Time Magazine’s Mark Halperin is predicting a big announcement tonight. Could it be that John Edwards has come off the fence and is going to endorse Barack? Or could this be the start of something bigger - an Obama-Edwards ticket?
The website Political Insider is making a strong case for Edwards who was , of course, the V-P nominee in 2004.
We shall see.
Mike Smithson
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One of the “other” candidates who might have an impact on Crewe and Nantwich is Gemma Garrett - Miss Great Britain. On the face of it the move seems like a PR stunt designed to boost her profile but, to her credit, she has started to campaign and has already got into a spat with Labour.
Gemma says she is about “bringing beauty into politics and turning back the tide of sleaze”. She’s furious about stories she says Labour is putting about that she made a spelling mistake when she signed the book of condolences for Gwyneth Dunwoody.
According to the Crewe Guardian she said: “This is precisely the low, petty and underhanded sort of action which contributes to the overall impression that politics is a sleazy and grubby business. It is ironic that Labour, which is supposed to cherish the rights of women, created this cheap, wrong and stereotypical image of me intended to suggest that any girl who happened to be blonde and to look good cannot spell.”
Gemma’s getting a lot of publicity and could easily get a reasonable vote which in a tight contest might affect the outcome - the question is who is she going to hurt most? Given the apparent lower motivation to vote amongst Labour supporters then there is a danger that on the margin more of them could be tempted to switch than Tory supporters.
Latest Crewe betting.
Mike Smithson
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Surely it’s time for the curtain to close on the Dimbleby era?
Just under a fortnight ago I had a rant about the woeful inadequacies of the BBC’s election coverage and many others have joined the criticism. The antics of Jeremy Vine have been the main focus but these were singled out as an example that something is going badly wrong.
Since then we have two more impressive US primary election nights on CNN and the more you see their output that the more you realise how TV licence payers in the UK are being short-changed. This is an area, of course, where the Corporation’s public service role should be most apparent - covering the democratic process and elections.
Since then I have been pondering on how the BBC should go forward to provide coverage that it can be proud of and it struck me that a key figure is the anchor person - someone with the political skills and expertise as well as being an effective broadcaster able to think on his/her own feet.
There is one name that immediately springs to mind - Andrew Neil who currently anchors what I consider to be the best political shows on the BBC - “The Daily Politics” and “This Week”. He’s the one who could hold an election programme together and simply would not put up with the second, or even fifth rate that is now served up for us.
Neil is a former editor of the Sunday Times and is the editor-in-chief of the Barclay brothers Press Holdings group of newspapers.
Just watching his handling today of the follow-up to yesterday’s Ali D’s statement, PMQs and then Brown’s “pre-Queen’s speech” and you see someone with the competence and the political understanding who could underpin the big BBC political occasions.
The rubbish that the BBC currently serves up to us on election nights has to stop. They should appoint Neil now and plan for a different and substantially better future.
Mike Smithson
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This has been picked up in the media and on a number of other sites and presented as an instant verdict on what Brown and Darling did yesterday.
Well after consideration the markets have returned to almost exactly where they were 24 hours ago.
This is probably as a result of the way the media has dealt with Darling’s commons statement. For ministers have had to cope with their own words of only a few weeks ago being played back to them repeatedly. U-turns never look good because it raises question marks about your judgement in the first place.
And this has been picked up by the markets as can be seen above. The chart, itself, shows the changes in the betting odds reflected as an implied probability.
Mike Smithson
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This is her biggest victory so far yet the mood of the commentators was that it was irrelevant. Only 28 delegates were at stake, the outcome had been widely predicted, and Obama’s quiet campaign amongst the super delegates continues to pay dividends.
As the Associated Press analysis put it - West Virginia does not solve her central problem: ” Since her loss in North Carolina and narrow victory in Indiana last Tuesday, the New York senator has been battling the growing realization that her once-formidable candidacy may have finally run out of steam. Saddled with more than $20 million in debt and struggling to fund the remaining contests, Clinton has watched a steady stream of superdelegates migrate toward the Illinois senator despite his apparent problems winning key constituencies.”
One thing she has had to do is to be more guarded in her attacks on Obama. For the one way of forcing the party establishment to step in is if her effort is seen to be damaging their overall interests.
In the betting on who wins in November Obama is still the clear favourite.
Mike Smithson
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But will it matter? For it’s beginning to look as though last Tuesday’s North Carolina and Indiana primaries finally closed the deal. In the past seven days getting on for 30 super delegates have declared for Barack and he now enjoys a lead amongst this group.
The only thing really at issue is how and when Hillary stands aside. One thought is that she could use the expected victory tonight to go out on a high.
Mike Smithson
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Clearly Brown and his team were thinking of next week’s election when they decided to make the statement to try to shoot this particular fox.
The only problem is that it does not smack of firm government if the party in power keeps on changing tack all the time - and there’s the question of increasing overall government borrowing to pay for the plan.
As I have repeatedly argued C&N is about turnout. Will Labour voters feel motivated enough to go to the polls. This might help them along a little bit.
Mike Smithson
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For what has happened here is that ICM has followed its standard practice and has allocated half of the 2005 Labour voters now saying “don’t know” to the Tasmin Dunwoody figure.
Looking at the finer detail less than half of Labour’s general election voters last time say for certain that they will be sticking with the party next week. A significant proportion are voting Tory with a large number, the biggest proportion I have ever seen, simply saying “don’t know” or they refused to answer.
Like all ICM voting intention polls this was past voted weighted and only the preferences of those saying they were 7/10 or more on the certainty to vote scale were included.
I find it very hard looking at these numbers to say that it will be anything other than a Tory win.
