Now ComRes shows that the Tories are faltering
January 28th, 2008
…and the Hain affair does not seem to have hurt Labour
The first poll to be carried out after the Hain resignation, by ComRes for the Independent, is showing that the Tory lead is down three points to 8%. The figures are with changes on December - CON 38%(-3): LAB 30%(nc): LD 17%(+1).
So the trends we have seen with ICM and YouGov have continued with the pollster that has been recording the best Tory figures - the Tory share is down, the Lib Dems are up and Labour is staying about the same.
In recent weeks the Tories have found it hard getting onto the new agenda with all the focus being on the US elections, the economy or Labour’s problems with its donors. There’s hardly been a big Tory headline in weeks - excluding Derek Conway.
At these levels the Anthony Wells seat predictor indicates a post general election commons consisting CON 312: LAB 265: LD 43: OTH 30 seats - so Cameron would be thirteen short of an overall majority.
My betting: After the YouGov and ICM polls at the weekend I switched from being a buyer of Tory seats on the spread markets to being a seller at an average of 301.
Mike Smithson
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I feel a sell of Tory seats coming on courtesy of Conway & Son(s).
Off to get the Daily Mail from Kings X.
1. Tha Mail piece on Conway from the online edition
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=510963&in_page_id=1770
(judging from Conway Jr’s clothes, can I say that fashion industry is so out of step compared to real world?)
Repost:
42 - Morus, some very kind person took my bet on Obama at 7/1 for Mass. yesterday. I tried to lay Hillary at 1.12 today but it just moved the price out.
Giuliani is a real gamble, but it’s not inconceivable he could take Florida. I think it’s much more likely that he’ll take votes off McCain and hand Florida to Romney, which makes the value bet at the moment Romney at 9/1 for the Presidency - that’ll tighten at least to 5/2 if he wins the nomination.
I think you need look no further than Cameron’s recent Punch and Judy politics to explain why his poll ratings are sliding faster than Sony Bono. While Brown bumps along the bottom Cameron looks less and less like the real deal. What happened to that breath of fresh air with his wide smile and open necked shirts? He’s turned into a sneering Michael Howard.
Roger,
One assumes that the “Sony Bono” is a new snowboard from Japan with in-built sound system. The alternative - that you were intending to make a very poor taste gag about Sonny Bono - is best left alone.
Re-posted from previous thread:I don’t know whether it has been referred to in the previous thread, but the one aspect which really amazes me about the Conway episode is that only a fraction of the amount paid to his son over the 3 year period is required to be repaid. I mean how many really believe that Freddy was working 17 hours a week for his father? I would have thought the penalty should have been at least twice the total amount claimed, pour encourager les autres.
As a Tory, I trust his local constituency party will at least have the guts to de-select him.
re 4. There would be something in that Roger if he had got any coverage. The fact is that Cameron has hardly made the bulletins for weeks. The Tories have simply had nothing to say.
It’s also looking as though the Tories have been hurt a bit by the Lib Dems with Cable continuing to be the one who the media want to interview on Northern Wreck and some Lib Dem supporters being energised by a new leader.
8% is still a decent lead, but a third of it is simply differential certainty to vote, which is probably the most volatile bit of politics. I think GIN was right on the last thread that the Tories are gradually missing their chance - they’re so busy trying to demolish Brown that it’s taking precedence over any positive thought, and voters have noticed: the twin assault over Northern rock and peter Hain hasn’t added anything at all. The default swing voter view is “they’re all rubbish and who cares anyway, the election’s not for ages”.
Nick. By “ages” I think we can infer you mean at least two years. Age is measured in years so “ages” must be at least two of them. So that must mean 2010?
If one avearges this with the last two polls(Guardian and Telegraph as I recall),this yields an average Tory lead of 6%,a 4.% % swing from the 2005 General Election.The incumbent govt is 10 years 9 motns old-to the nearest month.
Striaht reference to the MORI link would show that,at this stage,Mrs.T was suffering a HUGELY larger swing from her 1987 victory,by 11.8% of the popular vote.
Factor in the nature of recenty politics,the very fact that the word ‘Tory’,right or wrong,makes some peolpe run a mile,take into account Rod Crosby’s ’swingback thsis’ which has serious mathematical gravitas,and all of a sudden,being a Cameroon ain’t so hip..
Furhtemore,despite the best screeches of the right on here,the UK economy will grow in 2008,against a backdrop of falling base (and mainline mortgage) rates,and one can see a winodw of opportunity opening in spring 2009 for Gordon Brown-a fainal thoguht-don’t grind them too hard into the dust as they do provide comic relief:lol::lol:
We’re still two years away from the election, and that gives the Tories time to firm up the lead. I can’t see Labour improving their current standing and I think that the important thing will be the Lib Dems taking seats off Labour which will probably help the Tories get an overall majority of around 20-30.
The falls in the Tories support that we’re seeing in many of the recent polls, is, IMO, down to the fact that Cameron is sitting back and being quiet, rather than getting out there and showing the nation what he is all about. We know that when Cameron is in the spotlight the polls respond and we know the public the public are now ready to hear the Conservative message (for the first time since 1992) Unfortunatly at the moment there is nothing to hear, so the public are shrugging their shoulders.
The danger is of course, that without a Tory message to listen to, the public will start to hear and appreciate Brown’s message’s. To the Tories I say, the time has come to start being pro-active. Start annoucing one policy a month and begin making speech’s that set out coherantly what the Tory message is, what Cameron’s personal belief’s are, and in what way the country will be differant under a Cameron government. You have a golden opportunity, but at the moment its being squandered.
I must, say, there does seem to be a level of anger from the non-political about Conway that I hadn’t expected. People were right to say on previous threads that cases like this cut deeper than cash-for-honours or donations, because it’s less complex, more understandable - and the services rendered are clearer.
“The danger is of course, that without a Tory message to listen to, the public will start to hear and appreciate Brown’s message’s. ”
or the LDs message…LD sometimes have a problem in getting their message out in nation wide media, but if there’s no other message to report, they can find their way on them
There does seem to be mounting evidence that sleaze isn’t swinging too many votes. It may have done in the 1990s when it was seen as particularly ‘Tory sleaze’. Now it is just seen as ‘political sleaze’ by most. Those who are aligned see their opponents’ sleaze as worst and are shocked everyone else isn’t as outraged as them. The great masses, however, just mark it up as another reason to disregards the whole lot of them. Or at least that’s my hunch.
