Tory lead down to 2 points, or is it.

Radiantsoul

Spartacus_Mills wrote: »

For me the most apparent issue the Tories have failed to address is Labour's infinitely superior media management. Some Tories will see this as bias. I like politicalbetting.com but get fed up with the constant accusations of bias laid at the door of Adam Boulton, the BBC, the printed media. Labour are just spinning and managing the media far more effectively and presenting the agenda they want to present. The Tories are all at sea and Coulson and Hilton are floundering somewhat.

The problem for the Tories is that whatever the government says is always going to be more newsworthy than what the opposition say they might do. This is probably both an advantage and a disadvantage though, the Tories spent a long while not really saying much on policy. And from memory New Labour did much the say in 1997 with a small number of pledges and relying on an anti-sleaze agenda. Perhaps the Tories are now going to copy this strategy.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Spartacus_Mills wrote: »

Well I stand by what I said and when I said it however on the basis of this poll, and even allowing for the change in methodology,

And what was wrong with the basis of the Ipsos Mori poll I posted a couple of days ago? Or the earlier sub 10% polls I posted about that you dismissed as outliers?

it would be churlish to claim there is not a shift to Labour.

It would indeed.

I've been pointing out this shift for some time now, though.

It didn't happen overnight. Shifts often start with the occasional outlier, and then move on to slight tightening (which gets written off by those with a bias), and then all of a sudden the swing happens.

Yes, the Tories are still strong in the marginals, thanks to Ashcroft's years of hard work and big money investments. And they may still pull it off.

But they've shot themselves in the foot with the austerity agenda, as I pointed out some time ago.

I do not see it as significant but it could become significant if it is unchecked by the Tories. I do not believe the Tories are in trouble yet but they could be very soon.

The situation on the ground is changing, and this election will be a MUCH closer run thing than most people assumed. The Tories may well still win, but they ARE in trouble.

Cameron has got to give the speech of his life today.

Agreed.

The issue about the raw polling data and the weighting applies more to Yougov than anyone else as they have modified it over the last 18 months. Their raw data has shown little movement in comparison to their polls.

For me the most apparent issue the Tories have failed to address is Labour's infinitely superior media management. Some Tories will see this as bias. I like politicalbetting.com but get fed up with the constant accusations of bias laid at the door of Adam Boulton, the BBC, the printed media. Labour are just spinning and managing the media far more effectively and presenting the agenda they want to present. The Tories are all at sea and Coulson and Hilton are floundering somewhat.

I think it's rather more simple than that.

Labour have pulled off a minor miracle with their reaction to the Credit Crunch and recession. They got the response exactly right. The recovery has started, house prices are rising, the banks were rescued, unemployment is FAR better than in previous recessions, etc etc etc.....

People remember the last recession, see for themselves this one has been far milder in terms of impact on the average man, and realise that Gordon got it right.

The Tories bemoaning the onset of the credit crunch, claiming this was "Gordons Argentina Moment", were right to worry.

The issue of cuts is one the Tories have to make more of. In the early eighties and early nineties when cuts were made we still grew. Cuts have to be made in my view and it should not put us back into recession.

The issue of cuts is what got the Tories in trouble to begin with.

This is a very different recession, with very different causes, than previous ones.

When the whole problem, the very thing that caused the recession, is a lack of liquidity, and a lack of spending, due to a lack of lending, then the Keynesian response is exactly the right thing to do.

Cutting prematurely would kill growth in my opinion, and an awful lot of economists, including Nobel Laureates and MPC members, not to mention the IMF, agree with me.....

Spartacus_Mills

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

And what was wrong with the basis of the Ipsos Mori poll I posted a couple of days ago? Or the earlier sub 10% polls I posted about that you dismissed as outliers?

Actually I have never used the term "outliers" on here.

I did say to look behind the polls at the stats and also to ignore the UNS which you have followed to make predictions of hung parliaments.

I also pointed out that the polls were all over the place and within margin of error.

The IPSOS Mori poll is simply based on those who say they will vote. It is slightly different to other polls in that respect.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

From today's Sunday Times.......

The Tory lead of 6%, which was first reported in The Sunday Times, was maintained in YouGov’s polls in The Sun last week. The increase in support for Labour on Thursday and Friday, as the latest Sunday Times poll was being conducted, came as figures showed a strengthening economic recovery.

Under the British parliamentary system, the prime minister remains in office after a general election until he either tenders his resignation or is defeated in a Commons no confidence vote.

If the election result leaves Labour just short of an overall majority, Brown is likely to battle on, with Labour running the country as a minority government. The party would seek to do deals with minor parties such as Ulster’s Democratic Unionist party or, if necessary, Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats, to get its legislation through parliament.

If repeated in a general election on the basis of a uniform swing in all constituencies, today’s poll would leave Labour just nine seats short of the 326 needed for an overall majority in the new 650-seat House of Commons. The Tories would be well behind on 263 seats, with the Liberal Democrats on 41.

Kellner calculated that, even allowing for a larger swing to the Tories in marginal seats, where the party has spent millions of pounds on campaigning, the poll was consistent with Labour being by far the largest party.

He suggested that in such a scenario Labour might win 300 seats, with the Tories on 270 and the Lib Dems on 50.

