politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Lord Ashcroft is releasing his Boris polling in bits: Phase one on which politicians those sampled recognised
The 1st phase of @LordAshcroft Boris polling on recognition level of leading politicians. Sample shown pics
See pic.twitter.com/HRHEwwibX8
Read the full story here
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Waste of time and money frankly.
Surprised about Bert though, would've thought it would be Wallace.
1) It reminds us that political obsessives are a tiny minority. Philip Hammond is one of the favourites to succeed David Cameron but is recognised by one in ten of the public.
2) It shows just what a huge public figure Boris Johnson is. He's more recognisable than the Leader of the Opposition (even making allowance for the fact that Ed Miliband unsurprisingly looks like his brother). When the history of the age is written in future, historians will struggle to explain just how important Boris Johnson was at this time.
"The political implications of Boris’s ubiquity are another matter. I have looked into these too – and there will be more to follow when my research on the subject is published later this week."
http://lordashcroftpolls.com/2013/06/dont-tell-me-its-him-off-the-telly/
My guess is that's Major's numbers would have been miniscule - yet he went on to win the contest and GE1992
A quarter of the electorate can't identify Ed Miliband
Just wait until 23% of the electorate realise who he is and just how crap he is.
This will happen during a general election campaign.
I thought I'd get that in before someone else did.
Labour are very unlikely to get elected if a plurality of the key groups of Ukip and Lib Dems blame them for the current cuts (Ukip voters by 49 to 14 and LD10 voters by 30 to 22). Especially when those two same groups (by decisive pluralities) think the cuts are bad for the economy, are being done unfairly, and are also too deep and too quick. But they are also necessary.
Which is why we get Labour stumbling around for a message to try and avoid implosion before 2015. They shouldn't be aiming to be a one term opposition. I wonder if Miliband really believes he can win while there is still so little trust in his party's economic legacy.
He's a classicist so he'd compare Ed to Themistocles' eunuch or summat
Which I suppose leaves the question whether there is such a thing as a "visionary" or whether there are merely successful and unsuccessful prime ministers. I think Cameron shares Major's failure to win votes based on a vision, which leaves you open to the sort of assault by pragmatism (Black Wednesday, Omnishambles, etc.). I don't think they ever really went into the election peddling one, particularly, though.
As to Hammond, he'd be the "safe pair of hands" choice, I would imagine. I think post-2015. assuming the Tories lose, they may well choose someone like that, but I think it would be a mistake.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/06/uk-lending-costs-are-surging-is-the-bond-bubble-about-to-burst/
Deficit funded welfare states are on their last legs. Austerity hasn't even started yet.
The word Eunuch is Greek.
What can Carney do? We're a trillion in debt and rising - thanks to Gordon Brown and Ed Balls. Debt as a % GDP is way, way too high. At some point the price of that debt will reflect its true risk. And then mortgage rates will go to 7% or something. It's a horrible, horrible risk. And it would ruin the country more comprehensively than real cuts in spending. We need to find 100 billion off public spending. Urgently. Foreign aid, EU subscriptions, welfare, NHS, the lot.
I only hope that Labour are in power when it really hits the fan - because they caused it with their grossly irresponsible borrowing and spending.
"The NHS: can we fix it?"
http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/0625/458631-anglo-tapes/
What's nuch, then? Riddance? Slave?
Given that the the economy is the number one concern for the voters (per the Mori issues index), 38% of the voters cannot correctly identify the Second Lord of the Treasury.
This must be how you feel defending Caesar compared to Hannibal.
However, thank you for the educational post.
I've not been on the interweb for the past few days.
Have I missed anything major?
http://www.independent.ie/blog/day-one-listen-to-the-full-anglo-recordings-29370815.html
"We won't do anything blatant, but . . . we have to get the money in . . . get the f***in' money in, get it in," he tells his senior manager, John Bowe.
Mr Drumm and Mr Bowe are heard laughing at the concerns that the movement of money was causing a rift between Ireland and its EU partners.
Drumm declares to his colleague: "So f***in' what. Just take it anyway . . . stick the fingers up."
Irish Times also has transcipts but link appears to be down atm.
Asked on the call by Peter Fitzgerald, then head of Anglo’s retail funding, where the €7 billion figure came from, Bowe said: “Just, as Drummer [David Drumm] would say, picked it out of my arse.”
“The reality is that, actually, we need more than that. But you know the strategy here is you pull them in, you get them to write a big cheque and they have to keep, they have to support their money,” Bowe told Fitzgerald.
