Categories
Options
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Sunday Polling Roundup
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Sunday Polling Roundup
Two weeks ago Labour’s lead slipped by three percentage points compared with the two weeks before, possibly the result of negative media coverage of Miliband’s performance and a lack of energy at the top of the party.
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
"We're moving through the UN to try to prompt better action from them."
And then: "The notion that the US can somehow solve what is a sectarian, complex problem inside of Syria sometimes is overstated."
Pleading
He calls the attack "troublesome" and says it touches on core national interests of the US, but quickly adds: "Sometimes what we've seen is that folks will call for immediate action, jumping into stuff, that does not turn out well, gets us mired in very difficult situations, can result in us being drawn into very expensive, difficult, costly interventions that actually breed more resentment in the region."
Assad is secure
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23812944
Little Ed will be praying for something to take the focus off him and onto Cammie or Clegg.
LOL
Just a shame we all know the Blairites will never have the bottle to topple him, particularly while he's ahead in the polls. But at least it gives Hodges something to do for a while.
The figure of 24% approval was Foot's worst, IIRC...
We should have known something was up when IOS tellingly didnt declare that 2013 would be great for Ed. I await his pronouncement on 2014 with interest.
That would suggest then that the overt US action will indeed be very limited but it always would be.
The least contented target is the chemical stocks This can be done by stand off weapons but is tricky. The most dangerous stocks tend to be held as separate components so a strike would hopefully incinerate those with minimal consequences. If they are ready to go weapons then difficulties increase in case of toxic release. US assessments on this may be indicated by the time of day of any attack.
They could also add with less potential consequence:
-some military infrastructure designed to make Assad lose a finger rather than an arm or leg off his military capability. For example, taking out the ability to operate from the major airbases (some of those locations are also adjacent to the chemical weapons key stores). No aircraft hit but airfields get cratered. All fixable but extremely painful short term and no ultimate military balance change, perhaps.
-Air defences as warning that we can come right through next time, even though they can pretty much do that now. This has no change on the military balance
-Some of the decision making and operational apparatus believed to have launched the chemical weapons attack, hit the physical units involved, take out some heavy rockets held by such units, take out a fuel depot and so on. Painful but not fatal.
What the world has missed is the indirect methods which the US has switched back on recently. e.g training & assisting chosen rebels (see my recent post on goings on in Jordan). There is the 'no fly zone without any planes' using the AA missiles in Jordan and Turkey to shoot down Syrian aircraft in Syrian airspace if they go into that zone(or zones one in the South and one in the North). The Syrian airforce has limited ability to counter it.
In addition the US has been somewhat effective in lobbying other 3rd parties not to get too involved, Qatar in particular got shin kicked, the Saudis have come under pressure too, though there are examples of cooperative US/Saudi actions. Bringing those guys fully into the tent is again a one step removed move. The Turkish too represent a player who have hesitated many many times, partially due to lack of US support. The Turks may have to have a role given some of the the options on the table.
Everything carries risk and Obama doesn't do risk, the guy is a political wonk but within an extreme caution approach these are all viable.
The NeoCon way of bombing countries into peace doesn't exactly have a great track record of success.
You also said quite clearly that we should stay out of this as much as possible, and rightly so, particularly in light of this this ominous new development.
For the un-initiated this faction is one of most effective Islamist fighting units in the insurgency.
Labour under Michael Foot enjoyed 10-13% leads in 1980-81.
They lost by 15% points in 1983...
Yes but leading by 6% / 7% is better than trailing by 6% / 7% at this stage.
Had I not already wagered the maximum amount they would allow me, I'd be rushing off to Paddy Power on this news to top up on the number of lost LibDem deposits at the next General Election being fewer than 50.
The words "rope", "money" and "old" spring to mind!
What can I say, I think there are clear advantages to the former over the latter.
"If it is a Wisdom index poll, then the changes from their last Wisdom Index Poll from a fortnight ago is the Tories down one, with Labour, the Lib Dems and UKIP all unchanged."
