area held by LD at Westminster where they performed badly last May was Jo Swinson’s seat
58. Sorry, pressed send too soon.
What that is attempting to show is rough probabilities for the LibDems holding/gaining those seats. You may think differently, which is OK. It is for illustration only. If you add up these probabilities you get 10.99 seats, which is the expectation of the LibDem total Scottish seats next time. Say 11!
This is a simplified example of the method used to arrive at the 66 Labour majority in 2005.
49 two of the Scottish LD seats are likely to have new candidates in 2010. Ming and Malcom Bruce would be in their 70s at the end of a 4 yr term.
Both have 10,000+ majorities but much of their vote is personal and the LDs will have to reallocate resources to defending seats that previously were very safe.
62. Re-checking in Dunbartonshire East area they didn’t lose much, but they were starting from a very low base at Holyrood level (low teens), so maybe a boost from gaining the Westminster seat may have been expected
53 - it is all a bit confusing with the different seats at Wm and HR now. 2005 based on notional seats gave a notional swing to the Tories of 5.9%, and it was still held by LDs 13%. Mind you, the notional swings in Scotland were all over the place…
In the Scottish Elections this year, the Tories did manage a big swing of 9.4% in R and B - but this is compared to 2003, not 2005. However, in T, E and L (some of which lies in the Westminster seat), there was a small swing from Tories to LDs (largely due to a large rise in the SNP vote) compared to 2003.
In the end, I guess it will be down to bar charts… but I hope Mike is going to win; he’s one of our best, but needs to get into the media more. When the Tories backed Blair over Iraq, and Ming was ill, he did a fine job.
Perhaps the LDs suffered in 2007 from being “the establishment” in Holyrood. And I had read that Euan Robson was not necessarily regarded as a fantastic MSP. I don’t know.
54 - er…yes!
Isn’t E Dunbartonshire the one that used to have an independent MSP? If so, it’s a strange seat, and it’s all to play for.
Given Alex Salmond’s result in Gordon, might Malcolm Bruce stand down?
64. Bruce can make another term without being too old if he wants…in 2014 he would be 70…there’re MPs who carry on in their 70’s
67. yes, that one, SBS. DE covers’ 73% of Holyrood’s Strathkelvin & Bearsden. The Indy lost votes and her seat last May. The changes were:
Lab +1.2
SNP +8.2
Ind -12.7
Con +2.8
LD -1.3
On Bruce..maybe considering Salmond’s result, he may be persuaded to stand again another time: LD would have better chances with him than without him
68 Bruce stood down from the frontbench of the LDs after GE2005. Clearly in wind down mode from front line politics. Cannot recall him appearing on UK political programmes for some while.
68 HF has a fixation on LibDem MP’s age which ignores the fact that 3 times as many Conservative MP’s are older .
To counter Nick Palmers usual transparent spin, here are some of the articles questioning further Labour’s probity in funding matters (as usual there is plenty to get your teeth into. One day they might realise if they continue the same tired old pathetic whining about Ashcroft people might just stop scrutininizing their own dreadful hypocritical behaviour as much.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3022220.ece
So no more whining about the MIC perhaps?
http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=1918752007
How long will it be before Labour only have funding from the Trade Unions?
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article3236134.ece
And yet another of the Brown cabal implicated. But of course it was just a coincidence and everybody was working in ‘good faith’(sic)….
Re. 32, Roger, I agree, Herbert is dreadful, particularly on programmes such as Any Questions. Like Hodge, he has a tin ear for audience reaction, and even in the House of Commons he’s pompous, hectoring, self-important, spiteful, supercilious, self-righteous, utterly devoid of humour (or of any lightness of touch). He’s just on permanent ‘rah rah’ rant mode, and is generally the sort of arrogant young rottweiler Cameron’s candidate selection reforms were supposed to weed out. I don’t think I’ve disliked any politician so much since Margaret Hodge, Patricia Hewitt, or Beverley Hughes. Herbert’s manner is so rebarbative that, even when he’s making good points (like attacking the early release scheme), the way in which he makes them makes me want to disagree with them just for the hell of it. I would say he’s an utterly hateful character, but that might be libellous.
