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Polls apart

Between now and the General Election there are various things that you can be sure of. DaveCam will be accused of being posh, there will be a row involving a patient being badly treated at an NHS hospital and Tony Blair will regularly appear looking ever increasingly like a cross between George Hamilton and David Dickinson.

And, we’ll be bombarded with the results of half a bazillion opinion polls.
‘How the parties are doing in the polls’ has been a regular feature of General Elections for years. Companies take a sample of people – generally round about 1,000 and often taken at random from the phone book – and ask them how they are planning to vote in the General Election.

Many pollsters then ‘weight’ the results and produce figures which, apparently, tell us how the Election will pan out. Whilst it’s the best guess of what will happen on May 6th, it’s far from being scientific.

The 1992 Debacle

In 1992, the opinion polls, which had normally predicted election results fairly accurately, were not just wrong but spectacularly so. The five main UK polls published on the morning of the general election predicted a Labour lead of 0.8 %, which would have ensured a hung parliament with Labour as the largest party.

The BBC and ITV exit polls suggested a Conservative lead of 4%, which would have resulted in a hung parliament with the Conservatives as the largest party. In fact, the Conservatives were 7.5 % ahead and John Major was able to form a Conservative government with an overall majority of 21 seats.
The election result demonstrated that the final opinion polls were more than 8 % adrift of reality.

As Bill Bush said in the BBC News General Election Guide in 1997, “As every politician knows the pollsters got it wrong in 1992, so why should we trust them now?”

Polling in 2010

There are dozens of opinion polls carried out every week. Trying to predict the result of the Election would be a hard job as it is, but with significant differences between the results generated by the different polling companies, how on earth are we supposed to work out which is right?

Sites such as the UK Polling Report aggregate all the various polls in an attempt to make sense of the overall figures. However, the pollsters themselves say there is a ‘margin of up to 3%’ – consider that a 1% swing could be the difference between a Conservative majority and a hung parliament – and so a swing of up to 12% between the two leading parties could generate a vastly different outcome.

Poll to Poll

So, pollsters will continue trying to predict the outcome of this spring’s Election over the next few weeks. And, of course, one of them will end up being pretty close. However, as Michael Blastland said recently in his BBC column, “Political pollsters are smart, honest people, but the job is daunting. The miracle is that their polls are often close to the real results.”

Which Pollster Will Do The Best?

9:34am April 5th, 2010| Filed under Uncategorized by admin

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Are The TV Debates Going To Be Any Good?

They were heralded as the ushering in of a new type of politics where the general public could pit the important Election questions of the day directly to the three men challenging to be Britain’s next Prime Minister.

After a fierce battle, Sky, the BBC and ITV all proudly boasted that they had secured one of the Prime Ministerial debates and set about coming up with rules about what brand of mineral water the candidates will drink on stage and what colour Adam Boulton’s tie should be.

However, after this week’s Ask the Chancellors borefest, the three major TV networks must be wondering what on earth all the fuss was about, and be wetting themselves if the other channels decide to put on something worth watching to compete with the debates.

Channel Four’s pioneering election debate, Ask the Chancellors, was staged decently enough. Krishnan ‘The Guru’ Murthy did a decent job of keeping control, and the questions were reasonably pertinent. It was, however, fantastically dull.

And, the British public seem to agree. 92.3% of everyone watching TV between 8pm and 9pm watched something else, according to the viewing figures. Whilst Channel Four declared themselves ‘really pleased’ with the figures, it is telling that just 1.8million voters tuned in to watch the debate in which, unsurprisingly, Liberal Democrat spokesman Vince Cable was the popular ‘winner’.

9.3 million preferred to watch the BBC One soap EastEnders whilst a third more people watched University Challenge than the political debate. Unconfirmed reports say that even George Osborne watched Diagnosis Murder on the Hallmark channel whilst the programme was being filmed.

The Chancellors debate was a pre-cursor for three US-style leaders’ debates to be held during the election campaign, although these are each scheduled to be a mind-numbing 90 minutes long.

Have the TV channels really overestimated how interested people are in these debates? Whilst I can’t say I am a huge fan of them (they aren’t the way our political system works, for a start) it seems that the BBC, ITV and Sky might have to alter their audience predictions ahead of the clashes. Whilst Question Time remains popular, watching three men in suits talk about the national debt and the future of the National Health Service is likely to be about as exciting as eating a packet of Rich Tea biscuits.

