The Tory lead is down to two points, Cameron needs to deliver a brilliant speech

dorian

No speech can save him. Should of thought of some policy and ditced Osborne. Im voting Gordo now, and I nver tought I would say that

Cromar Fennell

Cameron is a lightweight with an infant cabinet. I am inclined to vote for Brown because at least he has some substance plus a known quantity, but Labour have done a lot wrong, they are still the best choice

Informed Giant

Britain can't afford Labour

PuppetMaster

I doubt the markets will wait until then. Hold on tight, we're about to meet reality, god help us.
Overall this is the best of the bad options, Labour reaps the reward of its own folly, Cameron gets sacked, maybe we get a genuine conservative party after the destruction.
I hope you've all moved your money abroad. Fingers crossed we all survive.

strapworld

The problem, Mr Forsyth, is that apart from the committed hardly anybody will be listening.There is a Cup Final being played. Some planning! What an organisation.

Cameron has done what I can only say is unbelievable. Made an incompetent, bullyboy prime minister look a winner!

I would have thought that with the number of people commenting on this blog, who have shared my view on the lack of leadership qualities of Cameron, his reliance on his inner cabal of people from a social class far removed from the majority of people he has shown amazing arrogance. He is not listening.

This may well prove to be a rogue poll. The Angus Reid poll is one I prefer to watch, but even that has shown a drop in Tory support. The lead should be in the high sixties in view of the disaster Brown has been. Cameron cannot, with one speech, change that.

His five point plan, much lauded by Fraser Nelson, does not mention immigration, quite amazing! Does not mention Europe, does not mention Afghanistan and the armed services. But in spite of the scandal within the NHS (Not confined to Staffordshire) he blindly commits to the NHS. So more of the same.

Can he rescue the situation? Only time will tell but even his most ardent supporters must ask themselves how Labour can be in sniffing distance of the winning post. Quite unbelievable.

The fall and fall of the 'modern' conservative party?

TomTom

I dread to think what will happen to sterling or on the bond markets if on May 7th David Cameron is not Prime Minister.

Funny that. Most of us wonder why the bond markets are so keen on a man of Unproven Competence who has no policy and cannot even understand £72 billion "Other" in Treasury Accounts.

Maybe Cameron should have studied Economics to Finals instead of Philosophy and Politics, he appears breezily clueless when it comes to hard numbers

Holly ......

The only people believing this are..
Labour voters.

Short the UK

I woke up to the bad news. It is very bad news. It means we are heading to Depflation (depression + inflation) as Brown will put Balls in at the Treasury. The money printing will carry on. The pound is in serious trouble. There will be a capital exodus. My brother, a brilliant teacher in inner city London, will move abroad, he will be part of a brain drain. We will lose huge financial and human capital.

It is like a nightmare.

The reasons for this debacle have been articulated by Fraser.

I think there will be lot of Tories grieving, deeply grieving for their country. The path to acceptance comes in time.

If we go down then we must rebuild rapidly for the next government will be destroyed by the coming economic problems. The crash was epochal, whilst most of the elite think it is a normal business cycle, just like they thought there was no more boom and bust.

If Brown does win the only pleasure will be to watch him implode and witness the death of the Labour Party. The economic forces are too strong, the chickens will come home to roost.

teledu

I'd rather have a poorly delivered speech that included some policies that we could all get behind than a well-delivered speech that was policy-lite. I suspect we'll get the latter.

Andrew Cadman

It started to unravel for Cameron after the Lisbon ' we won't let matters rest there' ('Oh yes we will!') debacle.

Now, as a 'Kipper, you'd expect me to say that...but I totally accept it wasn't because people are hung up or obsessed with Europe as an issue: it's because it created a general 'aroma' to use that awful Cameroon expression of him retreating at the first sound of gunfire.

When your in opposition you get few opportunities to show your mettle. This was one, and the perception is that Cameron ran away and hid under the bed.

I am afraid that is what history teaches us about most Tory leaders: the default leadership culture of Toryism is weak and defeatist: for every Churchill or Thatcher there are far more Baldwins, Macmillans, Heaths or Majors.