UPDATE: ICM has changed its standard turnout questioning for this poll - perhaps a reaction to what happened in the London mayoral race. As well as the normal rate your chances of voting on a scale of 1-10 respondents were also asked about their attitudes to this by-election. “They were asked whether they felt that it is not really worth voting, or whether people should only vote if they care who wins or, alternatively, whether they felt that it is everyone’s duty to vote.
Weights were applied to each cell of a 30 cell matrix based on the above two questions. At one extreme a respondent replying that they are 10 out of 10 certain to vote and who thinks it is everyone’s duty to do so received a weight of 1, but a person who said they were only 5 out of 10 certain to vote and thought it only worth voting if people care who wins received a weight of 0.3.
The weights have been devised so that the effective sample size is reduced from 1,004 to 570 thereby assuming a real turnout figure among registered voters of approximately 57%. This may be higher than the actual turnout in the by election. But 100% turnout could not be achieved because of faults in the electoral register. Evidence also suggests that polls tend to interview slightly more voters than exist in the whole population.
ICM has thus changed slightly our method for calculating which people are most certain to vote. By using a two part question we hope, more accurately, to weight our vote intention calculations towards those who bother to vote, and away from those who declare party support but do not bother, in the event, to register that preference.
Mike Smithson
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The sight, as above, of Labour activists seeking to follow the Tory candidate dressed up as “Toffs” and the emphasis on his background in campaign leaflets has been the principle theme of the party’s by election defence.
It easy to write this off but this has become almost standard by election fare when Labour has been threatened with losing a seat. The strategy, first seen at Birmingham Hodge Hill in 2004, is to find what appears to be a weakness in the party’s main opponent and then going hell for leather to repeat this on every occasion. It’s not pretty but it worked in that by election as well as at Hartlepool a few months later.
In the former Labour was able to exploit the fact the Lib Dem candidate’s day job was in the community relations aspects of the location of mobile phone masts. In the latter the party made their central theme unwise and patronising comments that the Lib Dem candidate made in her blog about some of the people of Hartlepool.
The “Toff” attack does not quite have the same potency as these earlier campaigns. Labour needs something firmer and more specific about the Tory candidate and that might come in the remaining eight days.
It’s important to understand that all this is not designed to switch votes but simply to provide a message that motivates Labour activists and voters to make sure they turn out on May 22nd. The main danger is if the approach fails to resonate with your own supporters but has the effect of motivating the opposition.
For me the big development today should be the publication of the full data from ICM’s C&N poll that came out at the weekend. This should give us a clearer idea of the cross-party dynamics and help to explain even further the disparity between the general election voting intention in the constituency and the by election. The former figures had the Tories 16% ahead while in the latter it was just 4%.
Mike Smithson
The piece is a “goodbye Henley letter” from the new Mayor which seems to suggest that the by election campaign has already started.
There had been some speculation that he might have wanted to hold on until the general election before resigning his seat. This was what Ken did when he first got elected.
Well this move tonight looks as though there is going to be a by election and it will be quite soon.
Could this be a chance for the Lib Dems who look set to be disappointed in Crewe and Nantwich? It looks a big ask but who knows?
Only a few have suggested that he might come to recognise that his leadership is undermining his party against the dreaded Tories and that he will just fall on his sword. The very idea of this is so alien to the images that Brown projects that the notion just gets swept aside.
I think that this might be wrong. For the one enduring quality about Gordon is that he is totally wedded to the Labour movement and he is fully versed in its history. He will be only too aware of the way that his short leadership might be portrayed. To make the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of the movement by voluntarily giving up the post he had strived for most of his adult life might appear better than hanging on until the end.
This is a massive pill to swallow and Gordon takes a long time making the big decisions. But if all the evidence is pointing one way he could, I believe, do it.
The Labour blogger, Paul Linford, in an excellent post at the weekend on what happens next wrote“..I think it entirely plausible that Mr Brown will fall on his own sword. The one thing he has always been is a party man”.
There are several betting markets - I’m in big on the line up of party leaders at the next election where I got an effective 5/1 on Cameron being the only one from last July who would still be there. It’s now tightened to 1.62/1.
Mike Smithson
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For with the huge Tory poll surge the only real threat to Cameron was if the Lib Dems could establish themselves as a challenger to Labour thus splitting the anti-Brown vote. The LDs are always able to summon a massive activist army and they have the expertise in literature production to produce the right message at the right time.
Just look back to the start of the campaign when I published their first C&N bar chart which was shrewdly, if somewhat misleadingly, designed to show that they were the best-placed challengers.
Their problem now is that anything they say has been pre-empted by the ICM poll which had them on 16% behind Labour’s 39% and the Conservative 43%. The message from this is that it is a battle between Labour and the Tories knocking for six the argument that the best way of giving Labour a kicking is by voting Lib Dem.
This is similar, in many ways, to the Mayoral battle in London - the polls showed it was a struggle between Ken and Boris and the third party candidate just got squeezed out. If there had been no polls at all my guess is that the Brian Paddick would have done better and the overall result might have been tighter.
By elections polls have become something of a novelty. The only two we have had in recent times were in Hartlepool in September 2004 and in Blaenau Gwent last year in 2006. The former had Labour 33% ahead of the Lib Dems making the third party’s task that much more challenging. The latter had Labour 12% ahead but on the day Labour came in 9% behind in its attempt to win back the seat from an independent.
Latest Crewe and Nantwich betting.
Mike Smithson
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All Change in Russia – But No Change At All
Balakirev considers the Putin-Medvedev handover
After a week in Russia where reminders of past Soviet and pre-Soviet glories were much in evidence, clues to the future under Dimitri Medvedev and Vladimir Putin are still hard to find. Medvedev was sworn in at a stunning ceremony which looked more like a tsarist coronation than an inauguration. The next day, the ex-president, Putin, was voted in as prime minister by Russia’s parliament.
