A 7 point lead for the Tories

Peter Barry

Unfortunately the PC Multi Culti Tories are not an alternative to the PC Multi Culti Socialists so the British Electorate need to look at more RADICAL alternatives if they want to change the pathetic Dhimmi state the UK has come to under the Moonbats.

TGF UKIP

Peter, it really is becoming quite pathetic just how the Speccie hacks are forced to clutch at these straws.

It can only be assumed that like Pravda hacks you are having to obsequiously toe the editorial line.

Otherwise you might objectively say that with such a crap discredited government any half respectable opposition worth its salt would by now be out of sight with a lead of 20%+.

But perish the thought! Since when did objectivity get in the way of editorial ambition?

seb

Wise Winston Brown's disciple, Mr. Obama, [in private conversation with his fellow sages, Winston calls him 'Junior', I expect] has announced a thousand pound tax cut for everyone in the US. Won't this please his mentor in Downing Street? Let's hope the Tories use this apparent contradiction between the policies of Master and Pupil as a cudgel to increase their poll lead over Winston.

Tp

. . . "the British Electorate need to look at more RADICAL alternatives if they want to change the pathetic Dhimmi state the UK has come to under the Moonbats."
ABSOLUTELY!
Bravo Peter!

Andy

With the Govt showing daily that it has less of a clue than my dog how to run the economy, why isn't the lead nearer 70 points?

Trumpeter Lanfried

Why doesn't the Labour vote fall below 30%? Because 30% of the country is now on benefits or working in the public sector. None of these people should be allowed to vote. (Nor should criminals.)

Nicholas

Find myself agreeing with TGF. The 7 points are down to New Labour being dreadful rather than Tories being dynamic. The lead should be much stronger. The stronger the lead the more the panicked "government" of all the lack of talents concentrate on party politics. When they wind up their creaking, see-through "Fee, fo, fi, fum, huff and puff, blow the Tories down machinery" the more crass they look.

Tories seem to still be sleeping off Christmas. Where is the drive and aggression? Now is the time for a very radical attack on the Labour balloon and particularly the Labour balloon's biggest supplier of hot air - the BBC.

Verity

Trumpeter, you may have missed my suggestion that the welfare sector (and, good! I would include criminals, too! I hadn't thought of that!) should be disenfranchised until gainfully employed for six months.

Not that they vote, but because they have a vote, politicians pander to them. Once they had no vote, there would be no point.

Fergus Pickering

Listen to what the Trumpeter says. Labour vote can't slip below 30% because these are their clients. It has nothing to do with whether the Tories are credible blah blah blah. Labour has 30%. If I were a pensioner on benefits, or a single mother on benefits or somebody with a Government job which could be cut, then I wouldvote Labour. No amount of drive or aggression blah blah blah would make any difference because I know which side my bread is buttered. Got it? It's really quite simple.

Verity

Nicholas I also, as I so often do, agree with you. The seven point "lead" is due to the perception of Labour as being not quite on top of the problem. Not to dynamic and confidence-inspiring Tory announcements.

"Where is the drive and aggression?" asks Nick. Where indeed? Under Dave's Leadership, the Tories come across as having no confidence, no ideas and being all things to all men. But frightfully nice.

Verity

Nick writes, "Where is the drive and aggression?"

There is none.

Because they're not furious enough at what the Labourites have done to the country. They're just wondering how they could massage it to go a little more Conservative, but not get them thrown outside the EU power loop.

Weak. Weak. Weak.

Bruce Robertson

Did anyone see Wee Georgie today? Why has he aged ten years in ten days?

Chris

Oh yeah, attack the BBC in the run up to an election. That'll help. Afterwards, Nicholas, afterwards. 'Revenge is a dish best served cold.'

TomTom

7% lead with 5% sampling error should get Cameron that coveted Home Secretary job in Straw's National Government after the GE...but the Conservative Party might well split afterwards

Austin Barry

The Tories are low-key, lethargic and lame. They should adopt a much more energetic attack-dog mode. They seem to want to be thought of as 'nice' and 'sensible' - in other words they are fighting the last election. This really is the time to put the boot into the Government. The electorate, seething and angry, wants a party which shares its outrage at Brown's mad policies. Instead it is presented with an earnest group of pallid non-entities too timid to adopt any robust position. I despair.

