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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Cameron’s big 2015 debate gamble: to play or to sabotage
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Cameron’s big 2015 debate gamble: to play or to sabotage
There’s no doubt that David Cameron looks like someone who wants to avoid the kind of leaders’ debates that dominated the 2010 election. He’s on record as saying that he’d prefer a different format, though the lack of engagement in the process to design them suggests no great urgency on his or his party’s part.
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On the same basis, I would want it to be 5-5-5 or 5-2-2, but not 5-3-2.
Perhaps we should have a multiple-option referendum (by AV) to decide from the various combinations of (7,6,5,4,3 or 2)-(5,4,3 or 2)-(5,4,3 or 2)?
One thing that might move us back to a parliamentary election (as opposed to presidential with the usual toe-rags sliding in on the coat-tails) is to return to staggered constituency polling over a period of weeks or months, not done since 1910...
i) The formal existence of the office of Prime Minister.
ii) The convention that the PM sits in the Commons as leader of his party.
iii) The Supremacy of the Commons.
iv) The convention that general elections are held instantaneously in all Commons constituencies, thereby largely subject to UNS.
v) The emasculation of the Commons by the introduction of whipping (first introduced by the Irish Parliamentary Party in the 1890s, but soon adopted by all parties)
Back in the Eighties they were called 'The Beat'. Does anyone know the story of The ENGLISH Beat...?
If you are interested in seeing ‘The English Beat’ – they are touring the UK this month.
http://www.songkick.com/artists/2955121-english-beat
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/10820837/Ed-Milibands-government-will-be-relatively-unsuccessful-donor-warns.html
Sickness allows me to pay my dues as a member of the insomniacs club. Thanks for the piece, David, though I offered similar sentiments yesterday.
There is a perception that Downing Street is unwilling to face Farage in open debate having seen what Farage did to Nick Clegg (or was perceived to have done).
On the other hand, I suspect that while Clegg debated Farage on UKIP's home ground issue (Europe), the wider debates will be much tougher for UKIP as they will be forced to explain policy standpoints which at the moment are virtually unknown. Since it is impossible for a political party to have a coherent policy platform where everybody can support everything, the trick will be to get the debate onto those policy areas where UKIP is not on the side of public opinion.
As Nick Clegg found in 2010 on immigration and Europe in the final debate, arguing an unpopular policy is much harder than arguing a popular one even if you are convinced it's right. There are areas of UKIP policy which Farage, for all his bravura, will find much harder to argue and win over the sceptical voter.
They may well succeed though we will all be able to draw our own conclusions. I think for the reasons outlined in my previous this is a mistake and UKIP will be vulnerable enough in enough policy areas to be taken down in a debate.
Next UK GE - Barking (Lab Maj = 16,555)
Lab 1/100
UKIP 20/1
Con 50/1
BNP 66/1
LD 100/1
On that basis, the format of the campaign will be different and more traditional intensive set-piece questioning may be better than the warp and weft of the "debate". I believe the former suits Cameron who enjoys putting the facts and the record out there - he is proud of what the Government he leads has accomplished and wastes no opportunity to explain what still needs to be done.
The debate format doesn't play well to that given the time constraints and the opportunity for intervention (and the skill of the masterful riposte at which I think Cameron is not adept).
Lab 8/13 (PP)
Con 6/4 (SJ)
LD 100/1
UKIP 250/1
Con 1/5 (SJ)
Lab 5/1 (Lad)
LD 100/1
UKIP 150/1
Seems to be a pattern of better value for CON backers at Stan James, compared to Ladbrokes, Paddy Power or Hills.
We took a junk out to one of the islands last night in choppy waters. It was not the nicest trip, but I did have a fascinating conversation with a long term resident, who told me about the changing attitudes here to British colonial rule. When we were in charge, he said, we were roundly disliked and derided; now we are gone we are being missed. Not because of us so much as because what has replaced us. Despite HK's special status, Beijing is getting more and more involved here: placemen in the government, a slow erosion of democratic rights and press freedoms. It never used to be like that, people remember. There are a lot of demos here protesting at what is happening and a common sight now is the old colonial flag - blue with a Union Jack in the corner - being waved. When Chris Patten came earlier this year, he was given a hero's welcome. He's no longer scorned as Fat Pang.
