This graph shows why Libdem surge hurts Tories more than Labour
Put away the Universal Swing Calculator; it’s become useless, especially when you count marginal seats. At this point the key question isn’t how big the Libdem surge is, but at whose expense Clegg is gaining.
Imagine a marginal seat where the Labour vote is slightly higher than the Conservative vote, with Libdems trailing not far behind. Here is a list. If the Libdem surge drains enough voters away from the Tories, then the seat could end up remaining Labour despite a Libdem surge in the vote nationally.
In that particular seat the people who were earlier going to vote Conservative for a ‘change’ now vote Libdem because they see a national surge. Ergo, the vote splits between Libdems and Conservatives and Labour retain a majority.
Which is why, the question of whether the Libdems are draining more votes from the Conservatives or Labour matters.
Now have a look at the graphs below, taken from the BBC poll tracker site.
.
Most of the polling companies and the ‘poll of polls’ shows that the Conservatives have been the biggest losers from the Libdem surge. Why? Three reasons I suspect.
1) Those voters who were not exactly enamoured by Cameron but disliked Brown now have a credible home. Clegg Seen As ‘Change’ Candidate, Not Cameron
2) Voters who want a Hung Parliament to ‘teach politicians a lesson’ now have a credible alternative.
3) Libdem sympathisers who wanted Labour out can now vote for their party of choice.
If I’ve got this right: the Swing Calculator is useless here because if Libdems take away more voters from Tories than Labour – it hurts the former more while benefiting the latter.
In which case Labour may end up holding on to more seats than the swing estimates.
New study rubbishes Tory policy on marriage & kids
The Guardian reports today:
Conservative plans to encourage marriage through tax breaks would have little effect on children’s development, according to a study released today.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies found that while the children of married couples progressed faster, this was a reflection of differences in the social and economic status of those who decide to get married instead of just living together.
Once largely pre-existing factors such as married parents tending to be better educated, higher earning and more stable in their relationships were stripped out, marital status had little or no impact on children’s cognitive or social and emotional development, according to the research using data on around 10,000 children.
The Tories have outlined proposals to “recognise marriage” with a tax break worth up to £150 a year for couples earning up to £44,000.
You can download the report from the IFS think-tank here.
Isn’t it rather amazing the Conservatives haven’t done research to see whether a key part of their agenda actually works?
More people want Clegg as PM than Cameron
Petter Kellner of YouGov asks: Could the Lib Dems win outright?
One reason why the Lib Dems could, just possibly, achieve this is revealed by YouGov’s latest daily poll. We asked: “How would you vote on May 6 if you thought the Liberal Democrats had a significant chance of winning the election”. The responses: Lib Dem 49%, Conservative 25%, Labour 19%. On the – admittedly unrealistic – assumption of uniform national swing, there would be 548 Lib Dem MPs, 41 Labour MPs and just 25 Tories.
It won’t happen. But this question does show that if Nick Clegg continues to perform well in TV debates and voters regard him as a serious challenger, then Lib Dem support could rise further from the 30% or so that, all pollsters agree, it has achieved since last Friday.
And here are the responses from a recent poll:
| Delighted | Wouldn’t mind | Dismayed | |
| Lib Dem govt under Nick Clegg | 29% | 38% | 21% |
| Con govt under David Cameron | 25% | 20% | 45% |
| Lab govt under Gordon Brown | 18% | 23% | 51% |
| Labour-Lib Dem coalition | 14% | 35% | 39% |
| Con-Lib Dem coalition | 9% | 33% | 45% |
| Grand 3-party coalition | 9% | 24% | 47% |
In fact, as I pointed out this morning at the Guardian: It may be time for Labour to quietly make plans to ditch Brown.
And see Anthony Barnett: The Liberal Democrat breakthrough can succeed
Why Labour has little to gain from attacking Libdems
Labour, facing their worst result in almost 20 years, have a lot to worry about. Their share is dropping and for the first time in a long while they have become the third party…however fleetingly.
They need a sensible and effective strategy, both for the party AND the supporters that are directing both the ground and internet campaign for hearts and minds. Who or what should they be targeting?
My first instinct would be to say “Not the Liberal Democrats”. Here’s why (though, in advance, forgive the broad generalisations):
Of the top 25 target seats for the Lib Dems in May, Labour seats therein lie in either Scotland, the North East, or London. The only exceptions are Watford and Norwich South. Let’s be clear that the fight in Scotland is between the SNP and Labour.
Lib Dems might be sniffing around at a few extra votes but there is nothing that they can offer above the border that the SNP can’t in terms of electoral strategy. In London the battle is almost exclusively between Labour and the Tories.
