Are we heading for a repeat of 1992?

john miller

Better Thorpe... No, I can't do it. Self-discipline at it's very best!

Fergus Pickering

Nope, Rod, we are not. Labour lacks the Tories most potent secret weapon in 1992. I refer of course to the Welsh windbag, the loud-mouthed scrounger, Kinnock the pillock. Yeah! Right!

patricia

By now Mr Liddle, I was hoping for a little blog on Dispatches, its dissing of Nelson the Younger, CIF Watch, and last but not least the Con Servative Party

Vulture

Your comments would be correct, Rodders, if this were merely a two-horse race. But you have to factor in several other nags - notably BNP advances in Liebour heartlands in the north, Midlands and Essex/N.London which may siphon away enough Liebour votes to let Tories or Lib Dems in. There's also likely to be SNP encroachment of Liebour seats in Scotland, & Plaid Cymru advances in Wales.
Even the Greens may get their first MP & snatch Brighton Pavilion from Liebour. It all adds up to a haemorrhage of Liebour seats. And I haven't even mentioned the fact that Liebour is bankrupt and the Tory war chest bursting with Milord Ashcroft's dosh.

Of course this cuts both ways : Right-wing Tories like me would rather chew dog's turds than vote for Dave, and many will vote UKIP, but most of these will be in safe Tory seats. Many disillusioned Liebourites will shift to the GLib Dems rather than the hated Tories - but the main thrust of the little parties' rise will surely be to Liebour's overall disadvantage.

History is also against Bruin. No Govt party has ever come back from a consistant 14% average poll deficit this close to an election and won. Liebour would need to gain 1 % regularly each fortnight to close the gap now . That ain't gonna happen. The nation certainly doesn't love Lord Snooty and his pals (who does?) but it absolutely HATES Liebour. Its collective mind is made up. Liebour are very burned toast. Only ballot-rigging on an enormous and uncharacteristically efficient scale will save them.

Bert

This is ridiculous. Major won his mandate because he was seen as a decent, honourable man.

If Brown actually faces the electorate, which I doubt, the result will damn him.

A J Scott

After 34 years from 1958, (plus previously 2 years national Service overseas)serving the UK Crown and Govt overseas, I retired to France, unable to stomach the prospect of living in the country the UK had meanwhile become. And nothing in the present climate of political behaviour in the UK changes my opinion. The Labour Party has succeeded in dividing the country into blocs of superior apparatchik-media puffers/envious/idle/illiterate serfs. The recent revelations about the Labour Party's long and deep and financial relations with the Communist Party of the USSR explain a great deal. I hope the surviving traitors - Kinnocks,Healey, etc burn with shame. Sadly for us, they have feathered their ermine-lined nests and no doubt provided for their offspring in true Soviet fashion - this time in the EU featherbed.
One result is, of course, that they have truly engendered "class hatred and class warfare" - because decent working people have come to see what they really are, and hate it. Really, the biter well bitten.

Wilhelm

In the Glasgow election , it was the lowest turnout in history 30%. 70% didnt vote. So that means 15% voted liebour and 85% did not vote liebour in one of the safest liebour seats in Britain.

The media, press and the all the liebour hacks squeeled '' It was a dramatic resounding triumph for liebour.''

Huh ? Delusional.

The former REAL Mary Seacole (Ms.)

Rod, can you explain in what way a reversal of Liberal and Liberal-Democrat gains would be 'cruel'? I would have thought that this would be a cause for celebration.

And, Mr. Pickering, the Tories most certainly do have a potent secret (actually, not so secret - more bleedin' obvious) weapon. It's called 'Gordon Brown'.

toby forward

Rod, before the Sun hangs you out to dry could I point out that you have spelled Mrs Janes' name incorrectly? See how easy it is?

David

Yes, yes, I accept that Gordon may be a dourer, more Scottish, more buttoned-up and less personable version of John Major, but draw the line at comparing Cameron with Kinnock.

Cameron looks and sounds human, like an extra from Love Actually, whereas the British people would never have elected a man like Kinnock in '92.

