UK General Discussion

[YL]

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/8094

Ashcroft has a new marginals poll out.

There are three separate polls here.  There's an overall national poll with a fairly small sample, labelled the "National comparison poll" on Ashcroft's website; the headline figures are Lab 35 Con 30 UKIP 14 LD 11 Green 4.

Then there's a poll in the 32 closest Tory held Con-Lab marginals; this has a much larger sample size (nearly 10,000) and has figures for the standard voting intention question of Lab 42 Con 29 UKIP 14 LD 6 Green 5.  I haven't found the exact 2010 figures for these seats, but it looks like quite a good poll for Labour even if the size of the lead is a bit dependent on Tory voters switching to UKIP.  Ashcroft says the swing is 8.5% Con to Lab since 2010.

Finally there's a poll of the 8 closest Tory held Con-LD marginals.  These are a rather eclectic collection (something which always concerns me about this sort of poll)*.  Anyway, for the standard voting intention question he gets Con 33 Lab 24 LD 18 UKIP 14 Green 5; he then asked a further question "Thinking specifically about your own constituency and the candidates who are likely to stand there", getting Con 32 LD 29 Lab 18 UKIP 12 Green 4.  He asked this question in the Con/Lab seats too, but it didn't make much difference there (it pushed Labour from 42% to 43%).

This suggests there's still some evidence of tactical voting in favour of the Lib Dems from voters who would otherwise vote Labour.  For me, it'd depend on the Lib Dem, so probably yes in St Ives but no in Taunton Deane.

* According to UKPollingReport, they're:
Camborne & Redruth
Oxford West & Abingdon
Truro & Falmouth
Newton Abbot
Harrogate & Knaresborough
Watford
Montgomeryshire
St. Albans

edit: changed the figures for the national poll to the turnout-adjusted ones.

[YL]

Why is Jeremy Browne not a Tory?

[YL]

I attempted to watch Nick Cleggs speech, lasted about half an hour. I think his speech and indeed his conference, has gone about as well as he could have realistically hoped. He has strengthened his position within his party. Some of his attack lines on the Tories may even work.

However it has struck me, on several occasions, that everyone at the Liberal Democrat Conference, including the media, exist in a bizarre parallel universe. They seem to think people will believe a word Nick Clegg says about any topic, give the LD any credit and that the parties unpopularity won't matter. They are in for a shock, I think.

The impression I get is that they think that even if the party's underlying support crashes their local campaigning, and in particular the old "Labour can't win here; vote Lib Dem to keep the Tories out" line, will rescue many of their seats.

... and yes, that line may seem a bit ridiculous to many now.  But they quote the Eastleigh by-election (though they very nearly lost it, of course) and also the "Thinking specifically about your own constituency" question in that Ashcroft marginals poll.

[YL]

Oh, I agree they're probably being over-optimistic.  I doubt they'll be back to the taxi, though.

YouGov has come out with a Lab/Con tie on 36, UKIP on 12 and the Lib Dems on 10 towards the end of their conference week.  Hopefully this is an outlier.

[YL]

EdM's on at 2.

And I think he's shut the naysayers up.

It seems to be going down reasonably well at the moment (well, unless you take Dan Hodges seriously).  But the media's coverage of EdM has been so one-sided I'm pretty sure the naysayers will be back.

[YL]

Interesting to see the polling in the next couple of days.

YouGov polls since Sunday (dates are those of the fieldwork):
19/20 Sept: Lab 39 Con 33 LD 14 UKIP 9
22/23 Sept: Lab 40 Con 32 UKIP 12 LD 10
23/24 Sept: Lab 39 Con 34 LD 10 UKIP 10
24/25 Sept: Lab 41 Con 32 UKIP 11 LD 8

In the last one (released this morning) Miliband's figure in the "best Prime Minister" question is up from 21% the last time the question was asked (two weeks ago) to 26%, coming from Don't Knows.  (Cameron is on 35% and Clegg on 5%, both pretty much unchanged.)  He does get the best score among 2010 Lib Dem voters, though only on 26% (19% for Cameron and 16% for Clegg).

[YL]

Interesting to see the polling in the next couple of days.

