A double blow for Brown from the Indy
December 27th, 2007
Defeat threatened on terror limits and John Rentoul says “it’s all over”
On what must be the first “conventional” front page in a long time the Independent, the normally left-leaning paper, reports a ComRes survey of Labour MPs which suggests that the government is heading for a commons defeat if it presses ahead with plans to extend the limit on detention without trial to 42 days
The survey found at least 38 Labour MPs would rebel against - four more than are necessary to defeat the measure. The paper notes that: “Potential rebels include a string of former ministers and senior backbenchers that goes beyond the “usual suspects” of Labour refuseniks.”
Inside the paper, under the heading “We can dabble in parallel universes, but in the real one it’s all over for Gordon Brown” the political editor of the Independent on Sunday, John Rentoul, looks at prospect for the PM and questions whether a recovery is possible at all.
As far as I can recall this is the first general election prediction by a major commentator in the mainstream media that Brown cannot win.
On the polls Rentoul refers to Andy Cooke’s guest slot here on Politicalbetting on Monday on one of “the myths that might comfort Brown’s demoralised troops: that the Government tends to recover in the opinion polls as an election approaches.” He suggests that even if there is a Brown recovery in the polls then the PM still faces “an impossible task”.
General election betting is here.
Mike Smithson
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Opinion polls (and indeed election results) are usually analysed/reported in terms of percentage swings from one party to another, i.e. based on the subconscious assumption that the body of voters is static and constant, with some people merely changing from one party to another.
But there is the argument that the Conservative Party lost the trust of the electorate in 1997, and fell from 14.1m voters to its core of 9.6m, whereas the Labour Party similarly fell from 13.5m in 1997 to 9.5m in 2005. The suggestion that “Brown is finished” depends on there being a viable alternative government-in-waiting, i.e. it requires the Conservative Party to regain a large chunk of ther electorate which it lost 10 years ago. When it comes to the crunch situation of a general election, I don’t see 2 or 3 million disenchanted abstainers suddenly rushing to express confidence in David Cameron as PM. If Brown is going to be voted out, it it more likely to be by default, as a result of a hung parliament, on a very low turnout (perhaps less than 55%). If a further drop in turnout exacerbates the differential turnout patterns which exist already, then there may be a big anomaly in terms of votes/seats and/or England/Scotland and/or England/UK.
Meanwhile, Clinton was impeached, in case anyone wasn’t paying attention.
When Blair went, a lot of people breathed a sigh of relief. Brown had his honeymoon and then reality struck. Northern Rock is just the beginning of the financial and economic mess that is going to hit the fan and splatter everyone in sight.
I remember reading many decades ago that as afar as wiining WW2 was concerned, the problem with Nazi Germany, was that its leaders believed their own propaganda. And so it is with New Labour.
It’s ironic that the man who was supposedly responsible for such economic wonder (funnily enough, this was the same economic wonder that befell every western nation, as ever-increasing quantities of cheap imports from China kept inflation low and thus interest rates low and the wo/man in the street happy) is now in charge of the Government that will have to face economic onslaught head on. And no, it will not be just the result of those sub-prime nasties in the States.
The New Labour project is in its death throes. A certain winner would be to lay a Labour win. When 2010 comes around, the country will be desparate for change.
It’s just a shame that they didn’t save up a bit more money.
Not normally a fan of John Rentoul, but this was a great analogy:
“Gordon Brown, having endured an improbable sequence of repeated blows over the past three months, is like a boxer who doesn’t know whether the fact that his opponent has stopped hitting him means that he is winning or that he is about to be finally floored.”
re 1. John - I don’t see how the absolute numbers of votes matters - the key elements are the shares of the votes in each of the seats. The critical objective for the Tories is to regain the vote share that was lost since 1992 and current polling suggests that this level, 42%, might be possible.
My guess is that turnout will be higher next time if only because there could be a chance of a change of government and interest might be greater.
This is the proof we needed to show that Labour MPs are revolting. But the question is how many can be whipped into falling in line by bribing them with government jobs or threatening to spill the beans to their wives on any sleaze about them that the security services may have detected. A good Labour MP must be sycophantic in the extreme, voting for illegal war or any needless legislation that will ruin lives, but should also have secrets that can be used against him. These immoral Labour MPs are the secret of a long lasting dictatorship under the guise of a democracy.
1. - “I don’t see 2 or 3 million disenchanted abstainers suddenly rushing to express confidence in David Cameron as PM.”
Probably not, but I could see 2 or 3 million previous abstainers rushing to express their lack of confidence in Runner Bean as PM.
Rentoul seriously abuses the phrase dream ticket when claiming Miliband and Balls can take over.
Brown must stop digging. If there is no security justification for 42 days, there is certainly no electoral one: drop it.
Mordred @ 6 on revolting Labour MPs. All most of them care about is keeping their snouts in the trough so let them have their pay rise (which also means bigger pensions when they lose their seats).
Brown should stop annoying voters as well as MPs. Staging the police pay rise seems petty and unfair, an arbitrary abuse of power. Taking on the doctors is silly. Most people, and especially most patients, are happy with their GPs. Even those who aren’t are unlikely to be pleased at having to travel three (or is it six?) times as far because some idiot planner has lumped them together in super surgeries.
Unfortunately, the signs are that more ministerial meddling is Brown’s prescribed cure.
