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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The polling that suggests that Boris could play a part in winning back CON voters from UKIP
I’ve been booked to take part in a discussion tonight on Boris polling on Radio 4′s “The Westminster Hours” which starts at 10pm.
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But I would hazard that it is Boris's reputation/profile as someone who is "refreshing" and "willing to say what he thinks regardless of the consequences" that makes them think he is somehow "different" to the "machine politicians" who "infest Westminster".
I guess they haven't figured out that he is very smart and manipulative when it comes to his public image.
Boris has, and will, make a huge contribution to politics in this country. I just shudder at the thought of him becoming PM: it's frustrating, because he is smart enough and hard-working enough (ignore the image) but I think he's too willing to take the cheap shot and make the smart arse retort - and we just can't afford that in a PM. Chairman of the party, senior Cabinet position (preferably one without complex managerial responsibility) - hell, yes.
50 hours
The Tories are out to get ............ the conservatives.
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/08/09/Tory-Party-Knives-Out-for-Grassroots-Activists/
Three candidates are vying for the position, including current Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
If none of the candidates gets above 50% of the vote, a second round will be held on 24 August.
Mr Erdogan, 60, says that if he wins he wants to turn the largely ceremonial post of president into the country's executive powerhouse.
He has been prime minister since 2003 and is barred from standing for that office again.
Polls opened at 08:00 local time (05:00 GMT) and close at 17:00.
The BBC's Mark Lowen in Ankara says Mr Erdogan is a divisive figure adored by his supporters for transforming the economy but hated by critics for an abrasive style and Islamist leanings.
Think Warsi makes some valid points. The Tories in their shift to the right have made it more difficult for non white voters to support them. There was a huge protest march in London yesterday about Gaza.
This may be one reason why Boris attracts some voters that Cameron would not. He is willing to speak out when he thinks something is wrong. But this may only be when he is not in government and I have a feeling that as soon as he gets anywhere near the cabinet, he will become less outspoken.
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/08/08/UKIP-Peers-Rejected
Today, Stop the War have organised a great demonstration calling for an end to the attack on Gaza.
This is not merely a call for peace; for the end of bloodshed. It cannot be. After all, the cautious truce agreed last week ended not with an attack on Gaza, but an attack on Israel.
Instead, the demonstration is something more than just a call to an end to violence. It is a call for a particular solution.
Fair enough. The roots of this conflict are difficult, and complex, the flaws on all sides apparent. Yet the stated aims of the demonstration would not produce the desired peace.
If Hamas remains committed to the destruction of the entire Israeli state, then to propose an unconditional end to restrictions on Gaza, when Hamas rule Gaza and use imported concrete to build tunnels to attack Israel, imported metal to build rockets to bomb Israel, and at the same time demand a boycott of Israel; then you effectively demand, not unconditional peace, but a tilt in the battle to Hamas. To Hamas, note, not to the Palestinian Legislature, or Fatah, or the people of Gaza, all of whom want an immediate ceasefire, then talks and negotiations and a permanent peace with Israel, but to Hamas, who want no such thing.
http://hopisen.com/2014/not-in-my-name/
That's about 1.5% (and presumably there are more supporters who won't announce that publicly for whatever reason). This compares to a little more than 3% at the 2010 election.
So, yes, UKIP is probably slightly under-represented. But it's not the burning injustice that you try and make it out to be.
Of course no demos against ISIS etc,.
An unfortunate parliamentary double for UKIP come May 2015 ?!?
Will Thanet South save Farage's bacon and will he take up that sandwich challenge ?!?
Is MikeK a member of the Lizard Peoples Peasant Front allied to David Icke ?!?
Questions for the coming week on PB and likely to be discussed by Mike Smithson on Radio 4 "The Westminster Hour" at 10:00pm tonight.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/aug/09/labour-fears-brain-drain-mps-quit
Briefing to the Guardian about doubts, exodus of MPs from party...if Cameron can't win why the panic?
It's churlish of the PM to deny UKIP some working peers and frankly beneath the dignity of the office of Prime Minister that he has allowed this situation to stand.
Patronage is a privilege a Prime Minister should use wisely.
Doesn't mean flooding the House with new members and diluting its historical virtues.
Yes, though it also makes 9% (or 8%, depending on rounding) of Tories move away to other parties. As the Tory figure is larger than the UKIP figure, the net effect is +2, which is negligible for a prompted question. Generally if you ask the same question again with a specific prompt it tests whether that prompt is influential, and overstates the actual effect.