I actually think that Cameron and some of the people around him do have strong convictions but the fact is he comes over as vapid and passionless.

stephen

It's a terrible mistake to put George Osborne in control of the campaign IMHO!

BigAl

A country gets the Prime Minister and Government it deserves. I hardly know anyone who claims to support Labour in 2010, a far cry from 1997. So who are the 35%?

Nicholas

It's YouGov again. Something very suspicious about this.

welease woger

Is this a true reflection of opinion? Maybe but I'm far from convinced.

Polling needs to go back to basics and I can see these polling companies losing a lot of credibility following this election.

The basis of any good poll is an unbiased sample, everything else follows from this simple principle. But this seems to be too expensive and troublesome for the pollsters who instead cobble together a sample they know to be biased and then introduce other biases to try to balance it all out. This is madness and fundamentally unsound.

The only good thing is that this might just persuade Brown to go to the palace. Here's hoping.

Lucy Jones

Good luck to Cameron!
I wonder if Brown will be off to the Palace tomorrow on the strength of these polls? I shudder to think what five more years of "Mrs Rochester" would do to the country.
I can only think that the apparent Labour gain in popularity is due to his disturbing, bullying behaviour being successfully spun as a show of his "passion" and "strength"; that a large part of the electorate have been taken in by the GDP figures and now believe that we're out of recession, thanks to Flash; and, of coures, the huge client state that New Labour have built up over the past decade.

dehsinif Si Ruobal

David Cameron needs to acknowledge that the electorate is having serious doubts about their job prospects under the Conservatives. As a public sector employee I am astounded at many of my colleagues intend to vote Labour. They do not understand the national debt/deficit issue and Labour to them is a security blanket which they are all grabbing hold of. They just don't see the catastrophe that lies ahead of us if we wake up to a Labour Government on May 7th.

David Cameron should focus on painting that picture in clear and unambiguous terms - a collapse in Steling, soaring inflation, rising mortgages and ultimately soaring unemployment.

The Conservatives need to go on the attack. Their election posters need to portray the abyss that these people will be entering if they don't take their heads out of the sand. The theme of the election campaign for the Conservatives should be:DON'T SLEEPWALK INTO A LABOUR NIGHTMARE.

Ken

"the materials will be in place for a fight-back narrative" ??
This is the opposition we're talking about! "Fightback" has been the code for repeated failed relaunches by the Maximum Monster currently ruining the country, not the staple of the opposition.

At this stage of the game it should be a walkover, the voters detest the incumbent but they clearly don't love Cameron.

The tactic now must be to lose. Let Brown drink from his self-poisoned wells, await the IMF's crushing embrace and win the election that will follow 12 months later but under a real conservative.
Top priority: Jail the traitors and promulgate a Great Repeal Law cleansing 5000 pieces of Marxist social engineering from the statute book.
Then start disinfecting the pigsty, it will take years!

Doppelganger

"Cameron will deliver the speech without notes": who cares. Is that his unique selling point? He could do it standing on his head and it would not make any difference to me.

SUSAN HILL

Never has Cameron needed to deliver more than with this speech. Let's hope he knows it. People need to have it spelled out starkly just what another 4 years of lying devious thuggish Brown would mean and to be reminded that this is the man who as Chancellor, bankrupted the country.
But they also need a warning. 4 more years of Brown effectively means four more of Mandelson. I`m not sure which is worse. I`m no Cameron fan but he's by far the best of some pretty dire options.
He desperately needs not to waffle, to give some clear messages and not to mention Green or positive discrimination on behalf of minorities.
Do not hold your breath.

The Cat in the Hat

Vote Gordon the Bully
Not Dave who’s so woolly
The hammer and sickle!!
Not young Mr fickle.

Whatever they say
Vote Gordon in May
Gordon is Great
Let’s all work for the state!!

andy

Whoever finally brings this growing crisis to a head will be blamed for years by the substantial portion of the electorate who never follow current events, or who are in denial and/or are comfortable living on the state, employed or unemployed. So, let's have a Brown-led hung parliament, followed by the inevitable sterling crisis, arrival of the IMF. Finally, then, a second, descisive election when more of the voters have woken up to reality.

