Can anybody make a call on the next election?
February 3rd, 2008
Did punters get it wrong a fortnight ago?
After last night’s ICM poll one of PBC’s most regular contributors, Rod Crosby, wrote this: “What that means, in a nutshell, is for a Tory vote lead in the range 4.0% to 6.5% we really could not be certain* which party would emerge ahead in seats. (*certain meaning a greater than 95% chance). As the Tories now seem to be entering this range, what I am saying to punters is to be very cautious about betting on which party will have the most seats - it really is too close to call.”
Rod is right - it is too close to call. Yet the whole point of betting is that you are taking a risk and if you wait until an outcome is clear the opportunity for making a good profit won’t be there. Gamblers make judgements and predictions on the information they have and back them up with hard cash.
Thus less than a fortnight ago we reported that in the high risk high reward arena of commons seats spread betting there’d been a significant move to the Tories in the aftermath of the Northern Rock statement and the then ongoing stock market troubles. A view at the time was that these would further boost Tory polling figures and those who risk considerable sums by playing these markets were expecting Cameron’s party to move even further upwards.
How things can change in such a short period. At the time the Tory buy level was in the 306-308 range the top figure being just seventeen seats short of what is required for an overall majority at the next election. Today’s numbers from Sporting Index are reproduced above and show a nine seat fall for the Tories and a corresponding nine seat gain for Labour.
If you had bought Labour then at 271 seats then you could close down your position this morning and pocket your profit. With spread betting you don’t have to wait until the election has been decided before taking your cash. The one thing that has to happen is that the market moves enough to cover the six seat difference between the buy and sell levels.
This is the form of betting I play all the time and my normal practice is to take any profits quickly. With Sporting Index and IG Index the bookmaker sets the prices. Spreadfair is a betting exchange where you are limited by what other punters are prepared to offer. The benefit is that there is normally a much smaller margin between the buy and sell prices although liquidity is often not high.
So where are the markets going to go now? The next big “event” should be the Times Populus poll on Monday evening. This is usually played big by the paper and can be quite influential. Fieldwork started on Friday and finishes tonight. A month ago it was C37-L33-LD19 and if that is showing a narrowing of the margin then I would expect Labour’s spread position to move even further forward.
Coming up later in the day on PBC: a preview of Super Tuesday by Ben Surtees who started posting on PBC nearly four years ago. He now mostly confines himself to US politics.
Mike Smithson
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Dr Jim Dyer, the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, has submitted a report to the Procurator Fiscal for Lothian and Borders regarding Wendy Alexander’s failure to register her leadership campaign donations. All donations over 520 GBP should have been registered to Parliament.
Even Liberal Democrats have now started to publicly turn against their colleagues in the Scottish Labour Party. Mike Rumbles MSP nearly had a fit yesterday when Alexander tried to deflect the heat from herself by attempting to smear several other senior Scottish politicians who have run in leadership/depute leadership races in recent years: naming Mike Rumbles in a list of names!! How not to make friends and influence people…
Nicol Stephen was none too impressed at being fingered by Alexander either.
http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.2014952.0.0.php
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2008/02/02/wendy-alexander-names-secret-leader-donors-86908-20306453/
Andy Kerr had been widely considered to be the favourite to replace Alexander.
http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.2014954.0.0.php
That post makes Scotland sound so parochial that the chances of it succeeding as an independant nation in this big wide world must be almost nil.
If the election was held today, IMO the Tories would obviously do well, but with Labour probably “surpisingly” hanging on to a few marginal seats through the incumbancy advantaage. Overall results hung parliament with Labour still as the largest party. In short, the messiest possible result.
By 2010, it is possible that Labour will settle down under the new leader and the new media operation will find him that narrative. Net result, Labour with a smaller majority. If they don’t, Osbourne and co will put some meat on the Tory bones and Labour will look realtively tired. Then even a big Tory majority is possible IMO.
Either way, 2008 will be critical, but there may only be a subtle movement in the polls over the year. The big question, that I would like to answered… If there is a small, but indicative movement in 2008, how would detect it and how would you bet on it?
The best call is a hung parliamnt.In the early Autumn,when polls were on a roller coaster, I predicted that when things settled down the polls would go back to the average of the 12 month ICM polls preceding Blairs departure which was 38,32,31.
Todays ICM Telegraph deliver sthat.
I dotake issue with Mikes,practise of publishing change figures against any previous polls from the organisation.There is adiffernce betwwen ICM telegraph and ICM guardian.Th most relevant comparision is surely between the same polling organisation in same paper,usually a month aaprt which gives a good idea of trend.Hence ICM telegraph shows a 3 point improvement for the Lib Dems.
rogerh
3. Roger
I suppose it only sounds “parochial” Roger because you are probably not too familiar with the personalities and public bodies involved.
But the affairs of most foreign countries probably sound “parochial” to most English observers. If it had been a newspaper report about the Danish parliamentary standards commissioner reporting the leader of the opposition to the Danish crown prosecution service for a suspected crime, then I suppose that you would also have found that an equally “parochial” post. But Denmark manages just fine “as an independant nation in this big wide world”, thank you very much.
6. It’s the sums involved. If this was a story about the council in the Cotswold village of Boughton-on-the-Water you might think it quaint being concerned about the non declaration of £900 but for a country of seven million it sounds sad……..just forget about it and move on!
If you want to “call” the next election - as opposed to making a living backing and laying on the spreads - the first thing to take a view on is the date. Prime Ministers never say, but I suspect that a poll of CLP chairpeople would show 90%+ expecting it to be May 2010.
I know I’m going to repeat myself, but there’s no point in changing one’s views merely to say something fresh (unless you’re a paid political commentator, when you probably have to). The economy may or may not be over the worst by then, but at least some pundits will think it is, and the government will play up that evidence for all it’s worth. Barring the unforeseeable, I would expect the polls at the start of the campaign to be much as they are now - varying from level-pegging to a 10% Tory lead.