15 - Of course, this plays into the hands of the minor parties of left and right, with their “plague on all their houses” attitude - and the fact that the constituent who reported the ST story to the Parliamentary Commissioner is now a BNP member plays into that.
I’ve consistently taken the view over the last few months that the Tories are a sell at anything above 300 seats in the spread betting markets and I’ve consistently made money on this basis. My current position is a sale which I took out last week at 305 seats, which should look nicely profitable tomorrow as the full implications of the most recent polls sink in.
stjohn at 9: I don’t really have an insight on when the next election will be, I was just suggesting what not-terribly-interested swing voters were saying. My own view is simply that if we’re ahead in 2009 or just marginally behind we’ll call an election then, and if we’re well behind then we won’t. A 2008 election has never been completely ruled out, but would require some quite marked shifts first.
13
In plain English it’s a massive rip-off which he’s got away with in the full gaze of the public.
And some MP’s can’t work out why the public is so turned off politics.
That picture of Conway son no.2 mincing with Martine will have the blue rinse going abso. mental.
Oh my, oh my.
Mr Conway also pays his wife, Colette, £3,271 a month as a registered parliamentary assistant.
It’s a family affair………….
11. I live in a very tight Lib/Lab seat (Lib MP John Leech won it by about 340 votes last time). Just from talking to people on current intentions it seems they’re willing to let the Lib Dems take a few more council seats in May but when it comes to the GE, I’ve got a wager on it switching back to Labour - if only for the anything-but-tory vote. (It must be said that this part of Manchester is the highest concentration of Observer readers outside of London)
12. I read a small article the other day about the difference in approach between Osbourne and Cameron, the latter wanting to keep on at the ‘destroy brown’ angle whereas Osbourne wanted to do as you suggest, namely move on to the policy initiatives. Can’t remember where I read it but it could be construed that the lack of Tory message is starting to resonate. Labour has started to slowly crank the war room back into gear as well and with the Daily Mail sensing a stick to beat Cameron with, things could get interesting again. Much as I dislike him, Osbourne is a political operator on the up.
I expect the Great British Public (TM) are looking at this story tonight and going “who’s Derek Conway?” - if they care enough to read the story to begin with
If the Hain saga hasn’t really dented Labour’s ratings (with somebody much more high profile than Conway) then this probably won’t either. Politicians aren’t really highly regarded enough these days to make it so much of an issue.
As for poll leads, it comes to something when the very headline of this is that the Tories are “faltering” with an 8% lead…
21 He has to go - preferably now.
And one factor I forgot to mention was ‘Better the devil you know’-I don’t deny the Tories are performing better than for a long time,but even the most dird-in-the-wool Tory poster on here must know in his/her heart of hearts they have a HELL of a long trip to return to national government
14 As Vince Cable is showing.
It was a good move by the Lib Dems to keep him in the spotlight after Clegg won the leadership. If they can generate media attention, the youth/experience combination may translate into votes - especially at the LEls. The Hain/Harmen - Osbourne/Conway £££ headlines may well give voters the space to look at a third option - its a question of forcing their way into the media. Although on the most recent Question Times, the Lib Dems have often come away as the more balanced and experienced older brothers to their squabbling siblings.
25 Quite so Patrick, as expressed in my post #17 above!
Conway should, indeed must, be referred to the party’s ethics watchdog and if the charges are upheld he should end his career here.
20. It’s not the blue rinses who will be up in arms but the anti fur brigade! Isn’t that a ‘Fox’ that he’s wearing?
I can’t think of any recent LD sleaze, they are smelling of roses but only Cable has any presence.
Of all the leading pack Osborne, looks the leanest but he has done nothing for his likeability score but for sure he makes Dave look the ordinary moon-faced pr man that he is.
This is a low-water mark for UK politics.
29
No, the fox is on the one on his arm not around his neck.
No appreciable move, as yet, on Spreadfair’s “Next GE Seats” market, where the spread is currently 301 - 304.6. Sporting’s website is down and IG are not showing this particular market.
So statistically ComRes figures are unchanged within the margin of error.
Even so, for the Tories to be only eight points ahead of this shower of a government shows they are not getting their message across, or they have no worthy message to get across.
If the Tories have not learnt their lesson by now, one really just has to despair of them. I actually feel totally depressed about this - the one thought going through my head is GREED!
I don’t think the public get too excited about these late declaration cases such as Hain or Harman. All they see is a ranting opposition while not understanding what all the fuss is about.
The Conway affair will resonate more because it’s for personal gain-which is what people hated about the Major administration with their ‘brown envelopes’ and cash for questions-but happily for Cameron Conway is an isolated back=bencher so doesn’t really reflect badly on the party at all.
Looking at the detailed figures (well done to ComRes for getting them up straight away) it seems more people told ComRes they would vote Lib Dem at a general election now (101) than say they voted Lib Dem at the last election (97).
I know ComRes weights for likelihood to vote, but do they weight to take account of the fact that nearly three times as many of the people they polled (266) say they voted Labour in 2005 than say they voted Lib Dem (97)? The real ratio was of course close to 3-2 (35% to 22%).
Some of the switch analysis from 2005 to now is particularly interesting (page two of the detailed spreadsheets). 22 Labour voters (or at least remembered Labour voters) in 2005 switching to the Lib Dems compared to just 4 going the other way. This net 18 Lab to LD is more than double the net 8 LD to Con since 2005.
Now I know there is an argument about false memory, relating to how people voted in 2005. The usual assumption is that that applies to tactical voters or one-off protest voters. The sort of people who regard themselves as Labour, tell everyone they are Labour, but who switch to the Lib Dems at the last minute when the bar charts tell them that’s the only way to beat the Tories here (or vice versa), and who then instantly go into denial about voting Lib Dem and continue regarding themselves as Labour. Or maybe at the last election people who regard themselves as Labour through and through but gave Blair a one off kicking over Iraq.
