Lib Dem Let Down Pt III
The scrapping of the city council conservation team looks to be the end of plans to bring a conservation area to Acocks Green. Last year, the Liberal councillors there bowed to public pressure and reached an agreement with Neville Summerfield, the titular head of regeneration in Birmingham (although he only gets to play with the small projects, with Whitless leading on the important stuff). Work was promised to start within six months, but back at the start of this year, it became apparent that no work was being carried out and it was revealed that the Acocks Green conservation area wasn't even in the departmental workplan for the next eighteen months. The departmental head is retiring in March without replacement and job cuts were already on the agenda at this point.
This caused some consternation amongst the Liberals and it was quickly reported that Cllr Summerfield had put the Acocks Green conservation area back on the agenda '
when resources allow' - which could mean anything, but is unlikely to mean that the process will be started within the next two years.
Then came the City Council budget and with typical Liberal consistency, all three councillors in Acocks Green
voted to abolish the conservation team completely. The experienced officers will be located in the planning department - assuming that they don't choose to take their expertise off to a local authority that genuinely gives a damn about historic buildings and preserving the distinctive character of the urban environment.
Yet another promise compromised.
Labels: Liberal Democrats
Cameron - making it up as he goes along.
I'm a supporter of the idea of making banks pay a bit towards the government protection that they have inevitably received - although I'm concerned that this might be seen as a licence to take risks. I'd like to see a Tobin tax on transactions, but that can't happen without international agreement as a unilateral decision by the UK would be the death of the British financial sector.
Gordon Brown has been at the forefront of trying to establish a global agreement on bank levies, which is the only way that I can see this ever working. The Swiss are actively trying to encourage the finance sector to shift to Geneva and Zurich, while the Dubai government has expressed serious interest in becoming a global powerhouse and there's always the temptations of Hong Kong and Shanghai, which are likely to become even bigger centres with the continued rise of China as a global power.
Cameron's proposal is potentially destructive to the banking sector in the UK - a major contributor in happier times to the national income. His accusation that Gordon has failed to stand up to the City doesn't hold water - the IMF are expected to back a global tax proposal in April. Even the suggestion of a unilateral policy to be imposed by a party widely expected to win power in May could cost British jobs now, if banks decide to start the relocation process now rather than risk waiting for the policy to be enacted. Cameron may already be costing people their livelihoods.
One known hard-left agitator
spoke out this weekend, criticising Cameron's proposals
Nick Anstee, the Lord Mayor of London, said at the weekend that the City would lose out unless the levy was applied globally: "It would be bonkers to do this alone".
Another un-named industry source added
There are two things we find uncomfortable. Firstly we are worried that the impact of an additional tax on top of much higher capital requirements will make it impossible for us to maintain lending at its current level. Secondly, we are concerned at the idea of the UK going it alone on this. There is a genuine feeling at the bank that if you punish the industry too much it will damage London as a financial centre and will force us to look at moving business elsewhere.
In the FT, another banker commented
The idea of moving unilaterally is just nuts. How is that consistent with maintaining London as a major financial centre?
And then Philip Hammond was left to row back a little and far from it being Cameron against the world, it was confirmed that this policy has only been launched because of the Conservative confidence that this will be agreed internationally.
Philip Hammond, shadow Treasury chief secretary, explained on Sunday that Mr Cameron toughened up the Tory policy only because he was confident that there would be a global agreement in any case. “It has become clear that this is now going to happen,” Mr Hammond said. “The US is introducing a banking levy, Sweden has already done so. The consensus is growing.”
Not quite such a courageous move on the part of the Tories, then - just picking up on the hard work already done by Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling.
Labels: banks, Cameron, economy, policy
Graphically Challenged
We're all familiar with the Liberal Democrat standard graph - Conservative/Labour can't win here (delete as appropriate)....
The Tories in Yardley have gone better than that. To justify their claim that they CAN win in Yardley, they've taken a more historical perspective, going back to 1918 to show that the Conservatives are actually in second place in Yardley.