Rhoda Klapp

Yeah, a speech will do it.

mitch

The problem is that the BBC will show 30 seconds of it and then give some Labor goon 5 mins to rebut it and then brown gets 20mins and no rebuttal.

Rhoda Klapp

It seems from the news that he will invoke patriotism. Not sure how he will dodge the usual quote, but he might begin by proposing to repatriate our constitution. If he won't do that, then Sam Johnson will be right.

Frank P

James F

"The silver lining for the Tories is that the situation is now primed for Cameron to fully explain to the public why he is the change they need."

Do they pay you to write sentences like that? Or are you at OQS on work experience?

The 'public', or rather that section of the public that is ever likely to vote Conservative, has been telling HIM what IT needs for some time now. What HE needs to do is to tell us that he has heard us and intends to comply. "Why 'he' is the change we need" just about encapsulates the didactic arrogance of the Camerloons and diagnoses their deafness in one startling and deeply depressing phrase.

"Ve hef veys of making you understand vot yo need!"

Eeenteresting .... but stupid!

TGF UKIP

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! Mr 5% is now Mr 2% and fast on his way to becoming the Mr Personna Non Grata of the Tory Party.

The Forsyth Camerloons 0 The Verity Sceptics 5

And it's only half time!

davidke

The Tories have consistently under estimated Brown, because he has been so easy to ridicule. Cameron has leapt at every piece of personalised bait, instead of hammering home Tory policies. Cameron now looks like a witty, over-educated bully. A smart-arse. Brown is more like the ordinary bloke. It's all cobblers of course, but the Tories are so blinkered and self-sure they thought all along that wit was enough. The Tories have to show some spine, and some non-personalised steel. Bring on the strong men. Davies, Clarke, Hague. Aren't there any more ? The Brits love a bully !!!

Kittler

Just wait until policies like cutting business taxes are well publicised. That will have the doubtful flocking to the party.

davidke

Can't helo adding, stop chortling at Brown's bully boy stories. No publicity is bad publicity for him. Remember Margaret Thatcher's handbagging image ! The Brits like thugs (so long as they're our thugs !) Farage understands this and has done his party no end of good. Boris understands it. Who the hell are Cameron's advisers ?!

Ghengis

Well! During the last forty eight hours I have seen two top ranking conservatives on main line TV - Teresa May and George Osborne (not quite sure about spelling), only someone in denial could state that both were not evasive and convincing. Indeed, May brought to mind Harman, and Osborne, Brown. In other words NO CHANGE.

curbishly

Of course your continual attacks, both here and elsewhere, on the Tories have been ever so helpful.

Haven't they.

Right On

I think these polls can be largely ignored. Brown has enjoyed two months of almost blanket media coverage.

The overall mood in the country does not suggest that Labour will command the same support they did in 2005 - they'll get 32% of the vote max and that's only if they can shift the soft Lib Dem vote back by scaring them into voting against the Tories.

I'm no great fan of Cameron but he is the best hope of removing Brown, there is little point in hoping for a choice that won't happen. This election can not be won on the right, the general public are too easily scared away by it.

If the party is pushed back to fighting on Europe and Immigration we should shore up 33% of the vote, but where is the rest going to come from?

AuldCurmudgeon

It's not five more years of Gordon; it's establishing as fact that five more years of Gordon Brown won't protect people from austerity. That's the fiction New Labour is selling.

davidke

If I was a State employee I would vote Labour, even if I was a Tory. For my family's sake. What has Cameron said to give State employees any hope ? Everyone knows we are on borrowed time. But something may turn up. So stick with Brown. I think this message will prevail.

Holly ......

