The idea that a large number of people won't be identified from their tax data is obviously idiotic. Once again, David Davis is doing sterling work in leading the charge against it. It turns out that in the last leadership contest, Davis was the one who actually had strong liberal values, while Cameron has next to no understanding of them.
Seriously, why should the government be able to pass on my own financial records, 'anonymously' or not, without my permission?
Socrates: Just try to keep as much of it away from EU shores as you can.
This post seems to forget that. Lab got 29% in the last GE including sub 28% in England.
Plenty of bottoms to be rocked.
Some of the gap between the 35% and the 29% is people who went off Lab for leftie reasons e.g. Iraq.
Winds me up how anything 'bad' is classified as right-wing. Illegal wars, civil liberties abuses and corruption are as much left as right wing problems.
Cultural hegemony innit.
I agree there are both leftie and rightie reasons for being anti-Iraq. I'm just saying the Lab core vote in 2010 was deflated by the leftie component of that.)
(Similarly I'd expect Ukip voters to be more anti-Iraq for rightie reasons.)
Authoritarianism has nothing to do with right and left.
Lefties like to think it does to give them a sense of moral superiority as they know their economic and social policies are disasterous.
Did I say the leftie reasons were anything to do with "Authoritarianism"?
This post seems to forget that. Lab got 29% in the last GE including sub 28% in England.
Plenty of bottoms to be rocked.
Some of the gap between the 35% and the 29% is people who went off Lab for leftie reasons e.g. Iraq.
Winds me up how anything 'bad' is classified as right-wing. Illegal wars, civil liberties abuses and corruption are as much left as right wing problems.
Cultural hegemony innit.
I agree there are both leftie and rightie reasons for being anti-Iraq. I'm just saying the Lab core vote in 2010 was deflated by the leftie component of that.)
(Similarly I'd expect Ukip voters to be more anti-Iraq for rightie reasons.)
Authoritarianism has nothing to do with right and left.
Lefties like to think it does to give them a sense of moral superiority as they know their economic and social policies are disasterous.
That's right. Lefties are just disgusting. They should not be allowed to vote.
This post seems to forget that. Lab got 29% in the last GE including sub 28% in England.
Plenty of bottoms to be rocked.
Some of the gap between the 35% and the 29% is people who went off Lab for leftie reasons e.g. Iraq.
Winds me up how anything 'bad' is classified as right-wing. Illegal wars, civil liberties abuses and corruption are as much left as right wing problems.
Cultural hegemony innit.
I agree there are both leftie and rightie reasons for being anti-Iraq. I'm just saying the Lab core vote in 2010 was deflated by the leftie component of that.)
(Similarly I'd expect Ukip voters to be more anti-Iraq for rightie reasons.)
Authoritarianism has nothing to do with right and left.
Lefties like to think it does to give them a sense of moral superiority as they know their economic and social policies are disasterous.
If your last sentence contained a grain of truth, it would imply that Conservative governments are equally at fault for not suppressing "lefties" both organisationally and individually.
Of course, you yourself may believe that, but I doubt that more than one voter in 1000 would agree.
The idea that a large number of people won't be identified from their tax data is obviously idiotic. Once again, David Davis is doing sterling work in leading the charge against it. It turns out that in the last leadership contest, Davis was the one who actually had strong liberal values, while Cameron has next to no understanding of them.
Seriously, why should the government be able to pass on my own financial records, 'anonymously' or not, without my permission?
The political class should just have a website where they openly auction laws. It would be a more efficient way of doing it.
"At the same time, due to the UK's economic weakness (bankruptcy) after WW2 and its inability to invest in new manufacturing facilities whilst supporting the front line during the Cold War,"
Mr Flaming Picky would like to point out that the UK, whilst broke, was more than capable of investing in new manufacturing facilities post WW2. For a start the UK got more of the Marshall aid money than any other country. A combination of ignorance, stupidity, short-termism by governments, management and trade unions meant that we chose not to.
This post seems to forget that. Lab got 29% in the last GE including sub 28% in England.
Plenty of bottoms to be rocked.
Some of the gap between the 35% and the 29% is people who went off Lab for leftie reasons e.g. Iraq.
Winds me up how anything 'bad' is classified as right-wing. Illegal wars, civil liberties abuses and corruption are as much left as right wing problems.
Cultural hegemony innit.
I agree there are both leftie and rightie reasons for being anti-Iraq. I'm just saying the Lab core vote in 2010 was deflated by the leftie component of that.)
(Similarly I'd expect Ukip voters to be more anti-Iraq for rightie reasons.)
A good percentage of the anti-Iraq Labour vote which deserted Labour in 2005 actually returned to Labour in the 2010 GE . This was the main reason for the relatively good Labour performance in for example London and Birmingham .
"We saw the Liberal party splintered prior to WW2 and only saved by the SDPs coming away from Labour in the 1981 and merging with the Liberals in the same decade - as both were fighting for the same bathwater and faced a mutual drought."
The Liberals were back in the game from Feb 74. The SDP boosted the third party effort but it's significant that, despite the Owen/Steel caricature, it was the SDP that failed to pull its electoral weight, was subsumed by the LibDems and then the remnant SDP purists fizzled to obscurity.
Some Scotland specific polls are already showing the SNP ahead of Labour for Westminster elections, yet all UK-wide polls are showing Labour ahead, albeit narrowly. Surely that implies an increased vote for Labour in England and Wales.
This post seems to forget that. Lab got 29% in the last GE including sub 28% in England.
Plenty of bottoms to be rocked.
Some of the gap between the 35% and the 29% is people who went off Lab for leftie reasons e.g. Iraq.
Winds me up how anything 'bad' is classified as right-wing. Illegal wars, civil liberties abuses and corruption are as much left as right wing problems.
Cultural hegemony innit.
I agree there are both leftie and rightie reasons for being anti-Iraq. I'm just saying the Lab core vote in 2010 was deflated by the leftie component of that.)
(Similarly I'd expect Ukip voters to be more anti-Iraq for rightie reasons.)
Authoritarianism has nothing to do with right and left.
Lefties like to think it does to give them a sense of moral superiority as they know their economic and social policies are disasterous.
Did I say the leftie reasons were anything to do with "Authoritarianism"?
Having a more aggresive foreign policy is classified as being more authoritatian on the political compass.
I don't suppose that it will make many people happy.
Waveney was one of the UKIP prospects identified in the recent 'Revolt on the Right' book:
Ashfield Barnsley Central Bishop Auckland Blackpool South Eastleigh Great Grimsby Great Yarmouth Hartlepool Middlesborough Plymouth Moor View Rotherham South Shields Stoke-on-trent North Walsall North Waveney
This post seems to forget that. Lab got 29% in the last GE including sub 28% in England.
Plenty of bottoms to be rocked.
Some of the gap between the 35% and the 29% is people who went off Lab for leftie reasons e.g. Iraq.
Winds me up how anything 'bad' is classified as right-wing. Illegal wars, civil liberties abuses and corruption are as much left as right wing problems.
Cultural hegemony innit.
I agree there are both leftie and rightie reasons for being anti-Iraq. I'm just saying the Lab core vote in 2010 was deflated by the leftie component of that.)
(Similarly I'd expect Ukip voters to be more anti-Iraq for rightie reasons.)
Authoritarianism has nothing to do with right and left.
Lefties like to think it does to give them a sense of moral superiority as they know their economic and social policies are disasterous.
That's right. Lefties are just disgusting. They should not be allowed to vote.
You don't think they try and paint themselves as morally superior and their opponents as nasty or evi?
This post seems to forget that. Lab got 29% in the last GE including sub 28% in England.
Plenty of bottoms to be rocked.
Some of the gap between the 35% and the 29% is people who went off Lab for leftie reasons e.g. Iraq.
Winds me up how anything 'bad' is classified as right-wing. Illegal wars, civil liberties abuses and corruption are as much left as right wing problems.
Cultural hegemony innit.
I agree there are both leftie and rightie reasons for being anti-Iraq. I'm just saying the Lab core vote in 2010 was deflated by the leftie component of that.)
(Similarly I'd expect Ukip voters to be more anti-Iraq for rightie reasons.)
Authoritarianism has nothing to do with right and left.
Lefties like to think it does to give them a sense of moral superiority as they know their economic and social policies are disasterous.
If your last sentence contained a grain of truth, it would imply that Conservative governments are equally at fault for not suppressing "lefties" both organisationally and individually.
Of course, you yourself may believe that, but I doubt that more than one voter in 1000 would agree.
Had 3 bet sin mind. Ruled one out (rubbish odds) and seriously considering another. Sadly the third has suspended odds on Ladbrokes. Hoping they'll sort it out soon, given qualifying ended about two and a half hours ago.
This post seems to forget that. Lab got 29% in the last GE including sub 28% in England.
Plenty of bottoms to be rocked.
Some of the gap between the 35% and the 29% is people who went off Lab for leftie reasons e.g. Iraq.
Winds me up how anything 'bad' is classified as right-wing. Illegal wars, civil liberties abuses and corruption are as much left as right wing problems.
Cultural hegemony innit.
I agree there are both leftie and rightie reasons for being anti-Iraq. I'm just saying the Lab core vote in 2010 was deflated by the leftie component of that.)
(Similarly I'd expect Ukip voters to be more anti-Iraq for rightie reasons.)
Authoritarianism has nothing to do with right and left.
Lefties like to think it does to give them a sense of moral superiority as they know their economic and social policies are disasterous.
If your last sentence contained a grain of truth, it would imply that Conservative governments are equally at fault for not suppressing "lefties" both organisationally and individually.
Of course, you yourself may believe that, but I doubt that more than one voter in 1000 would agree.
Eh?
I think everyone who is politically engagé has a sense of moral superiority. It's a mild form of mental illness. At least, it's usually mild. Left and right are alike in this.
If you can't understand my comments, just pass them by.
This post seems to forget that. Lab got 29% in the last GE including sub 28% in England.
Plenty of bottoms to be rocked.
Some of the gap between the 35% and the 29% is people who went off Lab for leftie reasons e.g. Iraq.
Winds me up how anything 'bad' is classified as right-wing. Illegal wars, civil liberties abuses and corruption are as much left as right wing problems.
Cultural hegemony innit.
I agree there are both leftie and rightie reasons for being anti-Iraq. I'm just saying the Lab core vote in 2010 was deflated by the leftie component of that.)
(Similarly I'd expect Ukip voters to be more anti-Iraq for rightie reasons.)
Authoritarianism has nothing to do with right and left.
Lefties like to think it does to give them a sense of moral superiority as they know their economic and social policies are disasterous.
That's right. Lefties are just disgusting. They should not be allowed to vote.
You don't think they try and paint themselves as morally superior and their opponents as nasty or evi?
They use emotive arguments all the time.
All sides do this in politics, you never heard a right-winger paint the left as supporting the politics of envy or slamming those on benefits as weak and lazy?
In my opinion the Tories have not worked hard enough in parts of the country to obtain a majority. They need the foot soldiers who are going to assist the local party in their campaigns and I am not sure they are doing this. They seem to have plenty of money, as their local party has many paid officials, but I have not seen a Tory local party news leaflet in the last four months. Normally every month I would receive a news leaflet through the door, with details of local campaigns they were running. They may be saving up money for election campaigns, but they will be up against the Lib Dems, who tend to beat the Tories in the elections and in the amount of campign literature they send out.
But the Tory slogan at GE2015 has already been written - "Vote UKIP get Labour" Should knock UKIP to about 5%
How does voting UKIP get you Labour ???
Its also remeniscent of 2010's Conservative message of 'Vote Yellow Get Brown' which totally failed to stop people voting Yellow.
If the Conservatives want to win in 2015 they need to give reasons why people should actively vote Conservative - this is what they realised between 1979 and 1992.
According to YouGov, Labour support is currently 35%. But only 45% of that 35% think Labour is "lead by people of real ability" (Of The Tories 33%, 63% think that of the Tory Party)
"Ed’s been handed a solid electoral coalition on a plate sufficient for him to cruise towards Downing Street."