The only possible reason for watching, as far as I can tell is either to a) yell at the television repeatedly for an hour and a half or b) to see what Nick Clegg actually looks like.

Mind you, if no-one watches the debates because the format is dreadful and no-one can sustain an interest in fiscal policy or the mechanics of public service pension reform for 90 minutes, they might write them off as a bad job and can them forever. Here’s hoping, eh?

Which TV debate will have the highest TV audience?

9:27am March 31st, 2010| Filed under Uncategorized by admin

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The Sun Wot Won It

For those of us who remember the much loved tabloid declaration that it was ‘The Sun Wot Won It’ in 1992, we’re once again wondering whether the so-called newspaper’s support for the Conservatives will lead the Tories to a win as it did eighteen years ago.

After John Major’s election triumph in 1992, The Sun then changed allegiance to New Labour, only to revert its stance in September 2009 and come out in support of DaveCam’s Conservatives. This is all based on The Sun’s careful research into which party offers the best policies for Britain, not shameless political manoeuvring based on prevailing public opinion, of course.

Ahem.

And now, unsurprisingly, The Sun’s sister paper the News of the World has also come out in support of the Conservatives ahead of the forthcoming General Election. Britain’s best-selling Sunday newspaper said that the Conservatives were the best hope for a ‘brighter, saner, safer…future.’

The paper also said that the country was crying out for change and that DaveCam must be given the chance to rule, saying the modernised Tories could be a ‘force for good’ (That’s nice. We wouldn’t want to elect a ‘force for evil’, would we?)

But, does the support of major national newspapers actually make any difference to the way that people vote? Do News of the World readers vote differently because their paper tells them to, or is the News of the World’s political stance governed by the political demographic of its readers?

Newspapers and voting

As political journalist Martin Kettle said in the Guardian back in 2008, “If we go through all the main national newspapers - with one important exception - the story is a similar one. The figures move around according to the changing political mood in the country, but the pattern in each case remains largely the same. Tory voters dominate, now as before, among readers of the Times, Daily Mail, Daily Express and Daily Telegraph. Labour predominates among Guardian, Daily Mirror and Independent readers.”
The one paper Kettle cited as an exception was The Sun. Although (and this is where many politicians get this wrong), The Sun tends to follow the public opinion, not vice versa. Its stance doesn’t affect the way its readers vote; The Sun supports the leading party because that’s who its readers support.
Kettle continued, “People choose a newspaper that suits and reflects them culturally. One of the ways it reflects them is political stance - though it is by no means the only one, as politicians like to believe. If politics were all, why would a quarter of Mail readers vote Labour, as they do?”

So, the News of the World’s declaration today shouldn’t adversely worry the Labour party. The good old soaraway Sun and its sister paper have their finger on the populist pulse, and their move is as much about backing a winner as it is about any sort of strongly held political prejudice.

Who Will Win The Next UK General Election?

10:45am March 29th, 2010| Filed under Uncategorized by admin

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Hung and drawn

Most of the talk over recent weeks has surrounded the increasing likelihood of neither of the main two parties securing an overall majority at the forthcoming General Election. The resultant outcome – a hung parliament – is the phrase on everyone’s lips.

Labour’s recovery is one of the most astonishing political shifts in living memory. It was only eighteen months or so ago that David Cameron and the Conservatives held anything between a 15 and 20 point lead in the opinion polls, a lead which has been cut to just two points following Alistair Darling’s Budget speech this week.

To secure an overall majority, a party must win more than 326 seats at the Election. This means that they have more than 50% of the total seats in the House of Commons. A majority is crucial as, if a party doesn’t get one, they can be defeated on legislation in the event that every other MP votes against them (including all the independents, nationalists and Northern Irish members).

Currently, Labour has 341 MPs and the Conservatives have 193. To secure an overall majority, the Conservatives must therefore win 133 seats at the General Election (in addition to retaining all those they hold currently). It’s a tall order, and means that certain ‘marginal’ seats become crucially important.

A recent Ipsos MORI poll shows the Conservatives have cut Labour’s lead in these marginal constituencies, but the swing is not sufficient to guarantee them government after an election expected on May 6. “This is very much hung parliament territory,” said Helen Coombs, Ipsos MORI’s Deputy Head of Political Research.
“Nevertheless, everything is still to play for, since almost half the public, and a third of those who are certain they will vote, say they may still change their mind.”