Of course, it's possible that if Boris won the leadership in a contested, highly-publicised contest, the effect would be different, but the starting point is that it doesn't do much for Tory VI.
But I would strongly resist the idea that they have a "right" to representation as a result of votes in the 2010 election. The House of Lords is not an elected House and has a different role to the House of Commons.
BTW Cameron should do it because it's the correct thing to do.
He grew up, politically, under Blair and has fully imbibed a casual disregard for the British Constitution.
Elective Dictatorship was a theoretical risk when Hailsham developed the concept; Blair made it real & Cameron is continuing down that path
To me the mood music says: Cammo is just about up to the job of PM but nobody else, of any colour, really is. Whether Cammo could hold his Party together if he had a Tory majority is another open question.
Why is all this? Because our political parties - and indeed our political system - is based on class cleavage (some would trace that back to Charles I and Cromwell). That no longer accords with the reality, which is that race cleavage is at least as powerful. (For example, does anyone here seriously expect Mike K to say that Arabs have rights?) And it will get more so.
If Miliband wins the next election, I give him two years before his party collapses on the ground, with the white working class defecting pretty much en bloc to UKIP and the brown/black petit bourgeoisie to the Lib Dems under a new leader who sets out to woo them.
Social democracy is finished, and with it Labour's raison d'etre.
Neil Hamilton? Christine Hamilton? Godfrey Bloom? Or perhaps a few of the kippers expelled by Faragist manipulations: Natrass? Sinclair? Andreasen?
Personally, I think that the Lords should be reduced in size by about 50%. Start by removing those who have not attended for a year or longer, then work through other criteria. Let them keep their titles and baubles, but take away their passes.
Accordingly UKIP have as much "right" to peers as any other party with significant support.
However Prime Ministers make mistakes and denying UKIP working peers is one.
I believe that the EDL run such events. I saw one in Leicester a couple of years back (as a spectator). Not pretty.
Speaking of which, being populist, traditionalist and under-represented in the Lords, UKIP should be advocating my "ennoble everybody" plan. It maintains tradition while tilting the balance away from the middle-class ruling elite and producing a second chamber perfectly representative of the electorate as a whole.
FPT: cheers to Mr. Y0kel for his interesting posts on Iraq.
I'm not convinced. Isn't Boris strongest in the south, where the Conservatives do better anyway? He'll probably have a London bonus, but that may be offset by a northern deficit.
Perhaps the way to deal with it is to make "working peerages" time limited? There's a risk that introduces a mechanism of party control, but equally working peers are pretty much creatures of their parties anyway
EICIPM Less than 9 months to go
Don't get why Boris appeals so much to UKIP apparently - he's in favour of an immigration amnesty !
I don't rate him at all and think Dave, Ed, Nick or Nigel would all be better PMs.
That said, most of them probably don't know that he's in favour of an immigration amnesty. Presumably they'd find out if the Tories made him their leader.
1. Remove all remaining hereditary peers except the ceremonial posts and Royal peers (speaking but non voting).
2. 300 voting life peers (50 crossbenchers). Remaining 250 based on the last GE vote share above 4% regionally.
3. Non voting life peers to have speaking rights.
4. Bishops automatic right to sit removed.
Meanwhile.
The Mail reports on Vince Cable’s anger at a ‘whispering’ campaign within the LDs that he is considering leaving the Cabinet immediately after the party’s autumn conference.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2720943/Cables-fury-Nick-Clegg-allies-spread-Vince-set-quit-rumours-whispering-campaign.html
Mr. StClare, the whisperers should be careful lest Cable whip out his nuclear missile.
FV432 Bulldog upgrades are now being migrated to Warrior and RCWS are proliferating in armoured units. And do not forget the Hermes/Watchkeeper purchase signed of by one Phil Woolas. The left: In a constant state of ignorance....
As regards the UKPR forecast based on last nights YG I do not believe the LDs will do that badly and CON swingback will give them maybe 20 extra seats.
Of course ARSE says Ed has a 0% chance of being PM. Whereas I wouldn't put the chances of an outright Tory victory at more than 10%
Its all about opinions
Interesting just under 9 months ahead.
http://yougov.co.uk/news/2014/03/31/end-boris-bounce/
Useful bits:
"Even though he is not even an MP, he is widely talked of as the next Conservative leader. The assumption – by friends and enemies alike – is that he is a huge electoral asset to his party. He would revive its fortunes if it loses power next year. After all, hasn’t he twice won London, a Labour city, by appealing to large numbers of Labour and Lib Dem voters?