Then, on Friday, Russia’s annual “Victory Day” holiday, the tanks rolled, as the week’s consolidation of political authority was given tangible expression with the first major military parade through Red Square since the 1991 Soviet collapse. For outsiders, the blatant appeal to imperial nostalgia may have seemed disturbing. But there are more important concerns about what was not on display. Specifically, we do not yet know how the Medvedev-Putin duumvirate and the machinery of power will function.
Here’s what we do know.
After eight years in power, most of that time with Medvedev at or near his side, Putin has stepped “down” to become head of government. He did this ostensibly to remain in compliance with constitutional term limits.
In the past, under both Putin and his predecessor Boris Yeltsin, the prime minister was essentially a public whipping boy, someone to take the blame when things went wrong. Clearly, the notoriously thin-skinned Putin is not about to put up with that sort of nonsense from his protégé Medvedev. So it’s all change at the PM’s office, with Putin about to get up to 11 deputies (compared with five in the recent past). He’s bringing in his own press and protocol officers, and the press corps assigned to the building where the prime minister sits, called the White House, have now been banned from most areas.
It’s not hard to guess what’s next. Instead of the head of government being held responsible for every pothole in the country, authority and accountability will presumably descend to ministers and deputy PMs. None of this is necessarily negative. Managing Russia’s mammoth bureaucracy is more than a one-man job, as Medvedev himself well knows.
Back in 2005, when Putin put Medvedev in charge of several major programs to fix the ailing education, health and other national services, he described excessive bureaucracy as the main obstacle. Asked at a press conference how he thought this could be dealt with, he said, “To fight in the way that all countries fight against bureaucracy, that is by concentrating administrative resources on solving priority tasks that face the country and those tasks the citizens of the Russian Federation are waiting to see resolved. For this very reason Dmitry Anatolevich Medvedev has been delegated to the Government.” It’s worth noting, however, that Medvedev wasn’t terribly successful in this assignment.
More importantly, where Putin is in charge, secrecy prevails, with all important policy debate conducted behind closed doors, with decisions announced in stentorian terms after a minimum of trailing, often via intentionally false speculation by spin doctors. With such a “modus” now extending downwards into ministerial offices, it is hardly likely that governance is set to grow more open.
But what about Medvedev? His public persona of pleasantness to the point of banality has led some to imagine signs of liberalism and modernity. Wishful thinking. Elected entirely on the basis of Putin’s endorsement, Medvedev’s authority is in fact Putin’s – and both know it. The precise architecture of power will start to become clearer over the coming weeks, as Putin – more likely than Medevedev – reveals more about the shape of his government. But if there were a betting market available on whether much of substance will change under the new Russian president – there isn’t by the way – you’d do well to put your money on no change at all.
The author is a Russia & Eastern Europe specialist working in public relations and is a former international correspondent.
]]>Elizabeth Shenton - Liberal Democrat 469 views
Tamsin Dunwoody - Labour - 181 views
Where candidates have more than one video on YouTube I have taken the one with the most views.
Mike Smithson
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For the Tory by election poll margin of 4% would have been 12% but for ICM’s “sprial of silence” adjustment. This is a standard procedure and involves allocating to Labour half the votes of those party supporters from the last general election who now say they they will turnout but “don’t know” yet what they will do.
I cannot recall a survey in the past when this adjuster has produced changes on this scale - normally it affects the shares by a maximum of 1-2%.
My guess is that the final votes on May 22nd will be much closer to ICM’s 16% Tory lead on general election voting intention than the reported figure of 4% for the by election. Based on these figures my view is that Cameron’s Conservatives have at least a 90% chance of taking the seat.
In many ways the Crewe and Nantwich general election voting figure is more dramatic than YouGov’s national 26% Tory lead that was reported on Friday. For C&N is constituency number 165 on the Tory target list and if a 16% lead actually occurred here then Cameron would win the general election with a massive land-slide.
Another survey in the Observer also suggests that there has been a sea-change in opinion. The paper notes that “a Tory government is preferred to a Labour one by a margin of 50 to 32 per cent. In another significant boost for Cameron, more voters think the Conservatives would do a better job of governing than believe they would do a worse job”
It’s not clear from the online edition of the paper who carried out the survey and whether or not the pollster is a member of the British Polling Council.
The latest Crewe and Nantwich betting prices have the Tories at 0.4/1 with Betfair and 4/11 with the traditional bookmakers. It looks good to me.
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Clearly this is a very good pointer for Cameron’s party and the real significance is that it is his party, and not the traditional by election Kings, the Lib Dems who are seen as the party that can take the seat from Labour. If the Lib Dem share had been a bit higher then they could have made the case to Labour supporters that they were the best route to stop the Tories. This poll will put the mockers on that.
A note of caution. As has repeatedly been said here single constituency polls have a reputation of being highly unreliable. In September 2004 NOP has Labour a massive 33% ahead in Hartlepool - the winning margin ended up at 7%. And last year a poll agead of the Gwent by election has Labour comfortably winning back the seat from the independent. The party failed.
The fact that this is ICM gives a good degree of comfort and my view is that the Tories are at least 90% certain to secure comfortable victory.
To another question about how those sampled would vote in a general election the response was the response was: CON 49% Lab 33%: LD 15%.
These general election numbers are sensational. Crewe and Nantwich is listed as the Tories 165th target seat. So for a poll to be suggesting a margin as big as this indicates a Tory landslide and, in many way, supports the latest YouGov national voting intention poll.
