Today we have news of Cameron putting out feelers to the LibDems, saying that he would consider electoral reform if it meant a coalition with them, and the LibDems saying that they won't enter any coalition with a party in third place in votes (and most polls show Labour in this position).
So we are very likely looking at a Lib-Con coalition, with Labour in opposition. Labour shouldn't be unhappy with this, in democracies you have to lose sometimes after all, and if you do, the best place to be is the main opposition and even better the only opposition.
I'm in Southampton, and we have experience of how a hung council works. In 2007, Labour and the Conservatives got 18 councillors each, and the LibDems got 12 and held the balance of power. The LibDems put the Tories into power. In the 2008 elections, when the govt was deeply unpopular and the national YouGov polls had Labour on 23%, the council went Con 24 councillors, Labour 14 councillors and LibDems 8. Everyone locally expected the Conservative surge, but no-one expected the LibDem collapse. Essentially by siding with the Tories the previous year, they got obliterated. Labour is now the main opposition to the Tories in the council and hopes to regain seats.
If the LibDems go into government with the Conservatives, one party will obliterate the other - this always happens in coalitions (look at Germany, where the SPD and Merkel's CDU were running on the same record, having been part of a grand coalition, but Merkel got all the credit for handling the financial crisis, even though all the work was done by the SPD in the finance ministry).
Conventional wisdom is that the Conservatives will obliterate the LibDems. I'm not so sure. Clegg has achieved rock-star status and is far more popular than Cameron - he looks like a nice Tory without the nastiness, in fact he would have fitted in nicely with MacMillan's government. I think what might happen here is that the LibDems (who are incidently one of the oldest political parties on earth, dating back to 1678) will obliterate the Tories.
If Labour is the only opposition, we will benefit in the same way we benefitted in 1945 for being the only opposition to the national government of the previous 15 years. If you have to lose an election, forming the only opposition is the best way to do it.
BTW, there are some excitable people claiming that the LibDems will "demand" that Brown goes as the price of a coalition and Labour will deliver. You'd think people would have learnt from the last few years, but clearly not. Once again - to change leader of the Labour party requires an election involving three electoral colleges - the membership, the affiliates and the parliamentary MPs. It will take a good three months to organise. Labour cannot change leader in a backroom deal in a couple of days the way the LibDems or Tories can. My guess is that if we lose the election, Brown will remain leader for the rest of the year, and when we do have a leadership election, Ed Miliband will get elected. And I also predict we will not be part of a coalition.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Now new poll threatens Labour
Latest YouGov poll shows LD 33%, Con 32% and Lab 26%. Obviously the LibDems are now starting to eat into the Labour vote.
So what should we do? Nothing. We gain nothing by attacking the LibDems. It would be like attacking Susan Boyle (or like Hague attacking Blair over Diana's funeral - remember that?) We just need to wait it out and see if it blows over.
Suppose there is a hung parliament, what should we do? We should let the LibDems form a govt, possibly in coalition with the Tories. We should stay out of it. This might seem perverse, but just as having the SNP in power in Scotland suddenly revived Labour there, a LibDem govt would help Labour too - especially as the latest YouGov poll indicates the public doesn't really like their policies apart from the reform of the electoral system and their tax policies.
We need to play the role of Stanley Baldwin in 1923. It was a hung parliament and though his Conservatives had the most seats, he declined to form a government and Labour formed the government with Liberal support. The Liberals then brought down the Labour government and Baldwin benefitted - and apart from a brief interlude from Labour in 1929, the Conservatives governed from 1924 to WW2. Baldwin's calculation was that in a Labour coalition with the Liberals, one of the two parties would die, and as opposition he would come back to power. He was right and the Liberals faded for seven decades. [There is other evidence of this happening in coalitions: the grand coalition between the socialists and Merkel's party ended up with Merkel killing the socialists, and Labour's coalition with the LibDems in Scotland ended up with Labour killing the LibDems there.].
If the LibDems and Tories form a coalition, in these trying times, chances are that one of them will die. We need to get out of their way and be the opposition people turn to when it inevitably goes pear-shaped. If Lab go into coalition with popstars like Clegg's LibDems, we will be the ones who get killed
I know this is hard for people who want to fight back. But when there is a popular tsunami of the sort we are seeing, the best thing to do is simply stay out of it's way. Democracy has these flashes of mood and instead of intervening we should allow them to run their course.
So what should we do? Nothing. We gain nothing by attacking the LibDems. It would be like attacking Susan Boyle (or like Hague attacking Blair over Diana's funeral - remember that?) We just need to wait it out and see if it blows over.
Suppose there is a hung parliament, what should we do? We should let the LibDems form a govt, possibly in coalition with the Tories. We should stay out of it. This might seem perverse, but just as having the SNP in power in Scotland suddenly revived Labour there, a LibDem govt would help Labour too - especially as the latest YouGov poll indicates the public doesn't really like their policies apart from the reform of the electoral system and their tax policies.
We need to play the role of Stanley Baldwin in 1923. It was a hung parliament and though his Conservatives had the most seats, he declined to form a government and Labour formed the government with Liberal support. The Liberals then brought down the Labour government and Baldwin benefitted - and apart from a brief interlude from Labour in 1929, the Conservatives governed from 1924 to WW2. Baldwin's calculation was that in a Labour coalition with the Liberals, one of the two parties would die, and as opposition he would come back to power. He was right and the Liberals faded for seven decades. [There is other evidence of this happening in coalitions: the grand coalition between the socialists and Merkel's party ended up with Merkel killing the socialists, and Labour's coalition with the LibDems in Scotland ended up with Labour killing the LibDems there.].
If the LibDems and Tories form a coalition, in these trying times, chances are that one of them will die. We need to get out of their way and be the opposition people turn to when it inevitably goes pear-shaped. If Lab go into coalition with popstars like Clegg's LibDems, we will be the ones who get killed
I know this is hard for people who want to fight back. But when there is a popular tsunami of the sort we are seeing, the best thing to do is simply stay out of it's way. Democracy has these flashes of mood and instead of intervening we should allow them to run their course.
The Polls!
It turns out that voters really do judge personality in 5 seconds. Nick Clegg sealed the deal when voters looked into his eyes during his closeup at the start of the debates and decided they liked him. Cameron's eyes are too small (like Kinnock's) and our poor Gord is blind in one eye, legally blind in the other and couldn't locate the camera to look into it in the first place.
The polls since the debate have been stunning:
BPIX CON 31%(-7), LAB 28%(-3), LDEM 32%(+12)
Comres CON 31%(-4), LAB 27%(-2), LDEM 29%(+8)
ICM CON 34%(-3), LAB 29%(-2), LDEM 27%(+7)
YouGov CON 33%(-4), LAB 28%(-3), LDEM 30%(+8)
As recently as Tuesday YouGov had the Tories on 41%, so the implosion has been swift.