That said, the number of poor performers, lightweights, nitwits and numpties is still probably as great (if not greater) in the real Cabinet than in the Shadow one.
48. I think when such an impeccably impartial source as ‘Maggie Thatcher fan’ tells us there is bias at the BBC we should take note.
70 - “He has been chair of the International Development Select Committee since 2005 and is President of the Scottish Liberal Democrats.” from LD site.
He also has two youngish children.
It’s may be unfair as well - for all I know, he may be a nice guy outside Westminster or away from any microphone. It’s just that he comes over as infernally bumptious in public.
As I said on the previous thread I think Berwickshire etc is very vulnerable - probably the most likely Tory gain in Scotland. The Tories did quite a bit better in the Roxburgh part of the constituency in 2005 and if they work Selkirkshire hard then I believe we can win the seat.
71 Yet the % of MPs retiring is twice as high with the LDs than the Conservatives.
77. What odds (honestly) would you give for a gain? Remember the Libs have held the seat for nearly 43 years…
74 I’m glad you agree Roger. ;);)
78 - too small a sample to read anything into it. Average age of a Tory MP is higher, so I dare say they’ll be a few quitting that have not yet indicated. There’ll be a bit of a scramble from the Notting Hill mob when they do.
57.601. When the personal ratings of the leaders were last polled the Tory leader was way ahead Lib Dem leader albeit she was a long way behind the SNP leader.
The Tories were at 19% for Westminister and since 1997 have generally performed better in real elections than polls.
Under the present leadership they have a good chance of picking up 1 seat from the Lib Dems and at least 2 from Labour. Morale has recently improved in the Scottish Tory Party and membership levels are up and I don’t think it is an optimal time for changing the
leader which would only distract attention from Labour’s “Wendy A” problem.
78 It is a good job the Conservative party does not take your view that life as an MP should end at 60 , the % of MPs retiring would then be much higher for Conservatives than LibDems .
78. Looking at retiring MPs years of birth….Lab retiring MPs (Short included even if she’s not Labour anymore) is 1944.7…Con retiring MPs (Greenway’s “forced” retirement included) average is 1944.5…and LD retiring MPs average is 1955.2
I’m all in favour of elderly Tory MPs. It gave us a few nice by-elections in the 1980s and 1990s.
The Tories would be daft to ditch Annabel Goldie. After Salmond, she is the second best party leader in Scotland. She is the best hope they have had for a long time.
79 - I’ll give the odds a bit of thought Rod. The seat isn’t quite the same as the one David Steel won. IIRC the seat he won originally contained Peeblesshire - which apart from the area I’m from - is pretty strong for the Liberals but didn’t contain the more Conservative Berwickshire.
The Tory organisation is also stronger than it’s been for years with membership of over 1000 and a decent councillor base. Not something that was the case in previous years.
81. “When the personal ratings of the leaders were last polled the Tory leader was way ahead Lib Dem leader albeit she was a long way behind the SNP leader.”
Salmond 46
Wendy 10
Annabel 9
Stephen 4
don’t know 31
73 - Just a few seconds after reading your post, I found this
http://tinyurl.com/3ccly4
And wondered if they might be related.
Seriously, I have hardly ever heard Nick Herbert speak, apart from one appearance fairly recently on the Daily Politics (??); on that occasion, I can’t recall thinking ‘hmmm, not sure about this one’
82. Sorry should have written “The Tories were at 19% for Westminister in last week’s poll”
The Observer has a good article about Iowa:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2224725,00.html
I hope you get better soon, Mike.
As an aside, I wasn’t offended by any comments on my Friday thread.