UPDATE - There’s an intriguing point in Iain Dale’s report - He says:“I am told the by election figures were adjusted downwards to take account of large number of Labour don’t knows. If they stayed at home on polling day, the Tories would win by 13 points.”
We desperately need to see the details but this might explain the disparity between the by-election figures and those for the general election.
If you tell ICM that you will vote but that you don’t know who that will be for the pollster assumes that 50% will go in line with what they did last time. This is known as the “spiral of silence adjustment”. My guess is that a very large number of 2005 Labour voters answered don’t know and this is what makes up the 13%.
Whatever this poll is very good news for the Tories.
Mike Smithson
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Following her triumph in Pennsylvania on the 22nd April and an effective tie in Guam on May 3rd, but having suffered difficult headlines since last Tuesday in Indiana and North Carolina, Hillary Clinton will need to build momentum quickly to prevent a hemorrhaging of Superdelegates to Barack Obama.
She has the potential to rally her flagging campaign with solid wins in West Virginia (13th May), Kentucky (20th May), and Puerto Rico (1st June). South Dakota and Montana (both 3rd June) herald the end of the primary campaign on June 3rd, and whilst both are winnable for either candidate, her focus must be on building momentum during the month of May if she is to stand a chance of the nomination.
The state most likely to deny her between now and the end of the contest is the west-coast state of Oregon. Considered a Democrat-leaning swing-state in General Elections, Oregon is split East-West with the rural Republican-held 2nd District covering two-thirds of the area, but the four Congressional districts on West Coast and surrounding the city of Portland trending strongly-Democratic.
One of the most liberal and least Christian states in the USA, Oregon has been at the forefront of controversial legislation, including medicinal marijuana, same-sex unions, and voluntary euthanasia. Although chiefly known as a ‘young’ city (which would seemingly favour Obama), Portland also has a large gay population, one of the demographics said to be most loyal to Clinton. The largest non-white demographic are Hispanics, and its African-American population is below 2.5% - significantly less than Asian-Americans or even Native-Americans & Pacific Islanders. In short, there is little to suggest that demographics hand Obama an obvious victory - indeed, had he not proven himself strong by winning Washington state and northern California, Oregon would have been a state that many would have assumed would trend towards Clinton.
There has been a dearth of information coming from the state for much of the contest. In one of only two recent Democratic statewide polls, SurveyUSA had Obama on 52%, Clinton on 42%, with 3% declaring themselves Undecided 3% (as of April 8th, 2008). Previous polls of all voters have shown that Oregon would favour Obama over McCain, but McCain over Clinton in the presidential head-to-heads. However, these are a poor guide for the Democratic primary, given that a different constituency of voters has been polled - the margins in head-to-heads being provided by Independents and others not able to vote in the closed (Democrat only) primary election. Previous polls all showed Clinton leading, though since the Iowa caucus, only one such poll has been published (Clinton 36%, Obama 28%, Edwards 14% in late January 2008).
Governor Ted Kulongoski has endorsed Hillary Clinton, along with retiring Congresswoman Darlene Hooley (Dem, OR-5 - as an open seat, the only Democratic district in Oregon at risk in November). Earl Blumenhauer (Dem, OR-3) has endorsed Barack Obama, but the remaining 3 Oregon Congressmen and Oregon Democratic Senator Ron Wydon have chosen not to endorse either candidate at the time of writing. Joining the fence-sitters, former Governors Barbara Roberts and John Kitzhaber, and the non-partisan Mayor of Portland, Tom Potter. Obama has, however, received the backing of both the full Democratic delegations to the Oregon State Senate and State House of Representatives.
Politically, the only other race of any interest in the state is choosing a Democrat to face (and possibly beat) incumbent Republican Gordon Smith as US Senator in November. With Kitzhaber and the entire Democratic US House delegation ruling themselves out, Speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives Jeff Merkley (an Obama supporter) is facing disabled Environmental campaigner Steve Novick for the Democratic nomination, and a former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, John Frohnmayer, is likely to run in November as an Independent. Merkley’s campaign is doing well in fundraising, and the presence of committed activists working the streets for an Obama supporter could make all the difference in a tight race.
What seems apparent is that Oregon could trend either way - both Clinton and Obama enjoy institutional support, and both can see demographics that typically support them. Little polling of Democrats has taken place, and neither lead enjoyed by either candidate in January and April respectively could reasonably be described as insurmountable. I believe that this state is still very much in play, and Obama would be foolish to assume that he could rely on its support.
If we accept that Obama has won the season on both Pledged delegates and the Popular Vote, the only reason that Superdelegates would be waiting before supporting him (assuming they are not all closet Clintonistas) is that they do not want to disenfranchise the few remaining states who have yet to vote.
Clinton’s major challenge will be to stop them from going wholesale to Obama on 4th June, preventing her from being viable until the Convention in late August, or even until the Credentials Committee meets on Florida and Michigan at the end of June. The question is whether (excepting North Carolina) Clinton can put in the necessary effort in Oregon to chance a near-clean sweep from her victories in Rhode Island and Ohio on March 4th through to the South Dakota and Montana challenges on 3rd June.
If so, the momentum could be sufficient to persuade Superdelegates to further delay open judgment, and thus keep her alive beyond the 4th June, thereby giving her the opportunity to ‘steal’ the ticket at the Convention in Denver. Should she lose Oregon, which seems quite possible, even she may be forced to accept that it is all over.
UPDATE: In the most recent poll on May 1st reported that Obama enjoyed a 51% - 39% lead over Hillary Clinton.
The weather’s good, the constituency’s road and rail links are excellent and, most of all, Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems have each got something to prove in this key test of public opinion during a very difficult time for the government.
