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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » If UKIP is to win Westminster seats it needs much more direct voter contact than in Wythenshawe
Once again Lord Ashcroft has done what the mainstream media seems to have all but abandoned – commissioned an expensive phone poll on an upcoming political event and come up with data that adds to our understanding of the current political scene.
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UKIP are starting from a much lower base than the Lib Dems did in their days of by election glory. In particular they do not yet have the councillor base that was so critical to the Lib Dems. They are also still building their organisation nationally so applying resources to somewhere random like Wythenshawe is not going to be easy. The seat is also so safe there will be no "buzz" to bring in volunteers. Most Lib Dem triumphs were against unpopular governments that people wanted to give a bloody nose to, not oppositions with poll leads.
The point is a good one in that it shows how far UKIP has to go but I am not sure it is entirely a fair comparison.
I'd add two points.
Firstly by-election victories also come down to constituency good fortune. So far Ukip hasn't had the run of the grim reaper or scandal that has dropped a tasty target in their lap. In contrast, and until recently, we can all recall regular Lib and LibDem by-election victories in fertile territory for them.
Some might note Eastleigh. However the Ukip base was low, their organization patchy and they were up against one of the best LibDem teams in the country. Ukip require a seat in Lincolnshire or Kent to pop their way .... but the clock is ticking away to May 2015.
Secondly Ukip need to select a candidate with a very high political profile, a celebrity or preferably Farage himself to tackle a decent seat and make the by-election a huge event.
Sunderland South .. 1953 .. Lab to Con
Brighouse .. 1960 .. Lab to Con
Glasgow Govan .. 1973 .. Lab to SNP
Bermondsey .. 1983 .. Lab to Lib
Greenwich .. 1987 .. Lab to SDP
Glasgow Govan .. 1988 .. Lab to SNP
Romsey .. 2000 .. Con to LibDem
It will be low turnout, with a large postal vote, which will favour the established parties. Not much to see here that is going to upset the Westminster applecart.
I don't know how organised UKIP is - or how interested Farage truly is, or even whether he "gets it" - but a full-time agent, campaign office and voter data software (none of which needs to be big or complicated) needs to be put in place now to coordinate their troops to slug out a ground campaign, if they're going to win next year.
Eastleigh should be a good seat to target, as well as the above there are good numbers of Kippers in adjacent less winnable neighbouring seats, to add to the troops on the ground.
I still think that the kipper MPs in June 2016 will number zero, the combination of poor organisation and campaigning skill with FPTP will snooker them. The fish rots from the head, and for all his blokish charm Farage is a poor organiser.
Off topic, another Scottish indie poll - and this time the Nats can't complain about the YouGov
Excluding don't know/won't vote- (change vs Dec) Yes/No 39/61 (-/-)
Also questions on the other parts of the UK - feel positively about (net)
(Holyrood 2011 vote)
England/Wales
Con: +53 / +52
Lab: +26 / +48
LibD: +29 / +42
SNP: +2 / +40
BUT
The Lib Dem sub-sample has shocking Certainty to Vote figures in the Ashcroft poll. Either they will lose their deposit due to turnout collapse or the sub-sample suggests they will do slightly better than the headline looks. The really low LD contact rates in the later questions hint to the former, I suspect.
(Holyrood 2011 vote)
England/Wales
Con: +53 / +52
Lab: +26 / +48
LibD: +29 / +42
SNP: +2 / +40
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Sorry what was the question ?
The 1961 Bristol SE by-election was also a Conservative government gain from Labour but under unusual circumstances :
Tony Benn was the sitting MP but when his father died and he succeeded as Viscount Stansgate he was disqualified from the HoC. Benn was reselected and comfortably topped the poll at the by-election but remained disqualified and his second placed Conservative opponent was deemed elected.
After the passage of the 1963 Peerage Act the Conservative MP resigned and forced another by-election where no official Conservative stood and Benn, having renounced his peerage, was easily returned to the HoC.
The Act also facilitated the Earl of Home to renounce his peerages and shortly after return to the HoC as Prime Minister after a short period in which he was so without being either a member of the Lords or Commons.
While Con generally feel similarly positive the rest of the UK, Lab & Lib Dem a bit less keen on England, SNP markedly less keen.
Cheers for the comments on QT on the pevious thread. Watching it now at http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03twwfg/Question_Time_06_02_2014/
If it's any consolation, I will have lost about £300 for my Kipper enthusiasm...
In terms of party support, it's not Cameron who has to persuade his supporters of the merits of the Union:
Net No (Holyrood 2011 vote)
Con: +88
Lab; +41
LibD: +55
SNP: -35
Lab voters also have the highest don't knows and lowest certainty to vote.....
Although I disagree that they can't assume everyone feels betrayed, etc. They can assume this and it might be true but even if you feel betrayed at the metropolitan elite/Bullingdon boys, my belief is that you will nevertheless have to make a call as to who is best placed to run the country (although you don't have to do this before May 2015).