Same anecdote as seant last night - went to the pub on Christmas eve, and saw a friend who wasn’t all that drunk (given the history) and has never shown any interest in politics. Got talking, like you do, about why bad things happen to good people, and out of nowhere he said that the only person he’d want terrible tings to happen to was Gordon Brown. Taken aback, I told him that GB had a son with cystic fibrosis and lost an eye playing rugby, and was told that wasn’t nearly enough.
For Brown to have caused so much hatred in this guy was amazing - I couldn’t get to the bottom of why, but if this is at all typical, Brown really is finished.
On a wider level, I wouldn’t have thought that 38 Labour rebels would have been nearly enough to cause the terrorism vote to go down; doing the maths 646 MPs minus 4 speakers & deputies, and 5 Sinn Fein MPs who can’t vote leaves 637 votes in play, 352 Labour ones with 38 rebels and x Labour abstentions gives 314 - x in favour, and if there are y abstentions on the opposition benches, there will be 323 - y votes against.
Now taking into account:
-3 SDLP MPs who usually vote with the Government
-enough independents that some may vote in favour
-the efficiency of the Government Whips
-any possible rebellion by the Tories
-there were 49 Labour rebels on 90 days. 38 would have just seen it gone down, but it would have only been by 311 to 302.
then 38 rebels sounds very tight to me.
Congratulations to PB for again attracting the attention of a serious political reporter and in particular to Andy Cooke.
I believe it was Andy’s first piece for PB and a well argued and researched piece it was too. Well done mate.
What chance do you think of the Independent starting to pick up my racing tips now? I’m suggesting a modest each way punt at about 12/1 on Geeveem in The Welsh National today. Any takers?
The front-runner for the job is understood to be Wilf Stevenson, the director of the Smith Institute think-tank, who is a close friend of the Prime Minister.
mmm. I am starting to think Guido may have had a point on the Smith Institute (Konrad Caulkett ex SI is also a SPAD.)
Given the revolting Labour MPs, will there be any support form any other parties or abstentions. How many revolting Labour MPs are needed to defeat this. Is the honorable member for Broxtowe a revolting Labour MP?
Dizzy’s latest post is worth a look it…………
http://dizzythinks.net/
9 - 38 not including the “won’t says”, “abstains” and “don’t knows”
Well, I think the game’s up, in that I can’t foresee any circumstances in which Labour can win an overall majority, next time. But, there’s still a long way to go before the Conservatives win one.
Andy Cooke certainly deserves congratulations. It just goes to show that articles you see on the internet can be better informed than the received wisdom of the Press.
1. Actually, in 1979, that’s precisely what happened. The Labour vote was actually up, marginally, on October 1974, but the Tory vote rose by 3 million. I wouldn’t expect to see a 1979 level of turnout next time, but, if there is a mood to throw the government out, I’m sure turnout will rise, and the Conservatives will be the main beneficiaries of this.
[15] Sean Fear wrote if there is a mood to throw the government out, I’m sure turnout will rise, and the Conservatives will be the main beneficiaries of this.
I suspect their best bet for capitalising on this will be to avoid detailed pledges in their manifesto. They may do better with a series of philosophical “bullet points” and a simple pledge to govern in accordance with them. If you’re going to be elected more because of the other side’s shortcomings than on your own merits, why give hostages to fortune?
8 - “Rentoul seriously abuses the phrase dream ticket when claiming Miliband and Balls can take over.”
As a Tory I would totally endorse the phrase used by John Rentoul.
I do think though that the events of the last few months show how quickly things can turn around and it seems far to early to write of Brown much as I would like to.
Tof him being ousted before the election seems to me unlikely given the lack of a credible alternative.
Mike,PtP, Andy Cooke and y’all
Hope you all had a great Christmas - saw that several were asking and answering the quiz on the day. I had a look through after the thread had closed, and it just brings home the total sum of knowledge available to pb.c! I am also surprised but pleased that Andy’s piece has been quoted in the Indy. I think those of us who took part realised how well-researched it was, and Andy, that just goes to underline the point I made above. Thanks, Andy - and everyone who has done guest pieces for all the effort. I am sure the future for 2008 is very bright, Mike!
Happy New Year, all.
Given that initially Clegg’s strategy seems to be more anti-tory than anti-Labour, d’you think that might reduce any anti-government vote dividend that might be reaped?
After all, if people are ambivalent/lukewarm to the Tories but want Labour out, they aren’t going to vote Lib Dem if Clegg attacks the opposition more than the government.
17 the fact that there is no credible alternative , (to me at least), shows what a fix the Govt is in. I fully expect more revalations of New Labour incompetence in the coming months, (the media has the scent of blood), the trick for the Tories is to avoid any such mistakes such as “Grammargate”
Well done Andy Cooke. I felt at the time that this was a significant article for the site. John Rentoul goes up in my estimation for recognising it.
Mike I think we could benefit from someone/people writing a series of articles on the state of the polls/votes in Scotland which is a core base for Labour. Are the SNP really going to take more than 6 seats off Labour there?
The propect of a Tory government may well bring to the polls those centre-left voters that stayed at home in 2001 and 2005, because they were less than happy with the Labour government and also knew that were was no chance of the Tories gaining power.
22. I’m sure it would, and I’m sure that was one reason why, in 1979, the Labour vote held up so well. However, a lot of such voters are located in safe Labour seats (where the turnout was lowest in 2001 and 2005), and so be less helpful to Labour than one might think. In addition, for every 2005 voter Labour loses to the Conservatives, it has to pick up two abstaining Labour supporters.
