London: The Pollsters vs The Punters vs PoliticsHome
April 19th, 2008
Which is the best guide to the likely outcome?
Just twelve days to go before more than five million Londoners get the chance to vote in an election that is being widely regarded as a proxy for the general election. Because it is in the capital and because of the massive national media coverage the winner of Britain’s single election will have an enormous impact on the overall political environment.
The stakes are enormous: a Conservative win with Boris Johnson will provide a massive platform for Cameron in his general election campaign; a Conservative defeat will raise doubts about the party leadership and will cause many to question the big national opinion poll leads that they are currently enjoying.
It was David Cameron, after all, who was the main force behind the Boris Johnson candidature. So which way is it going to go? Can Livingstone hold onto the job he has made his own over the past eight years?
I thought it would be useful to bring together the available numerical data:-
With the latest polls from both MORI and YouGov showing a 6% Johnson margin on first preferences the one that is slightly out of kilter is the new site, the political news aggregator, PoliticsHome. Their figures are based on regular surveys of 100 “experts” who are regularly asked questions. Now I wonder if the views of the panel members would be different if they were backing them up with hard cash? The prospect of losing a lot of money if your analysis is wrong certainly focuses the mind.
The next mayoral polls will be vital. My guess is that we should see the regular one from YouGov in the Evening Standard on Monday but I have not heard if anything is planned for publication this weekend.
Four years ago the final YouGov poll had it at Ken 37% to Norris’s 26% on first preferences. In the election the shares were Ken 35.7% to Norris’s 28.2%.
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I’m still up for my £20 charity bet that Brian Paddick will exceed Hughes’ 2004 first preference percentage.
Very interesting article, Mike. The Mayoral Election could set an important precedent as ’swing state London’ reinforces a national trend. Perhaps the SNP victory in Scotland started the trend?
157. Previous thread. I don’t think there is anyone on Earth that thinks Islam is a ‘religion of peace’. Quite the contrary, there is a lot of evidence that it is the ‘religion of war’. Of course may be you were being elliptical.
Fitna 1/2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37w-aXGk8M0
Fitna 2/2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2gTRVgPyKY&feature=related
On this topic Labour were getting fried alive on Question Time yesterday. Everyone in the audience and the rest of the panel seemed baffled as to why Labour were flooding the country with migrants.
The recent Parliamentary investigation and report, showed immigrants provide virtually no economic benefit to the UK - i.e. just 74p per immigrant, and have a huge cost in terms of higher crime, overcrowding, housing pressure, congestion and public services usage. The ‘immigration crisis’ is the biggest problem facing Britain today. A recent report showed that immigrants are responsible for 20% of all murders in the UK, as well as all terrorism since the year 2000.
Then there is the more recent EU enlargement. Most of the rest of the EU blocked eastern European immigration until 2009 - they knew what would happen if they didn’t. Why did the Labour government not do the same?
And more than twice as many of those entering are still from outside the EU! and unskilled. While Britain’s current unemployment total including IB is 3.4 million! It doesn’t make sense.
So why are they doing it?
The audience was baffled.
The answer. Labour believed that immigrants would vote Labour.
And the truth. Nearly all are economic migrants. They are no sooner here then they want to stop any further immigration, as they know full well it would destroy the country and its quality of life – that they themselves want to enjoy. It’s only logical.
Evidence from Barking and Dagenham shows that large numbers of immigrants voted for the BNP. Immigration was never really an issue of race, just about quality of life. If there are too many assimilation becomes impossible. The findings of the BBC survey are profound. The public is overwhelmingly, very, very angry about the immigration crisis.
To quote the QT panellist ‘Britain is full’.
The answer is to combine them, Mike…
http://www.uwf.edu/govt/facultyforums/documents/PollyvoteApplyingComboPrinciple_000.pdf
What proportion of migrants can vote in general elections? very few.
4. Rubbish, every migrant from a commonwealth country (why else would the government facilitate immigration from Pakistan?), can register to vote as soon as they step off the plane.
5. you haven’t answered my question merely repeated the sterotype. What proportion of migrants are eligable to vote in GE’s ? very few.
Surely it was always clear that immigration was being used to defend the economy from wage-related inflationary pressure - or, as Gordon would have put it had it been done by a Tory chancellor, to grind the poor into the dust by driving down their wages through the importation of cheap foreign labour willing to work in appalling conditions for next to nothing.
Apparently it’s ok to do it if your Labour though, because if you’re Labour that means you’re a really nice person and you really care, and stuff, so the poor should actually be quite grateful. It isn’t everybody that can get p1ssed on by proper decent caring nice people, after all. And then they get to have their income tax doubled at the same time! Yea! I reckon they should just enjoy it actually, and stop complaining. And that’s why I’m going to vote for Gordon Brown.
Oh yesh.
More beer, I think…
I’m prepared to admit that the entire political class has ballsed up immigration because (a) we benefit from the polish plumber rather than have them stand against us for election (b) nobody saw the numbers from EU accession states comming. (c) completely inadequate revenue and infrastructure support to those councils most effected.
However the idea that “Labour” flooded the country with immigrants
so they would all vote for them is up there with faking the Moon landings in my view.
6. 90% of none eu immmigrants are from commonwealth countries
8. There is absolutely and utterly no convincing argument for *any* immigration from Pakistan or Bangladesh, yet we continue to be flooded from these regions.
Pakistan has a culture, religion, and society without any redeeming qualities whatsoever. Except, they vote Labour at 85%+
8. The Polish Plumber is a myth, the overwhelming majority of polish immigration is unskilled eager young men.
seeking refuge in percentages of “Non Eu” migrants is disengenious. The vast bulk of recent immigration has been EU and they can’t vote in GE’s.
