What would an economic recovery do to Labour's poll rating?

mitch

Its not just the economy labour have trashed everything,lied about everything,filled the country with immigrants,fought numerous pointless wars and finally to add insult to injury left us that nutter with a stutter in downing street who then inflicts mandelson on us....need I go on?

Silent Hunter

Stuff Labour - does an "improving" economy wipe away all the repression, authoritarianism, Police State, ID Cards, detention for 42 days without charge, police brutality, restriction of Freedom of speech and the Right to Protest?

Only the most stupid in society would sell their freedom for a 'comfortable' existance - comfortable only as long as you DO WHAT YOU'RE TOLD by an increasing number of government funded busybodies.

As I say . . . STUFF LABOUR !

Moxon

'even if the economy is growing again by the time of the next election'

All this business about recovery not benefiting Labour sounds a bit like whistle in the dark. A few weeks ago, who would have thought to hear the words 'economy growing again'? The much derided Gordon (no doubt for good reason) may yet ride again!

And then?

Take heed, ye Coffee House pundits!

Nicholas

I don't think the economy will make a bit of difference to the soviet commissar, "we know what's good for you", "do as we say not as we do", moral sermonising, intrusive, surveilling, puritanical, lefto-fascist, nannying, manipulative, propagandist, censoring, spinning, interfering, big-state, big-cost, big waste of money quangos, fake charities, dodgy jobs in the Guardian to police what we think, say, do in our bedrooms and even fantasise about, tabloid whipping up, "something must be done", hysteria mongering, hectoring, bullying, life imitates 1984 art, police in the pocket, East Germany redux, planted questions in parliament, Woodward, Byrne, Burnham, Straw, Cooper, Balls, Brown shape, smell and feel of New Labour that the majority of British people can't wait to see the back of.

Did I miss anything? So much to remember that we'd all like to forget . . .

Suki

Dan Atkinson is highly instructive on this. His Mail blog is called It's The Economy, Stupid, yet if you have been following it, he actually disagrees with the idea that the state of the economy dictates election wins.

Much else has come to the fore in this Parliament. Uncontrolled immigration and the Government's de facto sponsorship of Islamic terror but to name two of them.

Dan

"I also suspect that the anti-politics mood of the moment means that voters will not be inclined to give the government much credit for any economic uptick".

I sincerely hope you're right.

Has there ever been a more hated government?

logdon

My initial worry is that a populace, addicted to materialism and spending via Brown's disastrous easy credit fiasco will fall for it.

That is what secured the last election despite the universal loathing of Blair at the time.

I'm convinced that, why rock the money boat, was the vote driver at that point.

However, their grand idea of removing what (or who) was considered the only hindrance to eternal power, namely Blair, has resulted in what must be one of the biggest miscalculations in recent political history.

After the briefest of honeymoon's, Brown has to be the most reviled man in Britain right now. A proven liar living in a mental bubble who stumbles from calamity to even worse calamity. The oh, so easily broken promises like a trail of shattered gravestones as a legacy of the contempt he has for us all.

In the latest self pitying whinge in the Guardian he blames presentation but it’s more than that. Much more.

When a man can bang on and on at a press conference about sitting on daddy’s knee and being taught the values of honesty, then in the next sentence lie, as he did straight to Frazer’s question, who, to paraphrase his very own utterance about Blair, will believe another word again?

Then expenses. The BBC is fond of toeing the parroted line that this is an all party disaster, yet of all it’s Labour who are getting the flak. Their excuse is, as incumbents, they were the ones who would naturally get it in the neck. However Labour has been in control for 12 years now and the whole thing has escalated under their blind eye. And all the ones now being investigated by the Police happen to be Labour.

That fact is not lost on an electorate who are becoming internet media savvy and whose old time political allegiances are dissolving in the welter of revelations and slime pouring out from all angles.

As for the unions? When British Total striking employees are unceremoniously sacked, then sent letters to apply for their old jobs back they burnt those letters in a display of collective and principled abject disgust. That is real anger of Miners Strike calibre, yet who defends them?

No union support because they are in the pockets of a Government for whom British workers for British jobs is an empty slogan. Even that European of European’s, Sarkozy defends his own French workers, yet Brown would just as easily throw ours on the scrap heap as pick his own disgusting nose.

Immigration, last year reached a peak of around a quarter of a million despite assurances of curb. What jobs will these people do, now that the market is fast dwindling? We’ve seen an outburst of anger in Belfast and judging by the present mood of the country, could migrate across the Irish Sea.

The BNP gained two Euro seats in the last election. As a barometer that is as telling a message as could be, yet who listens? Certainly not head in sand Labour who bandy racist accusations like confetti.

