The Tories are muddying their clear, blue water

Vulture

Another day, another gaffe by the dynamic duo leading the Tories ( and us) to perdition.

This is the fifth poll in a row showing the Tory lead in free fall. If it goes on at this rate, we're sunk : the horrendous prospect arises of another five years of Bruin.

And if he gets his electoral pact with the LibDems via the AV 'reform' swindle, we'll have Lib/Lab/EU Govt, an elected dictatorship, for the forseeable future.

Of course had Dave not himself ruled out a referendum on Lisbon he could beat Bruin around the head for promising a referendum on AV - but not on the EU. But the Cast Iron jellyfish can't do that now.

UNless he wakes up and puts things right fast -ie. in days - he and we are doomed.

Sally Chatterjee

Any government needs a mandate to clear up Brown's mess. It was astonishing to see the media give the likes of Mandelson a moment's airtime yesterday, Labour failed with their deficit spending in the past and now their plans are not sufficient for the future.

Yet the Conservatives can't seem to score in front of an open goal. Why? My pet theory is that few understand the meaning of all these billions, percentage ratios and the concept of public debt, we find it hard to connect these astronomic sums with our own bank balances and wallets.

Peter, Scotland

Their poll rating has been getting soft ever since Cameron started going soft in PMQ's.

Hawkeye

FFS - The Indy> is a leftie rag. They don't support Cameron and never will.

Ian Walker

Announce now, and have it stolen or ridiculed by Labour?

There's only one poll that really matters, and until Brown tells us what date it's on, best to just weather the storm of changing media/public opinion.

A friend of mine who works in market research also says that apparently there is an ironic sense of disappointment that the Tories haven't started fixing things yet!

Verityred

All hands on deck, man the guns, the bug eyed, stuck record Tory/UKIP suicide squad is about get red faced and sweaty with indignation. Oh when will their Maggie Messiah appear?

Never. The UK has moved on since Thatcher. Get used to it.

General Zod

Still, it's only a story in the Independent, so nobody's actually going to read it.

luke

Its pretty clear to me that cameron is a highly responsive politician. He sees a trend or a shift in public opinion and is fast to respond. That has served him well on things like expenses.

But will it serve him well in this crucial period? He has clearly detected the public concern about osborne's swinging cuts approach and has responded to it rapidly.

But will the public reward him for detecting the shift in opinion and responding rapidly or will they see it as weakness? Im not so sure and i guess feb and march will tell us more.

BluePorcupine

On a point of information to the previous commenter, AV to the Lib Dems is not at all an easy sell. It's infinitely less democratic than the STV system which the party supports, and anyway a referendum *after* the next election *if* Labour win is hardly a safe bet for us when you consider (a) Labour aren't going to win and (b) they welshed on us in 1998 anyway. As with most Brown "concessions", this is too little too late.

oldtimer

The BBC report you link to about Osbornes speech says that he will rely on Lord Stern for advice on a Green Bank. I trust, if this is indeed true, that Lord Stern does a better job than his report on climate change. This was based on dodgy data (it seems that tables in the on line version have been quietly corrected - except that sharp eyes has noticed) and has been roundly condemned by Lord Lawson.

If Cameron and co are not careful this will turn into an exercise in how to lose friends and alienate people.

R King

Cameron and co still haven't mastered the art of spin. Brown has changed his policies repeatedly and the tories should rub their faces in it at every opportunity.
Every time labour is questioned on it's policies it turns the tables to tory plans.

Learn the lesson Dave and show Brown and co for what they are...... totally vacuous!

Number7

@ oldtimer

Here's the link to those quietly altered figures:-

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/24/the-purge-continues/#more-15627

It appears that they are central to the main thrust of the report.

Personally I am beginning to give some credence some of the wilder theories vis., the Tories trying to loose the election in order to totally destroy LieBore.

Moraymint

I quite like the idea of the gilt markets getting increasingly rattled by all this uncertainty in the run up to the election; it would put Brown under pressure.

Perhaps it's better if the Tories use deception on the the run in to the election, to keep the Labour Party - and everyone else - guessing. Certainly an army going into battle would be setting out to deceive the other side until the last possible moment, before unleashing the true game plan.

The more leading indicators of a failing economy that the Tories can generate now, the worse things will look for Brown come election time.

