Should the Tories fear these poll numbers?

Sally Chatterjee

I do find it odd that the worse this crisis gets, the more Brown's popularity should be going up.

But the PM is getting it all his own way. Yesterday in parliament he managed to say "they [Conservatives] showed the wrong judgement" several times when this was the man who has got so many things wrong. Brown should be apologising, not boasting. No one seems capable of holding his feet to the fire.

Today we see Northern Rock is making big losses whilst repossessing more homes than any other bank: vindication that Osbourne was right, the disaster bank should have been put into a run off, not rescued.

Burt

What time delay is there in these polls?

oldtimer

They should take them with a pinch of salt - like all poll results.

As for the date of the election I believe that Brown will leave it as late as possible. Nor will he want to risk his chance to chair the G-20 meeting next year. And when it comes, at least there now should be distinctive choices on offer. Cameron should be happy to fight it whenever it comes.

TrevorsDen

Many aspect of the crisis are indeed world wide - even though we are probably not best placed to weather the storm. But Brown talks about this as if that means its not his fault.

He pretends that the sudden change in fortunes is a surprise which is justifiable. And of course ALL world leaders are saying the same out of their own self interest.
When all of Europe's leaders gang up like this, then that is when you need a good honest and objective press. We of course do not get that and Brown gets a poll response to his propaganda accordingly.

In fact of course at the very very best it means he is as guilty as everyone else.

John Page

Of course cautious brown won't call an election on numbers anything like these, especially if nontaxresident milord Ashcroft's money is still doing its stuff in the marginals

Verity

David Cameron began losing the next election on the day he became leader. He has never addressed the political issues, posing instead as someone wisely keeping his powder dry. It was obvious from his first month in office that he didn't have any powder and he didn't have the faintest notion of how to govern, and, equally grave, he doesn't know the people he seeks to govern. If he and his advisory clique did, he wouldn't have thought the voters would have warmed to him for appearing forgiving to little hoodie terrorists. It only illuminated the distance between him and most citizens who don't have the luxury of living in neighbourhoods not infested with these young thugs.

David Cameron is going to lose the next election, which should have been a cakewalk.

TPR

"... neighbourhoods not infested with these young thugs."

Like Notting Hill for example? Have you ever been there? Whilst Cameron may be reasonably insulated from the gritty reality of life in West London, he can't fail to have noticed what life is like for the majority of the area's denizens, even those wealthy media execs "schlepping" home down Portobellow Road.

Here's hoping Dave does have what it takes. He's our only hope.

SimonR

Verity,

I hope for the UK's sake that you are as accurate in your assessment of DC as you were with Sarah Palin.

TGF UKIP

You're right of course, Verity, and you could have also thrown in the green headbangery obsession. Unfortunately, though, in their present jittery mood of wishful desperation, the Coffee House Cameroons, both staff and commenters are unlikely to prove a receptive audience for your views (or mine for that matter.)

David

"David Cameron is going to lose the next election, which should have been a cakewalk."

Rubbish. He could lose it, but the idea that it would be a cakewalk with the giant public sector Labour have created and the amount of our money they are able to spend to ensure their electoral survival is ridiculous. I still don't think Brown would call an election based on this. The polls have been all over the place - Tory leads going like this 6,5,11,4,13,3. Something is not right in polling land, and Brown didn't call one last year when he was 5 points ahead.

JONNY

Any thought of dishing Cameron is sheer idiocy. Every single poll we've had suggests he is by far the most popular leader the Tories have had since the early days of Major. (There are even those, myself included, who have the temerity to prefer him to Thatcher!)
And yes oh yes - despite some malignant malcontents in the party, stirring up trouble and in the process shooting themselves in the foot, he will win the General Election if only by a narrow margin. Which hopefully may sooner than later.
With that in mind more polls like the one today could prove a blessing in disguise.
A siren voice leading the faltering Gordon onto the rocks.

C Powell

The only good thing about this poll is that it might shake the Tories out of their complacency and make them realise that they have a fight on their hands.

I do wish, also, that they would fight Labour on its authoritarian bossy-boots State as well as on the economy. The two go hand-in-hand: an incompetent, over-large, micro-managing State which manages to destroy both our economy and our freedoms and liberties. If I can see it - as well as plenty of other Coffee Housers, why can't Dave & Co.,?

I do wonder about these polls: if you read the comments on the Grauniad's CiF they are almost universally hostile to any column suggesting Brown has the answers/is an economic genius etc. So where is Labour's support coming from?

Verity

TGI UKIP - They never were receptive to our views. The harder David Cameron worked at "relating" - through foppish foolery - to us, the more apparent it became that he doesn't have a clue about ordinary people. Did the people around him really believe that relating to hoodies and grafitti "artists" was going to endear him to the kind of people who actually go out and vote? People who are hungry to know what ideas he has to repair our country?