Compare the above situation with the seats Lib Dems will be fighting the Tories for, Somerton and Frome now notionally a Tory seat despite being the seat of a Lib Dem front bencher, Solihull also notionally Tory despite being held by long term Lib Dem in an area Lib Dems are gaining at an equal if not better pace than the Tories…
In fact out of the top 25 target seats that are Tory there are only Guildford, Ealing and Central Acton, Eastbourne and Meon Valley that look like tough nuts to crack, down in the South Eastern heart of anti-EU anti-immigration sentiment.
The differences here are night and day, while Lib Dems will hope to achieve wins in the Lib/Lab marginals that they’re contesting the reality is that support in these areas is already high and isn’t going anywhere. I mentioned scotland above, but in the North East and London Labour are still polling a 53% and 39% share respectively.
The trend is downwards for Labour, that much is true, yet their supporters need to realise that these highly marginal seats are not worth butting heads with the Lib Dems over…it is the Tories that hold the threat. These regions are simply not turning Yellow just yet. They may do in the future, but not yet.
More pressingly the Tories first 8 target seats, all around the London area, are all virtually guaranteed to turn Blue due to their location, go further down their list to a more “current” swing likelihood and you have seats like Bury North, Ribble South and Pendle.
These are supposedly Labour’s strength and traditional support, yet unless they work out how to reverse the tide of support flowing from them in regions like this (North West) and the North East then they will also lose these to the Tories. It is here that the Labour party must be most careful and most proactive.
Meanwhile for the Lib Dems it is the Tories that must be the target of attack for greater parliamentary weight, constituencies already predisposed to voting “Liberal” and in regions that are seeing the vote share swing to the Lib Dems.
There are also three way marginals in the mix, and every bit of common sense suggests that in these areas the Lib Dems will win, most likely due to a Watford style crumbling of support for the main two parties, the latest Yougov poll suggests that where Lib Dems can be seen to have a significant chance of winning they get a massive 49% of the vote.
What it ultimately has to come down to is funding for the Lib Dems, and it’s the seats like Weston-Super-Mare and Devon Central that the local Lib Dem supporters and party are going to have to really take seriously now. A 2% swing against a resurgent Tory party in a fairly blue or yellow part of the country might have been daunting a month ago, but now there is no reason to fear that battle.
Money and time is what it all boils down to. If the Lib Dems want to capitalise on this recent bounce, however long it lasts, then they’ll need donations, they’ll need support…and they’ll need a local party that wants to go out and win.
What they don’t need is Labour denting their chances at taking a swathe of Tory seats, and what Labour don’t have much choice in is the number of seats they’re almost guaranteed to lose to either party in the South. Labour need to be smart now, and in all honesty I think the main party is already on their way to the right strategy.
Their focus, just like the Lib Dems, has to be the Conservatives and stopping the overall majority they’re aiming for.
Both the red and yellow party have significant differences on a variety of issues, but the one thing that I have always believed they are closer on is the lack of desire to see another Tory government given the chance to ruin this country.
Release Anselme Noumbiwa!
This morning I received a request for help via twitter and, having looked into the background to the request, I’m more than happy to give it a go.
Anselme Noumbiwa is a Cameroonian national and the son of now-deceased tribal chief of the Bamileke people, Semi-Bantu ethnic group which consists of around 100 or so individual tribal groups, all of which are related culturally, historically and linguistically.
Anselme’s problem’s started with the death of his father in 2006.
As his father’s heir, Anselme was expected to follow the tribal traditions to the letter, which meant (amongst other things) stepping up to become the new tribal chief and entering in polygynyous marriages with all of his late father’s many wives. However, Anselme is a a devout Roman Catholic,which made that last condition more than a little problematic, so he decided to pass on the whole business of being tribal chief.
It was a this point that his tribal elders took it upon themselves to try and torture Anselme into taking the job.
So, for what appear to be eminently sound reasons, Anselme skipped the country and, for his sins, wound up in Middlebrough.
Despite producing evidence of his treatment at the hand of his tribal elders, including a medico-legal report commissioned by the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, his application for asylum was turned down, seemingly because the immigration judge decided that he could have avoided the problems he faced back home by simply moving to another part of Cameroon, a country that generally has a pretty miserable record on human rights.
If my reading of the situation is correct, there have already been five failed attempts to deport Anselme back to Cameroon, including one in which he was successfully shipped off to Paris and put on a plane at Charles de Gaulle only to be removed from the flight after the other passengers objected, en masse, to the deportation and demanded that he allowed off the plane.
In the latest develop, Anselme was picked up by immigration officials on 14th April and is currently being held at Colnbrook detention centre pending removal from the UK on a charter flight, which is due to leave tomorrow (21st April)
Anselme has been getting support from his local MP, Dari Taylor, and from local organisation Justice First.