Your comments on Pakistan are just xenophobic. I’d have more time for this whole social policy acid trip if ANYBODY was serious about (a) skills training in britain. we seem genetically incapable of getting non academic training right (b) getting serious about economically inactive people. Of course a substantial chunck of people on sickness benefits are genuine but the current total is about 300k less than Labour inherted from the tories which is pitiful for 11 years in power.
If it wasn’t for EU accession migrants I’d like to know who would have serviced the long service/contruction boom we have all benefited from.
Anyway I can’t see the problem from a temporay influx of polite, hard working white christains from sister countries as the eastern europeans are. the spainish/greek/portugese examples suggest most will go home when there home economies start to expand from EU membership anyway.
2 Good post. The public must hold Labour to account on immigration.
4 What proportion of migrants can vote in general elections? Many.
Aside from postal vote fraud…Irish, Indians, Pakistanies and Zimbabweans can vote. Labour also issues passports to lower number of ‘immigrants’ in statistics.
much of the immigration from the countries you worry about is family-related. As far as I am aware, the much-vaunted Conservative policy of quotas would not be applied to this, just as it would not be applied to EU immigration.
Although important, this early morning Off Thread immigration discussion is a little random.
Most made their minds up about mass immigration - and lefty cfeatures telling people “up is down”, “black is white” and “night is day” doesnt help, it just gets people riled.
Perhaps we could say, “we agree to disagree”. If you like immigration, vote Labour (or LibDem). If not, vote Conservative…
What is important for this site, is the impact immigration will have on vote trends.
I think we can all agree the British voters are farirly hostile to Labour’s immigration policy.
The questions are:
1) How does that translate in votes
2) Do immigrants vote - even if registered?
3) Do immigrants vote Labour (gratitude?)
Would the pros outvote the antis? Or vice versa?
8 “the idea that “Labour” flooded the country with immigrants so they would all vote for them is up there with faking the Moon landings”
Ah come on. You know it is true. Everyone knows it is true. There is no other explanation.
Watch some documentaries on the New Labour Project. There are some interesting qoutes:
“Bloody British working class. They read the Sun and vote Conservative”…
and that old gem from Roy Hattersley “No Ethnic group should be in a majority over others in one country”
Lawrence Gaz and Fresco. I think you’ve stumbled onto the wrong site. Here’s what you were looking for
http://www.stormfront.org/forum/
18 Hey Roger, you know I am not white. I dont think I would be welcome on a White Power site.
But anyway, what do you think?
Will Anti-Immigration voters outweigh any benefit Labour may gain? Or vice versa? Or none at all?
Sorry to go on topic……
Report back to pbcom from the outer Borough Blue heartlands from an experienced cavasser who doesn’t do hyperbole and always marks his sheets defensively downward.
Boris remains staggeringly/absolutely rock solid on the doorstep even amongst those Conservatives who think, to paraphrase, that he’s a bit of a chump.
Straight crossing from Lab(S)& LD(L)remains commonplace and possibles(P)are unusually rare.
Although I have to say it remains predominantly an ‘anti-Ken’
mindset rather than anything more positive, he also appears to have
an almost monopoly on the frst time voters in particular.
If the vote turns out, and I sense it will, I genuinely think there’s a prospect he can pass 50% first time out (dependent on the size of the BNP vote (who are going to cream UKIP))
Final margin ? .. controversial, could be as high as 15%
Tory Boy. I have a feeling you might be right. Incidentally I sent the British Legion Pall Mall a cheque for £100 as discussed and they haven’t acknowledged. Maybe they didn’t like my explanation for the donation? I haven’t checked if they’ve cashed the cheque yet but if they haven’t I’ll re-submit.
19. Al Freco (not). If you thought post 2 was a “good post” either you didn’t read it, didn’t look at the links or haven’t yet woken up. Otherwise as I suggested you’ll be more comfortable with ‘Stormfront’ because whatever ethnic background you’re from you’ll find their preoccupations and yours are the same.
Tory Boy @ 20 re Boris’s lead in outer London. Where are you? In other words, if you are in West or South-West London, might this be largely a reaction to the congestion charge zone expansion, in which case we should be wary of extrapolation across London?
OT, but its very important politically just now… herewith Jon Craig’s latest blog post on the 10p tax row. He doesn’t mince his words…. eg ..Mr Brown, who is either pig-headed or in denial…
now read on…
http://adamboulton.typepad.com/my_weblog/
Well what you have done?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=560579&in_page_id=1770
A waste of police time and money, perhaps?
22- Roger old friend- nothing worse than this anti immigration rant that this site becomes.
We should simply end national borders, and allow people to live, travel and work where they please. I could imagine nothing worse than having to live in a white, royalist, Tory, racist, small minded, narrow minded, bitter little Island. The more foreigners the better, especially those with a different culture to the oikish, chavish, indigenous one that often pervades here (see Dez, freco, Lawrence).
Last traded prices on Betfair were 1.57 BORIS 2.72 KEN and sadly it is hardly worth recording the other two prices.
A week or so ago I put up 1.6 and 3.1 in volume with little response at the time although of course the 1.6 was taken after I
When even the Daily Record editorial starts being positive (or at least neutral) about the Scottish National Party government then you know that the Scottish Labour Party are in profound trouble. After all, the Record is the in-house bog roll bible of the ‘less gifted’ members of the Labour Establishment (rapidly becoming the former Establishment).