89. so, John, do you like Herbert or not?! We need to know
31. Nick Palmer.”Lots of favourable coverage for Government initiatives in The Observer and Independent (home care and wind farms respectively,”
Finally got into the Indy to read the bit on wind farms. Ante-penultimate paragraph ends “Once sites have been identified, companies will then draw their plans and submit them for approval to Mr Hutton’s department and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.”
That’s that then. Bye bye off-shore wind farms.
Things are getting so gloomy in Labour that the Sunday Mirror describes a Labour seat with a 4,000 majority in 05 and a projected 3,000 maj next time on new boundaries, as a “plumb seat” for the Conservatives!
http://tinyurl.com/2v3mz9
93 - Er, am I allowed to say ‘not sure’
Up till now, I’ve given him high marks on ConsHome monthly survey (but then I do to most of ‘em ;)). But Richard is always a particularly acute observer.
92 Ok, SeanF. We’ll try harder next week.
96. you said “I can’t recall thinking ‘hmmm, not sure about this one’”..so it does mean you like him, right?
84 Thanks Andrea, the age for retirement of LD MPs is 10 yrs younger than the other 2 main UK parties.
Did you have to look up this individually or is there an online source?
Nick, hopefully in your area as in ours it will be pointed out that Labour is closing the post offices! And your voting record in parliament on post office “reorganisation” should be being publicised, if you voted with the government.
IMO, people know Post Offices don’t shut by themselves and know you are the ones closing them.
It’s like watching Hazel Blears picket against Government NHS restructuring in front of her own local hospital. Unedifying.
I too would be interested in the question as to why Labour doesn’t spend in its marginal seats? You do understand the funds are Tory funds, not Lord A’s private chequebook. We are raising money hand over fist under David Cameron. More important as pointed out above is the discipline of campaign plans, business discipline, Lord A brings to the target seats campaign.
Re: Rentoul “He’s talked to a few grumbling MPs” well, other journalists filing the identical story this week have been Rachel Sylvester, Peter Oborne, etc etc. It’s appeared in pretty much every major paper and blog. MPs are talking about the succession. As far as I can see, Blair’s rules on a leadership challenge make it nigh on impossible.
10
‘Another story I thought was interesting was the split over pensions - almost certainly coming from Hain. I’m with Hain on this one.’
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/economics/story/0,,2224729,00.html
The problem for these pensioners is that they are spread out across the country and not concentrated in a Labour heartland where we have seen with NR money is no problem.
The £725 million that so dramaticaly effects the lifes of 125,000 pensioners could be covered by just reducing by 50% the annual waste with tax credits,or cut a few quangos or non elected rigional assemblies,clearly Brown and Darling just don’t give a shit.
101, if Hain fancied to set himself up as a rival to Gordon, he could resign over this issue. Somehow I do not think he will.
But, the fact he is prepared to leak shows that he thinks that Gordon is in such a weak position that he cannot crack down on dissent.
…just another one of those “few grumbling MPs”.
96. JohnO “….But Richard is always a particularly astute observer”
Just what I was thinking. His observations on NH’s performance on ‘Any Questions’ were so well expressed I wondered whether he might be a journalist…..but apart from Nancy Banks-Smith who is female only writes about TV and might well be dead I couldn’t think of any who review as accurately.
95 - Is it me or is that headline
“Labour complain about Tories picking substandard candidate in ‘marginal’ seat”?
One would have thought that they would welcome such a move!
99. “Did you have to look up this individually or is there an online source? ”
I looked at them individually.
In 2005 GE 86 did not stand again for re-election (deselections included). 58 of them were Labour, 16 Con and 8 LDs (source: PRP on 2005 GE):
The average age of MPs not standing again was 61…excluding around 8 MPs that were probably forced to retire (Griffiths, Flight, some Scottish MPs with seats abolished…) the average age increase to 61.3
102: Hain must also think that Brown will stay weak for some time.
102 - Hain may not resign, but it looks as if O’Brien will have to…
31 Nick Palmer I love the line “they feel we’ve got to compensate for the Tory money with Labour legwork.” Its the Little Match Girl strategy, isn’t it?