What happens now? Furious tactical voting. In Lab-Lib marginals, the Tories will be voting LibDem. In Lib-Con marginals, Labour will be voting LibDem. Lab-Con marginals could go either way as the LibDem voters decide who they'd rather have.
Whatever happens we shall have a hung parliament, and I predict a second general election this year, possibly after the referendum on electoral reform delivers it's results.
All this has come about because David Cameron challenged Gordon Brown to a debate. The Tories didn't think Brown would accept, they only challenged Gord so they could set him up to be labelled "bottler" or "chicken", chortle chortle. Gordon took the risk and said yes knowing that he wouldn't win and that he could be made a fool of, but also knowing that Cameron's appearances hitherto were all controlled set pieces and there was no saying what would happen if he had to go 90 minutes in a debate. Gord was sacrificing himself and risking humiliation for the good of the party.
Cameron then foolishly bigged himself up - on Tuesday, just two days before the debate, his handlers were feeding the line to the Guardian that Cameron's new manifesto was a "JFK moment" and the Guardian duly headlined with it. If Cameron is JFK, Gord must be Nixon, geddit, chortle, chortle. What a childish bunch of tossers they are at CCHQ.
The thing is even JFK didn't bill himself as anything special before the debate - the impact of his debate against Nixon was largely down to how he surprised the audience. Cameron's achilles heel is his collosal vanity. Viewers looked at him and thought "You are no JFK" and then looked at Clegg and thought "I like you, maybe you are". And the Tory lead collapsed, just like that.
Some Tories have been complaining that Cameron shouldn't have agreed to let the LibDems into the debate, but he could hardly refuse now that they have a substantial amount of MPs, and in any case, if he was as good as he thought, he'd have seen Clegg off.
Lots of people have been remarking how cheerful Labourites have been at the LibDem surge. The truth is that though we disagree with them very seriously on lots of policies, the cold hand of fear doesn't choke us when we think of them taking office. We think a LibDem govt would try to govern for the whole country (the way we have these last 13 years - people in Tory and LibDem constituencies prospered as much as people in Labour constituencies). We also don't believe they would vindictively try to hurt Labour voters just for kicks.
In a democracy no party can govern forever, but you always hope to hand over to people with some decency. And that was the case till 1979. Everything changed then. Labour voters were systematically singled out, make jobless, their families impoverished, their self-esteem shredded, just because some Tory boys in the Thatcher government thought it was amusing.
The changes Cameron wrought were largely cosmetic, the nasty core of the Tory culture remained intact - witness Osborne's glee at the idea of making public sector workers pay for the mistakes of his banker friends. It's no wonder that the Tory lead started to slip at around the time of the Tory conference when they started to take power for granted and the mask slipped.
That's the reason Labour has been fighting the Tories so hard. It's too dangerous to let them back into government while the vicious side of their culture goes unchecked. They'll have to return to the culture of Macmillan for real before they are let back into government.
If Labour has stopped the Tories from taking govt, we have achieved our goal, regardless of what happens to us. Gord can be content that his suicide bomb mission in agreeing to the debates paid off. As for the LibDems, I wish them luck. I certainly hope that Labour voters in Tory constituencies switch their vote en masse to help remove Tory MPs.
The polls since the debate have been stunning:
BPIX CON 31%(-7), LAB 28%(-3), LDEM 32%(+12)
Comres CON 31%(-4), LAB 27%(-2), LDEM 29%(+8)
ICM CON 34%(-3), LAB 29%(-2), LDEM 27%(+7)
YouGov CON 33%(-4), LAB 28%(-3), LDEM 30%(+8)
As recently as Tuesday YouGov had the Tories on 41%, so the implosion has been swift.
What happens now? Furious tactical voting. In Lab-Lib marginals, the Tories will be voting LibDem. In Lib-Con marginals, Labour will be voting LibDem. Lab-Con marginals could go either way as the LibDem voters decide who they'd rather have.
Whatever happens we shall have a hung parliament, and I predict a second general election this year, possibly after the referendum on electoral reform delivers it's results.
All this has come about because David Cameron challenged Gordon Brown to a debate. The Tories didn't think Brown would accept, they only challenged Gord so they could set him up to be labelled "bottler" or "chicken", chortle chortle. Gordon took the risk and said yes knowing that he wouldn't win and that he could be made a fool of, but also knowing that Cameron's appearances hitherto were all controlled set pieces and there was no saying what would happen if he had to go 90 minutes in a debate. Gord was sacrificing himself and risking humiliation for the good of the party.
Cameron then foolishly bigged himself up - on Tuesday, just two days before the debate, his handlers were feeding the line to the Guardian that Cameron's new manifesto was a "JFK moment" and the Guardian duly headlined with it. If Cameron is JFK, Gord must be Nixon, geddit, chortle, chortle. What a childish bunch of tossers they are at CCHQ.
The thing is even JFK didn't bill himself as anything special before the debate - the impact of his debate against Nixon was largely down to how he surprised the audience. Cameron's achilles heel is his collosal vanity. Viewers looked at him and thought "You are no JFK" and then looked at Clegg and thought "I like you, maybe you are". And the Tory lead collapsed, just like that.
Some Tories have been complaining that Cameron shouldn't have agreed to let the LibDems into the debate, but he could hardly refuse now that they have a substantial amount of MPs, and in any case, if he was as good as he thought, he'd have seen Clegg off.
Lots of people have been remarking how cheerful Labourites have been at the LibDem surge. The truth is that though we disagree with them very seriously on lots of policies, the cold hand of fear doesn't choke us when we think of them taking office. We think a LibDem govt would try to govern for the whole country (the way we have these last 13 years - people in Tory and LibDem constituencies prospered as much as people in Labour constituencies). We also don't believe they would vindictively try to hurt Labour voters just for kicks.
In a democracy no party can govern forever, but you always hope to hand over to people with some decency. And that was the case till 1979. Everything changed then. Labour voters were systematically singled out, make jobless, their families impoverished, their self-esteem shredded, just because some Tory boys in the Thatcher government thought it was amusing.
The changes Cameron wrought were largely cosmetic, the nasty core of the Tory culture remained intact - witness Osborne's glee at the idea of making public sector workers pay for the mistakes of his banker friends. It's no wonder that the Tory lead started to slip at around the time of the Tory conference when they started to take power for granted and the mask slipped.
That's the reason Labour has been fighting the Tories so hard. It's too dangerous to let them back into government while the vicious side of their culture goes unchecked. They'll have to return to the culture of Macmillan for real before they are let back into government.