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/comment/newspaper-opinion/2008/04/19/salmond-s-sitting-pretty-86908-20387793/
Only three days ago, the Record editorial was: ‘We Should Trust In Gord’
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/comment/newspaper-opinion/2008/04/16/we-should-trust-in-gord-86908-20384621/
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.2209735.0.Sturgeon_we_will_build_more_council.php
Tyson @ 26: “oikish, chavish, indigenous …” — you are New Labour, and I claim my five pounds.
Further evidence of the decline of Law’n'Order under Labour:
Labour MP in bonnet dent shocker:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/7355575.stm
That was strange I got cut off in midpost !
FFing to toady,I don’t feel inclined to put up prices and feel that one further push for BORIS could see the contest all over.
This has not been a very pleasing thread.I could be unique in that I have little interest in the small change of Party Politics but a fierce interest in political betting on domestic issues.
I don’t want to be reading about ‘floods of immigrants’ on a betting site.I would rather be reading about ‘floods of money’ !
29
If it had been me, that van driver would be nursing two broken headlights!!
I am constantly surprised that a country which is respected the world over for its unique “liberal” philosophy and culture seems to have a large number of people obsessed with trying out centralist, authoritarian solutions to sort out a single issue.
I think the mayoral race will be very tight - and unlike many of the commentators above - London’s voters are concerned over a number of issues and are probably rightly undecided whether to stick with the devil we know or to try the devil we don’t. I suspect also that Paddick’s share of the vote is probably being underestimated.Second preference votes will also play a larger part this time.
29. Robin. Read Coldstone’s link at 25. I think the MP did the right thing. I saw someoe do the same over a yellow cab in New York and people applauded. White van man doesn’t yet rule!
Quick comment before heading out campaignwards this morning.
I have no idea about London other than that reported through the media and websites. However, if the feeling there is anything like that here - where I have done a lot of canvassing - Boris will win. I would expect a national projected share of the local vote similar to that of last year, but with a slight Lab to Con swing of about 1%. That should be enough for Boris.
Obviously, there are dangers from projecting national shares from just one ward, especially one without many Labour voters, but it’s the best independent evidence I have.
On my betting, I laid off my liability were Ken to win, before the last debate, and am now positioned that I win a moderate amount if it’s Boris and pence if it’s Ken. Short of something dramatic happening, that’s probably the position I’ll let run to election day. I’m not convinced enough that Boris is guarenteed the win to risk a significant loss at this stage.
Roger @ 33 — isn’t the MP denying it?
26. Tyson. Though I enjoyed your post 26. very much posting it on here is rather like shouting fire in a crowded theatre!
Wendy “ten-out-of-ten” Alexander has “no further questions” to ask of the First Minister of Scotland?!? And she is meant to be the leader of the ‘opposition’?!?
‘No one can lift a finger to stop Alex Salmond’, by Alan Cochrane, Daily Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/04/18/do1805.xml
‘Stay Zipped’, by Brian Taylor, BBC Scotland’s political editor
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/briantaylor/2008/04/stay_zipped.html
FMQ’s Podcast page:
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/This-Week/Broadcast/Podcast/FMQs
35. John. Probably denying he caused ‘criminal damage’.
I really don’t understand why the Gov is being so pig headed about sorting the abolition of the 10% tax rate. If 5m people lose an average of £100 a head then for £0.5bn it could be sorted - That is the sort of loose change the Treasury could find in one of its sofas.
I think it will be sorted just in time for the May elections (hang on is that allowed!!)
If anyone should be prosecuted, it should be the van driver for obstruction!
Holyrood Live, 17 April 2008, BBC iPlayer:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/search/?q=holyrood+live
On topic: many Labour voters are currently annoyed about one issue or another, and I’d be surprised if it was much different in London. I’d like to be wrong but we try to be reasonably frank with each other.
Lawerence, welcome to the site as a new poster, but a couple of things that perhaps you could bear in mind:
- The threads are already pretty long, so we try to avoid posting the same thing more than once, unless it got caught at the very end of a previous thread
- We generally try to post in relation to the topic in the first replies, as otherwise it looks as though we don’t care that the host has bothered to write anything for us (’never mind that, what *I* want to talk about is…’). Later on in the threads everyone drifts off as they feel like it.
I disagree with your post (and even more with Gaz’s bizarrely sweeping post about Pakistan at 10 - been there a lot, have you, Gaz?), but what we agree or disagree about isn’t really the purpose of the site, so I’ll say no more.
39
Its not as simple as that methinks, Gordo wont ever admit it was an error. If he is as crazy as to blame the Conservatives for HIS mad decision to sell off the gold reserves losing the nation 2 billion in the process, I hardly think he’s going to admit he got it wrong on the 10p tax rate…unless of course he lays the blame on Darling. With a man so out of touch with reality,I guess that’s possible.
39: Icarus, leaving aside the politics of it, which I’m not getting into on this forum, to answer your question (’what’s the problem, it’s small change?’): the structural difficulty is that helping the group affected by the 10p issue would normally be done by something like raising personal allowances, which would help them but also give money to everyone else, especially anyone in the 40p band, who would get the extra allowance sliced off their top rate. That’s why it would cost £7 billion (which in turn is why neither opposition party has actually said they’ll do anything about it).
A bluntly targeted approach (£100 tax discount for everyone earning less than £20K, say) has problems at the edge of the band - someone who earns £1 more at £20,001 suddenly loses £100. The solution may be phased personal allowances, but that’s the sort of structural change that can’t easily be done as a quick fix, especially as employers have anticipated the chages so everyone’s PAYE is on the new rates.