You poor Labour heroes slogging through the bad weather to compete with those fat cat Tories sitting by their warm fires in the dry counting their loot and buying the votes you have to work so hard for, chilled to the bone and wet right through. Ahhh.
I think you might rather wonder why you have so little in dosh from your constituency party. After all they have lots of it. Where has it gone? Not on an election that is for sure.
As far as I can glean from the Electoral Commission site (and in using their search engine I may well be prone to errors) , donations to the Labour party in 2007, including the run up to the election-that-never-was totaled over £14 million and we have not got complete reports to the end of the year yet. To date this is about 200k less than the Conservatives have received.
In this calendar year the Labour party received nearly 6.8 million from trade unions and nearly as much from individuals. These individual donations totaled 6.5 million and included:
2 million from Mittal
2 million from Sainsbury
0.82 million from Mahmoud Khayami
0.25 million from Ronnie Cohen
0.25 million from Nigel Doughty
0.25 million form Jon Aisbitt
Let us ignore the 118k from at least one proxy donor of current note.
Do feel free to correct my figures. And, if I have this anywhere near correct, do tell us where all this money has gone and why you have so little for constituency electioneering.
In 2007 how much has Ashcroft or companies associated with him donated to the Conservative party? It must be a lot if it is so important for you and your colleagues to bang on about it so much. So, do tell us, how much?
Balls? They have met him right? They do know he’s a useless speaker, lacking any charm or charisma, and would be a disaster for them. Even the tories at their lowest ebb over the last few years wouldn’t pick a man like him as leader, even IDS is superior. If Brown’s bad at PMQ’s imagine what Cameron would do to Balls, and it would give the tabloids a massive new source of puns, which I think we all agree they need no help with.
Who is the political editor of the Sunday Mirror these days?
Is it Oonagh?
105 Andrea, thanks, I have a list of 43 from the main 3 UK parties retiring at next Ge which is only half the 05 figure.
It does sound rather odd, doesn’t it, Alex (104)? A Labour MP criticising the Tories for snubbing thirty of their experienced activists by selecting a 29-year-old candidate whose only recommendation (as far as one can see) is that his father is a millionaire businessman and he himself managed to lose two local government elections!
But it is pretty well par for the course, isn’t it? Does anybody happen to know how many current Tory PPCs are millionaires or sons of milionaires?
I wonder if the said Labour MP is doing it merely to distract attention from the continuing scandal of Labour’s unrecorded millionaire donors…
Oh, and as to Labour funding this little snippet in the Sunday Times today:
ONE of Labour’s biggest donors was able secretly to channel more than £300,000 into the party’s election funds through an Islamic lobby group that hid his identity.
Inquiries by The Sunday Times have established that Imran Khand, a 43-year-old computer entrepreneur, was behind three large donations to the party earlier this year.
But his name was never disclosed to the Electoral Commission..”
73. Herbert got a lot more applause from the audience than the Labour minister.
108 - Given the enormously positive effect Lord Ashcroft has on Labour members it does make you wonder why they complain about him quite so much.
And I’m hugely envious of these constituencies where Tory activists aren’t required to do any work. I’ve done a hell of a lot of legwork over the last few years but we must be some strange exception.
Re retiring MPs…looking at those who have confirmed their retirement so far, here’s their year of first election:
Lab
1964: 1
1970: 2
1983: 2
1987: 3
1992: 8
1997: 11
2001: 1
Con
1974: 1
1974: 1
1983: 1
1987: 4
1992: 1
2005: 1
LD:
1987: 1
1997: 4
I hope not to have done mistakes as I just used memory without checking on some cases…
111. HF, “I” have 27 Lab MPs (+ Clare Shot + Bruce George who is expected to go too but I’m not sure if it’s official…making 29…then 9 Con, 5 LD and 1 SNP
108: Lord Ashcroft is and will continue to be one of a number of excuses Labour will use to explain their electoral failures, and divert attention away from their sleaze. Facts don’t matter as this is all to do with spin.