22 That optimistic assumption may fall flat if those ‘left leaning voters’ are as alienated from Brown as the rest of the population and simply stay at home.
As promised a few threads ago, you can now enjoy the election-that-never-was from the comfort of your own living room. Watch the battleground scoreboard light up! The nailbiting recounts, the unexpected holds…
http://www.titanictown.plus.com/electsim.rar
It’s a compressed excel spreadsheet. You will need WinRAR to umpack it http://www.rarlab.com/download.htm (use the first link)
Basic methodology: we have a good idea from previous elections what the distribution of the changes will look like for each party. The Tories change tends to be relatively even, the LDs more variable, with Labour somewhere in the middle. The Butler swing will have a standard deviation of about 2.5%, meaning that if the overall swing was say 5% to the Tories, we would expect about 95% of the seats to have a swing in the range fom 0% to 10% (about 16 seats would have swings in excess of 10%, and 16 would actually swing to Labour) All this explains why every election has its sensational results, either way, and also why the Libs tend to produce the most unexpected results.
The spreadsheet model allows you to enter the overall shares of the vote (imagine it’s the BBC exit poll). For each seat declaration the computer will select a random result from the distributions described above. Each run of the election will produce different seat results, but crucially the overall result will be broadly similar. Incidentally, this is an illustration of why uniform swing is a good predictor of the overall result.
The seats declare in approximately the order they did in 2005. The battleground shows the zone in which each Labour loss falls, although in a close election this is a bit imprecise.
You can alter the delay timer (spin button at top right in the spreadsheet) to speed up or slow down the rate of the declarations. 200 is reasonable, I think, and equates to about 1 declaration a second on my machine…
Have fun!
PtP, Sean Fear, Tim13, HF (and John Rentoul),
Thanks, all :-). I’m having distinct problems getting my (now swollen) head through the door.
It’s most of all a tribute to Mike for running the site, and (as Tim13 mentioned) the collective knowledge of pbc.
(And yes, I have bought a copy of today’s Indy
)
25. Broxtowe is declaration number 327. Will Nick hang on!
re 26. John Rentoul is a great follower of the site and good on him for name-checking Andy.
Andy Cooke @ 26.
Only one copy?
Number 11
Don’t forget the £100k Ed Balls trousered for “co- authoring” a couple of pamphlets before Gordo fixed him up with a seat
The Smith Institute is another one of the snasty smells that follows Gordo around
The Andy Cooke piece was excellent; I’m much less sure about the John Rentoul piece. Gordon Brown was an exceptionally successful Chancellor of the Exchequer. So far, he has looked a particularly ropey Prime Minister, but given his previous track record, it would be rash to conclude definitively after only 6 months that he is unable to turn it round. Although I do agree that it is going to take an enormous effort and one that has not yet been apparently made.
I am quite surprised, in connection with Gordon Brown, that no one has yet cited the Peter Principle: everyone is promoted one step beyond their competence:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle
Well if Andy’s getting big-headed, it’s obviously time to start arguing with his thesis again…
I think that in principle the rule still should hold, but for different reasons to those usually expressed. The key factor is the Govt having the prerogative to choose the election date, and have about a year to play with.
Hence the only challenge for a generally well regarded Govt is to avoid periods of short term unpopularity that appear from time to time. An unpopular Govt should recover because they get to call an election at a time of short term (possibly self-engineered - tax cuts etc) relative popularity.
Hence as long as a Prime Minister has a strong nerve to commit to an election before s/he absolutely needs to some sort of “recovery” should be expected.
Where that leaves this Labour Govt however…
22 “The propect of a Tory government may well bring to the polls those centre-left voters that stayed at home in 2001 and 2005, because they were less than happy with the Labour government and also knew that were was no chance of the Tories gaining power”
As the song says “Things can only get better”.
Things are much better under Labour. Immigration up - do you remember how horribly British Britain was?
10 years Labour and we can see the benefits. Crime down. Education up. Abortion up. Defence down. Christianity down. Islam up. Gay age of consent down. Gay adoption up. Pay up. Housing up. War down. Corruption down. europe up.
This the line we must play. We must remind people how things were under Tories.
Everyone knows, if Tories get in, things would go back to how they were before Labour got in. They will vote accordingly.
Things can only get better.
antifrank I think Brown’s tenure in the Treasury may be up for some radical reassessment in the next few months.
I don’t expect disaster economically if the government acts prudently, but times will become tough as the government will have to cut spending and increase taxes and the MPC keeps rates as they are.
If they do not do the right thing and look for an easy inflationary way out then his reputation will be sunk from this end of his career as we slide into economic crisis after economic crisis, and his time as Chancellor will become almost irrelevant.
I agree with most of what JohnLoony says at post 1 except his conclusion “I don’t see 2 or 3 million disenchanted abstainers suddenly rushing to express confidence in David Cameron as PM” .
In Torbay the 10,000 ‘extra’ people who didn’t vote here in 1997 compared to 1992 were overwhelmingly late middle aged people and women, in wards where we might have expected a reasonable level of support.
Research and canvassing since have suggested they were the kind of people who were prepared to back Blair in 1997 as an alternative to the somewhat tarnished Major. They soon got disillusioned but were singly unconvinced that either Hague or Howard were any better, so either voted UKIP or stayed home.
In our research these are precisely the voters that Cameron has been especially successful in attracting back to the Conservatives.