On that basis, we should be expecting a Liberal government after May 6th. With a possibility of a return to direct rule by the monarch. Which will be nice.
Still, it is nice to see that the Tories are visible in Yardley, making a change from their previously subterranean profile over the past few years. Their PPC,
Meirion Jenkins, has even been appearing at constituency committee meetings, although he has remained rather silent.
Labels: Conservatives, Yardley
Mike Nangle
Sad news reaches me of the death of Mike Nangle, formerly a Labour councillor in Hodge Hill and Acocks Green, a stalwart of the Irish community in Birmingham and instrumental in reinstating the annual St Patrick's Day parade. He was respected by all those who met him as a honourable man and a gentleman, serving as a councillor for 23 years until he was defeated in 2007, after becoming our first Irish Lord Mayor in 2005.
Not bad for a lad who came from Portadown to work on Birmingham's buses.
Labels: Mike Nangle
Lib Dem Let Down (the story continues)
Liberal promises have a use-by date - 12 months at the outside.
Another matter raised at last week's Ward Committee meeting was the future of Acocks Green Library - a very busy library that is at the heart of the local community. Last March, the serving Liberal Democrat councillor promised those who attended the Constituency Committee meeting that money to be spent on that library would be spent on library facilities. No equivocation. It was rumoured at the time that the Neighbourhood Office was to be relocated within the library, but this was denied.
Last week, it was confirmed that the Neighbourhood Office
is to be relocated from the current site in Botteville Road and into the library. At least six desks are to be sited in the library - probably in what is currently the children's section. Clearly, this will mean additional noise, a need for privacy for the users of the neighbourhood office function and will also place additional security considerations on the rest of the library, quite apart from the disruption caused by the required modifications.
Needless to say, the opposition has already kicked off - there's even a
Facebook group dedicated to the campaign with well over 100 members. That's not bad for a community in just a few days and shows the depth of anger at the decision and the feelings that they have been let down.
Labels: Acocks Green, Libraries
Offending the neighbours
We know that George Osborne is unfit to be Chancellor, but now he's exposed himself as being
unfit to be Foreign Secretary either by offending the French Prime Minister.
George Osborne provoked laughter at a conference hosted by The Spectator when he ostentatiously removed a stool from behind the lectern at which he was about to speak and joked that it was "the Sarkozy box". Sadly, Nicolas Sarkozy did not see the funny side when he read about the shadow chancellor's quip in September and it is now understood that a formal complaint was made to the British Government on behalf of the diminutive French president
Labels: George Osborne
The Nasty Party still trading
Dave has supposedly decontaminated the Tory brand, but Friday saw the Tories revert to type.
A swift bill, with much cross-party support, has been pushed through parliament to outlaw 'vulture' funds. These are international financial companies that buy up national debt from the poorest countries for a fraction of the original value and then pursue those countries through the courts to obtain a return. Some of these debts have even been promised relief in earlier bids to cut third world debt.
Three Conservatives - Andrew Robotham, Christopher Chope and Simon Burns - were conspiring in the chamber as the item was raised and one of them shouted 'Object.' This has stopped the bill passing.
The odd thing is that this bill apparently had the support of the Conservative front bench and two of the three are opposition whips.
So, thanks to one lone Conservative, some of the poorest countries on the planet can look forward to British financiers continuing to chase them for debts that they thought had been written off.
Labels: Conservatives, Nasty Party, Third World Debt
Lib Dem Let Down (a continuing series)
Last Wednesday's ward committee meeting in Acocks Green was slated as a brief affair - only a single, substantive item on the agenda to pass the Community Chest funding for the year. I was running a little late and fully expected to find the meeting on the verge of breaking up when I arrived around ten past seven.
I was amazed to find that there was only one spare seat - a contingent of ladies who all attend the Fox Hollies Leisure Centre to use the pool had turned up to hector the three Liberal councillors about the closure of the small cafe at the centre. They were angry and had even provided a petition, but this was to no avail - the decision to close was already made.