It has long been my belief that many kippers of the disaffected Tory flavour will return to the fold as they are, after all, conservative Tories. The WWC angle that's trickier. I don't think EdB hiking up tax rates (to greater or lesser fiscal effect) plays well with the aspirational working class; the last thing they want is to be penalised for their projected success.
As for the Cons challenge (I know something dear to your heart...) it is somehow to convince people that the economic aggregates are important. You only have to look at Polly to see how the left sees anything the Cons does as "horrific" and we will wait to see if Lynton et al can get the penny to drop that being on the side of economic growth is being on the side of every UK citizen (howsoever the UK is composed by GE2015).
UKIP are not a party. They are a state of mind and a temporary one at that.
UKIP's standard by-election practice is high-profile swarms - have a big stand in a shopping centre with lots of well-dressed volunteers handing out leaflets. In Eastleigh they'd rented a big shop. They don't seem up to speed on GOTV stuff.
The fact that the constituency is near Manchester is relevant too. There are lots of Labour activists there, thrilled to get a possibly competitive election to fight (current council makeup - 86 Lab, 9 LibDems, 0 Tories, 0 UKIP). The LibDems had 31 seats there as recently as 2010 so ought to have an activist base too.
But hey, we've not had the result yet. UKIP will surely do better than 16%.
German Constitutional court rules OMT illegal!!
Edit - whilst I wish you were right that they are not a party (I would much prefer a focused pressure group) I don't think that claim has any validity these days. They are at least as much a party as the Lib Dems. Which may not actually be saying much admittedly.
A principle Tory challenge is that for many non-Tories the party comes across as one that actively dislikes large parts of the populace: people on benefits, immigrants, public sector workers, the young and so on. Obviously, the Tories do not mean to look like this, but that's how it often seems. Language and tone are incredibly important - especially when you are implementing policies that will entail a lot of people taking a direct hit and you need to persuade more voters to support you, as opposed to just hanging on to what you have. This will be a challenge for UKIP In the longer term too.
The Tories have allowed their opponents to pigeon-hole them, but I would argue that's because they do very little to help themselves: when have you ever seen a senior Tory argue against the way in which arguments about welfare, immigration and similar subjects are presented in the Mail, Express, Sun etc?
German court rules that OMT may violate ECB mandate
08.55 Big blow this morning for the European Central Bank after a German's Consitutional Court decided to refer a complaint against the ECB's "unlimited" bond-buying programme to the European Court.
The court said it sees "important reasons to assume that it exceeds the European Central Bank's monetary policy mandate and thus infringes the powers of the member states, and that it violates the prohibition of monetary financing of the budget".
However, the court said in a statement that it "also considers it possible that if the OMT Decision were interpreted restrictively" it could conform with law.
The ECB's Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) programme, announced by ECB chief Mario Draghi in September 2012 at the height of the sovereign debt crisis, is widely credited with stabilising the euro.
It is the first time in the history of the Constitutional Court that the judges referred to the ECJ a question of law for consideration.
The German court said it will rule on the legality of the currency bloc's permanent bailout scheme, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), on March 18.
Spanish industrial production. The NSA numbers showed an acceleration to 3.5% y-o-y in December, from 0.2% in November. The SA number, on the other hand, decelerated to 1.7% from 2.6%. Overall, slightly weaker than expected, but continued evidence of economic recovery.
Swedish industrial production (and bear in mind the Swedish economy is much more dependent on capital goods and the growth in emerging markets) was much more negative, dropping 1% y-o-y, against expectations of a 0.4% increase. Next door in Norway, industrial production unexpectedly rose.
All-in-all, a quiet day. (Until US non-farm payrolls are released at 13:30 today. Expectations are for an acceleration to 180,000.)
One suspects the European Court will find whatever is most helpful to the EU.
http://blog.whatscotlandthinks.org/2014/02/steady-as-she-goes-from-yougov/
Quite a gender split -net "no":
M: +3
F: +32
At their peak, the LibDems would have relished a crack at this seat.
aka the Save The Euro At All Costs fund.
The Cons most certainly _don't_ help themselves. As I have asked here countless times, why they are unable to find bright, articulate, thoughtful MPs from, say, Wigan to promote, while finding room for (yet) another etonian in the No.10 policy unit is beyond me.
Eric Pickles is all very well but he's not in the "local normal person" category and has become a token of, well, tokenism.
The Cons need to reflect the nation much more than they do now. I appreciate that you could swap front bench for front bench and not have much change out of an Oxbridge millionaire's trust fund but it isn't Lab with the image problem.
Playing the "trust us we know what's best for you" is as stupid coming from a patrician as it is coming from a rabid socialist.
$64 question is will the economic recovery overcome those concerns? Hence my view that somehow (god knows how) they will have to convince the country that macro-economics is important.
@politicshome : Nick Clegg defends Vince Cable over valuation of Royal Mail. “Vince is not a sort of share price expert” #callclegg
https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/en/press/bvg14-009en.html
I read it as saying,
Thinking about inner city London seats with high numbers of private rental as the extreme example, is there any data on population turnover - if on average everyone moves once every 5 years, then you need to be really persistent with your ground war to keep up with everyone, otherwise over half your 'known' supporters will have moved and not be there by the time of the next election. I would imagine that this applies much less somewhere such as Wythenshawe, but it could potentially indicate seats which are more 'fluid' or 'susceptible' than you might otherwise think.