5 Totally agree. The last 2 elections have been foregone conclusions for the Government. Next time either people will be mustardf keen to get the Government out or it will be a close race. Either surely means increased turnout. I expect 5% increase as a basic starting point. So 65% turnout as a baseline, if people get excited and it increases further then this could throw calculations and expectations out of the window in many seats and see off UNS for good, perhaps leading at last to proper regional Polls
The key point for me about the Cooke thesis is that it is not a “law” in isolation. It has to interact with other forces. In the last 10 years the bigger forces have outweighed it. It doesn’t mean that it is still not in play
However it is also a law more suited for pendulum poltics between two parties in a “mature market” for votes where established loyalties are more deep seated than now.
As all three parties gather around a political pinhead, the whole left - right thing looks increasingly out of synch with how voters view themselves. Thatcherites may feel they have won the “economic” battle, but the Left has palpably won the social battle. I’m drawn to Julian Baggini’s arguement that we will shift to a new divide he calls Liberal v Communitarian. The paradignm has always shifted - not many Whigs around these days
They’d better get on with electoral reform then (but they won’t). Rabbits caught in the headlights. No prospect of anything radical from this lot now.
34. Agreed. I think Brown’s ’success’ at the treasury is another political myth that continues to do the rounds. Most western economies have done pretty well during the last 10 years.
37 The left has won the social battle on issues of sexual freedom, but has certainly not won it on issues like penal policy or immigration.
[34][39] That’s politics - governments cop the blame for things they have no control over (such as the England football team in 1970) so they take the credit for things they didn’t do as well! As the immortal Alun Watkins used to say, “it’s a rough old trade”
Isn’t ironic that a “left-leaning” newspaper has to call itself The Independent.
34 / 39 The Treasury always ends in tears. So success at the Treasury can only be measured in years. Brown has done 10 without a disaster this is 400% more than any previous Labour Chancellor. Snowden,Dalton, Callaghan and Healey all hit the rocks in 2 years, leaving Cripps, Jenkins and Healey himself to pick up the pieces.
This should not be underestimated as an achievement. Labour was twice re-elected because of this, particularly in 2005. If he had a bit of luck, then it should equally be noted that Dalton, Callaghan and Healey all inherited a pile of pooh from their predecessors.
Sean F @ 40 - You cannot be arguing that the raft of liberalising legislation of the last 40 years would have happened under the Tories - I think not. Liberal immigration laws are included in that. You should focus on people’s daily lives rather than a couple of narrow policy issues. Look at the big picture of our changed society
Immigration is one of the great “Do what I say, not what I do” issues. We LOVE the benefits of immigration and we have an economy that craves the skills and cost reductions they bring - but just don’t want them in the backyard
Sean F @ 40 - You cannot be arguing that the raft of liberalising legislation of the last 40 years would have happened under the Tories - I think not. Liberal immigration laws are included in that. You should focus on people’s daily lives rather than a couple of narrow policy issues. Look at the big picture of our changed society
Immigration is one of the great “Do what I say, not what I do” issues. We LOVE the benefits of immigration and we have an economy that craves the skills and cost reductions they bring - but just don’t want them in the backyard
So the fact that Brown didn’t screw things up is an achievement?
Ooops double clicked there - sorry
46 - It is dead easy to be a bastard as a chancellor. It is extraordinarily difficult to be a socially pro-active reforming spending chancellor - and not deeply annoy the capitalist sector that believes it is the paymaster of these reforms. He managed a politically cunning trick.
39 The real indicator of competent economic management comes when times are tough and difficult unpopular decisions have to be made. So far the ride has, indeed, been relatively easy.
The Labour party’s record when in a tight economic corner has been pretty poor and Brown and Darling will need to be really hard to get their party to agree the measures needed.
I am not at all sure they have it in them.
As I said at the time, I don’t buy Andy’s thesis. Labour was never significantly behind in the polls for any length of time between 1997-2005, which was a unique achievement for any government(s). The whole concept of swingback is based on the assumption of government mid-term unpopularity, so without unpopularity there can be be no swingback, so nothing is proved by Andy’s analysis.
Actually, in real elections (by-elections) Labour did have some measurable unpopularity (but it was mostly expressed by abstention and people turning to the LibDems, not the Tories.) Last year I did an analysis of governments’ by-election performance since the War, which seemed to show more consistent results irrespective of which party was in power.
I’ll stick my neck out and say we should have a by-election someplace during 2008. If the Tories don’t get a swing well in excess of 10%, they will not be even the largest party at the general election, never mind have any chance of winning a majority….
50 - I like predictions that are precise. I wonder if you might fall at the first hurdle of no by-elections.
PS thanks for the details on the Christmas thread of the post-war occasions of when the Tories have gone from third to first. It does illustrate the challenge ahead for the Tories, and while I give them better chances of attaining an overall majority than you appear to, I am by no means as bullish as some on here, who appear to think that it is all in the bag.
45 No, that’s why I said the Left had won the battle on issues of sexual freedom.
In terms of immigration, there certainly are people who love immigration - but clearly most people don’t, and large numbers are willing to vote for any party that will stop it (only a Nazi fantasist would have believed in 1997 that the BNP could win 300,000 votes in a round of local elections). The current government has not come remotely close to persuading people that its current immigration policies are a good thing. Conversely, a government that reverted to the immigration policies that were pursued from 1962 to 1997 (significantly less liberal actually than immigration policy prior to 1962) would gain popularity as a result.
Penal policy is undoubtedly tougher than it was 20 or 30 years ago. The prison population is double what it was in the Eighties, and there is a far higher likelihood that you’ll get jailed for offences like burglary than would have been the case then.