If Labour has stopped the Tories from taking govt, we have achieved our goal, regardless of what happens to us. Gord can be content that his suicide bomb mission in agreeing to the debates paid off. As for the LibDems, I wish them luck. I certainly hope that Labour voters in Tory constituencies switch their vote en masse to help remove Tory MPs.
Friday, April 16, 2010
The first TV debate
It's been interesting reading responses to the TV debates, I can't help feeling we were all watching something different (but then we all bring our own biases to the event however much we try to be objective).
Anyway, here's my take. I thought Clegg was seriously good at the opening speech, he looked directly at the camera and the camera seemed to get closer, allowing his head and shoulders to fill the screen - and it helps that he's very good-looking. Our Gord by contrast approached the opening like a speech, looking at the different parts of the audience, but this didn't work on TV, he appeared to be looking away to his left. "Oh no", I said, "Gord's blown it". "Wait", said my other half, "you can't judge within five seconds". Then he said, "I don't like Clegg". "Why?", I said, "he's doing well." "Don't know", he said, "stop talking over the debate".
Then to my relief, Gord did improve substantially. The cameras moved back a little while the debate proceeded so it didn't matter so much that he couldn't see where they were. I thought he was really good on the need to keep support for the economy going. His best asset was his voice. It's nice and low and rumbly and reassuring. He was also best when he had his grumpy face on.
Cameron was, well, Cameron. He kept mentioning his dead son over and over, and it started to grate. And he did the "I once met a black man" thing that Tories used to do in the 1990's, but which we thought they'd all grown out of (clearly not). I thought he struggled with the questions - all the questions from the audience were on the lines of "why arn't you spending more on the police/education/elderly who need nursing/the troops". They were clearly demanding more, whether they realised it or not. It meant that Cameron struggled because he appeared to be promising to deliver it all without any money and while cutting tax.
Nick Clegg started to lose the plot halfway through - he waffled, came across juvenile and a little patronising. "Cocky", said my other half. I had to agree - you wouldn't make him prime minister no matter how much you liked him. He also went on about Trident too much, irritating my other half; "Of course we can afford a bomb over 25 years". Now he had something substantial to pin his dislike of Clegg on.
Then we went online to see what everyone was saying and found to our surprise that it had been called for Clegg.
I'm not sure. I think women would have liked him but men would have found him irritating (based on my sample at home). Brown exceeded expectations and improved as things went on. Cameron was bland and evasive; if you liked him before you wouldn't have minded, if you disliked him before, this would have been reinforced. He was no JFK though (and i note he seems unable to curb his vain streak; giant Kim-Jong-il-type posters of himself, imagining himself to be Kennedy, this kind of self-importance doesn't play with the British electorate).
It will be interesting to see what the opinion polls make of it in a day or so. Labour's 31/32% support in current polls is from people who are sticking with the party despite the massive personal attacks on Brown these last three years. So I'm not expecting that to change much (especially as Brown's performance was better than normal). Many potential Tory voters though actually bought the Dave-is-the-new-JFK thing, and they will have been surprised to find he is not.
Anyway, here's my take. I thought Clegg was seriously good at the opening speech, he looked directly at the camera and the camera seemed to get closer, allowing his head and shoulders to fill the screen - and it helps that he's very good-looking. Our Gord by contrast approached the opening like a speech, looking at the different parts of the audience, but this didn't work on TV, he appeared to be looking away to his left. "Oh no", I said, "Gord's blown it". "Wait", said my other half, "you can't judge within five seconds". Then he said, "I don't like Clegg". "Why?", I said, "he's doing well." "Don't know", he said, "stop talking over the debate".
Then to my relief, Gord did improve substantially. The cameras moved back a little while the debate proceeded so it didn't matter so much that he couldn't see where they were. I thought he was really good on the need to keep support for the economy going. His best asset was his voice. It's nice and low and rumbly and reassuring. He was also best when he had his grumpy face on.
Cameron was, well, Cameron. He kept mentioning his dead son over and over, and it started to grate. And he did the "I once met a black man" thing that Tories used to do in the 1990's, but which we thought they'd all grown out of (clearly not). I thought he struggled with the questions - all the questions from the audience were on the lines of "why arn't you spending more on the police/education/elderly who need nursing/the troops". They were clearly demanding more, whether they realised it or not. It meant that Cameron struggled because he appeared to be promising to deliver it all without any money and while cutting tax.
Nick Clegg started to lose the plot halfway through - he waffled, came across juvenile and a little patronising. "Cocky", said my other half. I had to agree - you wouldn't make him prime minister no matter how much you liked him. He also went on about Trident too much, irritating my other half; "Of course we can afford a bomb over 25 years". Now he had something substantial to pin his dislike of Clegg on.
Then we went online to see what everyone was saying and found to our surprise that it had been called for Clegg.
I'm not sure. I think women would have liked him but men would have found him irritating (based on my sample at home). Brown exceeded expectations and improved as things went on. Cameron was bland and evasive; if you liked him before you wouldn't have minded, if you disliked him before, this would have been reinforced. He was no JFK though (and i note he seems unable to curb his vain streak; giant Kim-Jong-il-type posters of himself, imagining himself to be Kennedy, this kind of self-importance doesn't play with the British electorate).
It will be interesting to see what the opinion polls make of it in a day or so. Labour's 31/32% support in current polls is from people who are sticking with the party despite the massive personal attacks on Brown these last three years. So I'm not expecting that to change much (especially as Brown's performance was better than normal). Many potential Tory voters though actually bought the Dave-is-the-new-JFK thing, and they will have been surprised to find he is not.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
A few facts about Unite
Tories appear to be thrilled that BA has pulled out of talks with Unite, which means a three-day strike will go ahead. They are in full cry against Unite, convinced it's just like 1979 and bashing the unions will mean they soar in the polls again.
However, it's 2010 and some things are different. For instance, in 1979, most union members voted Labour. That's decidedly not the case now.
Populus did a poll of Unite members between 10th March 2010 and 16th March 2010 [update: that should have said 2009 - but the rough proportions should be correct, give or take a few percent, the point is that only about a third of Unite people vote Labour]. Here's the voting intention:
Con 31%
Lab 34%
Lib 19%
SNP 6%
PC 1%
other 9%
And 79% of Unite members said they were either very satisfied or reasonably satisfied with how Unite represented their interests (amongst the Tory Unite members, this was 74%).
Tory union bashers should ask themselves why Tory and LibDem voters have voted in favour of this strike: and the answer is that they have a predatory employer, they don't want a pay cut and they are frightened. These union members are also taxpayers who helped bail out the Tory bankers (many of whom are now trying to become Tory MPs).
The smart thing to do would have been not to politicise the dispute - after all it is taking place in the private sector. All aristocrats like Cameron prove when they attack them is that they are out of touch with people who work.