Do people believe this poll is correct?
What puzzles me is..
Why,after over a decade,with no previous warning,did the Sun come out to support the Tories?
Why did they do it so early in the election cycle,without seeing the Tory party's plan?
Why, over the last week or so have the MSM been pushing the 'hung parliament' line?
Why for the past week have the MSM been pushing the 'Tory wobble'?Is this a change in tactic?
Has the hung parliament line been blown out of the water by Labour's own polls?
Is that why they are now pushing the 'Tory wobble'?
Why have the polls fallen so far within the week,the day of Cameron's speech? I have never known polls to fall so far,so fast,
for no solid reason, so close to the election.(Labour & MSM reasons don't count or matter).
Why did the earlier edition show a 6% lead for the Tories?
Why was the 12% lead withdrawn as wrong only last week?
I pesonally don't have any faith in YouGov to begin with.
YouGov will lose all credibility if the election proves a completely different result,which I now have no doubt at all,it will.
Labour have constantly made their backers look incredibly stupid,way too trusting and allow themselves to be manipulated,for a headline.

Defining Moments

I am becoming increasingly aware within members of my immediate family and friends, many of whom work in the public sector of their fear's surrounding the impact that the forthcoming 'cuts' may have on their lives. The real success of the labour strategy to date is to convince the voters that the tories are the 'cutters' and labour are not. Fear for your livelihood has a very powerful influence on your judgement. I do not see this changing. I have no confidence in the belief that people will be suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of patriotic duty and vote tory. Better to stick with the guy handing out borrowed £20 notes with the promise that there are plenty of rich guys in the country who are going to pay it back for you. These people represent an increasingly sizeable proportion of the electorate.

Colin

Cameron is in danger of becoming the Tory version of kinnock:

In the eyes of some, a great orator; but in reality, not trusted to run a whelk stall. He probably has a big future, in the fist class compartment of the Brussels gravy train.

Alan Douglas

dorian sez : "No speech can save him. Should of thought of some policy and ditced Osborne. Im voting Gordo now, and I nver tought I would say that"

Product of the best Labour-inspired education, are you Damien. Can't spell, and certainly can't think. Keep on emoting, but do it on LabourList, not here.

ALan Douglas

2trueblue

James, I disagree with your last statement. The electorate do not have that many options. If Liebore stay in power we are doomed. The markets will kill us off, so UK plc will drown in our debt that Liebore bequethed us.

Liebore promised us many things in their previous manifestos and have chosen NOT to deliver in lots of areas. The most famous we should remember: OUR vote on the EU.

Having let Liebore back , Liebore will then finish off democracy and freedom. So far they have done a great job at destroying our freedom, signing us up to the Lisbon Treaty, and if the electorate allow it to happen then we might as well all go and live in some other banana republic, after all the weather will be warmer. A few of Liebores achievements and failures to date:

A greater number of children live in poverty than 13yrs ago

Having incresed the number in poverty, they have bequethed our children, and our childrens children with massive debt.

We have a greater number of young people who have never worked, not in education, training etc after 13yrs

we have a greater number of people of working age who are economically inactive that 13yrs ago

We do not have the true figures of how bad our debts really are as Liebore keep a large amout of debt off line. If this were a company it would be illegal.

There is not one area of our personal freedoms that has been enhanced by Liebore. We are the most watched society in the world. We have had more laws put through parliament by Liebore to curtail our personal freedoms.

Our democracy has been interfered with by Liebore and if they get in again we can kiss democracy goodbye. Postal voting will be the least of our worries.

In 13 years they made no realistic or proper future plans for our fuel provision, which will further impact on our dire economic situation. We should not decommision our coal fired units untill we have replacements up and running. We should keep looking at cleaning up coal. After all we are sitting on lots of it, and we are then independant.

They have presided over the most corrupt parlaiment in history and refused to sort it out quickly.

They took us into an illegal war.

We have more unelected people from management consultants, spin doctors, quangos, etc., involved in running our country than at any other time in history. Curtail expenditure in those areas and billions could be saved. They would not be missed.

Frankly we need to look beyond the words and focus on what positive points Liebore are putting forward and ask what they can do for us, not how can they after 13yrs claim the privilage of being the only party to take the UK forward to a cohesive, presperous future, and reflect on how they got us into the present mess.