Already several of those who have been flocking to the south Cheshire towns have been giving us their impressions on the PB comments threads. If you are amongst the campaigners please let us know so we can build up a picture of what is happening on the ground.
On the face of it this should be an easy one for Cameron’s Conservatives. Last week’s local election, the London outcome and the latest YouGov poll all point to support shedding away from the governing party throughout the country. If it’s happening nationally then surely the same must be being experienced in C&N?
The most important factor for a party defending is the extent to which it can get its support out and the signs nationally suggest that this might be very hard for Labour. Even in Sedgefield last July at the start of Gordon Brown’s media honeymoon the Labour candidate saw his party’s vote drop by 14%. Labour supporters have bad record of turning out in elections when the government of the country is not at stake.
Even when they are starting from third place, like here, the Lib Dems always have the potential to pull off a shock. Could they start appealing to Labour supporters that the only way of stopping a Tory victory is by switching to them?
So even if you have never posted here before please share with us your experiences. Let’s see if we can get a good picture of what is going on. Many thanks.
Mike Smithson
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Local Election Round Up
Last week’s local elections were Labour’s worst since 1976/1977. The Party finished up 20% behind the Conservatives, in terms of projected national vote share, and suffered a net loss of 334 seats, from a low base. Taking into account some Labour gains, against the trend, the Party lost nearly one third of the seats it was defending. Some of the results were striking.
For instance, the Conservatives outpolled Labour by 1,800 across the ten authorities of Greater Manchester; they outpolled Labour in heartland seats like Penistone, Rother Valley, Wakefield, Labour since 1932, and Ed Ball’s Morley & Outwood; in Wales, Labour held just two out of twenty two local authorities, the same number as the Conservatives. Lest the Conservatives get carried away, however, they performed even better in Labour’s heartlands, in 1967-1969, and 1976-1978, but Labour still held these areas comfortably in subsequent general elections.
London saw the Conservatives’ greatest triumph, with Boris Johnson taking the Mayoralty with over a million votes. Paradoxically, it also witnessed Labour’s best performances of the day, with the Party pushing up its vote share in the London Assembly elections, retaining several constituencies with increased majorities, and taking Brent & Harrow from the Conservatives. However, the Conservatives still led Labour by 9% in the London Assembly constituency elections, enough to give the Conservatives a majority of London seats at the next election.
The Conservatives were successful in almost every part of the England and Wales, making a net gain of 257 seats and 12 councils. The party gained overall control of two Metropolitan Boroughs, Solihull and Bury, and an overall majority in a third, North Tyneside. They advanced strongly across the Midlands, Wales, and the North of England. In 2006 and 2007, the Conservatives performed strongly across much of England, but saw no real advance in the Metropolitan Boroughs. Not this time. The Conservatives made a net gain of 67 seats in the Metropolitan Boroughs, outpolling Labour across the former Metropolitan counties of West Midlands, Greater Manchester, and West Yorkshire. Boris Johnson’s victory in London was tremendous news for them, as was the party’s gain of two seats on the Assembly.
However, the Conservatives have still not matched their performances of the late 1970s in either London (where they led Labour by 15% in the GLC elections of 1977) or in the Metropolitan Boroughs, where they held a majority of councils by 1978. Elsewhere in England, however, their local government strength is probably greater than ever before.
The Liberal Democrats’ results were more mixed. The Party gained the great prize of Sheffield, effectively gained control of Oldham, and won Burnley for the first time. At the same time, they lost Liverpool, which they had held since 1998, although they subsequently retained control by persuading an independent to switch. They made a net gain of 33 seats, which, in the context of a strong Conservative advance, is a reasonable result. They were badly squeezed in London however, as Brian Paddick polled less than 10% of the vote, and they lost two seats on the London Assembly. There must be a risk that they will suffer in the same way if the next general election is a close contest between Conservatives and Labour.
Among the smaller parties, Plaid Cymru performed fairly well, making a net gain of 31 seats. However, it lost its stronghold of Gwynedd, and narrowly failed to take Ceredigion. The Greens performed very strongly in Norwich, becoming the official opposition, and retained two seats on the London Assembly, but made no real advance elsewhere. The BNP made a handful of council seat gains, and got onto the London Assembly, but must have hoped to do better in a year of extreme Labour unpopularity. UKIP also made a handful of council gains, but were completely wiped out on the London Assembly.
So where does this leave the two main parties? Relative to the Conservatives, Labour are in about the same position as they were in the late Seventies. They are stronger in London and the Metropolitan Boroughs, but weaker in the rest of England, particularly in the South. The Conservatives are weaker in the larger urban areas, and far weaker in Scotland than they were then, but much stronger in the rest of England, whose share of the population has grown over the past thirty years.
If history repeats itself, this points to a clear, but not overwhelming, Labour defeat at the next election, and suggest that spread markets which give the Conservatives a majority of 40 are about right.
There was just one by-election last night at Medway Unitary Council, Rochester South and Horsted. The result was Conservative 1847, Labour 819, Lib Dem 767, BNP 257, Green 104. An easy Conservative hold.
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When we last looked at this, a week last Tuesday and two days before polling, I posed the question - “Will punters believe in a Tory majority after Thursday?”.
Well they have and the Tory spread has moved from 318-324 seats up to the latest 342-348 seats. So taking the mid-point in the spread the market is suggesting a Tory seat total of 345 seats - or an overall majority of 40.
I think that this is just about the first time ever since spread betting was launched in the UK that gamblers have been prepared to risk money on the Tories getting a workable majority.
For there’s little doubt that shocking polls for Labour, like the one in this morning’s Sun, can affect the whole way that contemporary politics is perceived and one set of bad numbers can lead to another.