The campaign will favour the Tories because (1) campaigns always do; (2) they’ll be the only party with as much money as they can spend; (3) they’ll have far more troops for a ground war; (4) the perception - not based on any reality these days, but still there - that Labour have a “bias to the poor” is now a vote loser: I’m assuming that the Tories will have the sense to campaign on a pledge to abolish all redistribution of wealth by taxation, of course; (5) a sense that “fair play” requires the Tories to take a turn.
Our system has an extraordinary capacity to produce the result people want - Tories smashed in 1997 and 2001, Labour’s wings clipped in 2005. Since a Parliament with a Labour minority government would seem inherently unstable, and a Tory minority government would seek only the first opportunity to return to the country for a majority, why have two elections when one will do?
In sum: Labour will lose more seats next time than they did in 1983. And whereas in 1983 they could say, OK comrades, lose the red paint, it’s the long march back to the centre ground - this time there’s no such obvious response to electoral disaster. Rather, the electorate will have decisively rejected Labour’s “core value” of social justice just as it rejected nationalised industries and trade union power a generation ago.
Margaret Thatcher was wrong. There won’t “always be a Labour Party”. It is dying before our eyes. It is populism, not social justice, that blue-collar voters want now: the politics of anger have replaced the politics of hope and aspiration.
8. Roger
Are the sums involved really relevant Roger?
As a couple of commenters on the article say:
- “I was fined £60 for failing to renew the tax-disc on a zero rated motability hire car on time. Obviously an unintentional oversight, with no financial gain possible. But nonetheless a breach of the law.”
- “Labour ministers say that Benefit fraud of £10 deserves prosecution. Sick, one law for Labour (or none in this case) and laws for everyone else?”
#6 Roger - I think you will find it’s Bourton-on-the-Water.
8 After reading that I’m not sure I can be bothered to breathe let alone stay up.
And best value bet by miles and miles is that the next parliament will be hung - betfair still implies less than 40% but a huge range of polling outcomes will deliver this result. I think the real probability is more like 65%… Rod gets it even higher I believe.
It’s easier to see an upside for Labour than the Tories at the moment. If they’ve managed to be within 4 or 5 points of the Tories after their several ‘incompetences’ then there can’t be much about Cameron’s Conservatives that appeals to the public at the moment.
….And they’ve tried everything. They’ve hugged ‘hoodies’ during their ‘liberal’ phase got rid of grammar schools during their socislist phase removed IHT for the rich and introduced workfair for the unemployed during their hard right phase.
Where is there left for him to go? As I said last month… ‘Buy Labour’.
Right now,most of my eggs are in the NOM (No Overall Majority)basket.I do fine if the CONS win by any majority but any LAB Overall hurts and a LAB landslide really hurts.
I assessed my open positions a few weeks ago and whereas I have banked around £550, the open positions were practically worthless and worth less than £100.
Theshrieking paradox is that the open positions look good to me even though the market doesn’t think so.However in the last two weeks I have been quietly reducing my LAB losses and CON gains via nibbles on LAB to win Most Seats.
The ‘Overall Majority’ market on BF is fascinating.Here you can back your opinion in a 100% book.In that 100% book,NOM is 2.68 and you can take that price by laying the other three alternatives, or the one of your choice…CON 2.98 LAB 3.5 AO 200.0 !
Hats off to you Mike Smithson if you can consistently beat the six point Spread short term.That is where the real money is if you can do it.I prefer to wait and wait on Spreadfair for the train that never comes and then wait even longer for a train going in the opposite direction.
7. Roger - “… for a country of seven million…”
Err, Roger, Scotland has a population of approx 5,100,000. Thank you for so promptly illustrating my point about general lack of familiarity with Scottish topics. Whether it be demographics, geography, the legal system, or public administration, unfortunately your average English politico is woefully under-informed about even the basics of Scottish society and culture.
15 “your average English politico is woefully under-informed about even the basics of Scottish society and culture”
What culture?
I was phoned by ICM this Friday (could have been Thursday). There were several questions on MPs employing relatives. Also would I consider buying a Frank Sinatra CD.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7224739.stm
Wendy Alexander in a spot of bother
8.
I don’t think you could be more wrong. The politics of anger and populism are not triumphing over the politics of hope and aspiration. In 1997 Labour offered hope and aspiration. From about 1998 they governed by populism. Since 2005 they have specialised in anger. Blair was positively bitter about his treatment on the Iraq question. Brown appears irate that we have an opposition. Ministers howl in outrage that the media, police and parliamentary authorities call their conduct into question. Now the Tories are emerging as the party of hope and aspiration. It is a different type of hope and aspiration than Labour propogated in 1997, sure, and it has some populist tendencies (naturally, because people have to vote for it), but to try to portray its as the death of social justice or the rise of the era of anger is just wrong.
Social justice will remain a theme in Government for many years to come. The demographic changes alone will demand that - ageing population, widening income inequality, more immigration.
I agree that if Labour gets thumped next time it won’t be so easy to renew, but the idea that they are dying is as absurd as the predictions of the Tories demise that resounded from the mid 1990s until this Autumn. Where will the voters go?
Bear in mind as well that even the most optimistic Tories are reluctant to predict a CON majority, let alone a large one - the numbers and the electoral bias just don’t work for them. IF the Tories win a majority it will be a small one, which will make governing difficult and will give Labour a shout at limiting the Tories to one term.
“Salmond leaps into YouTube hall of fame”
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/politics/Salmond-leaps-into-YouTube-hall.3739054.jp
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=52mm5219_t0
O/T With 68% reporting Mitt Romney holds a substantial lead of 52% to 21% over John McCain in the Maine Caucus. Maine is a small state in New England, and Romney was Governor of another New England state.
Still, it may indicate not everything will go John McCain’s way on Tuesday.