The green headbangery, as you so aptly call it, was an error of tragic and arrogant naiveté. Never hitch your wagon to a passing fad. The global warming meme is already on the wane. When did you last hear the phrase "carbon footprint"?

Cameron and his people have not put one foot right in three years. That's long enough.

Verity

C Powell, you close your post with a good question.

Simon R - I was 100% correct in my assessment of Sarah Palin. Have you not read that the hoaxster who made up all the lies about her, posing of a member of McCain's team, came forward and owned up, saying he was studying the effects of circulating political whoppers for a movie idea he is hoping to sell?

Do keep up!

Jim

The polls are puzzling. I wonder if people who have decided to vote Conservative are deliberately saying they will vote Labour because they want to see a more agressive attack on the Divine Leader, and hope that giving the Conservatives a public thumbs down might provoke it?

Otherwise Brown's popularity given his actions over the last 11 years is really both quite astonishing and incredibly depressing.

I watched his performance during the G20 statement in the commons. It was vomit inducing.

jean baker

Obama ignored poll predictions, viewing them as unreliable.

They are, in the absence of 100% of the population being 'polled'.

C Powell - Labour spends millions deploying 'on line' operators monitoring and manipulating honest, genuine public opinion. Reportedly known as 'keyboard monkeys'/trolls - site pa'troll'ers.

Carol-Ann

What was that about Osborne being an asset?????????

Daniella

Cameron should absolutely stay as leader but Osborne should be moved to party chairman. The economic team need to be serious and credible and come up with big ideas ie large rise in the tax threshold to remove the low paid from paying tax. We also need the cabinet to be more representative and not a public school boy clique. We need some big hitters and some reaching out to say someone like Frank Field.

LondonTory

I just feel that a lot of Tories were taken in by Osborne when he squeaked out his IHT announcement at last years Conference. He has done nothing positive since. Not a thing.

We need to win in Calder Valley, Barrow, and in Clwyd this time to get a majoriry.

Do you seriously think that Osborne is a help in these seats ?

Tories will lose next election

Of course Osborne is to blame.

Why? I don't think many people really took much notice of him until his comments at the weekend. And you may say that's part of the problem, but that alone can't help Labour boost their lead by so much.

I started to get worried last weekend when that coiffeured Labour puff ball Rawnsley argued in his column that Osborne should stay.

shocking poll results

1. Osborne is politically toxic - he may recover but the jury is out.

2. We have been very poor on the economy - the electorates main concern

3. Mandelson and Campbell are now in full swing.

We need to look more representative of the country and we need to look less inexperienced...bring in some big hitters...any two from Davis, Clarke, Redwood, Pickles, IDS

Look at the way Obama is widening his circle with Clinton and Republicans...

That's my view for what it's worth. Mistakes have been made but we can get things back on track...

Cameron has got to sideline the soundbites and start making some big decisions about the team...

London Tory

Of course Osborne is to blame.

I started to get worried last weekend when that coiffeured Labour puff ball Rawnsley argued in his column that Osborne should stay. He is down Mandelson's trousers, so to speak, so I think we can work out a Labour strategy here.

Others bloggers like Iain Dale- the man who turned a Lib Dem/Tory marginal into a safe yellow seat- are simply in a Westminster bubble of their own, one in which G.O is some kind of political heavyweight.

We cannot win a General Election with Osborne as Shadow Chancellor. The Tory village may love him, but the electorate don't.

Mark, UK

And to think only a few months ago Mori had us polling 52% with a 28% lead. Shocking!!!

JONNY

'foppish foolery - doesn't have a clue about ordinary people'

Verity, one wonders what Cameron has done to have provoked such an irrational and virulent phobia within you.
Maybe a session on a nice sympathetic psychiatrist's couch might help explain.
He might also at the same time cast some light on your uncritical rapturous worship of La Palin.

TGF UKIP

Oh, Jonny, what a foolish chap you are to try to mix it with Verity. She doesn't take prisoners I'm pleased to say.

Bob

Verity, Nice to see someone with a modicum of itellect on here :)

Cameron is the Tories Kinnock :)

JONNY

'Oh, Jonny, what a foolish chap you are to try to mix it with Verity. She doesn't take prisoners I'm pleased to say.'

It's not my habit either, TGF UKIP.
Who's afraid Of Virginia Woolf?
Evidently not me.

TGF UKIP

Attaboy, JONNY, like your style and the Virginia Woolf line.

Oldlab

Well, one thing you Dave supporters cannot deny, everything in the world(not only britain) was fine until the americans mortgage and banking system went bottoms up. Nopw the world including success stories like china, is in the mire. It calls for united action, and Gordon was the one who got the world leaders together and they responded. It may not be enough to make immediate improvements in the world economy, but the lectorate know Brown has acted in the interest of our country and their appreciation and recognition shows in the latest opinion poll.