But on my reading of the figures, if that’s the case, then some of these people in denial about voting Lib Dem are now telling pollsters they will vote Lib Dem at the next election. That seems odd to me.
And it seems significant that 22 people told ComRes they voted Labour in 2005 and say they are switching to the Lib Dems this time. (That’s 1 in 12 of Labour’s 2005 supporters or 3% of the whole voting public.)
(I should add the Tories are also underrepresented on past vote recall.)
Derek Conway is a disgrace to politics. He is just the sort of dinosaur ‘old’ tory patrician who doubtless believes rules are for other people and not himself. He has made the cardinal sin of taking taxpayers money for granted, something that I cannot stomach.
If he was a socialist I would understand it; they are grubby, greedy articles who make a career out of scabbing off those who pay taxes - but from a supposed Conservative??
Horrifying.
I am a Tory constituency association chairman. If he was my MP I would have him de-selected as soon as an EGM could be arranged. I just hope the Bexley chairman doesn’t succumb to Conway’s predictable attempts at clinging on, rejects the champagne fuelled overtures and rids the party of this disreputable parasite.
I wonder if knacker will investigate. It is clearly not theft but might be fraud. Have there been any similar cases before the courts? If he defends it, the case will go to jury trial at crown court and could be very damaging.
34 I suppose, any time now, I should expect the Labour posting equivalent of Benedict to offer to send me a membership pack and unless Cameron & Co. sort this out and fast I might even be tempted!
40 I’m off to check my Betfair positions to cheer myself up a bit!
Roger, Conway is no snot-nosed junior, he is a member of the Chairmans Panel.
http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/mp.php?id=uk.org.publicwhip/member/1751
In short, he knew the bleeding score for sure.
37 Precisely my thoughts as in #6 above.
If there was any justice this would result in prison time.
Going onto the American Election for a mo, here is a map showing how the major church groups is spread across the US, this is particularly of help in the GOP as you would expect Huckabee to be strong in the red area.
http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2008/01/27/237-regionalism-and-religiosity/
I’ve long been aware that it is almost de rigeur for MPs to employ their wives as “secretaries”, but is it also commonplace for their children to be similarly employed as “researchers”, irrespective of whether or not they have another full time job or are undertaking a university course? What are the minimum age limits for such “researchers” - 18yrs, 16yrs, 10yrs even?
Let us hope that for his sake, the aforementioned Freddy has disclosed this income to HM Customs & Revenue.
One further thought - do such “secretaries”, “researches”, etc. enjoy the same inflated allowances as their spouse/parent in terms of air & rail travel, mileage rates, accommodation, etc.
Is this information in the public domain for each MP and if not, why not?
Since CCO seems incapable of monitoring such allowances, even in respect of it meagre number of 200 MPs, I suggest this role be handed to each Constituency Chairman, who should ascertain the facts, preferably in advance, from the MP in question.
There’s a new California post-SC poll out by Survey USA - gives Clinton an 11% lead - a relatively small bounce.
BUT, the lead is padded by early (postal) voters - among likely voters who haven’t yet voted it’s 8%, which is a bigger bounce.
Survey USA provides details by race and gender - there’s a ridiculous 41% difference between men, where Obama leads by 11% and women, where Clinton leads by 30%.
Race is more interesting: they’re neck and neck among whites; Obama wins blacks by 61/25 - so markedly weaker than SC for Obama so far; and among hispanics, Clinton leads 65/28, which is weaker for her than in Nevada. She also leads by 53/21 among asians, which comprise 14% of the forecast turnout - twice that of blacks.
http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=7417510e-b5e4-4e94-a6f2-fd6e70635255
39. Peter - I’m running Stuart King’s general election campaign in Putney - so let me know your address and a membership pack will wing its way to you tomorrow! While you’re waiting, do check out http://www.stuartking.net!
Without wishing to offend him, I hope I’m not quite “the Labour posting equivalent of Benedict” though!!!
Which ward are you in, out of interest?
46: Interesting poll.
If I’ve understood it right, they’re assuming 85% registered Democratic voters and only 9% independents.
Without knowing much about Californian politics, on the face of it this seems a bit pessimistic about independent turnout, bearing in mind:
a) Obama’s potential appeal and ability to turn out independents
b) The fact that the Democrats are allowing independents to vote, but unlike New Hampshire (where Obama had to split the independent vote with McCain) the Republicans aren’t:
http://tinyurl.com/2rx7pm
48. Clinton should do well in California. Lots of professional, modern urban women.
I wouldn’t read much into some of these polls. The Democrat polls should be taken with a lump of salt. They thought Obama was going to win in N.H. then they averaged Obama would win S.C. by 12 points. In the end it was 28 points. The opinion pollers would be more accurate just pulling numbers out of a hat.
Don’t worry. The coming financial storm will do for Gordon Brown. It will be an unforgettable experience which will herald a new era in politics Stateside and in the UK…the return of common sense.
Cameron’s positioned himself in the right part of the park, as has Obama. Events will spill their way before long. Meanwhile Gordon Brown’s pork barrel is run out.
50: To be fair to the pollsters, they’ve got a hell of a job predicting who’s going to turn out for these things. Small samples etc. notwithstanding, I’m not sure they’ve been so bad at predicting the trends within various demographics; Their problem is that neither they, nor anyone else, has any idea how many people in each demographic are going to vote.
If you’re trying to predict what’s going to happen in this race, I think your best bet is to watch the demographic samples in the polls and the trends between polls from the same company, then make your own educated guesses about turnout. Anyone got any better ideas?
52. Surely the questions you ask the sample tells you the percentage that could vote. Particularly the question “How likely are you to vote in the Democratic primary?”
53: Sure - if people answer those questions correctly (or representatively incorrectly). But there’s a bigger gap between saying you’re going to vote for someone and actually getting off your bum and getting down to the polling booth than there is between saying you’re going to vote for someone and actually voting for them once you’re there. (Bradley effect etc notwithstanding.) And that’s the gap that someone - either the pollsters or the people interpreting their polls - has to fill with guesswork about how things are going to pan out this time. This is a particularly big issue in this race because Obama’s success so far has come partly from turning out young people who are notorious for being flakey about voting when they said they would.
