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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Cameron’s view of UKIP voters effectively being just “Tori
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Cameron’s view of UKIP voters effectively being just “Tories on holiday” not supported by polling
“In an interview with The Telegraph, the Prime Minister insisted that he has heard the message of frustrated Tory voters “loud and clear” but is now appealing to them to help him “avert the danger of a Labour government”.With one month until the polls open, Mr Cameron made his most emotional appeal to people who have flirted with supporting Ukip and said:
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The potential net gain for the Conservatives over Labour if UKIP drop back is only small assuming they filter to the respective parties relatively evenly.
Let's remember something. Farage set out with one avowed aim: breaking up the Tory party. Regardless of whether this was to the short-term detriment of the UK by allowing in an utterly inept Labour Party, devoid of any atonement for having fecked the economy last time, with a leader spouting out sixth-form politics that would do it all again. Regardless of whether it was intellectually bankrupt to block power to the only party offering the one thing that was supposedly the sole component of UKIP's DNA - an In/Out Referendum.
Well, guess what - Farage's ambition has failed. The Tory Party is virtually back to where it was in 2010, with a large component of those who made it so toxic now housed in UKIP. But in amongst, we have lost some good people, people who if not political brothers, are at least political cousins. People who share a greater concern over the fate of the UK than over Farage's bruised ego.
So don't get all sniffy now Cameron has come and parked his tanks on your lawn to ask them back. But it will not be at the price of pissing of those who have more recently entered his broad church. Together, we could have the votes for a majority - a majority that could then address many of those concerns that raise the average Kippers' blood pressure by thirty points. But that is a decision for them to reach. And recently, we are seeing that is a decision many are prepared to consider. There is just too much at stake for the country.
There may well be a fair amount of false recall amongst those who poll kipper. DNV may be believable but I think that five years is a long time for many people to remember how they voted, with Euro and local elections in the meantime.
In any case, with the UKIP vote dropping significantly over the last months, is it not an obvious place to look for votes? The Tories are on 35% ish and need some extra votes from somewhere, appealing to other parties supporters whether kipper, LD or Labour has to be done.
A more significant intervention today may have come from Tony Blair who is critical of Camerons EU stance. That could really help Cameron win back some kippers.
200 minutes
It complete cant to accuse Farage of stealing anyone, or saddling the UK with anyone, he offers a platform, the Tories offer a platform, the votes pick the one they like the sound of, if not enough voters like the Conservative platform that is the conservative parties fault, not the kippers. You sounds like a restaurant complaining that he is losing customers because his neighbours food tastes better.
Clapping ourselves on the back because the voters are scared of a Miliband government is the height of sadness, and implies heavily that in a time with a more certain outcome there will be a big swing away from the Conservatives as there is less likelihood of putting Ed in.
I think this really shows how little policy actually matters to many voters: what policies or ideas do these two parties share? Lots of immigrants or none? Lower taxes or higher ones? New grammar schools or none? Yet people switch between these two, then complain that politicians are duplicitous!
(*) Yes I know it wasn't a donkey jacket, and was actually quite an expensive coat, but that isn't what the voters saw.
The Conservatives have identified a realistic possibility that appals most kipper considerers: a Labour minority government propped up by the SNP, with Scotland being doled out power and money as a result. They think this can change votes and this appeal is part of that strategy.
They don't think that they're going to get enthusiastic votes from these voters. But they have hopes of getting their votes. That blue segment in that pie chart may yet shrink more.
Experienced polling companies such as ICM pretty much discount previous non voters because they tend to repeat the habit of not voting. Of course it may be the case for some that they have been waiting for years and have finally got a party that they think is worth voting for so they will be motivated like never before but....
UKIP are almost certainly going to underperform their current polling whether the Tory element comes home or not. I think they will be like Labour who also get support from those not minded to vote. The golden rule on here was that the lowest polling figure for Labour was the most accurate (and it was usually ICM). I will be surprised if UKIP breaks 10%.
To counter that Blair being wheeled out to champion the EU and slag off Cameron's referendum is an absolute gift to the Tories, they should hammer Labour over it.
There are alternative parties out there for those who dislike our public school elite, but UKIP are not plausibly amongst them!