They hated his ginger Welshness, his pomposity, the way he never shut up, and his jaw-dropping conversion from hard man of the valleys to all-purpose, metropolitan, New Labourite.

So I'm sorry Rod, the result is not going to be the same.

People will think better a braying Tory toff than another four years of Gordon's unique brand of leadership.

Sir Graphus

I used to oft comment, perhaps harshly, that Cameron is not the heir to Blair, but to Kinnock. He’s certainly improved to be at least a Heath in the last year. He certainly isn’t home and dry.

There is the inbuilt bias of smaller city and Scottish constituencies which elect Labour MPs compared to the suburban and rural constituencies that vote Tory. This means, I've read, that a vote of 36% each gives Labour a healthy Commons majority of 30 or so. If Labour change leader, his (not her) honeymoon should get them in touching distance of that.

If it’s close, the West Lothian question will become a crisis, as Labour will need the daily help of Scottish MPs to push through policies affecting England only. How long can that last?

TomTom

Northern England did not get much out of Brown's Boom and will certainly get a lot of impact from Brown's Bust. Labour's vote will collapse through Abstention or BNP gains....it is hardly likely the Conservatives or LibDEms will register much in urban areas because they are so foreign to the experiences of those living in dead Northern cities

rod liddle

Oh lawks, thank you Toby. And yes, of course it is easy.

Bert

David
"They hated his ginger Welshness, his pomposity, the way he never shut up, and his jaw-dropping conversion from hard man of the valleys to all-purpose, metropolitan, New Labourite"

you forgot to mention his unappealing, power hungry wife

Baron Pipin II

The greatest actor turned part-time politician will get the job. It’ll be a two finger insult by the Brussels commissariat to all those in the UK who don’t like the EU in its current shape. And more. They’ll get away with it.

Spot on, and you could have gone further. If a week’s a long time in politics, six months borders on eternity; many things can and will happen: we may be out, or getting out from the Afghan hole, the Middle-East may come to a boil, the economic recovery may reverse noticeably. If any of this were to happen it will play into the hands of the devil you know. My bet - a hung Parliament at best, or nuLabour back with a majority in single figures.

hiro

"The truth is that for Labour supporters in the north, the party is probably more attractive now than it was when led by Tony Blair." I'd never really thought of it like that before, Rod. From what I know of Brown, he is far more left-wing than Blair-cunt. I don't care what people say, with the economy like it is, a tory government could be lethal. No one spending should equal government spending, not weird puritanical ideas of stripping the state bare. At the end of the day, there's something quite useless, quite economically dodgy, quite out of touch about the Tories. They might be able to organise a piss up at Chelsea posh dance, but they wouldn't be able to organise one in a brewery, if you catch my drift. Dark days, dark days ahead, if you ask me.

Cookie

Rod - I can't recall Labour ever benig so widely disliked in the north, nor it being so acceptable to be Conservative. The Tories are ahead of Labour in the polls across the north; the Tories outpolled Labour across Greater Manchester at the last local elections - this has never happened in my lifetime. Of course the Tories aren't going to win Middlesbrough (although they might well win Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland). But Labour didn't win Guildford in 1997, the Lib Dems did.
Of course there are plenty of localities where Labour are still ahead, and of course these will be more numerous in the north than the south - but they are getting fewer and fewer.

That's not to say that everyone loves Cammo, of course, far from it. But he's significantly less despised - even across the north - than Gordon.

GIN

Actually Rod if you look at the splits in recent opinion polling it shows that Labour is doing almost as badly in the Midlands as they are in the south. The picture in the Midlands is almost catastrophically bad for Labour.

In Wales and the south-west the Conservatives has impressive leads. In Northern England the picture is Labour and Tories almost level pegging, which is an enormous turn-around on 2005.

Only in Scotland is Labour still doing reasonably well and the Conservatives struggling to make much of an advance.

Sunil Prasannan

Rod, please could you tell us where you got the figure of 10% for the average Tory lead?