A scary thought and one that should probably put the fear of god into Labour.
What the hell will they actually do in power?
At rough guess, they will:
Raise taxes Increase unemployment Spend even more money we haven't got Bugger up the education of our children Fail to address the causes of poverty while pretending the opposite Posture and pose a lot Leave the country in a worse state than when they took office
I am only guessing but that's pretty much what happened under every Labour government in my time and I don't see why the next one should be any different.
Some Scotland specific polls are already showing the SNP ahead of Labour for Westminster elections, yet all UK-wide polls are showing Labour ahead, albeit narrowly. Surely that implies an increased vote for Labour in England and Wales.
Polls in 2009 often showed SNP ahead of Labour ( and all other parties ) in Westminster VI . Did not turn out remotely accurate forecasts did they . For example Ipsos Mori Nov 2009 SNP 34 Lab 32 Con 15 LD 12
Some Scotland specific polls are already showing the SNP ahead of Labour for Westminster elections, yet all UK-wide polls are showing Labour ahead, albeit narrowly. Surely that implies an increased vote for Labour in England and Wales.
It's probably worth 1% to their England score. The SNP polling is about 2% of the national vote
This post seems to forget that. Lab got 29% in the last GE including sub 28% in England.
Plenty of bottoms to be rocked.
Some of the gap between the 35% and the 29% is people who went off Lab for leftie reasons e.g. Iraq.
Winds me up how anything 'bad' is classified as right-wing. Illegal wars, civil liberties abuses and corruption are as much left as right wing problems.
Cultural hegemony innit.
I agree there are both leftie and rightie reasons for being anti-Iraq. I'm just saying the Lab core vote in 2010 was deflated by the leftie component of that.)
(Similarly I'd expect Ukip voters to be more anti-Iraq for rightie reasons.)
Authoritarianism has nothing to do with right and left.
Lefties like to think it does to give them a sense of moral superiority as they know their economic and social policies are disasterous.
That's right. Lefties are just disgusting. They should not be allowed to vote.
You don't think they try and paint themselves as morally superior and their opponents as nasty or evi?
They use emotive arguments all the time.
All sides do this in politics, you never heard a right-winger paint the left as supporting the politics of envy or slamming those on benefits as weak and lazy?
Those examples are talking about the policies not the person who is making them.
How often is Cameron's background brought up for example?
This post seems to forget that. Lab got 29% in the last GE including sub 28% in England.
Plenty of bottoms to be rocked.
Some of the gap between the 35% and the 29% is people who went off Lab for leftie reasons e.g. Iraq.
Winds me up how anything 'bad' is classified as right-wing. Illegal wars, civil liberties abuses and corruption are as much left as right wing problems.
Cultural hegemony innit.
I agree there are both leftie and rightie reasons for being anti-Iraq. I'm just saying the Lab core vote in 2010 was deflated by the leftie component of that.)
(Similarly I'd expect Ukip voters to be more anti-Iraq for rightie reasons.)
Authoritarianism has nothing to do with right and left.
Lefties like to think it does to give them a sense of moral superiority as they know their economic and social policies are disasterous.
That's right. Lefties are just disgusting. They should not be allowed to vote.
You don't think they try and paint themselves as morally superior and their opponents as nasty or evi?
They use emotive arguments all the time.
All sides do this in politics, you never heard a right-winger paint the left as supporting the politics of envy or slamming those on benefits as weak and lazy?
Those examples are talking about the policies not the person who is making them.
How often is Cameron's background brought up for example?
And how often is Miliband smeared? Ironically, this entire argument by you is itself a claim you are morally superior!
This post seems to forget that. Lab got 29% in the last GE including sub 28% in England.
Plenty of bottoms to be rocked.
Some of the gap between the 35% and the 29% is people who went off Lab for leftie reasons e.g. Iraq.
Winds me up how anything 'bad' is classified as right-wing. Illegal wars, civil liberties abuses and corruption are as much left as right wing problems.
Cultural hegemony innit.
I agree there are both leftie and rightie reasons for being anti-Iraq. I'm just saying the Lab core vote in 2010 was deflated by the leftie component of that.)
(Similarly I'd expect Ukip voters to be more anti-Iraq for rightie reasons.)
Authoritarianism has nothing to do with right and left.
Lefties like to think it does to give them a sense of moral superiority as they know their economic and social policies are disasterous.
If your last sentence contained a grain of truth, it would imply that Conservative governments are equally at fault for not suppressing "lefties" both organisationally and individually.
Of course, you yourself may believe that, but I doubt that more than one voter in 1000 would agree.
Eh?
I think everyone who is politically engagé has a sense of moral superiority. It's a mild form of mental illness. At least, it's usually mild. Left and right are alike in this.
If you can't understand my comments, just pass them by.
And now I'm off into the real world...
I'd say the left are more concerned with morals and the right more with pragmatism in general.
A good example is with the top rate of income tax after it was raised, the Tories saw it didn't bring in any more money so they brought it back down from 50%. Labour didn't argue from an economic perspective they attacked them personally saying it was for their rich mates.
Whether the policy made sense or not was a secondary consideration.
A Tory MP, insulting a political opponent on a personal level, and a major Tory website making clear they think this sort of thing is not just acceptable but good stuff.
EDIT: And let's not even get into some of the things said about Tony Benn when he died. As a Tory activist friend of mine said "Bob Crow and now Tony Benn, all the c**ts really".
This post seems to forget that. Lab got 29% in the last GE including sub 28% in England.
Plenty of bottoms to be rocked.
Some of the gap between the 35% and the 29% is people who went off Lab for leftie reasons e.g. Iraq.
Winds me up how anything 'bad' is classified as right-wing. Illegal wars, civil liberties abuses and corruption are as much left as right wing problems.
Cultural hegemony innit.
I agree there are both leftie and rightie reasons for being anti-Iraq. I'm just saying the Lab core vote in 2010 was deflated by the leftie component of that.)
(Similarly I'd expect Ukip voters to be more anti-Iraq for rightie reasons.)
Authoritarianism has nothing to do with right and left.
Lefties like to think it does to give them a sense of moral superiority as they know their economic and social policies are disasterous.
Did I say the leftie reasons were anything to do with "Authoritarianism"?
Having a more aggresive foreign policy is classified as being more authoritatian on the political compass.
The average Labour lead in September, when the Ashcroft poll was taken, was only 1-2 points less than it is at the moment.
More, not less. About 7% avg versus 4% avg or thereabouts. 10 was optimistic on my part. Labour were polling higher by a point or two. The Ashcroft poll is very useful for telling us what people planned to do mid term, but with the Liberals polling under 10% they are incapable of blue defence/red boost. If the tacticals come back into play, Labour slide from the 35 talked about in the thread, they can't poll at core AND vote tactically and maintain position, that's the point. If the Red Liberals stay, maybe they get their vote at that level, but they haven't got the tactical votes to rely on. They need to be at 35 with the Lib vote on 15, then the Ashcroft doomsday comes into play, as long as UKIP don't go back to blue.
Neck and neck looks quite likely, political stalemate, North South split with Scotland holding the aces.
David - I take it that like Mike Smithson you have little or no belief in Dr Stephen Fisher's 2015 General Election forecast currently showing the Tories as winning 36.3% of the vote, with Labour on 31.3% and the LibDems on 13.5%. One thing's for sure, if he's anywhere near right there are some very rich pickings to be made on the betting markets. Judging by the polls during the early months of 2009, who would have thought that Brown's Labour would finish just 50 seats behind the Tories barely a year later.
This post seems to forget that. Lab got 29% in the last GE including sub 28% in England.
Plenty of bottoms to be rocked.
Some of the gap between the 35% and the 29% is people who went off Lab for leftie reasons e.g. Iraq.
Winds me up how anything 'bad' is classified as right-wing. Illegal wars, civil liberties abuses and corruption are as much left as right wing problems.
Cultural hegemony innit.
I agree there are both leftie and rightie reasons for being anti-Iraq. I'm just saying the Lab core vote in 2010 was deflated by the leftie component of that.)
(Similarly I'd expect Ukip voters to be more anti-Iraq for rightie reasons.)
Authoritarianism has nothing to do with right and left.
Lefties like to think it does to give them a sense of moral superiority as they know their economic and social policies are disasterous.
That's right. Lefties are just disgusting. They should not be allowed to vote.
You don't think they try and paint themselves as morally superior and their opponents as nasty or evi?
They use emotive arguments all the time.
All sides do this in politics, you never heard a right-winger paint the left as supporting the politics of envy or slamming those on benefits as weak and lazy?
Those examples are talking about the policies not the person who is making them.
How often is Cameron's background brought up for example?
And how often is Miliband smeared? Ironically, this entire argument by you is itself a claim you are morally superior!
I'd say Miliband is criticised for what he does or doesn't do rather than his background. In fact there was a massive uproar when the Daily Mail wrote an article about his Dad so it shows how rare it is.
Saying the left argue from an emotional point of view is not claiming moral superiority. Being more pragmatic perhaps.
Come on help me out here, whenever the Tories enact any policy there's a concerted effort from the left to find someone vulnerable that is worse off and personalise the issue rather than look at the big picture.
This post seems to forget that. Lab got 29% in the last GE including sub 28% in England.
Plenty of bottoms to be rocked.
Some of the gap between the 35% and the 29% is people who went off Lab for leftie reasons e.g. Iraq.
Winds me up how anything 'bad' is classified as right-wing. Illegal wars, civil liberties abuses and corruption are as much left as right wing problems.
Cultural hegemony innit.
I agree there are both leftie and rightie reasons for being anti-Iraq. I'm just saying the Lab core vote in 2010 was deflated by the leftie component of that.)
(Similarly I'd expect Ukip voters to be more anti-Iraq for rightie reasons.)
A good percentage of the anti-Iraq Labour vote which deserted Labour in 2005 actually returned to Labour in the 2010 GE . This was the main reason for the relatively good Labour performance in for example London and Birmingham .
"A good percentage of"
No doubt.
Doesn't change the main point that a lot of Lib->Lab vote is more leftie (in one of various different ways) than the Lab centre of gravity.
(On the other hand that also means the ones living in posh areas will grit their teeth and vote anti-Con despite what they say now.)
"Ed’s been handed a solid electoral coalition on a plate sufficient for him to cruise towards Downing Street."
A scary thought and one that should probably put the fear of god into Labour.
What the hell will they actually do in power?
At rough guess, they will:
Raise taxes Increase unemployment Spend even more money we haven't got Bugger up the education of our children Fail to address the causes of poverty while pretending the opposite Posture and pose a lot Leave the country in a worse state than when they took office
I am only guessing but that's pretty much what happened under every Labour government in my time and I don't see why the next one should be any different.
Makes you wonder why Cameron wanted to be 'Heir to Blair' and why Osborne saw nothing wrong with Brown's 'no more boom and bust' economy.
Emminently sensible stuff. It really is amazing how lucky Ed M has been with external factors, both longstanding and more recently as a result of the Coalition and the risk of UKIP among other, have combined to create such a simple victory scenario with him. He's also been lucky in personal factors given he has avoided any negative connotations from being at the heart of the last government for so long, as if he is an outsider to all of that.
All of which is why I worry about Labour winning, but only slightly and not because I fear what a Labour government will do exactly. It's just that if it is so easy to get back in, it engenders laziness and arrogance from the political elites, just like when parties and people are in power so long they start to develop bad behaviours. With such an easy route to victory, less to do with the strengths of Labour and more to do with the weaknesses elsewhere, the party itself has not I think learned any valuable lessons, and will not, because why would they when they can sit back and win so easily?
''With such an easy route to victory, less to do with the strengths of Labour and more to do with the weaknesses elsewhere, the party itself has not I think learned any valuable lessons, and will not, because why would they when they can sit back and win so easily?''
Excellent point. I hope the electorate will make ed work much harder for his victory than the polls currently indicate.
A Tory MP, insulting a political opponent on a personal level, and a major Tory website making clear they think this sort of thing is not just acceptable but good stuff.