But judging from the Sun’s report of its poll this morning it looks as though the top-selling tabloid newspaper might have switched to YouGov. The report notes that the paper “…chose YouGov after they accurately predicted the results of last week’s London Mayoral election.”
For the last couple of years or so the polls the paper has carried out, almost on a monthly basis, have been by MORI. Now if today’s development means that future Sun surveys will be by YouGov then there could be a pattern of at least three a month from the online pollster. YouGov, of course, already does regular surveys for the Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Times.
I’m not sure whether this is a good thing - different approaches by different firms can give us a clearer picture and help us to understand better what is going on.
More YouGov polls could also affect the betting - particularly the spread markets on the number of seats that the main parties will get at the next general election. Market movements tend to be drive by the latest polling numbers and, not unexpectedly, the Tory spreads have moved upwards overnight.
The Conservative seat price on Spreadfair is now at 343-347 seats - the lower figure being the sell level and the higher one the buy level. Profits and losses in this form of betting are determined by working out the difference between the contract level and multiplying by your stake amount. So if you sold the Tories at 343 seats at £50 a seat and Cameron’s party ended with 373 seats then you would lose 30 times 50 = £1,500. On the other hand if they only got 323 seats you would win 20 times 50 = £1,000.
With this firm the prices are set by what other punters want to offer. The other spread firms fix the levels themselves and both of them have been down overnight. Expect a new price fix this morning.
Mike Smithson
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The shares are CON 49%: LAB 23%: LD 17%
The last survey from the firm had an 18% Tory lead so this is a very big shift upwards.
Clearly Gordon Brown and Labour have had an appalling week and the fact that the Tories can win something big, the London mayoralty, indicates almost certainly that a sea change is taking place.
Before people start knocking YouGov it is worth remembering that in the days after Gordon’s conference speech last September the pollster was recording the biggest Labour leads of any media-commissioned survey.
The big question now is what this will do to the overall political environment.
Clearly the Tories have to take Crewe and Nantwich if this really is the state of public opinion.
Mike Smithson
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The main political story on ABC News this afternoon is that “..intermediaries” have resumed discussing the possibility of an Obama-Clinton “dream team” ticket…”.
A former top Bill Clinton aide and now ABC News’ chief Washington correspondent, George Stephanopolous, said: “I think it’s very much a possibility and there are others around Sen. Clinton, other top Democrats who think the strongest ticket would be a joint ticket..There are intermediaries discussing this very scenario”
He went on:”..Right now Sen. Obama is probably reluctant to do this, given the feelings coming out of this campaign right now…”I do think that if it were accepted, Sen. Clinton would be under some pressure and would like to accept, I think”
Meanwhile a group of activists party insiders have set up a web-site to promote the the idea and this is getting a lot of coverage.
Latest Democratic V-P betting is here
Mike Smithson
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I don’t claim to understand the intricacies of Labour party internal politics but after pondering over the past few days I have come up with a couple of names of people I believe could turn round voters views of the party and make the next general election less of the disaster than it looks at the moment.
What’s needed is a different style and a different tone and a leader who comes over as being authentic and likeable. Absolutely central is to have someone who can communicate and has a high emotional intelligence. So what about a woman?
I am becoming more impressed by Jackie Smith who was a good choice, going for kebabs from her local shop notwithstanding, for Home Secretay - a role that has swallowed up many of Labour’s big beasts - but I don’t she’s quite got it yet for the big job.
Harriet Harman was my eventual betting choice for the Deputy job last year when all the money was going on Alan Johnson. She did well as a stand-in for Gord at PMQs last month but her voice lets her down. She always sounds as though she is whining.
The leading Labour woman who stands head and shoulders above everybody is Tessa Jowell who got demoted by Gordon last year. Her performance on TV last after Labour’s disaster in the locals and as we awaited the London result was superb. There are few other politicians who could have coped so well and come over so effectively
I think David Cameron would find her a very tricky adversary. She would enjoy an amazing media honeymoon when, dare I suggest, calling an election could be on the cards.
Whether she would get it or even wants it I don’t know and she is regarded as too much of a Blairite for large parts of the movement. But I believe she has what it takes. If indeed Gordon was ousted or had to step down on health grounds then I can only think of only one other leading Labour politician who could equal her. His prospects will be discussed in a separate article and I will leave that and his identity dangling there.
Tessa is priced at 100/1 on the next leader market. I’ve put a fiver on.
Mike Smithson
An experienced political operator who has been involved in such an arrangement before, Dan Conley, has a must read piece in Salon in which he suggests three things that Hillary could demand to pull out.
Firstly there’s cash. The Obama fund-raising operation has been one of the wonders of this election and arguably is at the heart of his success. The reason Hillary has had to lend her campaign more money is that she was forced to deplete her resources in Pennsylvania. Conley argues that part of a deal with Obama would involve the latter picking up her campaign debts. In fact Conley goes so far as to argue that “Hillary can keep lending money to her campaign, at least in the short term, without much risk because it’s very likely that Obama will agree to pay it in exchange for peace.”
Secondly Obama could accept Hillary’s healthcare plan When she does concede she needs to show that her effort has not been in vain and acceptance by Obama of a version of this key policy plank could be vital.
Thirdly Hillary could have an effective veto on the V-P choice. If she did not want the position herself, Conley argues, she could have a means to “..tactfully say no to another woman making it onto the ticket to steal her spotlight. She could ensure that none of the potential 2012 candidates get positioned for a run in case Obama should fail in November.” Conley’s suggestion of a mutually agreeable choice is the Oxford-educated contender from last time, Wes Clarke.
Will it happen? I think we are in the end game and Conley’s piece sounds convincing. His observation about the V-P choice is very telling.
White House race betting is here.