(One caution though - what I’m saying here at 52 is from my general, slightly hazy impressions of what the pre-poll polls have said so far compared to what the exit polls said; I haven’t actually collated a bunch of numbers and done a load of maths or anything.)
Tapestry @ 51: “the coming financial storm” is forecast more often than it arrives. Gordon’s problems arise from his government’s disadvantaging its own supporters to keep the world safe for private equity funds.
ITN News: 80 brothels advertised in Croydon alone. Eastern European girls gang-raped and bought and sold by traffickers and used as sex slaves in Britain, courtesy of New Labour policies.
Sky News: Streets turned into all night orgies of drunken yobbery, vomit, rowdyness litter and violence, rapidly becoming the norm, courtesy of New Labour policies.
This is Britain after ten years of Labour sleaze - their standards imposed on the rest of us.
What sort of opposition have we got to be only eight points ahead when the country is being run into the ground?
I think the problem we need to avoid is excessive reference to the 1990’s as quite frankly the opinion poll leads then were extraordinarily high. Is an 8 point lead enough is the only question we need to ask, and I would suggest that there are scenarios where it is. We can argue UNS models until we are sick to death of them, there is never a UNS so it is irrelevent. The only poll I can recall thatsampled the battleground seats showed that the Conservatives were better placed there than across the country as a whole which would suggest that there gain to percentage movement ratio would be highish. I therefore contend that an 8 point lead would be sufficient for if not a bare majority certainly coming close to one.
Think the comres poll supports Smithson’s theory: that the Conservatives do well only when Cameron is prominent in the news. Given the poor headlines for the Government at the moment, he’s probably well advised to keep quiet for now and let Labour get themselves into trouble, and hit hard later.
But with so many political stories sleaze-related at the moment, and Conway certainly seems a real blow for the Tories, there is an opportunity for a party to try to clean things up, Martin Bell style. In fact Nick Clegg could do a lot worse than to say that Gordon Brown’s new politics has been shown up to be just the same as before, and that he is hearing the cry for a fresh approach involving limiting MPs outside interests (an MP is a full time job etc), removing the communications allowance, concrete proposals for clearer and simpler donation laws, and HoC overseers for MPs staff to ensure no family conflict of interest (not that family members can’t work for the MP, but an independent eye to ensure that the taxpayer is getting value.)
38. As I posted on previous threads, it can’t be a Police matter. It is covered by Parliamentary privilege. Which means if we have a House of Commons that connives with its members plundering the public purse, there is nothing anyone can do about it.
We clearly DO have such a House of Commons…
Where is Martin Bell? He should announce he’s standing in every constituency in the land…
The recent polls are all showing the same trend- the Tories got into the low 40’s pre Xmas, but the LD revival was predicted by many here to happen at the expense of the Tories, bringing them back into the 30’s.
The fact that Clegg is a younger, better looking and far more charismatic and likable leader than Cameron will undoubtedly help the LD’s further.
Roger as ever is right. Cameron is increasingly morphing into a pretty repulsive Tory Toff version of Howard without the charm. And Osborne carries something of the reptile about him too.
60. A bunch of assumptions and insults at the tories linked with toadying towards the lib dems, can tell who you are a mile off.
The Labour strategy must be to throw as much sleaze back at the Tories. If they can demonstrate “there’s no difference between them and us” the electoral system will (outrageously) ride to Labour’s rescue..
e.g. a poll result of Con 34 Lab 34 LD 18 Oth 14 would produce a Commons something like
Lab 321
Con 239
LD 54
Nats 15
Oth 3
NI 13 (SF abstain)
adding the SDLP (and Blaenau) to the Labour column would produce an overall majority of one….
That is just one example. There is a constellation of other scenarios where Labour come out streets ahead of the Tories on very low shares of the popular vote.
Bottom line. If Labour can destroy the Tory LEAD, even at the expense of their own share of the vote, they will emerge well ahead on seats…
Surely this emphasises how poisonous Peter Hain was to the Labour Party. An economic downturn will keep the gap between Labour and the Conservatives at a healthy margin and might even increase it, so there is no need for Cameron to panic.
http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com
>>The fact that Clegg is a younger, better looking and far more charismatic and likable leader than Cameron will undoubtedly help the LD’s further
O/T
While the self-serving pigs in the House of Lies find ever more clever ways to enrich themselves, apparently 3 million Brits think they are going to lose their homes this year…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=IWOL1LBNNM11LQFIQMFCFF4AVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/2008/01/28/nmoney428.xml
Amazing stuff….
What a lovely poll, everyone’s able to see exactly what they want to see in it - Tory house of cards collapsing/Tory lead still strong, Labour well behind/Brown recovering strongly, Lib Dems still third/Lib Dems still third.
Okay, maybe not quite everyone.
63. I would say Cameron shouldn’t panic yet, and it all depends what tactics he’s using. At the moment he appears to be waiting for all the scandals to clear up so he can his message out without it being overshadowed.
Conservatives are still eight Daves up though. Let’s not over-interpret this. Brown won’t be calling an election tomorrow on the strength of this opinion poll.
59
Agree, its time that ‘club’ was turned into a place of work.
Mr Conway claims because his office was, ‘tucked away’ no one knew his son was there! Surely the printout from the security computer would have showed how many times he had entered and left the HofP, if not why not!
At my place of work, I went through a turnstile, which I activated with my security pass, all my comings and goings were logged. Can’t believe the HofP doesn’t have a similar system.
Looking at the Mail’s piece on Freddie, If I was him, I’d be on the first plane out, stand by for the tabloids trawling the cesspits of London, looking for past ‘associates’
The ComRes total for Tory + Labour + Lib Dem gives a total of 85% of the ‘electorate’. This figure seems low in terms of past election results: I believe one would anticipate a figure of 90-92%. Is there any case for adjusting polls with this characteristic to give a lower total of ‘others’?
66, decent analysis, which I think Mike predicted.
It would have been fun if the Tory share had risen and the Lib Dem share fallen:p
Obviously neither awful nor good news for Cameron. We saw that the biggest move that shifted the polls was the IHT tax idea. Cameron should be a little bolder, and should absolutely bloody hammer the government over the EU treaty. People may not get the detail of the thing, but they do understand a broken promise. Cameron should use it to make Labour look like liars and the Lib Dems look like cowards. Plus it’s a core Tory issue which happens to be the matter of the day, so it’d help firm up the core vote and get the traditionalists 100% behind him.