Fresh YouGov research for Prospect throws doubt in this. True, he would win back some Tory voters who have defected to UKIP – but he repels some Conservatives who doubt that he has what it takes to be Prime Minister.
...
While one in five UKIP voters say they would return to the Tory fold were Boris to replace Cameron, one in ten Tory supporters would desert the party. Taking into account all the movements – including the one in ten Lib Dems who would shift across to the Conservatives if Boris took over – then a little over two million voters would change their votes; but these make up two groups who broadly cancel each other out: around one million who would leave the Tories, and another million or so who would join, or rejoin, the Tory ranks."
He also mentions the positives (perceived honesty and charisma) and negatives (Not serious enough to be trusted with big national decisions), and that he trails Cameron on decisiveness, "good in a crisis" and "natural leader"
Personally, I'd say that it's all but impossible to split out any real "Boris benefits" from the two other elements that would be mixed in with this poll: name recognition and perceived not-Establishment (which, to be fair, is one hell of a trick for an Old Etonian who's been elected to major political office).
I would hope Warsi might act as a warning of what happens when you promote people based on demographic characteristics rather than competence, but I doubt it. The bullshit of identity politics appears to be with us to stay.
Fascinating article by his Lordship on how iconic WWI photos of air battles were faked.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-one/11023811/The-dogfight-images-that-are-too-good-to-be-true.html
:carry-on-gabble-like:
As they are there to revise legislation, it should be filled with experts in as many areas as possible. People who have sufficient knowledge in their areas to actually understand and amend legislation that has come from the political hacks in the commons, and to debate the state and future of the country without party-political prejudice. At the moment the HoL is being filled with ex- and failed- politicians, many of whom appear just to be cyphers for their party leadership. Some are evidently clueless idiots, whilst many of the best are the long-term crossbenchers
Pick a total number of peers (300? 400?) Divide it into broad areas (e.g. sciences, law, religion, charities, politics, manufacturing, unions) and allocate numbers according to sector. Then get organisations within those sectors to propose people for elevation from within their ranks. For instance the Royal Society of Chemistry may propose three people, the Institute of Civil Engineers the same. Unite might get a couple of peers, and all branches of the medical profession thirty.
Any allocated from religions should be from all religions, in proportion (as far as possible) to that religion's following in the UK. All ex-PMs get in automatically, if they choose.
People serve for life, or until they choose to stand down. Any criminal record (above and beyond driving bans) should lead to a vote amongst peers for either suspension or expulsion from their ranks. They have to attend for at least twenty days every year, and speak on each occasion. It would be an expenses-only role.
Aside from the number of (ex) politicians in the 'politics' category, no-one can be put forward if they have stood for election at any position above local councils, or if they have worked for an MP, lobbying firm, or otherwise on the outskirts of politics in the last ten years.
The HoL needs experts, and should not be a mirror of the commons.
http://enormo-haddock.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/the-2014-mid-season-review.html
Best of luck with that.
And a Peebie Comp for to-day: which inter-war national leader came up with this idea (or one within sniffing distance of it, anyway)?
The fact she claims to be the lone voice arguing for a ban on arms sales to Israel in a room full of Tories and LDs speaks volumes.
Not least about the hypocrisy of the DPM.
What she was doing in that room or in the Tory party in the first place is a mystery, but heh sinners repent and all that.
2) They can carry a party card. In fact, I'd see that as a positive. But the fact that they were proposed by members of their community to have applicable knowledge in their areas, and are not politically active (see my earlier points) would indicate that any such people might be able to put party preferences behind them. And the people who propose them might not like obvious political leanings ...
1. It should include some people who are normally excluded from any kind of power - long-term unemployed, disabled people, etc.: politics needs input from people with direct experience of powerlessness.
2. It should get FIRST look at all new Bills, so that the Commons benefits from expert proposed amendments.
3. It should lose the right to block and delay - inappropriate for an unelected chamber, and a distraction from the main job of expert assessment.
The main snag of this corporate state approach is that it tends to overweight organised professional bodies in a slightly random way - should there be more or fewer engineers than doctors, for instance?
Friends who've given evidence at Lords Select Committees say they're a strange experience - you get Britain's leading experts asking searching, difficult questions, and borderline senile people making random remarks. I do think it needs either an age limit or periodic reappointment (to check if still compos mentis).
No loss.
Clearly NI, Wales and Scotland and London are easy regions with commonality of interests. I do wonder whether it is possible to devise different "types" of interest (e.g. metropolitan vs market town vs rural) which need representation rather than just doing it geographically, but don't have an easy answer.