Don’t think this has been posted, but Vince Cable says that the LibDem race is “too close to call”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7135209.stm
Would he have access to the vote tallies as they arrive?
115 What is your seat. Hopeful or hopeless one. I do wonder if you should stand Goldie in one of the seats you’re highly unlikely to win next time but could plausibly hope for the long term if you could build up a base. It shall be highly interesting if you can stay in contention in that Edinburgh seat or you get squeezed to oblivion by the Lib Dems
Things must be beyond bleak if Charlie Whelan is being rolled out
Cable saying Huhne v Clegg too close to call. Genuine or mere bullspiel………
121 - ….Probably literally out of the Red Lion.
119/122 - I think it is going to be closer than is suspected, but I can assure you he does not have access to the tallies as they arrive. The votes will be counted in one go on the 18th, at a comms-sealed location. They are not counting them as they arrive - this is Vince Cable keeping the contest in the news, and making sure that the LDs get some coverage next to Labour’s woes.
103- ROGER- OT- just to put some context about my comments the other night- I called Thatcher great because of the impact she made on political life here and because she did this as a woman.
Did not mean that I admired her, liked her, agreed with her. I haven’t revised my opinion of what she did to the country- ripping the heart out of our industrial heartlands only to leave impoverished, crime ridden, drug addled unemployed whole communities in their wake. She also turned the Tory party into a people hating, zenephobic, borderline racist/ hompophobic clique of nutters that still pretty much makes up large parts of the party even now.
Just wanted to put my comments in context.
124 - Thanks. OK. Pure spin then.
125 - Classic denial: you love the lady.
126 - He’ll have some internal polling that suggests it is closer that last week’s 54% v 46%, but he has not seen any actual votes, I’m sure. I’ve put a little cash on Huhne, just in case!
Is there any indication that Huhne will look to build much of a team or will he be more of a one-man band?
115 -Max without the leg work - you won’t get anywhere. You don’t win by waiting for it to just happen. Keep going.
128: I’ve put a fair bit on Clegg. Sure he has had a poor campaign but I seem to remember a lot of speculation last time about how close it was.
125. Tyson, Ok then show me *one* single example of Thatcher, as Prime Minister, in any way made any kind of racist remark, either directly or indirectly, or any action which encourged those in her party to do the same?
You obviously missed that great conference speech by Heseltine in the early eighties when he was part of her conference, about Black people being here, being british and being able to vote, and the huge applause that came from it.
I find it fascinating that there is so much talk of people resigning over donations of one kind or another. Here we have certain politicians basically trying to cover up the death of man who was beatean to a pulp by some of their friends and associates by claiming it was part of a criminal dispute.
Do we hear screaming voices from the politicos of Britain? Nah….
“The Republicans Find Their Obama”
“What really may be going on here is a mirror image of the phenomenon that has upended Hillary Clinton’s “inevitability” among Democrats. Like Senator Obama, Mr. Huckabee is the youngest in his party’s field. (At 52, he’s also younger than every Democratic contender except Mr. Obama, who is 46.) Both men have a history of speaking across party and racial lines. Both men possess that rarest of commodities in American public life: wit. Most important, both men aspire (not always successfully) to avoid the hyper-partisanship of the Clinton-Bush era.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/opinion/09rich.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin
O/T Just been unsuccessfully trying to locate the poster who 2 or 3 days ago was “prepared to spend all night if necessary” locating a betting market enabling him to back Mayweather to defeat Hatton in the 10th round by a TKO - quite incredible! I want to be his friend.
133. Surely it was just a bit of ‘internal housekeeping’, to the use the charming expression of the NIO, wasn’t it?
135. Think it was Herbert Proper or Norman Normal.
136. My arse it was. Even I wouldnt suggest the politicians are directly involved in the killing but they have been publicly trying to cover it up since. The Irish government are not best pleased by it but not a peep from London or indeed the greater UK politicos.