The next general election is too far away, and the recent turbulence in the polls make it even harder to call. Obviously I’d prefer a reasonable-sized Conservative victory, but it’s just too far away. The Rock could cost us £55bn or be resolved with almost no cost. We just can’t say.
15: Stuart, your well balanced and generous posts do much to increase knowledge of Scottish politics and to put to rest that lurking suspicion that Scotland is run by the small minded and mean spirited.
Zogby polling.
California Obama 45 Clinton 41, Romney 37 McCain 34
Elsewhere
New Jersey McCain 54 Romney 23, Clinton 43 Obama 42
Georgia ” 28 ” 48
Missouri ” 44 ” 43
Democrat race tightening?
Sorry Georgia and Missouri and Clinton and Obama figures in that order
re 13. Roger - You write that last month you said “Buy Labour”. Did you?
20. Stewart. Interesting clip. I did three or four of the SSEB/ Scottish Power commercials -very patriotic music from ‘An Officer and a Gentleman’ Carol Smiley’s legs-and I also did one for the Scottish Herald with James Cosmo.
The strange thing about doing ads for Scotland whatever the product is that they’re so often patriotic. I even did one with a tartan boat outside the tower of London!.
26
Mike, I think he did. But then, he says that every month….
26. Mike. Certainly did!
Meanwhile the government takes another step to discourage islamic seperatism by proposing to allow welfare claims for multiple (i.e. bigamous) marriages.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=FMHVFAJEJNZ2NQFIQMFSFFWAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2008/02/03/nbenefit103.xml
26. I thought I said it!
What strikes me from the polls is that the Brown January re-launch hasn’t really done much for Labour but has taken the gloss off the Conservatives. Added to that the Hain & Conway stories tend to damage all political parties but the large two more than others - so voters go for Lib Dems and others which seem less corrupted. Lib Dems are seeing recovering vote shares with near invisibility from their leader.
There is in the more left wing press a resignation about Brown - Cameron’s “he cannot answer the question” jibe has been picked up by a few I’ve read this week as the real problem being that Brown cannot answer because he hasn’t the least idea what the question is. He hasn’t moved on from 1997 but the world has. We’ll have a bit of boat race polls but IMO Labour will stay in/around the low 30’s in most polls.
The Conservatives may be reaching towards answers and understanding the questions but they are also still to an extent dominated by 1997 and years in the wilderness. A hope from the Conway case is that the plump, self satisfied rump from the pre 1997 parliamentary party, those without the real hunger for power, will now be increasingly sidelined. That gives Cameron & Osborne an opportunity to really imbed their agenda and with that hope to move sufficiently ahead by year’s end.
28. Indeed - Roger ‘the broken clock’ screamed ‘buy Barclays, buy Labour’ a while back since when the former are down 30%…
Couldn’t disagree more Innocent Abroad, the tories were trapped and unelectable before they began to accept some of social justice and promise not to decrease spending, similar to how Maggie forced the Labour party to move to the right, the tories have been forced to move to the left. They now accept and work towards ideas such as environmentalism and social mobility, any suggestion of slash and burn government spending or policies and attitudes along the lines of “Are you thinking what we’re thinking?” has been banished.
Labour’s mian policy problem is that they are, as Socrates pointed out, authoritarian, both other parties are small state and are gaining ground because of that, i think the public has rejected authoritarianism, but accepted social justice. Most of labours other problems are operational; cosiness to big business, incompetence, sleaze and GB.
The idea the parties, ‘die’ is absurd, the Liberals did not, ‘die in the 1920’s they splintered, part soldiered on, part transferred into the Labour and Conservative parties, to influence them.
Labour wil not ‘die’ it is evolving, just as the Tories are evolving, Liberal Conservative etc. I still find it difficult to believe that a party which contains Zac Goldsmith and John Redwood, can really exist. I suppose its possible for a Jack Russell to mate with a Great Dane!
Confused periods, produce confused results, as in 1974, we are probably in one of those periods now.
I’m amazed anyone can say the LDs wouldn’t be favourites in a Bexley By Election. Yes it has a rightwing electorate, yes the LDs are in 3rd. But it’s scarcely more ferciously right wing than Bromley and Chislehurst, poor Eric Forth couldn’t avoid triggering the By Election and still it nearly happened. Yes the Tory vote held up in Ealing and Sedgefield but they weren’t the defending Party in either case taking place in GB’s honeymoon. As it happens though I agree no By Election. The friends of Derek Conway in the Conservative Party FDCCP (approx membership 2 D. Davis and I.Dale)mean he is not quite the totally isolated figure that might decide to stuff his own by triggering a vote.
A word on Heath. His first election in 1950 was a hairs breadth affair with the Labour candidate almost certainly thwarted by a Communist candidate intervening securing over 500 votes and enabling Heath to scramble in by just a few hundred votes. I wonder what today’s Tories think. The Heath legend could have been stopped in its tracks
34. The Tories have long favoured social mobility - not social levelling. It is Labour who oppose it and have reduced it while in office.
13. No upside for Labour..as I have said before, ignoring headline voting intentions what every poll continues to show is that the more people see of Broon the more they dont like or trust him.
That wont change, familiarity breeds contempt and he is disliked (even by some within the core labour vote). Much more importantly the IMO dellusional view that he was a great chancellor is increasingly unravelling as it becomes clear that in fact all the good times of the last ten years resulted from global factors and what Brown actually has done is put nothing aside for the difficult times. The tories will add to this narrative by pointing out that the billions spent have actually achieved only very minor or no improvements and there are no ideas left.
Therefore its difficult to see Labour getting anything above (what is a strong 30%) core at the next election. The question entirely then centres on what Cameron can offer. Continuing to repair the brand and not reverting to Heffer’s agenda is critcal as he can then rely on tactical voting in his favour and then he may(may!) get a majority.
36. I have a feeling the ghastly Heath - perhaps one of the prototypes for the careerist sellout politicians of today - would have wormed his way into parliament in due course even had he lost in 1950.