The claim is that the cafe is losing £50,000 a year, but this has to be set against the fact that a number of groups and clubs that currently use the centre's facilities may decide to relocate somewhere with more attractive facilities. It was pointed out that this has already happened in at least one case. The cafe is also a community facility in its own right - providing a place for these ladies to meet after their swimming session and have a quick, warming cuppa. My comrade, Stewart Stacey, pointed out that this was rather similar to the status of the buffet cars on British Rail. The management in that industry wanted to get rid of them, because they consistently lost money, but when the cars were removed, they found that this cost more in lost ticket sales than it cost to maintain the service. It is a loss leader to encourage use of the centre - all the more important now that Sparkhill Baths are closed for the next two to three years and Fox Hollies should be well-placed to take advantage of that business.
Cllr Harmer said that there was no alternative - that the money had to be saved to allow the setting of a balanced budget (quite how the constituency will achieve that this year, given that they are well over £600,000 over budget at the end of the third quarter of 09/10, isn't clear). Perhaps if some £90,000 wasn't being spent on a former Sun hack to spin for the discredited management of the Children's department, there might be more cash to be spent. Or perhaps some of the millions spent on consultants by Birmingham City Council might have been better spent on services.
I fear that this will be death by a thousand cuts - that gradually, other items of the centre might be closed because of falling attendance, rather than attempts be made to run it properly, to advertise it and to generate business.
Labels: Acocks Green, Liberal Democrats, Yardley
Liberal Democrat Lie
Accusing a party of telling a direct lie is not something I do easily or happily, but the Liberal Democrats in Yardley are distributing a full colour, A3 leaflet that includes a direct and demonstrable lie.
It may not mean much to them, but it is an absolute untruth to accuse the Labour Party of not campaigning in Acocks Green - for that is where this leaflet is being distributed, although I have no reason to believe that it is not being distributed elsewhere in the constituency.
We have campaigned since 2005 - I've run three campaigns myself since then. The councillor retiring in Acocks Green this year, Cllr Iain Bowen, will certainly recall the 2006 campaign when a small team helped me halve his majority. Much as I like Iain personally, we're putting up a fight to unseat him this year. We campaigned again in 2007 and 2008, campaigning also on behalf of Labour's team in the European parliament. A very successful campaign has been run to save the libraries in Yardley Constituency and we also fought to preserve the 41 bus route (John Hemming has copies of our leaflet, since he posted them on the Stirrer some weeks ago).
Sadly, we don't have the benefit of the £250k coming into the pockets of councillors, cabinet members and an MP, let alone Hemming's millions, so we have to find the money to fund our own campaigns and can't run to paid deliveries.
Perhaps the Liberal Democrats have spent too much time with their Conservative mates and are learning how to airbrush history, rather than just photographs.
Labels: Liberal Democrats, Yardley
Is that a large majority in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?
Personally, I don't know how she can cope with the shame and the public embarrassment. I mean, it is one thing to direct porn movies, but to admit to being a politician? And a Liberal Democrat? That's just unnatural.
But while the Limp Dems think that they are breaking new ground by selecting
a porn director as a parliamentary candidate - stretching their Liberalism further - the Australians go one step further.
They have the
Australian Sex Party - a genuine, registered political party.
I kid you not. And unlike the Conservative Party, they actually
have policies.
Rumour has it that they might benefit from a large swing in a well-hung parliament.
Labels: Australia, Liberal Democrats
Cut and shut case
And so Honest Nick's car sales offers you this nice little
runner of a slogan, one careful lady owner, only used it on Sundays to take her mum to church.
"Change that works for you. Building a fairer Britain."
This isn't even a good job by a professional tradesman. This is a political vehicle glued together from the offcuts of the the major parties - who should sue for breach of copyright. This is one motor too dodgy to be risked on the road even for a test drive, Mr Clegg. If I were you, I'd trade it in for a new one under the slogan scrappage scheme.
Go home to your constituencies and prepare for coalition!
Labels: General Election, Liberal Democrats
Cameron cobblers
The answers over Lord Cashpoint's generous funding of the Conservative Party have been dragged out of them by a Freedom of Information request, not as a result of Call Me Dave's desire to be more open.