Mike Smithson
Betfair has seen a big rush to get on the Tories and, as I write, the best you can get is 0.34/1. Another bookmaker has 4/9.
But is punter confidence in the Tories justified - after all we have to go back until June 1982 to find the last time that the party gained a seat in a Westminster by-election?
The central questions are how many of the 22,140 who voted for Gwyneth Dunwoody in 2005 have switched and, the extent to which party machine is be able to get its core vote to the polling stations on May 22nd. For Labour always finds it much harder to get its people out in elections when the government of the country is not at stake - just look at last week’s locals.
The national general election polls are telling us two things: that Labour supporters are much less likely than Tories to say they are certain to vote and that between 12% and 20% of those who say they were Labour in 2005 have now switched to the Tories.
On the face of it then it’s a no-brainer - if the Tories can maintain the bulk of their general election vote of 14,162 and are attracting Labour switchers on the scale that the polls are suggesting then Cameron will do it.
The fly in the ointment could be the Lib Dems who polled a creditable 8,083 three years ago. Their initial task is to persuade enough of the electors that voting for them, and not the Tories, is the best way of unseating Labour. They have also got a terrific by election record, hundreds of activists who flood into the area every day to help, and a track record of producing by election literature that works.
Their challenge is not being squeezed out with the media increasingly presenting the current political situation in two party terms. What happened to the Lib Dem vote in London shows where that can lead.
By election polls. We have only seen two of these in recent years - at Hartlepool in 2004 and in Gwent last year. In the former the Labour vote was hugely inflated while in the latter the poll got the final outcome wrong. They are very difficult for pollsters to do because it’s hard getting a representative sample. Also opinion is more likely than at other elections to change during a campaign. I don’t know whether there will be one but if there is I would treat it with ultra caution.
Mike Smithson
With Obama’s decisive victory in North Carolina and Hillary’s victory in Indiana being by a fraction it’s starting to look as though the marathon fight for the Democratic nomination is nearing its end. As Obama spinners were saying overnight - they are now just 200 delegates from clinching it.
Add onto that the reports that she has had to make a further big loan to her campaign and you get a picture of the challenges she faces. The Clintons are moderately wealthy - but how long will others fund what increasingly looks like a doomed venture.
All the predictions ahead of the latest two primaries in Indiana and North Carolina were that she would lose the latter - but she needed to win the former by a big enough margin to convince the party establishment that she still had a case. She’s got a victory but is it big enough?
Her whole strategy was based on stretching this out until the August convention in August and then using the disputed Florida and Michigan delegation issues to bang her case home. That required, more than anything, momentum in the final phases of the primary campaign. The tightness of the Indiana result might just have sealed her fate.
It’s too early for the number crunching to have been completed but Obama is certain to have bettered his position in both the overall pledged delegate count and the popular vote.
So it’s increasingly looking like a McCain-Obama run-off and the serious scrutiny, for the first time, will be on the 72 year old with a furious temper. My 50/1 Obama bet is looking even better.
Mike Smithson
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Will this be over before the Convention in Denver?
If the Superdelegates are reluctant to finish this race before the final states, Montana and South Dakota, have their say on June 3rd, then it seems likely that Clinton has almost another month in this race. She will almost certainly lose on pledged delegates and is unlikely to win the popular vote either, but is refusing to step aside.
Many have speculated that the Superdelegates are disinclined to side with one party or the other, for fear of angering a potentially very powerful Senator or even the next President of the United States. Many are junior Congressmen, not inclined to raise their heads above the parapet at present, but who may feel more comfortable choosing under the crazed camouflage of Convention shennanigans.
With Indiana still very close, Clinton clearly feels she is still in this race. With only a couple of hundred delegate-votes between the pair, it seems almost certain that decisions concerning the Michigan and Florida delegations will be decisive in some way or another. The meetings that could end this before the Convention are scheduled for the end of May and mid June. To allow the various DNC Committees to pass judgement on the delegations without prejudicing either candidate, I’m sure Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi will be encouraging Superdelegates to announce their preferences in the first week of June.
Barack Obama is within spitting distance of his party’s nomination, but I would expect that he still has at least another month before he can be sure that his name will be on the ballot in November.
Morus
]]>North Carolina - called for Obama, leads 64-34, 11% counted
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So yet another poll is showing the Tories in the 40s with Labour in the 20s. This, I think, is Labour’s worst ever deficit from Populus.
The fieldwork took place from Friday until Sunday so a large number of the interviews would have taken place before Boris’s win in London was made known.
Populus use the now standard model for all telephone pollsters bar MORI of weighting the sample by what people said they did at the last election but their formula is a bit more favourable to Labour than ICM or ComRes. They also apply a turnout filter.
So we have not seen a full post-Boris poll yet. That should come in the next few days.
All this will underpin the move to the Tories on the commons seat spread markets though I do not foresee and big movements there until after he Crewe and Nantwich by election.
Mike Smithson
Congratulations to Andy Cooke, one of pb’s leading analysts and number-crunchers, on a clear victory in the PB London Mayor prediction competition. Andy’s overall score was just 5.07 and he also had the best first preference score of 4.59. Richard Stoneman was runner-up with a score of 6.87 while Dave Hague took third with 7.39. Fourth-placed Jack Peterson on 7.71 had the best final vote predictions, being just 0.12 away from the actual result.
The full results are available to download here:
Now that Boris has his feet firmly under the desk, a final thought - could Ken be the best available Labour candidate to take him on in 2012, or would they be better off with someone new - experience or a fresh face? Might Livingstone still be the only politician of stature to take on Johnson in four years time, or would he simply look well past his sell-by date? Ladbrokes quote Ken at 10/1 for a 2012 win, or there’s Paddick at 200 for the more adventurous.