Here is the UK Polling Report website:
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/

Keith Jenner

Just a small point,

You say "in the weeks leading up to the poll, the average of a bunch of opinion polls showed the Tory lead nationwide down to 10 per cent"

The actual poll leads in the three weeks before the by election were: 14, 10, 14, 14, 13, 17, 13, 13

One of us obviously doesn't understand what an average is. I don't think it's me.

Nick

One big flaw with your argument Rod, a bunch of opinion polls didn't show the lead down to 10%. One did, on the 8 November. All the rest in the month before showed Conservative leads of between 13 and 17 %. In addition the share of the vote Labour achieved compared to the last time the constituency was fully competed (ie before Martin became speaker) was down a fair amount. In other words Labour is going backwards even in its welfare dependent heartlands.

Harry Seacole Flashman

Glasgow North East is an Irish theme park where they'd vote Labour even if their candidate were a monkey as all they'd need to do to secure victory would be to stick a Celtic scarf on him and hope he didn't poop on television.
The SNP realised this and tried to out-Roman Catholic Labour by nominating a member of Opus Dei but it back fired when it turned out a monkey would've been more eloquent than this dolt who spent his time on the hustings insulting the locals and tugging at his selice.
Scotland is damned to Old Stalinist Labour I'm afraid. The one good thing about this is that at least they'll keep the Union and the SNP can go back to eating shortbread and insulting the English in rooms above pubs.

workie ticket

Rod, I think yourself and Liebour might be in for a shock in a few northern places. Already in one or two previously rock solid constituencies lib dems have got councillors voted in in ex-mining constituencies that would have been unthinkable 15 years ago. The Liebour majority is gradually eroding, and while hell will freeze before a Tory MP is elected, Liebour's majorities will tumble to marginal levels. The Glasgae success is a local thing and I suspect Salmond's exposure over the collapse his Celtic Axis of Prosperity (or whatever the hell he was calling it) prevented the SNPies from taking it.

I know plenty of Liebour supporters of a type who are electorally insignificant but crucial to maintaining a supportive/proselytising presence socially and in the workplace. Almost to a man and woman the words you hear are 'betrayal' and 'never again'. Of course, plenty could happen between now and May, and between the pair of them Cameron and Osbourne couldnt pull a pint, but there are some pretty ugly fundamentals established as far as Brown &co are concerned.

Richard Manns

Dear Mr Liddle,

I don't mind you suggesting that 1992 might happen again (who knows?), but you'd better get your facts right.

The average of the polls was nowhere near 10 points' lead. Recent leads are as follows:
13, 14, 14, 10, 14, 14, 13, 17, 13, 13, 17, 17, 17.

Now, what "bunch" of polls showed an average of 10?

Peter Harrison

Rod - you say, "in the weeks leading up to the poll, the average of a bunch of opinion polls showed the Tory lead nationwide down to 10 per cent" Where is your evidence for this? Since the beginning of September there have been only 6 polls showing a Conservative lead of 10% or less compared with 41 showing leads of 11% or more. Since this time last month there has been only one poll showing a lead of 10%, none showing a lead below that and 11 showing leads of 11% and above (of which the lowest was actually a 13% lead). The only way this is an average of 10% is if you take the most recent Populus polls and disregard the rest.

To suggest the Conservatives will not take much north of the Trent is also at odds with the available evidence. It is true that Labour have many safe seats in the north and the Conservatives probably won't win much in the industrial cities, but they will win a substantial number of seats elsewhere.

As for Middlesborough being the equivalent of Guildford in 1997, words fail me. Labour took nearly 60% of the vote in 2005, making it their 69th safest seat. Perhaps you meant Middlesborough South and Cleveland East? That is a marginal which the Conservatives may well win. If they do, we are into landslide territory.

You may be right about the Lib Dems but, for the rest of it, you really should check your facts before pontificating.

MikeScotland

Rod you state:- "average of a bunch of opinion polls showed the Tory lead nationwide down to 10 per cent"

However as highlighted today by Mike Smithson on political.betting.com this is factually incorrect. The polls were averaging c13-14% higher for the Tories during the few weeks prior to the GLASGOW NE poll. As your base figure is so badly wrong your predictions must be unreliable.