Forced honesty is no honesty at all.
The fact is some time before the election has answered the questions. It has been done. And it was done by me - right?
If that was genuinely the case, why did he wait until the last few days before the information was going to be released in any case before putting it out in the public domain? These questions have been around for years and apparently the Tory leadership did not think to ask Milord Cashcroft about whether he had actually kept his promises.
Labels: David Cameron, Lord Ashcroft
BNP Photo Fail
Not even able to take a simple publicity photo...
Good to see the nutty Rev West is still around. He used to run the
Christian Council of Britain, which he denied was a BNP front organisation.
Labels: BNP, Fail
Papering over Osborne.
Welcome to the new faces of Conservatism -
five white blokes in suits. The usual suspects. Cameron and Hague, Cuddly Ken Clarke, Michael Gove and Jeremy Hunt (another of the former PR-merchants in the Tory party). All Oxbridge, all with no significant life experience outside politics.
But wait - no room for the man who would be our next Chancellor? The man who should be front and centre, explaining how the Tories will take us out of recession and into depression? The man before whom conventional economists cower in fear of his intellect? George Osborne has been sidelined.
The Tories deny that Mr Osborne or Mr Grayling have been snubbed. They say Mr Osborne will concentrate on his behind-the-scenes role as the Tories’ Election mastermind and will make occasional public appearances.
Oh good. Can't wait for those carefully stage-managed events where Osborne isn't allowed to answer questions or stray from a carefully-prepared script.
No room either for Caroline Spelman - perhaps she can't find a nanny - or Teresa May, let alone anyone from any other minority background.
But more importantly, we want George, front and centre. Never mind that
privately, they admit that Mr Osborne gets low ratings in confidential Conservative polls and was damaged by reports of how he was entertained on Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska’s yacht in Corfu
He wants a top job - put him to the test.
Labels: Conservatives, General Election, George Osborne
Countdown and out
Those who can do, those who can't, teach and those who can't teach become Tory education ministers. Question Time this week saw a car crash of a performance from
Carol Vorderman, when she was thoroughly outclassed by those around her and her 'independent' voice was exposed as a sham.
Unqualified to serve as a teacher under a Tory government, she relied on reading her crib notes - wonder who briefed her? - and independently took shots only at Labour throughout the show.
Gaby Hinsliff watched the show as well
Chatty Carol, the lovable whizz with a whiteboard, metamorphasised before the Question Time audience into a malfunctioning robot apparently programmed by a shock jock. Smoke billowed from her wiring as she veered between shrill (on the public's apparent right to hunt down Jon Venables) and hesitant (whenever she lost her place in her cribnotes). By the time they got on to Iraq, the whiff of melting circuitry filled the studio.
Labels: Carol Vorderman, education, Question Time
Tower Block of Expenses
Nadine Dorries has a story - Mark Oaten apparently trousered £3600 for his appearance on Tower Block of Commons, staying in a council flat of someone on benefits worth a twentieth of that. Liberal Democrats winning here, certainly.
Shameless.
Labels: Mark Oaten, Nadine Dorries, Tower Block of Commons
Stolen words
Shamelessly stealing Michael Foot's
words from Bob Piper, who himself stole them:
We are not here in this world to find elegant solutions, pregnant with initiative, or to serve the ways and modes of profitable progress. No, we are here to provide for all those who are weaker and hungrier, more battered and crippled than ourselves. That is our only certain good and great purpose on earth, and if you ask me about those insoluble economic problems that may arise if the top is deprived of their initiative, I would answer ‘To hell with them.’ The top is greedy and mean and will always find a way to take care of themselves. They always do.
Remember also Harold Wilson's dictum
The Labour Party is a moral crusade or it is nothing.