MickPork - I agree, on Syria at least Obama can waffle to his hearts content!
Mr Jones - Thanks and with that I bid you good night!
There have been boundary changes in Victoria and South Australia, with every seat apart from one in each state affected: Ballarat is unchanged in VIC and Grey in SA. This means 46 seats have been altered, 36 in VIC and 10 in SA.
In only 9 seats has the margin (which is the same as swing required by the second-placed party with 2PP) changed by 1% or more:
1. Casey (VIC): from Coalition 4.2% to 1.9%.
2. Deakin (VIC): from Labor 2.4% to 0.6%.
3. Gorton (VIC): from Labor 22.2% to 23.6%.
4. Higgins (VIC): from Coalition 6.8% to 5.4%.
5. McEwen (VIC): from Labor 5.3% to 9.2%.
6. Port Adelaide (SA): from Labor 20.0% to 21.0%.
7. Scullin (VIC): from Labor 22.3% to 20.6%.
8. Wakefield (SA): from Labor 12.0% to 10.5%.
9. Wannon (VIC): from Coalition 7.3% to 5.7%
No seats notionally changed hands as a result of the boundary review.
http://www.aec.gov.au/About_AEC/Publications/Fact_Sheets/national-seat-status.htm
Unsurprisingly "None of them" is the 4/6 favourite, but of the three individuals, the odds are currently:
Clegg ............. 9/4
Cameron ....... 6/1
Miliband ........10/1 (WOW!!)
As part of the question for the Wisdom, ICM tell people the 2010 result, ie 37/30/24.
Being told LD got 24 is going to skew upwards what people give for LD.
ie People will think movements from 2010 can't be absolutely massive so people will be reluctant to say under 15 for LD having just been told they got 24 last time.
Neil:
I'm not sure that's where the value is in that market. In 2011 the Lib Dems lost 25 deposits in Scotland and 16 in Wales. That's equivalent to at least 35 lost deposits in those two countries alone. With the Lib Dems concentrating on the small minority of seats they have a chance in there must be a very good chance of more than 50 lost deposits.
Eh, are you sure? Last night in the thread header on this subject, TSE stated:
"Now in 2010, the Liberal Democrats didn’t lose any deposits, whilst the the Conservatives lost just two deposits and Labour lost five deposits."
One or other of you is very, very wrong!
So as long as Labour remain even marginally ahead in the polls, Moribund should be safe, and would have no reason to fall on his sword when the prize remains so tantalizingly within his grasp.
By the time the polls swing decisively back in the Tories' favour, the election will be almost upon us, and too late for Labour to change its leader...
No, TSE is correct that the Lib Dems lost no deposits in 2010 and I am also correct that a year later, after they entered Government and saw their polling slump, they lost a shedload in Scotland and Wales. No contradiction there.
Aren't you comparing 2010 with 2011?
The Tories cannot win on policy so they launch these lies and distortions against the Labour Leader. Those Labour has beens, like the militant Blairite Wilson, shows that the red Tories in the Labour Party don't want Ed Miliband to live. Despite all these smears I expect Labour to win the next election. For one thing, the electoral system is heavily biased against the Tories. Even if the Tories finish 3% in front of Labour they will still get less seats than Labour. To win outright the Tories will have to poll at least 43-44% of the national vote. With UKIP still polling around 12-16% there is no way the Tories can achieve that percentage level. my bet is that Labour will win for one simple reason. They are not the Tory party. Labour has to convince the traditional Labour voter that it is no longer the Tory Party mark two.
Here's the website. It's called: "HOW MUCH WOULD LABOUR COST YOU?"
http://www.costoflabour.com/
It's going to be an absolutely classic rerun of 1992. Miliband = Kinnock. Labour = More spending, more waste, more borrowing and that will mean HIGHER TAXES.
It's all very well looking at opinion polls today. In 1992 that message led to a 4% swing in the last FOUR DAYS - ie from level to an 8% Con lead in the ballot box.
