Tomorrow could be a turning point for the Tories

Cassandra's Daughter

"But tomorrow offers the Tories a chance to turn attention back to the shocking state of the public finances"...

Or they could just give us the clear, unambiguous and compelling case for a Conservative Government. I'm willing to bet that will boost us higher up the polls than some half-arsed blathering about what a terrible job Brown has done, and how it's not going to be easy but we all have to pull together to get out of this mess.

stephen

Clearly the Tories still have a problem it's Boy George

oldrightie

This should have been done years ago. We didn't get into this mess overnight. A weak and failed opposition is as guilty as Labour. Just imagine what Labour's machine would have done if roles were reversed. Belay that, remember the ERM? The fact that Labour supported enrtry was never mentioned.

Stepney

It's hardly suprising the poll leads have plummeted - there hasn't been anyone in the office for about two months now. I thought they'd all gone on holiday.

I mean Gordon was presenting the Tory policies yesterday - fancy having to get your opponent to present all your best lines for you!

I wonder when everyone's back at Millbank? This radio and TV silence really must end.

Before some if us begin to wonder if the Comms people simply aren't doing their job properly.

Luke

The trouble with this analysis is that we know full that when the tories make the debate a referendum on the government they do better.

The trouble is that when the debate becomes more about the choice between the parties and what they propose (which is really what happens in election campaigns) they do a bit worse.

So they might get a boost from the budget tomorrow as you suggest, but we know it wont last.

Vulture

Cassandra's daughter is right. Who can doubt that if faux Tory Dave came up with some clear distinctive reasons for voting Conservative rather than his fluffy pink and green nonsense the Tories would be streets ahead. AS it is, I despair.

Saltirethinking

If Cameron had spent more time selling the message (any message} and less time making sure he surrounded himself with his pals, this situation need not have happened.
eg, Berwickshire Roxburgh and Selkirk.

James W

@Cassandra's Daughter - I disagree. Cameron needs to define how this Labour Government will be seen for years to come and hang the labels of profligacy, recklessness and naked self-interest around it's neck. Only will the country understand the measures that need to be introduced to solve the problems that have arisen.

Brown is the Tories secret weapon - but they need to use him correctly. They must keep him in power at all costs, pull some punches so that he doesn't garner any mis-placed sympathy, but lay firmly at his door the complete mess this individual has made of the country.

Colin

Everyone knows that Brown is a catastrophe. Everyone knows that Labour has wrecked the economy and the country.

The problem is, we really have no idea what Dave and his chums will do that's different. In the absence of real choice, why should the electorate take a chance?

I can tell you, I live in Richmond and the ZACKLASH has begun. He won't get in.

Nicholas

Do we await the prospect of 5 more years of the charlatan Brown and his gang of incompetent, malicious Marxist misfits because we have doubts about Dave? After 12 years are we really so shallow and stupid as to swallow even more shite from New Labour's machinery of deception? Unfortunately the media obsession with what is wrong with Dave is played out in the shadow of rotten, stinking New Labour, the dead and reeking elephant in the room that seems to exercise no critical examination at all.

John Moss

And they should hammer the point that Brown as Chancellor borrowed over £200bn before we ven went in to recession!

Sally Chatterjee

The Tories seem frozen. For example, they can't rebut Labour's attack on inheritance tax. They simply need to say "only millionaires/toffs will pay IHT, every other normal family will be exempted" and the issue could be killed.

Woody

More negative comments from all you so called Conservative voters. George Osborne hasn't even made his speech yet and already you are piling the pressure on.
For goodness sake SHUT UP or try and be more positive.
STOP TRYING TO DO LABOUR'S JOB FOR THEM.

Nick

It appears that the major reason given in the polls for the reduction in the Tories majority is "increasing optimism about the state of the economy."

It will be interesting to see if this rising optimism can withstand Darling's admittal tomorrow that the economy has been weaker than he forecast, the debt and deficits are larger than he forecast, recovery is further away on the horizon than he forecast and cuts (sorry, efficiency savings) will have to be larger than he forecast.

IH

What about the other two polls out on sunday showing 11 and 13 points ahead do we ignore those?

TGF UKIP

I note with some amusement that James cannot bring himself to also mention that the Populus poll featured in today's Times had the Tory lead down to a measly 8%.

Moreover, when Blue Labour evangelist Daft Danny is writing Times leaders along these lines, you Tories really should be worried.

