Labour and Tories level in marginals poll (but look to the swing)

Grenville

In a way I can’t help thinking that in fact it would be the best thing ever if Labour won the general election. Am I mad? Possibly, but here’s why:

In Britain, we have been bankrupted by them five times now. It really is every time a coconut with Labour governments. Every time, the Conservatives have to come along in the nick of time and clear up the mess before the country goes over the brink. They have always, fortunately, been elected in the nick of time, and it may yet happen again this time. Needless to say clearing up the mess does not make Tories popular.

In other countries, Germany most notably, but also perhaps parts of South America and Canada, they have had the experience of what it’s like to go over the brink. They have suffered the horror of socialist-induced unsound money and state bankruptcy, and the extreme stress, utter awfulness and total wealth destruction that results therefrom.

These countries have indeed had the experience of utterly hitting the buffers and going over the brink. Its awfulness gets so seared into the memory of the body politic that its terrible memory passes from generation to generation such that they never allow it to happen again.

Sadly, Britain does not have this collective memory and lore passed on generation to generation: perversely, Britain needs the absolute collapse to happen so that it can learn the hard way: otherwise we will perpetually be subject to the current idiocy every thirty years or so.

Labour governments always turn out to be ruinous. Every time a coconut.

The above is why we never learn.

Wanli

Not sure which Germany you are referring to - the country I know hasn't gone "over the brink" recently - sure, national debt was (and is) a concern, there definitely are social and economic problems that need solving. But compared to other countries the situation doesn't strike me as that dramatic (unless you are thinking of the collapse of Communist East Germany or even the Third Reich).

Informed Giant

Hear hear- but we don't ned another five years, surely, to figure this out?

KB

But the real question is whether it will work. So far, the polls suggest that voters don't much care, and they'll probably care exponetially less as the story is dragged on and on. Indeed, as I said last week, the risk for Labour is that their focus on Ashcroft actually does them more harm than good. (Mr Hoskin 14 hours ago)

I really wonder how small the point of contact between the Spectator and the great British public is. The same goes, in spades, for the Tories. The Speccy, god help us, even has its own blog - important, popular, with almost instant feedback - and it still doesn't know which way the wind's blowing.

London Calling

Neck and Neck? What happens when the lips touch, do they morph into one another and become Gavid Bameron or will they have a civil partnership?…:)

Seriously though…I can sense your fear and excitement to poll results, and it hasn’t gone unnoticed that you magnet to the ones that make you feel better, however do you know who fiddles the knobs on percentages? A three-year-old computer hacker living in China maybe? The Maypole Dancers? Or those biased online pollin questionnaires?

Now let me think…Hmmm…This is going to take a while…

mitch

Einstein defined insanity as "repeating the same action and expecting different results"
well 5 times we have elected a labor government and five times they have ruined the economy, time to try something, anything! else.

bernerlap

I think the poll is better for the Tories than you are saying. Populus just polled in the seats which are 50-100 on the Conservative hit list. So the swing is in those marginals with larger Labour majorities. Under those circumstances I expect the Conservative High Command will be delighted.

Roy Smith

Grenville above is so right. But the agony would be awful. Didn't Tony Blair bring Labour in by misrepresenting themselves as almost right of centre, destroying the Tories position in the scheme of things. And still the Tories are unable to find themselves, not realising they are the Party of free enterprise, of dogged determination, individualism, and entrepreneurial spirit. A description that somehow doesn't fit the Cameron team. Perhaps if we heard some truth from them, like; we where wrong to go along with Labour in many ways. Wrong to acquiesce to mass immigration, wrong to be blind to the Andrew Neather revelations. Wrong in not supporting the grass roots people of the UK. Wrong to leave any protestation to the BNP Party. Wrong to back the bale-out of financially rotten organisations. So many wrong turns, so much to admit that they where wrong. If they don't admit to it, they will be repugnant in the eyes of so many.

Pete Hoskin

bernerlap: you're right - I didn't make that clear enough last night (although was trying to say that this is better for the Tories than it looks). Have tweaked my copy above now. Thanks.