Nicholas

Fergus, that argument might be valid if you could evidence that 30% of those polled were in the category of client. And even if that were the case the absence of "drive and aggression" from the Tories is still an issue. They have a weak front bench. Their message is neither strong nor resonant. They do not attack relentlessly on issues that concern us here. They do not champion sections of society who would support them if they did. They have not made it their business to talk loudly and honestly on issues such as Political Correctness, the erosion of freedoms, the undermining of democracy, the bias of the BBC. Given that there has been a "creeping revolution" by the Left not just to secure government but to infest and control every aspect of government machinery, central and local, their opposition has been pathetic.

The much touted caution that they need to be "moderate" to win the centre ground belongs to the Britain of 1997, not 2009. The political divisions now are more polarised and not centred on the woolly centre. There is a huge swathe of the population desperate for a champion to thunder rhetoric against all the ghastly nonsense of New Labour's Britain. The word is thunder, not the occasional polite quiet voice making a reasonable point on QT or the Daily Politics.

The Tories are facing off against the greatest bunch of bullies and deceivers in British history, a cynical manipulative gang who want to skew the political debate to maintain power and control more and more of our lives. They have a huge challenge in the fact that the state broadcaster is in the pocket of Labour and another huge challenge in the fact that the media is supine and apathetic in the face of horrendous government incompetence where once it would have rumbled and tumbled them. That should not be an excuse for inaction but an incentive to find ways to attack and undermine, to attack and unbalance, to attack and expose. I regularly receive communications from the Conservatives and they read like an election campaign for Little Snoringwater parish council circa 1956.

I for one wish them well but I also think they need a cold clear dose of reality. They haven't even kept up with the way parliament has been hamstrung by Tony's baloney and Gordon's gerrymandering. They are victims of Labour aggrandisement, they need to become the ruthless partisans who will mobilise Britain to overthrow the barmy army of occupation.

Lance Grundy

@ Fergus Pickering

“If I were a pensioner on benefits, or a single mother on benefits or somebody with a Government job which could be cut, then I would vote Labour.”

I agree that’s what they think, but they‘re very, very wrong. Unfortunately those groups in particular really are backing the wrong horse.

As Labour hyper-inflates the economy out of its debt crisis and Britain becomes a sort of La Isla Argentina it is those on low and fixed incomes who will bear the brunt of high inflation. As in Argentina, people on benefits or salaried government workers will be impoverished. Those with 'productive assets' - e.g. small businesses that can continually up their prices to maintain some semblance of their standard of living, will fare far better.

It is ironic that the so-called 'client state' - those most in love with Labour and the most loyal to them will be the ones who end up paying the highest price

RW

Re the "Brown bounce":
From this morning's Independent: "A ComRes poll of leading businessmen for The Independent shows that trust in the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, which rose after the Government rescued Britain's banks last autumn, is now on the slide.

Only 28 per cent of respondents said they were confident in the Prime Minister's ability – down from 42 per cent last October – and only 16 per cent voiced confidence in Mr Darling, down from 25 per cent over the same period."

C Powell

Fergus, Verity, Trumpeter: you're being too simplistic in your belief that those who are in the public sector will automatically vote Labour. I know plenty of people who are in that position and have no intention of voting Labour. Indeed, in an earlier post there was a comment from a doctor who explained exactly the reason why he was not going to vote Labour.

The reason the Tories' lead is not higher is because of the Tories' failure to make a compelling case for why people should vote Tory - and on that I agree with your analysis that the Tories simply are not angry enough at what is happening and altogether too feeble at explaining their vision for the country and how they will make things better for us.

PS Verity: criminals used not to get the vote but that was ruled illegal.

RW

"the Tories simply are ... altogether too feeble at explaining their vision for the country"

Aarrggh! PLEASE let us be spared any more politicians who wish to explain their Visions, in messianic style and at tedious incomprehensible length. Wasn't Brown enough?

Can we please agree a total ban on Visionary Politicians and a round of applause for sensible restrained chaps and chapesses who just want to run the country quietly and efficiently. Not much hope of that, I suppose.

Can we

Carol

I agree CPowell.

