Tories down by eight in new ICM poll
11:29pm
The latest poll news isn’t good for David Cameron. ICM has the Tories eight points behind Labour and Cameron with the worst personal ratings of all the party leaders. The Lib Dems will be cheered to find themselves hitting that psychologically important 20% mark while Labour will be buoyed by reaching the 40% level.
Grim as this news may be for the Tories, and the word is that there is more bad news to come, there is no need for panic. The Northern Rock crisis has probably killed off any remaining prospect of an Autumn election—if the Tories couldn’t make the idea that Brown is going now because everything is about to collapse stick after the events of the past few days then they don’t deserve to win—which means that politics becomes a long game once more.
Cameron will now probably arrive at conference facing a formidable Labour lead; you have to imagine that Brown’s first conference as PM will see him get a decent bounce. The one silver lining for the Tories is that a strong conference could see the comeback narrative begin to emerge, Anyway, the first polls after conference season will give us a far better idea of where things stand.
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Comments
John Whitworth
September 19th, 2007 7:19amRight. A little wriggle room. When is the Spectator, or anyone, going to start a campaign to get rid of George Osborne. I have no quarrel with what he says - presumably he knows SOMETHING about it, but the man looks and sounds so dreadful - that permananent timid, constipated look. He's an obvious loser, as obvious as Oliver Letwin was, though at least he seems engagingly dotty. Osborne has to go. I know he's Dave's mate and all but can't he banish him to something that doesn't matter much, like Education or Health (they don't matter because the Tories aren't going to change anything). Nobody will vote for Osborne to look after their money. I can't be alone in this, can I?
DR ANDREW JOHN KITCHING
September 19th, 2007 8:58amI think he might still go for October, you know? Otherwise, there'll be a long rocky patch for the economy, and he'll be boxed in to 2010. So, watch out for the day of Dave's speech for Gordon's trip to the Palace.
David Lindsay
September 19th, 2007 9:53amNo, John, you certainly aren't. But the poor oik can't help it, since his father is a mere baronet, he himself is only Saint Paul's, and he therefore only scraped into the Buller by the skin of his teeth, a mistake such as it is not likely to repeat.
David
September 19th, 2007 10:41amOne wonders when class warfare took route in the Conservative Party.
Tiberius
September 19th, 2007 12:42pmThere is an argument going around that we have left the era of spin behind, which is why Brown is doing so well. If this is so, why does anything other than what Osborne actually says make any difference? Unless, of course, either spin and appearance are still in vogue, in which case Cameron should receive a boost, or the new paradigm only applies to Labour.
Alex, London
September 19th, 2007 4:58pm... yet only a few months ago, Cameron /Conservatives were way ahead of Labour in the polls. Mr Cameron and the Conservatives have their work cut out fighting the extreme hostility of the UK media; of which Brown appears to have a blanket state control of.