Osming

The fact that anyone can still consider voting Labour proves that we still haven't learnt what a disaster Labour always is for this country. The only way to learn this lesson is to have Brown elected to sort out the mess he created. He is incapable of doing this and the pain will be terrible, but good for us all in the long run if it destroys Labour forever.Blood, toil, tears and sweat for the next five years but the broad sunlit uplands thereafter. It will be worth it.

2trueblue

Neck and neck, or so it seems....... Don't really care at this point, I'm polled out. The election date has not been set, when the raw data from the polls hits the street days later we discover the real truth, so it seems. Get out there Hoskins and lets have some real news and ideas.

The one good thing that will come out of this is that the Tory supporters will turn out and have their say. On that note keep posting the poll results.

Richard

The more he says the deeper he digs.
Now Shameron has exposed himself to further problems.
extract from the Telegraph.

A Labour party spokeswoman said: ''This was an astonishing interview for the fact that David Cameron refused to rule out giving Michael Ashcroft a job under a Conservative government.''

But she also said Mr Cameron had made a ''gaffe'' in mentioning the loan.

''David Cameron said he had agreed and repaid a loan with Michael Ashcroft - even though no such loan has ever been recorded with the Electoral Commission.''

TomTom

Conservatives + Labour = 38%

Therein lies the narrow margin.....minority appeal

David Ossitt

Grenville

A very good point; you put it very well and indeed it probably would work.

However I think the pain would be almost unbearable and might damage us beyond repair.

stephen

I cant help feeling there is a mood in the marginals that the Tories are too strident too allied with the rich and will have real trouble with the public sector workers Not dissimilar from 1974 The Tories on financial matters have blown against this mood with Boy George's strident message on cuts and his inheritance tax that only benefits millionaires.

Tiberius

Labour polling 38%?

Grade F for that answer, I'm afraid.

Vulture

While I don't have any faith at all in the much vaunted 'Good sense of the British people' I do think that Liebour have pissed off so many sections of society - even many in their own Public Sector client state - that even with the help of Muslim immigrants, postal vote fraud and said client state they will be ejected - albeit narrowly.

My worry is what happens next. Previous long-term Liebour disasters (1955, 1970, 1979) have, as Grenville rightly says above, always been replaced by reasonably competent, experienced Tory Govts which have managed to put things right.

This time things are different. Not only is the economic hole that Liebour has dug us into practically bottomless, but the Tory team is absolutely f*****g useless. Not a clue. The only experienced man among them - Ken Clarke - is plainly past it, and, as anyone who watched the Channel 4 documentary 'Cameron Uncovered' last night will testify, Team Dave are a bunch of preening narcissists more concerned with their precious PR images than what to do to get us out of the shite. They have absolutely no idea.

And even Dave's fan club around here never say how good his policies are ( there are none) - merely that we must get rid of Bruin and he's made the Tories electable.
But electable to do what exactly? Weimar awaits...

Charles

Wanli - I asume Grenville is referring to the traumatic experience of the (soft left) Weimar Republic in Germany which contributed very significantly to the rise of Hitler.

John David Barnett

The inheritance tax propsals do NOT only benefit millionaires. This is a LIE.

A damned LIE.

John David Barnett

Vulture

1951 - not 1955.

denis cooper

There seems to be something close to a temporary standstill, which may last until the general election campaign gets going.

The opposing armies fire off shots at each other, most miss their mark but there are few casualties, but basically neither side is gaining much ground.

What surprises me it that almost everybody assumes that we should have to wait for the Prime Minister to decide when we'll be allowed to vote, so he can choose a moment which he hopes will be most advantageous for his party.

There should be a mechanism enabling the people to demand and get a fresh election at a time of their choosing, not his, and of course one such mechanism would be a "recall" system empowering constituents to force the resignation of their MP.

If we'd had a "recall" system in place then forced by-elections in those marginal seats would have wiped out Labour's majority long ago, and we wouldn't now be waiting for Brown to name the day.

TrevorsDen

"Labour polling 38%?
Grade F for that answer, I'm afraid" --- they are polling 38 in seats they are holding with a not insignificant majority. Wake up. there are a great many seats that labour will hold in the election with share greater than 38, but there are many they will lose with shares of less.

This poll shows a near 7% swing to Tories.

2trueblue

Vulture, you were watching Channel 4. If you had any expectations of learning anything positive you should have gone to bed early.