Baron Pipin II

Wilhelm at 12.34: what does the 15-85 per cent split tell you about the electoral system? People don’t vote because the dreaded FPTP model with its deadly imbedded feature of ‘safe’ seats deprives them of an effective choice. Whatever the number of votes cast for the likes of UKIP, BNP or the Greens, the result of the next nationwide election will boil down to the same – we’ll get lumbered with either nuLabour or the Tories. If it’s the latter, it would be a miracle if after 8-12 years we wouldn’t be where we are now, or where we were in 1997. In the meantime, those voting for the smaller parties will remain deprived of a voice, angry but impotent.

Euphemia Kinnock

Is this observation the result of too much bubbly at the self-congratulatory luvvy-hugging awards that the Spectator held recently?
PS: Are you wearing a tank top in that pic?

JustAnObserver

Mr. Liddle,

The polls since the start of October have shown an average Tory lead of way above 10%. Fact.

Furthermore, Cameron is more likeable than Kinnock, is unlikely to make a Sheffield Rally-style blunder (benefit of knowing your history, dear chap), and Brown is far less liked than Major in 1992 (enjoying success in first Gulf War and facing down Tory rebels over Maastricht). Indeed, good old JM provided a boost in the polls for the Tories that kept their head above water til April 9th of that year when they finished seven points ahead of Labour.

The polls from Midlands also demonstrate stunning Conservative advances, the South West firmed up nicely at the locals and Euros for the Tories against the Liberals, Wales delivered a blue pole position for the first time in decades and even in the North the Tories and Labour are level pegging. The South East is also so anti-Labour it's untrue and in a straight forward dog fight between three highly visible candidates in the London Mayoralty, Boris pulled ahead and the LibDems were squeezed horribly.

Granted, we well could see a majority of 21. But it will be for the opposition Tories if anything, not the governing Labour Party.

A 1992 it will not be.
For Labour to have a net loss of less than 30-odds seats at the next election would require Labour MPs to ditch Brown immediately and replace him with the Archangel Gabriel.

Mind you, having said that, even John Major said Gabriel couldn't win the '97 election for the Tories. It very well might be the same for Labour in 2010.

Richard Manns

Oh, and another thing...

Wasn't this the same Rod Liddle predicted that the Greens would win in the Norwich by-election?

Prodicus

Sigh. No. Do keep up, old boy. And you might want to bookmark politicalbetting dotcom.

paulg

The tories will strike into labour hearlands and turn the country blue, to betray your own is the ultimate slap in the face for labour voters. These metropolitan marxists have betrayed every one and, they will surely suffer the fate of traitors.
Women will fight longest and hardest in their cause and I see polly toynbee today spell out what she want for terms, Sure Start. Mr cameron must guarantee this because once she surrenders, they are surely gone.

Baron Pipin II

Richard Manns @ 4.52:

how I wish I could share your faith in the current polling results. In normal times, yes, you could be right more or less. These ain’t normal times, bigger things are at play than a penny on the income tax here or there. The earth has shifted. Neither the Tories nor nuLabour are likely to be radical for fear that the other will hit them with it. As the election nears the two parties policies are more likely to converge to the point of blending, they’ll pinch from each other, re-package and posture. This will put many people off, only the hardcore will bother, and in particular the nuLabout hardcore that lives on transfer payments, or administer them. It would be stupid for any of those voters to go against nuLabour, it’s their livelihood they are voting for. The leakage from either of the two big players to the small fry won’t be enough to make a serious dent in the result. It’s FPTP system, remember. LibDem will get clobbered aiding the Tory vote. At best, the likes of UKIP, BNP, Greens will engender a hung Parliament, at worst nuLabour will rejoice, and the caring Scot will earn his place under the sun.

Lupus Lungfish

Lets face it, none of them are up to much. Its a straight choice between a bunch of discredited left wing Scottish lawyers or a party whose two main players have never actually had a job. They've all been on the take despite either being already loaded or earning plenty from the public purse. Quite frankly with the possible exception of Frank Field and a few others I'm really struggling with the idea of voting for either of them.

Alf Tupper

Bloody hell I hope so.