EDIT: And let's not even get into some of the things said about Tony Benn when he died. As a Tory activist friend of mine said "Bob Crow and now Tony Benn, all the c**ts really".
Blimey you're struggling here. Such lame examples pretty much prove my point.
Tony Benn got pretty much a universally decent reception when he died. Come back when you have an example even a tenth as venomous as when Thatcher died.
I'd say Miliband is criticised for what he does or doesn't do rather than his background. In fact there was a massive uproar when the Daily Mail wrote an article about his Dad so it shows how rare it is.
Saying the left argue from an emotional point of view is not claiming moral superiority. Being more pragmatic perhaps.
Come on help me out here, whenever the Tories enact any policy there's a concerted effort from the left to find someone vulnerable that is worse off and personalise the issue rather than look at the big picture.
Both sides personalise and both sides discuss the big picture too. Cameron spends half the time visiting a small business or whatever and saying how great it is that Paul and Sarah will be rewarded for their hard work. Then he says that the policy will help 20,000 people or whatever. Just like Labour find someone who is being really hard hit by the bedroom tax and then say that there are 40,000 people just like them. It's the same thing, and suggesting otherwise is ridiculous.
This post seems to forget that. Lab got 29% in the last GE including sub 28% in England.
Plenty of bottoms to be rocked.
Some of the gap between the 35% and the 29% is people who went off Lab for leftie reasons e.g. Iraq.
Winds me up how anything 'bad' is classified as right-wing. Illegal wars, civil liberties abuses and corruption are as much left as right wing problems.
Cultural hegemony innit.
I agree there are both leftie and rightie reasons for being anti-Iraq. I'm just saying the Lab core vote in 2010 was deflated by the leftie component of that.)
(Similarly I'd expect Ukip voters to be more anti-Iraq for rightie reasons.)
Authoritarianism has nothing to do with right and left.
Lefties like to think it does to give them a sense of moral superiority as they know their economic and social policies are disasterous.
That's right. Lefties are just disgusting. They should not be allowed to vote.
You don't think they try and paint themselves as morally superior and their opponents as nasty or evi?
They use emotive arguments all the time.
All parts of the political spectrum use emotive arguments all the time. Saying so and so has been "captured by producer interests" is a highly emotive claim; as is stating that your political opponents hate Britain and British history; as is the term "the politics of envy", and so on.
This is a genuine question so perhaps someone can enlighten me?
Do the three week campaign and the party manifestos make much difference to the election result? What is the evidence?
I've always thought it's no more than 1% at most.
I remember Francis Pym (OK, years ago) having a rubbish TV interview on one of the news programmes and saying later that he feared he'd torpedoed the whole campaign. I saw it and thought he was sh*te, but I knew it wouldn't matter at all. And it didn't - It never does.
I'd say Miliband is criticised for what he does or doesn't do rather than his background. In fact there was a massive uproar when the Daily Mail wrote an article about his Dad so it shows how rare it is.
Saying the left argue from an emotional point of view is not claiming moral superiority. Being more pragmatic perhaps.
Come on help me out here, whenever the Tories enact any policy there's a concerted effort from the left to find someone vulnerable that is worse off and personalise the issue rather than look at the big picture.
Both sides personalise and both sides discuss the big picture too. Cameron spends half the time visiting a small business or whatever and saying how great it is that Paul and Sarah will be rewarded for their hard work. Then he says that the policy will help 20,000 people or whatever. Just like Labour find someone who is being really hard hit by the bedroom tax and then say that there are 40,000 people just like them. It's the same thing, and suggesting otherwise is ridiculous.
Ok we're obviously never going to agree on this, but I'll give another example.
Labour hate the Tories completely and utterly, it is their main reason for existing. The Tories don't have the same hatred for Labour, they just consider them misguided and useless.
The whole legacy of Thatcher is viewed by the left through the prism of what sort of person she was rather than whether what she did worked or not.
I'd say Miliband is criticised for what he does or doesn't do rather than his background. In fact there was a massive uproar when the Daily Mail wrote an article about his Dad so it shows how rare it is.
Saying the left argue from an emotional point of view is not claiming moral superiority. Being more pragmatic perhaps.
Come on help me out here, whenever the Tories enact any policy there's a concerted effort from the left to find someone vulnerable that is worse off and personalise the issue rather than look at the big picture.
Both sides personalise and both sides discuss the big picture too. Cameron spends half the time visiting a small business or whatever and saying how great it is that Paul and Sarah will be rewarded for their hard work. Then he says that the policy will help 20,000 people or whatever. Just like Labour find someone who is being really hard hit by the bedroom tax and then say that there are 40,000 people just like them. It's the same thing, and suggesting otherwise is ridiculous.
Ok we're obviously never going to agree on this, but I'll give another example.
Labour hate the Tories completely and utterly, it is their main reason for existing. The Tories don't have the same hatred for Labour, they just consider them misguided and useless.
The whole legacy of Thatcher is viewed by the left through the prism of what sort of person she was rather than whether what she did worked or not.
Let's all just agree that Tories and right-wingers generally are *just better people* than those on the left.
I'd say Miliband is criticised for what he does or doesn't do rather than his background. In fact there was a massive uproar when the Daily Mail wrote an article about his Dad so it shows how rare it is.
Saying the left argue from an emotional point of view is not claiming moral superiority. Being more pragmatic perhaps.
Come on help me out here, whenever the Tories enact any policy there's a concerted effort from the left to find someone vulnerable that is worse off and personalise the issue rather than look at the big picture.
Both sides personalise and both sides discuss the big picture too. Cameron spends half the time visiting a small business or whatever and saying how great it is that Paul and Sarah will be rewarded for their hard work. Then he says that the policy will help 20,000 people or whatever. Just like Labour find someone who is being really hard hit by the bedroom tax and then say that there are 40,000 people just like them. It's the same thing, and suggesting otherwise is ridiculous.
To my mind, the idea of a left-right split having any unquestionable style or mode is nonsense, because the left-right split is tribal nonsense, inconsistent ideology dressed up to justify ingrained dislikes arising from where on believes they are supposed to sit on the left-right spectrum, particular as modern political parties, while they might gravitate to certain loose ideals which we can identify as belonging to a specific tradition, jump all around the spectrum to chase votes as it suits them on specific issues.
What we do have, I think, are standard non-partisan political behaviours to do with dissembling, distraction, attack lines and the like, which due to the current make up of whoever makes up the 'left' and whoever makes the 'right', employ them differently for tactical reasons, not any reasons of moral superiority or even some permanent divide between emotional and pragmatism that exists to seperate those sides.
I'd say Miliband is criticised for what he does or doesn't do rather than his background. In fact there was a massive uproar when the Daily Mail wrote an article about his Dad so it shows how rare it is.
Saying the left argue from an emotional point of view is not claiming moral superiority. Being more pragmatic perhaps.
Come on help me out here, whenever the Tories enact any policy there's a concerted effort from the left to find someone vulnerable that is worse off and personalise the issue rather than look at the big picture.
Both sides personalise and both sides discuss the big picture too. Cameron spends half the time visiting a small business or whatever and saying how great it is that Paul and Sarah will be rewarded for their hard work. Then he says that the policy will help 20,000 people or whatever. Just like Labour find someone who is being really hard hit by the bedroom tax and then say that there are 40,000 people just like them. It's the same thing, and suggesting otherwise is ridiculous.
Ok we're obviously never going to agree on this, but I'll give another example.
Labour hate the Tories completely and utterly, it is their main reason for existing. The Tories don't have the same hatred for Labour, they just consider them misguided and useless.
The whole legacy of Thatcher is viewed by the left through the prism of what sort of person she was rather than whether what she did worked or not.
Let's all just agree that Tories and right-wingers generally are *just better people* than those on the left.
Labour's support has been gently drifting downwards, with peaks and troughs, since the start of 2013. I don't think it's current level of 35/37% is in any way solid.
I'd say the floor is more like 32/33%. Switchers from the Lib Dems might be secure. But, I don't think everyone who voted for the party in May 2010 is secure. A number of them have gone over to UKIP. And in terms of trust on the economy, Labour and the Conservatives were level-pegging at the last election. Now, the Conservatives are well ahead on that measure. I could easily imagine a small number of voters switching as a result.
Furthermore, polls show that not all disillusioned Lib Dems have gone to Labour. A sizeable chunk have gone Conservative. Those votes will show up somewhere.
A final point. I've been surprised by the degree of complacency shown by Labour supporters. Neither current polling, nor local election results, should give any confidence that they'll be forming the next government.
For all of the froth around who will win, I don't expect a lot to change. More people fear Tory governments than fear Labour governments. The right has split wide open as the left did in the 80s and with FPTP its almost inevitable that will do the same kind of damage to Tory prospects now as the reverse did to Labour prospects then.
I've posted before about the split between the real economy and the official economy before, and the inability of Tory posters to accept that their official economy with its apparent recovery and prosperity simply doesn't exist in the world of so many voters is the key reason for their confusion as to why they are so likely to lose the election. Even UKIP get it, so it must be a Tory thing clinging onto Osborne's genius that blinds them.
However, little will change with a Labour win because the fundamentals - free market capitalism is broken - won't change. We have hit the end of the dollar as global reserve currency at a time where the wealth transfer from the mainstream economy to the elite has also reached its zenith. We see the spat with Russia fissle out because the west needs Russian gas. That Russia and China are tying up to trade oil and gas in (gold backed) Roubles and Yuan spells the end of the dominance of the petro-dollar, and that is not good news for the western economy. We have the traditional banking system where in most cases "assets" are debts, the middle and far east has the new banking system (well, traditional really) where "assets" are manufacturing and resources we need to buy.
So Labour, Tory, Republican, Democrat, whatever - our political class has utterly run out of ideas and cards to play. We will need to supplicate ourselves in front of the people who actually own and produce things and hold the resources we need just as they did before the elite got greedy and let Arabs, Russians and Chinese buy up everything at knock down prices. UKIP have the strategic argument right - the European Union has been an economic catastrophe. Its just that I'm not sure the UK independent now could do any better as we are two far gone. But I look across the sea at Norway and wonder where we could have been had we too been gifted vast oil and gas resources as they were.....
I'd say Miliband is criticised for what he does or doesn't do rather than his background. In fact there was a massive uproar when the Daily Mail wrote an article about his Dad so it shows how rare it is.
Saying the left argue from an emotional point of view is not claiming moral superiority. Being more pragmatic perhaps.
Come on help me out here, whenever the Tories enact any policy there's a concerted effort from the left to find someone vulnerable that is worse off and personalise the issue rather than look at the big picture.
Both sides personalise and both sides discuss the big picture too. Cameron spends half the time visiting a small business or whatever and saying how great it is that Paul and Sarah will be rewarded for their hard work. Then he says that the policy will help 20,000 people or whatever. Just like Labour find someone who is being really hard hit by the bedroom tax and then say that there are 40,000 people just like them. It's the same thing, and suggesting otherwise is ridiculous.
Ok we're obviously never going to agree on this, but I'll give another example.
Labour hate the Tories completely and utterly, it is their main reason for existing. The Tories don't have the same hatred for Labour, they just consider them misguided and useless.
The whole legacy of Thatcher is viewed by the left through the prism of what sort of person she was rather than whether what she did worked or not.
Let's all just agree that Tories and right-wingers generally are *just better people* than those on the left.
Better lovers, too
I wish I could be the kind of person who could be on the right, but I am not good enough. I am, intrinsically, bad.
some UKIP supporters are so cheesed off with the established parties they may happily "cut of their nose to spite their face"...
I also wouldn't be surprised if a fair chunk of UKIP support did not come from Labour 2010 non-voters - they are not going to go blue - (and probably won't be too fussed by a "vote UKIP get Labour message) they'll either vote UKIP or continue their strike.
But these voters don't hurt the Tories. I'd assume that most of this type of UKIP voter is concentrated in the Labour heartlands, so won't impact seats either way
The average Labour lead in September, when the Ashcroft poll was taken, was only 1-2 points less than it is at the moment.