Nick Palmer at 42 - “Later on in the threads everyone drifts off as they feel like it.”
A polite way of saying that we all bore each other sleep…
45 “to sleep” that should read…
Oh well, it was a poor joke to begin with.
42. There does seem to be a lot of anger with the Labour government at the moment. I can’t really understand why. The country is in an infinitely better state socially and economically than it was in when the opposition last ruled.
43, on Any Questions yesterday Frederick Forsythe[sp] referred to the old saying “Who the gods wish to destroy they first make mad” (more or less anyway).
Gordon’s off with the fairies. And if he doesn’t want to go Labour has the less than appetising choice of major bloodletting a year before a General Election or going into the campaign led by the Brown One.
21 Your probity was never in question Roger. No receipts required !
23 John L I’m not from the West or SW and CG charging isn’t an issue here (though we continue to use it as a stick to beat Ken with naturally !)
I’m told by friends in LD held Sutton and Richmond that despite their half decent councils (grudge, grudge - though I believe the latter will catch a cold on their anti 4×4 crusade) much the same is true there too.
It really does seem Boris’ to lose at this stage.
Boris in the Guardian
http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/wellbeing/story/0,,2274301,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=politics
47, you think the position now is better than in 1997?
Are the pensions in a better state? Were we embroiled in two wars, one of which was undertaken based on lies and in the face of enormous protest?
Did we have to pay to university? I know I did.
Did we have £100bn liability on a nationalised bank and billions of off-balance sheet debt for PFI?
Could men protest in Parliament Square without a permission slip from the state?
Did local councils have the right to put families under surveillance?
Some things have got better. But a hell of a lot is worse.
I expect Boris will win and that the punters have got the probabiities about right just at present. Next week’s Question Time debate has the potential to shake up the race.
As to whether it is a proxy for the GE, I’m not so sure. If Boris wins then it will be a great fillip for Cameron and will add to the Tory momentum. To win with an inexperienced blustering candidate over the wily older Labour incumbent will be reported as a sea change in the wider political climate and a great Tory win. But if Ken wins then the argument will go that Londoners weren’t prepared to take a risk on Boris and preferred to stick with Ken as “the devil you know” who is his own man and not really NuLabour anyway.
Both candidates are mavericks. A win for Boris is a win for The Tories while a win for Ken, in the context of poor local election results nationally and in London, may not be seen as a win for NuLabour. Can’t see much downside here for Cameron.
Well, the one thing all three have in common is that they all show Boris winning. So maybe they’re all right?
47. No it isn’t.
36. David, my betting strategy and position is the same as yours.
26. Tyson - your post just annoyed me.
Take Nick Palmer’s financial pronouncements with a pinch of salt, given that it wasn’t long ago he was saying ID cards would “pay for themselves”.
48
Well Forsyth should know!!
47 Have a problem with that suggestion personally.Do you really believe the massive rise in Public debt is sustainable ?
How are we able to cut taxes and borrow when the forthcoming recession bites as a textbook economist would advise ?
How on earth is it ever going to be repaid ?
We now have crippled banks who can’t pass on rate cuts to
mortgagees who in turn are facing higher taxes, mortgage rates and increasing job insecurity driving them into reduced spending further inhibiting the wider economy.
You can argue they’ve improved things socially, depending on your outlook (I think the multiculturalism and positive action agenda has been a disaster which is probably why I remain out of sync with project Cammo)but economiclly they’ve been a complete and utter disaster.
In summary, any fool can fuel a boom ; it’s what you do when the bubble bursts and the Brown stuff (quite apt that !)hits the fan that’s vital and I can’t see that anyone from any of the main parties has the first clue how to go about doing so.
Scary.
51 - “Did local councils have the right to put families under surveillance?”
I would guess, yes. The difference now is that in order to put somebody under surveillance the council has to record that it is doing so in accordance with RIPA. So the difference is that now the numbers are measurable, and available under FOI requests, whereas before they weren’t. In other words, RIPA wasn’t introduced to provide investigating organisations with extra powers - it was introduced to regulate specificly what was and wasn’t allowed (similar to the arguments recently over use of human embryos).
Happy to stand corrected if I’m wrong.
Good news from across the pond for both Presidential Democrat candidates.
Firstly, Obama held a hugely successful and well covered rally in Philadelhia with tens of thousands attending. This at the statrt of his final push in the state.
More importantly for Hillary she has at last picked up some super delegates, three in fact. Although well down on the weeks total, it’s a timely boost for Clinton.
http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/philly_ignites_for_obama.php
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/clinton-gets-3-new-superdelegates/
Anyone know if we’ll be getting a Mayoral poll in the Sunday papers?
Return of slave labour to the UK
http://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/slavelabour/display.var.2202597.0.slave_labour_in_south_essex.php
‘One illegal immigrant was smashed in the head with an axe and racially taunted after spending just a week at the illegal Hovefields camp’.
New PSRA/Newsweek Presidential and Primary Polls :
McCain 43% .. Clinton 47%
McCain 44% .. Obama 48%
Clinton 35% .. Obama 54%
http://www.newsweek.com/id/132730
re 60 I think that they will be holding their fire (and budget!) until next Sunday.
Certainly I have not heard of anything.
The only national papers that have paid for London polls are the stablemates, the Guardian and the Observer, which have both been taking a very strong pro-Livingstone stance.
The others polls have been appearing in the Evening Standard or on London ITV.