YouGov polls since Sunday (dates are those of the fieldwork):
19/20 Sept: Lab 39 Con 33 LD 14 UKIP 9
22/23 Sept: Lab 40 Con 32 UKIP 12 LD 10
23/24 Sept: Lab 39 Con 34 LD 10 UKIP 10
24/25 Sept: Lab 41 Con 32 UKIP 11 LD 8

In the last one (released this morning) Miliband's figure in the "best Prime Minister" question is up from 21% the last time the question was asked (two weeks ago) to 26%, coming from Don't Knows.  (Cameron is on 35% and Clegg on 5%, both pretty much unchanged.)  He does get the best score among 2010 Lib Dem voters, though only on 26% (19% for Cameron and 16% for Clegg).

25/26 Sept: Lab 40 Con 33 UKIP 11 LD 9

Things do seem to have picked up a bit for Labour (though there must be some suspicion that last week's two bad polls for them were just outliers) but there's nothing very dramatic.

[YL]

Here is Ed Miliband's reply to the Daily Hate Mail's attack on his father:
http://labourpress.tumblr.com/post/62751616247/ed-miliband-my-dad-was-a-man-who-loved-britain

[YL]

Nice rant:
http://www.theguardian.com/media/video/2013/oct/04/medhi-hassan-daily-mail-question-time-video

[YL]

Insane conspiracy theorist fruitcake Norman Baker has been moved from a junior Transport post to a junior Home Office post. This does not strike me as being a good thing.

It wouldn't be hard for him to be an improvement on Jeremy Browne, though.

I see the Guardian's online headline on the Labour reshuffle contains the words "Miliband targets Blairites", though at least some of the reporting recognises that that's simplistic.

[YL]

Sir Menzies Campbell, who looks considerably older than his seventy two years, is to retire at the next election. He's held N.E. Fife since 1987 and was once the leader of the LibDems for about five seconds.

The only stalwarts that might help the Lib Dems retain seats seem to be retiring (Malcolm Bruce etc)

A quick check suggests the only Lib Dem MPs elected before 1992 who have not announced their retirements are Charles Kennedy and Simon Hughes.  From 1992 there's also Don Foster and Nick Harvey.

It isn't clear which party might benefit from Campbell's retirement.  The SNP won the equivalent seat at Holyrood on a big swing, but it's an open question whether they'll be able to repeat performances like that in a Westminster election.  The seat was Tory until 1987, but then so was Manchester Withington .  It wouldn't surprise me if it was a fairly close four-way result.

[YL]

David Heath, LibDem MP for Somerton and Frome to stand down in 2015.

The Liberal's 8th seat on their defense list and the Tories were already in with a good shout here for 2015. +1 Tory.

Heath's electoral record is curious in that he won Somerton and Vroom in four consecutive elections but always with very thin majorities.  In fact his 1817 majority over Annunziata Rees-Mogg (sister of Jacob) in 2010 was the first time it had been in four digits.

[YL]

Is that poll somewhat of an outlier? It's the only one I've heard of in along time where Labour hasn't lead the Tories.

MORI use an aggressive turnout filter which (a) makes their effective sample size quite low and (b) is likely to reduce the Labour figure more than the other parties' (though I think it doesn't always work like that).

YouGov had one poll earlier this week which put the Tories on 37, but other than that their typical figures at the moment are something like Lab 38 to 40, Con 33 to 35, UKIP 10 to 12, LD 8 to 10.  (Today's is 40/34/11/9.)

[YL]

Jack Straw is to retire as MP for Blackburn (which he's held since 1979) at the next election, so we won't be having two Straws in the next parliament whatever happens in Rossendale and Darwen.

On this side of the Pennines, the five Bradford councillors elected for Respect have confirmed that they've permanently left the party (after initially doing so in August).  Does this mean that George Galloway himself is now Respect's only elected representative?

[YL]

The media (especially certain parts of it) have been fussing a bit about Roma immigration to Sheffield from Slovakia, partly prompted by some not very well-advised comments by David Blunkett (whose constituency contains the Page Hall area, where a lot of Roma people have settled) and Nick Clegg.

Anyway, there's a reasonably level-headed article in today's Observer on the subject.