A year or two back pb debated (or swapped insults -- my memory is hazy) which party had recruited the best American (pace Linton) election gurus to direct their social media campaigning and voter targeting.
Go to youtube and search for Labour or Conservative and you will see many very recent videos have been uploaded, and doubtless carefully targeted at different groups of voters whose attention will have been drawn to these videos by email, Facebook or Twitter, either directly or via known supporters.
For argument's sake, the national polls are CON 34%, LAB 33%. If all the Kippers who "recall" their vote in 2010 reverted to their original parties, that would mean CON 39% LAB 35%.
Would that make the difference between Cameron in No. 10 and Milliband in No. 10? Almost certainly.
A family anecdote: my father who has supported UKIP for years told me at dinner yesterday that he would be voting Conservative. He always votes...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/11518221/Labour-takes-gamble-as-Ed-Miliband-goes-to-ground-to-prepare-for-debate.html
I think Ed on the campaign trail is more of a risk as he has to interact with real people. OTOH he has shown himself to be reasonably competent at debates in a TV studio where things are much more controlled.
In the first week I think Tory campaigning definitely had the edge (mainly because of Labour's bizarre focus on business) but any sense of momentum has been dissipated by the Easter break. It will be interesting to see who is better able to pick up the baton this week.
While perceptions of individuals matter, Mr Miliband being weird, Mr Cameron snobbish etc, I don't think it moves many votes.
It surprises me that we don't see articles examining policy differences between the parties. Evaluations of the consequences of those differences, and the consequences of the absence of difference.
Even there, though, the SNP attempts to make non voters into voters was not as successful as they hoped making the gap for No bigger than expected. And UKIP will never come close to matching the SNP ground operation that worked so hard on the non-voters.
On the Foot thing. Yes it was not a donkey jacket, but it looked like one and why would someone wear what looked like a donkey jacket at the cenotaph? Either you are stupid or could not care. Both pretty damning.
Unfortunately for Foot he also looked as if he did not know where he was. And thats before you looked at Labours manifesto.
This next debate should be all about Sturgeon against Miliband with 30 seats at stake. He did not interact with her at all when DC was there but that surely has to be his focus now. Maybe he is trying to learn something about Scotland. In which case one wonders if he has given it enough time.
All it does is says that Labour is afraid of giving the people a choice and even more so, does not want people to have a choice - as Labour knows best!! - not very democratic.
Also how does the image of an ex-PM who used the Labour party as a vehicle to enrich himself hugely, fit in with their supposed support of the working man and woman - or is it an acknowledgement that they have abandoned them to UKIP?
It also said growth would probably gather some momentum in the current quarter.
The main risk to the UK economy was related to ongoing eurozone worries and Greece's bailout package, it said.
CBI's monthly survey includes 764 private firms from a range of sectors.
It said businesses in the UK would also need to cope with a stronger pound, which was already weighing down weak export growth.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32199958
On the other hand does Miliband want to boast about going down the class warrior route? And he in turn does not want to weaken possible UKIP support to the benefit of tories?
Head exploding stuff.
And there are no substantial differences in policies -- Conservatives are not going to end immigration or bring back grammar schools. Labour will not nationalise the steelworks and shipyards. The rhetoric may be different but the policies are the same. Oh, there's been a recent kerfuffle over hidden plans to increase VAT or draw more people into higher rate bands, but if the plans are hidden, how can voters support them?
I'm no kipper and I suspect nor are most Ukip voters -- rather, they are NOTA. For the same reason, it doesn't matter if Green policies are impractical -- their voters already know they will never be enacted.
That means Tory and Lib Dem policy cannot be challenged. It also means when, for example, Sturgeon makes a statement such as "we are against Austerity unlike X", X can ONLY be Labour, not Labour, Lib Dem and Tories.
I'm not sure how comfortable that will be for Miliband.
The converse is also true. Reverting back to the Tories only buttresses the Tory majority.
I wonder we will now start reading all UKIP votes were in marginals,
The guardian reported he will be taking time off over the Easter weekend,so I think we will see more of him today.
It wasn't the SNP who were working on non-Voters that was predominantly a RIC operation.
https://soundcloud.com/politicalstudiesassociation/dr-david-cutts-on-the-liberal-democrats-psa-media-briefing-1
Weren't we told that the more Miliband appears on TV,the worse Labour's poll ratings.