I'd add in some ex-officios: I do think there is a role for Lords Spiritual (but probably fewer in number, and not just Anglican).
Co-op Group's Board is a great example of why this doesn't work well.
On the other hand, it does not do these days to be seen as the party of the ethnic minority voter. Not if you don;t want to lose northern council seats by the bucket load to UKIP.
Hence the extremely tricky balancing act for Dave and Ed. They support the Gazans, to the extent that.....er.....it doesn't drive people to UKIP.
I more or less agree with 1); except they may also be represented by groups (e.g. charities, unions). A HoL on such lines would need people with more sense than just screaming "it's not fair" at whatever their bête noire is. Passion yes, but it should be levelled out with common sense. They would also need cooperation and a sense that good ideas and debate might persuade them otherwise. People who have reached the top of their professions often have these qualities, politics being a dishonourable exception.
An unemployed civil engineer might be better served by an ex-president of the ICE than a long-term firebrand unemployed person.
2) Peers with an expertise in an area should be able to be called to select committees to give evidence; if this happens, the relevant peers should garner advice from others in the HoL. Having them in both stages might pollute the process, and legislation should initially be drawn up by representatives of the people.
3) No. Most MPs in the HoC are well-meaning sorts, but as a whole they aren't that good at putting their common sense ahead of party affiliation. As long as that remains the case, a reconstituted HoL should have the right to say to the common: "You're barking. Think again."
And anyway, the idea that the current HoL is good for this purpose is laughable.
Cronie McBlair sold* UK aerospace technology [BAe Replica] to be part of the JSF/JCA Dave-B project. So how does the UK government stop Lockheed-Martin supplying F35-As to Isreal...?
:lefties-lifes-ignorants:
* A sale that cost the English taxpayer £2billion I must add.
The Bank of England itself holds the title to over a quarter of the UK's entire national debt of around £1.3 trillion. And it is all that debt which Westminster would be agreeing to take on board in its entirety if Scotland was denied continued use of the central bank.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/referendum-news/if-the-no-camp-think-telling-ordinary-scots-they-have-zero-entitlement-to-a.25003848
So Scotland would not be 'debt free' - even Salmond admits it would be liable for its share of three quarters of the debt - and of course, one suspects the other quarter would be subject to some negotiation.......
Lol if thats the best the Tories can do no wonder you are screwed. No majorities for you until you start winning over the young northern Asian graduate and the small business running black london community.
http://www.ice.org.uk/About-ICE/People/Past-Presidents
Organisations often elect the best people to their top positions. And they would be aware that electing a joke figure, or a bad 'un, could reflect badly on themselves and their sector
It's easy to see how the addition of one or two such illustrious people could actually help us towards a more sane legislature and legislation, especially when spread over the totality of society.
And remember: this will be a position with little income: it would have to be one people wanted to serve on for reasons other than money.
The fact is, it couldn't be worse than what we already have.
LOL! This shows how much the Tories know about northern council estates. People don't vote UKIP because of ethnic minorities. They vote UKIP because they don't feel that anyone listens to them.
Very different things.
"Apart from my own name the Transpenine Express is the greatest misnomer of all time"
If Labour had half a dozen people of his ability they would be fit to run the country. Unfortunately he really stands out, as he did in the last government.
The nub of it is the "role" of the House of Lords, which you state to be that of a revising chamber. But why is this? It is only because the House of Lords lost a series of power struggles with the House of Commons, as the development of popular democracy saw the former lose legitimacy. Formerly, the role of the House of Lords was to represent a different franchise to that of the Commons - just as is the case today in many other bicameral democracies, such as the USA, where the Senate balances the interests of States against those of the wider population in the House of Representatives.
In my view there is little point in retaining the House of Lords as a revising chamber - this role should more properly be performed by wider civil society in a less formal manner. I believe that one should either abolish the Lords, or to have it represent a different franchise to the Commons so that the two chambers can play the role of balancing the interests of different constituencies between them.
For example, one might make one chamber the House of Men and the other a House of Women, allowing the two sexes to be equally but separately represented. Or one might use a majoritarian voting system - such as FPTP - for the House of the Executive, and another voting system - some variant of PR - for the House of Consensus. The House of Debtors and the House of Creditors, perhaps? The House of Workers and the House of the Retired, Unemployed, Homemakers, etc?
Anything to save us from this dead-end of a "revising chamber".
If that is so, why is labour, out of complete desperation, trying to be poacher turned game keeper on immigration? why are they, the party that let in 3 million, criticising the government for not going far enough??
After all, the UKIP offer on many other things isn't really that different to the tories. Or labour.