On Topic: What if Brown throws a hissy fit and takes his ball home.. if he changes the electoral system then all bets are off.
37. I think we shall have to agree to disagree on what the tories have long favoured*, but you are right about the decline in social mobility. In my view the decline in social mobility, the rise in income inequality and the north/south gap are more damning to NuLab than the war in Iraq.
*fee paying schools, tuition fees and private health insurance, I wouldn’t call pro-social mobility.
39 Possibly but by no means certainly. Could well have hindered his rise to the Leadership. His next big break was struggling to break into Government. He got it only because a tired and emotional Tory MP lost control and belted the Belgian Ambassador or something in the mid 50’s meaning a vacancy in the Whips office that had to be filled urgently
40, changing the electoral system in a way that overtly benefits Labour or puts the Conservatives at a disadvantage would be seen in an extremely negative light, perhaps even as trying to fix the result. It’d be a colossal error.
A lot of character assassinations going on in todays papers. Particularly suffering are the Wintertons. However much you might dislike them I really find this sort of reporting unacceptable. It’s at the level of Guido. Full of ugly prejudice and with the slavering mentality of the hyena
39. Poor old Ted. As a student, he was a vehement opponent of Munich, as an officer in the war, he won the MBE. Rather better preparation for a political career than many, wouldn’t you say?
43 - Hi, mate
35 - the Labour party certainly won’t die, but once out of power they will find it very difficult to re-invent themselves for a while.
Remember that they re-invented themselves once already (New Labour) and ironically they could get stuck with that tag for a long time to come.
42. It doesn’t neccessarily need to be done in a way that overtly benefits them if brown brought in PR he’d be damaging Labour’s chances but also damaging the tories in a way that benefits the LIberals, who I’m sure brown prefers to the tories. And he could get to keep a referendum promise. He could also do something that does not add a direct benefit to Labour e.g. making voting compulsory, this could be done under the guise of renewing our democracy, and the tories are hardly going to cry “unfair! more working class people will be voting!”
From Sunday Times
ALAN JOHNSON, the health secretary, has been accused of giving special access to a National Health Service contractor owned by one of the biggest donors to his deputy leadership campaign.
Johnson held a private meeting in his officers with Dr Reg Race of Quality Health, a firm that has been paid millions of pounds to conduct surveys for the NHS. A long-term Labour donor and former MP, Race had earlier given £5,000 to Johnson’s deputy leadership campaign.
Details of the meeting have raised concerns about “cash for access”. They emerged a week after it was disclosed that another of Johnson’s donors had given money to his campaign through his brother-in-law.
Johnson met Race at the Department for Health on November 12, according to questions answered under the Freedom of Information Act. No civil servants were at the meeting and no minutes were kept.
What was said at the meeting has not been made public, but it is known that Race and Johnson discussed Quality Health’s NHS contracts as well as Labour party politics.
Race’s company is one of a select group of “approved contractors” that health trusts must hire to conduct staff and patient surveys. The company, which Race owns with his wife Amanda Moore, has contracts with 320 of the 487 NHS trusts to conduct annual surveys introduced by Labour ministers in 2003.
Race’s £5,000 donation accounted for more than 10% of Johnson’s campaign spending. Nobody gave more to the campaign, in which Johnson came second. Race has also given more than £23,000 to Labour over the past three years.
Johnson’s aides last night denied Race was given preferential treatment and said the donation was given months before Johnson moved to the Department of Health last summer.
However, businesses competing with Quality Health for contracts said they had never had the opportunity to meet a health secretary.
“It is unheard of,” said the chief executive of one such firm. “It just does not happen.”
43 - wasn’t Ann Winterton the one who’s made a couple of racist jokes in the past? And subsequently refused to apologise for them?
42 The Hammer did it in Texas in 2004 though and it worked then. Ironically it backfired in 2006 as by then as he made his own seat less safe to get rid of other Democrats, meaning he couldn’t survive scandal. So he stepped down letting Lampson a Democrat who had been thrown out by De Lay’s gerrymandering to take De Lay’s seat. Doesn’t matter if it is viewed negatively if it is done effectively
On-topic, here’s one confident call for the next election: thousands of posts on here assuring everyone that their side is going to win, unless there’s a bye-election in Bexley where you assure everyone that the others should win however crazy the logic (here’s looking at you today Punter @36, there have been others.)
It does take skill to spot the genuine trend from the ramping - I am reminded of Mike’s story of how he sold Ken Clarke in the 2005 Tory leadership election after reading the views of Tories on here, and the recent Obamamania before New Hampshire reminds us all to approach bandwagons with care. Easy for me as all I do is look dumb if I get it wrong - but for people staking hundreds of pounds on the outcomes, the consequences of being taken in by hysteria/malicious spin are obvious.
48. Nice one Barry - cash for access and contracts. This is the aspect of UK politics that really stinks, not MPs’ expenses. Private companies are making huge profits from sweetheart deals with government across every department.
This problem has become very much worse under New Labour due to its insatiable need for money and its naive, starry-eyed attitude to ‘business’.
51 What do you mean. I think the points that I make are fair enough. Backed by 25 years of By-Election results
Hi JohnO! I’m defending the Winterton’s now. I think I’m having an epiphany!
More on Conway in the Observer, where is Inspector Knacker when you need him.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,,2251521,00.html
55. Investigating actual breaches of the law by Labour perhaps.
[19][34] Well, if Labour have governed as populists, and won twice while doing so, I’m not sure how that contradicts the point I was making. Indeed, that is exactly what I expect Labour’s civil war - after it loses - to be largely about (other than personal invective, of which there will be a copious supply).
“Social justice” and “social mobility” are both slippery terms, but the evidence is that social mobility has come to a standstill, if not gone into reverse. It’s easy to say that this is Labour’s fault, less easy to identify which of their policies are causal. I think that the motor for mobility, in times past, was educational aspiration - and there were always deep fissures in Labour’s heartlands on that one: miners wanted their sons not to have to work underground, while dockers equally didn’t want their kids to become middle-class. Ethnicity and religion played a part in that. There has never been significant mobility up from the unskilled working-class for reasons that are beyond politcians’ reach. And, of course, the more bourgeois society becomes, the less opportunity for social mobility (except downwards).