Anyone who comes to Hong Kong cannot fail to be bowled over. The dynamism, the entrepreneurialism, the wealth, the sheer vivacity of the place. I've been a regular visitor since the late 90s and it still gets me every time. We should be proud of the UK's role in helping to create what is today one of the world's great success stories. The Chinese would be very foolish to get too meddlesome. But the plethora of ads for London property in all the local newspapers might tell us the real story. People with money in Hong Kong want to move it out; just as the well-off in mainland China want to do the same. That seems a very significant fact to me. It indicates a distinct lack of confidence in Chinese institutions and, perhaps, the country's medium-term financial/economic prospects. And that is not good news for any of us.
Next UK GE - Christchurch (Con Maj = 15,410)
Con 1/20
UKIP 12/1
LD 20/1
Lab 50/1
Gee whizz! How different the world looked from a Lib Dem perspective in the not too distant past.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christchurch_by-election,_1993
Just look at the Scottish Liberal Democrats. Since their collapse at the ballot boxes in 2011 their membership has melted away like snow off a dyke. They are failing to put up candidates in most by-elections.
Eg. just last week there was a local by-election in Charlie Kennedy's seat, their 2nd safest. No SLD candidate. Mind you, there wasn't a SLAB candidate either, and Caol used to be a rock-solid SLAB stronghold.
I just placed the Maximum stake. Guess what the buggers let me put on. 81p! Yepp. Eighty one pence. What a shower!
Lab 8/15 (PP)
LD 6/4 (Lad)
SNP 80/1 (PP)
UKIP 100/1
Con 100/1
Before betting on this seat it is worth knowing the result at the Scottish GE in 2011: SNP Gain from LAB (Whitton).
SNP (Fiona McLeod) 14,258
Lab (David Whitton) 12,456
Con 4,438
LD 2,600
Lab 1/25 (Lad)
LD 25/1 (PP)
SNP 33/1 (Lad)
UKIP 100/1
Con 100/1
This is one of the seats that Scott P was ramping for the CONS in 2010. Tee hee.
Thank you for the interesting update - probably the Chinese are gradually down-rating HK as their trading window on the West?
You said,"Anyone who comes to Hong Kong cannot fail to be bowled over. The dynamism, the entrepreneurialism, the wealth, the sheer vivacity of the place."
Absolutely right and also seen in many other parts of southern Asia. Such a contrast to the effects on places where the dead hand of Socialism is in control.
Currently parts of London has some of the same qualities and that is why it has become a bit of a magnet for many of the aspirational younger people of Europe and even the Americas.
Also the reason why Wales is still losing businesses and why nobody wants to live there - a basketcase of continuous Labour failure where billions is wasted on useless bureaucracy and nothing gets done.
The media, on the other hand are desperate for the debates - it's so much simpler to report "X won" than getting into policy (an area where some parties clearly wish to steer clear - see Labour's schoolboy howlers this week).
As PM, Cameron has "most to lose" from the debates - last time the perception was that Brown agreed to them only because he was so far behind so had little to lose.
Clegg probably reckons he's in a similar (or worse) place to Brown, and we all know about Miliband's "intellectual self confidence".....
If the debates don't happen the various protestations will be treated to the Mandy Rice Davis response.
It's a difficult call for Cameron - he wants to debate Miliband, of course he does - but does he even want the "3" - Ed could just stand there saying "are you guys for or against each other?" and whilst the Party faithful would jeer (not least on this site) I suspect the ordinary voter would take his point.
FWIW one of my three local Tory councillors canvassed me the other day - asked me to vote for her (which I will gladly, as a personal vote) - no mention of her Party, no rosette even - a very different mood music to what gets played on here. Could it be that some Tory Peebies don't even speak for their own colleagues, let alone anyone else?
As to UKIP's unpopular policies - forget it, chaps. They're the "respectable racist" Party that the (male) non-graduate voter has been hankering after at least since the Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury all those years ago. And why did Marx say that socialism was in the "objective interest" of the masses? Because their subjective interest is racism.
I think David Cameron is playing the long game. He knows he holds all the cards. By telling Adam Bolton that nothing will be decided until September he gets the IndyRef and party conference season out of the way. Many people including several of our leading media politicial commentators expect the Tories to be back in the lead in the polls by October.