I realise that the Tories might not be as smart as I'm implying here and that all this flipping and flopping is little more than incompetent policy making founded on flaky or non-existent political principles.

If so, then as a democracy we deserve a dog's breakfast of a parliament from May 2010. At which point, cry havoc and let slip the dogs of economic catastrophe.

JONNY

Only a story in the Inday - yes.
But Kirsty and Newsnight gave it massive prominence.
Any chance of cudgeling the Beeb back to a semblance of impartiality before Election Day?
Please don't bother to answer.

Nash

David Cameron should have the McKinsey Chart as a backdrop to every speech he makes.

I guess the problem is that the educational standards of reporters are so low that the press does not understand what Labour has done to the country.

Heaven help us all if Labour do get in again.

Nicholas

And the BBC lead this morning with the fat owl who needs to be removed promising a vote in parliament and a referendum on AV.

The referendum we want, you ridiculous fat owl, rather than any more of your cunning wheezes and bullshit, is a General Election.

Mark

Move Osbourne to head office to manage the campaign and install Ken Clarke as shadow Chancellor. Hey presto!

denis cooper

Sally Chatterjee, I share your pet theory. I realised some years ago that many people aren't even certain what a billion is, and over the last year it's become apparent that very few know what gilts are.

Who's going to educate them? Not the government, that's for sure. The Tories have had over a year to do so, and one might think that they would see it as being in their interests for the electorate to have a better understanding of the disastrous economic and fiscal mess this government has created, but it seems they can't be bothered.

Consequently they've allowed Labour to outmanoeuvre them by exploiting the supposed deflationary nature of this recession, unlike all previous recessions since the war, to maintain public spending through the misuse of "quantitative easing" and so mitigate the effects of the downturn.

It was obvious from the start that the government's recourse to the printing press on the pretext of heading off deflation would have not only economic, but also electoral, implications.

Maggie

In what way are Labour economic plans clear, unambiguous, straightforward and honest? Labour have had their hands on the inner workings of the economy for 12 years, unlike the Tories who are denied access to all the facts and figures, and must know everything there is to know about the current state of the nation's finances. But they aren't telling us what they're going to do after the election. Labour's plans are all a fog of contradictions.

The Man

I have to agree with Vulture. Dave and his immediate circle of advisers are doing a spectacular job of trashing their own chances of election. For him to even contemplate a hung parliament is to admit defeat. Who, within the party, has the authority to confront Dave, Osborn, Coulson and Hilton and tell them to get a grip and start transmitting clear, coherent and consistent policies? Pickles? Spicer? Whoever it is, it needs to happen and fast. Otherwise, as Vulture says, we're doomed to a further term of Bruin, propped up by the Lib Dems in return for electoral reform.

thomas

Yes, your headline says it all. There is a sense that the Tory leadership has no nerve. The electorate has shifted to the right, and wants right-wing policies. Yet the Conservatives seem to be frightened to put them forward. It is bizarre.

The one thing we all knew for sure was that the Tories would cut expenditure to avoid default. Now we don't even know that anymore. Furthermore, they have decided to bring in Stern to deal with climate change just when AGW is coming under severe attack for basic credibility. All this detailed policy stuff doesn't matter. The Tories are right to be pro-marraige, morally and in terms of electoral popularity, don't allow that message to be diluted with details. Again, on the deficit the Tories are right. Don't get tied up in the details. The rest is all about hammering Labour on their failings.

Alfred T Mahan

Dave and George have yet to learn the truth of the old adage that if you try to please everyone you end up pleasing no one. Not long to wait, though - if they carry on like this they will be taught a very brutal lesson indeed before they're much older.

Genius

What a ludicrous question. As if anyone is going to say "No, I want Cameron to be less clear on the economy. That would be a good thing." The Indie team are cretins for sticking this on the front page. No wonder no one outside London reads it.

Victor Southern

What would the poll result be if people were asked if they wanted Gordon Brown to be clearer on what he will do to repair the economy?

JONNY

I agree with Mark.
Ken, always my choice as Leader, must be brought in to heavy-up the Finance Division.
And let the Euro-Sceptics bleat.

Snowman

The Man @ 10.48:

The guy you are looking for - Daniel Hannan - lives currently in another neck of the woods over the Channel.

Ganpat Ram

How delicious to see so much panic in Tory ranks !

I can't stop chuckling with glee.

