Newsnight's focus group offers encouragement to Clegg and a warning to the Tories on tax

Robert Williams

The fact that over the course of Luntz's session the panel went from never having heard of Clegg to voting overwhelmingly for him as next PM leaves one wondering about the merits of universal suffrage.

david

Could Blair do a De Gaulle? When Cameron proves to be an utter disaster, (he will) will a delegation arrive in Connaught Square and beg Tony to take the helm?

Charlie

Many on low and middle incomes, particularly those who are self employed or work in small businesses are aware of the government gravy train. Low taxes and cutting waste from govrenment expenditure could be a massive vote winner. Earning £40K a year, 35 days holiday and working 36 hour weeks plus flexitime, is common in local government/quangos/ NHS management. This type of remuneration can only be dreamed of by many craftsmen/foremen working in industry, especially in the north, Midlands and rural areas. Remember it was the craftsmen/foremen who voted for Thatcher /Reagan who enabled them to win. In the 19C to early 20C, the craftsmen/ small business man who was the backbone of the Liberals.

Ian C

I agree with Robert Williams, but this was always going to be the conference that Cameron came off the fence on tax. Clegg was awake enough to know this and set himself to be credible enough to sling darts at the Tories by claiming he forced them to differentiate from Labour.

The fact is that the policy until now has been right - they could not have anticipated the speed of Labour's fall from popularity - and had the turmoil of this summer not happened the timing would have been right to alter the message to 'progressive tax cuts'. The spending plans until 2011 are a de facto reality in any event even if we get a spring '09 election (looking likely).

It is the mis-understanding and representation of what this means that the Tories have not been able to get clear of. In other words their message is not as clear and simple as it needs to be and Luntz's exercise confirmed that.

Liz Brown

Anyone who thinks that the Tories will find themselves in a position to cut taxes when they form the next Government must be off their trollies - I would love to see tax cuts, but the Tories HAVE to examine the books before they can make such promises

Diana

George Osborne must put himself around more and explain what the Tories are going to do about the economy. There is such a crisis now, it is no good sitting and watching Labour burn at the moment. People have already given up on Labour and are looking around to see who would be better (rather than who would be better by default).
The reason Vince Cable gets asked to do media interviews, is that he is always available and by being so, has made a name for himself particularly about Northern Rock. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Now the Tories have to demonstrate that they will be a safe pair of hands with the economy and can lead.
I believe politics has changed this week. People are seriously worried. The decontaminated image of the Tories has been won (for the most part. Now they have to move on to the detail strategy. So what if Labour steals their policies.
George Osborne should be ringing up Today, Channel 4, sky, WATO, the lot and putting himself about. We need to see the substance of the Tories, and not the slick, sincere Dave (which has served its purpose up to now.)
By the way, I think Dave has to pull a very different rabbit out of the hat for this year's party conference speech. Last year's was superb, but that's out of date now. We need the concrete stuff now...

Talia

What about the way the piece was presented – much longer was spent on the Brown examination and the entire approach was how Brown could turn things around and attract voters, I know the BBC bias is nothing new, but couldn’t they be slightly more subtle? They’re WILLING Brown to recover. And, anyway, who are these idiots who have never even heard of Clegg.

mart

The programme makers show what they want to show, of course. But let's assume they played it straight.

Clegg got lots of credit for pouring scorn on both Labour and the Tories. So he gets the "none of the above" vote. Big deal.

When people are seriously considering where to draw their cross on the ballot paper, maybe a different mood will take them. Because a "none of the above" vote is a bit of a self-indulgence when deciding who should govern the country.

TrevorsDen

A lot of wishful thinking here.

Cameron will not prove to be a disaster. He will of course inherit a disaster.

As for the focus group -- it was specifically selected from a left of center group. So what would it tell us?

They liked Clegg promising tax cuts (who would not) but the clip shown was very selective. There would be precious little left for serious tax cuts after the 20 billion savings had been rediustributed to LibDem pet projects and of course the clips did not show Clegg promising to abolish Nuclear AND coal - how did our left wing Manchester audience expect to keep warm in a LibDem winter?

And as for Cameron - this particular audience would not be predisposed to him and the clip shown was one of him being correctly cautious about tax cuts given the state of the economy. Remember Mrs T put taxes UP at first?

So quite frankly this alleged bit of research is absolutely worthless. I can understand Spectator getting worked up about it, but being so miserable at putting it in context yet again shows the juvenille nature of Spectator comment.

'I can do dat. Gizzus a job?'

jsfl

I am disappointed in the way Frank Luntz undertook this sample (usually I rate him highly). It was heavily biased. Imagine if he did the same sample for the US Election in Berkely or San Francisco and no doubt you would see the same.

The sample was focussed solely on those who are currently Labour leaning voters (and naturaly biased against the Conservatives). Recent polls suggest that Labour leaners now represent significantly less than half the voting electorate ( a large proportion having already moved to the Conservatives) therefore is unrepresentative of the electorate as a whole. Those in this sample were most likely already highly sceptical of the Conservatives. If half were Conservative leaning voters then the response could well have been totally different but more in tune with the electoral make-up of the country.

Selecting Manchester which is a traditional Labour area once again stacks the deck against the Conservatives. The suggestion that it is such places that will decide the next Government is false. The Conservatives do not need Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds or Newcastle areas to have a comfortable majority next time round.

Furthermore, the excerpts for each leader were not like for like. Brown and Cameron had interview excerpts whereas Clegg was giving a conference speech. The content of each is much different so the reaction is much different. If all had been featured giving their conference speeches then it would have been like for like and even with such a heavily skewed sample of people I suspect the results would have been much different.

All in all, given the location, the sample and the selection of clips the result was highly predictable and no doubt that was the intention and presumably direction of the BBC (say anything but it must not favour the Tories) when they commissioned Luntz to do the study.

Basically as such it is meaningless propaganda. My only question is which party will end the BBC's Current Affairs Department's life as the propagandist wing of the liberal left?