[YL]

Survation (yes, I know) constituency poll in South Thanet: Lab 35, UKIP 30, Con 28, LD 5

The 2010 result was Con 48, Lab 32, LD 15, UKIP 6.  The Tory MP, Laura Sandys, has just announced she's standing down, and this was one of the constituencies UKIP carried in the county elections in May.

The poll was commissioned by a UKIP donor, and it's apparently one of eight.  I don't know whether this was the first one they did, or whether they've just chosen to release an eye-catching one first.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/nov/26/ukip-poll-boost-thanet

[YL]

Tory selection procedures are weird, but it's probably fair to say that Tim Yeo (MP for South Suffolk since 1983) has been half-deselected.

Details?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25165546

How does this compare with the attempt to deselect Crispin Blunt in Reigate?  IIRC Blunt failed in some initial ballot but then survived (comfortably) a vote of the membership.  The BBC article sounds like Yeo may have failed the latter stage, but could still stand in the selection process.

I wonder how much this has to do with Yeo being a relatively "green" Tory?  He does have other "issues"...

[YL]

Tory selection procedures are weird, but it's probably fair to say that Tim Yeo (MP for South Suffolk since 1983) has been half-deselected.

Details?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25165546

How does this compare with the attempt to deselect Crispin Blunt in Reigate?  IIRC Blunt failed in some initial ballot but then survived (comfortably) a vote of the membership.  The BBC article sounds like Yeo may have failed the latter stage, but could still stand in the selection process.

An article on the Guardian website makes it clear that this is just the first step (the one which Blunt failed) with the executive of the constituency party.  Yeo can still ask for a ballot of the local membership.

[YL]

Two more Survation constituency polls (commissioned by a UKIP donor):

Great Grimsby
Lab 40 UKIP 22 Con 20 LD 13
(2010 Lab 33 Con 31 LD 22 UKIP 6 BNP 5)

Dudley North
Lab 45 Con 25 UKIP 23 LD 2
(2010 Lab 39 Con 37 LD 11 UKIP 9 BNP 5)

[YL]

They said there would be 8, so there should be one more to come.  Maybe they're saving one with a UKIP lead (Boston & Skegness, perhaps) for last.

Overall they seem so bad for the Tories as to be difficult to believe given the national polls, even most of Survation's ones.  Perhaps the Tories are holding up better elsewhere, but where?  That said, I suppose Crewe & Nantwich, probably the nearest thing to a conventional marginal in the list, must be a candidate for an above average swing to Labour because of byelection unwind.

They're terrible for the Lib Dems too (remember, they were actually reported to be targeting Folkestone & Hythe in 2005) but that's more in line with the national polls.

[YL]

Lord Ashcroft has done another of his large sample size polls.  The headline voting intention appears to be Lab 39 Con 30 UKIP 16 LD 8; Ashcroft's main discussion is about people who either voted Tory last time and say they won't now and those who didn't vote Tory in 2010 and say they might in the future.

[YL]

On the First World War comments, Tristram Hunt (who is of course an actual historian as well as Labour's education spokesman) has responded to Gove:
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jan/04/labour-gove-first-world-war-comments

[YL]

Another Lib Dem MP has announced his retirement: Don Foster, MP for Bath since 1992, when he famously defeated Chris Patten, who was then Tory party chairman.  Even with a new candidate, you'd have to think the Lib Dems would be doing impressively badly to lose Bath, so perhaps this is an opportunity for ambitious Lib Dems...

[YL]

How dare the Tories reach their 2% inflation target.

Cost of living...something...bankers...something...bedroom tax..something something miners.

[/politicalrant]

Yes, because they've met one inflation target, I'm going to forget about the demonisation of benefit claimants and immigrants, the damaging and thoroughly ideological "reforms" in health and education, the total evisceration of the "vote blue go green" agenda, the attacks on third party political campaigns, the silly pandering to the swivel-eyed tendency which is threatening our EU membership, and the general tendency to support the interests of the strong against those of the weak (especially the young weak), and vote to re-elect this Government in 2015.

[YL]

What to make of the Lib Dem chaos surrounding Lord Rennard?