Come on, Gordon !

The British are finally waking up. More and more realise that dumping Labour now is like dumping Churchill during the War because he made some blunders.

The UK is in its fix because the Thatcherite policies pursued by Labour put the banks out of control.

Voting Tory to fix the mess is suicidal: it is THEIR policies that got us here in the first place.

yarnesfromhorsham

"Tories use deception" to quote Moraymint. Would like to think thats right but have me doubts. Starting to feel that Dave might not be up to it. Its not as though there is nothing to attach Labour no - BUT we still get these limp questions at PMQ and wishy washy ideas presented by the dynamic duo. Tory leadership needs a lot more polictical backbone or am I wishing on a star?

Marcher Baron

@Verityred "The UK has moved on since Thatcher." Not so much 'moved on', more been changed (and not for the better) by Labour's mass immigration scheme. Thanks Neather. Also the populace is not as well educated as before. I believe few people understand fractions (and probably they struggle with decimals, too), so huge numbers like trillions are mere sounds rather than mental concepts indicating debts of staggering proportion.

Moraymint

Ganpat Ram "Voting Tory to fix the mess is suicidal: it is THEIR policies that got us here in the first place ..."

Can you substantiate that please?

General Zod

Ganpat Ram, I am very interested to hear your views on how the Tories created the current economic problems. I look forward to being enlightened.

JONNY

'The guy you are looking for - Daniel Hannan '

Hannan as Tory PM?
Has politics ever misbegotten a more monstrous pipe-dream?

2trueblue

If the tories walked on water at present they would be criticized. It really is bash the tories week. Liebore have spent all the money we had, and then some, and lots more.

We have no idea how bad it is, but we will find out, and have to pay for their incompetence.

Considering Liebore always wreck the finances totally, in this present climate is it likely that we are being told the truth about how things are?

The media are being very robust about their criticisms of the tories, and yet, who got us into this awful mess? We have had 13yrs of Liebore, they haave lied all the way through and the media have been lauding them all the way. The BBC have no idea what their job is, which is to supply facts, and information, not just the Liebore line. I am bored at being lied to.

A catchy byline that distorts the content of the article is rubbish, and should be treated as such. It really is time for journalists to live up to their title. Some real reporting would be welcome.

Ganpat Ram

MURRAY MINT, GENERAL ZOD:

You seem to forget that it was Thatcher who proudly overthrew the pre-existing limitations on financial speculation in the name of "freedom".

This created a much "freer", buccaneering capitalism, much less subject to government control and regulation. This eventually overreached itself, with banks lending out vast sums of money that finaciers feared would not be repaid, leading to the financial system's near-collapse in the last couple of years - prvented only by vast government bailouts.

Do I really have to go through the recent news with you ? Please read newspapers.

That is why Thatcherism, which Blair adopted, is the cause of our current fix.

It would be the height of suicidalism to put the Tories in to solve it. Luckily, the British people seem to be turning in the right direction.

TGF UKIP

17, 14, 12, 10, 9, 8, and now the second 7% poll lead in less than a week. Just a matter of time before 5% arrives and then all bets are off on them even finishing as the the largest party in Parliament.

Just as well, perhaps, given how useless this ""leadership" has proved itself in opposition, God know what mess it would make of government which could destroy the Tories for a generation.

A Tory defeat looks better by the day. The LibDems will demand of Labour, Brown's head as their price for any collaboration; the pair of them can then deal with and get the blame for the ensuing gilts/currency collapse and the IMF stringencies that will follow.

Dave will be rapidly despatched, to the wailing of Daft Danny, d'Ancona & co and the poor old Tory Party restored to its senses will not only elect a proper leader, they will never, ever forgive the old patrician One Nation Left for foisting them with Cameron and his clique.

Ganpat Ram

Anyone foolish enough to believe the Tories are no longer the Nasty Party has only to read the blogs in the Spectator. So much misanthropic, reactionary venom!

The Nasty Party is there, snarling in its cage and waiting to spring out. Anyone hoping for a decent, fairer society had better be afraid. Very afraid.

John Richardson

'Ganpat Ram'

Re-nasty.

If you think this is nasty, wait untl we get a real 'British People's Party'.
You'll just scream.
Oh, and for goodness sake don't look in last weeks 'CoffeeHouser's Wall'.
You just stay out'da there.