Labels: Labour, Michael Foot
Cashcroft - the albatross hanging around Dave's neck
So, William Hague knew some months ago that Milord Ashcroft had not stuck to the spirit of his assurances, but only let Dave know about it within the last month. Lord Ashcroft has misled at least two Tory leaders - Iain Duncan Smith wasn't there long enough to matter - about his tax status. He promised to become a permanent resident - which should have been enough in the eyes of the Revenue for him to be domiciled in the UK for tax purposes - but didn't.
Hague and Brown don't come out of this well. Either neither felt brave enough to challenge Lord Cashpoint over his tax status or they knew the truth - even in a plausibly deniable way - and chose to ignore it.
Ashcroft has to go, despite his status as a foul-weather friend who has now magnetically attracted fresh storms to the party. His continued presence at the heart of the party is hamstringing the campaign - Conservatives have made themselves unavailable to discuss the matter and this prevents them from making key statements on policy, as they are bound to be asked about Ashcroft. They are hoping that this will all blow over, but I'm not so sure that it is done. Both the Liberal Democrats and Labour have an interest in prolonging this row and they are milking it for all they can, as it really speaks to the heart of the Conservative party and how much they really represent change.
It was very interesting and perhaps a signal of a battle yet to come that tonight's Question Time saw the blonde bombshell, Boris Johnson, distancing himself from Lord Cashcroft - perhaps positioning himself ready to replace Dave.
Remember, unlike other non-dom donors, Ashcroft has a central role in the party, directing strategy in the marginal seats. Ashcroft is the only non-dom who made a promise to their party leader to take up permanent residence and has failed to do so. Ashcroft only 'spoke out' about his tax status when he was forced to by the imminent release of information under the Freedom of Information Act.
Meanwhile, a
very important poll in the key marginal seats - the ones that would deliver a Tory majority - showed that their lead had dwindled over 18 months from a 13 point lead to just 6.5% this month, running some two points ahead of the national swing. This leaves the Tories the largest party, but 11 short of a majority. It seems that the Ashcroft money isn't buying the votes as easily as you would think.
Labels: Conservatives, Lord Ashcroft, opinion poll
Michael Foot - 1913-2010
Michael Foot was perhaps the last of the great radical, idealists in a tradition dating back to the formation of the Labour Party. His was a magnificent oratorical style, suited to the campaigning format of an earlier age, where public meetings were the main format of communication with the electorate. The modern media machine has encouraged the destruction of this content-heavy, sometimes ponderous style in favour of communications-lite demand for the soundbite. If you get the chance, listen to Foot's Commons good-humoured, but devastating, assault on Keith Joseph and Conservative economic policy in 1980, which has all the timing and delivery of a top-line comic and clearly had the audience held rapt for the duration, as Joseph was compared to a magician who had forgotten how to complete a difficult trick and was left with the shattered watch of an important member of the audience. That wouldn't have a chance of being featured in a news programme today, if Cameron or Brown were to use it. But times were different then. Back in the 1930s, when Foot first stood for parliament, he did so by the simple expedient of walking into Labour's headquarters, asking where they were short of candidates and then being selected to fight the safe Conservative seat of Monmouth the next day - a process that makes the current short-form selection look ponderous. Back in the 1950s, social networking was carried out through the medium of a loudspeaker and a soapbox and Foot was a master of it.
This is the man who gave us the memorable description of Norman Tebbit as a
semi-housetrained polecat
or nailed Margaret Thatcher
she has no imagination and that means no compassion.
Many workers today owe him a debt, for it was Foot who navigated the Health and Safety at Work Act through Parliament, which created a modern structure for protecting the workforce. Perhaps it was fitting that it fell to him to up date legislation first started in the Victorian age and it can be said that this Act has genuinely saved lives and prevented injury.
Leadership came to him late in life and he was not suited to it, but he probably provided his greatest service to his beloved Labour Party - taking the weight of the 1983 defeat and handing the reins over to the new generation who were ready to take the party through a decade of hard graft and pain to make it electable.
