Normal service resumes
MORI - fieldwork done before the Conway story - sample of 2,000:
Lab 38% (+6%)
Con 37% (-5%)
LD 16% (+1%)
Any comment Rich?
posted by Luke Akehurst at 6:49 pm
Friday, February 01, 2008
Lab 38% (+6%)
Con 37% (-5%)
LD 16% (+1%)
Any comment Rich?
About Me
- Name: Luke Akehurst
- Location: North Durham, County Durham, United Kingdom
Labour MP for North Durham since 2024. Labour Party activist since 1988 - firmly on the moderate wing of the party. Member of Labour’s NEC 2010-2012 and since 2020. National Secretary of Labour Students 1995-6. Parliamentary candidate for Aldershot (2001) and Castle Point (2005). Hackney Councillor (Chatham Ward) 2002-2014, Labour Group Chief Whip 2002-09, Chair of Health Scrutiny 2010-2014. Dad. Unite and GMB union member. All views expressed in a personal capacity. The rest will become evident from reading the blog.
11 Comments:
Still not good enough; we've lost our way, and we desperately need to start making the case for our values again. That, and introduce AV and compulsory voting, so we can re-orientate our political system and break the stranglehold of the centre.
John
6:59 pm, February 01, 2008
Very heartening. Although we must wait to see whether other polls confirm, it would appear that January's difficulties have been weathered without too much damage.
The theory i find plausible is that people are still not inspired by Cameron's Conservatives and are confused and apprehensive about what the Conservatives would actually do if returned to power. Provided Labour does not alienate them, such people's votes remain very much up for grabs, particularly with the economic skies darkening.
So, reasons to be cheerful, all to play for ...
7:42 pm, February 01, 2008
I'm not sure about the polls, they all paint a very unclear view about what people think about all three political parties.
All three polls show people very unhappy with Brown on the economy...yet they still manage to pull ground in the polls.
11:47 pm, February 01, 2008
Instead of continually making fun of his privileged upbringing, Labour should brand Cameron as bland and inexperienced - which of course he is.
8:35 am, February 02, 2008
I don't think most people think of Cameron as bland and don't imagine that would get much traction. Tony Blair was inexperienced in 1997.
Why not point out that he isn't in touch with most people's lives, that he doesn't understand the pressures that most families face & has a completely different set of values, aspirations and friends to 95% of the public? I don't think an out of touch elitist snob will make a good PM.
9:06 am, February 02, 2008
Cameron is far from bland, if you're going to label anyone with bland then it should be Brown.
I also don't think he's an elitist snobe either. All these MPs come from very wealthy backgrounds; it's not something that is limited to the Tories.
The big issue that will decide the next election will be the economy. The reason I say this as I know there are some very challenging months if not years ahead.
If you think things are bad in the states then it's going to get a lot worse in the UK. The government and it's people have are not financially prepared for what lies ahead.
You would expect Labour to have a huge war chest for periods like this but they have not. So they are going to be forced to raise taxes at a time when the British people are at breaking point.
We also have two wars with budgets that are running out of control. There is also the prospect of Iran and even the Bosnia again. From my personal view point some sort of conflict with Iran will happen within 2 years.
It will be interesting to see how the government raises an extra £10 billion this April. It will also be interesting to see who Brown copes with a real economic crisis. As yet we're not even close.
6:40 pm, February 02, 2008
"I also don't think he's an elitist snobe either. All these MPs come from very wealthy backgrounds; it's not something that is limited to the Tories."
The first person to tell me how many Labour MPs have been members of the Bullingdon Club will win a special prize.
How many Tory frontbenchers is it - 3? 4? Plus their candidate for Mayor of London, of course.
Given your polling predictions, you're clearly not in touch with the sentiment of most British people either Rich, but let me tell you - dressing in penguin costumes, trashing pubs then getting daddy to pay for the damage is not endearing to the British public.
I don't know what the Bullingdon Club got up to in Cameron's day, but I don't imagine it's changed that much.
11:24 pm, February 02, 2008
ICM poll in Sunday's Torygraph puts Tories at 37% against Labour at 32%.
Any commnents?
12:24 am, February 03, 2008
Some comments here betray a continuing lack of reality or pragmatism... to go on in the same 'old class politics' way about perceptions of David Cameron as a snob, is pointless, misguided and self-deluding.
In the Labour ranks we have a large tranche of people who, I would bet, are perceived by the public as 'snobs'. Indeed, Tony Blair as PM smirked and was happy not argue when he was described as being a snob on one of those daytime chat-type shows he preferred to serious debating formats.
I'd go further and say that Labour has it's share of individuals who are perceived as snobs and who have their snouts in the public trough.
To ignore that reality and go on about Tory 'snobs' is not only pointless, misguided and self-deluding. It is self-defeating because it reinforces and provides legitimacy to the strongly growing and long-term public disillusion with all politics in general.
And meantime the movement tries to punt a party as led by a man who makes much of his moral compass. Maybe he should let some of his colleagues in on what moral direction the compass shows that the party has been going in the past couple of years?
1:09 pm, February 03, 2008
The MORI "All naming a party" poll is also interesting. This is the one more directly comparable with polls in the 'old days' (ie last century) rather than the "All absolutely certain to vote" one more normally quoted in these sophisticated times and which you quote.
The old fashioned one shows Lab on 43%, Con on 33% and Lib 15% (no wonder the Tory press wants to inculcate a 'don't bother to vote, they're all rogues' feeling in the masses to keep turnout low). At a similar point in the electoral cycle in the early 1990s Labour rarely slipped below 40% in this type of poll (but still lost in 1992).
The Tories remain in a fairly pathetic mid term position for a party after ten and a half years in opposition.
6:34 pm, February 03, 2008
That is interesting, but not surprising. Commentators might be using the Conway story to explain Labour's recent rise in the polls. None of them seem wise to the fact the Tories are offering nothing but spin. And when they do come up with a policy initiative, it is often deeply unpleasant.
8:23 pm, February 09, 2008
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