I was paying all my bills and stashing a grand a month in the bank back then. (Come to think of it I probably did the same this past year, only it doesn't appear in my account this time round)

Arf arf.

Sir Toby Belch

Alf Tupper,

In 2009, a man that can afford the price of a pint and a fish supper is a wealthy man indeed!

EyeSee

You are right to observe that many would-be Tory voters just see the current Conservative Party as an extension of the corrupt New Labour party, seeking power merely for it's own sake. However, there is almost no choice. For those who think, the Labour party have to go. Having arrived with the sole intention of institutionalising corruption to enrich themselves, dragging everyone else down with them, Tony Blair's New Labour have been found out. Brown's solution is to return to the fabulous idea of letting the Unions run the country with his party as their proxy. And two groups will vote for that stupid idea; those for whom thinking is out of the question and they have always voted Labour, cos the Tories are all toffs and idiots, and the client class. The latter of course a rotten borough corruption introduced by the amoral Blair and Brown (and playground intellectual Mandelson). These people are like a Fifth Column, undermining good government and the possibility of democracy. And on top of it all, with America having lost its way the world really could do with a Great Britain right now. (This doesn't require us to keep up our subscription to the communists of Brussels by the way. Quite the opposite)

ROBERT TAGGART

EVEN AS AN ATHEIST THIS PROSPECT DRIVES ONE TO SAY "GOD FORBID" !
OH, JUST TO BE PEDANTIC... FOR THE RECORD... '97, GUILDFORD, TORY WIN (JUST). '01, GUILDFORD, LIBDEM WIN (JUST). '05, GUILDFORD, TORY WIN (JUST). '10, GUILDFORD, ? (JUST WAIT AND SEE) !

P Beasley

Spot on , and lets hope you are correct.This country cant afford to go backwards to the bad old days of being run by the awfull chinless , no backbone,never had a job of work freak, freeloaders from Eton. God, Cam-moron would'nt have a job if it had'nt have been for the Palace and his god father phoning up Tory central office and demanding those Brown nose Tory's give him a job. Great, the future with the Baron of freeload, George (little boy ) Osbourne and his Royal supported Tax dodger mate Dave Cameron running the country for the high brow top 3000, five million unemployed here we come.

Richard

A turnout of just 30% in the next General Election would be a great result for Democracy.

It would be low enough to discredit all the major parties but not low enough to cause a political collapse.

Immigration, Europe, the current economic crisis and education are the big issues that must be dealt with in one way or another.

Richard Manns

@ Baron Pipin II

I said nothing about what a poll lead would translate into on polling day, only that the little fact that Mr Liddle stated was utter horsesh*t.

However, I'll stand by a statement that there'll be a "tactical unwind", and that uniform swing models will heavily underestimate the numbers of Tory MPs in 2010. Care to wager?

Ruth

With Europe making all our laws now, there is almost no point in voting. If only we could vote THEM out!

David Ossitt

P Beasley

“Spot on and lets hope you are correct”

What parallel universe are you on?

This is Rod Liddle’s blog at the Spectator, it is not The Marxist Weekly.

Go and find your fellow nutters.

rod seacole liddle

I sort of agree with Mr Beasley, though.

Roger Dodger

I truly hope we are going to have a 1992. Then when this place gets properly properly screwed it will still be under Labours watch. Hopefully then a real leader might take over the Tories.

They elected Cameron when the Tories were still bewildered by their inability to make a tent against that charlatan and all round shit Tony Blair. The day after Lehmans crashed the PR hound looked like yesterday's man.

Him getting the reins of power with a tiny majority just as Labours chronic mismanagement and treasonous scorched earth policy starts to hit home will cause this bunch of scummers to get re-elected.

Horror of horrors.

Question, how does a good middle-class boy who loves his country and it's tolerance descend into insurrection and terrorism? Keep watching.

By the way Rod. I think most Tories wish they had lost in 1992. Labour would of enjoyed the ERM mess and the Tories would have been straight back in in '97. Kinnock being re-elected? Nah.

That would have saved us from 12 years of this horror show.