Because of the way Britain’s electoral system works, winning constituencies or seats is more important than the overall national share of the vote and the Conservatives have poured money into marginal seats to help ensure victory.

Hung parliament

The Ipsos MORI poll, based on responses from 1,007 prospective voters in key marginal seats, shows 41 percent of those who say they are certain to vote in the next election would vote Labour compared to 37 percent who would vote Conservative.

That is a five percent swing to the Conservatives from Labour compared to the last general election in 2005 - and a better showing for them than nationally. The Ipsos MORI national poll, published on Wednesday, shows a four percent swing.

The Conservatives need a swing of between five and nine percent to secure the marginal seats which, from these polls, it looks like they will struggle to achieve.

As the Election draws nearer, Labour seem to get stronger and stronger and so the likelihood of a Conservative majority is receding. Still, the Tories are 8/13 to win a majority at the Election, but that will need a swing well in excess of what the polls are currently predicting.

Hung Parliament Betting

9:18am March 26th, 2010| Filed under Uncategorized by admin

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Big Bank Budget Battle

Less than two months before the next General Election, this week’s Budget could make or break the prospects of Labour securing a fourth term in office. Alistair Darling has the unenviable task of trying to slash Britain’s huge budget deficit whilst simultaneously trying to score as many votes for his party as he can. It’s a tough gig. The 4/1 about him having more than three sips of water to calm his nerves looks great value to me…..

As Darling told Andrew Marr this weekend, “There is no question of giveaways. The mood of the times is not for giveaways. People are not daft. They know perfectly well that we need to get borrowing down and secure the recovery. People want to see a sensible, workmanlike Budget.”

What Darling is likely to do, however, is to get the public on his side by announcing a series of measures aimed at attacking the financial bodies responsible for plunging Britain into this recession. Major financial institutions will be his target as the Chancellor rides a wave of anti-bank sentiment by both condemning the actions of banks and announcing levies to help replenish the public coffers.

Darling is likely to relax regulations on setting up high street banks in an attempt to enhance competition. The Chancellor wants at least three credible alternatives to the current major players with these new banks providing better deals on mortgages, savings and other financial products.

He is also likely to announce support for a global levy on banks, if international agreement can be reached. The Opposition support a levy in the UK, but Darling believes Britain’s financial sector would be damaged if we were to act unilaterally as the Conservatives have suggested. The Chancellor believes the Tories are taking ‘a hell of a risk’ with such a scheme as it may force banks to relocate overseas, costing the UK thousands of jobs.

Recent figures show that the Chancellor is unlikely to have to borrow as much as had previously been thought, but this good news won’t result in pre-election giveaways or change the need to slash Britain’s deficit. However, he may avoid using the ‘d’ word, indeed it’s 9/2 that he says ‘deficit’ three times or less in his speech.

Darling is likely to raise the standard duties, however. It’s 1/3 that tax on tobacco goes up, and 4/6 that alcohol duty is raised.

This week’s Budget promises to be a battle between Labour’s continued balance between spending cuts and investment to help Britain avoid a ‘double dip’ recession and Conservative plans to more aggressively cut spending. It Darling manages to get the balance right – and it is a very big ‘if’ – he could actually escape from this most difficult of Budgets with Labour’s prospects enhanced. It’s 9/4 that Labour’s poll ratings go up by a point (from 31%) after the speech and 9/2 that they rise by two points.

If the mood of the nation is for swingeing cuts to public spending, however, then the Tories will be laughing all the way to the
polls.

Next Chancellor of the Exchequer?

1:42pm March 23rd, 2010| Filed under Uncategorized by admin

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The revolution with be televised

Saying that television is going to play a big part in determining who will be the next Prime Minister is hardly big news. For decades politicians have appeared on news programmes round the clock as an Election draws near, kissing babies, wooing voters and, occasionally, being rudely heckled in public.

However, the 2010 Election campaign is going to take TV’s influence to a new level in two significant ways; the live debates and through the increasing cult of personality.

Live debates

The Americans host Presidential debates between the two candidates going head to head for the White House. They do this as each and every American gets a vote, directly, as to who they want to be their President.

Last time I checked, Britons didn’t get to vote for who they wanted to be their Prime Minister. They vote for a local candidate who may (or may not) become their Member of Parliament. That MP is affiliated to a political party and the members of that party elect their leader who, if they win the election, becomes the Prime Minister.