More, not less. About 7% avg versus 4% avg or thereabouts. 10 was optimistic on my part. Labour were polling higher by a point or two. The Ashcroft poll is very useful for telling us what people planned to do mid term, but with the Liberals polling under 10% they are incapable of blue defence/red boost. If the tacticals come back into play, Labour slide from the 35 talked about in the thread, they can't poll at core AND vote tactically and maintain position, that's the point. If the Red Liberals stay, maybe they get their vote at that level, but they haven't got the tactical votes to rely on. They need to be at 35 with the Lib vote on 15, then the Ashcroft doomsday comes into play, as long as UKIP don't go back to blue.
Neck and neck looks quite likely, political stalemate, North South split with Scotland holding the aces.
This is a genuine question so perhaps someone can enlighten me?
Do the three week campaign and the party manifestos make much difference to the election result? What is the evidence?
I've always thought it's no more than 1% at most.
I remember Francis Pym (OK, years ago) having a rubbish TV interview on one of the news programmes and saying later that he feared he'd torpedoed the whole campaign. I saw it and thought he was sh*te, but I knew it wouldn't matter at all. And it didn't - It never does.
People turn off with a vengeance.
Apparently, and I do not have the figures so take this with a grain of salt, concerted campaigning in areas does drive turnout up which will impact the result, though to what degree I am not sure. I think it's a matter of small percentages - during a period of intense campaigning ahead of a GE you will through cultural osmosis manage to reach more people than would normally hear the political message, and some proportion of those will be affected by that message.
Like you I would guess the impact would be in the low percentage points, as most people will consciously or not have made up their minds based on how they feel about specific parties and politicians (I have a relative who has never voted, but states if it was compulsory they would vote for whoever would beat the Tories, even though whenever I mention a Tory policy without saying who it is from, they tend to think it's a good idea), and the campaigns and manifestos are not really about making a difference to the election result, but about firing up the base support of activists and making it as clear as possible to them what their lines will be beyond the standard attack lines.
To look at it another way, is the improving economy really likely to switch many votes from Lab to Con when Labour’s hardly gained any swing voters from the Tories since 2010 anyway?
To look at it another way, is the improving economy really likely to switch many votes from Lab to Con when Labour’s hardly gained any swing voters from the Tories since 2010 anyway?
Completely agree
100/30 is crazily skinny for a Conservative Majority on Betfair. Lay of the year still.
I'd say Miliband is criticised for what he does or doesn't do rather than his background. In fact there was a massive uproar when the Daily Mail wrote an article about his Dad so it shows how rare it is.
Saying the left argue from an emotional point of view is not claiming moral superiority. Being more pragmatic perhaps.
Come on help me out here, whenever the Tories enact any policy there's a concerted effort from the left to find someone vulnerable that is worse off and personalise the issue rather than look at the big picture.
Both sides personalise and both sides discuss the big picture too. Cameron spends half the time visiting a small business or whatever and saying how great it is that Paul and Sarah will be rewarded for their hard work. Then he says that the policy will help 20,000 people or whatever. Just like Labour find someone who is being really hard hit by the bedroom tax and then say that there are 40,000 people just like them. It's the same thing, and suggesting otherwise is ridiculous.
Ok we're obviously never going to agree on this, but I'll give another example.
Labour hate the Tories completely and utterly, it is their main reason for existing. The Tories don't have the same hatred for Labour, they just consider them misguided and useless.
The whole legacy of Thatcher is viewed by the left through the prism of what sort of person she was rather than whether what she did worked or not.
Let's all just agree that Tories and right-wingers generally are *just better people* than those on the left.
Surely not with all the parties they had when Tony Benn died, or the demonstrations at his funeral?
Or the badges they wear saying 'Never Kissed Labour"?
I'd say Miliband is criticised for what he does or doesn't do rather than his background. In fact there was a massive uproar when the Daily Mail wrote an article about his Dad so it shows how rare it is.
Saying the left argue from an emotional point of view is not claiming moral superiority. Being more pragmatic perhaps.
Come on help me out here, whenever the Tories enact any policy there's a concerted effort from the left to find someone vulnerable that is worse off and personalise the issue rather than look at the big picture.
Both sides personalise and both sides discuss the big picture too. Cameron spends half the time visiting a small business or whatever and saying how great it is that Paul and Sarah will be rewarded for their hard work. Then he says that the policy will help 20,000 people or whatever. Just like Labour find someone who is being really hard hit by the bedroom tax and then say that there are 40,000 people just like them. It's the same thing, and suggesting otherwise is ridiculous.
To my mind, the idea of a left-right split having any unquestionable style or mode is nonsense, because the left-right split is tribal nonsense, inconsistent ideology dressed up to justify ingrained dislikes arising from where on believes they are supposed to sit on the left-right spectrum, particular as modern political parties, while they might gravitate to certain loose ideals which we can identify as belonging to a specific tradition, jump all around the spectrum to chase votes as it suits them on specific issues.
What we do have, I think, are standard non-partisan political behaviours to do with dissembling, distraction, attack lines and the like, which due to the current make up of whoever makes up the 'left' and whoever makes the 'right', employ them differently for tactical reasons, not any reasons of moral superiority or even some permanent divide between emotional and pragmatism that exists to seperate those sides.
Nah there's definitely different types of people who are more inclined to hold certain views.
Right-wingers are more individually orientated whereas left-wingers are more group orientated. For example the left are far more likely to believe in and want to take action on climate change.
A final point. I've been surprised by the degree of complacency shown by Labour supporters. Neither current polling, nor local election results, should give any confidence that they'll be forming the next government.
In their defence, it's not just Labour supporters who are complacent in the view that Labour will win easily, as I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking it.
For all of the froth around who will win, I don't expect a lot to change. More people fear Tory governments than fear Labour governments. The right has split wide open as the left did in the 80s and with FPTP its almost inevitable that will do the same kind of damage to Tory prospects now as the reverse did to Labour prospects then.
However, little will change with a Labour win because the fundamentals - free market capitalism is broken - won't change.
Perhaps. Regardless of the world system, our professional political classes are all quite cautious I think, and in any case squabbling over the same 'centre ground' voters, so don't actually wish to do very much different from one another, there is remarkable consensus in fact. Which makes fearing a Tory or a Labour government pretty laughable in my opinion.
Backed Alonso at 4.5 for a podium, hedged at evens. Just posting this now because Ladbrokes still haven't updated a market I want to check (I'll repeat this when the pre-race piece is up).
In the dry, the Ferrari's looked much more competitive this weekend. That's basically the extent of my reasoning.
I'd say Miliband is criticised for what he does or doesn't do rather than his background. In fact there was a massive uproar when the Daily Mail wrote an article about his Dad so it shows how rare it is.
Saying the left argue from an emotional point of view is not claiming moral superiority. Being more pragmatic perhaps.
Come on help me out here, whenever the Tories enact any policy there's a concerted effort from the left to find someone vulnerable that is worse off and personalise the issue rather than look at the big picture.
Both sides personalise and both sides discuss the big picture too. Cameron spends half the time visiting a small business or whatever and saying how great it is that Paul and Sarah will be rewarded for their hard work. Then he says that the policy will help 20,000 people or whatever. Just like Labour find someone who is being really hard hit by the bedroom tax and then say that there are 40,000 people just like them. It's the same thing, and suggesting otherwise is ridiculous.
Ok we're obviously never going to agree on this, but I'll give another example.
Labour hate the Tories completely and utterly, it is their main reason for existing. The Tories don't have the same hatred for Labour, they just consider them misguided and useless.
The whole legacy of Thatcher is viewed by the left through the prism of what sort of person she was rather than whether what she did worked or not.
Let's all just agree that Tories and right-wingers generally are *just better people* than those on the left.
Better lovers, too
I wish I could be the kind of person who could be on the right, but I am not good enough. I am, intrinsically, bad.
Pointing out that left is more driven by morals and the right more by pragmatism isn't saying one is better than the other really is it.
I'd say Miliband is criticised for what he does or doesn't do rather than his background. In fact there was a massive uproar when the Daily Mail wrote an article about his Dad so it shows how rare it is.
Saying the left argue from an emotional point of view is not claiming moral superiority. Being more pragmatic perhaps.
Come on help me out here, whenever the Tories enact any policy there's a concerted effort from the left to find someone vulnerable that is worse off and personalise the issue rather than look at the big picture.
Both sides personalise and both sides discuss the big picture too. Cameron spends half the time visiting a small business or whatever and saying how great it is that Paul and Sarah will be rewarded for their hard work. Then he says that the policy will help 20,000 people or whatever. Just like Labour find someone who is being really hard hit by the bedroom tax and then say that there are 40,000 people just like them. It's the same thing, and suggesting otherwise is ridiculous.
Ok we're obviously never going to agree on this, but I'll give another example.
Labour hate the Tories completely and utterly, it is their main reason for existing. The Tories don't have the same hatred for Labour, they just consider them misguided and useless.
The whole legacy of Thatcher is viewed by the left through the prism of what sort of person she was rather than whether what she did worked or not.
Let's all just agree that Tories and right-wingers generally are *just better people* than those on the left.
Surely not with all the parties they had when Tony Benn died, or the demonstrations at his funeral?
Or the badges they wear saying 'Never Kissed Labour"?
Indeed. The tens of thousands of demonstrators at Mrs T's funeral and the multitudes attending those hundreds of huge parties in Labour's heartlands just confirm what I say: we on the left are contemptible. It is no puzzle to me at all why right-wingers on PB and elsewhere do constantly seek to portray lefties as immoral scum. If you are born with such goodness, I guess it is difficult to understand how others can turn out so vilely.
Labour's support has been gently drifting downwards, with peaks and troughs, since the start of 2013. I don't think it's current level of 35/37% is in any way solid.
I'd say the floor is more like 32/33%. Switchers from the Lib Dems might be secure. But, I don't think everyone who voted for the party in May 2010 is secure. A number of them have gone over to UKIP. And in terms of trust on the economy, Labour and the Conservatives were level-pegging at the last election. Now, the Conservatives are well ahead on that measure. I could easily imagine a small number of voters switching as a result.
Furthermore, polls show that not all disillusioned Lib Dems have gone to Labour. A sizeable chunk have gone Conservative. Those votes will show up somewhere.
A final point. I've been surprised by the degree of complacency shown by Labour supporters. Neither current polling, nor local election results, should give any confidence that they'll be forming the next government.
You a misreading complacency for a rational reading of the polling numbers .
Not a day goes by without me worrying about the nightmare of a Tory win.
Millions of Labour supporters feel the same.
Their thousands of volunteers will fight for every single vote.
I'd say Miliband is criticised for what he does or doesn't do rather than his background. In fact there was a massive uproar when the Daily Mail wrote an article about his Dad so it shows how rare it is.
Saying the left argue from an emotional point of view is not claiming moral superiority. Being more pragmatic perhaps.
Come on help me out here, whenever the Tories enact any policy there's a concerted effort from the left to find someone vulnerable that is worse off and personalise the issue rather than look at the big picture.
Both sides personalise and both sides discuss the big picture too. Cameron spends half the time visiting a small business or whatever and saying how great it is that Paul and Sarah will be rewarded for their hard work. Then he says that the policy will help 20,000 people or whatever. Just like Labour find someone who is being really hard hit by the bedroom tax and then say that there are 40,000 people just like them. It's the same thing, and suggesting otherwise is ridiculous.
To my mind, the idea of a left-right split having any unquestionable style or mode is nonsense, because the left-right split is tribal nonsense, inconsistent ideology dressed up to justify ingrained dislikes arising from where on believes they are supposed to sit on the left-right spectrum, particular as modern political parties, while they might gravitate to certain loose ideals which we can identify as belonging to a specific tradition, jump all around the spectrum to chase votes as it suits them on specific issues.
What we do have, I think, are standard non-partisan political behaviours to do with dissembling, distraction, attack lines and the like, which due to the current make up of whoever makes up the 'left' and whoever makes the 'right', employ them differently for tactical reasons, not any reasons of moral superiority or even some permanent divide between emotional and pragmatism that exists to seperate those sides.