He explained the plan further: “If they saw the enormity of it up front they might decide, they might decide they have a choice. You know what I mean? They might say the cost to the taxpayer is too high. But . . . if it doesn’t look too big at the outset . . . if it looks big, big enough to be important but not too big that it kind of spoils everything.”
http://www.irishtimes.com/anglo-irish-tapes
And would've expected that Gove creature thing to be a bit higher.
Otherwise, meh.
You are getting your singers mixed up again - Jeffrey Osbourne is black - Michael Buble is white.
Have you heard of itunes ? It's like a computer filled with 78rpm records.
The tapes of Enron traders gleefully conniving to bring about the energy blackouts in California are !!!!
"Labour should be offering a genuine alternative to austerity in 2015. This would include a short-term economic stimulus and medium-term economic restructuring. We calculate that a £55billion stimulus package of social and green infrastructure could generate up to 1m jobs, £187bn of additional GDP and almost £75bn in terms of additional taxation.
This stimulus package would also need to be accompanied by clear plans for managing public finances and a means of addressing the party’s association with profligacy and waste. This can be achieved by telling a story about what sort of society and economy it wants to build. If Labour is up front and honest about why it needs public spending in the first place it would receive a much more solid mandate for doing so.
An alternative plan to eliminate the structural deficit over the medium term could be achieved by arguing for a much higher proportion of tax rises to spending cuts as outlined in our briefing. Labour could also win back trust with a series of measures such as:
1. Adopting a zero-based budgeting approach that reviews all current spending to ensure public spending is well targeted to achieve maximum wellbeing, sustainability and reductions in inequality.
2. Setting clear medium term fiscal rules backed by clear and democratic fiscal oversight to demonstrate to the public that they will spend tax money efficiently. It is important that Labour continues to make a clear distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ borrowing and spending and convinces the public that the Labour Party would only borrow and spend for a purpose.
3. Advocating a radical review of the state and public services in which areas of self-evident waste would be cut. This might include cutting such items as Trident renewal and the billions wasted on the Private Finance Initiative. It would also require a drive to devolve and decentralise many government functions to ensure meaningful localism and much greater efficiency and responsiveness of services. The centralised, lever-pulling basis of the British state is no longer viable as the dominant governance model in terms of democracy, accountability and efficiency.
Aping Tory spending totals after 2015 will not win back economic credibility for Labour and it would be an economic, social and political disaster for Britain if all that was on offer from the largest centre-left party in 2015 was more austerity. Economic credibility comes from outlining a genuine alternative that would begin to tackle our interlinked economic, social and ecological crises."
The problem for Labour, as ever, is until they show recognition of how badly they handled the economy and some remorse through an apology, all their plans have a huge credibility question mark set against them.
http://order-order.com/2013/06/25/watch-jeffrey-joke-falls-flat/
You can't borrow and spend your way out of a debt hole. Labour already borrowed and spent the UK's money. As Liam Byrne noted: There's no money left.
So pain it must be.
"Let the mad Left have a General Strike. It'll keep them happy and the rest of us will get a nice long weekend."
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100223340/let-the-mad-left-have-a-general-strike-itll-keep-them-happy-and-the-rest-of-us-will-get-a-nice-long-weekend/
The phrase 'peoples Assembly' is cropping up more and more these days. Are they going to start putting up their own candidates? Could they turn into a sort of lefty UKIP?
Common Republican Assembly of People and Purpose
Surely people might mistake them for Ed Miliband?
“I am having to leave my home, my livelihood and my friends because a few misinformed local political activists have fuelled a hate campaign based on proven lies. The final straw for me was the desecration of my mum’s grave.”
http://www.hsj.co.uk/5060185.article
I'd vote for him if he had a handlebar 'tasche.
The poll of more than 800 companies across the country by the Scottish Chambers of Commerce found that, in six out of ten cases, business representatives did not know enough details of the consequences of a Yes vote to decide whether or not they were in favour of the nation becoming independent.
Their concerns focus on issues such as taxation policy, whether Scotland would keep the pound and the country’s status as a member of the European Union.
SNP ministers have sought to demonstrate certainty around the prospect by declaring they are “crystal clear” in supporting the retention of the pound.
They also insist the question of EU membership would be resolved before the country became independent in 2016, if it votes Yes next year.
However, both cases have been challenged.
Chancellor George Osborne has declared it “unlikely” that the rest of the UK would want to share a currency, while the European Commission has stated that new states would be required to apply for membership to the EU, prompting questions over what terms an independent Scotland would negotiate."
http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/scottish-independence-business-greater-clarity-call-1-2974686
His father would be proud.
"In fact, it became such a ritual it was a bit like attending a meeting of General Strikers Anonymous. “Hi, I’m Mark Serwotka, and I’m a striker. I haven’t had a General Strike since 1926.” “Hi, Mark.”
Excellent.