I simply don’t buy the claim that the Tories are now committed to, let alone more committed than other parties to, social justice. That implies a commitment to - at least - redistributive taxation, and it is clear that there is a bidding war among the parties as to who can abolish it quickest. Such a war the Tories must surely win.
If Cameron inherits, as I expect him to, a need to rein in government expenditure very considerably and very quickly, he will be able to capitalise on the zeitgeist by introducing the immediate means-testing of all benefits, including the state pension, and a once-off cut of say 20% in public-sector pension payments (other than MPs, the armed forces and the police). Howls of rage in many places for a twelvemonth no doubt, but deeply satisfying to the Tory rank-and-file and to the financial markets.
And one last prediction. At some point during the next Parliament, UKIP/BNP/kindred spirits will be at 20% in the polls in England.
54
So I see: steady on, old chap!
57. IA - the last two points seem a little in contradiction. If Cameron is indeed going to introduce policies that will be ‘deeply satisfying to the Tory rank-and-file ‘ - and I suspect this will encompass immigration and Europe too - then why will ‘UKIP/BNP/kindred spirits…be at 20% in the polls in England’?
57. No chance of means-testing the state pension on both policy and baser political grounds. Policy-wise, it would discourage saving. Politically, it would hit hardest one of the groups of voters most likely to mark the Tory box and most likely to turn out.
re 36. The idea that “The Heath legend could have been stopped in its tracks” in 1950 is quite scary. So we wouldn’t have joined the EU, the Tories would not have split and SeanT could have resumed his writing career.
44. JonnO. It is strange how disliked Ted Heath is among some uber Tories. Reading Giles Radice’s book ‘Friends and Rivals’ about the intertwined careers of Crossman Healey and Jenkins Heath comes out particularly well. A war hero and one of the few ‘brilliant minds’ on the Tory side apparently.
30. Nice that the government is now paying polygamous men to bring their “harems” into Britain. The self-hating soppy liberalism of New Labour sinks to a new low.
And the left has the gall to accuse Hillaryphobes of misogyny!
Meanwhile, Labour presides over institionalised bigamy, a surge in honour killings, a total failure to tackle female circumcision, and an enormous influx of truly misogynous men from backward parts of the world. Thus taking large parts of the country back to the gender values of the fifteenth century.
Well done Labour. Well done the left.
On a happier note, can I recommend Bangkok dentists, in particular Doctor Pongipat of the Bangkok Dental Centre, soi 1, Siam Centre.
I’ve just concluded three weeks of excellent pain free, hi-tech, super-skilled dental work, including polishing, cleaning, filling, and laser whitening.
It cost £160, rather than the £600 I’d pay in rip off Britain. Yay.
re 63. Please forgive Sean - I thought you had gone to Thailand for other reasons.
62. Yeah right Roger. EU fanatics do tend to big Heath up, but the idea that he was some kind of intellectual titan is risible.
63. Bonkers!
40. Difficult to see how Labour could fix the system to benefit them when they’re unpopular, short of giving Scotland or Wales more seats or something so obviously crooked it would be impossible to sustain.
Moving to AV or PR would not obviously benefit them. The second preference of a majority of Liberals in the 70s and early / mid-80s was the Conservatives because Labour was so unelectable. That changed in the late 80s when Thatcher went tearing away from the centre at the same time as Labour moved towards it. There is nothing pre-ordained about Lib Dem backing for Labour irrespective of conditions. In fact, as AV tends to exaggerate, rather than reduce, bias within the system, Labour could find themselves doing worse than under FPTP.
Similarly, introducing PR - which would of itself mean many Labour MPs losing their jobs - would be no guarentee of success. It would mean permanent coalition / minority government, and that would mean relying on those outside the Labour Party and hence Brown’s direct control. Evidence from Labour-leaning places like Wales and Scotland would tend to suggest they can’t hold on to power for ever, so in the much more politically balanced UK, it would be much more likely that they’d end up in opposition sooner or later - and would certainly never again enjoy a 170+ majority.
57. Where do you see this bidding war? there is no argument in the MSM about redistributive taxation. I can also guarantee if Cameron does use his opportunity to “roll back the state” then he will be out of government by the next election. If he streamlines the state, reducing waste and bureaucracy he could create a fantastic consensus. I don’t understand a lot of the tory posters on here. Cameron is treading a thin line and needs to avoid being old tory, he will not do controversial hard right things.
The LSE report i read about decreasing social mobility said that increased education opportunities had created more opportunities for richer students.
63
On the other hand Iain Dale is not finding US medicine to his liking!
http://www.iaindale.blogspot.com/
64. lol. Mike, what exactly are you insinuating??
I’m here to write my thriller by the pool. What few moments of leisure time I have, when not doing that, are spent in the orthodontic chair. Occasionally I go to look at exhibitions of holocaust art by Cambodian survivors of Tuol Sleng.
Also I do good work with the local young people.
57 Following Roger’s sterling defence of the Wintertons might I recommend the third section in Janet Street Porter’s Editor at Large in the Independent:
“The Government seems reluctant to grasp one simple fact: every single child should leave primary school able to read and write. Statistics released last week reveal the shocking truth that 85 per cent of white boys from lower-income families in poor areas leave school without achieving five basic GCSEs…Gordon Brown thinks that second-rate qualifications are better than none, and the Government seems keen to ensure that in the interest of fairness everyone gets a certificate in something, even if it’s just in the ability to flip a burger.
The Prime Minister wants to expand on-the-job vocational training, but what he first has to ensure is that schools are given the support and staff to teach these boys the three Rs. Without them, they are going nowhere.”