51. Well, we’ve had 7 so far since 2005, and the Tories have performed pretty miserably in all. It is crucial that we have a by-election to test with real votes the effect of all the recent “shocks.” I am genuinely open-minded as to what the result of such a by-election would be, but the bench-marks remain the same. About a 10-15% swing to the Tories, and I’ll agree they are on their way. Anything less, not!
You misread me Sean F, deliberately I venture. We seriously LOVE the benefits of immigration. We like having plumbers, cleaners, cheap distribution, etc etc etc.
But we don’t want them in our back yard.
This is a microcosm of our relationship with the world’s poor in general.
You forgaet to think about media liberalisation - which has then driven lots of other social change.
52. I am not sure that the government knows what its immigration policy is. I recall being told not to expect huge swathes of Eastern Europeans, so now that they’re here, the government surely can’t take the credit for any benefits they may have brought to the country.
31 antifrank you say that Gordon Brown was an “exceptionally successful Chancellor” as if it were Holy Writ. There would be plenty who would take issue with that statment including me. The man has fiddled with the tax system and made it so complicated that to coin a phrase it’s now “not fit for purpose”.
re 53. So what! You are setting tests for the Tories that you know it is impossible for them to meet. Its the polls Rod - keep on repeating that. All other forms of prediction, like the ridiculous council by election theory, simply do not measure up.
Where by-elections do have an impact is in halting a party’s momentum or in boosting it. All the Tories need to do is manage expectations a bit better - just like Labour did during after Newbury and Christchurch when their shares dropped to 2-3%
John Wheatley Everyone likes the availability of plumbers, cheap cleaners and nannies and cheap imports of all sorts of consumer goods. Until, that is, the bill has to be paid in greater competition for jobs, services, housing,and the change in the social environment and, of course, the uncompetitiveness that makes the jobs scarcer and the currency weaker and the imports more expensive.
And further down the road the cheap plumber becomes just another expensive plumber, the cheap nanny unionised and militant, and the most productive people moving to greener pastures.
Immigration is no more an panacea than anything else. All policies have side effects, it is just that some are worse than others.
re 40 slightly off topic but did anyone else catch the fascinating programme on Radio 4 at 9ish last night about people’s reaction to disgust? It appears, and there’s scientific evidence to back this up, that the more likely you are to feel disgust - about anything from two men kissing, to a piece of rotten meat, or the sight of a cockroach - then the more likely you are to vote for right wing parties.
“Particularly succesful Chancellor”. How has this myth survived? Unlike previous Labour Chancellors,GB inherited a strong economy, and succeded for two years by continuing Tory policies, after which he reverted to type- tax, borrow and spend incompetently. Any Chancellor can throw money at problems. Any competent Chancellor would first examine the problem, then decide how the money should be spent efficiently. This is how business works, a concept which the Labour party will not accept - or even understand.
60 - it’s not a myth, and the words were chosen carefully. Gordon Brown was Chancellor for 10 years. During that time, he had no recession, decent growth, low inflation and established a solid reputation for competence. By any post-war standard, that is particularly successful.
Whether this was because of what he did or whether he was particularly good is an entirely different matter, and there is much in his record that I would take issue with.
Sean Fear @ 52 “the Left had won the battle on issues of sexual freedom”.
The left? Led by Edwina Currie? Or Jenkins or Steel?
Chris A - hence “Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells”
57. What is impossible about it? The Tories easily exceeded these figures, not once, but on numerous occasions between 1966-70 and 1974-79, when Labour was unpopular and the Tories went on to win the general election. What’s changed, Mike? Are you seriously saying the Tories will win the election while flunking an opportunity a by-election may present - where people have every opportunity to demonstrate with real votes the Tories’ supposed “popularity”?
Also, they only had half the mountain they need to climb now… I’m being cautious with my figures. In reality I don’t really expect a Tory majority without a 20%+ swing somewhere in a by-election between now and the GE.
The runes still point to Labour as largest party (at this juncture), with an outside chance of a small Labour majority, which will probably depend on the SNP performance….
Of course if that mythical Tory by-election performance materialises, I will re-assess the position and given an honest opinion…
The aforementioned Radio 4 show on disgust is here.
9 tpfkar re Terrorism vote
“3 SDLP MPs who usually vote with the Government” .
I agree that they usually vote with the government, but on a draconian terrorism bill, especially this 90 days detention that sounds not dissimilar to internment, I would think they vote against, as they did in 2005.
64. Polls are one thing. It’s easy to tell some market researcher what they want to hear, but quite a different prospect to get off one’s a.r.s.e, trundle down to a polling booth and place one’s X next to the dread word “Conservative.” If people can’t be bothered to do it in a by-election, I don’t see it happening when it really matters in a general election. There has never been an “under the radar” victory in a General Election in this country, and I doubt there ever will be….
Mike. You put up an article here a couple of weeks ago stating “Why I am certain Brown cannot win”, or words to that effect. It was on the day of the Lisbon Treaty signing.
Where PBC leads the broadsheets follow.
If a few more influential political commentators express the same opinion then the speculation about Brown’s continued Premiership will mount and the pressure on him could become enormous and quite possibly overwhelming.
Antifrank 61.The Chancellor was not succesful- business was succesful,in spite of the load placed on the country from taxation and borrowing.Limits have now been reached and the effect of his policies (which take time to work through) will be obvious in the next two years.Of course he will find someone else to blame, but it will not work this time.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=X5G40DWHISCP1QFIQMFCFF4AVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/2007/12/27/nloans127.xml
Police to press charges against Watt according to the Telegraph
67 “There has never been an “under the radar” victory in a General Election in this country”
What about 1970?