He was, by every account, a man with an enormous hinterland. Politics was key to his life, but was not his only interest. You suspect that some of his greatest pleasure came from watching and hoping against all hope - and the evidence of previous performances - that Plymouth Argyle would make their way to the top to British football. As the former vice-chairman of the club wrote in the Guardian today
Michael supported Plymouth Argyle for about 90 years, through thin and thin. He was completely mad about them. I ran into him when he had just stood down as Labour leader, around 1984. I was milling around outside the ground and Michael came stomping over and said: "You're Argyle fans – where do we stand?" We stood on the terraces together and as we left he said, "well, you must ring", as he didn't have any chums to go to Argyle with. So I rang. From then we went to loads of games.When he was 90, in 2003, I thought, what can you give a man like Michael Foot? We registered him as a player with the Football League, the oldest ever. We gave him a squad number, 90, so he appeared in the programmes for the whole season. In a speech I announced he was being hired as a left-winger, with strict instructions from the manager never to stray anywhere near the centre and certainly nowhere near the right.
And from Neil Kinnock, his successor as leader and a man with a talent for oratory himself
(Michael) was a resolute humanist with profound faith in the ability of "free men and women using free institutions" to secure irreversible advances in standards of living and liberty for every country and community. He was a friend to all who strove against want and injustice, an inveterate enemy of exploitation and greed. He was ferocious and funny, principled but never precious, courteous but never deferential, provocative but never vindictive, creative but never abstract. "Describe the challenges by all means," he said, "but don't confuse analysis with action. The one must lead to the other if it is to be useful to people."
Labels: Labour
Curious
On Sunday, Mike Smithson over at Political Betting reported that the
Sunday Times had altered the figures reported on the YouGov survey to reduce the Tory lead from 6% to 2%. At the time, I commented that this poll seemed like an outlier and further confirmation was required. Today's poll from YouGov,
published in the Sun, extends the Tory lead back to 7%, ascribing the 5% shift to Cameron's speechifying in Brighton.
This seems like a big leap based upon one speech which was generally received with mixed results. I would posit two alternative theories.
One, that Sunday's poll was an outlier and gave a freak result just outside the margin of error.
Two, that the Sunday Times took the worst possible outcome from the poll as the headline figure to try to create a Tory bounce.
Labels: opinion poll
Ashcroft exposed
For a decade, the Conservatives have skirted round the issue of Lord Ashcroft's tax status. They have never corrected reports that he had committed to being a permanent resident in the UK for tax purposes and when directly asked, there was an agreed turn of phrase about having no reason to believe that he was not complying with his commitments, to the point where the Information Commissioner criticised them for their "
evasive and obfuscatory" comments on Ashcroft's status.
And yet, when fellow Conservative George Young
lets the cat out of the bag,
He is in the same position as a number of Labour peers who are non-domiciled and who fund the Labour party
the Tory machine goes into overdrive, forcing him into a humiliating climbdown by claiming that he had 'misspoken' by telling the truth.
David Cameron professed delight that Ashcroft has come out and admitted his status, spinning it as some sort of openness on his lordship's part, rather than a result of enforcement by the Information Commissioner - ironically against the government's own Cabinet Office which had refused to disclose the information.
And before the Tories kick off about the Labour non-doms, remember that Lord Ashcroft is a bit different. Not only have the Conservatives obfuscated when presented with any direct questions about his tax status, but Lord Ashcroft has given - directly or indirectly - £6.7 million since 2001 and we have no idea what he gave before that. Rumours suggest that he effectively sustained the party through the painful years between 1997 and 2001 and it is known that he personally guaranteed a £3 million loan to the party. He has flown Tory shadow cabinet members around the globe, sitting in on key meetings between William Hague and representatives of other governments. Lord Ashcroft is a deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, with a desk at the heart of their headquarters and a key role in funding campaigns in the vital marginal seats.
Labels: Lord Ashcroft
Cuts in secret?
Birmingham councillors are elected as councillors for all of the city, although they obviously represent particular wards. They take decisions affecting the whole of the city, yet councillors are being denied access to full information.
Labour councillors, curious to understand the level of cuts imposed by the Conservative/Liberal Democrat administration, have asked to see the same level of detail that they get for their own constituency committees for others, where there is no Labour representation. This has been denied.