Labour will believe it is benefiting from the upturn in the economy. For the first time in a YouGov poll since July 2007, before the financial crisis, people trust Labour more than the Tories to run the economy.

bernard_shaw

I would very much like to hear the following from the Tory leadership:

1. What is their energy policy?
2. What is their foreign policy?
3. What is their transport policy?

No party which fails to provide at least an indication of their policies in these areas will get me to even consider voting for them. As the election draws closer, and this howling void at the heart of conservative policy becomes clearer and their lead erodes, I suspect that I am not alone in this.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Spartacus_Mills wrote: »

Cameron has got to give the speech of his life today.

.

And he didn't.....

Flat, unconvincing, not enough exciting soundbites for the news replays......

They just can't seem to formulate convincing policy statements, in a clear and concisive way.

The coverage should give them a bounce, but they didn't fix the problem today. Not by a long shot.

bernard_shaw

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

And he didn't.....

Flat, unconvincing, not enough exciting soundbites for the news replays......

They just can't seem to formulate convincing policy statements, in a clear and concisive way.

The coverage should give them a bounce, but they didn't fix the problem today. Not by a long shot.

Indeed, there was a lot wrong with the speech and its staging. The lighting was abomnable - he looked very gray. And I agree that he didn't give enough exciting soundbites for the news replays; so far, the BBC have just been re-playing the spittle-flecked crescendo. "No No NO!..." he shouts.

Moreover, I didn't hear anything about the policies directions I want to hear about (above). And what he said about education directly contradicted what Gove said about policy on The Politics Show at lunchtime. (On that same show Gove's refusal to enter into a direct debate with Ed Balls was also a mis-step, IMHO)

I am truly beginning to believe that the Tories don't want to win. Weird. A couple of years ago, I thought DC was great. Now, him and [STRIKE]Gideon[/STRIKE] George Osbourne just come across as smirking Flashman-type public-school prefects.

I think it's the smirking that's doing them in. They do need to stop that; once you notice it, you can't un-notice it.

Ugh.

whathavewedone

With a post like that Bernard Shaw, I can't believe you ever liked David Cameron or contemplated voting tory.

Getting the thread back to a slightly more adult level Spartacus makes some good points.

I'm a regular lurker on Political Betting and I'm really curious to know why Yougov have suddenly changed their methodology so dramatically when they were so accurate in the European and Mayoral elections. I will definitely be reading Kellner's explanation on Tuesday.

It is clear that the polls have narrowed and I think the tory lead is now below 10 but I'm having trouble trusting Yougov at the moment because I just can't work out why they have suddenly changed their methodology so that they are weighting the tories down by more than half and adding so much to Labour.

Oh and Rochdale: when all the polls were showing Labour to be 17-20 points behind the Conservatives I distinctly remember you saying things like, yeah but Ipsos Mori are rubbish because they weight on the basis of certainty to vote etc etc etc. So pot kettle!


It's certainly making this election a lot more exciting though and if the polls remain narrow I expect both Labour and the tories will have no trouble getting their core vote out.

I thought David Cameron's speech was very good but then I'm a real tory rather than a pretend one like Conrad, Hamish and Bernard. I don't really know how much more he could have done. One speech, however good, is not going to change people's minds.

Lets not forget that this has been a horrendous week for him, the first anniversary of his son's death. He could have gone down Gordon Brown's path and cried onstage to get loads of publicity but he didn't. Thank god.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

whathavewedone wrote: »

I thought David Cameron's speech was very good but then I'm a real tory rather than a pretend one like Conrad, Hamish and Bernard.

:rotfl:

That's the first time I've ever been grouped with Bernard before....

A "real" Tory, eh?

Alrighty then......

bernard_shaw

whathavewedone wrote: »

With a post like that Bernard Shaw, I can't believe you ever liked David Cameron or contemplated voting tory.

No, it's true, I really liked what he was saying when he was new:

From his speech to Google Zeitgeist in 2006:

I want to concentrate today on the world of work, and its future. What people want from work and what society should expect from it.

What this means for government, business and individuals. And what we all need to do to make sure that we capture the benefits of the changing world of work, and avoid its pitfalls.

Just as California seems to have mastered the best way of connecting science with enterprise.

And the Netherlands has mastered the best way of providing decentralised energy.

How can we in Britain master the challenge of providing people with work that adds not just to the quantity of money in their pockets, but the quality of their lives?

We have to start by changing the way we think and talk about politics.

Too often in politics today, we behave as if the only thing that matters is the insider stuff that we politicians love to argue about - economic growth, budget deficits and GDP.

GDP. Gross domestic product. Yes it's vital. It measures the wealth of our society. But it hardly tells the whole story.

Wealth is about so much more than pounds, or euros or dollars can ever measure. It's time we admitted that there's more to life than money, and it's time we focused not just on GDP, but on GWB - general well-being.

Well-being can't be measured by money or traded in markets. It can't be required by law or delivered by government.

It's about the beauty of our surroundings, the quality of our culture, and above all the strength of our relationships.

Improving our society's sense of well-being is, I believe, the central political challenge of our times.

I really thought, back then, that he was intent on bringing a true revolutionary change to the political, economic and social debate in this country. However, four years on, we have seen no bones put on this flesh - it's just a howling void of vague philosophising fronted by a smirk. The negativity of today's speech was a big disappointment to me.

Edit:

But, then, I'm not a 'real' Tory (whatever that is).