A live televised debate with party leaders fundamentally isn’t how our political system works. The only time that such a debate would be appropriate if every single constituency had a TV debate featuring their local candidates. They’re the people you vote for, not the Prime Minister. Party leader debates are designed for TV, not for our political process.

Personality

We’ve already had to endure two saccharine, ‘warts and all’ shows. Firstly, Gordon Brown poured his heart out to, of all people, Piers Morgan in an attempt to portray himself as a human being, rather than the grumpy old fart he appears to be.

And then, last week, we had the horrific sight of David Cameron pottering about at home whilst Trevor MacDonald fawned over SamCam as she told us how down to earth and ‘normal bloke-like’ her uber-posh husband is.

Ultimately, do we really care what Gordon Brown’s preferred breakfast cereal is, or what colour underpants David Cameron wears whilst watching Holby City? Party strategists seem to think that we do, and so they seem happy to endorse these shows which show their party leaders in a pair of slacks reading That’s Life magazine.

If you went back to the 1950s and showed a leading politician playing Hungry Hippos with a couple of snotty children before admitting he leaves his dirty socks on the bedroom floor, he’d have had precisely zero chance in an election. No-one in their right mind would have voted for them. And yet, now, it seems that unless we know who chooses the Conservative Party leader’s clothes or what Gordon Brown’s favourite brand of after-shave is, we won’t elect them.

There have been lots of surveys that point to increasing disillusionment with politics and that voters have less and less interest in elections. Recent turnout figures back this up. Is it really any wonder when the media’s contributions to the political process are fly on the wall documentaries about politician’s wives and TV debates that undermine our whole political system?

Which TV debate will have the highest TV audience?

9:50am March 19th, 2010| Filed under Uncategorized by admin

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You Scratch My Back…..

It must be tough being the leader of the Liberal Democrats. In the forthcoming General Election, Clegg is a bit like the director of a film that isn’t Avatar or The Hurt Locker. He has to turn up to the awards, but in his heart of hearts he knows he hasn’t got a cat in hell’s chance of actually winning.

This time around, though, Clegg might end up being the most important of all the leaders. In the event of a hung parliament, his fifty or so Liberal Democrat MPs could make all the difference when important votes are held. Whichever party they decide to side with could make or break proposed legislation.
Clegg knows this, of course. So, what he has done this week is effectively prostituted himself and his party in order that they get some of their key policy aims agreed.

“We’ll support you, whoever you are, if you do these four things for us,” Clegg is saying. So, what are the four things?

Firstly, Clegg wants a reform of the tax system to lift four million people on £10,000 a year or less out of income tax altogether. This will be financed by higher taxes for the rich. The second condition is a ‘pupil premium’ to target extra education spending at the most disadvantaged children. Clegg wants to move to a greener economy, less reliant on the financial sector, and finally (of course) the Lib Dems want Westminster voting reform.

The problem the Liberal Democrat leader has, however, is that neither of the two major parties are likely to agree to all four conditions. Labour would broadly support a change in taxation and some tinkering with the voting system. The Tories however don’t want higher taxes for their mates the rich and like the ‘first past the post’ system as it generally favours them. However, Cameron would support a greener economy and is likely to back more money for schools in disadvantaged areas.

It’s a thin tightrope Clegg has to walk. On one hand he can’t admit they have no chance of winning the Election as otherwise no-one would vote for them. He also can’t nail his colours to the mast of either party as he could end up with egg on his face if the result is far from what he expected.
‘We are not here to play games with other parties. We are here to secure a big mandate for the big changes we want in Britain. Once we know the lie of the land after the election, we have to work out the best way to do that,’ Clegg said.

It’s all ifs, buts and maybes. I just hope he doesn’t have too many splinters in his backside when he gets down from the fence after May 6th.

Who Will The Lib Dems Form A Coalition With?

9:56am March 15th, 2010| Filed under Uncategorized by admin

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Balancing the Budget

Imagine the scene. Six weeks before England’s opening match at this summer’s World Cup – a tournament England have an outside chance of winning – Fabio Capello stands up in front of all the opposition managers heading to South Africa and tells them that his team’s form has been rubbish over the last few months, and shows no sign of getting better. He does, however, stress that he thinks he and his coaching staff are the men who can improve England’s fortunes.

It would be ridiculous, wouldn’t it?

And yet, with the Budget scheduled to take place on 24th March – just six weeks before the General Election – that’s the scenario the Labour government find themselves in today.