Two other polls that have been published have been private ones - one for the Labour party and the other for the public service union, UNISON. If they have done other polls, which I think they have, then they have not made them public.
The Tories have also been doing private polling.
I see Labour’s latest plan to bail out the banks has been deliberately complicated so that it doesn’t appear on the national debt and thus bust the “golden rule” already revised numerous times.
They really are a lying cheating bunch of sleazebags. You get the feeling as someone once said of Nixon that they would lie even when it wasn’t necessary just to keep their hand in.
Nick Palmer you seem to have taken the site prefect badge from Peter the Punter. Did he leave it with you when he went off to sun himself in Spain?
44.The best way to help those on Lower and middle incomes is to replace Council tax with local income tax.That would save them signficantly more than reinstating the 10% band.
Surprisingly haven’t heard much about this from Lib dem local election camaign.A missed opportunity particularly when combined with the 4p cut in income tax.
Rogerh
63. Thanks Mike.
We’ll have to wait until Monday’s Standard/YouGov poll, I guess. It’ll be interesating to see what happens. I suspect Boris’s lead will be down slightly again.
My concern is not whether Boris wins or not . I am more worried that, if he does win, Ken and certain unions will do everything they can to sabotage his term in office. I do not believe that Labour will go quietly, and there is potential for great damage to the Cons in London (and elsewhere) over the next two years. I suspect this is Camerons greatest worry - and the greatest risk from a maverick candidate.
67
why do you suspects that Boris’ lead will go down?
42
Nick,with all the restlessness & resignation threats amongst your colleagues,weren’t any of them listening when the changes were made to the tax rate 12 months ago or is it just opportunism?
As those threatening to resign are doing so 12 months after the event,could we see some additional resignations over Iraq?
We assume that there are 12 days to go and the final televised debate may have an impact.
However - can anyone confirm the number of postal votes and historic % returned In London? I guess the postal votes are landing on doorsteps about now?
Given the much higher likliehood to vote by post (and return within a couple of days) is the contest potentially going to be decided way before the final week/debate?
“Back in Iowa, Barack Obama promised to be something new — an unconventional leader who would confront unpleasant truths, embrace novel policies and unify the country. If he had knocked Hillary Clinton out in New Hampshire and entered general-election mode early, this enormously thoughtful man would have become that.”
Wow.
What a thaught.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/opinion/18brooks.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin
[44] Oh dear, Nick. Are you really reduced to saying “we dropped a b*ll*ck, but we can’t think of a way out”?
Here’s one, off the top of my head. The people adversely affected can be identified by their tax code. Give them (and no one else) a £200 Council tax rebate.
Further and better ideas can no doubt be found by enquiring in the canteen at 1, Horse Guards Road. The food’s good, too.
66 O/T RogerH - a major problem over last 5 or so decades has been the transformation of local government into an agency of central government. This current Government has made this explicit in its proposals.
Income tax - whether local or national - would be collected by central government and as with business rates and other taxes would then be distributed in a formulaic fashion, subject to ministerial whims and party politics.
So local Government would no longer have any locally raised income other than from parking, rubbish collection or congestion charges. There would be a push to retain some form of property tax but Treasury would probably bid to control that.
With no control over taxation or income and precious little control over functional delivery (central targets), what would be the point of local government?
Completely OT but for all those who know the charming island of Sark. A lesson in being seduced by ‘masters of the universe’ bearing gifts…
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3671993.ece
Agree with stjohn at 52: the conservatives have a lot more to gain than they have to lose with the mayoral election, and in terms of the GE, the best solution may be for Boris to be ahead on first preferences but then to be overtaken by Ken on seconds. However my instinct is currently Boris by 7% on first preferences, and then to win it by 6%.
It’s been fascinating to scan the mood music on here over the last couple of weeks - unless you directly blame Labour for the state of the economy and believe the Tories would have done better it’s not specifics that are dragging Labour down, but a lack of confidence in the leadership and vision of the Government.
I can see this in Nick’s post at 44 - ‘even if we wanted to change the tax system, it’s too complicated’ - come on Nick, you know that if the political will is there, a way will be found. What ever happened to your Government’s belief that you could transform the country? What was it that reduced you to saying ‘it’s too complicated’? Where did your zeal and fire go? Chin up - it’s not too late, but I’m afraid it reads to me as a tired post symbolic of a tired Government.
WILL MCCAIN SAY THIS:
” It seems to me it would be a brilliant thing for him to announce he means to be a one-term president, that he means to have a clean, serious, one-term presidency in which he will do things those under pressure of re-election do not and cannot do. This would be received as a refreshment, a way out for the voters in a year they seem to want a way out. For many in the middle it would be a twofer. You get a good man, for only four years, and Mr. Obama gets to grow and deepen. He’ll be better older.
The downside? Americans like knowing they can fire a president. It’s how they keep them in line. And lame-duckness from day one would not be empowering.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120846056666123713.html?mod=todays_columnists
——
Sounds like a good strategy to me.
Were he to go for it, I would raise on him winning in november….
Want do yoy think?
76. To be fair it’s always hard to target the poor without also benefitting the rich. The best and possibly only way with direct taxation is to raise the higher rates but this was apparently a plegdge at the last election. A foolish one but rather typical of the then PM.
75 Notice that the Barclay’s achieve what they want almost entirely through recourse to law and with aid of HM Government. One wonders what would happen the people of Sark elect an assembly that brings in massive property taxes for estates above a certain value or some other financial disbenefit to protect its fragile democracy from undue influence (which the Barclay’s claim they want through their attacks on the old regime).