For Brown, some improvement, but if he’s smiling at an 8 point deficit he’d be an idiot. I imagine the Budget will be a very interesting piece of work. Have to see how the polls stand post police charges.
Clegg, neither great nor awful. Needs to start biting back when Brown patronises him at PMQs, and should change his mind and support a referendum.
69. “stand by for the tabloids trawling the cesspits of London, looking for past ‘associates’..”
Of course. Either the father trousered the money himself (morally theft, although legally immune due to “parliamentary privilege”), or the son spent it on what exactly?….
Textbooks and baked-beans? I doubt it…..
71. the budget is probably going to be very threadbare, with plenty of swipes at the tories to cover up their increased borrowing. Osborne will outperform Darling in the debate afterwards then the tory analysts will get working on the figures.
62. Throwing sleaze back at the Tories would be the worse thing for labour to do. For reasons mostly unfair Labour are now the market leader in ‘financial irregularities’ so any mud that attaches to politicians affects them disproportionately. It’s just a basic rule of advertising.
Anyway if you read Printz’s baffling post at 56. they’ll be far too busy opening brothels in Croyden to get ivolved in sleaze throwing. (When did they let you out Printz?)
There are many problems at Holyrood but the one area they leave Westminster standing is how much information MSPs have to release about their pay and expenses. It is time Brown, Clegg and Cameron stood up and in a bipartisan move introduced a similar system.
So the Men in Grey Suits will be having a word with Dave then, as the Tories slump to a shocking 8% lead whilst Gordon is riding the crest of a wave to a fourth Labour term with a massive 30% of the vote? And to make things worse, Cleggy Boy takes the LDs to the new dizzy heights of 17% having added a staggering 1% point more to their mushrooming vote share.
Might this poll fuel the early election speculation killed off in early October?
Meanwhile, a nation is outraged at an unheard-of MP trousering as much in expenses as he possibly can. Who’d have thought it, an MP with his snout in the trough. What’s the world coming to?
I don’t condone Conway, but this is hardly the first time an MP has had his collar felt for this, they are all paid exorbitant amounts of money and ridiculous levels of expenses for the cushy little job they do, in addition to gold-plated pensions if they get unseated, so I think a collective yawn will be the general reaction. It’s only a story if an alliance of a bored media and hypocritical Lib Dem and Labour MPs combine to give the story legs and turn it into an attack on “Dithering Dave”. It could make an uncomfortable PMQs for DC tomorrow, but then neither GB nor Cleggy are in much of a position to complain about Tory sleaze, frankly.
70. Both the “big-two” and “big-three” shares of the popular vote have been in long-term decline for decades. I think the “Others” will get a minimum of 10% next time, possibly significantly more…
SBS actually predicted the poll (to within a percentage point on each Party) as well as all of the analysis.
(it was about three or four threads back).
My take is that the Osborne approach is right - the Conservatives have to start making a positive case for Government. If they were 40 or so seats up on where they actually are, then the “hold tight, let them destroy themselves and we’ll get it by default”idea might have some traction - but they aren’t. Just get out some some positive policies/themes out and bang on about them until you’re utterly sick about talking about them, Cameron - that’s the point were they’ll have started sinking in.
A few themes, repeated endlessly. Will bore the pants off us political geeks, but that’s what you need to sink into the public consciousness.
66 - I’d say the opposite, nothing for anyone. The Tories’ share is down significantly, and Labour and the Lib Dems are still at a catastrophically low level.
This suggests a lot of truly alienated people. Ordinarily, the plague on all your houses voters go for the Lib Dems, but they appear not to be considering that option at present. The Tories aren’t presenting a positive alternative and there is no sign of them returning to Labour yet.
The critical question is how far they are alienated from Labour. Are these people going to grudgingly turn back to Labour in due course, or are they going to decide that they are just too incompetent and bereft of direction to vote for? I suspect that the answer will depend on whether David Cameron is able to inspire them with an alternative. He has not done so yet, but that is on what I think the next election will be decided.
can someone advise on who to back in Florida, Mcain betfair average 1.86, Romney 2.23
79. “Are these people going to grudgingly turn back to Labour in due course, or are they going to decide that they are just too incompetent and bereft of direction to vote for?”
As long as they don’t go to the Tories, Labour are laughing all the way to the bank…
78 - why bother coming out with masses of interesting policies and themes now, when Bottler Brown isn’t going to go to the country until May 2010, and therefore has plenty of time to nick any good ones before then? And the electorate will have forgotten about any others in 2 years time leaving the Tories with nothing new to say in the months ahead of the election.
Were Labour coming out with masses of new ideas in January 1995?
Labour were in a very different position.
Not masses of new policies - a few, repeated until they are associated with the Tory position in everyone’s mind - a reason to support the Tories and solidifying a poll position from which to make a strong assault on power.
Gotta go - going underground.
Anybody noticed the next scandal to emerge market being offered by Paddy Power on the US campaign. It has to be a new scandal and not reported to date. Unless any go off the reservation during the campaign, given the level of scrutiny to date, probably looking at things buried in legal paperwork, or that might happen in the near future.
With so many candidates, most of whom are low on cash, and donations happening until the end of the campaign, 6/1 for campaign finance irregularities looks like real value.
Gideon
70: There’s something in what antifrank says - general confidence in politicians is never high, but it’s damned low at the moment, and opinions like Bob Sykes’ (’cushy job’, huh? - 80 hours a week walking a precipice…what’s your job, Bob?) are widespread.
In this sort of climate, local factors may be more important than usual. It’s normally a delusion of sitting MPs that they have a huge personal vote that will see them through anything: the traditional view that it’s in the 0%-5% range has still been about right in 2001-2005. However, if people think that most politicians are rubbish, there may be significant differences between constituencies where the MP or the challenger are seen as unusually active/creative/responsive. There is a lot of variation in that, too - some Tory candidates in marginals are hyperactive, some almost invisible; equally, some sitting MPs are more complacent than others.
Conway, Johnson, donorgate, yawn.