Nah there's definitely different types of people who are more inclined to hold certain views.
Right-wingers are more individually orientated whereas left-wingers are more group orientated. For example the left are far more likely to believe in and want to take action on climate change.
That's spot on. You only have to look at Prince Charles to see that.
I'd say Miliband is criticised for what he does or doesn't do rather than his background. In fact there was a massive uproar when the Daily Mail wrote an article about his Dad so it shows how rare it is.
S.
Both sides personalise and both sides discuss the big picture too. Cameron spends half the time visiting a small business or whatever and saying how great it is that Paul and Sarah will be rewarded for their hard work. Then he says that the policy will help 20,000 people or whatever. Just like Labour find someone who is being really hard hit by the bedroom tax and then say that there are 40,000 people just like them. It's the same thing, and suggesting otherwise is ridiculous.
To my mind, the idea of a left-right split having any unquestionable style or mode is nonsense, because the lefivide between emotional and pragmatism that exists to seperate those sides.
Nah there's definitely different types of people who are more inclined to hold certain views.
Right-wingers are more individually orientated whereas left-wingers are more group orientated. For example the left are far more likely to believe in and want to take action on climate change.
Left and right may be more inclined to those positions today, in ten years it might well reverse - people may be inclined to hold specific positions, I agree, but parties change to the point that sometimes they become the antithesis of what their name supposedly stands for, in which case what was a 'right' party might over time become more 'left', or what is seen as naturally 'right' is appropriated by the 'left' and vice versa. My point was I don't think there is a consistent ideological basis for some grand analysis of left and right over the long term, even if when we take snapshots of particular periods we can identify trends that work for that specific snapshot.
But hey, that is just my gut talking on this one, and I will admit the idea appeals to me because I despise tribalistic political behaviour, and the left-right split is fodder for much tribal bullcrap.
Labour's support has been gently drifting downwards, with peaks and troughs, since the start of 2013. I don't think it's current level of 35/37% is in any way solid.
I'd say the floor is more like 32/33%. Switchers from the Lib Dems might be secure. But, I don't think everyone who voted for the party in May 2010 is secure. A number of them have gone over to UKIP. And in terms of trust on the economy, Labour and the Conservatives were level-pegging at the last election. Now, the Conservatives are well ahead on that measure. I could easily imagine a small number of voters switching as a result.
Furthermore, polls show that not all disillusioned Lib Dems have gone to Labour. A sizeable chunk have gone Conservative. Those votes will show up somewhere.
A final point. I've been surprised by the degree of complacency shown by Labour supporters. Neither current polling, nor local election results, should give any confidence that they'll be forming the next government.
You a misreading complacency for a rational reading of the polling numbers .
Not a day goes by without me worrying about the nightmare of a Tory win.
Millions of Labour supporters feel the same.
Their thousands of volunteers will fight for every single vote.
Likewise the fear of letting Labour back in and getting their hands on our great grand children's money That fear will grow as the election approaches and the moribund leadership and paucity of ideas apart from splash the cash are laid bare.
Labour's support has been gently drifting downwards, with peaks and troughs, since the start of 2013. I don't think it's current level of 35/37% is in any way solid.
I'd say the floor is more like 32/33%. Switchers from the Lib Dems might be secure. But, I don't think everyone who voted for the party in May 2010 is secure. A number of them have gone over to UKIP. And in terms of trust on the economy, Labour and the Conservatives were level-pegging at the last election. Now, the Conservatives are well ahead on that measure. I could easily imagine a small number of voters switching as a result.
Furthermore, polls show that not all disillusioned Lib Dems have gone to Labour. A sizeable chunk have gone Conservative. Those votes will show up somewhere.
A final point. I've been surprised by the degree of complacency shown by Labour supporters. Neither current polling, nor local election results, should give any confidence that they'll be forming the next government.
You a misreading complacency for a rational reading of the polling numbers .
Not a day goes by without me worrying about the nightmare of a Tory win.
Millions of Labour supporters feel the same.
Their thousands of volunteers will fight for every single vote.
Likewise the fear of letting Labour back in and getting their hands on our great grand children's money That fear will grow as the election approaches and the moribund leadership and paucity of ideas apart from splash the cash are laid bare.
More people fear a Tory government of any kind, than fear profligate Labour under an uninspiring leader. That may well not be particularly fair, but that does seem to be the way things are, hence the thrust of today's piece - Labour are lucky in the political battlefield they find themselves in.
Labour's support has been gently drifting downwards, with peaks and troughs, since the start of 2013. I don't think it's current level of 35/37% is in any way solid.
I'd say the floor is more like 32/33%. Switchers from the Lib Dems might be secure. But, I don't think everyone who voted for the party in May 2010 is secure. A number of them have gone over to UKIP. And in terms of trust on the economy, Labour and the Conservatives were level-pegging at the last election. Now, the Conservatives are well ahead on that measure. I could easily imagine a small number of voters switching as a result.
Furthermore, polls show that not all disillusioned Lib Dems have gone to Labour. A sizeable chunk have gone Conservative. Those votes will show up somewhere.
A final point. I've been surprised by the degree of complacency shown by Labour supporters. Neither current polling, nor local election results, should give any confidence that they'll be forming the next government.
You a misreading complacency for a rational reading of the polling numbers .
Not a day goes by without me worrying about the nightmare of a Tory win.
Millions of Labour supporters feel the same.
Their thousands of volunteers will fight for every single vote.
Likewise the fear of letting Labour back in and getting their hands on our great grand children's money That fear will grow as the election approaches and the moribund leadership and paucity of ideas apart from splash the cash are laid bare.
More people fear a Tory government of any kind, than fear profligate Labour under an uninspiring leader. That may well not be particularly fair, but that does seem to be the way things are, hence the thrust of today's piece.
Perhaps in the round, but the Labour fearers tend to be more politically active than the 'bloody Fatcha' stay at homers
I'd say Miliband is criticised for what he does or doesn't do rather than his background. In fact there was a massive uproar when the Daily Mail wrote an article about his Dad so it shows how rare it is.
Saying the left argue from an emotional point of view is not claiming moral superiority. Being more pragmatic perhaps.
Come on help me out here, whenever the Tories enact any policy there's a concerted effort from the left to find someone vulnerable that is worse off and personalise the issue rather than look at the big picture.
Both sides personalise and both sides discuss the big picture too. Cameron spends half the time visiting a small business or whatever and saying how great it is that Paul and Sarah will be rewarded for their hard work. Then he says that the policy will help 20,000 people or whatever. Just like Labour find someone who is being really hard hit by the bedroom tax and then say that there are 40,000 people just like them. It's the same thing, and suggesting otherwise is ridiculous.
Ok we're obviously never going to agree on this, but I'll give another example.
Labour hate the Tories completely and utterly, it is their main reason for existing. The Tories don't have the same hatred for Labour, they just consider them misguided and useless.
The whole legacy of Thatcher is viewed by the left through the prism of what sort of person she was rather than whether what she did worked or not.
Let's all just agree that Tories and right-wingers generally are *just better people* than those on the left.
Better lovers, too
I wish I could be the kind of person who could be on the right, but I am not good enough. I am, intrinsically, bad.
I thought I was a passionate England supporter and a proud Englishman. I assumed I was a hard working self made man and a higher-rate payer. My sums told me my family is a massive net contributor. I love London raised a family here and considered myself a Londoner. I thought I was fit and healthy and sporty.
Over the years I have learned from the PB Tories that I am an unpatriotic, lazy, welfare-dependent, upper middle class, rich, fat Mockney.
That fear will grow as the election approaches and the moribund leadership and paucity of ideas apart from splash the cash are laid bare.
To win, the tories will need to be aggressive in their scaremongering tactics - seizing on articles like that in today's Guardian about capital gains tax on first homes and forcing ed to deny its labour policy...
I'd say Miliband is criticised for what he does or doesn't do rather than his background. In fact there was a massive uproar when the Daily Mail wrote an article about his Dad so it shows how rare it is.
Saying the left argue from an emotional point of view is not claiming moral superiority. Being more pragmatic perhaps.
Come on help me out here, whenever the Tories enact any policy there's a concerted effort from the left to find someone vulnerable that is worse off and personalise the issue rather than look at the big picture.
Both sides personalise and both sides discuss the big picture too. Cameron spends half the time visiting a small business or whatever and saying how great it is that Paul and Sarah will be rewarded for their hard work. Then he says that the policy will help 20,000 people or whatever. Just like Labour find someone who is being really hard hit by the bedroom tax and then say that there are 40,000 people just like them. It's the same thing, and suggesting otherwise is ridiculous.
Ok we're obviously never going to agree on this, but I'll give another example.
Labour hate the Tories completely and utterly, it is their main reason for existing. The Tories don't have the same hatred for Labour, they just consider them misguided and useless.
The whole legacy of Thatcher is viewed by the left through the prism of what sort of person she was rather than whether what she did worked or not.
Let's all just agree that Tories and right-wingers generally are *just better people* than those on the left.
Surely not with all the parties they had when Tony Benn died, or the demonstrations at his funeral?
Or the badges they wear saying 'Never Kissed Labour"?
Not much of a comparison. Benn (probably like most pols) had very little effect on people's lives. If he'd bent the country to his will and been the most influential PM of the last 60 years (or since time began if you're a PB Tory), the funeral meats may have been a little more fruity.
I'd say Miliband is criticised for what he does or doesn't do rather than his background. In fact there was a massive uproar when the Daily Mail wrote an article about his Dad so it shows how rare it is.
Saying the left argue from an emotional point of view is not claiming moral superiority. Being more pragmatic perhaps.
Come on help me out here, whenever the Tories enact any policy there's a concerted effort from the left to find someone vulnerable that is worse off and personalise the issue rather than look at the big picture.
Both sides personalise and both sides discuss the big picture too. Cameron spends half the time visiting a small business or whatever and saying how great it is that Paul and Sarah will be rewarded for their hard work. Then he says that the policy will help 20,000 people or whatever. Just like Labour find someone who is being really hard hit by the bedroom tax and then say that there are 40,000 people just like them. It's the same thing, and suggesting otherwise is ridiculous.
To my mind, the idea of a left-right split having any unquestionable style or mode is nonsense, because the left-right split is tribal nonsense, inconsistent ideology dressed up to justify ingrained dislikes arising from where on believes they are supposed to sit on the left-right spectrum, particular as modern political parties, while they might gravitate to certain loose ideals which we can identify as belonging to a specific tradition, jump all around the spectrum to chase votes as it suits them on specific issues.
What we do have, I think, are standard non-partisan political behaviours to do with dissembling, distraction, attack lines and the like, which due to the current make up of whoever makes up the 'left' and whoever makes the 'right', employ them differently for tactical reasons, not any reasons of moral superiority or even some permanent divide between emotional and pragmatism that exists to seperate those sides.
Nah there's definitely different types of people who are more inclined to hold certain views.
Right-wingers are more individually orientated whereas left-wingers are more group orientated. For example the left are far more likely to believe in and want to take action on climate change.
People have interests. Most people vote what they perceive their interests to be and rationalize it after. There are a minority of people who are ideological and there are different types and those different types will trend left or right according to best fit but most people it's perceived interests with a layer of rationalization on top.
imo
The sort of arguments you're talking about are the arguments the different types of ideologue have with each other.
That fear will grow as the election approaches and the moribund leadership and paucity of ideas apart from splash the cash are laid bare.
To win, the tories will need to be aggressive in their scaremongering tactics - seizing on articles like that in today's Guardian about capital gains tax on first homes and forcing ed to deny its labour policy...
Mr. Fett, I saw the typo post-posting, but decided to leave it
Thank you, I hope so too.
Mr. Briskin, short of reliability woe (which is a realistic possibility) I think we're looking at Hamilton-Rosberg, in that order. Dry race helps Alonso too. Fight for the podium could be tasty indeed.
Growing tired of waiting for Ladbrokes to get their arse in gear. Qualifying ended almost three and a half hours ago.