Liebore have divided our society more that any other party in history. It makes good soundbites, and the shallow media can parrot it back without thinking for themselves, but it doesn't press the GO button to get us out of the mire.

The polls can say what they like, look at what the bookies are offering. Would you trust the man who is putting his money whaere his mouth is, and who will actually vote, or the man who gives you a figure without telling you what questions he asked to get his answers?

Go figure.

Vulture

I flapped over to Brighton yesty and the mood was as dour as the rain dribbling from leaden skies.

Went along to Dan Hannan's launch of the British Tea party movement (actually an initiative of the long established Freedom Association : there is no British Tea Party as such; more's the pity).

To those who believe DH is the new Tory Messiah, I say: don't wait up. He's cogent and convincing on his chosen subject ( the iniquity of the EU and its taxes; but he looks like a bald 14-year-old cock-virgin and he's too cerebral for mass appeal. His Eurosceptic MEP colleague, Roger Helmer, (who had the guts to resign over Dave's Lisbon betrayal) has more fire in his belly, but unfortunately looks like an archtypal UKIPPER, down to the blazer with brass buttons and unchanged 70s style Zapata 'tache - sadly grey since it was first grown.

What did surprise me was the size of the audience - massive. There IS real anger out there and real hunger for change - not change of the vapid Dave variety, but a change from the lies, sleaze, shifty evasions and betrayals we have learned to expect from the entire political class.

Unfortunatley it all trickled away in the usual English way - muttered 'Hear, hears'; tepid applause - and a nice cup of tea.

I got to ask the last question ; 'When are you inviting Cameron and Osborne to tea?'
- but Hannan's reply - that Dave is on board over tax, and anyway he's 'A million times better than Brown' shows that for all his fine words Hannan is yet another Tory careerist.

To quote Milton : "The hungry sheep look up and are not fed". Whether we get Bruin back to complete the ruin of Britain, or Cameron to prolong the process by slower means seems to me immaterial. Until there is a Govt prepared to reverse Islamification and immigration; pull out of the EU; give us back the means of creating wealth rather than bleeding us dry - we're finished.

And meanwhile TV cheeps out its inanities to the sheeple: an audience of morons who if the polls are to be believed, are about to vote for dictatorship, destitution and death.

JONNY

Well some of us over here
will be happy happy bunnies.
The Cameron denigrators have made their point and the country is listening - that the same old obnoxious Tory Party is still alive and kicking.
Job well done. And as icing on the cake, Brown will do a deal with the Lib-Dems to force through PR. So we're looking at more than another 5 years.
Then a fond farewell to all our dreams.

Publius

Labour has perfected the cynical art of deception. A psychotic bully is called a strong leader, economic incontinence is called prudence, reckless spending is called investment, the Stasi surveillance state is called liberty, the abuse of parliament is called democracy, patriotism is called racism, aimless confusion is called being modern, smashing what is good is called radical, and the hollowing out of our ancient, tried and tested institutions is called progress.

And in these pages, again and again, we have seen how even journalists who think they are conservative have been taken in by this Newspeak.

terence patrick hewett

Harris says 10 points; YouGov says 2 points. Someone's telling porkies.

Publius

I see the illiterate Labour trolls are out. And what triumphs of NewLab education they are!

Liz Brown

Didn't the earlier edition of The Times point to a higher lead for the Tories - and that changed 2 hours later/ Who is fiddling what????? How can anyone in their right minds conceivably think that 5 more years of gormless can be good for the country?

Roger Daley

All I can think is that a lot of folk in this country must have Stockholm Syndrome.

Joseph Alan Jones

I agree that it will be best for Brown to win himself a period of suffering back at No 10. Let the IMF grasp him firmly. Let us see Broon and his cronies flap, waffle, and sweat while trying to excuse their incompetence. Then goodbye to them for decades.