Stephen puts his finger on the symptom of the cause of the Tory electoral malaise that in an election likely to be fought primarily on economic issues, the Tories have no economic voice to whom the wider public will pay any attention. Unfortunately for Dave, Joe Public long ago got Osborne's number as the nasty, arrogant, sleazy little shit he so evidently is.

However, if Osborne is the symptom, the more problematic underlying and very real problem for the Tories is that the Tory campaign is one run by a clique and the interests of that clique are placed by the Leader of the Tory Party far ahead of the Party itself, which is why Osborne hasn't been and will not be replaced.

Doubtless, tomorrow after Darling's statement and Osborne's reply, James and the other Osborne Speccie cheeleaders will circle the wagons and hail Boy George's speech as an economic tour de force, sans pareil.

Even if, miraculously it turned out to be, James, it wouldn't matter since the public long ago simply tuned him out.

Dan

There's too much worrying going on here.

The British public will not vote for five more years of Gordon Brown. This total charlatan remains the Conservative Party's best asset.

TrevorsDen

Cassandra - in case you had not noticed the deficit for 2009-10 is likely to be £190 billion with probably another £190 billion for next year. The national debt is heading into realms where the laws of mathematics break down, and where even Stephen Hawkings equations cannot make sense out of them.

So tell me - what electorally advantageous (in your opinion) line do you want the Conservatives to peddle.

Whatever fine ideals and hopes the Conservatives have - no matter how many decent even clever policies they have - that deficit cannot (as Brown intends to do) be ignored. The Conservatives have said that there will be austerity - thats honest - a fact which labour twist as cuts. perhaps you would like the Tories to lie??

I think the softly spoken Woody and Nicholas hit the nail on the head.

Tron

Nicholas is right. Not being Gordon Brown is a huge reason to vote for Cameron.
I remember 1979 and people were just sick of Labour.There was no great enthusiasm for Maggie Thatcher (and being a woman in the 70's was a great handicap)but she was NOT Sunny Jim and NOT Ted Heath.

TrevorsDen

Dear Colin. You don't like Zac? So you are going to let Ed Milliband back in? And its Brown who has called people who do not agree with him 'flat earthers'.

Do you still have your nose attached? If so can you invite us all round to watch you cut it off?

Paul Williams

It’s no coincidence of course that the Tory decline has happened since Dave's about turn on the Lisbon Treaty.

John Levett

This will be heresy here I suspect but I don't think the economy is that big an issue for the electorate on the grounds that we're well and truly stuffed no matter who wins the GE. We've become so used to being lied to, most of us will suspect that none of the parties will come fully clean on their proposals for reducing the deficit: we just know that it will hurt.

I want the Tories to go strong on British sovereignty, restoring our freedoms (including intellectual freedoms), getting rid of the quangos, PFI and the management consultants, repealing some of the stupid laws and revisions that the Labour Party has imposed on us, rebuilding the status of our professions, controlling immigration, abandoning and reversing the multiculturism experiment, confirming their plans for education vouchers, creating plentiful supplies of British nuclear energy and kicking the climate nonsense into touch.

We don't need to make Britain great again, just a great and civilised place with a rediscovered morality and self-sufficiency.

Fernando

No doubt if the Tories were announcing new policies morning, noon and night they would be accused of peaking too soon. All the news this side of the New Year will be on Labour’s appalling record and the size of the challenge revealed in the PBR. Come January and the run up to the election there will be plenty of time for the Tories to set out their stall.

Fergus Pickering

In my far from humble opinion one of the reasons the Tory lead is down is because they have been relatively honest about the cuts (yes bloody great CUTS) that will have to be made, and Labour are, as usual, lying in their teeth. The electorate like being told comfortable lies. It is one of the problems with democracy. I think Dave and Boy George why are you so mean to the fellow?) will come through, mainly because Brown is a deluded fool. If His Sliminess were PM, then Labour might pull it off. He is dishonest, self-serving and extraordinarily unpleasant, but he is not stupid. Fortunately...,

Moraymint

"... we still await a clear, unambiguous and compelling case for a Conservative government ..."

Please include me (a proverbial lifelong Conservative voter) in the "we".

If the Tories don't get a grip soon, my money remains firmly on socio-economic catastrophe, starting around June 2010.

Sorry to sound like a stuck record on this one, but one wonders just what in hell it takes for the Tories to bloody well wake up and smell the coffee.

I'm now beginning to hope for a Labour victory. At least that way the socio-economic collapse would be precipitous and catastrophic, a real Tory leader/team might emerge and we could all then set about fixing the country proper.