The 31% Tory Unite members on the receiving end of the Tory venom (probably for the first time in their lives) will also be rethinking their vote. Nobody likes being singled out and attacked by a political party when all you are doing is legally defending your job.
As the Tories found when the Sun endorsed them last autumn and they promptly plummeted in the polls, this is not 1979. Heroes of that era such as Murdoch, are now villains. Villains of that era such as union workers, are now weary taxpayers who are bailing out the bankers, while trying to defend their pay and prospects against demands made on the management by those very same bankers in the City (who then rewarded themselves tax-payer funded bonuses).
Update 22nd Mar 2010. Latest YouGov poll shows:
Con 36% (38%)
Lab 32% (31%)
Lib 20% (19%)
The figures in brackets show the YouGov figures from 19th March, just before the strike. Look at the direction of travel. And no wonder - the Tories went straight from defending Ashcroft's tax evasion to attacking taxpayers earning considerably less, some of whom had been intending to vote for them just a few weeks ago.
When Thatcher attacked the unions in 1979, it was risk-free for her as she knew union members didn't vote for her in anycase. The situation is completely different now. If Tories can't even recognise what century we're in, let alone how different things are now compared to 30+ years ago, they arn't fit for governing.
However, it's 2010 and some things are different. For instance, in 1979, most union members voted Labour. That's decidedly not the case now.
Populus did a poll of Unite members between 10th March 2010 and 16th March 2010 [update: that should have said 2009 - but the rough proportions should be correct, give or take a few percent, the point is that only about a third of Unite people vote Labour]. Here's the voting intention:
Con 31%
Lab 34%
Lib 19%
SNP 6%
PC 1%
other 9%
And 79% of Unite members said they were either very satisfied or reasonably satisfied with how Unite represented their interests (amongst the Tory Unite members, this was 74%).
Tory union bashers should ask themselves why Tory and LibDem voters have voted in favour of this strike: and the answer is that they have a predatory employer, they don't want a pay cut and they are frightened. These union members are also taxpayers who helped bail out the Tory bankers (many of whom are now trying to become Tory MPs).
The smart thing to do would have been not to politicise the dispute - after all it is taking place in the private sector. All aristocrats like Cameron prove when they attack them is that they are out of touch with people who work.
The 31% Tory Unite members on the receiving end of the Tory venom (probably for the first time in their lives) will also be rethinking their vote. Nobody likes being singled out and attacked by a political party when all you are doing is legally defending your job.
As the Tories found when the Sun endorsed them last autumn and they promptly plummeted in the polls, this is not 1979. Heroes of that era such as Murdoch, are now villains. Villains of that era such as union workers, are now weary taxpayers who are bailing out the bankers, while trying to defend their pay and prospects against demands made on the management by those very same bankers in the City (who then rewarded themselves tax-payer funded bonuses).
Update 22nd Mar 2010. Latest YouGov poll shows:
Con 36% (38%)
Lab 32% (31%)
Lib 20% (19%)
The figures in brackets show the YouGov figures from 19th March, just before the strike. Look at the direction of travel. And no wonder - the Tories went straight from defending Ashcroft's tax evasion to attacking taxpayers earning considerably less, some of whom had been intending to vote for them just a few weeks ago.
When Thatcher attacked the unions in 1979, it was risk-free for her as she knew union members didn't vote for her in anycase. The situation is completely different now. If Tories can't even recognise what century we're in, let alone how different things are now compared to 30+ years ago, they arn't fit for governing.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Weighing into this poll weighting controversy
The latest YouGov poll shows Labour at 34%, just three points behind the Tories on 37%. But how believable is this? I must admit to doing a double-take when I saw the figures. So I did what I haven't done for some time - I actually went to the YouGov site to look at their tables.
The tables for the latest poll arn't up, but yesterdays (which had Con 37%, Lab 32%) was there.
YouGov weight by newspaper affiliation, and here's how the data looked for yesterday's poll:
And here's what the Guardian reports daily newspaper circulation to be:
Looking at the above, YouGov are right to scale down their Guardian/Independent respondants sharply. The problem seems to be in the tabloid section. They are not getting many raw Sun/Star readers, and getting way too many Express/Mail readers. And it's hard to work out why they've weighted the Mirror up.
I guess this is the problem with online polling. The types of people who read the Sun and Mirror will be construction workers, plumbers, front line people who can't log onto the net during work hours, and who probably can't be bothered to go online when they get home either, especially if there is sport or soaps on TV (or the pub to go to). In addition, you get activists such as BNP types who organise to sign up to all the online polling units - and they probably give their political affiliation as Labour, to tie in with their line, "I used to vote Labour, but..." Hence the reason YouGov ask them what newspaper they read (it's less likely they will fake that, and this may account for the number of Express/Mail respondants in the unweighted figures). You can see why YouGov are having a mare and weighting their respondants to correct for this.
My hunch (and that's all it is), is that the telephone pollsters will be more accurate, as these biases simply won't occur for them. But we shant find out till the general election. Labourites should assume that there is still a ton of work to do, and should not relax till the telephone pollsters show us closing the gap.
The tables for the latest poll arn't up, but yesterdays (which had Con 37%, Lab 32%) was there.
YouGov weight by newspaper affiliation, and here's how the data looked for yesterday's poll:
Newspaper Type Uneighted Weighted
Express / Mail 370 236
Sun / Star 204 323
Mirror / Record 140 235
Guardian / Independent 128 59
FT / Times / Telegraph 173 140
Other Paper 181 184
No Paper 275 294
And here's what the Guardian reports daily newspaper circulation to be:
Express/Mail 2,790,884 (677,750 + 2,113,134)
Sun/Star 3,647,893 (2,862,935 + 784,958)
Mirror/Record 1,540,255 (1,225,502 + 314,753)
Guardian/Independent 487,480 (300,540 + 186,940)
FT(UK)/Times/Telegraph 1,314,825 (115,447 + 521,535 + 703,249)
Looking at the above, YouGov are right to scale down their Guardian/Independent respondants sharply. The problem seems to be in the tabloid section. They are not getting many raw Sun/Star readers, and getting way too many Express/Mail readers. And it's hard to work out why they've weighted the Mirror up.
I guess this is the problem with online polling. The types of people who read the Sun and Mirror will be construction workers, plumbers, front line people who can't log onto the net during work hours, and who probably can't be bothered to go online when they get home either, especially if there is sport or soaps on TV (or the pub to go to). In addition, you get activists such as BNP types who organise to sign up to all the online polling units - and they probably give their political affiliation as Labour, to tie in with their line, "I used to vote Labour, but..." Hence the reason YouGov ask them what newspaper they read (it's less likely they will fake that, and this may account for the number of Express/Mail respondants in the unweighted figures). You can see why YouGov are having a mare and weighting their respondants to correct for this.