This can only be for political reasons and you have to ask - what are they trying to hide?
Labels: Birmingham Council, Secrecy
Terry's Huge Bill
There is something almost obscene that one of the first thoughts of Birmingham's Childrens' Services when confront with the genuine horror of the
Khrya Ishaq case was to hire
a PR merchant specialising in reputational management on a
whopping £800 a day for 141 days, some £113,000. As always, I have to ask - if the largest council in the UK does not have people capable of carrying out this task, then why not?
No wonder, the department was described as being unfit for purpose by its own boss.One question that has not been asked is that, given that the contract was for 141 days and likely to exceed £50,000 in total, was it advertised or was it deemed to be exempt under the council's own standing orders?According to the Council's own briefing, Terry Brownbill is apparently possessed of
considerable specialist knowledge of supporting local authorities, particularly where children have died in suspicious circumstances
although his website is silent on this specialist knowledge.
He does have considerable specialist knowledge of the the issues of travellers, becoming a leading light in the formation of a campaign group
Middle England in Revolt around his home in Cambridgeshire. Much of his work relates to this part of the world, with him stepping to the fore to
defend Fenland District Council for employing a part time chief finance officer who had relocated to Adelaide and carried out all his work - including appearing at council meetings - remotely and for the bargain price of £20,000 for this one day a week.
Still, we end up with a council more worried about reputational damage and spin.
Labels: Birmingham Council, Media
Marking the polling card
Much as I'm delighted to see the Conservatives just 2 points ahead in the polls, this is the time when I add my own caveats.
Firstly, there is the standard outliers warning - this YouGov poll is ahead of any other, so I'd like some confirmation before I start breaking out the sparkling water.
Then there is the standard Liberal Democrat factor, which I have noted before - they are consistently underestimated in national polls outside election time, usually by three points or so, because they do not get the same coverage as the two main parties and can't afford the advertising presence.
Added to that standard comment are two specific 2010 Liberal Democrat polling elements which could have opposite effects on their showing.
For the first time since 1992 - which was in itself the first occasion since 1979 - this election is going to be a real contest about who governs Britain and unless something spectacular happens in the next few weeks, that means a choice between one of two parties. In that kind of election, conventional wisdom expects a higher turnout and a squeeze on the other parties, who are typically recipients of the protest vote for disaffected supporters of either the Conservatives or Labour.
The counter to that is that this time, Nick Clegg - Cameron-lite - will be participating as an equal in the leaders' debates in the run up to the election. His performance could significantly affect the out turn for the Liberal Democrats in bringing any undecided voters on board. In the actual poll, the Liberal Democrats will also benefit from tactical voting, as voters back them as the best chance of keeping either the Tories or Labour from holding a seat. Expect that to be a big issue in Solihull, as I suspect Labour voters are tacitly encouraged to back Lorely Burt in the hope of keeping her in place.
A bigger issue for me is the effect of voting in the marginals and how the uniform national swing indicated in the polls is not relevant. This election is not going to be decided in Sutton Coldfield or Ladywood, where the vote for the Conservatives and Labour can be safely weighed. It will be fought on the ground in a relative handful of seats, many of which have 'benefitted' from the Ashcroft largesse over the past few years, as the Conservative party has become a partly-owned subsidiary of the Ashcroft brand. There could be a disproportionate swing in safe seats for either party that will affect the national figures, but the real interest is in these marginals. I suspect that there will be an additional 3-5% swing to the Conservatives ahead of the national trend in the marginal seats and that this could make the difference.
So, while these national, headline polls are interesting, they may not be representative of the final outcome, which I suspect will be largely about turnout.
Labels: opinion poll
Economics for Osborne
Given that we're just about out of recession, does that mean that he'll be powering us into a full-on depression? He's certainly turned his poll ratings around. Last autumn, he was romping away with a double-digit lead, which has shrunk to a two point lead according to the latest YouGov poll.
Labels: Conservatives, David Cameron, George Osborne