US politics is, I fear, a lot more interesting right now. Obama just got the endorsement of… arnold Schwarzennegar.
Arnie!!! Apparently he said:
“I’ll be back… ing you.”
Sorry about that.
Anyway the US media is getting very excited about the Kennedy endorsements. I know endorsements are said to be meaningless but.. hmm…. JFK’s last surviving daughter and last surviving brother.
I bet the Clintons are fuming.
Clearly, DC hasn’t the MSM enthused for him in the way TB did in the mid-90s. And though Major was never disliked as GB is now, equally he never had the grudging respect that GB still enjoys.
‘Sleaze’ makes little difference to voters one way or another. Likewise, the impact of the economic cycle is overestimated (otherwise the results of the 1992 and 1997 elections would have been reversed).
We are on unfamiliar ground—there is no political figure towering over the others; nobody with the dominance of MHT and TB.
We are looking at other factors. MS asserts that the more the public see of DC, the more they like him, and the reverse is true of GB. If that is accurate (and is of importance), then a sell of tory seats at 300 is a very short term measure.
GB’s relaunch has achieved very little, whereas when Cameron was all over the tv late last year the tories surged ahead in the polls. Since he has been off the screens again they’ve dropped a bit, however if he had been trying to get his message out now it would have been swamped by the scandals and overshadowed. Better to wait for a bit of clear sky then make some pledges. Labour stealing tory policies has become unlikely now, the theft of the inheritance tax policy (which GB grinned so widely about at the time) severely damaged the government and undermined Brown’s credibility. If they do it again the same clamour will probably start up again.
What is interesting about the Conway story is watching how something insignificant can blow up out of all proportion.
Yesterday it didn’t even feature on the Channel 4 News. This morning it’s leading on all stations because Ian Gale (?) is accusing all and sundry of a ‘witch-hunt’.
‘I’ve known Derek for…..and if he says his son’s did 17 hours of work a week for him then they did. This committee is acting as judge and jury and it’s a disgrace….’
So the party starts taking sides and the possibility of Cameron taking action disappears. As I keep saying this ‘holier than thou’ stuff is a game for any number of players and always explodes in your face
The Conway farrago still has legs..
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/474366/conway-row-to-escalate-as-tory-poll-lead-shrinks.thtml
Labour MP John Mann calls for a fresh inquiry
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7214573.stm
” What sort of opposition have we got to be only eight points ahead when the country is being run into the ground? ”
Maybe we should actually be asking what kind of electorate we have?
85 - Nick, I don’t dispute that some MPs may well be hard-working grafters putting in 80 hours a week, but you’d have to accept that it’s not a “job” in the conventional sense. You’re all there because politics is and always has been your life, it’s your hobby and vocation, it’s not like you’re working 80 hours down a coal mine or in a factory. You are massively well-remunerated for what you do, with a gold-plated pension if you get booted out, and although I earn slightly more than the MP headline salary (i think) for my 50-60 hours a week private sector job, I don’t get any of the expenses and other perks that you guys enjoy. And I’m switched on (when I’m not surfing on here!!) 8.30am-6.30pm or so 5 days a week, not enjoying some debate in the Commons, having a snooze, or a nice long liquid lunch with colleagues, lobbyists or journalists.
And I have to say that whenever I flick on BBC Parliament, the House seldom looks more than 10-20% full, and you all get Fridays off, and 5 months holiday.
And whenever I correspond with my local MP (Kitty Ussher, Lab), I never get a personal reply, but some cut and paste standard form jobby from her parliamentary assistant. (Whom I believe is her other half…)
Please don’t pretend being an MP is constant hard graft.
Indeed, I’ve often thought I’d like to be one myself when I get bored of the law!
Two interesting things on the Today programme this morning. It was a shame that it wasn’t on TV so we could have seen if Darling managed to keep a straight face when talking about the porblems of banks not accounting properly and keeping too much off balance sheet.
Secondly and more importantly the problem Cameron is in was exemplified by the interview with Roger Gale who doesn’t believe that Derek Conway has done anything wrong at all.
87. (David. Very nice to meet you the other night. I don’t think I’ve met anyone before who gambles for a living. We should follow your advice more carefully!)
85 - I think the problem with continually dragging up stories about MP’s so-called impropriety is that it feeds into the feeling that politicians are in it for themselves. I have never met an MP yet who isn’t genuinely motivated by a sense of doing something important for other people. Of course outrageous behaviour should be highlighted and punished however I fear that the danger is that papers like the Mail will decide to go on a crusade and drag up perfectly legitimate, totally above board behaviour and serve it up as sleaze.
I think we need to understand that MP’s motives are almost entirely honourable on all sides. I know of so many people who are turned off of involvement in politics simply because they feel that the expected standard is perfection and they don’t want their private lives raked over for juicy titbits to fill up space in some newspaper that has run out of decent news.
I think the Conway story will be viewed much much differently from Hain/Harman/Alexander et al for the simple reason that the Labour donation scandals involved private money and so no-one in the voting public is really affected, whereas with Conway he’s misused taxpayer money and everyone who pays taxes is affected.
89. Erm, it’s been a day. Saying the chances of Cameron taking action are shrinking is presumptive to say the least. He still has a few days to take action before it looks bad.
re 18 then Nick you don’t understand your leader. He’ll spend all of 2009 dithering about whether to dither.
If you think the Euro is a good bet, then please read this article and reflect that most of the southern European members of the Euro zone are suffering the same basic problem, some as bad as this and some are in a better position at the moment. But there may be a domino effect, and if one goes then several more will follow.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/01/28/bcnspain128.xml
96 - No the danger is that they are seen as equivalent, because I can tell you who is likely to benefit from this and it is the nasty extreme fringe.
If he was my friend I’d tell him to go, and have the honour of admitting his own fault and being able to accept the inevitable consequences.
There is no way his son could have carried out a part time job in London from Newcastle on Tyne. It’s a farce trying to pretend otherwise.
Conway said in his apology to the House that no judgment of him from anyone else could be as harsh as he is of himself…for what he calls his ‘administrative errors’.
In that case, he should unquestionably resign. Otherwise that claim is also laughable.
His position is morally no better than Peter Hain’s. Apart from the evidence possibly not being strong enough to obtain a conviction in a court of law, there is little doubt that he has committed a crime.