Barclays not Barclay’s - thinking of the bank not the brothers.
Also O/T but worth reposting, part of a letter in the current London Review of Books - I don’t always agree with Zizek, hell, I can’t always understand him (so how would I know if I agreed with him or not?) - but this is I think relevant to the charges of authoritarianism levelled here against the current Government from Peebies of very different political colouration:
The question is often asked: given the explosion of capitalism in China, when will democracy assert itself there, as capital’s ‘natural’ political form of organisation? The question is often put another way: how much faster would China’s development have been if it had been combined with political democracy? But can the assumption be made so easily? In a TV interview a couple of years ago, Ralf Dahrendorf linked the increasing distrust of democracy in post-Communist Eastern Europe to the fact that, after every revolutionary change, the road to new prosperity leads through a ‘vale of tears’. After socialism breaks down the limited, but real, systems of socialist welfare and security have to be dismantled, and these first steps are necessarily painful. The same goes for Western Europe, where the passage from the welfare state model to the new global economy involves painful renunciations, less security, less guaranteed social care. Dahrendorf notes that this transition lasts longer than the average period between democratic elections, so that there is a great temptation to postpone these changes for short-term electoral gain. Fareed Zakaria has pointed out that democracy can only ‘catch on’ in economically developed countries: if developing countries are ‘prematurely democratised’, the result is a populism that ends in economic catastrophe and political despotism. No wonder that today’s economically most successful Third World countries (Taiwan, South Korea, Chile) embraced full democracy only after a period of authoritarian rule.
Following this path, the Chinese used unencumbered authoritarian state power to control the social costs of the transition to capitalism. The weird combination of capitalism and Communist rule proved not to be a ridiculous paradox, but a blessing. China has developed so fast not in spite of authoritarian Communist rule, but because of it.
There is a further paradox at work here. What if the promised second stage, the democracy that follows the authoritarian vale of tears, never arrives? This, perhaps, is what is so unsettling about China today: the suspicion that its authoritarian capitalism is not merely a reminder of our past – of the process of capitalist accumulation which, in Europe, took place from the 16th to the 18th century – but a sign of our future? What if the combination of the Asian knout and the European stock market proves economically more efficient than liberal capitalism? What if democracy, as we understand it, is no longer the condition and motor of economic development, but an obstacle to it?
Slavoj Žižek
Birkbeck College, London WC1
69. I just suspect that over time, given Ken’s clear advantage over Boris as a camp campaigner, the gap between Ken and Boris will narrow. Boris should still have a small lead going into polling day, though, I would have thought. I suspect all the polls will merge at a 1-2% Boris lead by Thursday week.
[81] Re-reading it, an obvious counter-example comes to mind: India. Zizek’s a bit like that.
[82] GIN, how can anyone have five kids by three different women and still be “camp”?
75 I have visited Sark many times over the past few years with my family, and what is happening there is one of the saddest and most under-reported stories in the British Isles. The difference between the island 12 years ago when I first visited and last year was remarkable. The Barclays are by themselves destroying the whole island’s community and NOTHING is being done to stop them. As Ted says at 79 this was all done with the help of the British govt and Brussels, along with massive amounts of money in the courts. Sark Shipping can’t afford a court case, neither can the Seigneur. The Barclays are also using their massive resources to buy up as much property they can on the island at many times the real price. They are then closing down the businesses in those properties which are the lifeblood of the island. The only thing they fear, as we all know, is publicity, so I’m delighted that the Times has covered the facts in this way.
Sorry for the rant, barclays make me very angry!!
47. Things seem better Roger because we have spent a great deal more than has been earnt.
Alot of people’s personal circumstances are like the Governments’ - overstretched.
If we turn a corner quickly, and I hope we will, people may soften toward the Govt.
Alternatively, the scare may have made them recognise the dangers inherant in the way both they and the Govt have borrowed and reject that model.
ZZ
I’m a big fan of Zizek.
Gordon lacks Tony’s shrug.
When he was caught on the ropes, he faced the world, smiled, sighed, shrugged and used the word ‘guys’ alot.
He worked embarrassingly well for him [embarrassing for the us/the publicthat is].
Gordon does twitching, gurning and inapproprate grinning.
Gordon doesn’t do wrong.
Gordon doesn’t do confidence.
Gordon does pride.
re 82. If the final polls for Ken are showing him level-pegging on first preferences with MORI then would say he is a loser.
With YouGov the final first preference poll needs to have Boris ahead, even by only 1%, for him to be fairly certain of winning.
Mike, how safe do you think bets on Boris atm are? What percentage odds would you think are appropriate?
90. Is that because MORI overstate’s Ken’s support by a small amount?
91
1.77-1.88
We talked on here before about Headcases wondering if it would be on a par with Sptiining Image. For me, it isn’t on any level.
The main political equivalent, is HIGNFY.
Its the sort of left-leaning anti-establisnment TV that tends to both reflect and reinforce.
I was really interested to see last night’s to see how the changes in the politcal landscape were viewed.
Merton, after all, used to stay quiet on Gordon.
94 Headcases can’t work because satire has to be topical - which HIGNFY can be.
This week offered so much - Gordon having to charter a plane with an orange blob on the side, Gordon proclaiming his love for the US and Tony Blair, the Pope popping up at inopportune moments, a PPS threatening to resign until phoned up, a peer with an exploding cotton wool hairstyle calling Gordon a haggis… oh for TW3.
re 91. My safety limit is 4/6 and I’m not betting below that. That is just my cautious approach.