My hunch (and that's all it is), is that the telephone pollsters will be more accurate, as these biases simply won't occur for them. But we shant find out till the general election. Labourites should assume that there is still a ton of work to do, and should not relax till the telephone pollsters show us closing the gap.
Sunday, March 07, 2010
The Change Election was 2005
Voters have a eight-year tolerance for prime ministers. Any longer than that, and they get restive and fretful. We saw that in the run-up to the 2005 election, where large amounts of left-of-centre people were fed-up with Blair and his zeal to get us involved in wars that had nothing to do with us.
Luckily for Labour, Blair announced unprompted in late 2004 that he was standing down in the next parliament. So voters knew they'd be getting a new Prime Minister. And Labour was careful to show Blair and Brown together throughout the 2005 campaign. We were as open as possible with the voters in letting them know who would succeed Blair. So the voters knew they were getting a change - the question was which change they wanted - a change to Brown or a change to Howard. They chose Brown and Labour.
Roll on to 2010, and the Tories are campaigning on Vote for a Change, and have been careful to let us know that there will be Swinging Austerity ahead if they win. In other words, if you vote Tory, you will be voting for A Change for the Worse. Only voters don't want any change at all, let along a change for the worse. What they want is things to go back to how they were in 2007. Given that 2007 was Gord's glad morning, large amounts of people think he's the one who knows how to restore that moment - hence the tightening in the polls.
Luckily for Labour, Blair announced unprompted in late 2004 that he was standing down in the next parliament. So voters knew they'd be getting a new Prime Minister. And Labour was careful to show Blair and Brown together throughout the 2005 campaign. We were as open as possible with the voters in letting them know who would succeed Blair. So the voters knew they were getting a change - the question was which change they wanted - a change to Brown or a change to Howard. They chose Brown and Labour.
Roll on to 2010, and the Tories are campaigning on Vote for a Change, and have been careful to let us know that there will be Swinging Austerity ahead if they win. In other words, if you vote Tory, you will be voting for A Change for the Worse. Only voters don't want any change at all, let along a change for the worse. What they want is things to go back to how they were in 2007. Given that 2007 was Gord's glad morning, large amounts of people think he's the one who knows how to restore that moment - hence the tightening in the polls.
Monday, February 08, 2010
House prices and the Labour vote
Even the most hardened anti-Labour activists have noticed that Labour has been recovering slowly but surely in the polls. YouGov put us at 24% just before the Labour party conference in September 2009. The latest YouGov poll showed Labour at 31%. That's a shift of some 7 points in six months. Muttering "it's within the margin of error" each time there is a poll doesn't magic away the trend.
So what has caused the move? David Cameron has undoubtedly helped - Cameron's airbrushed vanity plus his evasiveness and flip-flopping have made people nervous about him. The economy recovered slightly in the fourth quarter of 2009 and unemployment has stabalised at 2.45 million. At 7.8% of the workforce, it's roughly where it was when Labour came to power in 1997.
Tories seize on these facts to "prove" that the recovery won't mean a Labour win. Even with unemployment as "low", in Tory terms at least, as 7.8%, and an economy that had been growing for four years, John Major still lost the 1997 election.
This overlooks the fact that voters vote based on how the economy is affecting them, they arn't really swayed by headline figures in the newspapers. GDP growth means nothing. But "my house price has risen and I'm in a job" means something.
There are some 40 million people eligible to vote in the UK, and between 25 million and 30 million actually do. There are also 14.5 million homeowners in England alone, and therefore house prices have the biggest impact on voters, far more than anecdotes about what is happening to other people, or unemployment which affects a smaller percentage of the electorate.
The Labour government has taken a completely different approach to recession than the previous Conservative government. Norman Lamont and co made policy on the grounds that "if it's not hurting it's not working"; their goal was to hurt as many people as possible to wring the inflation that the Lawson boom had caused, out of the system. By contrast the 2008/9 global recession took place in a deflationary environment, and the Labour government's mantra was "we must avoid hurting people, pain impedes the recovery". To this end, all sorts of measures were taken. The bank bailout, and the stimulus are the things most people remember. But there were also a lot of small policies designed to mitigate the effects of the recession on the individual.
For instance, prior to the recession, you only got help with the interest portion of your mortgage if you had been unemployed for 39 weeks. This was promptly changed to 13 weeks. The government decided that it was cheaper to help people stay in their houses than to have to house them elsewhere with full housing benefit. It had a knock-on effect that it put a kibosh on the forced selling of homes that contributes to house price crashes. Trade unions played their part too, arguing for pay-freezes in return for no redundancies - and they found employers willing to listen; they too had memories of the early 90's recession where they made people redundant at great expense and then found themselves having to hire the same people back during the recovery.
And when it finally twigged at the Bank of England that this was a serious crisis, they cut interest rates aggressively, which meant that many of the people who were struggling to meet their mortgage in early 2008 found themselves able to breathe a sigh of relief. Home owners further used the drop in interest rates to overpay their mortgages. The Bank of England reports that mortgage debt fell by £7bn in Q1 2009, £7 bn in Q2 2009 and £4.9bn in Q3 2009. The more people pay down their debt, the less vulnerable they become to forced selling, and the less likely a full blown housing crash becomes.
The sum result of all of the above is that the Halifax reports that house prices have now risen for 7 consecutive months. The average house price according to the Halifax is around £169,777, which is down 15% from it's all-time peak in 2007. Importantly, the trend is up.
This is all in sharp contrast to the situation in 1997. Back in July 2006, I wrote a long post arguing that it wasn't sleeze that did in John Major's government, it was house prices. To illustrate my point, I posted price changes in London between the peak of 1988, and 1995. A full seven years after the peak, house prices were still in the doldrums. In fact house prices didn't recover their 1988 levels till 1999 - two years into a Labour government, whose decision to make the Bank of England independent restored confidence to the housing market.
Just to underline the difference, I'm going to repost the figures:
Average Price
Staggering, isn't it? That's the reason the Conservatives lost the 1997 election. Nearly nine years after the housing peak, house prices were in the doldrums, affecting most homeowners in the land - a vast number of people, and after all that time people simply lost patience and thumped the Conservatives in the general election as hard as they could. It wasn't just that the Conservatives lost a lot of people a lot of money (which is pretty bad). They caused social grief too. Loads of unmarried couples had been encouraged by Nigel Lawson to buy properties together to take advantage of double mortgage tax relief - when they split up they found they couldn't sell, and had to endure the hell of co-habiting with an ex. People who had started families in small flats found they couldn't trade up, had to endure the pressure of bringing up small children in very cramped conditions. The Major years record the highest divorce rates ever, as the pain gleefully unleashed by Lamont and co, tore families apart.
By contrast, the Labour government's more protective family-centric policies are holding people and the economy together.