He has fabricated a story, using falsehood to obtain a pecuniary advantage by deception - s.11 Theft Act 1967.
The problem is, Iain, that Cameron is also standing by his friends, and it stinks. David Davies would no doubt be making special pleading for Conway, for one.
If the Conservatives want to be taken seriously as a party with a mission to stop the corruption of British society, as they claim, the fight against corruption has to start right at the top. Or they can forget it.
Conway has to go.
toontoon [11] - “the important thing will be the Lib Dems taking seats off Labour which will probably help the Tories get an overall majority of around 20-30.”
I haven’t noticed anyone else correct you on this, but Lib Dem - Labour battles are irrelevant in terms of a Tory majority, except insofar as they take Labour and Lib Dem resources away from Tory-LibDem and Tory-Labour seats. A Tory majority rests solely on how many seats they have.
What it could be important to is in depriving Labour of a majority, if the Tory advance falters. One can envisage (hope for?) a scenario in which the Tories are limited to “modest” gains, perhaps 30 from Labour and 20 from the Lib Dems, leaving Labour very close to a majority. 20 Lib Dem gains from Labour then moves the situation into very well hung territory.
Conway told the Standards Committee that his “Hooray” Henry son was paid thousands to “help him understand London ishoos…”
The mind boggles…
[51] Well, as someone once said, the markets have predicted seven of the last four recessions. Even were it a given that the economic environment was in meltdown, rather than downturn, and it is not, then it is by no means clear to me that the government would be blamed.
Further, I think support for the Conservatives remains somewhat fragile: True blues are more motivated, but it seems that the floating voters are still yet to be convinced by the Cameron-Osbourne ticket.
Meanwhile, after flirting with disaster, the Lib Dems seem to be back in the fight. Labour, despite everything, are also stronger than we might have predicted.
So- all to play for then…
[89] Roger - Iain Dale and Conway are mates.
As to the poll, I’d say that my Apocalyptic Scenario is in good shape - campaigns historically benefit the Tories who will have the dosh and the bodies on the ground next time. But, as has been pointed out on this thread, the Tories have no Big Idea (like selling council houses or gas shares) - and, short of raiding the Reverend Huckabee’s “let’s scrap income tax” cupboard - which even the Yanks aren’t buying - it’s hard to see where they can find one.
There really is a huge space for a populist party with funds (there must be one or two egoistial multi-millionaires out there) and a celebrity leader. Yes, I know those of you who fight the “ground war” believe that’s what matters, and of course it does - but 15% who don’t want any of the three main parties? They can’t all be Celts, or, alas, disgruntled socialists.
92. Yes, but if being an MP was that great then we would have more smart, talented, charming, honest and likeable people as MPs: as such people would be attracted to the enviable lifestyle.
Instead we are governed by dull, ugly, grasping, witless, puffed-up mediocrities who would struggle to impress at the annual convention of Halitotic Trainspotters.
For once, I totally agree with Nick Palmer. All MPs, especially those on the left, are gruesome nerds with zero charm and fewer morals - because that’s all we pay for.
If we want better then we’re gonna have to cough up.
I have read this thread with rising bemusement; I would be worried about poll ratings only if the Labour numbers were rising. They aren’t.
We are at least two years out from the next General Election, Labour are flatlining in the low 30’s; the Lib Dems have lost a quarter of the support they had in 2005.
We Tories of course have to lay out our plans for the future and of course the reason we will win, if we do, is because we have a positive vision of our nations future that the majority of British people agree with.
There will be a time to do that, and it isn’t now.
David Cameron has to balance the contrasting needs to be in the public eye with need to remain a PM-in-waiting; he is successfully avoiding the trap Hague, Kennedy and Kinnock all fell into of becoming irritatingly omnipresent.
re 92 You’re lucky Khalid Mahmood (Lab, Perry Barr) never bothers to reply at all, but that’s our wonderful electoral system for you when he knows he doesn’t need to make much of an effort apart from kepping the local activists happy enough to not deslect him.
Gale sounded awful - not even an acknowledgement that the public had a right to be concerned about the Conway story. He said in his experience that family members worked harder for MPs than anyone else - well we should hope they do, at the taxpayers’ expense. I think Cameron has a real problem with some backbenchers. They do n’t support the front bench and live in a world of their own.
Mind you, Paul Flynn did n’t sound very in touch either when he was defending Hain last week.
[105] On reflection, I made the first paragraph of that post up. Sincere apologies if it gave offence.
107
So Marcus! do you think Conway should have the whip removed?
103. Yes Dad, after exhaustive research I can authoritatively state that Annabel’s is a more relaxing environment than Stringfellows…
89 - Personally, I’d prefer it to blow up in their faces. Employing your family to do nothing, or little, in order to get allowances is something that most people would find unacceptable. If it’s labour, the tories, lib dems, Uncle Tom Cobbley and all who suffer then that’s better than the practice carrying on because everyone does it.
O/T - I’m surprised that No Country For Old Men is taking so many awards, I was very underwhelmed by it. Javier Bardem’s one note performance similarly.
Could be a by-election in Eastbourne soon, is there something about that, ‘Works and Pensions’ job, is it cursed?
http://tinyurl.com/33577z
113. Agreed on No Country For Old Men. A fairly well-made and moderately intriguing film, but no masterpiece.
Ratatouille was ten times better. When are they gonna start giving cartoons the best FILM Oscars?
[99] Leaving aside the fact that Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is so fiercely anti-Euro that all his articles are to beginning to sound the same, I would point out a significant difference between the Spanish rescue and Northern Rock. The liquidity of the Euro is a multiple of that of Sterling, so as a result the numbers quoted: EUR 53 billion versus c.GBP 50 billion are much less, both in absolute terms and even more so as a proportion of total liquidity.
This is one reason why Sterling is hitting new lows against the Euro- aside from the fact that we have much greater exposure to the USD (UK is the biggest investor there) and our Housing market is probably even more inflated than the US. The fact is that the market does not see the problems that Evans Pritchard regularly cites as being the fatal flaws that he clearly beleives them to be. meanwhile the currency market really does think that Sterling is in deep trouble.