Yesterday DC dismissed the fanciful notion shared by Sean T and some others that he would/should resign if, as I expect, we Scots will vote to say goodbye in September. In such circumstances after the initial excitement the politics would all be about Labour's implosion and the impending dissolution negotiations, a very different political landscape from the one we see now. Would UKIP be remotely relevant then, even if it does win the Euro elections a fortnight tomorrow when the counting is done?
It is a pity that there was not an EU debate as EdM probably had more to lose than DC and we know what happened to NC.
I quite like DC's 5-3-2 format (just lacks a goalkeeper). Not including SNP and PC in a GB debate is easily defended as they do not have GB wide candidates.
However, UKIP would be stretched on its other than EU policies and DC could come out well, Can only see NC going backwards, EdM confused and the Greens being made to look as non-progressive with many of their negative policies as they have few economic positive
ones. However, all subject to Referendum change.
Care to guess again?
Mr. Stodge, I hope your pestilence is not too severe, and your humours are returned to balance promptly.
Mr. Observer, nice to hear. The Britain being liked part, not the erosion of democracy and press freedom bit.
P3 is 10-11am, qualifying's from 1pm (I think). I'll try to put up a piece this morning (a tip is unlikely).
Not based on property at all. It is the people I meet there. Let me explain. Both my sons are on boards of plcs: one in FMCG and lives in London and the other a civil engineer running 3 companies in the UK for a French multinational -one of his companies is doing a major part of CrossRail and also Lee Tunnel.
I am usually in London once a month or more and we have a family dinner or few and these include many of their personal and business friends - most of whom originated outside of the UK. They live in diverse parts of London (where they can afford), but are highly skilled and well educated, aspirational and are highly motivated by the opportunities available - if the next opportunity is KL, they they will follow the opportunity.
In the summer, we often meet in one of the parks with over 100 people coming along - ages 25-45 with families and they create some of the buzz that you can feel in London but that is absent in many other parts of the UK.
As you are probably aware, there is talk about Salmond requesting that the SP election in 2016 being delayed while he is allowed to continue Independence talks with rUK.
Could Cameron be thinking to play a similar game plan with regards to the 2015 GE?
I have always thought that the election times for Westminster and Holyrood would not just be a fly in the ointment, more like an elephant.
Changes of administration, or rather the possibility of a change could hamstring any talk of Salmond's hope of Being Free in 2016.
Difficult to get through Westminster certainly, but with the SNP majority in Holyrood, a possibility.
Cameron has two massive problems in such a debate. One his uturn on a cast iron guarantee, two his pro-EU position where most demanding a vote are anti. Shapps Green also tried to defend the cast iron guarantee uturn, met this time not with silence but laughter. Thepublic know all too well Cameron's yerp problem,and no amount of sneering semantics will change that.
So, Cameron can't debate as Farage will eviscerate him. But he has to debate or Milliband claims the moral authority (watch for town hall style meetings from the Axelrod camp). So we get this 532 joke proposal which won't wash either.
Final point. "I won't resign if Scotland goes". Yes yes very nice. As if the resignee gets to make the decision, its always a political balance. If as SeanT and others advocate the political balance tips against a PM who loses Scotland, the decision will be made for him. Did Thatcher chose to resign, or did her cabinet make the decision for her? Millar? Mandelson x2?
Dividend Master @DividendMaster
The new Italian Minister of Constitutional Reforms Elena Boschi signs in ( love Italian politics) http://tinyurl.com/k8yyyu5
I would have thought that Cameron offering to resign if Scotland voted Yes to independence would guarantee a yes vote. How many Scots Lab voters would be able to resist the free hit?
I actually think that what you're describing is the logic of capitalism. We all like to think that election results are far more important than they actually are. And as Planet Earth gets more and more overcrowded, maybe Thanatos actually needs to get the better of Eros for a generation or two...
The solution is to bring separation forward to May 2015 - it would concentrate minds wonderfully - unless you have a deadline negotiations will just drag on and on. If a date is to be set to anyone's convenience, it should be to the 92% of the UK that wishes to remain, not the 8% that wishes to separate. In any case, Scotland can't apply to the EU until it is independent, so "If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well It were done quickly."
As even the most rabid PB kipper and tory would agree, Cameron can't promise any such thing.
Can the banner be removed?
I think it should the lefties weren't offering one and UKIP couldn't deliver one.
replying to Notme about Tory councillors who are 'off message'.
Your reply to the list is a perfect example of what I have been talking about and why the Tories - including a few on here - are hypocrites.