Loved the bit where Mandy got the floor to do his sotto voice and tell us more about the big bad Tory party. I hop e he gets signed up for the panto next year when they do Little Red Riding Hood.

Liebore are so polished and experienced at the 'hoodwinking' job and the tv fraternity so far into the Liebore pocket that we see nothing portrayed in any light but theirs. That is the real problem. We now believe the big lie, BUT what you see is not what you get. You get what they want you to see. Tell me one thing positive that has been portrayed on our little screen about the Tory party. It is the big con, just like Mandy.

Yam Yam

Never mind the polls, here's another marginal that the sitting Labour MP has just given up on...

http://www.halesowennews.co.uk/news/local/5048124.Halesowen_and_Rowley_Regis_Sylvia_Heal_to_stand_down/

stephen

just let's hope Mrs T can live long enough to annoint her appointed son or daughter to lead the Tory party after the disaster of the preening bunny hugging Notting Hillers which looks more and more likely in May Dave has turned his back on the Tory grass roots and linked with people like Ashcroft and Osborne!

Vulture

JDB: You are quite right and I stand corrected. The election was indeed in 1951. Eden replaced Churchill in 1955.

2trueblue:
I know Channel 4 are a bunch of Lefties as bad as, or worse than the BBC. And I know that it was a hatchet job with Rawnsley wielding the axe.

But the point was that Dave and his pals happily put their chubby little soft necks on the block, and all Rawnsley had to do was tip the axe. There were no trick questions: you could see them coming five miles off.

Ed Vaizey did not HAVE to say that Sam Cam voted Liebour: he chose to. Steve Hilton did not HAVE to look like an east European killer on a hit - that's just the way he is. The man's sheer nastiness shines through. And above all Dave did not HAVE to give a preening, self-regarding interview to Rawnsley which was bound to show him in a poor light because, beneath the PR glitter, there is no other light to show him under at all.

The man's a joke - and the joke's on us.

dita

Here is plan.
1) Vote Labour
2) Move abroad
3) Wait for the morons who don't currently understand that the lying corrupt labour party alway ruin the economy finally get it and consign the labour party to the dustbin of history then elect a proper conservative government (Small state, personal liberty).
4) Move back to the UK

EyeSee

God, I wish I could direct this at Conservative HQ! How on earth do you find yourself in this mess? In'97 the unknown Tony Blair sailed into No10 with a massive majority, because apparently a couple of Tories had been up to no good. Not for the Party but for themselves. Blair's party then institutionalises sleaze, being caught taking money, fiddling elections, breaking the law, lying and all of these offences repeated over and over. They have wrecked education, health, justice, the Armed Forces, the economy, the productive private sector and much else besides. They give millions in 'aid' to India, a country planning to spend billions on weaponry. They cow to the will of foreigners and undermine the British culture, directly, by welcoming aliens. Labour have not just been unlucky, or incompetent they have actively set out to do these things, to destroy and wreck. And yet Cameron's Conservatives can't find anything to say to a desperate electorate. Once the country turned to the Tories for a proud Britain, a capable, successful country of law and order, a country able to hold its head up in the world. But now Dave wants to maintain the welfare state as a good socialist should, to keep us shackled to the EU as a good Marxist would and to continue to waste billions on climate change rubbish as a good totalitarian would. He may like the idea of being in power (power over what though?) but the country doesn't need a LibLabConDem party running it. It is as if we are in some race to overtake Robert Mugabe for sheer genius in government (we do have Mandelson, so we are way ahead of Zim there). Mr Cameron, show some respect. Do the simple things simply. Your biggest problem is Labour malingeres and their addiction to victimhood and parasitical existence. Stop making them your most important group, for whom you offer unending support and you might actually start talking the same language as the people who make and have made Britain great.

Minnie Ovens

It should be noted that the "others" intent to vote has risen over 50% since 2005.
This, combined with the greatest proportion of undecided people stating that they are uncertain whether it is time to vote Conservative, may signify a great amount of people who are disatisfied with Labour but have not been won over by the Conservatives. (Populus)
Of course it is easy to read anything into these figures but it might be good for Mr cameron to, at last, clearly delineate his party from Labour.
Whoops, another low flying cochon appears.

2trueblue

Richard, just because someone from your Liebore says something does not give it credibility. Nor does your contribution give it traction.