All this dancing around the handbag is doing my head in. What's the point of it, exactly?

call me dave

There is not conservative about The Conservative Party a.k.a. BlueLabour.

ssleddon

Well said, Moraymint — sums up my position exactly. The Conservatives will need a huge swing to win with a sound majority, and this is currently looking less likely.

A weak majority will be worse than useless, and make the government very nervous about taking major decisions.

The next government is going to have an absolutely terrible time, and will be immensely unpopular. Come the election, I'm hoping for one of three scenarios:

i) Labour win with a tiny majority, and are forced to try and clean up their own mess. They won't be able to, and will be kicked out in eighteen months, giving the Conservatives the chance of a proper (60+ majority) victory.

ii) A hung Parliament. This may well force a more mature, Scandinavian-style consensus politics on us, as it will be every party's responsibility to sort things out. Given the crisis looming, this may in fact be no bad thing.

iii) Cameron grows a pair, takes a Thatcheresque stand on Lisbon and other issues, and carries the British public along in a tidal wave of conviction.

Okay, I just put the third one in for a laugh.. :-)

Gawain

I'm with Moraymint I'm afraid. Cameron and the shadow cabinet are far too cautious, complacent and yes, posh. They have not made it clear how bad things are and have not given a compelling argument for how the Conservatives would address the financial problems and then build a better future. I don't think they really understand or believe this. Labour are getting away with outrageous spin and we keep missing opportunities. In the Standard today Darling is quoted as saying that Labour will rebalance the economy away from financial services. That should have been one of our tunes. Better to lose to Labour and let the fantasists who vote for them realise what this means when the doo doo hits the fan next year than to scrape a win with no mandate to sort things out.

John David Barnett

I'm sick of all this piffle from purblind diehards.

Cameron is too good for this sorry bunch.

strapworld

Moraymint, Vulture speak sense. Cameron is a disaster and if his decision making is bad now, What on earth will it be like should, God Forbid, he wins!

Brown to be re-elected to sory out his own mess. We know he will not be able to do it. The IMF will step in and by that time another Tory (TORY!) leader will have real Tory policies and a promise for an IN OUT referendum and peace and plenty will return!

Cameron is not a Tory! As for Colin from Richmond. I do hope that Zack Goldsmith is given the order of the boot. Cameron has to learn that he cannot just shoehorn friends into 'safe' seats and expect that electorate to meekly follow his orders!

Ivan D

Why do hacks write garabge like this: 'there is now mounting concern at Tory slippage, this is being reinforced by the fact that the party’s own research shows the same trends'? How on earth could the party's 'own research' show anything different? The Party doesn't have access to secret polling methods hidden from the rest of the world. It polls with the same pollsters producing all the published polls. Let's just do this Polling101 one more time for the simple, or James at any rate: There. Is. No. Such. Thing. As. Private. Polling. At. Any. Meaningful. Variance. To. Published. Polling. On. The. Same. Subject. There, got it now? Please don't say anything this sily again.

Boudicca

Cameron doesn't seem to have the fight in him at the moment. The IHT issue is an easy one to counter ... it ISN'T only millionaires who will benefit it's people like me, living in a normal semi detached house in the SE who are above the IHT threshhold because Gordon Brown engineered a property boom and the notional value of my house quadrupled in 14 years.

Cameron seems to be just hoping that the core Tory vote will turn out on election day. Most probably will - but he has lost a substantial number by refusing to hold a Referendum on the EU. The UK is overwhelmingly Eurosceptic, yet Cameron appears to have meekly accepted the Lisbon Treaty and says the UK belongs in the EU - so the electorate is denied a say (other than voting UKIP or BNP.

If he had pledged to repatriate powers during the first term and gave an assurance that if the EU blocked this, there would be a Referendum in his second term, I'd consider voting for him. But he has already decided the UK belongs in the EU - so I don't trust him to ever allow a Referendum. I'll just have to hope Dan Hannan somehow becomes Tory Leader.

Ivy Eileen

Boudicca @ 9.25 p.m. - "The IHT issue is an easy one to counter ... it ISN'T only millionaires who will benefit ...".

Correct, it is an easy one to counter but, sorry, but I think it's millionaires who won't benefit. That's the fallacy of Brown's argument. If the IHT threshhold is raised to 1 million then ONLY millionaires will be affected - (i.e.) the exact opposite of the Brown taunt. So the middle classes (except those in the South East with their own house)and all the working classes (however you define them) will be exempt.