If the public get the message that Miliband is weak and isn't up to the job (which it appears is getting through very nicely) then that is the absolutely perfect foundation for the above election message.
The appropriate legal process in such circumstances is known as Quo Warranto....
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23825465
You can choose to ignore the information or take it into account. Personally I think election results from a period when the Lib Dems were polling poorly are more relevant than election results when the Lib Dems polled 24% because I think the 2015 result will be more in line with the former than the latter.
Don't use 1992 polling as a precedent for anything. All the polls were simply rubbish and the disaster led to big changes.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2013/08/barack_obama_s_logic_for_bombing_syria_the_united_states_will_seek_to_put.html
There's no need to be particularly alarmed about agreeing with a Rabbi.
This is from the report.
"The poll of 2,013 people online between August 21 and August 23 gave Labour 32 per cent of the vote, the Tories 30 and the Liberal Democrats 16. The UK Independence Party was on 12 per cent."
The phrase "gave Labour 32 per cent of the vote, the Tories 30 and the Liberal Democrats 16" is the giveaway.
http://goo.gl/1sFZDj
Compared with last Wisdom Index CON down 1.
Pretty sensational if it happens, and would mean that getting rid of Gillard was a waste of time.
http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/second-poll-shows-rudd-facing-battle-for-own-seat-20130824-2si7r.html
John Howard also lost his seat in going down to defeat (as tipped here by a poster based near constituency).
I dont think getting rid of Gillard was a waste of time. Rudd appears to be on course to do much better than anyone was expecting her to do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_of_Griffith
Griffith is target number 36 out of 73 for the Coalition:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/lv?key=0At91c3wX1Wu5dERmb2NsbmpUNmlyOHplOTNOTE9iZVE
ii) The Australian political system is not as ossified as in the UK? (marginality of seat is irrelevant to ability to rise on merit)
Rudd's seat is a marginal by any reasonable definition. It has changed hands no fewer than 8 times since 1945...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_of_Lalor
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/west/former-prime-minister-julia-gillard-says-goodbye-to-lalor-electorate/story-fngnvmj7-1226702040491
He had actually gained it from Labour in 1950 by just 133 votes, and in 1966 he sat on a majority of just 2,000 odds votes (4%)...
If we assume they go from 23% to 15%, then that means the LDs have lost 35% of their vote. Let's be conservative... lets's look at all the seats where the LDs had less than 8.5% share in 2010 - i.e. assuming an approximately 40% drop in vote share (equivalent to 13-14% nationwide), then you get a mere 9 lost deposits.
This may - of course - be completely wrong. But it seems the value is on the 4/1 on fewer that 50.
Con polling leads would probably mean the end of the excellent 6.2 you can currently get on Yes over at Betfair. Luckily wise punters managed to get a half decent sum on with Hills at the old 5/1 price.
If there are consistent and significant Con leads come late summer next year then IndyRef turnout will be through the roof. Ironically, Darling's outstanding work undermining Ed Miliband internally is likely to have a bigger effect on the IndyRef outcome than his official job as leader of the Bitter Together campaign.
http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/conlist_scot.html
If that is anywhere near accurate, and I suspect it is, then they only need to lose 7 in the whole of England and Wales. And they are likely to lose at least 7 in Wales alone.
With YouGov it seems that Labour has been getting slightly bigger leads over the last fortnight than it had been in the one previous to that. But. I could be wrong as I have not been following things that closely.
Finally, given the remarkable stability in Labour's vote share and the relentlessly negative coverage of EdM there has been over the summer I am beginning to wonder whether Ed is Crap is actually built into the Labour share to quite a large extent. And if that is the case, the Tory courting of the UKIP vote makes much more sense: they've - probably quite correctly - realised they have no chance at all of making any real headeay with the 35% to 40% of the population that can be described as centre-left and which has, in most parts of England (except, perhaps, in Tory/LD marginals) swung pretty irrevocably behind Labour.