I used that list to illustrate that Tories use idiotic statements by UKIP members to attack the party whilst there are plenty of elected councillors within their own party making identical (and equally idiotic and offensive) comments. In every one of those cases I listed the councillor not only remained a Tory councillor but is still a councillor as of the lastest date I could find for them (all into this year and as far as I can tell all are still councillors today). That includes the first one with the police caution for leaving phone messages hoping a fellow councillor died of Aids.
UKIP have a policy which has been very clearly on view that if their councillors or candidates make offensive comments they are dropped. The Tories do not. Those 5 examples took about 7 or 8 minutes to find. There are plenty more.
It is utter hypocrisy for Tories to attack UKIP via the idiotic fringe whilst ignoring that same fringe within their own party.
Edited to change spellchecker mistake.
That then drives them to wish a 5 year Miliband government, ignoring the likely consequences of that.....monomania doesn't come close......
I agree that UKIP having to face debates across the policy board would be harder for them, as would facing three other leaders rather than just one (and the most unpopular one at that). That said, only so much of the debates is about policy; at least as much is about personality, presence and whether the candidate comes across as PM material. Farage not being a Westminster establishment PPEnarque-type pol would probably play quite well to those who aren't too bothered about specific policies. The key question is who would gain / lose as a result of UKIP's inclusion/exclusion? There are two parts to that: the votes they've already won over, and the votes which are weakest in the various columns now (including their own).
UTTERLY DELUDED.
Highly doubt it. It's just to give a serious kick up the arse to the Brazilians. Read a comment the other day from an IOC member that the Brazilian preparations were the worst he'd ever seen, which seems slightly surprising.
Maybe if one of the bookies gave decent odds, then those fine upstanding members of the IOC might just be tempted to have a few bob on that outcome!
Part 1: PfP although I live in the wonderful pastureland which is Easter Ross on the northern shores of the Moray Firth, business takes me the length and breadth of Scotland. In addition my network straddles all mainstream political opinions and all age groups.
Basically, excluding the diehards on both sides, the camps comprise:
NO: most business owners, the traditional farming and estate owning and the educated middle classes
YES: attracts the rural working class plus what is traditionally called the white working class (i.e. industrial WWC) and much of the state constituency who are dependent on the Scottish government.
The pollsters have easy access to the typical NO voter. They are more likely to be older, still have landline telephones, belong to online panels like YouGov and can be contacted easily.
There are a great many households in the sprawling housing estates on the outskirts of Glasgow and Edinburgh where they don't have internet connections, landlines, aren't that addicted to politics etc. Until 2010 they were the "voting fodder" of the Scottish Labour Party who took them utterly for granted and treated them like shit in return. In 2011 many of these people suddenly realised there was a group of politicians who were genuinely interested in them. Many of these politicians spoke their language. Those politicians were SNP. For almost 2 years the SNP has been working hard to persuade these people to 1) register to vote and 2) vote for a "new Scotland" telling them they are not being asked to vote for a party. Even with the 16-18 yr olds being accounted for, the electoral roll in Scotland is now at its highest ever, 4.1 million.
This week the Electoral Officer for Scotland announced she had instructed all 32 returning officers to print 120% of the ballot forms their electoral rolls suggest they require. She has done this to ensure that no polling station runs out of ballot forms. She is anticipating a high poll. 80% is now being regularly talked about. The IndyRef is now talked about in just about every conversation I take part in and others are saying the same. Even people who traditionally steer clear of talking about politics are talking about the IndyRef.
I would love to be proved wrong, but every day I hear more and more people say they are supporting YES. The Labour Party is losing its natural support and ultimately that loss may lead to the implosion of the Labour Party. Its leadership can look in the mirror. It wont like what it sees if it takes the blinkers off. A leadership stuffed full of new aristocracy, privilege, patronage, public school and/or Oxbridge educated nepotism (look at the number of their sons being parachuted into winnable/safe seats) and truly it is worse than the 1950s Tories.
He said it ain't going to happen.
The Olympic stadium is being renovated and handed over to West Ham in 2016 with less capacity.
So that's a no go.
The Village where the athletes stayed is now currently occupied by people who bought the properties or rent them.
Quite a few of other venues have been renovated and are no longer of Olympic standard.
Also 2012 was the culmination of seven years plus meticulous planning.
They can't replicate that in less than two years.
They truly are the F*cking for Virginity Party....