Rosencrantz

Looking at the detailed data for the YouGov poll published in The Sunday Times, it is striking that the unweighted results paint a very different picture for the two main parties: Con 41% and Lab 31%. Not only is this just one poll, but its relevance is heavily dependent on the weighting model being used by the pollsters. I have a hunch that the model may not make sufficient allowance for middle-class antipathy to Cameron or blue-collar antipathy towards Brown ...

Holly ......

Teledu,
For the benefit of the undecided,please tell us exactly,what Brown's plans are to fix his mess? Going on his conference speech yesterday.
Tell them the effect his plans will have on the markets and how the markets could affect
their lives.
The IMF 'agreeing'with Brown is misleading,
because they say,quite clearly in their document that BIG GOVERNMENT DEBT is a bad thing & a risk to interest rates etc.
Being a saddo,I have it on my desktop,along with the PFI scam,

2trueblue

How could I have omitted to mention our population explosion that Liebore managed to create at the stroke of a pen and then later give back our EU rebate, sorry.

cmp

Just seen Osbourne on Marr - there's a lack of passion from the Tories compared to Labour which communicates to the electorate. They need to get angry because the people are angry.

oldtimer

My observations:
Well it certainly will concentrate minds: of the politicians who need to encapsulate a winning message; of the public who will be presented with a clear choice (5 more years vs change); and of the pollsters about which of them has got their methodology right.

On the latter point, it seems clear that YouGov polls have revealed a much sharper swing towards Labour than the others. It was pointed out on the Marr paper review that the Tory lead had dropped by no less than 2% points between the 1st and 2nd editions of the Sunday Times. On that speed of swing, no doubt Labour is in a commanding lead by now (11am Sunday)!

It looks as though the choice (5 more years of Brown vs change with Cameron) and the defining issue (more Brown debt vs Cameron sound money) are abundantly clear. Voters face a clear choice. What they choose will be what they deserve.

Personally, as someone who worked and lived through the inflationary horrors of the 1970s,I will vote for sound money.

The remaining question in my mind is this. Will Brown take the bait and call an earlier election than May?

Andrew

Labour should thank Gordon for ensuring public sector jobs have been spread throughout Wales, the North and Scotland. It will pay dividends for Labour in votes while the South and East that pay the taxes don't have enough seats to make a difference.

Joesph Alan Jones

This government have created an uncritical population. They need to learn the facts of life.
A return of this government and the clasp of the IMF will help them to learn. The bonus will be to dump this lot into a bottomless hole. Out of which they will find it difficult to climb for decades.

Noa Zrk

T'will be sound and fury, signifying nothing.

JohnW

People are starting to realise that Blair-lite's BluLabour is no different to NuLabour so why bother voting for them.

I'm voting for Labour on the Titchen Principle. ie it will destroy Cameron party and we may see a real Conservative party rise from the ashes.

toco

It seems these poll findings are open to question as is the methodology which is new and not replicated by other recent polls.The conspiracy theories abound on the basis that YouGov's Peter Kellner is married to Cathy Ashton who was awarded the European Foreign Minister's job by the hapless Gordon Brown in extraordinary circumstances.I guess we shall just have to wait and see what other pollsters report before making a judgement on the reliability of the YouGov poll.

Beer Moth

dorian

Horrendous spelling, we have grown to tolerate, but the construct, "Should of thought of some policy", shows you to be barely in command of your own thoughts.

Hence your declared voting preference.

JONNY

What Hannan?
'a bald 14-year-old cock-virgin'?

Not sure Verity will be as happy about this Vulture.
But I am.

Anan

Yes, the electorate are stupid, but they aren't this stupid. Let's see what happens shall we?

Norman Brand

Will David Cameron speak out against the six month prison sentence recently handed to the pub landlord Nick Hogan for refusing to pay a fine of £3000 with £7236 costs for allowing his customers to smoke? The jailing of Mr Hogan is a sign of the ever-growing intrusion of the State and its officials into individual life and choice. I think this is the crucial political issue of the day but the political class, which includes the chattering class seems to conspire to ignore it.

Ricky

"It's the BBC wot done it......"