What we have in England, therefore, are two parallel political conversations taking place: Tories to base and UKIPers; Labour to base and 2010 LDs. And never the twain shall meet. What it may well all boil down to is turnout. And here Tory toxicity may favour Labour. If the opiion polls are correct the pool of anti-Tory voters out there remains larger than the pool of anti-Labour ones.
PB Coalitionistas now need to ensure a determined effort is made to :
"Save Ed For The Nation Until 2015"
Looking forward to the next election in 2015, who would you trust more to run the British economy after 2015?
Cameron/Cons: 35 (+1)
Miliband/Lab: 28 (-2)
http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/9ytf2ekflo/YG-Archive-Pol-Sunday-Times-results-230813.pdf
Kindly do not shout at us in bold on a Sunday morning .... and especially at those of us who enjoyed a particularly wonderful but mighty long Saturday luncheon !!
Would they select a better leader? Recent history may make you question that. The last two selections lacked perfection.
In fact my theory is that poor Ed is being used as a bit of a lightning pole. The difference between the wisdom index and the current polling is quite marked as is the increasing lead on economic competence. So many people think I would like to vote Labour but I have reservations and blame the current leadership.
The lack of policies or even clear principles is also a mistake. It allows his enemies (most of whom are in the Labour party) to define him instead of him defining himself.
In 2003 IDS had 30% approval as Tory leader. icmresearch.com/pdfs/2003_octo… Ed Mili now has 20% approval as Labour leader. cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_upload…
"Would they select a better leader? Recent history may make you question that. The last two selections lacked perfection."
I agree that the last two selections lacked perfection.
I might even go further and say they were some way short of being the cats pyjamas.
The danger of being an incoherent and disunited party that doesnt know what it believes in or is planning to do is that they will gain power then try to figure out what to do at that point. It could be the beginning of a shambolic government. A repeat of the 1992 Major govt in the mirror.
I still like Ed M though. The rest of the front bench are to blame for being witless, disunited and largely talentless. EdM is leading a disunited rabble.
1. The party conferences. Two of them left (plus Labour's spring one). Generally they give a short-term boost to each party in turn which then evaporates. Occasionally one goes horribly wrong.
2. Edited
3. The economy. If it got much better and people started to feel it personally, or it slumped back and people felt the strategy had flopped, it could affect VI. So far people think it's got a bit better but it's not affected VI. Today's YouGov findings confirm the current view that things are a bit better but the Government hasn't especially helped.
4. The Scottish referendum. A No vote (which seems the more probable outcome) will probably benefit Cameron in England - presiding over the non-dissolution - and Labour in Scotland - as the SNP argue over what to do next.
5. The Euros. UKIP have high expectations to meet. If they do, it should help 2015 publicity, if they don't it will seriously damage coverage thereafter.
6. Labour's union link. The spring conference is likely to be organised to succeed, with UNITE onside. It could unravel, or it could give Ed a boost.
7. The election campaign. Occasionally this makes a big difference, but usually the frenetic efforts largely cancel out.
8. Black swans. By definition we have no idea. They aren't as frequent in terms of what affects VI as one might think, though.
And that's about it, isn't it? The Labour lead of 6-7% is tight enough to make these events/issues potential game-changers, but Cameron probably needs a Tory lead of 3+ to have a reasonable chance of staying on. It should be fairly clear by next autumn, since 1,2,4,5,and 6 will all be out of the way.
Burnham..no way
Balls..He is a cracked bell.
Cooper..ditto.
The eagles..will never land.
Twigg..useless.
Reeves..too robotic..
Tims avatar .. he spoke the truth.
Abbott ... purleese.
These are the more prominent members of the Shadow Cabinet...
Ed is safe
This was an issue for his first year as leader - not his third/fourth. Even Blair would have trouble with this one, and Ed is no Tony.
9. Time. Pollsters ask their respondents how would they vote if there were a general election tomorrow. That's a hypothetical question today. When it's non-hypothetical, some people may well answer it differently based on priorities that seem more important then.