My fave, the Glasgow East one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n19-iAuLwQo
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10140786/George-Osborne-or-Tom-Hanks-Voters-confuse-senior-politicians-with-celebrities.html
More recent Hanks: http://topnews.in/files/Tom-Hanks101.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Va6r5Ez-VF8
'Ed Miliband Adviser Stewart Wood On Austerity, Europe And Nigel Farage
Does the peer personally support an in/out EU referendum? In theory? There’s a very long pause. “I don’t think you can have a view on that without the date, actually.” He pauses again. The division bell sounds. He continues: “We are already committed to having a referendum if there is a treaty change. But I think, given the state of economic certainty in this country but also in the Eurozone, the right thing to do is to wait till the election [to make a decision].”
But it is conceivable that Labour could offer a referendum, right? “It’s conceivable because we are going to make up our minds before the next election when we have a manifesto to put to the British people.”'
http://tinyurl.com/pukuyj3
http://www.cityam.com/blog/ladbrokes-pay-out-3-1-over-anas-sarwars-jeffrey-osborne-jibe
Mike Smithson @MSmithsonPB 35m
On behalf of punters who took the Ladbrokes 3/1 that Osbo would be called Jeffrey in the Commons I thank LAB's Anas Sarwar
Ed Miliband is always of interest to us Tories.
We're more than likely to have Ed as PM when you've become Independent.
Mike Smithson@MSmithsonPB35m
On behalf of punters who took the Ladbrokes 3/1 that Osbo would be called Jeffrey in the Commons I thank LAB's Anas Sarwar
I can imagine Gordon Brown as the head of a Glaswegian mafia family, kneecapping potential rivals in ice-cream wars; he can have that look. Indeed, being in charge of the Labour party is probably a bit like being the head of a Glaswegian mafia family...
Like this one, where I could just imagine him saying: "I will crush you..."
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/article6784444.ece/ALTERNATES/w460/Gordon+Brown
But Ed just doesn't seem to have a *steely* look; indeed, he can look rather wimpish. This was the best I could find of Ed: http://www.leftfootforward.org/images/2013/06/Ed-Miliband-face.png
Cameron doesn't really have it either, although I can imagine him as the head of a corporate supergiant asset-stripping the world: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/David_Cameron_at_the_37th_G8_Summit_in_Deauville_104.jpg
As for Clegg...
God knows what effect, if any, this has on the electorate.
(Edit: typos)
Blair was Dubya's b8tch. Carpet bombing was the least he could do.
It must really please labour supporters and their most successful leader electorally was the craven lackey of a man they consider both evil and stupid.
How well do you think parliament would operate under the Jeremy Paxman "why are these lying b*****ds lying to me" principle? Crazy as it was, the current PM made a statement in the HoC and the Opposition believed him.
Madness, I agree.
b) you have all the information and intelligence but we don't believe you so we vote against.
Of the two responses, only one is possible. And it's not the latter. No matter what you "knew" then or "know" now.
As for @Sunil, they I suspect they are pacifists and good luck to them but being a pacifist requires agreeing (or not agreeing) to specific courses of action in the face of various threats of and actual violence. Or to put it another way, there is little to which such people think violence is an approrpriate response.
Acclaimed Holywood actor, Brian Cox, is to be the voice behind the new cartoon character Duggy Dug it can be revealed.
The Dundee born filmstar, famous for his roles in the Jason Bourne trilogy and Planet of the Apes, will be the voice of Newsnet Scotland's radical new cartoon creation, which is based on a highland terrier.
The project, a collaboration involving a professional artist, animator and filmmaker, will see Duggy explore some of the key issues of the independence debate in a humorous and informative mix that will both entertain and educate.
Duggy Dug, is a scruffy yet likeable old Scotttish terrier whose eyesight isn't the best - but who uses his nose to sniff out fact from fiction as he wanders through some of the more controversial areas of the debate, wisecracking along the way...
Commenting, Brian Cox said: "One of the most effective ways to combat fear is through humour.
"If we can provide a few laughs, at the same time as showing just how ridiculous some of the anti-independence scare stories actually are then it can only help.
"I think Duggy Dug has the potential to inject a bit of fun into the referendum debate, and that's surely good thing."
http://www.newsnetscotland.com/index.php/referendum/7639-holywood-actor-brian-cox-to-be-voice-of-duggy-dug
Labour trusted their leader less than the tories did?
I wonder what IDS thinks now. Imagine he'd led his troops into the anti-lobby......
There may be parliamentary conventions against saying, "Since I don't have cornflakes for brains, I'm not going to take the word of a lying scumbag like the Prime Minister". But they have plenty of other ways of saying it.
The Tory leadership supported the war because they... supported the war.