I would suggest waiting until Monday’s new YouGov poll and if that is still in the 6% region then go heavily on Boris. You will need to act fast.
re 92. Every phone poll ever taken on London mayoral elections has over-stated Ken by a considerable degree. That’s the form.
96 - I am heavily on Boris, in a losing position if I lay as I got in before the Newsnight debate. If the poll is closer than that 6% would you suggest ‘cutting loses’ and laying, or ride it out?
85. I first visited Sark in ‘75 when the Dame was still ruling. I went to see what an island without cars and with a parliament made up of the 40 landowners looked like. Whisky cost less than £1 a bottle and fags were almost free.
Though the island looked run down as did the Islanders the first girl I met went to Rhodean. It’s tax free status made the residents wealthy though you wouldn’t have known.
At that time it was quite different from the place you visited 12 years ago. There were dozens of odd laws like no male dogs but no rules and no sign posts and lots of drinking.
Headcases isn’t great and it is clear where the sympathy lies (with labour) i,e Brown is portrayed as stingy and in control, whereas he has probably been the most profligte chancellor ever and a more realistic caricature would have him as Mr Bean stealing peoples money and then wasting it on computers and ID cards and finally forcing the poor to fill in 500 page forms to get a tenth of their money back.
Equally Cameron is portrayed as a toff i.e Labour’s silly line of attack. I feel Bremner’s stereotypical dull satire all over Headcases.
Good satire needs to be routed in truth whatever your political leanings.
How come the master strategist Brown gets himself in such fixes: The election that never was…….the 10p tax band withdrawl and funneist of all Bush getting the better of him again.
For somebody who is supposed to be Clever, Brown gets himself shafted by Bush twice on the trot.
First of all Bush gets him in the golf cart and now he “subprimes” the PM by making him visit in the shadow of the pope! 
I coined the phrase Bush subpriming Brown! 
Looks like a second alleged dunce shafts Brown! 
100. Still i suppose that makes up for Brown shafting the low paid, which is not a laughing matter.
Brown being ’stingy’ is a completely out of date stereotype. From what I’ve heard of Headcases, 90%+ of it could have been written two years ago, its using lazy old stereotypes and not topical.
I’ll stick to HIGNFY
102. It’s mainly crap - why don’t they just bring spitting image back with the puppets?
103, it hasn’t lived up to expectations as yet.
With Labour imploding they could’ve and should’ve shafted Brown.
The Clegg bit was less funny than the average witticism made here (30 women was an open goal, but they did some nonsense about peanuts).
The Tory toff idea just doesn’t ring true. However, the surreal Osborne character is quite hilarious (I doubt he has anything to worry about though, the portrayal is so far from reality I can’t imagine it doing him any damage).
I’ll watch again this week. Hopefully they’ll stick the knife into Brown instead of a rather limpwristed attack.
104. Osborne character - i don’t think it will damage him either! That shit joke was funny but would have been with any MP!
97
my advice : get even — in case of a boris defeat — by betting on hillary wins the PA primary, this tuesday.
can get now 1.22
103. Because all its writers have gone on to other things like HIGNFY.
I always think it is interesting to go back to a show like that after a break.
When you have your head in the political trough 24/7 its easy to overestimate the resonance of events.
Last night, the mood towards Gordon was odd. It was as if the target wasn’t standing up anymore.
He even got an ‘Oorr’.
Smalltown Pennsylvania have Clinton/Obama in statistical dead heat in a local telephone poll with 3 days to go:
http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-a1_5poll.6369774apr19,0,1495764.story
107. What is HIGNFY?
109
Have I Got News For You!!!!!
Brown is completely crap - I really feel sorry for Labour MP’s having to defend someone so out of their depth. Brown makes John Major and his government look good. I mean Gavin Strang would make a better PM than Brown - Strang had a unique reputation amungst the civil service!
I think there is a complicating factor in applying usual filters to polls because Boris is probably attracting support in unusual areas, eg. among the young. As such “bias” in some pollsters may not materialise in the usual directions.
The sign of damaging political satire is when it makes the supporters wince alittle.
None of the Headcases Tory stuff had that effect on me.
Hague’s ‘breathmint’ line was funny.
The fact he plays such a large part with his flat Yorkshire vowels negates the toff effect [such as it is].
110. oh - right! (With Kinnock delivery!)
Yes it can be quite funny that program. They should have done a ken and Boris special - Paddock could have been the straight man (No pun intended!) 
113. Hague’s ‘breathmint’ - Yes i thought that was funny too!
Re Headcases - I’m mystified as to why they’ve made some of the puppets very similar in appearance to their subjects, and some bearing little resemblance at all!
113. & 115 - I hope Osborne finds it funny! It says a lot for the program when they have to attack him through fantasy rather than in reality like Brown and Darling!
116, yeah quite a few have little similarity with their targets whatsoever. Osborne being a good example, which is another reason why the ’satire’ is amusing but not cutting.
116. Yes they are not very good resemblances at all. I am surprised they have not used some of the old guard like Prescott more as spitting image used to pop up some of them.
1. Considering he is far superior candidate to Hughes this would not be surprising. The LDs should look to exploit any momentum by dropping him as PPC into a challenging but winnable London or nearby seat asap
Just to pick up on a number of comments:
37 - It is not that cheap to reinstate the 10p band because all taxpayers would benefit. This is why Brown pursued the tax credit route, it allows much greater targetting. For example it is suggested that he should simply increase the personal allowance and take people out of tax, but this would benefit everyone. However I’d favour it but it would mean an increase in the basic and higher rates to compensate for the lost revenue, not very politically feasible. However it is becoming emblematic in the same way as the 75p issue.