120 - Punter I’m a member in DCT although I ow live and work in Edinburgh. I can’t see Annabel Goldie standing for Westminster again I suspect she’ll want to keep building her support in West Renfrewshire.
137. Well nothing must be allowed to derail the ‘peace process’, especially something as minor as a mere brutal murder.
137 - In the midst of the Donorgate furore, Channel 4 News carried an interview with Shaun Woodward where he didn’t rule out the re-imposition of Direct Rule. Basicly i assume it’s a case of, as long as the DUP don’t kick up a fuss, then neither will the British Govt.
135/7 - Ptp - post 87 on Sean’s Friday thread
140. The DUP are sitting very tight on this because they intend to use the ammunition but want a silver bullet. Otherwise they wont do too much, it’ll be levered as a blackmail tool for the future.
In addition the DUP are enjoying themselves and are running rings around SF as regards the adminstration at Stormont. This isnt surprising, the DUP is full of technocrats.
Thirdly the DUP have a bit of a problems with links to businessmen of their own, and possible lobbying of their own at the moment so they need to be careful about mud throwing though on this theyve got way more ammunition.
138. ” I suspect she’ll want to keep building her support in West Renfrewshire. ”
Trish Goodman may consider retiremente next time (IIRC she’s quite oldish) making the seat even more open, I suppose
Following up various posts from above with an anecdote, if I may…. I was at a Liberal Democrat social event the other evening. All the people at that table - not close friends of mine, since I was circulating - had voted for Huhne. Moreover, all opted for Obama in the US elections. Small sample, but make of that what you will….
144 - Which state have they got a vote in?
141 Thanks for that Alex, it’s PfP by the way not PtP. I’m always amazed how some clever cloggs on here can so readily find posts, sometimes from months ago.
Anyway, back to the matter in hand and I think Mr Proper’s post deserves to be up there in lights so here it is again:
“On that basis I’ll go for a tenth round stoppage [on cuts] v Hatton and at that stage I’d expect FM to be ahead on points having sniped away at Hatton using his longer reach which is 73″ to 67″.
Must be a winning betting somewhere and I will unearth it if it takes me all night.”
by Herbert Proper Senior December 7th, 2007 at 10:04 pm
Take a bow, Herbert lad, and I hope you found the bet you were looking for.
Picking up on posts 122 and 124, most of the report of the interview with Vince Cable was not about the current Liberal Democrat leadership contest, but about practical government support for the armed forces.
The headline that I would have chosen for PBC betters is:
“Liberal Democrats support armed forces personnel. Lib Dem prospects in Colchester, Hereford and Portsmouth South strengthen, as Tory hopes plummet.”
The question now is whether the Tories are prepared to back the Lib Dems in supporting the interests of forces personnel, or whether they wish to continue playing silly party political games.
A rhetorical question really…..
I can confirm that David Cowling is a former Labour councillor in Merton (and married to another), but he’s also worked for Harris polls, and on and off for the BBC for nearly three decades. I’ve never detected any party bias in his TV appearances or when I used to work with him.
147. But Tressage aren’t you playing silly party politics on the issue of the armed forces with that post!
None, of course, Alex (145). Obviously…. But I found it interesting that a sample of UK Liberals (not necessarily representative, of course) preferred Obama over Clinton.
Is Hillary the preferred candidate of the Labour establishment I wonder….
148 Robert Waller, noted.
146 I’ve been thinking further about Herbert’s remarkable prescience re the Mayweather vs Hatton fight. Perhaps when Mike is back in rude health and working full time, it may be possible to have a “Post of the Month” competition, nominated by readers of PB.com, but judged solely by Mike, either on the basis of providing stonking good information or an insightful and profitable betting opportunity, preferably of the political, rather than sporting kind.
Who knows, if Mike is able to attract a generous sponsor, there might even be scope for a small prize.
152 A generous sponsor would not be a bookie if they have lost a fortune because everyone followed an insightful betting tip .
153 That’s why I have previously suggested Betfair.