I'd agree, however, that the position should be fairly clear by next Autumn.
Mr Burnham appears to be getting tacit support in all sorts of places - that he's Dr Death in the PR Dept is clearly immaterial.
Intriguing setup at Spa. Rain possible, Lotus and Ferrari looked faster in dry conditions but start 7-10th, McLaren's improved but Button will have a hard time hanging onto 6th and the Williams/Toro Rossos start at the back.
Is the stratagey really to try to 'frighten' the semi-politically-interested UKIP/tory waverers into vote tory? That feels like a tough and unattractive approach.
FWIW, I think exactly the opposite attitude might work better. DC should go out of his way to pay respect to the views of all his political opponents, especially UKIP. Being genuinely generous and 'inclusive' would be much more effective? And wouldn't lose him the centre ground?
But he is nowhere near this approach. That, not UKIP, is what will cost him the next GE?
A lot of the polling reflects the public's justified general distrust of politicians at present.
I think it's important to see why a leader is unpopular before deciding it's terminal.
Michael Foot walked with a limp. He wanted to do away with our nuclear deterrent and was considered a crypto-communist. The public weren't ready for him.
IDS was so bumbling and inarticulate the public thought him a bufoon. I think he still could have won if his party wasn't so unpopular though he could do nothing about appearing dithering and stupid
Brown was seen as a Chancellor not a PM. Super-inarticulate and geekish but could and would have won easily if he hadn't shown himself to be so useless when in office.
Ed is quite simply unproven. Apart from personal prejudices there is no reason for his ratings to be so low. In my opinion with some good advice they could easily rise as quickly as they fell
It must seriously P** off the ordinary members, the ones who feel passionately about the party, all a little Soviet for some of them.
"As you must have noticed, selling out means shutting up. An occasionally shrill but always pertinent voice has vanished from "our national conversation". As the broken manifesto promises remind us, whenever New Labour or the old Conservatives went along with the security establishment and proposed an attack on basic freedoms, the Liberal Democrats would explode.
You did not have to agree with them to be glad they were there. You might have thought that the police needed new powers to combat terrorism. You might have thought that the Liberals were gibbering paranoids. But you still ought to have been grateful that one major party obliged the authorities to justify themselves. The Liberal Democrats could say with pride that they kept the state honest.
And now they don't. Liberal Democrat ministers do little or nothing as scandals break about secret courts, the snoopers' charter and the detention of the partners of journalists under the Terrorism Act. They are so shameless that Nick Clegg's aides boasted to the Financial Times that the deputy prime minister had personally approved plans to force our sister paper, the Guardian, to destroy a hard disk containing Ed Snowden's leaked secrets on state surveillance. I remember a time, not so long ago, when the Lib Dems worried about the secret state. But that was another age..." http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/24/lib-dems-no-longer-radical
The loss of union friends of EdM is probably more important than parliamentary support; which was thin at best.
Of the alternatives, I think Burnham is best, but as I am no longer a member so get no say on the Labour leadership.
If there were a defenestration* then who would the Union barons support? My hunch would be the curiously quiet Ed Balls (or Mrs Balls).
*on my recent rail trip I visited Prague castle and saw the window where the prague noble defenestrated the Hapsburg governers. The governers survived the fall, won the war, and publicly executed the nobles in the old town square. Hapsburg rule continued for centuries.
A lesson to read for all would be defenestration thinking labour nobles!
The next election could be a weird one.
This is why Labour's lead is holding up, and why none of the prompted alternatives shift polling. There is no plausible rival at the moment. Burnham and Byrne are risible when interviewed, and no-one likes Ed Balls. Ed is safe.
Until, that is, Alistair Darling reappears after the Scottish referendum, garlanded with red roses having saved the union. Then Labour's worst Chancellor since Snowden might pose a real threat to Ed.
Burnham is a disaster for Labour..ranks alongside Balls.These deadheads have to go.