57 Sorry to disagree with you Mike , it is not the polls it is real votes that matter . Public interest in politics these days has and continues to fall . Opinion polls now do not measure real voting intentions but are more off the top of the head popularity views with 10-15% of potential voters swinging between parties dependent on mood/headline news . I also disagree that the next general election will see greater voter turnout . I would not be surprised at all to see turnout fall to a record low to match the growing lack of interest in politics amongst the electorate at large . In this scenario it is how those who are still interested and do/will vote that really counts .
Congrats to Andy!
O/T-As I know that some here like to speculate about who is going to be VP, here it is:
“Has Hillary Found Her #2?”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/realclearpolitics/20071226/cm_rcp/has_hillary_found_her2
71. Ha!, while people were mesmerized by the polls (funny how things don’t change), the fundamental *real* electoral data (i.e. by-elections) indicated Wilson could not win. The real surprise was that he managed to claw back as much lost ground as he did….
see
http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2006/06/30/guest-slot-rod-cosbys-by-election-trend-analysis/
Counter to the received wisdom, I know, but I’m sticking with it, and applying it to the next election…
re 67. Rod - you are challenging the whole basis of polling. The idea that respondents “tell some market researcher what they want to hear..” is so much bunkum and denies the massive professionalism of a whole industry.
Only a couple of weeks ago you are saying that Governments ALWAYS recover at general elections - a notion that Andy Cooke has knocked on the head and is now being taken seriously by the serious press. Now you have sought to qualify your position.
My guess is that both of us, however, would make fairly similar projections for the election. I’m still in the hung parliament camp - just.
72. Ah Mark Senior, ready again at the battle stations with the “real votes” issue. The problem is, Mark, that no by-elections of any sort represent real vote cast in the context of a nationwide momentum and battle. For those you have to look at the last high profile, multi-regional elections.
And on your pet theory of the Tories underperforming against the Liberals in the battle of your so-called “real votes”, we need only look at the last three nationwide elections of 2005, 2006 and 2007. I forget now - how did the Tories do against the Liberals on those three occasions?
Interesting article Mike, and it does look grim for Brown.
Well done Andy for getting quoted!
Has anyone mentioned charges in Donorgate?
57 Quite. Unless one comes up in a clear Labour-Conservative Marginal say East Midlands or Kent the barrenest areas for Lib Dems I think it would be a good bet that the Toreies revert to the Dunfermline strategy of not impeding Lord Rennard rather than the Southall one (unless they hold the seat in question naturally!)
67 Hello err 1970?..
64 Good grief and in those days pre digital TV days the Lib Dems (or their predecessor) had the political weight punching of the guy in the Mr Muscle adverts. This fundamentally alters the equation. AS Mr S points out the majority of spectacular especially the most spectacular BY-Election gains from the Conservatives 1992 on were by the Lib Dems. Did it bother Tony not a bit. Will a few more hits by Lord Rennard off Labour in this Parliament worry the Tories I think not
In the great polls v votes debate - I err with polls as there is a confirmed vote rather than a thought about voting, as long as the sample is sufficiently large. One local byelection is not good enough. However I don’t understand how good the pollsters are at evaluating the “shy” vote.
This vote seems to merely picks up the cultural phenomena that we all “hate who ever is in sights of the popular media” - this usually (but not always) the government. The “Shy Tories” of the 80’s and 90’s are now replaced by “Shy Labour”. Press peer pressure as it were
“re 67. Rod - you are challenging the whole basis of polling. The idea that respondents “tell some market researcher what they want to hear..” is so much bunkum and denies the massive professionalism of a whole industry.” I am not denying the professionalism of anyone, merely highlighting the fickle nature of the respondents…
“Only a couple of weeks ago you are saying that Governments ALWAYS recover at general elections - a notion that Andy Cooke has knocked on the head and is now being taken seriously by the serious press. Now you have sought to qualify your position.” I’ve done no such thing, Mike. Andy’s analysis fails the petitio principii test. He’s assuming what he’s trying to prove. “There was no swingback to Labour, therefore there is no swingback rule.” But… only unpopular governments CAN recover, and since Labour was never that unpopular, they could not satify the rule….
This Labour government is now unpopular, and it will recover….
Horrible typo in 81 - I prefer votes over polls as long as there is sufficient critical mass.
Another “blow” to Nulabour from The Times.
When will “The Bottler” call a General Election ?
IMHO we are witnessing the fag end of a dead end government.
From The Times
December 27, 2007
Half a million migrants will boost growth by £3.6bn
James Rossiter
A flow of more than half a million migrants into the UK is expected to boost the economy next year by £3.6 billion, according to research published today.
Out of the 550,000 migrants forecast to settle on British soil next year, 275,000 are expected to be workers who will help maintain GDP growth at 1.8 per cent in 2008.
The influx, largely from Eastern Europe, will effectively allow growth to rise by an extra fifth. Without them UK GDP would grow only 1.5 per cent next year.
With Gordon ramping up the immigration numbers and no plans to build homes for them to live in what, exactly, is he expecting to gain by these numbers of new arrivals? Lower wages? If so, is it worth it when you consider the strain on schools, hospitals, housing, and other social services. I think the public have voted on this issue already and they are saying NO. The problem is that Gordon is not listening.