Crewe & Nantwich - markets now open for business
Punters will probably be itching to place bets after all the excitement of the Mayor and the locals, and the good news is that the markets for what could be the most important by-election in years are now open. Shadsy has flagged up the Ladbrokes market where they go Conservatives 4/5, Labour 7/4 and Lib Dems 4/1. Personally I think the Conservatives will take their first by-election gain since 1982 and so I’ve made the first trade on Betfair (the “tissue” here is as per the Magic Sign prices) with (£20) at 1.8 - for the Tories it’s a case of “if not now, then when?” and I think that Tamsin Dunwoody won’t be enough to keep the seat in the red column. This will be the key betting event for the next fortnight - please use the PB betting links to help keep the site going. (7.45 update - now 4/6, 2/1, 9/2)
Bye Bye Bertie, hello Dmitry
Not one but two countries will have new leaders tomorrow - Bertie Ahern will submit his resignation as Taoiseach to President McAleese this evening, but will continue as caretaker PM until Brian Cowen’s expected election in the Dáil tomorrow afternoon, while Dmitry Medvedev (making, as Morus has rightly pointed out, a major contribution to the shortest ever G8 leadership) will take over at the Kremlin from Putin tomorrow, following his election in March.
Key questions for Russia watchers are to what extent if any Medvedev will differ from his predecessor’s policies, and how Putin’s new role as PM and head of the United Russia party will unfold vis-a-vis the new president. Meanwhile, Berlusconi is waiting in the wings to take over in Italy, although disconcertingly for those used to UK-style swift changes in government, Prodi is still in the post of Presidente.
Olmert facing new criminal probe - will Shas pull the plug on Kadima?
Israel is another country which may soon see a change at the top - the gagging order on the new criminal probe into PM Ehud Olmert will not be lifted before Independence Day, which begins Wednesday night. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has been mooted as a possible replacement should the Kadima-led 4-party coalition manage to survive Olmert’s departure.
However, even if Ehud Barak’s Labor aren’t keen on early elections, the rest of the government looks shaky - three MKs (MPs) from the Pensioners’ Party Gil jumped ship at the weekend, and and on Monday Shas threatened to quit, following reports of progress in the talks with the Palestinians. Could it be Shas with their spiritual leader Ovadia Yosef who finally bring down the two-year old Kadima-led government, prompting early elections (September has been mooted) and the likely return of Benjamin Netanyahu at the head of a Likud administration?
Coming up on PB - Indiana and North Carolina
There’ll be full coverage of today’s primaries in the Hoosier and Tar Heel states - polls close at 11pm/midnight in Indiana (6pm Eastern/Central) and 12.30 in North Carolina (7.30 Eastern).
Don’t forget to use the betting links to help keep Politicalbetting going:
One my 50/1 and 33/1 long-shot bets from 2005 and 2006 that Barack will go all the way.
Two bets at an average of 5/1 that Hillary will get the nomination
Three bets on her at an average of 6/1 that she will get the V-P slot.
The closer this gets to the convention the greater the chance she has of making it. Even if she doesn’t then I can foresee pressure on Obama to take her as his running mate.
This might all look so different in the morning.
Mike Smithson
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Some depressing words for Labour supporters in Polly Toynbee’s Tuesday Guardian column this morning.
After having this to say about May 22nd “..for the Conservatives are no longer the stupid party. Watch them win the Crewe and Nantwich byelection, easy…” she goes on:-
]]>“…It is Labour that has become the stupid party - dumb, directionless, depressing. That’s why the voters gave them that 24% sucker punch: it wasn’t about ideology, it was about basic political competence. As the Conservatives unfurl new policies for the next election, how can Labour oppose them? It’s a poser because Labour has no firm territory of its own to stand on. They can hardly castigate Tory “reforms” out-sourcing more of education and the NHS. Labour did that too. Or rebut Tory promises to be even tougher on crime, sentencing and filling up more prisons, because Labour did that too. Favouring business and the hyper-rich? Labour did it too. Ungenerous to the poor? Labour will trip over its 10p tax debacle. Housing? Labour built the least since the war. Europe? Labour has been as Eurosceptic as the Tories are likely to be. So the party risks being struck dumb on almost every Tory policy - left to whinge on the sidelines about small differences of detail…”
Tomorrow is, of course, the next mega-round of primary battles. Paul Maggs will once again be in the guest editor slot, assisted by Morus.
Mike Smithson
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One thing that Friday’s London mayoral result showed was that I term “The Golden Rule of British Polling” still applied. For based on the results of the last four general elections and all three London Mayoral races the most accurate poll has always been the one showing Labour (Ken in 2000) in the least favourable position in relation to the Tories.
The rule was the key factor that determined my betting in last week’s election and in the end I had considerably more than a month’s after-tax income at risk. But I never had any real doubts that it would come good. If we had taken an average of the polls we would not have been right.
So taking the latest output at any one time of the five major firms carrying out general election voting intention polls - ComRes, ICM, Ipsos-MORI, Populus and YouGov - the numbers from the poll that satisfies the rule will be put into the two major online seat predictors and be published here.
The calculators, from Martin Baxter’s Electoral Calculus site and Anthony Wells’s UKPollingReport have a different mathematical approach. There has been lots of discussion about the way these two work and others have also developed their own models which we might include in the future. They are, of course, just a guide and are less robust than the Golden Rule. I think that they both understate the Lib Dem position.
The central thing here is the input data which will be restricted to the poll showing Labour in the least favourable position.
This is controversial but the Golden Rule has been tested against real results over a long time period and until it is proved wrong it seems the best approach to take.
Mike Smithson
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