Vulture

JONNY:
What you suffer from is the delusion that your version of Heathite 'Conservatism' is popular with the masses, and that Tory populism is electoral death.

Heath fought four elections and won one by a whisker. Thatcher fought three and won all of them comfortably. It all depends on the zeitgeist, you see.

Dave, or rather the bald Hungarian who pulls his strings, Steve Hilton, thinks that the Bliarite, touchy-feely, pink-green AGW, minority rights agenda that won phony Tony three elections is the coming thing.

But he ( and you) are behind the curve. Times is tough. The ideal choice would be between the mad, one-eyed Scotch Prime Monster who looks as gloomy as he makes us feel, and a tough Tory who beats a populist drum on immigration, Islamification ( think this morning's scary Sun Tel lead story abt Islamists taking over Tower Hamlets Labour party and with it the entire borough - and that's not Tory alarmism, it comes from local Liebour MP Jim Fitzpatrick) - and the EU. That's what I call real Conservatism and the people are crying out for it.

Given a choice between hard welfarism dished out by iron fisted Gordo or milk and water cloudy nothing-very-much-cut-or -not cut confusion offered by Dave, Boy George and their rich louche chums they will sadly but unsurprisingly take the former.

chas

Norman Brand. I agree that the jail sentence given to Nick Hogan is way over the top. People, especially smokers, turned against Labour because of the smoking ban and the Tories have said nothing to allow publicans a choice. Smokers make up about 25% of the electorate.

Frank P

Vulture (10.47am)

That has really has pulled my plug and sent the day down the sluice.

I'm not entirely surprised, as Hannan backed Obama during the US Presidential election campaign. I was hoping that he may have wised-up, given the events of the last year. He has, after all, been making some noises that sounded – well – Conservative!.

>“I got to ask the last question ; 'When are you inviting Cameron and Osborne to tea?'
- but Hannan's reply - that Dave is on board over tax, and anyway he's 'A million times better than Brown' shows that for all his fine words Hannan is yet another Tory careerist.”<

That paragraph is profoundly depressing. The rest of your post was a wicked, witty and wonderfully evocative (albeit mordant) report for which I thank you, because I can find no report of the event elsewhere on any blog or the MSM.

But that single paragraph has added to the general gloom of a wringing wet East Anglian Sunday morning. You just pissed on the last glimmer of hope contained in my apparent delusion that there might be a young turk in the Tory party who had the wit and belly-fire to kick against the pricks, wrest power back from Yurrop and restore our country to independence and common sense.

We are truly, truly cattled! There is no way back. But thank you very much anyway. We did need to know that. No wonder DC looks so f****g smug.

Mass abstention now seems to be the only answer.

teledu

Holly asks "Teledu,
For the benefit of the undecided,please tell us exactly,what Brown's plans are to fix his mess?"
Why are you asking me about Brown's policies Holly? I'm no Brown fan - as my comments on the preceding Coffe House topic point out. When did I mention the IMF?

JONNY

A long haul ahead my friends.
5 more years of Brown feeing like 25 years of anyone else.
And after a few Balls Budgets even the most ardent Cameron-knockers will start to get that nasty tight contraction of total timeless hopelessness creeping up in them.
2011...2012...2013...2014....2015...........
While they queue up to qualify for a Dog Owners Licence. And everyone over 80 gets rejected (the dogs in question being mercifully put out of their misery).
Such fun.

Holly ......

Andrew I live up here in the north and front line public sector jobs are going at a rate you would not believe.

Labour have again moved the goal posts in the redundancy pay,hence the two day strike.
At the end of the month,30 tax offices will close,and the 3,000+ staff get a ripped off to boot.That's just in my area,this is happening all across the country.
Go on just google hmrc closures.Please.
See what you think.
There will be many many thousands more front
line staff going over the next few years,so all this rubbish about protecting front line staff is sadly a lie.
The next batch of redundancies will get even
less.Lots of saved money for the taxpayer,
but no staff capable & with the knowledge of Browns tax maze to collect it properly.
This years fiasco is only the beggining.
Line managers running around chasing imposible targets for a couple of months should fill you with joy.
If todays poll is somehow correct,which I doubt the MSM are going to have to answer a lot of harsh questions from the British public,as to why they were not warned about the reality of Brown's Britain, and why they
went along with the constant negative Tory headlines,yet did not inform them of Brown's fiscal agenda.
The most ironic thing about this is the Tories will not be cutting front line jobs.
They will freeze pay,except for those who's pay grade allows them to be hit with Nokia AND get rid of the useless morons at the top who stop the public sector working properly.