I have done quite a bit of training work with middle ranking civil servants in several departments, and they are completely aware of the failings of government, and many despair. These are people, who yes, might not be hit by the credit crunch to the same extent as those in the public sector, but they are people who nevertheless have felt the cost of living soar, particularly last year. They also know quite a bit about politics as they are carrying out government policy and they know only too well the standards of incompetence and spin from their political masters.
Their verdicts on the Labour government will take into account more than life since Northern Rock.

One characteristic of many of these civil servants is that they believe in public service, rules and fair play and they don't see the government in this light.

My sister is an NHS consultant and like many of her colleagues, she has no intention of voting Labour.

Nicholas

"Can we please agree a total ban on Visionary Politicians and a round of applause for sensible restrained chaps and chapesses who just want to run the country quietly and efficiently."

All well and good but they have to get there first. You might vote for sensible and restrained chaps and chapesses but there are plenty who won't and who will fall for New Labour guff and/or be put off by Tory toxicity.

Sensible and restrained are the qualities New Labour have had no problem overthrowing in every nook and cranny they have slithered into. Are those qualities going to beat them? Doubt it, however laudable.

Don

The client state theory is drivel. I am a former soldier ie someone in a government job. I met virtually no one who had or would vote Labour in 12 years. I am currently employed as a civil servant, likewise, few if any of the people I speak to will or have voted Labour. I cannot comment on people who are claiming benefits.

Slim Jim

Hear, hear, RW. We used to burn people at the stake for having 'visions'. A practice that ought to be resurrected...

JONNY

I was just going to ask TGF UKIP if he happened to know what was UKIP'S share of the vote currently.
Can't spot it anywhere for the life of me.
Oh Gawd - has it sunk out of sight? Or have the psephologists given up on it?

GarethS

Having failed in its military attempt at invading UK territory, Argentina has found much greater success in utterly and irrevocably destroying Britain by importing its 1970s economic strategy. Britain slumps, defeated, bloodied, bowed.

Paul B

TomTom- conversely a 7 pc lead with a 5pc sampling error may give DC a 12pc lead and a decent working majority.

I find it hard to believe that those most angry at government interference and lack of democracy, can truly advocate the disenfranchising large swathes of the population.You really think that would help build a harmonious and fair country? Rule by robber barons went out centuries ago.

I am as much against waste in public services as the next man or woman, but thats not to say that many of those involved in public services work their bow locks off for the benefit of us all. Demonising public service work and those on benefits is not helpful, and does little or nothing to advance the free market cause.

Chuck Unsworth

@ Carol

I suspect that your observations will apply to many of the middle class. But the electorate comprises many others.

What's interesting for me is the apparent disgust and rage felt by those who one might assume are traditional Labour voters. It's that which will lead to a Conservative victory (or otherwise) come the General Election.

Already we're seeing lay-offs in industry - what's left of it, anyway. Commerce is decimated and most of the people losing their jobs are the shop floor workers. They are key to Labour's fortunes. When public services start slashing staff payrolls the bloodletting will really begin - and that's already on the horizon.

Carol

Chuck - your observation is probably true indeed re middle class civil servants.
Also, I mistakenly wrote public sector above, when I meant private sector.

Verity

Paul B writes: "You really think that would help build a harmonious and fair country?"

Hello? What makes you think I want to help build "a harmomious and fair country"? We've had enough of enforced "fairness" - always at someone else's expense. I'm not a socialist. I'm not interested in fair. I'm interested in success. Once there's plenty of money swishing around, those with any get-up-and-go and can get up and go figure out a way of participating.

Fergus Pickering

I did not say that all those in he public sector will vote Labour. I said those in the Public sector with jobs that can be cut... In other words, primarily low grade penpushers and such. Oh, and people in ridiculously overpaid 'management' jobs, Doctors , nurses, teachers and the like are relatively safe because the country is full of ignorant children who have to be taught and ill people who would like to be well. Nevertheless Labour has a clientele. As do the Tories. That's how it works. Will Tories cut benefits? Yes they probably will.So if I am on benefits...

quadratus

Despite the horrendous events in the financial & political world, the polls show a movement no greater than one point. That surely indicates the general public is totally THICK? Or plain disinterested. Just wait for the lights to come on.