Labour's support has been gently drifting downwards, with peaks and troughs, since the start of 2013. I don't think it's current level of 35/37% is in any way solid.
I'd say the floor is more like 32/33%. Switchers from the Lib Dems might be secure. But, I don't think everyone who voted for the party in May 2010 is secure. A number of them have gone over to UKIP. And in terms of trust on the economy, Labour and the Conservatives were level-pegging at the last election. Now, the Conservatives are well ahead on that measure. I could easily imagine a small number of voters switching as a result.
Furthermore, polls show that not all disillusioned Lib Dems have gone to Labour. A sizeable chunk have gone Conservative. Those votes will show up somewhere.
A final point. I've been surprised by the degree of complacency shown by Labour supporters. Neither current polling, nor local election results, should give any confidence that they'll be forming the next government.
You a misreading complacency for a rational reading of the polling numbers .
Not a day goes by without me worrying about the nightmare of a Tory win.
Millions of Labour supporters feel the same.
Their thousands of volunteers will fight for every single vote.
As will the opposing volunteers, and voters.
The thing is, the Conservatives' poll numbers, at 43% or so, looked rock-solid in Autumn 2009. Then, they turned out not to be.
One other point, which I overlooked, was Labour's outstanding performance in Scotland in 2010. They won't be repeating that in 2015.
For all of the froth around who will win, I don't expect a lot to change
Blimey Rochdale, how's that for a counsel of despair.
Thought about emigrating to Venezuela? They have more oil than anybody. And they have implemented some policies ed miliband would look favourably on.
What's not to like?
Why move? Business is global anyway, so its not like anywhere is immune. But the point about debt assets vs resource assets is genuine. We jack up student fees, create billions in debt, then sell it the banks so they can call it an asset. Never mind that students will owe repayments in their 50s or the universities get less cash and the taxpayer pays out more - at least we get to pretend that our banks aren't bankrupt.
My ideas on how we rebuild is accepting the mess and redirecting efforts. The banks only stay afloat thanks to government cash, so start new banks using that cash. Business still wants things to invest in, so build a county with infrastructure that's fit for the future - homes, transport, fibre broadband, power generation. All pay out over the mid to long term, all are essential. Most towns and cities rely on aging civic infrastructure built several generations before, so if your town is run down and riddled with unemployment, pay people to rebuild it so that we get benefit from people working now and parks and civic spaces for generations to come. Have a national statement of what being British actually means - the explosion of people reliant on food banks is a national outrage. We may be facing difficulties but leaving people to starve is not Britain.
It's just a pity that our politicians would rather argue micro points about cut this pound or spend it rather than the macro position of what we stand for and what we need, as well as the strategic about where we want to be. Slag off Salmond all we like, but the man espouses a vision for the future that's a hell of a lot more strategic than any Westminster politician. Scottish independence is a risk, but its not like the status quo works either.
Labour's support has been gently drifting downwards, with peaks and troughs, since the start of 2013. I don't think it's current level of 35/37% is in any way solid.
I'd say the floor is more like 32/33%. Switchers from the Lib Dems might be secure. But, I don't think everyone who voted for the party in May 2010 is secure. A number of them have gone over to UKIP. And in terms of trust on the economy, Labour and the Conservatives were level-pegging at the last election. Now, the Conservatives are well ahead on that measure. I could easily imagine a small number of voters switching as a result.
Furthermore, polls show that not all disillusioned Lib Dems have gone to Labour. A sizeable chunk have gone Conservative. Those votes will show up somewhere.
A final point. I've been surprised by the degree of complacency shown by Labour supporters. Neither current polling, nor local election results, should give any confidence that they'll be forming the next government.
You a misreading complacency for a rational reading of the polling numbers .
Not a day goes by without me worrying about the nightmare of a Tory win.
Millions of Labour supporters feel the same.
Their thousands of volunteers will fight for every single vote.
One other point, which I overlooked, was Labour's outstanding performance in Scotland in 2010. They won't be repeating that in 2015.
Quite.
Under either 'Yes' or 'No' - the SNP will get the votes to negotiate either separation or DevoMax - and they'll be Labour votes at that.....
The only way the SNP could do badly would be for the referendum to fail spectacularly - and that looks vanishingly unlikely.....
Backed Alonso at 4.5 for a podium, hedged at evens. Should be a very good battle behind the Mercedes, and, in the dry, the two Silver Arrows might just reproduce the duel in the desert we saw last time.
For all of the froth around who will win, I don't expect a lot to change
Blimey Rochdale, how's that for a counsel of despair.
Thought about emigrating to Venezuela? They have more oil than anybody. And they have implemented some policies ed miliband would look favourably on.
What's not to like?
But the point about debt assets vs resource assets is genuine. We jack up student fees, create billions in debt, then sell it the banks so they can call it an asset. Never mind that students will owe repayments in their 50s or the universities get less cash and the taxpayer pays out more - at least we get to pretend that our banks aren't bankrupt.
...
The student loan book is a drop in the ocean compared to other "assets" and does not prop up banks.
If Labour hadn't tried to force too many people to go to Uni, even when they were unsuited to it, we wouldn't need such massive student loans in the first place.
As I noted the other day, a 10% swing to the SNP would give it five seats. Two of these are Lib Dem seats. Labour are unlikely to lose many seats in Scotland even if the SNP drastically improves its vote share.
Unless Scotland votes Yes. And if so, Labour have far greater problems.
Mr. Smarmeron, it's a delight to be patronised by you: "A quick question for people who don't believe in man made climate change.
Did you also tell people acid rain, holes in the ozone layer, and the dangers of persisting PCB.s. were a myth as well?
You have to laugh at those who rail against spending the future generations money, while advocating maximum exploitation of their resources today."
Acid rain was verifiable because the rain was acidic. The hole in the ozone layer was observable and the reduction in chlorofluorocarbons reduced it. Not heard of PCBs.
The temperature (I realise global warming has been rebranded as climate change, as though we had a static climate in the pre-industrial era) has not risen for several years. This is contrary to the forecasts made by the 'scientists' who (referring to the IPCC) responded to being wrong by increasing their belief in their own accuracy from 90% to 95% in the most recent reports.
Science is sceptical. It is not faith or socialist doctrine, it's about evidence, facts, hypotheses and proof. The starting point is not blind faith but sceptical disbelief.
Show me the evidence. Not that the climate is changing, because that has *always* happened. The evidence that man's industrial activities are causing a warming beyond what could be expected to occur due to natural variance in the climate.
When we had warm periods during the reigns of Caligula and Claudius it wasn't because the Romans kept on building coal-fired power stations. The warm period during Henry VIII's reign wasn't because he bought each wife a 4x4 as a wedding present.
The climate has changed enormously. Earth tips from Ice Age to warm periods on a regular basis. And now, contrary to all the doomsayers' predictions, the temperature has plateaued for over a decade.
some UKIP supporters are so cheesed off with the established parties they may happily "cut of their nose to spite their face"...
I also wouldn't be surprised if a fair chunk of UKIP support did not come from Labour 2010 non-voters - they are not going to go blue - (and probably won't be too fussed by a "vote UKIP get Labour message) they'll either vote UKIP or continue their strike.
But these voters don't hurt the Tories. I'd assume that most of this type of UKIP voter is concentrated in the Labour heartlands, so won't impact seats either way
No, you're looking at things through a viewpoint with 1970s echoes.
Labour's heartlands are now the urban areas.
Where Labour is losing support is among wwc voters in industrial areas.
The Stalybridges and Stocksbridges not the Manchesters and Sheffields.
In 2019-2020 UKIP will be a major threat to Labour in the old industrial constituencies but those are also the constituencies where the Conservatives will need to make gains if they are to get an overall majority.
I'm sorry Herders but the whole premise of your argument is that essentially the election is now and that year out polls are set in stone. The art of successful political betting is get ahead of the game and not allow short term or present circumstances to colour your judgement in not allowing for other circumstance to potentially intervene.
In short present performance is no guide to next years performance - Ask Man Utd supporters !!
I posed the same question to OGH the other day and response was there none, namely :
Essentially, do you believe the broad thrust of present polling is the result for May 2015 ?
You're still evading the question though, which is:
If you think that Labour's share could be lower than 35% in 2015, then that means you think that they will lose some of either or both of their 2010 voters and/or the LD-Lab switchers. Which, and why, given that (1) the 2010 Lab share represented a dreadful performance from Labour, and (2) the Yellow-Red swing voters seem very hostile to both Con and LD.
Now, you could argue that Scotland could throw an almighty spanner in the works (true, but then I did say in the leader "assuming a Scottish ‘No’ vote in September"), you could argue that either group in the Lab vote could decline further on the basis of abstentions, and you could argue that they might lose votes to UKIP or the Greens or someone else.
In fact, I wasn't arguing in the leader that this is what will happen and that Miliband is bound for No 10; I was simply pointing out that Labour have an extremely strong strategic position. Something might go wrong for them still but I would strongly argue against assuming swingback in the nature of previous parliaments, simply because the nature of 'swing-to' has been so different this time.
Labour's support has been gently drifting downwards, with peaks and troughs, since the start of 2013. I don't think it's current level of 35/37% is in any way solid.
I'd say the floor is more like 32/33%. Switchers from the Lib Dems might be secure. But, I don't think everyone who voted for the party in May 2010 is secure. A number of them have gone over to UKIP. And in terms of trust on the economy, Labour and the Conservatives were level-pegging at the last election. Now, the Conservatives are well ahead on that measure. I could easily imagine a small number of voters switching as a result.
Furthermore, polls show that not all disillusioned Lib Dems have gone to Labour. A sizeable chunk have gone Conservative. Those votes will show up somewhere.
A final point. I've been surprised by the degree of complacency shown by Labour supporters. Neither current polling, nor local election results, should give any confidence that they'll be forming the next government.
You a misreading complacency for a rational reading of the polling numbers .
Not a day goes by without me worrying about the nightmare of a Tory win.
Millions of Labour supporters feel the same.
Their thousands of volunteers will fight for every single vote.
The thing is, the Conservatives' poll numbers, at 43% or so, looked rock-solid in Autumn 2009. Then, they turned out not to be.
I don't think they did.
The Conservatives performed unimpressively in the 2009 local and EU elections in terms of vote share.
This was masked by the gains they made from Labour's disasterous performance.
The Conservatives peaked in the summer of 2008 but then suffered firstly from their weak reaction to the financial crisis and then through the general anger to the establishment parties which the expenses scandal caused.
My ideas on how we rebuild is accepting the mess and redirecting efforts. The banks only stay afloat thanks to government cash, so start new banks using that cash. Business still wants things to invest in, so build a county with infrastructure that's fit for the future - homes, transport, fibre broadband, power generation. All pay out over the mid to long term, all are essential. Most towns and cities rely on aging civic infrastructure built several generations before, so if your town is run down and riddled with unemployment, pay people to rebuild it so that we get benefit from people working now and parks and civic spaces for generations to come. Have a national statement of what being British actually means - the explosion of people reliant on food banks is a national outrage. We may be facing difficulties but leaving people to starve is......
I'd vote for the party offering this prospectus or dare I say it New Deal. In a heartbeat. But sadly all our leaders are so terrified of markets that it won't happen until after a financial crisis that makes 2007 look like the teddy bears picnic.
I remember people saying that acid rain didn't exist, and when it became a "fact" that there was nothing we could do about it. CO2 is provably a factor in the "greenhouse" effect (along with several other substances). Skepticism is a useful scientific tool, however, when it goes against the vast majority of expert opinion, it is really up to you to prove it's non existence. Scientific consensus may be wrong, and you may indeed be lauded by future generations for your insight, or cursed for leaving a world that is a polluted and denuded husk. Believe in scientists, or a petrol head? I will go with the science.
For Labour, they have to say whether they intend to protect what's left of the 1945 welfare settlement (the NHS, mostly) or whether they will spend only what the country can afford. They surely can't do both. Whatever they say will cost them votes.
You do realise that the Tories have increased spending on the NHS? Despite the pain this has caused in other areas?