[23] - I disagree very strongly. The thing that distinguishes the Conway affair, as it also distinguished the Hamilton affair, was that they both are alleged to have acted for personal (or familial) enrichment.
Conway appears to have used Parliamentary allowances to pay both of his sons way through university, rather than taking the money out of his own pocket. Nearly £40k pa also strikes me as an excessive amount to pay his wife to be his Parliamentary assistant (though, as with IDS I, I have less doubt that she actually does do work for him, most MPs spouses do, though some of them probably don’t get paid for it).
This is very easy to understand, whereas being late to fill in some forms (Hain), however “illegal” it is, does not have the same resonance. The Tories suffered badly due to not cutting Hamilton loose. As a partisan leftist I hope they make the same mistake this time, but as someone with an interest in good governance generally, I hope Cameron takes this opportunity to show us his balls. He has to be ruthless if he wants to win, though it does make you wonder how many of his MPs he fears have done the same thing if he fails to act.
105. IA. Sorry it wasn’t ‘Ian Gale’ but ‘Roger Gale’ the MP who has been touring the radio stations. Much more significant than Ian Dale because having said it’s a ‘witch-hunt’ it wouldn’t look good if Cameron joined it.
MP Waterson “bailed until March for investigations by the child abuse investigation team….”
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/topstories/2008/01/29/tory-mp-nigel-waterson-in-assault-probe-89520-20302315/
Maybe he asked his Dad for a job?
[118] It’s all right, Roger. These Tories all look alike
[119] I was at college with Waterson - best not to say what I thought of him then, we have libel laws in this country.
115. “When are they gonna start giving cartoons the best FILM Oscars? ”
IIRC only one animated picture has even been nominated in the best picture category: Beuty and the Beast in, IIRC, 1992
87 david kendrick- didn’t all that feeling that the Tories approval rating goes up when the public see more of Cameron kind of blow up with the Cameron’s conservatives Ealing fiasco. PR man Cameron and his cliquey group of cronies started to believe their own PR.
The Tories approval rating is directly related to sentiment with the government in my opinion, and of course how the LD’s are doing.
Like Hain Conway has forgotten Commnadment number 11. I would have thought that an ex whip would have been kneer to keep things above board, especially when he backed his new boss’s rival.
113. Paul. I agree that the behaviour is unacceptable but I don’t accept that politicians are all crooks. Far from it and I don’t think it’s healthy that they should be painted this way.
There is a confusion in the public mind between endemic crookery and the odd bad apple which exists in all professions including the clergy. I’ll guarantee that there is more integrity in politics than there is in advertising and politicians don’t get paid anything like as much
I agree about NCOFM. Oddly disappointing. Not my favourite of the five.
122. Andrea, you have a voluminous knowledge of movie history, too?
Impressive.
Anyway, yes, it’s time they started dishing out the real gongs to toons. Half the best movies of recent years have been cartoons.
The Incredibles, Monsters Inc, Roger Rabbit, Toy Story, the first Shrek, that Japanese one about the laundry, Triplets of Bellevue, Finding Nemo, Cars, ..
And I saw Beowulf for the first time the other night. A magnificent piece of cinematic legerdemain. Grendel actually speaks Anglo-Saxon. Try getting away with that in a non-cartoon.
111. Coldstone - I was still nominally the chairman of Windsor when our MP was exposed by the MOS as having claimed housing allowance he wasn’t entitled to.
He was invited to stand down at the next election by us as a result.
It is up to Mr Conways own Association to decide what to do with him.
I think that anyone employing their friends and family on the taxpayer is leaving themselves wide open to attack, that is why it is so very rarely permitted in the rest of the civil service and in most publicly listed business’.
If I get elected I wouldn’t employ any of my family in any capacity on public funds, I think it shouldn’t be allowed.
125 - I agree Roger, maybe we should shine a light into the dark recesses of the media, find out what goes on there. I bet it would be instructive, plus there would be symmetry as the media glories in lynching politicians maybe the politicians should strike back!
BSkyB must reduce its holding in ITV from the current level of 17.9% to below 7.5% and not take a seat on the ITV board, the government has ruled.
The decision was made by Business Secretary John Hutton, Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.
At current prices, BSkyB could lose about £250m from the sale of the shares.
I suspect Rupert will be a little cross.
122. Very interesting Andrea. I wondered the same thing but didn’t realize animations were allowed to compete. I wonder what category Enchanted or Roger Rabbit would go into?
115. Sean. Ratatouille is a certainty for best animation at this years Oscars so if you’ve got a book deal put the lot on!
This seems a “cert” for PMQ’s,hopefully Nick Clegg will question Gord about this frightening statistic.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml…/29/ntap129.xml
Phones tapped at the rate of 1,000 a day
By James Kirkup, Political Correspondent
Last Updated: 2:33am GMT 29/01/2008
Britain is in danger of becoming a “surveillance state” as authorities including councils launch bugging operations against 1,000 people a day.
Derogatory comments about the miracle economy and against our glorious leader may come back to haunt you if you are subject of a tap.
Political party funding is problematic, given the decline in membership of most of the parties. How many taxpayers would like to see state funds handed over to the parties? I’m not sure that many pb users would be so keen.
As for the Tories and Lib Dems, do they have to support Brown’s complicated income tax regime, tax credits and minimum wage legislation? His way of collecting tax revenue isn’t the only model, and it shouldn’t go unchallenged.
[78,82] - Bob, respectfully, but you are wrong. Cameron’s challenge now is to appear as the leader of a government-in-waiting. Having Labour steal his IHT plan hardly did him any damage did it? More of the same will enrage Labour supporters, demotivating core turnout, and make the Tories appear to be ahead of the curve.
Typically the government has the important privilege of being able to set the agenda, because they are in power. Labour have progressively proved unable to use this privilege, since they became embroiled in the fall-out from the Iraq war. I had imagined that Brown had a “grand strategy” he had been working on for the past 10 years or more, that would have enabled him to use this privilege and entrench Labour in power for “ten more years”. This has proved not to be the case…
So Cameron has an opportunity if he is bold, and substantial, enough to take it. He also needs to develop the valuable skill of listening to the right advisers.
114 - oops. That won’t play well with Conway and that guy who beat with wife.