Alistair Darling will deliver one of the most eagerly awaited Budget speeches in recent history on 24th March. With Gordon Brown and Labour set to argue that a change of government would damage the nation’s economic recovery, the plans to be outlined in the last Budget before the General Election could either make or break Labour’s chances at the polls.

Darling and Labour have a huge problem. The ideal political Budget offers some nice financial incentives to voters such as a small tax cut, perhaps, or a freezing of duty on cigarettes or booze. However, any such measures this time around will be pounced on as irresponsible when Britain has borrowed several hundred gazillion pounds in recent months as a result of the credit crunch and financial crisis.

Darling has to appear to be in control of reducing Britain’s deficit, whilst not announcing any measures so stringent that it alienates millions of voters already struggling financially. It’s a tightrope as thin as Liverpool’s chances of playing Champions League football in 2011.

The easiest way for Darling to tackle Britain’s huge deficit is to raise taxes and duties in order to generate additional revenue. If Labour were assured of a safe election victory he could increase the road fund licence, National Insurance, income tax, VAT, duties on cigarettes and alcohol and Corporation Tax.
However, they are a lengthy 4/1 to win most seats at the forthcoming Election and so hitting every voter in the pocket with tax increases isn’t the brightest political decision Labour could make. However, a rise on duties is almost expected by voters and so he does have an easy way of making a few quid there. It’s 1/3 that duty on cigarettes increases, and 2/3 that we pay more tax on booze.

Changing major taxation rates is more unlikely however, as this generates headlines and negative mutterings from voters. It’s an evens chance that the highest rate of income tax remains at 50p and 5/4 that Darling increases it by up to 5p in the pound. The 10/11 on Corporation Tax being unchanged looks about right, as does the 8/13 on VAT being left at 17.5%.

Where Darling could save money, however, is on Jobseekers allowance. If he froze the benefit (a 2/1 chance) it would save the Government millions of pounds, although with increasing numbers of people out of work it might hit their vote in key marginal areas where unemployment rates are highest.

1:23pm March 10th, 2010| Filed under Uncategorized by admin

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May the Sixth be with you

So, it looks like Gordon Brown has chosen 6th May 2010 for the General Election. Mind you, bearing in mind that the unofficial Election campaign started weeks ago, I suppose it doesn’t make an iota of difference when the actual date of the ballot is.

Alistair Darling (why couldn’t the PM have been Gordon Melchett, just for easy laughs?) will announce that this year’s Budget will be held on 24th March and that, apparently, paves the way for the Election to be held on 6th May.

Astonishingly, considering that we nearly ended up in the biggest Depression since the 1930s, Brown is putting his stewardship of the economy at the centre of his Election campaign. I’m not quite sure how he’s going to get away with that one; it’s a bit like Ashley Cole trying to win Cheryl back by telling her he’s got a new mobile phone with a better camera on it.

His argument will be that whilst Labour can continue the economic recovery, a Conservative government would put any recovery in jeopardy. That seems unlikely, though, seeing as George Osborne has enough money in his Norwich and Peterborough Instant Access Savings Account to wipe the national debt instantly.

Despite recent polls showing their lead is narrowing, the General Election betting shows that the Conservatives remain 1/7 to win most seats, with Labour 4/1 and the Liberal Democrats (Lord love them) 150/1.

One of the reasons Brown and his trusted advisors (who I read are Lord Mandelson of Transylvania, Ed ‘Coleman’ Balls, Ed Miliband and, presumably, Edd the Duck) have chosen the 6th May is that they believe they can continue to gnaw into the Conservative Party’s poll lead between now and the big day.
They will argue that fewer people lost their jobs under Labour in this recession than they did in the 1980s and fewer people lost their home this time around than they did in the 1990s recession. It’s the old ‘It doesn’t matter that we’re a complete failure; we’re still better than the previous lot over the last twenty years’ argument, which, to be fair, has kept Rafa Benitez in a job for years.

Apparently, Brown will head to Buckingham Palace for tea with the Queen on 6th April so as not to disturb Her Majesty over the Easter weekend. After a lovely scone and jam, she will dissolve Parliament and then it will be gloves off as we have a one month long campaign before polling on 6th May. It is, coincidentally, also the day for local elections in England.

So, pencil the 6th May in your diary. You’ll probably have had a short week at work as there’s a Bank Holiday that week. There’ll be no important football on the telly to distract you although you might have to tape Eastenders if you’re planning on voting in the evening….

11:16am March 10th, 2010| Filed under Uncategorized by admin

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