If you are wondering why Labour has been rising in the polls these last six months, look to the similar rise in house prices in the last seven months. People who don't own property tend to be dismissive about property value. You have to live somewhere, they say, why the obsession with price. But most people who own property are long-term dwellers. They have no intention of moving. But they like the idea that they have the option of moving if they need to. And nobody likes the idea of taking losses, even if they are paper ones.
If the economy continues to recover, and houseprices continue to recover, then there is the possibility that Labour can make the final push to the 35% of the the vote that we need to win. If we can stage a full recovery just three years after the peak, we deserve victory. The Tories can do what they've been trying to do all last year - talk the economy down in the hopes of panicking people and inducing a crash. But they failed at this doom-mongering when the economic danger was most acute. Things will get more difficult for them from now on.
So what has caused the move? David Cameron has undoubtedly helped - Cameron's airbrushed vanity plus his evasiveness and flip-flopping have made people nervous about him. The economy recovered slightly in the fourth quarter of 2009 and unemployment has stabalised at 2.45 million. At 7.8% of the workforce, it's roughly where it was when Labour came to power in 1997.
Tories seize on these facts to "prove" that the recovery won't mean a Labour win. Even with unemployment as "low", in Tory terms at least, as 7.8%, and an economy that had been growing for four years, John Major still lost the 1997 election.
This overlooks the fact that voters vote based on how the economy is affecting them, they arn't really swayed by headline figures in the newspapers. GDP growth means nothing. But "my house price has risen and I'm in a job" means something.
There are some 40 million people eligible to vote in the UK, and between 25 million and 30 million actually do. There are also 14.5 million homeowners in England alone, and therefore house prices have the biggest impact on voters, far more than anecdotes about what is happening to other people, or unemployment which affects a smaller percentage of the electorate.
The Labour government has taken a completely different approach to recession than the previous Conservative government. Norman Lamont and co made policy on the grounds that "if it's not hurting it's not working"; their goal was to hurt as many people as possible to wring the inflation that the Lawson boom had caused, out of the system. By contrast the 2008/9 global recession took place in a deflationary environment, and the Labour government's mantra was "we must avoid hurting people, pain impedes the recovery". To this end, all sorts of measures were taken. The bank bailout, and the stimulus are the things most people remember. But there were also a lot of small policies designed to mitigate the effects of the recession on the individual.
For instance, prior to the recession, you only got help with the interest portion of your mortgage if you had been unemployed for 39 weeks. This was promptly changed to 13 weeks. The government decided that it was cheaper to help people stay in their houses than to have to house them elsewhere with full housing benefit. It had a knock-on effect that it put a kibosh on the forced selling of homes that contributes to house price crashes. Trade unions played their part too, arguing for pay-freezes in return for no redundancies - and they found employers willing to listen; they too had memories of the early 90's recession where they made people redundant at great expense and then found themselves having to hire the same people back during the recovery.
And when it finally twigged at the Bank of England that this was a serious crisis, they cut interest rates aggressively, which meant that many of the people who were struggling to meet their mortgage in early 2008 found themselves able to breathe a sigh of relief. Home owners further used the drop in interest rates to overpay their mortgages. The Bank of England reports that mortgage debt fell by £7bn in Q1 2009, £7 bn in Q2 2009 and £4.9bn in Q3 2009. The more people pay down their debt, the less vulnerable they become to forced selling, and the less likely a full blown housing crash becomes.
The sum result of all of the above is that the Halifax reports that house prices have now risen for 7 consecutive months. The average house price according to the Halifax is around £169,777, which is down 15% from it's all-time peak in 2007. Importantly, the trend is up.
This is all in sharp contrast to the situation in 1997. Back in July 2006, I wrote a long post arguing that it wasn't sleeze that did in John Major's government, it was house prices. To illustrate my point, I posted price changes in London between the peak of 1988, and 1995. A full seven years after the peak, house prices were still in the doldrums. In fact house prices didn't recover their 1988 levels till 1999 - two years into a Labour government, whose decision to make the Bank of England independent restored confidence to the housing market.
Just to underline the difference, I'm going to repost the figures:
Average Price
1988 1995
E1 £111,855 £ 72,010 -36% Steepney
E2 £ 80,658 £ 70,133 -13% Bethnal green
E3 £ 88,481 £ 86,269 -2% Bow
E4 £ 89,347 £ 77,110 -14% Chingford
E5 £ 79,244 £ 67,454 -15% Clapton
E6 £ 71,728 £ 51,666 -28% East Ham
E7 £ 69,497 £ 51,441 -26% Forest gate
E8 £ 96,424 £ 65,137 -32% Hackney
E9 £ 79,834 £ 65,071 -18% Homerton
E10 £ 64,831 £ 51,960 -20% Leyton
E11 £ 74,805 £ 66,005 -12% Leystone
E12 £ 72,743 £ 60,835 -16% Manor Park
E13 £ 63,935 £ 45,875 -28% Plalstow
E14 £121,729 £ 76,965 -37% Poplar
E15 £ 66,949 £ 47,655 -29% Stratford
E16 £ 71,207 £ 44,701 -37% North Woolich
E17 £ 66,885 £ 56,229 -16% Walthmanstow
E18 £ 89,053 £ 74,760 -16% Woodforrd
SE1 £ 84,712 £ 86,777 2% Southwark
SE2 £ 60,705 £ 51,552 -15% Abbey wook
SE3 £110,009 £ 91,978 -16% Blackheath
SE4 £ 71,175 £ 58,508 -18% Brockerly
SE5 £ 91,696 £ 95,027 4% Camberwell
SE6 £ 73,931 £ 63,182 -15% Catfrod
SE7 £ 72,669 £ 69,859 -4% Charlton
SE8 £ 70,171 £ 56,656 -19% Depford
SE9 £ 88,586 £ 72,842 -18% Eltham
SE10 £109,023 £ 90,617 -17% Greenwich
SE11 £107,695 £ 89,279 -17% Kenington
