Monday, July 19, 2010

Labour edges up in the polls

In the opinion polls since the general election, Labour has slowly been edging up. We were about 32% in mid June, and that went up to about 35% in early July. And then we appeared to be stuck.

But the latest poll from YouGov (fieldwork 15th - 16th July) shows us on the move again. Here's the figures:

Con 40%
Lab 37%
LD 15%

So we are within 3% of the Tories.

And the cause of this sudden shift? In my opinion it's down to all the stuff in the news about the NHS. Cameron made a big song and dance during the election campaign about not touching the NHS, and here he is looking to break it up by re-organisation.

The Con-Dems seem to have decided that manifesto pledges and promises don't matter, and every day they get more cavalier about breaking them, reasoning that there wasn't that much of an outcry about the last pledge they broke, so why not break some more? It actually does matter, and the effect is cumulative. The more pledges you break the more distrustful the population gets, and then comes the tipping point.

The NHS is also the third rail of British politics. Touch it and you die. If there is any fall-out in patient care as a result of this, the Con-Dems will pay a penalty.

The other interesting thing about the YouGov poll was the response to the question "Do you think this coalition government will be good or bad for people like you?"

Total good 36%
Total bad 39%
No difference 15%
Don't know 9%

That's a change round from the YouGov poll done at the start of July (fieldwork 1st-2nd July). Then it was

Total good 41%
Total Bad 36%
No difference 15%
Don't know 8%

The constant pessimism dripping out of the government combined with such events as the chair of the new OBR resigning, have dented confidence.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Congratulations Spain

... and now is the cue for Zapatero to announce that Spain only wins the World Cup, European Championships, the Paris Open and Wimbledon Championships when a socialist government is in power!

Meanwhile, in Britain everything has turned to ashes since the ConDems took power - we were bottom in the Eurovision, out in the second round in the World Cup (after coming second to the USA in the first round for heavens sakes!) Business confidence has turned down, the IMF has downgraded our growth forecast directly as a result of the draconian action of the ConDems to take vengeance against the public sector, (the coalition dimwits believe the public sector caused the credit crunch).

Plus all sorts of lunatics are going on gun rampages - first Derrick Bird, now Raoul Moat. You have to go back to John Major's government and Dunblane (and Huntingdon under Thatcher) for the last episodes. And it's only been just over two months since they were in power.

Crime always rises under Tory governments, it rose steadily from 1979 to 1997, and looks like rising again. It's a combination of Tories cutting back on the police while at the same time causing stress in the population at large, which always tips those at the edge into violence.