Ms Street Porter is IMHO absolutely right; forget 8 hours of cooking lessons, school sports days, McA-levels, faith schools, lotteries for secondary school places, extending school leaving age, getting state funding to level of public schools etc the priority is to ensure that by the time children leave primary education they can read, write and do basic arithmetic, that also IMO they have been taught the discipline of learning.
We are spending a fortune in costs of failure of primary education and our society is suffering for it. Its not as attractive as rows over grammars, as discussions on City Academies or how many state school candidates get into Oxford but primary education should take funding priority.
71. Instead of which Labour intends to close thousands of rural primaries - presumably the idea is to get people out of the Tory-drenched countryside and into run down towns and cities, where they will imbibe healthy Labour values and experience the vibrant ‘diversity’ of modern Britain.
62. Those who only remember the Heath of the 80s and 90s tend to forget just how capable a man he was (also, that Britain made its first application to join the EEC well before he became leader).
He was, as was mentioned above, an extremely effective army officer, being called up relatively late in the war - after leading a high-profile debating team in the US, and raising awareness of the true nature of the war over there - and leaving as a Lieutenant Colonel. At a time when political meteoric rise was a less common occurance than it is today, he became Churchill’s chief whip only a few years after entering parliament. He kept that position through Eden’s premiership and the Suez crisis, which should show his tactical ability was much more than the stubborn old sulk he later became.
Heath is principally remembered - as he would want to be - for leading Britain into the EEC. While that is now a much less popular position than it once was, partly because the nature of the organisation has changed, it is rather unfair to stick all the blame on Ted Heath for that. He was, in any case, a man of his time: one who grew up in the 30s, with the threat of economic depression at home and extremism abroad, and that coloured his political beliefs, just as most other people’s formative years are critical in developing their own views. Any attempt to criticise his policy should remember what the indended effects were. True, they weren’t always effective, but his opposition to the economic policies of the 80s were a direct result of mass unemployment in his own childhood.
He was also somewhat unlucky: the first oil price shock and the way Northern Ireland deteriorated prior to his premiership were not things he could have done much about. In addition, Thatcherites should remember that without Heath’s failure, the public would probably not have bought into the need for her reforms in 1979 and 1983.
71. Hear Hear!
That’s exactly right, all the new educational opportunities mean nothing unless you can do the basics. This would make a great progressive cause for Brown, what odds would you give me for him doing it? I want to lay?
73. Yes, but it’s hard to forget the pompous, sour-faced, sulky, narcissistic, arrogant, idiotic, wrong-headed, self-regarding, puffed- up old halfwit that was Edward Heath in the 80s and 90s.
Come to think of it, I can see why Roger likes him.
73. Strange post. Heath’s government was a disastrous failure across the policy board, most especially in the economic/industrial relations field - yet we should ignore this because he ‘meant well’?
And we should be grateful for his failures because they led to Thatcherism? stranger still. The 1970s were a lost decade because of the bankrupt policies followed by Heath and the Labour government that followed. The Thatcherite medicine had to be much harsher as a result - hardly a cause for celebration.
Crazy logic Mr. Herdson.
73 Indeed. Heath had a lot of talent. Trouble was he let himself get eaten up by what happened in 1975. So no one remembered him for his war service etc. Strange. I mean he’d got to be PM and achieved more in his life in than the vast majority do. Guess his mind went really
So you are providing “good work” for local young people? Excellent. You are indeed a role model.
73 I’d add to that the loss of Iain Macleod barely a month into government and replacement by the weaker Anthony Barber as a contributory factor to the failure of Heath’s government.
73
I always remember a collegue, giving the reason he hated Labour as he’d lost his job due to a Labour government, when I asked when that was, he said, ‘1972′ I pointed out that in 1972 Edward Heath was the PM he replied, ‘Heath was f***ing Labour, as far as I’m concerned’
79 The Oil Price shock was huge though. Everything flowed from that. It mean’t the Govt had no strength to resist the Miners. I think you have to say Heath made mistakes but like Hoover in 1929 was hit by a global tidalwave that surely would have done for him anyway
78. Yes. The Thai government is actually thinking of giving me an award. For bringing so much employment and business - to the young people of Bangkok.
Apparently I have single-handedly boosted the local economy.
80. Yes - a sentiment many Tories would agree with. And when you look at some of his policies, hardly surprising - for example his attempt to set by legislation practically every price and wage in the country. We got closer to a centrally planned (sic) economy under Heath’s ‘Tory’ government than we ever did under Labour.
75. I wouldn’t seek to defend his behaviour all that much in the 80s, particularly the way he behaved towards his successor (in marked contrast to his predecessor as Tory leader, though not to Thatcher herself). I just don’t think it should overshadow the rest of his achievements.
76. On which point, Heath was always doomed to fail. In fact, the policies he entered government on - the 1970 Selsdon manifesto - were very similar to those of Margaret Thatcher in 1979. It was his U-turn that Thatcher objected to and so memorably ruled out. But had he not made that U-turn (and I do think he should be given credit for his reasons), the Conservatives would have been thrown out in 1974/5 because they would not have had time to work through, Labour had one of their most effective leaders ever in office (even if his powers were not what they had been in 1964), and the oil price shock put such a spanner in the economic works.
It was only the failure of the Heath regime, combined with the subsequent failure of Labour to control the unions in 1978-9 that meant that Thatcher was given the political leeway to win in both 1979 and 1983 - and that second win was vital to secure the economic policies. She, unlike Heath, was up against an unelectable opposition; she, unlike Heath, had just won a war in the South Atlantic (though had she lost it, she’d have lost her job as well).
Without the Falklands and Foot, Thatcher might have lost the 1983/4 election, though given the state of the Labour party at that time, if she’d lost it, it would have been more likely to have been to Jenkins and Steel. With the conditions he had, Heath would without question have lost in 1974/5 with 3 million unemployed. That would have meant that what subsequently became Thatcherism would have never been fully implemented but would have become discredited. Without Heath’s failure, the successful reforms of the 1980s would never have happened.