SE12 £ 78,779 £ 70,014 -11% Lee
SE13 £ 71,095 £ 61,565 -13% Lewisham
SE14 £ 75,195 £ 56,585 -25% New Cross
SE15 £ 74,480 £ 57,896 -22% Peckham
SE16 £ 90,481 £ 77,725 -14% Rotherhyde
SE17 £ 81,681 £ 66,449 -19% Walworth
SE18 £ 64,781 £ 53,108 -18% Woolwich
SE19 £ 71,505 £ 59,180 -17% Norwood
SE20 £ 65,283 £ 57,741 -12% Anerly
SE21 £ 88,365 £113,095 28% Dulwich
SE22 £ 74,459 £ 72,835 -2% East Dulwich
SE23 £ 74,539 £ 65,878 -12% Forest Hill
SE24 £ 91,261 £107,809 18% Herne Hill
SE25 £ 66,173 £ 52,403 -21% South Norwood
SE26 £ 72,065 £ 59,202 -18% Sydenham
SE27 £ 74,806 £ 64,903 -13% West Norwood
SE28 £ 59,946 £ 41,740 -30% Thamesmead
SW1 £155,444 £143,949 -7% Pimlico
SW2 £ 73,355 £ 75,317 3% Brixton
SW3 £179,108 £286,283 60% Chelsea
SW4 £104,969 £101,298 -3% Clapham
SW5 £123,264 £150,934 22% Earls Court
SW6 £125,794 £154,992 23% Fulham
SW7 £202,467 £309,205 53% South Kensington
SW8 £ 79,711 £ 75,780 -5% South Lambeth
SW9 £ 79,461 £ 78,125 -2% Stockwell
SW10 £138,141 £149,483 8% West Brompton
SW11 £112,650 £122,419 9% Battersea
SW12 £ 94,880 £101,541 7% Balhan
SW13 £151,440 £213,998 41% Barns
SW14 £145,167 £160,891 11% Mortlake
SW15 £116,233 £133,784 15% Putney
SW16 £ 78,829 £ 71,502 -9% Streatham
SW17 £ 78,376 £ 81,292 4% Tooting
SW18 £ 99,452 £ 93,966 -6% Wandwoth
SW19 £ 94,504 £104,880 11% Wimbledon
SW20 £119,287 £123,355 3% West Wimbledon
W1 £186,261 £160,324 -14% West End
W2 £141,258 £137,045 -3% Bayswater
W3 £ 99,658 £ 92,276 -7% Acton
W4 £112,954 £141,164 25% Chiswick
W5 £119,393 £104,85 -12% Ealing
W6 £113,409 £106,397 -6% Hammersmith
W7 £ 86,619 £ 82,690 -5% Hanwell
W8 £178,362 £252,656 42% Kensington
W9 £113,235 £129,276 14% Maida Hill
W10 £ 99,949 £102,227 2% North Kensington
W11 £147,168 £202,748 38% Notting Hill
W12 £ 96,080 £107,936 12% Shepards Bush
W13 £104,843 £108,235 3% West Ealing
W14 £103,523 £115,983 12% West Kensington
NW1 £128,027 £118,038 -8% Camden
NW2 £ 94,768 £ 82,839 -13% Criklewood
NW3 £136,916 £162,687 19% Hampstead
NW4 £112,462 £ 97,307 -13% Hendon
NW5 £111,719 £137,997 24% Kenish Town
NW6 £103,487 £100,780 -3% Kilbourn
NW7 £114,286 £ 91,416 -20% Mill Hill
NW8 £130,556 £164,265 26% St Johns Wood
NW9 £ 90,753 £ 73,471 -19% The Hyde
NW10 £ 81,750 £ 69,790 -15% Willesdon
NW11 £152,377 £144,263 -5% Golders Green
N1 £126,169 £118,018 -6% Islington
N2 £115,475 £130,491 13% East Finchley
N3 £113,428 £109,560 -3% Finchley
N4 £ 83,772 £ 86,198 3% Finsbury Park
N5 £116,772 £109,871 -6% Highbury
N6 £128,605 £169,553 32% Highgate
N7 £ 97,678 £ 86,880 -11% Holloway
N8 £ 92,203 £101,196 10% Hornsey
N9 £ 75,355 £ 58,552 -22% Edmonton
N10 £108,290 £106,685 -1% Muswell Hill
N11 £ 89,087 £ 80,152 -10% New Southgate
N12 £104,052 £ 95,928 -8% North Finchley
N13 £ 92,338 £ 70,766 -23% Palmer green
N14 £131,327 £112,201 -15% Southgate
N15 £ 73,075 £ 55,931 -23% South Tooting
N16 £ 82,812 £ 81,106 -2% Stoke Newington
N17 £ 72,228 £ 54,282 -25% Tottenham
N18 £ 78,221 £ 56,145 -28% Upper Edmonton
N19 £102,708 £ 98,869 -4% Upper Holloway
N20 £130,108 £117,172 -10% Whetstone
N21 £127,239 £114,728 -10% Winchmore Hill
N22 £ 80,880 £ 72,934 -10% Wood Green
Staggering, isn't it? That's the reason the Conservatives lost the 1997 election. Nearly nine years after the housing peak, house prices were in the doldrums, affecting most homeowners in the land - a vast number of people, and after all that time people simply lost patience and thumped the Conservatives in the general election as hard as they could. It wasn't just that the Conservatives lost a lot of people a lot of money (which is pretty bad). They caused social grief too. Loads of unmarried couples had been encouraged by Nigel Lawson to buy properties together to take advantage of double mortgage tax relief - when they split up they found they couldn't sell, and had to endure the hell of co-habiting with an ex. People who had started families in small flats found they couldn't trade up, had to endure the pressure of bringing up small children in very cramped conditions. The Major years record the highest divorce rates ever, as the pain gleefully unleashed by Lamont and co, tore families apart.
By contrast, the Labour government's more protective family-centric policies are holding people and the economy together.
If you are wondering why Labour has been rising in the polls these last six months, look to the similar rise in house prices in the last seven months. People who don't own property tend to be dismissive about property value. You have to live somewhere, they say, why the obsession with price. But most people who own property are long-term dwellers. They have no intention of moving. But they like the idea that they have the option of moving if they need to. And nobody likes the idea of taking losses, even if they are paper ones.
If the economy continues to recover, and houseprices continue to recover, then there is the possibility that Labour can make the final push to the 35% of the the vote that we need to win. If we can stage a full recovery just three years after the peak, we deserve victory. The Tories can do what they've been trying to do all last year - talk the economy down in the hopes of panicking people and inducing a crash. But they failed at this doom-mongering when the economic danger was most acute. Things will get more difficult for them from now on.
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
What were they thinking?
Today's events were topped off by a new YouGov poll showing Labour at 31% - just 9 points behind the Tories - part of the trend since the party conferences last autumn, where we've been slowly clawing our way back. We need around 34% to be able to be in with a shout of forming a government.
Amid this trend, and with the public recoiling from the giant airbrushed David Cameron pictures unleashed on them, why on earth did Patricia Hewitt and Geoff Hoon suddenly decide to mount a coup?
It wasn't just Labour members who were taken aback, backbench MPs were irritated too. So why did they do it? If they really believe that Labour is heading for defeat, why not let Brown take the hit, and then go for a full-scale leadership election after the general election? The clue was in their belief that a change of leader could happen within just 21 days, decided by the PLP and with a single candidate. In other words they are afraid of Labour's electoral college.