Minnie Ovens

EyeSee
March 9th, 2010 11:04am

A bit of a rant but it sums up ecerything so well.

Vulture, some would say that Churchill ballsed it up as badly as the Labour party(and knew it) so 1955 may not be all wrong.
Some would say, of course, but not I.
Eden was as big a disaster as he had been during the twenties and thirties so maybe 1956.

William Blakes Ghost

I think we need some context here. These are seats where the equivalent figures at the 2005 GE were Lab 43 Con 30 or something like. There has been something over a 6.5% swing from Lab to Con in these seats. In electorla terms that is a pretty significant swing.

Now the seats covered are not the tightest marginals but those that are from 50-150 in Labours most vulnerable (to the Conservatives) list. At the top end of the list are seats like Dulwich (Tessa Jowell), Blackburn (Jack Straw), Southampton Itchen (John Denham), Bassetlaw (John Mann) and Slough (Fiona McTaggart). For these seats to fall the Conservatives would be making along the lines of 160 gains or more (which would be the largest number of gains other than 1931 or 1945).

This would be at the very top end of Conservative hopes and IMO it is of little surprise that coming into the election we are not contemplating Labour losing these seats. They are safe and in some case supposedly heartland seats. Now it may have been that for short periods post Labour election defeats in 2008 and 2009 that such seats were under threat but it would be miraculous if they remained so.

As result of including such seats it is likely that this has minimised the swing in seats lower down the list. So it may well be that that 97 seats is a little on the low side.

Then of course we have no idea how the Conservatives will fare against the Libdems (although a recent Angus Reid poll suggested a 5.5% swing from LD to Con) in those marginals which would put the Conservatives just across the winning line.

It is true that the Conservatives have descended from the heady positions of the last two elections periods but they still have their nose in front when Labour, their flunky media supporters, the poll narratives and everything else is being thrown at them. Still they are ahead (despite Yougov's voodoo polls) and by a good distance if you take notice of the gold standard pollster(ICM). It is not that the Conservative vote has slumped that should be the point of discussion, it is that the Conservative vote has remained so resilient.

If I were the Conservatives, considering this position and that the formal election campaign is coming ever closer I would be looking at the next few weeks knowing that the Labour media supported smear attacks of the last few weeks will lessen and that the Conservatives will finally have a fairer playing field to play on. With the Libdems similarly benefitting and perhaps biting into the core Labour vote in places I still believe that a Conservative majority is favourite with Labour suffering far more losses than people currently believe. We might even see the likes of Straw or Jowell or Denham bite the dust and oh wouldn't it be fun if the dishonourable member for Normanton fell as well.....

Verity

You cannot blame the British voter when, in the face of the sheer malevolence of the Gramsci Projekt, Tory high command put up a wannabee Blair for Leader. It beggars belief. With almost anyone else in place, this election would have been a cake walk for the Tories. A landslide victory.

Yet, it won't be. That Tory high command put in an over-ambitious and, frankly, not terribly bright David Cameron to lead the fight against the most malevolent junta to ever run Britain is suspicious in itself.

Surely to God no one in the Tory high command thought that this self-regarding piece of mental thistledown had the wherewithal to win over the cunning of Labour? Or even had the will to fight the lies and malice pouring out from Labour?

I have my suspicions.

Just as, when, over the previous 12 years, people referred to Labour's determined undermining of our national underpinnings as "hopeless numpties", I was always astonished that they were unable to see that it was malice and spite driving the programme - not incompetence.

I think there is a programme behind the Tory incompetence.

I think it's deliberate, but I don't know why.

Marcher Baron

If you do the maths, Stephen, I think you will find that the IHT threshold will, in fact, help many people who are not millionnaires. You should talk to Boudicca about that one. Still, you are living proof that if Labour tells a lie often enough it will be repeated as truth.

Marcher Baron

It is becoming increasingly obvious that maybe this is a good election to hand power back to El Gordo in order to let him sort out the mess he's made. Then the Conservatives can ditch Dave and get a proper Conservative as leader who will start offering some proper Conservative policies. After all the pain, Labour will be annihilated and the Tories, hopefully, reborn. Of course, the country could be wrecked beyond repair by then, sadly. If I were 20 years younger, I would have emigrated by now.