64 - You are confusing the ‘golden rule’ with the ’sustainable debt rule’. The first says that the revenue budget must be balanced over the economic cycle (and this has been fiddled). The second sets a ceiling of debt as a percentage of GDP as 40%. The first makes more sense economically than the second, it is arbitrary and many countries have higher debt levels.
57 - The public financies are not in good shape but they are not disastrous either. Taken as a whole this government has been far less profligate than the Conservatives were over the whole 1979-97 period. If the economy goes into recession then the picture is bleak otherwise it simply means a tighter fiscal policy over the next 5 years. As I pointed out yesterday debt as a % of GDP only went up from 36.6% to 36.7% last year.
I find that generally satire is always much more muted towards Labour than the Conservatives. The 60’s satire scene became much weaker after Wilson’s Labour took over from the Tories.
The next next glorious period of satire was in the 80’s and early 90’s, with Spitting Image and HIGNY, not to mention Drop The Dead Donkey. Again, when Labour came along in 97 satire went down hill. HIGNY is past its sell by date, and Headcase’s don’t have the wit to really go after Brown (yet and probably never will)
However, if we’re heading into a new Conservative era from 2010, so we should see a third golden age of satire to go with it.
Martin.
Good old Bob Marshall Andrews didn’t even try to defend him.
When Gordon’s behaviour was put to him he said ‘Hard to defend that position really’.
When Hislop pointed out they’d got rid of Tony to replace him with someone better, Bob replied, ‘No need to rub it in’.
Bob is very good value. An great old leftie who used to be found talking to Tories in the ‘corridors’ because he had been ostracised by Labour loyalists for his relentless critisism of Tony.
He backed Gordon. But lets not rub it in.
121. Just for the record Brown has been saying that this country is better placed than in 1990. He is wrong - I think that you will find that the government was very close to spending as much as it was taxing plus their had been several years of surplus. This year the government has been in deficeit and has been for many years.
You make me laugh:
this government has been far less profligate than the Conservatives were over the whole 1979-97 period.
What ever happened to Tory cuts?
Because the left in this country, see themselves as anti-establishment, and are uncomfortable defending the government, (even one which they may sympathise with) satire booms during Tory governments, and is lacklustre when Labour is in power.
This is why I’m looking forward to Boris winning in London, I shall be very disappointed if he doesn’t, for the first in years a really good Tory target to take aim at. As for Cameron and Osborne I’m getting a stiffy at the thought: its gonna be heaven.
123.
Brown is truely dreadful as a PM! The thing that cracks me up is Brown thinks he is good and should have always been PM. I bet John Major wished he had been up against Brown instead of Blair.
77 - I can see why people would see it as a master-stroke, but three things occur:
1) Is McCain prepared to bind his own hands that way? He must realise that it would be a hard job for even a 95-year-old to give up. What if he finds he loves it and is in great health? If ever there was a President who looked like he might consider ignoring the 22nd Amendment(Bill aside!), I could see it being McCain.
2) George W Bush has spent almost three years as a lame duck President - it has been extraorinary how little of his agenda has been accomplished since he won more votes than any President in history. That has beenunspeakably frustrating for the Republican Party. With both houses of Congress looking like being staunchly Democrat, a ‘one-term promise’ (ie none of our agenda for another four years, just the blame for whatever goes wrong in Iraq) would surely scare the hell out of the GOP - in fact, good strategy as I think the ‘one term’ idea would be generally, for someone with as little base inside the party as McCain, it could even lead to questions about whether he should be the GOP nominee.
3) Promising one-term is an acknowledgement that his age is, in some way, a factor. Expect either Democrat to hit him hard - “will be too old in four years, but age not a factor now?”. Dangerous.
Great point to raise though - thanks for the link.
125. Yes - your right. I also think that because Hague is a Tory the pints thing becomes funny because it is not sterotypically tory. Having said that i think spitting image used to have prescott with pints or cans?
126 Had Brown listened to Blair in 1992 and stood, he may well have been
125.
You need to get out a bit more.
At least open the curtains.
125. As for Cameron and Osborne I’m getting a stiffy at the thought -
Good grief are you all right?
127 You have your reply on the previous thread I think
128 Didn’t the Queen Mum drink Newcastle Brown?
129. That is the problem with Brown - he does not listen. He always thinks he knows best - A democratic socialist to his horny handed finger tips!
133. Yes!
66
Local income tax to replace council tax?
That’s amn interesting idea but it means many people who currently enjoy perfectly legal tax free incomes would end up paying no tax at all.
I personally would fin dthat very appealing, but I doubt if many councils will.
It will not fly for that and many other reasons.
Does anyone seriously believe HMRC could mange to let local councils have details of local incomes without security being breached? or administer any tax centrally?
136. Why should people who cannot afford to get on the housing ladder and may pay rent cross-subsidise people in valuable houses with their money tied up in them?
121
Anyone who beleievs the official debt figures is deluded. It excludes PFI (which as Metronet shows IS Government debt), and N Rock, and no doubt other things.
121 if we are in such a good position why are taxes not being cut in the face of a weakening economy?
138 including £50bn extra next year. Nobody but deluded labour party apparatchiks believes debt figures, inflation figures, growth figures, immigration figures, crime figures or just about anything this government ever gives out as a statistic, because they have endlessly lied, just this week we have discovered that the Royal Navy was in disputed waters in the iran prisoner fiasco and that inflation on necessities is six times the official figure.
Re. 122. I s