Labour is structured differently to other parties. A full scale leadership election involves having to win a majority across three electoral colleges - the PLP, the constituency members and the affiliates. In this post-financial meltdown world, I can say with some confidence that the chances of the membership and affiliates electing an arch-Blairite are slim to non-existent. The party will either go for a clean unifying moderate who is not part of any faction, someone like Ed Miliband, or the party will go left.
This means that the only chance for a David Miliband or James Purnell to win is to stage a coup where it's all decided by the PLP. The coups keep failing for the same reason - because they are being staged by the arch-Blairites. The PLP is not stupid. They don't really want to upset their activists, who do the leaflet delivery out of altruism rather than careerism. They can also see the dangers of having an arch-Blairite lead us into defeat (and if we change leaders we will certainly be defeated, simply for treating the voters like idiots with presidential/personality politics - voters don't buy this presidential business, they know that in the UK we elect parties).
Gordon Brown is actually a very important transitional figure in our party, a bridge between our past and our future. He's essentially holding the ring, holding it all together. If an arch-Blairite led us into defeat, there would be a reaction sharply leftwards in the leadership election afterwards. I'm sure this is why Peter Mandelson keeps defending Brown. If Brown toook the hit on behalf of the party, then it's likely a fresh moderate such as Ed Miliband would be elected by the membership. But the best way to keep Labour moderate and thus where the voters are, is for Brown to actually win the general election. That way when he retires, a moderate centrist has a very good chance of succeeding him. Governing keeps you moderate, opposition is when the loonies come out of the woodwork - see the 1980's for Labour and the early part of this century for the Tories.
The arch-Blairites kinda sorta know that their era is coming to a close, but can't come to terms with it. The irony about these repeated coups is that if some non-factional person with integrity staged them - someone like John Denham - people would follow. But who would follow a Geoff Hoon, or a Hazel Blears?
Amid this trend, and with the public recoiling from the giant airbrushed David Cameron pictures unleashed on them, why on earth did Patricia Hewitt and Geoff Hoon suddenly decide to mount a coup?
It wasn't just Labour members who were taken aback, backbench MPs were irritated too. So why did they do it? If they really believe that Labour is heading for defeat, why not let Brown take the hit, and then go for a full-scale leadership election after the general election? The clue was in their belief that a change of leader could happen within just 21 days, decided by the PLP and with a single candidate. In other words they are afraid of Labour's electoral college.
Labour is structured differently to other parties. A full scale leadership election involves having to win a majority across three electoral colleges - the PLP, the constituency members and the affiliates. In this post-financial meltdown world, I can say with some confidence that the chances of the membership and affiliates electing an arch-Blairite are slim to non-existent. The party will either go for a clean unifying moderate who is not part of any faction, someone like Ed Miliband, or the party will go left.
This means that the only chance for a David Miliband or James Purnell to win is to stage a coup where it's all decided by the PLP. The coups keep failing for the same reason - because they are being staged by the arch-Blairites. The PLP is not stupid. They don't really want to upset their activists, who do the leaflet delivery out of altruism rather than careerism. They can also see the dangers of having an arch-Blairite lead us into defeat (and if we change leaders we will certainly be defeated, simply for treating the voters like idiots with presidential/personality politics - voters don't buy this presidential business, they know that in the UK we elect parties).
Gordon Brown is actually a very important transitional figure in our party, a bridge between our past and our future. He's essentially holding the ring, holding it all together. If an arch-Blairite led us into defeat, there would be a reaction sharply leftwards in the leadership election afterwards. I'm sure this is why Peter Mandelson keeps defending Brown. If Brown toook the hit on behalf of the party, then it's likely a fresh moderate such as Ed Miliband would be elected by the membership. But the best way to keep Labour moderate and thus where the voters are, is for Brown to actually win the general election. That way when he retires, a moderate centrist has a very good chance of succeeding him. Governing keeps you moderate, opposition is when the loonies come out of the woodwork - see the 1980's for Labour and the early part of this century for the Tories.
The arch-Blairites kinda sorta know that their era is coming to a close, but can't come to terms with it. The irony about these repeated coups is that if some non-factional person with integrity staged them - someone like John Denham - people would follow. But who would follow a Geoff Hoon, or a Hazel Blears?
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
Tories bank on an Airbrushed David Cameron
Looks like the Tories have already started their election campaign, spending £500,000 on a poster campaign trying to get as much spending done before the election starting gun is fired (when election spending regulations will apply for the duration of the campaign).
What is interesting about their campaign is that even the Conservative party logo was omitted from the posters, and the Daily Mail reports today that the poster of David Cameron was airbrushed.
Instead the emphasis is all on Cameron - giant photo of him, (airbrushed because he's vain and fake obviously!) with the words "I'll cut the deficit not the NHS".
It's a very risky strategy. First of all the airbrushing plays into the narrative that Cameron is a phony con-man. Slippery. Fake. The emphasis on "I" rather than "We" suggests he believes in an imperial presidency rather than parliamentary government and the giant photos of himself suggest delusions of grandeur. Even Blair at his height only had a (non-airbrushed) picture of himself on the Labour manifesto booklet, never on giant posters. And he always appeared next to the word "Labour" with our logo prominent.
Then after suggesting fakery with his airbrushing, Cameron invokes the NHS. This might have worked had there not been the sight last summer of Tories going abroad trashing the NHS on American TV, disloyally talking Britain down as well as slamming a well-loved institution - and Cameron not even feeling the need to withdraw the whip from them. Who will believe him on the NHS now? Even if he offered a "cast-iron guarantee" about it.
I am feeling more cheerful about the prospects of the coming general election than I have for a while.
What is interesting about their campaign is that even the Conservative party logo was omitted from the posters, and the Daily Mail reports today that the poster of David Cameron was airbrushed.
Instead the emphasis is all on Cameron - giant photo of him, (airbrushed because he's vain and fake obviously!) with the words "I'll cut the deficit not the NHS".
It's a very risky strategy. First of all the airbrushing plays into the narrative that Cameron is a phony con-man. Slippery. Fake. The emphasis on "I" rather than "We" suggests he believes in an imperial presidency rather than parliamentary government and the giant photos of himself suggest delusions of grandeur. Even Blair at his height only had a (non-airbrushed) picture of himself on the Labour manifesto booklet, never on giant posters. And he always appeared next to the word "Labour" with our logo prominent.
Then after suggesting fakery with his airbrushing, Cameron invokes the NHS. This might have worked had there not been the sight last summer of Tories going abroad trashing the NHS on American TV, disloyally talking Britain down as well as slamming a well-loved institution - and Cameron not even feeling the need to withdraw the whip from them. Who will believe him on the NHS now? Even if he offered a "cast-iron guarantee" about it.
I am feeling more cheerful about the prospects of the coming general election than I have for a while.
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