2trueblue

Roger Daley, you cheered my up no end. Thank you.

Peter Bartlett

As a lifelong Tory I have grown increasingly alarmed over the last few weeks.Reading an article by the last editor of this journal in the Telegraph and the latest editorial in said journal where both writers assumed that a good hiding from the voter was to be visited on Brown, I did a double take and wondered whether it was they or I that had taken up temporary residence in cloud cuckoo land. It has been clear for weeks that a sea change was afoot, that far from a "heavy" Labour defeat, Brown was going to be returned with a small majority. I suppose its easier to hear mutterings become a roar when you are further from the engine room.

Bob

Don't panic, Yougov cannot be trusted. I am a member of a Yougov panel. The panels are self selected not random and only for people with internet connection. I do not always get sent a political questionaire, many are on marketing issues, but I do receive several a year which again compromises the randomness of their sample. Additionally their questions always assume a predetermined stance and offer no options for nuanced replies.

Pramston

If Brown wins with a much smaller percentage of the vote than the Tories, surely revolution will be a valid option for the people? I do hope so, I've never been a revolutionary but I think in those circumstances it would be justifiable.

JONNY

What's that Vulture?
Me backing 'Heathite Conservatism'
Me! Heath!
Quelle Boob mon ami.
Or in plain Anglo-Saxon:
you're spouting cobblers matey.
Having a bad morning eh.

Ordinary Citizen

Will David Cameron amend the Smoking Ban to allow choice and fight for the release of Nick Hogan who was jailed for allowing smoking in his pub.Defend the dignity of smokers, INTOLERANCE IS THE MOST PREVENTABLE CAUSE OF INEQUALITIES.

JohnRS

From a Conservative viewpoint the problem is that CallMeDave isnt actually conservative, not even a little bit. What he keeps telling us is that he's not the nasty party, he's not in favour of small government, he's not going to let us vote on Europe, he's not going to cut NHS waste, he's not going to cut taxes generally, he's not going to keep thugs locked up, he's not going to get rid of CCTV cameras or the DNA database or the anti-freedom laws or CRB over-use, he's not going to depoliticise the police, he's not going to let local folk make any meaningful decisions, he's not going to stop the benefits lifestyle, he's not going to reverse the defence run-down, he's not going to sort out the English democratic deficit or the Barnett formula etc etc.

In other words it's BluLieBore or NuLieBore-Lite or whatever.....but it's not conservative.

He keeps thinking its because the voters do not understand his policies. But the more he tells us about these magnificent polices, the more the voters realise he actually means it, the more they move away. Why wouldn't they? After all, voters arent stupid, if you get the same thing whoever you vote for, then why change the habits of a life time?

So after 13 years of rule by a lying snake-oil salesman and a bullying psycho the lead is now down to 2%.

Well done, Dave.

De Rigueur

I'l let you guys into a secret:
The pollsters have tricked comrade Broon into calling an early election.

Now I'l let you guys into another secret:
The real tory lead is by a margin of 99.9%

teledu

Well said JohnRS

?Ex ?Blue

48 years a Tory untill I got a letter from
Dave saying how he fully approved of Labour's plans to close Pubs,Clubs,Socials,
Bingo Halls,Lodges,snooker halls ,cafes,
restaurants with subtle "health initiatives"
He can kiss the northern/midland industrial
marginals bye bye if he wants to stay loyal
to Socialist Dogma.About time he started listening to the ordinary rather than
South London cliques.
Sort it smartish Dave, or join Howard,Hague
and Major on the surplus to requiement shelf

Still Time