That’s code for insulting their very own voting bloc to you and me and when that occurs what hope or options have they left?

Hopefully none! The train’s hit the buffer with or without Blair’s balls on board.

Susan Hill

The problem will be that people have long memories when they feel they have been cheated and taken for fools. A bit of an economic upturn will make a few longterm Labour voters return to the fold, but they would have abstained from voting rather than give their approval to Tory or LibDem. Most people will remember this government as one of the worst ever .. and those who have resigned will quickly be forgotten while those who have replaced them are regarded as a joke.
But it is what Cameron now does, how he capitalises on it all, how he grows in stature over the next year, that will really change things - or, er, not.
Is he up to it ? I wonder.

Paul

Also consider the chaotic society in which even MPs are now having their heads kicked around like the proverbial football by gangs of "I never done nothin'" feral thugs.

I also mention ID cards and the non-referendum as reasons not to vote Labour. Also, the rampant immigration, and Labour's reluctance (or powerlessness) to do anything about it.

Also, the public are no longer ok with tons of money being poured into public services without proportional improvement.

Also, the Glorious Leader was a figure people were beginning to hate as they found out about his character. This was even before the recession. Now more people think that he is a lying coward and a hypocrite.

Pat

As far as I can remember, labour were behind in the polls, got a new leader and a brown bounce, funked an election and trailed enormously in the polls, had a recovery whilst Gord was saving the world, and have declined to where they were pre credit crunch. Economic recovery didn't save John Major, it has a lot less chance of saving Brown.

JohnOfEnfield

John Major expressed the situation as a "voteless recovery". How just. The only difference is that New Labour have carried out a scorched earth policy economically, Major handed over an extremely robust economy.

BaiDaLong

If the economy recovers Gordon will simply announce that everyone in Britain can now afford to buy a tractor. He doesn't understand the UK.

Andy Pandy

I remember looking at the correlations between unemployment and the political popularity of the government in the 1960s to 1980s and found them to be very close. These correlations broke down in the Thatcher years - as politics and economics became much more entwined and complex and as unions lost influence.

I agree with the view that an upturn will not help Labour - mainly because most voters will know instinctively that a few quarters of positive GNP says nothing about our future prosperity or the sustainability of the upturn.

Why do the Tories not counter the Labour lie with a Tory lie. Namely - we have fully costed Labour's new spending plans - it means VAT at 30% and tax rates at 35%.

CH

John Major left a golden economic legacy for Brown to destroy, but it didn't help him at the 97 election because he was effectively already toast after black wednesday. The narrative is set and there will be no recovery, though this lot deserve it less than the Tories did anyway.

oldtimer

What recovery?

There is none - only waffle about one.

Denis Cooper

I'd be wary of making historical comparisons, because the present situation is unprecedented.

It's the first time that a government has had a pretext for softening the effects of a recession by printing new money on a massive scale.

For the record, last week the Bank created another £6.5 billion and used it to buy up existing gilts, while the Treasury borrowed £6.8 billion by issuing new gilts.

As of June 18th, the "Quantity of assets purchased by the creation of central bank reserves" was £92.72 billion:

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/markets/apf/results.htm

broken down as follows:

Commercial Paper £2.10 billion
Corporate Bonds £0.75 billion
Gilts £89.87 billion

ie 97% of the "quantitative easing" has been used to ensure that the government can continue to borrow in order to cover its budget deficit, which is now running at about a quarter of its expenditure.

The question is whether the Bank will agree to continue to help the government out for long enough - ie, until it can go into an election next spring claiming to have seen us through the recession - or the MPC will decide this autumn that there's no longer any plausible justification for more "quantitative easing" of its financial difficulties.

My guess is that the MPC will look at the potential economic consequences of suddenly cutting off the supply of new money, and will decide to tail it off very gradually during 2010.

On that basis, I'd say that Gordon Brown still has a fighting chance of winning the next election.

dorothy wilson

I would have thought it extremely unlikely that there is going to be any meanful recovery in the economy.

The debt burden will take years to rectify. Since the wholesale market for mortgage lenders has dried up there is not likely to be another boom in the housing market, which was the basis of the "feel good" factor in most of the Labour years.

Also, one of the reasons that Labour's share of the vote has kept at the level it has in the opinion polls is that the lowering of interest rates has put a good deal more money in people's pockets. The BoE has already warned rates are likely to rise. So too are taxes.

My view, for what it is worth, is that it is not: "It's the economy stupid" but "It's the money in my pocket stupid". If interest rates go up and taxes are raised there will obviously not be so much of that.