2trueblue

Christmas may be only weeks away but the election is 5mths away and there is no way that Cameron should say too much now that Mandy, Campbell and the spinners are looking for ammunition. Brown is dead, why give him a blood transfusion or anything to use.
It is no bad thing to be behind right now, makes people look beyond things. Come 2010 we will hope that the real problems will focus peoples minds.
Best placed to .... remember??? Ah those little ditties will come back to us.

Watt Tyler

I don't care about polls. You don't need polls to tell you if you are sticking to your principles. As it happens, the polls may be telling Cameron that he should be sticking to Tory ones.

Lets get this straight once and for all, shall we. Cameron isn't about to grow a pair of testicles over EU, as some people are hoping for. He WANTS the European project. He wants lots of things that would appeal to left leaning voters - that's why his envronment shadow minister gives interviews to the Independent about how climategate shouldn't be a blockage to world climate tax.

The official analysis in Islington is that Britain has become more left leaning. Afterall, we have for 50 years had the implementation of the Frankfurt School ideology. At this stage - officially - we should all see nothing wrong with hugging hoodies, and generation after generation of single mothers, and we should see nothing wrong with sex ed to 5 year olds, and we should all have abandoned Christianity (we have abandoned the Anglican church because it has retreated ahead of Marxism). But the British people largely havent. This is a big proportion who are looking for a political party to represent their values, and save them their country.

The final straw has been the European Constitution, and this sly AGW support - in the face of all the scandal. Cameron has clearly demonstrated that he has surrendered to the reality that Islngton has designed for us. Instead of standing up, and saying this is the final line that shouldn't be crossed, he keeps retreating.

I will be voting UKIP, because I feel that having the Tories in power will not bring us back from the degeneration that Labour has created.That needs our leaders to posses a certain mentality, and the Tories do not have it. It won't matter whether Labour or the Tories are in charge - especially as they both would have us defer to the supreme authority of Brussels.

Watt Tyler

TrevorsDen

If you remember Cameron was forced into the admission about cuts because of the Lansley goof. They Tory high command were dithering, and only when it became clear that they could make electoral advantage did they come out with full guns blazing. This is NOT conviction politics. I warn you all, a Tory government installed next year with Cameron as PM will be as bad as Labour.

JohnAnt

"I will be voting UKIP."
When you do, Watt, bear in mind that if the result is a hung parliament, the economy will be truly shafted for twenty years, and the LibDems and Labour will change the voting system to their kind of PR to keep a left coalition in power in perpetuity.
Better to vote Cameron in and then get him dumped in favour of a proper Tory.

John David Barnett

Wat Tyler

That is not how I remember it at all. I think you are a somewhat creative historian.

Colin

TrevorsDen@

I've nothing against Zac Goldsmith personally, I don't know him. I'm against the piss take that passes for national politics in the UK, today.

I'm not interested in voting for more of the same, I want genuine change. Somebody, anybody, give me and many others, one good reason to vote Tory. The fact that the Tories aren't labour, doesn't count as a reason.

Mike Towl

What is Dave afraid of? The narrowing poll gap is nothing to do with Labours performance but all to do with Tory silence. Speak to us Dave. Tell us what you intend do about the mess? What is your vision for ten years hence? Maybe you are watching so much COPS on TV! You certainly don't "have the right to remain silent." Not if you want to avoid a hung parliament, or worse.

Geoff Miller

Already he has backed down from the "family first" policy.

The UK has now been so broken that in order to win an election the winner must pander to immigrants, religious extremists, single parents, benefit claimants, public sector employees.

All of these people suck the country dry, damage social cohesion and demoralise the people who generate the wealth/tax stream.

We are now past the tipping point - something that Labour has deliberately pushed us towards with mass immigration, minority hegemony and benefit dependence.

It will all have to get much worse now before it gets better - if ever.

Personally, I left 6 years ago. The writing was on the wall long before then.

Ian Walker

Rope-a-dope; let the big clunking fist expend all his energy. The PBR was always going to be his best chance at scoring a few points before the election, so just cover up and absorb it.

The Tories don't need a message now. In fact, there's a possibility that part of their poll slip is because the Great British Public is annoyed with them for not being in government yet!

The time to have a loud message is 4 weeks, 3 weeks, 2 weeks and 1 week before the election. Why reveal the make-up and location of your forces before the battle is joined?