71 Ted As a Governor in a primary school with crude results reflecting our area, we work with our headteacher to achieve just that - highly focused. But, there are many transient people come through, and when you examine the “value-added” statistics, it is often this very transience, and those children who move around a lot (not just those whose first language is not English, btw) which drags results down. We are by no means comparing the same entry cohort with an end of key Stage 2 cohort. I actually think there is a heck of a lot of work like this going on around the country, and as usual, it is social trends, and things outside teacher and school control which are causing most of the difficulties.
Nick Cohen hits the nail on the head in today’s Observer:
“as a student of political history rather than hemlines, he (Brown) should still know that the backlash against bubble economies and the leaders who preside over them can be ferocious when a recession comes”
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2251520,00.html
Not forgetting 3 million unemployed was avoidable:
(a)It was an error to put VAT up from 8 to 15% in Howe’s first,June 1979 budget,whilst cutting the basic rate of income tax from 33 to 30% This is calcualable as putting c.5% on the RPI>
(b)The RPI was 9.8% at the moment Mrs.Thatcher became PM,with BoE base rate at 10%.This was pushed up to 14% around the time of Howe’s budget
(c)There was a global steep crude oil price rise in late 1979,this was admittedly a major factor in inflation rising to 21% by May 1980-HAD the VAT inflationary factor not occurred we may well have got away with a peak of c.15%.
(d)the BoE base rate peaked at 17% around November 1979,and was still around 16% in late 1980-this was a a major factor in the pound reaching $2.40 for months,CRUSHING exports.
Whiolst some shakeout of old,inefficient industry was inevitable,it is calualble that at least half the rise in unemployment between 1979 and 1982 was avoidable-at 84,David Herdson in his last paragraph points to why this did not lead to electoral defeat for the govt of the day
84 While The Lady is not innocent of mischief making for her successors it did strike me this week that there was an extent to which, unless she’d entered a Carmelite Convent, there was little she could do about that. She still has presence - an appearance at Downing Street or a reception to get an award gets in the papers or on TV, nearly two decades after she left office and after years of no public speeches. Any comment she makes about her successors is relayed through “friends” to receptive ears.
It’s amazing really that an 83 year old suffering the effects of several strokes, is still someone that foreign politicians seek to have their picture taken with, that a Labour PM uses to add credence to his office, who’s reported upset with Cameron has him making amends.
84. Too complex. Too many what ifs. What if Jeremy Thorpe had been hit by a comet, and his hamster had been elected Pope, then the country might have been invaded by tiny Bulgarian ballet teachers.
Who cares.
Heath was a loser and an idiot. Thatcher was a winner and she transformed the country. End of.
84. yes yes but you are still trying to argue that Heath was ‘capable’ and yet it is his abject failure in office we should somehow applaud…
Many of us 50 somethings who actually lived through the Heath era would testify to David Herdson’s balanced interpretation of those years. Much ridiculed for his 1974 ‘Who Governs Britain’(not you)question; Heath’s successor answered it irrefutably almost exactly a decade later.
89 and 90 Sorry to intrude on an internal argument, but what a load of right wing b….ks. It’s these sort of attitudes that has led to some of our huge social problems in this country.
92
I lived through the Heath years.
My main memory is lighted candles at home and workinga 3 day week due to power shortages.
The man was an abject failure as a PM.. as was his successor but one Jim Callaghan.
The only PM who comes out of the 1970-90s period with credit is Mrs Thatcher.
93. I too remember the power cuts of 73. Huddled around a fecking candle. Jeepers. The country was ruined by thirty years of socialism, and was about to get worse. Argh. The 70s!!
Thank God for the blessed Margaret. Who saved the country. May peace be upon her. I think they should erect seventy foot high carbonized steel statues to Margaret Thatcher in all the northern cities, so ex polytechnic lecturers can prostrate themselves before her, while Northern folk caper around in their “clogs”, singing songs composed in her honour.
94. Then hopefully Tony will come and tear them down.
85 Tim, maybe I’m becoming an old fogey or its having been educated in colonial primary schools but from my experience of English primary education there is too little aspiration from the teachers.
I left primary school a term early and transferred to an English public school missing the first form but found I was ahead in maths, English and other subjects. My fellow pupils in standards three through to five included children bought up in rural African villages (mud huts, mothers hand grinding corn etc.) who’s first languages were not English. There were large numbers of transient expatriate kids from UK who joined for a couple of years and who arrived behind us in terms of academic achievement though we started a year later. It was a traditional British primary education, that survives still in the West Indies and Africa, with annual exams, with strong discipline and strong expectations from teachers.
Maybe it’s not the right model for today but its outcomes should be the targets for today - that almost certainly needs more resourcing of primary education, more smaller schools (including keeping village schools) and smaller classes. Unless we raise the achievements of primary education we don’t have the base of social mobility, we end up on one hand with Jade Goody and co, obviously smart (she has made a fortune from little) but uneducated, and on the other with gangs of youths and cycles of dependency.
87. Really - how many more times are you going to bore us with your A-level economics essay from 1985?
The IMF estimated unemployment needed to rise beyond 3 million in their reports on the UK in 1976/1977, if proper structural adjustment and macroeconomic policies were implemented. The only real question was how quickly this was going to happen.
Returning to the topic: the Tuesday poll should test whether the Conway affair and related issues have in fact damaged the Tories. I think it will have reduced certainty to vote in all parties, perhaps a bit more among Tory voters, but I don’t think we’ll see a big shift in party share. Something like 37/32/21 looks plausible to me.
I keep an eye on the General Election spread markets because they give an indication of how expectations are changing, and the striking thing is the long periods where nothing much happens - Spreadfair especially seems to have only about two active punters on the GE market most of the time. As the electorate is IMO pretty disengaged and disillusioned at present, you could well see several months where the Tory lead oscillates in the 2-7% range, with the betting stagnant.
