Tory lead slipping away, Heseltine predicts hung parliament...

peterg1965

treliac wrote: »

.... and look at Blair raking it in as fast as he possibly can.

Don't get me started on that subject...In his defence he has a very greedy (apparently Socialist) wife to support.

Spartacus_Mills

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

The Tories are paying dearly for the "Austerity" fiasco.... The backpedalling with "no swingeing cuts" may well have been too little too late.

A 6% lead is no use to them at all. It means a hung parliament and coalition or minority government.

The country wants and needs, growth, recovery, a future for the aspirational, and will vote for whomever promises to deliver it. Pushing an austerity message to a country sick of recession was an act of absurd stupidity.

The tories are better placed to deliver in the long term, but not if they can't get their foot out of their mouth and win some votes.

The unweighted figures were 44-27 in favour of the Tories. The Tories are holding steady around the 40% mark. They are not losing support at the moment.

A 6% lead can easily give them a majority. You are looking at uniform swing. Polls of the marginals show the Tory support in those is very high.

http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2010/02/15/andy-cookes-seat-model-refined/

peterg1965

Kohoutek wrote: »

The problem with our system, like America, is that our politics are so partisan and adversarial, even in the way the House of Common is built, that the chances of cross-party deficit reduction plans working are about as likely as Tiger Woods and his wife seeming their marriage through until their diamond wedding anniversary.

I think a hung Parliament would be pretty catastrophic for the pound and what's left of international confidence in Britain. Cameron needs to pull the finger out - Gordon Brown is about as popular as a mouth ulcer to most people, winning this election shouldn't be that hard, just stop flip-flopping!

I think we need a General Election to be called, this 'phoney war' is not separating the men from the boys. Once an election is called the polls will reflect a more accurate picture - ie. a bigger Tory lead.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

treliac wrote: »

But we can't keep borrowing either. We've already borrowed £200bn and we're still at rock bottom.

Perhaps.

Alternatively, we have borrowed £200bn, prevented a slide into the great depression part 2, and millions of people still have jobs and homes that would not have otherwise.

Pull the rug out a little and repossessions will soar. But are these people who could never afford to have bought in the first place but, thanks to unregulated banks, were able to get themselves into situations that were not viable? If so, how is it feasible to continue to protect them from reality? And if we don't face reality, how can the economy ever recover?

You seem to be confusing multiple issues.

Pull the rug out and repo will soar? Protect people from reality?

Well given the fact that most people could afford higher rates just fine in 2007, and most people have not lost their jobs since then, you must be talking about housing benefits.

I take by that you mean stop helping the unemployed with benefits that include mortgage interest, etc..... Well, then you should also stop paying rent for the unemployed or housing benefit to anyone else too.

But what does that achieve? You then have millions of people you need to house, or let roam the streets until they freeze to death. I can see how the latter would be a saving, but it's not exactly a vote winner.

A delicate balancing act sure, but we can't carry on like this for ever. Isn't a rebalancing needed in order to give those 20 somethings, we've been talking about, a future?

So you advocate pushing the UK into another recession, to help 20-somethings? How does that help them?

More recession = more unemployment. And the young are hurt the worst by unemployment in all recessions, including this one.

You can't have a house price crash in isolation. Recessions and crashes are interlinked.

Pick your poison.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Spartacus_Mills wrote: »

The unweighted figures were 44-27 in favour of the Tories. The Tories are holding steady around the 40% mark. They are not losing support at the moment.

A 6% lead can easily give them a majority. You are looking at uniform swing. Polls of the marginals show the Tory support in those is very high.

http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2010/02/15/andy-cookes-seat-model-refined/

You should tell that to Heseltine.;)

Party Grandees calling a hung parliament indicates they are slightly more worried than you seem to be.....

michaels

Hamish you are brighter than that - very little that is being said now by either side is not planned - may be warning of the threat has been shown to shore up half-hearted support - if a 'tory grandee' stated that it was a cake walk and the party was a shoe in I suspect that would play very badly with the voters...

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

You should tell that to Heseltine.;)

Party Grandees calling a hung parliament indicates they are slightly more worried than you seem to be.....

michaels

100% agree with you T. The press seem to present there being some choice out there - Govt keep spending like there is no tomorrow and no 'austerity' or some attempt to balance govt income and expenditure and austerity, double dip etc. No one seems to point out that spending more than you earn requires borrowing and the more of that you do the more expensive it gets till you reach the point where no one will lend to you at all. Doesn't matter if you an an individual, bank or country, there is such a point...

treliac wrote: »

But we can't keep borrowing either. We've already borrowed £200bn and we're still at rock bottom.

Spartacus_Mills

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

You should tell that to Heseltine.;)

Party Grandees calling a hung parliament indicates they are slightly more worried than you seem to be.....

Typical glib, lightweight, reply Hamish.

First of all it is Grandee, singular.

Heseltine is entitled to his view. I suspect there is some managing of expectation going on. Labour did exactly the same in the run up to 1997 even to the extent of cosying up to the Lib Dems (subsequently dropped when not needed) however you make the mistake of looking at uniform swing only, you ignore the polling methodology, the weightings and the polling in the marginals. All of which, at the moment, points to a Tory majority.

Spartacus_Mills

It is also worth pointing out two other polls in the last week, Comres and Angus Reid, showed the Tory lead increasing.

Again the same caveats apply as to the Yougov Poll.

However this poll is seized on by the media to fill a narrative of a narrowing poll, the others are ignored. You pays your money etc however the one thing the polls are at the moment is inconsistent but all of them are within their own margin of error.

wymondham

phlash wrote: »

The last thing you want is a hung parliament!

Political fighting instead of decisive action - absolutely catastrophic when trying to stimulate ecomonic recovery or should I say steer the second dip.

I've not seen anything other than this to date!