No sign of that yet.
Election forecast seems to do the same.
Nevertheless Ed Mili's correct price with the Fisher model was 2.38.
We'll see this week if the Conservative momentum can be maintained...
I can certainly confirm from my own experience that all of Better Together's efforts were focussed on areas with sub optimal turnout and no effort was wasted on Tory areas which were expected and did turn out all by themselves.
Now, it is only 79% for "most seats" ? What is Fisher the joker up to ?
Worth noting Cameron's 'come home' daftness isn't a one-strong bow, as it were.
He's not only saying the rather obvious "if you're an ex-Tory, come back", he's also, more subtly, saying "if you're an ex-Labour voter, do stay where you are".
UKIP are not just SuperCons. They've taken a significant amount of support that may otherwise be Labour. That matters quite a bit.
'Clegg says the Tories are awash with money and still won't win the election.'
Voters in safe seats (most of us!) should be immune to those arguments.
Those are the rules of purdah. If a party is not invited to a broadcast debate, the invited parties cannot discuss the policies of other parties which are not invited.
If they try, the chair will interrupt them. I suspect they will try, especially the two who cannot face any Sanction from the Electoral Commission but the chair will intervene.
Fine, get rid of the top 1% as you so obviously would like - let them go to other countries and develop their businesses and see what you have left. They do not have to stay in the UK to succeed. (This excludes those of the top 1% who work for the public sector).
The UK's cost structure is too high - even James Dyson could not manufacture profitably in the UK and so had to do it in the Far East.
You could go to the Communist set up - but even there I found that the top politicos reward themselves extremely well and forcibly remove any ladder for the rest of the population to join them.
Papers prefer reporting that way for two reasons - firstly it makes for better headlines 'Look, Ed's A Complete Idiot', is far more interesting than 'Ed's housing policy may be just about workable, but would require allocation of resources that would be better spent elsewhere, and would involve what we believe would be unacceptable intrusions on the free market'.
Secondly it gives them control - image making is now the major power the papers have. To use an obvious example - Cameron was yesterday pictured using a knife and fork to eat a hot dog, a far more egregious error than struggling with a bacon sarnie, something which I'm sure everyone's done over the years. However one picture is printed repeatedly, the other will likely disappear amid a blizzard of lamb photos. One's an idiot, one's a Prime Ministerial family man, despite both men being steeped in politics since their youth and probably being a tad weird, but perfectly intelligent reasonable human beings otherwise. Dare I say it, Cameron certainly doesn't look the youthful leader of 2005 but often pudgy, strangely troubled and washed out - if you wanted to you could depict him as Nixonian. Of course, if you've had the misfortune of browsing Mail Online you'll know that even Hollywood stars can be depicted as 'weird', 'depressed' or 'heartbroken' if you have a cameraman following them round all day and are willing to print whatever to justify the narrative you've decided upon for them.
If they evaluated the consequences of the differences between the parties, horror of horrors, people might make up their own minds, and we can't be having that.
PM asks people to vote for him in election isn't that ground-breaking in desperation terms.
And what do I expect him to say ? "Come on centrists give me your votes" since that's where he's been pitching his tent. Why the hell he thinks the right should come on board for him is just puzzling.
There were some left wing nutters for independence in the Town Centre from time to time and we did get wind of other groups who had been involved in getting people signed up on the register.
But the teams I saw out canvassing were all badged up SNP. As were the marches in the centre. As were the vans going around. As were the posters all over the place. As were the groups I met on the day working on GOTV. They are extremely well organised in Dundee and will walk my constituency of Dundee West as a result.
22 minutes 22 seconds
8 p.m.
How effective this was is up to interpretation. RIC were most heavily involved in mass canvass sign ups in Glasgow and Dundee. They both have significantly lower turn outs than any other area of Scotland. that's indicative that it was successful in getting non-voters onto the register but a significant portion of them stayed as non-voters.
Firstly what if I don't want to vote evil in the first place ? Even the lesser one ?
Secondly Blair's calculation was valid only for a time, the world has moved on and the inherent contempt for voters in Blair's statement has created the multi party politics we see to day with places to go on the left and the right. People created places to go.
Cameron's problem is he didn't embrace the politics of the broad tent, which is why he's about 6% short of the votes for a majority.