For a lot of people in the 21-35 year old bracket, I imagine that their email address changes far less often than their postal address - but that is pretty useless in a GOTV campaign if you don't know where (or even if) they are currently registered.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=F1a7SyMq_GU
That said, anyone who thinks Miliband as PM and Balls as chancellor would be a good thing must be crackers. The Coalition should probably start banging on about Labour opposing the £26,000 benefit cap now, and not stop until about 2025.
Hard to think what Vince IS an expert in, with the possible exception of after-the-event smugness.
I laid ukip at 11/2 tho must admit have backed 10/11 to finish 2nd
Ashcroft polls have always underestimated ukip in by elections since 2010, by up to 11%
I don't think Ed Balls amusingly inept SCON spinners grasped that did they?
All those anti-English lib dems??
*chortle*
I might have to make an important call to you later on.
with thanks.
Turnover tax?
Of all the most idiotic stupid ideas possible...that one is up there. Effectively VAT but without the neutral-ness of it to businesses.
Careful Mick, it's one of those 'have you been mis-sold independence' callers.
http://www.railjournal.com/index.php/financial/london-underground-and-bombardier-abandon-tube-signalling-contract.html
There are plenty of other alternative systems for high-capacity Automatic Train Operation that can be used, such as the (Westinghouse?) system used on the Victoria.
Another LU f-up.
Apparently not. Let them keep digging I say. They reveal far more of themselves with every failed attempt.
Of all the most idiotic stupid ideas possible...that one is up there. Effectively VAT but without the neutral-ness of it to businesses.
Ken Livingstone proposed the turnover tax at the NEC summit as a way of stopping "tax evasion and avoidance"
Lunatic idea from commie Ken.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2553502/NHS-bosses-bullying-GPs-sharing-patients-data-say-MPs-Scheme-described-frankly-disgraceful-treatment-patient-confidentiality.html
http://optout.care-data.info
Sad really , Taylor looked like he had no confidence and what has always impressed me about him in the past was his (justified) swagger. Hopefully its not the inevitable age decline happening- As a middle aged man he used to give me hope that we can compete with the younger ones in life's various competitions!!
Mind you , darts must be the only sport you get criticised for losing weight as Mardle did in his post match analysis on Taylor -said it affected his game!!
Lunatic idea from commie Ken. Ken Livingstone proposed the turnover tax at the NEC summit as a way of stopping "tax evasion and avoidance"
Lunatic idea from commie Ken.
It does nothing to stop either tax evasion or avoidance, unless of course they are proposing cutting corporation tax. But then that hits struggling businesses more than successful ones which have profits.
What it does do is make stuff more expensive, as the cost will be passed directly on to consumers if at all possible... nice one.
Italy, Ireland and Spain are all perfectly able to fund themselves in the market. (In the case of Spain, yields are just 3.6% on 10 years, and Italy is 3.7%. Irish 5 year bonds now yield less than UK ones.)
The only country which is might be an issue for is Greece - which is currently unable to fund itself. However, the Greek bailout mechanism is not the OMT, but rather direct loans from the IMF/EU (not the ECB), so it should not be an issue.
Secondly: the ruling does not preclude OMT transactions, it was just a "preliminary interpretation".
Thirdly: OMT volumes were actually very modest. The ECB has done very, very limited amounts of bond buying compared to the UK, the US and Japan. Their impact is more symbolic than actual.
Plus any racist slur has to confront the fact that the SNP have a high proportion of English-born members, MSPs and frontbenchers.
I was trying, but unable, to find an excellent article by the likes of Ian Macwhirter or Ian Bell which looked at the the way they were trying to claim that any anti-Tory criticism was perforce anti-English racism full stop. Such an approach is not a helpful contribution to the indy debate, it must be said. not least because there is still one Scottish Tory MP (and rather more MSPs, remember) and a few Welsh ones. And because it raises the question of what the Tories managed to do to get us to where we are now, from the 1950s when the Tories were doing so well. We wouldn't HAVE a chronic democratic deficit if the Tories hadn't managed somehow to lose almost all of Scotland.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26080668
I have vague memories of the days when the BoT figures were much more newsworthy than they are now, and the timing of a BOAC 747 import having political consequences.......
You mean more than labour since they are beating the tories and the libdems in the seat on contact metrics somewhat tellingly.
Lunatic idea from commie Ken.
It does nothing to stop either tax evasion or avoidance, unless of course they are proposing cutting corporation tax. But then that hits struggling businesses more than successful ones which have profits.
What it does do is make stuff more expensive, as the cost will be passed directly on to consumers if at all possible... nice one.
Balls has ruled it out, he definitely seems a bit to the economic right of Miliband at any rate. I don't think they'd be stupid enough to introduce it
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-26080285
As SO pointed out, the really interesting question is the SNP Y/N/NV/DK split: 62/27/1/10 - under two thirds yes must be concerning.....