They let you put on around 40 to 100 quid in shop on political bets.
Read it and weep
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2597454/We-Residents-deprived-borough-speak-predicted-Britain-need-Manchester-absorb-immigration.html
Remember what UKIP are - an anti-politics protest movement. Even Farage doesn't expect them to be in government, so what difference does it make if they have policies on other areas or not? It a more honest approach to years of listening to LibDem spokespeople espousing policies that they had zero chance of ever implementing.
So much more informative than "Yes will win coz No are Jessies...."
John Mills, one of Labour's biggest donors, says Ed Miliband will struggle to avoid referendum if he wins the next election in the face of 'growing Euroscepticism'
Ed Miliband has just a 25 per cent chance of winning the next election outright and a future Labour government is likely to be "relatively unsuccessful", one of the party's biggest donors has said.
John Mills, the entrepreneur who has given millions to Labour, warned that even if Mr Miliband wins the next election he will face "growing Euroscepticism" which could lead to the return of a Conservative government.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/10820837/Ed-Milibands-government-will-be-relatively-unsuccessful-donor-warns.html
I'm not so sure that excluding the SNP or Plaid would be so easy (if there's a No vote), if the Greens are included. The Tories and Labour clearly rank way ahead of the nationalists on any measure. The Lib Dems, despite their decline since 2010, too will stand many more candidates, win many more votes and (again, assuming a No), win more seats. The nationalists have more of a case with UKIP but even there, the Purples will stand around ten times as many candidates and won almost twice as many votes last time, never mind the increase that polls and interim elections point to next time. The SNP's case really rests only with MPs elected.
The Greens, however, are a different case again. In 2010, they stood in less than half the seats. While that's still more than five times as many as the SNP (or more than treble the SNP and Plaid combined), it's difficult to justify their inclusion in what's supposed to be a PM candidates' debate (how could there be a PM if they don't even contest half the seats?). Furthermore, they won barely half the votes the SNP did. There's nothing in elections or polling since to suggest any significant change there: the Greens haven't finished above fifth in any by-election, nor have they held their deposit in any. Indeed, they've only contested about half of them.
As soon as you include one party that literally cannot form a government (never mind 'is unlikely to'), you open the door to any other that can claim an equal or greater impact on the outcome - which the SNP will probably have. The suggested inclusion of the Greens is a spoiler.
Why do you think a Euro referendum promise might shore up Labour support, rather than piss off some of their current supporters?
How high does "Europe" rank among Labour voters as an issue?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament_election,_2014_(United_Kingdom)#2014
In recent weeks I've tried to defend Dave against the UKIP surge and then he goes and ddoes something totally and fundamentally untory like propose arbitrary confiscation of cash by HMRC.
And then he defends its with a cheap and untrue threat about taxes having to rise if it doesn't go through. How about cutting spending a bit more, Dave?
I suspect that every tory out there has their breaking point with Cameron's conservatives The point at which they say f8ck it these people aren't conservatives really and I can't support them any more. This is mine. Arbitrary confiscation of property without the protection of the courts is a fundamental building block of toryism since its inception and every true tory should be 100% against it.
If this goes through I'm voting UKIP.
In purely technical terms, could this party command a majority in the HoC? Yes or No.
I.e. put up 320 candidates and your leader is in the debate.
It seems increasingly clear to me that the electoral commission deliberately goes to bat for the establishment parties. They've already ruled that UKIP couldn't be "The Independence Party" as that would supposedly confuse voters, while "An Independence From Europe - UK Independence Now" has been allowed. So that's already two big unfair decisions. If they then declare UKIP a minor party, and then give them less debate time than a party with a third less support, their agenda will be perfectly clear. We all know that there's a hostility to UKIP among urban wealthy people in elite circles, and it seems highly likely the leadership of the electoral commission is made of these types of people, so an anti-UKIP agenda would make sense.
http://www.itv.com/news/west/update/2014-05-09/gloucestershire-aviation-museum-opens/
Basically,Dave is just another frit Old Etonian who lacks moral fibre.
YES have built a huge ground organisation. London is in for a big shock. For the poor and downtrodden saying that London is booming or oil is volatile means nothing. They see themselves being vilified, ignored , bedroom tax , foodbanks , etc etc. There are more of them than millionaire Tories. The game is up.
Trying to avoid the debates would be an absolute gift to Labour.