"Let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns." - Sun Tzu

Nicholas

"It won't matter whether Labour or the Tories are in charge "

Oh, but it will. Believe me it will. The biggest mistake anyone can make is to peddle the idea that these two parties are identical and will be the same in power. They will not be. If New Labour (Brown Version) get a second innings they will complete their Marxist destruction of Britain. We will be suffocated by empowered, unaccountable agencies, quangos and charities meddling in every single aspect of our lives. We will be on multiple databases unable to do anything without registration, identification, form-filling and proving to umpteen faceless officials that we are not fraudsters, paedophiles or "deniers" of various state dogma on penalty of withdrawal of services.This will extend to every detail of how we run our households on the basis of AGW and the various "green" laws New Labour plan to make us comply with. The new council tax will involve annual inspections of our homes making notes of every detail. Ordinary people will be put upon, persecuted and paranoid whilst the public sector and the quango sector become even more arrogant in the creation of an East German elite. If you want to live in 1960s East Germany fine - vote UKIP and put New Labour back in power over us. You won't be the only useful idiot to do so.

Senor Frizby

I suppose this takes the view that there are swing voters... haven't come across any myself. Strangely they are always the ones that the polls reflect. Bring on the GE and watch BS Conductor Brown get booted beyond the long grass!

Derek

The more the Tories bang on about the "shocking state of the public finances", the more they will come across as unreconstructed Thatcherites and ignite the fears of people worrying about unemployment or job insecurity. Remember, there doesn't have to be mass disaffection with the Conservatives; all it takes is a relatively small number of floating voters in key marginals to be deterred from voting Tory and the damage is done.

Cameron's original diagnosis that the Tories needed to be positioned in the centre ground was spot on, and it is a pity that he has allowed the free market fundamentalist faction in the Party to re-assert itself over the past 12 months. He needs to get a grip and announce a shadow cabinet reshuffle that makes clear his determination to pursue a centrist, reformist direction. Moving Osborne would be the right symbolic move, as that man's failure to draw the right lessons from last year's banking collapse (the principal cause of the current fiscal crisis) and the failure of free market liberalism lies behind most of the Tory Party's current ills.

Cameron also needs to show a greater degree of responsiveness to public concerns about mass immigration. At the moment, he comes across as a true believer in the globalisation dogma, content to do big business's bidding by pursuing policies that are designed to guarantee a cheap labour force. Note that being tougher on immigration is perfectly consistent with being centrist on economic policy - the key point is to respond to voters' legitimate concerns and anxieties. On immigration, this means being more right wing; on economic policy, it means being less Thatcherite.

Mike Thomas

Ian Walker is spot on.

Let the clunking fist have his best shot.

Then wheel out all the heavy artillery, all the political attacks, all the positive policies, all the soundbites, all the speeches.

The time to do that is after Christmas, four months of unrelenting Tory, Tory, Tory.

Naomi Muse

However frustrating for us voters, the Tories should keep their powder dry until Gordo has been to say bye bye to the Queen. There will be plenty of time then and we will all be sick of party political broadcasts and electioneering rubbish.

Bide your time.

Meantime scrutiny of the government's errors and failings together an increasing weariness of the whole lot currently in power will leave us jaded, and most of the electorate ready for a change...

Wily Trout

Heartburn? Sigh of relief more like, I shouldn't wonder. Who in their right mind would want to take over Brown's Bottom?

HokeyCokey

Cameron's problem is that he hasn't convinced the elecorate that the huge debt is only partly due to the recession; most of the debt is structural and is a direct result of Brown's tax/borrow/spend during the boom years. Brown is getting away with murder as many are still convinced that it's all the fault of the Americans, Thatcher, etc. Until the tories can make people see that it's basically down to labour spending too much (and not spending it very well) they will struggle to get a high lead in the polls.

Ex-Tory voter

As far as I can see, apart from support for marriage and the repeal of the Hunting Act, there isn't much to choose between Labour and Conservative! If Dave wants to win, he's going to have to do something realistic about the EU (we all know that repatriating powers is a total non-starter, based on previous experience and it'll be impossible after Lisbon) and make some serious cuts.

michael

The first act of a new Labour administration would be to declare the word 'debt' as non pc.
No doubt the Lord 'more equal than others' Mandelson will be charged with creating an alternative. Redacting all negativity from our ZZZ rating.

'economic suppository' ?

Well according to Gordon : You only get out of it - what you're prepared to put in.

John Leyden

The real reason why Dave and co. can't do any better is because they have haemorrhaged so many votes to UKIP following their cowardly and traitorous announcement that they "wouldn't let matters rest" on the Lisbon Treaty. I know the Speccy would rather this subject didn't exist - as they have placed all their faith in these political pygmies - but the fact is, their lead on NuLab slipped from 11 points to 6, and I think it has slid further since!
- VOTE EARLY, VOTE UKIP, VOTE OFTEN!