Benazir Bhutto critically wounded in bomb attack, according to Sky
76 Anatole , the real votes in the 2006 , 2007 showed the Conservatives generally doing well in most but not all areas viz a viz the LibDems but not well enough to get anywhere near an overall majority at a general election . Still you are welcome to put your faith in opinion polls in mid term as a forecast as to what will happen an a general election in 2 years time . You would presumably have backed very heavily against Thatcher winning reelection in 1983 and 1987 with the state of the polls in 1981 and 1985 and lost .
Third time lucky…
Congrats to Andy Cooke and Mike - as well as the Indy, 2300 readers of Iain Dale’s diary voted pb.com Best Poltical Website of 2007!
73 - Kerrey cannot be Hillary’s VP. Hated by Organized Labor, a Vietnam thing that won’t go away, Bill hates him, and he sounds like the flip-flop guy from last time. Not even sure he wins Nebraska.
Cheney re-registered from TX to WY to get around the XIIth Amendment, and nobody noticed until it was too late (Sandy Levinson). This time, they’ll notice. There would be a court challenge pending, as soon as Kerrey was announced. The GOP would start selling “carpetbaggers from NY” bumper stickers.
If it’s Hillary, it should be Richardson (helps Tom Udall in NM Senate race and secures a swing), or Wes Clarke, or Ed Rendell.
87 What’s the 12th
Rod by your rule there will never be a change in the bi-polar Lab v Tory conflict. You are a latter day Gilbert & Sullivan - we are born either little Liberals or Little Conservatives - updated. If the government party always recovers, there will never be a time when they could drop into third
But there is the snag - at some stage which I think will be sooner rather than later, one of the top two parties will not recover and will drop to third place. Because no condition is permanent.
As long as the Tories don’t go in search of clear blue water my vote is still on Labour with NuLab being seen as a stay of execution in the long term - Tony Asquith Blair is the last hurrah.
Republicans in the 1660’s, The First Whigs (exclusion crisis 1680’s), Whigs (after 1832), Liberals (after 1916), Labour after….
Local elections show much same gap between Labour and Conservative as current opinion polls are showing. They show the Lib Dems doing better locally than in national opinion polls, but that is of very long standing.
Hillary might have found her No2, but it seems her campaign organistation isnt quite up to muster…
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071224/od_nm/clinton1_dc;_ylt=AqBoeA6LKMr53bCcjKeghX_tiBIF
89 But even after 1916, there was nothing inevitable about the Liberals falling into third place. Their leaders did just about everything they could to sink the ship from 1916-33.
86. Precisely Mark.
Alliance ahead in 1981. Alliance ahead in 1986. Kinnock 20 points ahead of Thatcher in 1990… Tories on 18% in 1995… and so on and so forth…
Mid-term polls are for “the birds.” We have to dig deeper…
79, see 74.
88 - the XIIth amendment to the US constitution has a ‘favourite sons’ clause, which states that Electors in the Electoral College cannot vote for a Presidential candidate AND a V-Presidential candidate from the same State as themselves.
If you, and EC Elector, are from NY state, and both the Presidential candidate and the VP candidate you want to vote for are from NY state, you can only vote for one of them If you were from any other state, you could vote for both.
Hillary is registered NY. If she chose Kerrey (currently registered NY), he would have to re-register back in Nebraska (he was Govenor and Senator), or the NY Electors would have to not vote for one of them (Kerrey), meaning a Republican VP in a tight race.
This happened in 2000, as Cheney was registered in Bush’s Texas, so he went back to Wyoming a couple of weeks before, as otherwise, the 31 Texans would have not been able to vote for Cheney, and Leiberman would be VP 2001-05! See “Jones v Bush” court case.
89. Jeez, why do people try to tell me what I think? Of course it could change, as it has in the past. But where is the evidence it is about to do so in the immediate future? Nowhere….
83, Rod,
“I’ve done no such thing, Mike. Andy’s analysis fails the petitio principii test. He’s assuming what he’s trying to prove. “There was no swingback to Labour, therefore there is no swingback rule.” But… only unpopular governments CAN recover, and since Labour was never that unpopular, they could not satify the rule….”
Firstly - I was testing the proposition that Governments always recover in the polls against the mid-term. This proposition was found to be false. As you say “There was no swingback to Labour, therefore there is no swingback rule.” - quite close to what I tried to say, which was more “There was no swingback to Labour, therefore the belief in an inevitable swingback is not sound”
If I may quote my last few lines:
“There may yet be a swingback. But I wouldn’t put my faith in the rule that “Governments always recover from mid-terms”. They don’t - especially, it seems, if the rosettes worn are red. Bet with your head on the trends you see, and don’t assume that there is a pendulum acting for the Government (or even, despite the apparent trend that we’ve seen above, for the Tories).
1 - The swingback rule has not worked for recent Labour Governments; instead there has been a “swingaway” effect.
2 - Even if this has been an aberration, the “new polling methodology” tends to dampen such swings; a swingback to the Tories under MORI of 9.25% (1992-1997) was only 3.25% under ICM.”
Secondly - many might quibble with your contention that the Labour Government was never unpopular. I seem to recall quite noticeable unpopularity during the last Parliament.
87-”Kerrey cannot be Hillary’s VP. Hated by Organized Labor, a Vietnam thing that won’t go away, Bill hates him”
Don’t think Bill has much of a choice here, agree that the Vietnam thing won’t go away.