And that - based on what foxinsox has said (as he works in the medical field) that the reforms seem to be having a broadly positive effect?
And that there has been no winter flu crisis (albeit helped by a mild winter) or A&E crisis?
What exactly are Labour protecting the NHS from?
For the coalition parties, their manifestoes can hardly ignore the fact that they've been governing in coalition for the last 5 years. In particular, Cameron will be pressed on what he would have done with a majority that he hasn't been able to do in the real world. The answer will cost him votes: either "nothing" (so why give him a majority) or else measures that will appeal only to his hard core, and not to floating voters.
And I'm sure that he will come up with some sensible answers. Probably most along the faster reform argument plus some targeted points to appeal to soft Kippers. Nothing that will dramatically rock the boat however.
It seems pretty clear that most of the Lib Dem to Labour switchers will not be giving up on supporting Labour any time soon. They seem more enthused with the current Labour opposition than Labour's 2010 support.
There is of course no reason why Labour should regard its 2010 support as safely in its column, and there are plenty of indications in the polls that a fair chunk of Labour's current support is not exactly enthusiastic. I do not regard 35% as a minimum level of support for Labour.
They may not been enthusiastic about Miliband.
But nothing enthuses Labour supporters more than the prospect of beating the Tories.
They need no other incentive.
Conservative supporters may not understand it, but a visceral, tribal antipathy towards their party is a master motivator.
So why did. Labour get 27.9% in England in 2010 ? Where was this mythical marginal supporting mob of hate then ?
Alot didn't vote, like Tories in 01. Many others joined the Cleggasm. Lab/LD combined was 52% and this exposes the Tories weak position. PB tories have consistently underestimated the potential for this vote to realign in 2015 in a way that greatly damages them.
Fair enough.
Lab/LD in 2010 was 52% Now it is c. 46% = 36% + 10%
But the Tory slogan at GE2015 has already been written - "Vote UKIP get Labour" Should knock UKIP to about 5%
How does voting UKIP get you Labour ???
Its also remeniscent of 2010's Conservative message of 'Vote Yellow Get Brown' which totally failed to stop people voting Yellow.
If the Conservatives want to win in 2015 they need to give reasons why people should actively vote Conservative - this is what they realised between 1979 and 1992.
There's something in that, but if you to ask what the most memorable campaign images from 1979 and 1992 were, I'd be surprised if they weren't "Labour isn't Working" and "Labour's Tax Bombshell".
Anyway, the Tories will campaign on the positive topic of the economy. The question is whether that will be enough to overcome Labour's very significant inbuilt advantage.
I remember people saying that acid rain didn't exist, and when it became a "fact" that there was nothing we could do about it. CO2 is provably a factor in the "greenhouse" effect (along with several other substances). Skepticism is a useful scientific tool, however, when it goes against the vast majority of expert opinion, it is really up to you to prove it's non existence. Scientific consensus may be wrong, and you may indeed be lauded by future generations for your insight, or cursed for leaving a world that is a polluted and denuded husk. Believe in scientists, or a petrol head? I will go with the science.
It's not *based* on science. As the climategate emails proved beyond a reasonable doubt the base data was being manipulated. Even if the science was sound it's built on false foundations.
You're still evading the question though, which is:
If you think that Labour's share could be lower than 35% in 2015, then that means you think that they will lose some of either or both of their 2010 voters and/or the LD-Lab switchers. Which, and why, given that (1) the 2010 Lab share represented a dreadful performance from Labour, and (2) the Yellow-Red swing voters seem very hostile to both Con and LD.
Now, you could argue that Scotland could throw an almighty spanner in the works (true, but then I did say in the leader "assuming a Scottish ‘No’ vote in September"), you could argue that either group in the Lab vote could decline further on the basis of abstentions, and you could argue that they might lose votes to UKIP or the Greens or someone else.
In fact, I wasn't arguing in the leader that this is what will happen and that Miliband is bound for No 10; I was simply pointing out that Labour have an extremely strong strategic position. Something might go wrong for them still but I would strongly argue against assuming swingback in the nature of previous parliaments, simply because the nature of 'swing-to' has been so different this time.
I can see arguments on both sides of this.
On the face of it, it does seem as though Labour's support at 35% is a solid bedrock thanks to the 2010 Lib-Dem switchers.
And yet, Labour's polling position has been in decline since early 2013. It's easy to forget now, but through much of 2012 (after the budget anyway) Labour was regularly polling in the low to mid 40's and had double digit leads.
Given that swingback has been occurring for the past year and a bit, the cycle of this Parliament looks very similar to most other Parliaments - I.E. Opposition reaches it's peak around year 2/3 of government, then declines in later part of the Parliament.
Now, maybe "swingback" has gone as far as it will go and Labour will stem the decline from here to the general election> That would be unusual.
My guess is that we will continue to see an overall drop in support for Labour through the next year and which means even some of the 2010 Lib-Dem switchers will drift back to the Lib's over time.
Will be fascinating to see what happens over the next year. When you add the dilemma over Labour's position to the Scottish Referendum and the fixed term parliament itself - I think there's some evidence to suggest polls in a fixed term Parliament can shift more suddenly when the election is actually called as opposed to the slow and steady swingback that occurs when the election date in unknown by the GBP - We really are in for an exciting year of political watching (and betting)
Comments
Of course, you yourself may believe that, but I doubt that more than one voter in 1000 would agree.
A scary thought and one that should probably put the fear of god into Labour.
What the hell will they actually do in power?
Mr Flaming Picky would like to point out that the UK, whilst broke, was more than capable of investing in new manufacturing facilities post WW2. For a start the UK got more of the Marshall aid money than any other country. A combination of ignorance, stupidity, short-termism by governments, management and trade unions meant that we chose not to.
"We saw the Liberal party splintered prior to WW2 and only saved by the SDPs coming away from Labour in the 1981 and merging with the Liberals in the same decade - as both were fighting for the same bathwater and faced a mutual drought."
............................................................................
Incorrect.
The Liberals were back in the game from Feb 74. The SDP boosted the third party effort but it's significant that, despite the Owen/Steel caricature, it was the SDP that failed to pull its electoral weight, was subsumed by the LibDems and then the remnant SDP purists fizzled to obscurity.
http://www.politicalcompass.org/
Ashfield
Barnsley Central
Bishop Auckland
Blackpool South
Eastleigh
Great Grimsby
Great Yarmouth
Hartlepool
Middlesborough
Plymouth Moor View
Rotherham
South Shields
Stoke-on-trent North
Walsall North
Waveney
http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415661508/
They use emotive arguments all the time.
Had 3 bet sin mind. Ruled one out (rubbish odds) and seriously considering another. Sadly the third has suspended odds on Ladbrokes. Hoping they'll sort it out soon, given qualifying ended about two and a half hours ago.
If you can't understand my comments, just pass them by.
And now I'm off into the real world...
Its also remeniscent of 2010's Conservative message of 'Vote Yellow Get Brown' which totally failed to stop people voting Yellow.
If the Conservatives want to win in 2015 they need to give reasons why people should actively vote Conservative - this is what they realised between 1979 and 1992.
http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/xc4okgl821/YG-Archive-Pol-Sun-results-170414.pdf
Labour may or may note be pursuing a 35% strategy. But some of polling suggests that their current 35% could be softer than the Tories current 33%.
At rough guess, they will:
Raise taxes
Increase unemployment
Spend even more money we haven't got
Bugger up the education of our children
Fail to address the causes of poverty while pretending the opposite
Posture and pose a lot
Leave the country in a worse state than when they took office
I am only guessing but that's pretty much what happened under every Labour government in my time and I don't see why the next one should be any different.
For example
Ipsos Mori Nov 2009 SNP 34 Lab 32 Con 15 LD 12
The SNP polling is about 2% of the national vote
How often is Cameron's background brought up for example?
A good example is with the top rate of income tax after it was raised, the Tories saw it didn't bring in any more money so they brought it back down from 50%. Labour didn't argue from an economic perspective they attacked them personally saying it was for their rich mates.
Whether the policy made sense or not was a secondary consideration.
' It was one of the reasons I stopped saying it eighteen months ago. You cannot make people listen who do not want to hear.'
You just let your guard down,unforced error.
http://www.conservativehome.com/parliament/2014/04/typical-tofu-munching-guardian-reading-labour-nonsense-stewart-jackson-tells-it-like-it-is.html
A Tory MP, insulting a political opponent on a personal level, and a major Tory website making clear they think this sort of thing is not just acceptable but good stuff.
EDIT: And let's not even get into some of the things said about Tony Benn when he died. As a Tory activist friend of mine said "Bob Crow and now Tony Benn, all the c**ts really".
Labour were polling higher by a point or two.
The Ashcroft poll is very useful for telling us what people planned to do mid term, but with the Liberals polling under 10% they are incapable of blue defence/red boost. If the tacticals come back into play, Labour slide from the 35 talked about in the thread, they can't poll at core AND vote tactically and maintain position, that's the point. If the Red Liberals stay, maybe they get their vote at that level, but they haven't got the tactical votes to rely on.
They need to be at 35 with the Lib vote on 15, then the Ashcroft doomsday comes into play, as long as UKIP don't go back to blue.
Neck and neck looks quite likely, political stalemate, North South split with Scotland holding the aces.
One thing's for sure, if he's anywhere near right there are some very rich pickings to be made on the betting markets. Judging by the polls during the early months of 2009, who would have thought that Brown's Labour would finish just 50 seats behind the Tories barely a year later.
It advises ed not to mention this before 2015, but then bring it in after he wins.
Saying the left argue from an emotional point of view is not claiming moral superiority. Being more pragmatic perhaps.
Come on help me out here, whenever the Tories enact any policy there's a concerted effort from the left to find someone vulnerable that is worse off and personalise the issue rather than look at the big picture.
No doubt.
Doesn't change the main point that a lot of Lib->Lab vote is more leftie (in one of various different ways) than the Lab centre of gravity.
(On the other hand that also means the ones living in posh areas will grit their teeth and vote anti-Con despite what they say now.)
All of which is why I worry about Labour winning, but only slightly and not because I fear what a Labour government will do exactly. It's just that if it is so easy to get back in, it engenders laziness and arrogance from the political elites, just like when parties and people are in power so long they start to develop bad behaviours. With such an easy route to victory, less to do with the strengths of Labour and more to do with the weaknesses elsewhere, the party itself has not I think learned any valuable lessons, and will not, because why would they when they can sit back and win so easily?
Excellent point. I hope the electorate will make ed work much harder for his victory than the polls currently indicate.
Tony Benn got pretty much a universally decent reception when he died. Come back when you have an example even a tenth as venomous as when Thatcher died.
Do the three week campaign and the party manifestos make much difference to the election result? What is the evidence?
I've always thought it's no more than 1% at most.
I remember Francis Pym (OK, years ago) having a rubbish TV interview on one of the news programmes and saying later that he feared he'd torpedoed the whole campaign. I saw it and thought he was sh*te, but I knew it wouldn't matter at all. And it didn't - It never does.
People turn off with a vengeance.
twitter.com/UKIP/status/457171340660056064
http://www.keighleynews.co.uk/news/news_keighley/11159187.UKIP_candidate_wins_town_council_by_election/
Labour hate the Tories completely and utterly, it is their main reason for existing. The Tories don't have the same hatred for Labour, they just consider them misguided and useless.
The whole legacy of Thatcher is viewed by the left through the prism of what sort of person she was rather than whether what she did worked or not.
What we do have, I think, are standard non-partisan political behaviours to do with dissembling, distraction, attack lines and the like, which due to the current make up of whoever makes up the 'left' and whoever makes the 'right', employ them differently for tactical reasons, not any reasons of moral superiority or even some permanent divide between emotional and pragmatism that exists to seperate those sides.
I'd say the floor is more like 32/33%. Switchers from the Lib Dems might be secure. But, I don't think everyone who voted for the party in May 2010 is secure. A number of them have gone over to UKIP. And in terms of trust on the economy, Labour and the Conservatives were level-pegging at the last election. Now, the Conservatives are well ahead on that measure. I could easily imagine a small number of voters switching as a result.