[94] Don’t knock the 3-day week and all that. It was the only time I managed to get free beer, getting my 3/4 empty pint glass filled up by candlelight and paying for a half-pint.
As to G’s idea that there is a lot of waste in government bureaucracy that successive governments have failed to cut out - dream on. All governments do things that some of us think a waste of money (I could do without the London Olympics, you will all have your own pet hate) and all government is unbusinesslike due to the demands of the electoral cycle, but the idea that Cameron has a magic efficiency wand is laughable - he certainly never claims to possess such a thing.
And of course to some extent I’ve been debating for the sake of it - but I stand my basic point that the centre of political gravity in England (but not Scotland or Wales) has moved signficantly to the right, and is still moving to the right. I daresay there are several States in the USA which are more “left” than England now is - for sure that wasn’t so a generation ago.
24. Surprised no one has commented on this startling Zogby poll, which seems to show Obama IN THE LEAD in California.
Is this right? Am I reading that right?
If it is accurate, then that is a remarkable turnaround for Obama - from double digit deficits a fortnight back.
I think if he can actually WIN California that might give him enough momentum to take the Nom. But I am prepared to be disabused of my dreamcasting by people better versed in American politics.
97 Off to eat with relatives,so no hurry,but not withstanding Great Britain’s taking their IMF loan in 1976- a whole TWO percent of gross domestic product at the time,paid off AHEAD of schedule,where and when did the IMF state the UK needed to endure 12-13% unemployment,and for what time scale-I would be genuinely interested to read any such document
O/T Interesting that David Davis apparently wrote to Gordon Brown three weeks ago claiming the a Labour MP was being bugged, but received no response, not even an acknowledgement. BBC says his letter will be released this afternoon.
Apart from the obvious discourtesy (if true), the dithering tag may also raise its head again. All rather odd.
99. I was thinking more about what one prospective Tory MEP said, one of the very few times i’ve found myself agreeing with them, http://vickyford.blogspot.com/
86
There is also this excellent piece by Miranda Green, on David Cameron.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2251560,00.html
[103] I take Vicky Ford’s point, but that’s hardly going to save billions, is it?
100 SeanT
It’s a very muddled picture, not just in California but elsewhere.
There’s been a whole batch of polls just out (check Realclearpolitics - new polls) and taken as a whole they do suggest some movement towards Obama but it’s slight and patchy.
Naturally it would be a big plus if he can take California but you are looking at one in isolation. It’s the first to show him ahead so I wouldn’t read too much into it.
Of course Ca is not winner-take- all so if he can come a close second the battle goes on, especially if he does well elsewhere.
Exec summary: Obama possibly closing slowly overall; likely to be very close on Tuesday; Hillary probable winner but by no means certain; this one could run and run.
102 I heard that on the radio as well. How can the Shadow Home Secretary know about the bugging when jack straw/jacki smith claim to know nothing about it?
OT: I’ve lost track of the warf and weft of the various Labour funding scandals, but can a keener student of mendacity and incompetence tell me if they’ve given back the Abrahams money yet?
105. I’m not after billions just less of an incomprehensible catch-22 like monster.
The one set of figures from those released today that any democratic super Tuesday voter should have imprinted on their mind when they vote -
McCain 49, Clinton 46
McCain 46, Obama 49
Do they want a democrat president or not? Their choice but one that the rest of the world will have to live with.
100 SeanT - Not too surprised, actually. He’s been leading in fundraising in California since October, and that is in smaller denominations more indicative of popular support.
Being proportional, as long as it’s close, California is as much about bragging rights as actual delegates. If Obama wins CA, they’ll have fewer than 50 delegates between them, if Hillary wins, that gap could stretch to about 120.
Minnesota and Missouri are the ones to watch. I reckon both to Obama, though I was brought round on the former by SSI, because it is a caucus. I’m wondering if Missouri (between his state of Illinois and his mother’s state of Kansas) could actually be the most interesting test for him, now Georgia looks safe.
The weird part about post 24 is that Romney is leading in California, and if that’s true, I wouldn’t put Illinois out of his grasp either. With Maine proving he can get the vote out in the North East, RI CT and DE are possibly in play too. That would make Super Tuesday very tight in the GOP race indeed.
Strike that - most surprising thing is what the hell is Obama doing at 42%, and only 1 point behind Hillary, in NEW JERSEY?!
New thread - Guest slot: Ben Surtees previews Tsunami Tuesday
106, 110, 111. Fascinating. Ta.
From a purely voyeuristic point of view I’d like the GOP race to tighten again. So much more interesting. Though it does look like the The Democratic Race is gonna have a decent West End run, all by itself.
I still think Hillary is gonna get the Nom and the Prez. But I wouldn’t wager a cent on it.
112 Even more polls just out, Morus, and again, not all moving in step.
Tricky.
112 Have you seen the Sunday Times article on Cormac’s successor. Seems you’ll have to expand your list to include some Monk people have never heard of. Also they claim Peter Smith has Cormac’s backing which given his relations with the Vatican must be the Catholic equivalent of Lembit Opik’s support in a Liberal Democrat Leadership contest
115 - I don’t knoe, I’d say that, with the addition of teh Mason Dixon ones, that McCain is sitting very pretty now. On the Dem side Obama in contention in Arizona and New Jersey is quite a surprise, both backed up by two polls.
Don’t forget either that being within 5 or so percent in non WTA states (ie all Dem ones) can mean statistically very little difference in terms of delegates.
UK big picture in the light of recent polls..
http://www.titanictown.plus.com/bigpic.jpg
O/T Does anybody actually know what the Tories meant by:
“Are you thinking what we’re thinking?”
I’ve never figured it out….
119 - what it meant to be a rhetorical question? I just thought the answer was “No”.
Well it was a silly slogan and I say that as a Tory. You never ask an open question that might have a negative answer. Basic marketing stuff.