“Cheney re-registered from TX to WY”
He can do the same thing, will people notice?Yes, but I’m doubt they can win a court challenge. I’m not saying he’s the one, but I’m not ruling out either!
Bhutto dead….AP
86 Mark Senior You would presumably have backed very heavily against Thatcher winning reelection in 1983 and 1987 with the state of the polls in 1981 and 1985 and lost .
In fairness he would have backed against Thatcher looking at the byelections of that era as well. Crosby etc..
AFP reporting on BBC that Benazir Bhutto has been killed.
99. No, I wouldn’t (in retrospect, admittedly)
Re 22 I would be surprised if any centre-left voter would prefer a Cameron government over a Labour led one, however flawed such a Labour government might be in their eyes. It reminds me in a sense of the 1968 US Presidential elections, where only the thought of a Nixon presidency could bring a lot of liberals to vote for the vice-president in an administration they did not think very highly of. In the end, Humphrey nearly pulled of a surprise, come from behind victory.
100 This is very serious
Rod @ 95 - In 1906 there was precious little evidence that the Liberals would implode in less than 15 years. Lord Riddell commented in 1911 that he thought they were doomed in the long term and prepared to shift to the right, but he was unusual.
It straws in the wind are only there if you look at longer trends - over 50 years. In this I am drawn to David Herdson’s point about the steady rise (with peaks and troughs) of the the third party, in its various guises.
You think what you like - I am merely pointing out a logical consequence of your rule - that political history is a see saw, when it clearly ain’t.
99 Not if he believed that governments always recover to at least some extent from midterm opinion poll deficits and midterm byelection losses . The difficulty is working out whether the recovery will be enough to win the next general election as in say 1987 or not as in say 1979 .
“wounded” on the BBC
97 Bill will have a major say on this, if nothing else. Dioesn’t rule out Kerrey, but means he wouldn’t get the nod unless there were compelling reasons and no better candidates.
He absolutely can do the same, and the courts would back him (though it makes a mockery of the XIIth Amendment). However, Hillary has always had the problem of not being a real New Yorker, and I don;t think will be helped by a VP who is not genuinely of one state (unless he is a General - the army are exempt, see McCain’s quote when he first ran for Congress in Arizona on Wikipedia). It would be embarrassing, and it’s not as though Nebraska tends Dem easily. The GOP would paint - Kerrey the New Yorker on every Nebraskan billlboard, and the VP candidate wins you not a state.
Great article, though, and I think if the media pick him up, then his price could shorten, so worth a vlue punt in the short term.
“critically injured” on Sky
106-”The country’s interior ministry has confirmed that the returned former prime minister has died.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/pakistan/Story/0,,2232459,00.html
109 News 24 and Reuters say she has died. Punter is right, its very serious indeed.
Bhutto reported dead, though reports are confused.
104. Of course, I agree with your analysis entirely, long term. The two-party vote has been in terminal decline for at least 40 years. However, I do not see the next election as the one in which the seismic change occurs.
It will instead, in my view be the one which does demonstrate the “exhaustion” of the two-party pendulum, opening up the possibilities of which you speak. We’re nearly there, but not just yet…
Like Rasputin - it depends on who killed her.
If it is islamic extremists, then other leaders will emerge. Destabilizing in the short term. That is the big risk.
107-Agree that would be embarrassing and would provide ammunition for the Republicans. The Vietnam thing would be used so many times and it would hurt, Hillary is a polarizing figure(even if I do not agree!), with Kerrey things would not be improved!
“Pakistani former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has been killed in a presumed suicide attack, a spokesman for the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) says.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7161590.stm
110 This is on a par with Rabin for significance of world changing event
Rod - The core Labour working class vote is rather like to non - conformist vote in the 19th Century - really important and central to politics, and then suddenly………
No, not the next election I agree. What happens to Labour after it loses power will be interesting to watch though
re 102. Well the polls do not support you on that. In the latest ComRes survey on a forced choice 41% of declared Lib Dem voters said they would prefer a Tory government compared with 44% a Labour one. There’s been a fairy similar small Labour margin in other recent polls when the same question has been asked.
As what’s his name said in 1988 - Butto is no Rabin
Lets face it Pakistan has been a failed state since day one.
New thread on Bhutto
119 For the impact her passing will have on her country and the wider region was all I mean’t
re 94 the Texas electors would not have had to vote for Lieberman - they could have voted for Joe Bloggs leaving no-one with an outright majority. The Senate would then have picked the VP and with its Republican advantage would have chosen Cheney.
5. I was quoting the absolute number of votes to emphasise the fact that there are many electors who move from voting to non-voting, as well as from one party to another. If a big change in turnout is disproportionately weighted in favour of / against one particular party, then there could be a change in % votes for parties without much change in seats. (e.g. if the majorities in safe Conservative seats went up by 10,000 each, or if majorities in “safe” Labour seats went down to 3,000, or both).
On the subject of “Brown is finished”, the point is that it is necessary for an opposition to win an election as well as the government losing it (compare 1992 and 1997).
I’m really impressed by the nature of the comments and the obviously high intellectual level of the previous correspondents.
I can only expres myself in gut tems, sorry to lower the level, but in my opinion blair was a chancer who got away with murder (so far) and brown hung on to his grubby coat tails. Now the chickens are coming home to roost,and may the son of the manse remember his supposedly humble beginnings.Mean while as a welsh immigrant to england (because I wanted to amount to something in my lifetime) could I be told the name of the scot I have adopted at the price of £2,500 pa ?