Furthermore, polls show that not all disillusioned Lib Dems have gone to Labour. A sizeable chunk have gone Conservative. Those votes will show up somewhere.
A final point. I've been surprised by the degree of complacency shown by Labour supporters. Neither current polling, nor local election results, should give any confidence that they'll be forming the next government.
I've posted before about the split between the real economy and the official economy before, and the inability of Tory posters to accept that their official economy with its apparent recovery and prosperity simply doesn't exist in the world of so many voters is the key reason for their confusion as to why they are so likely to lose the election. Even UKIP get it, so it must be a Tory thing clinging onto Osborne's genius that blinds them.
However, little will change with a Labour win because the fundamentals - free market capitalism is broken - won't change. We have hit the end of the dollar as global reserve currency at a time where the wealth transfer from the mainstream economy to the elite has also reached its zenith. We see the spat with Russia fissle out because the west needs Russian gas. That Russia and China are tying up to trade oil and gas in (gold backed) Roubles and Yuan spells the end of the dominance of the petro-dollar, and that is not good news for the western economy. We have the traditional banking system where in most cases "assets" are debts, the middle and far east has the new banking system (well, traditional really) where "assets" are manufacturing and resources we need to buy.
So Labour, Tory, Republican, Democrat, whatever - our political class has utterly run out of ideas and cards to play. We will need to supplicate ourselves in front of the people who actually own and produce things and hold the resources we need just as they did before the elite got greedy and let Arabs, Russians and Chinese buy up everything at knock down prices. UKIP have the strategic argument right - the European Union has been an economic catastrophe. Its just that I'm not sure the UK independent now could do any better as we are two far gone. But I look across the sea at Norway and wonder where we could have been had we too been gifted vast oil and gas resources as they were.....
Like you I would guess the impact would be in the low percentage points, as most people will consciously or not have made up their minds based on how they feel about specific parties and politicians (I have a relative who has never voted, but states if it was compulsory they would vote for whoever would beat the Tories, even though whenever I mention a Tory policy without saying who it is from, they tend to think it's a good idea), and the campaigns and manifestos are not really about making a difference to the election result, but about firing up the base support of activists and making it as clear as possible to them what their lines will be beyond the standard attack lines.
100/30 is crazily skinny for a Conservative Majority on Betfair. Lay of the year still.
Or the badges they wear saying 'Never Kissed Labour"?
Blimey Rochdale, how's that for a counsel of despair.
Thought about emigrating to Venezuela? They have more oil than anybody. And they have implemented some policies ed miliband would look favourably on.
What's not to like?
Right-wingers are more individually orientated whereas left-wingers are more group orientated. For example the left are far more likely to believe in and want to take action on climate change.
Betting PostBacked Alonso at 4.5 for a podium, hedged at evens. Just posting this now because Ladbrokes still haven't updated a market I want to check (I'll repeat this when the pre-race piece is up).
In the dry, the Ferrari's looked much more competitive this weekend. That's basically the extent of my reasoning.
Great typo.
I actually read "Three bet sin mind" as if it were some kind of gambler's affliction!
A happy Easter to you sir and I hope the income improves with the weather sir.
Not a day goes by without me worrying about the nightmare of a Tory win.
Millions of Labour supporters feel the same.
Their thousands of volunteers will fight for every single vote.
But hey, that is just my gut talking on this one, and I will admit the idea appeals to me because I despise tribalistic political behaviour, and the left-right split is fodder for much tribal bullcrap.
That fear will grow as the election approaches and the moribund leadership and paucity of ideas apart from splash the cash are laid bare.
Over the years I have learned from the PB Tories that I am an unpatriotic, lazy, welfare-dependent, upper middle class, rich, fat Mockney.
Now I know.
To win, the tories will need to be aggressive in their scaremongering tactics - seizing on articles like that in today's Guardian about capital gains tax on first homes and forcing ed to deny its labour policy...
According to a SNat troll at ARRSE Wee-Eck will 'increase' this number: So much for hysterical historical regiments; the muntah is a turd-polisher. Fair-thee-well Unckie....
imo
The sort of arguments you're talking about are the arguments the different types of ideologue have with each other.
Thank you, I hope so too.
Mr. Briskin, short of reliability woe (which is a realistic possibility) I think we're looking at Hamilton-Rosberg, in that order. Dry race helps Alonso too. Fight for the podium could be tasty indeed.
Growing tired of waiting for Ladbrokes to get their arse in gear. Qualifying ended almost three and a half hours ago.
The thing is, the Conservatives' poll numbers, at 43% or so, looked rock-solid in Autumn 2009. Then, they turned out not to be.
One other point, which I overlooked, was Labour's outstanding performance in Scotland in 2010. They won't be repeating that in 2015.
Did you also tell people acid rain, holes in the ozone layer, and the dangers of persisting PCB.s. were a myth as well?
You have to laugh at those who rail against spending the future generations money, while advocating maximum exploitation of their resources today.
Everyone wins.
My ideas on how we rebuild is accepting the mess and redirecting efforts. The banks only stay afloat thanks to government cash, so start new banks using that cash. Business still wants things to invest in, so build a county with infrastructure that's fit for the future - homes, transport, fibre broadband, power generation. All pay out over the mid to long term, all are essential. Most towns and cities rely on aging civic infrastructure built several generations before, so if your town is run down and riddled with unemployment, pay people to rebuild it so that we get benefit from people working now and parks and civic spaces for generations to come. Have a national statement of what being British actually means - the explosion of people reliant on food banks is a national outrage. We may be facing difficulties but leaving people to starve is not Britain.
It's just a pity that our politicians would rather argue micro points about cut this pound or spend it rather than the macro position of what we stand for and what we need, as well as the strategic about where we want to be. Slag off Salmond all we like, but the man espouses a vision for the future that's a hell of a lot more strategic than any Westminster politician. Scottish independence is a risk, but its not like the status quo works either.
Under either 'Yes' or 'No' - the SNP will get the votes to negotiate either separation or DevoMax - and they'll be Labour votes at that.....
The only way the SNP could do badly would be for the referendum to fail spectacularly - and that looks vanishingly unlikely.....
Betting postF1: pre-race piece is now up:
http://enormo-haddock.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/china-pre-race.html
Backed Alonso at 4.5 for a podium, hedged at evens. Should be a very good battle behind the Mercedes, and, in the dry, the two Silver Arrows might just reproduce the duel in the desert we saw last time.
If Labour hadn't tried to force too many people to go to Uni, even when they were unsuited to it, we wouldn't need such massive student loans in the first place.
Unless Scotland votes Yes. And if so, Labour have far greater problems.
"A quick question for people who don't believe in man made climate change.
Did you also tell people acid rain, holes in the ozone layer, and the dangers of persisting PCB.s. were a myth as well?
You have to laugh at those who rail against spending the future generations money, while advocating maximum exploitation of their resources today."
Acid rain was verifiable because the rain was acidic. The hole in the ozone layer was observable and the reduction in chlorofluorocarbons reduced it. Not heard of PCBs.
The temperature (I realise global warming has been rebranded as climate change, as though we had a static climate in the pre-industrial era) has not risen for several years. This is contrary to the forecasts made by the 'scientists' who (referring to the IPCC) responded to being wrong by increasing their belief in their own accuracy from 90% to 95% in the most recent reports.
Science is sceptical. It is not faith or socialist doctrine, it's about evidence, facts, hypotheses and proof. The starting point is not blind faith but sceptical disbelief.
Show me the evidence. Not that the climate is changing, because that has *always* happened. The evidence that man's industrial activities are causing a warming beyond what could be expected to occur due to natural variance in the climate.
When we had warm periods during the reigns of Caligula and Claudius it wasn't because the Romans kept on building coal-fired power stations. The warm period during Henry VIII's reign wasn't because he bought each wife a 4x4 as a wedding present.
The climate has changed enormously. Earth tips from Ice Age to warm periods on a regular basis. And now, contrary to all the doomsayers' predictions, the temperature has plateaued for over a decade.
So, persuade me. Show me the evidence.
Labour's heartlands are now the urban areas.
Where Labour is losing support is among wwc voters in industrial areas.
The Stalybridges and Stocksbridges not the Manchesters and Sheffields.
In 2019-2020 UKIP will be a major threat to Labour in the old industrial constituencies but those are also the constituencies where the Conservatives will need to make gains if they are to get an overall majority.
If you think that Labour's share could be lower than 35% in 2015, then that means you think that they will lose some of either or both of their 2010 voters and/or the LD-Lab switchers. Which, and why, given that (1) the 2010 Lab share represented a dreadful performance from Labour, and (2) the Yellow-Red swing voters seem very hostile to both Con and LD.
Now, you could argue that Scotland could throw an almighty spanner in the works (true, but then I did say in the leader "assuming a Scottish ‘No’ vote in September"), you could argue that either group in the Lab vote could decline further on the basis of abstentions, and you could argue that they might lose votes to UKIP or the Greens or someone else.
In fact, I wasn't arguing in the leader that this is what will happen and that Miliband is bound for No 10; I was simply pointing out that Labour have an extremely strong strategic position. Something might go wrong for them still but I would strongly argue against assuming swingback in the nature of previous parliaments, simply because the nature of 'swing-to' has been so different this time.
The Conservatives performed unimpressively in the 2009 local and EU elections in terms of vote share.
This was masked by the gains they made from Labour's disasterous performance.
The Conservatives peaked in the summer of 2008 but then suffered firstly from their weak reaction to the financial crisis and then through the general anger to the establishment parties which the expenses scandal caused.
CO2 is provably a factor in the "greenhouse" effect (along with several other substances).
Skepticism is a useful scientific tool, however, when it goes against the vast majority of expert opinion, it is really up to you to prove it's non existence.
Scientific consensus may be wrong, and you may indeed be lauded by future generations for your insight, or cursed for leaving a world that is a polluted and denuded husk.
Believe in scientists, or a petrol head? I will go with the science.
General Election @UKELECTIONS2015 11h
Populus
Aged 18-24 (65+)
Labour 48% (23)
Conservative 34% (43)
LD 6% (7)
UKIP 4% (20)
Absolutely certain to vote
18-24 = 33%
65+ = 74%
And that - based on what foxinsox has said (as he works in the medical field) that the reforms seem to be having a broadly positive effect?
And that there has been no winter flu crisis (albeit helped by a mild winter) or A&E crisis?
What exactly are Labour protecting the NHS from? And I'm sure that he will come up with some sensible answers. Probably most along the faster reform argument plus some targeted points to appeal to soft Kippers. Nothing that will dramatically rock the boat however.
Lab/LD in 2010 was 52%
Now it is c. 46% = 36% + 10%
Where have your missing votes gone?
Anyway, the Tories will campaign on the positive topic of the economy. The question is whether that will be enough to overcome Labour's very significant inbuilt advantage.
On the face of it, it does seem as though Labour's support at 35% is a solid bedrock thanks to the 2010 Lib-Dem switchers.
And yet, Labour's polling position has been in decline since early 2013. It's easy to forget now, but through much of 2012 (after the budget anyway) Labour was regularly polling in the low to mid 40's and had double digit leads.
Given that swingback has been occurring for the past year and a bit, the cycle of this Parliament looks very similar to most other Parliaments - I.E. Opposition reaches it's peak around year 2/3 of government, then declines in later part of the Parliament.
Now, maybe "swingback" has gone as far as it will go and Labour will stem the decline from here to the general election> That would be unusual.
My guess is that we will continue to see an overall drop in support for Labour through the next year and which means even some of the 2010 Lib-Dem switchers will drift back to the Lib's over time.
Will be fascinating to see what happens over the next year. When you add the dilemma over Labour's position to the Scottish Referendum and the fixed term parliament itself - I think there's some evidence to suggest polls in a fixed term Parliament can shift more suddenly when the election is actually called as opposed to the slow and steady swingback that occurs when the election date in unknown by the GBP - We really are in for an exciting year of political watching (and betting)