However, with Parliament having been prorogued pending the upcoming general election, he now no longer has a Member of Parliament to speak out on his behalf, which I suspect is no mere coincidence – shipping people out of the UK under the cover of a general election is such an obvious stunt for the Immigration Service to pull that the odds of there not being a connection here must be somewhere between slim and none – and Slim’s very likely already out of town.
I’m really not sure how much helf we can offer given the timescales involved but…
- You can read full details of Anselme’s case and current situation at the website of the National Coalition of Anti Deportation Campaigns.
- And it also appears that you can send Anselme a personal message of support by sending a tweet to @anselmenoumbiwa
Anselme has requested that people should try to send faxes and emails opposing his deportation directly to Home Secretary, Alan Johnson – whether any such faxes/emails would even reach him by tomorrow, due to the election, is anyone guess and Johnson is, unfortunately, not on Twitter, so tweetbombing him is not an option.
There are, however, plenty of other MPs who are on Twitter, who can be made aware of Anselme’s situation so please do retweet this post up to them and add your own message of support or request for help.
Finally, as you’ll see from the title, I’m calling #releaseanselme (or #releaseanselm, in deference to the typo in title when I hamfisteded hit the publish button before I’d checked everything) as the hashtag for any tweets regarding this case/situation, so of you could also include that in any tweets it would help considerably. At this late stage, raising a bit of a tweetstorm seems to be just about the only option we have for trying to draw attention to his situation.
How the right hijacked immigration (and how to deal with it)
contribution by Adam Ramsay
I have spent the last 2 weekends canvassing council estates. As you find in lots of places, many people, when asked to list their main worries, include “immigration”.
Immigration is an extraordinarily abstract consept in this context. Almost every other answer you get is either local (that wall there is crumbling) or national but directly material (my son can’t find a job because of the recession) or general anger over expenses. No one has ever told me that they’re worried about the defecit, or about the mobility of global capital, or about the ageing population.
So why do people worry about the mobility of labour, but not of capital?
We might think it’s because they see people moving in near them, and so have direct experience of it. But from my time canvassing, anecdotal evidence from friends, and the only studies I’ve seen, worry about immigration is much more prevelent in areas which haven’t experienced much of it (in all four days canvassing, I only met 2 people who were BME).
So why are people worried about immigration? Well, I’ve taken up asking. There are, essentially three answers. Some people say something like “there are just too many of them”. I don’t have much to say about that.
But most people say either “jobs” or “not enough council housing”. With these people, it is very easy to turn the conversation into anger with either Thatcher for introducing “right to buy” without investing in new stock, or with bankers & the politicians who handed the economy to them. It’s usualy easy enough to sway them with support for restricting right to buy, and investment in job creation.
That the right have managed to take the macro-economic factor of labour mobility and convince millions that it’s to blame for their day to day problems is as extraordinary as it is scary. But every time Labour (or even, in the recent debate and to a lesser extent, the Lib Dems) accept this premise but concede they won’t deal with the ‘problem’ as aggressively, they drive people to the arms of racists.
So by talking about ‘getting tough on immigration’, Labour can never win.
All they do is confirm the slightly odd belief that it is to blame for people’s day to day problems. If you then tell these people that they are racist, they will, ultimately, conclude “well, ok, I’m racist then”. People are not naturally racist.
But if they believe that the presence of a particular group of people is what has caused their day to day problems, then they will start to dislike those people.
This is a big problem. By repeating the word ‘immigration’ ad nausiam, the right has persuaded ordinary people that they represent their material interests. Every time Labour pander to it, they hand over this debate. Labour can either tell people that this is an accurate macro-economic analysis, but that they are too wet and liberal to do what’s needed to solve it.
Or they can tell them, in clear terms, what they will do to deal with the genuine problems of unemployment and housing shortage, and explain, in clear terms, how the right genuinely are proposing policies which hit working class people hardest.
My surprise over the last few weeks is being reminded quite how easy the latter is. But unfortunately Labour are obsessed with triangulating into the same neo-liberalism that is to blame for these problems. And so seem unwilling to do it.
Lib Dems face more spiteful attacks
Since Nick Clegg dared to push the Lib Dems firmly above the electoral parapet with his performance in last week’s Leaders’ Debate, the attacks have been coming in thick and fast…
…although most thick, as this spiteful example by professional Catholic apologist, Christina Odone, neatly demonstrates:
The Lib Dems are a Jekyll and Hyde party. Forget nice Mr Clegg. What about ‘Dr Death’?
The mood music surrounding the Lib Dems is so loud and chirpy right now that we’re in danger of forgetting something. This is a Jekyll and Hyde outfit. It’s not just the party of Nick Clegg, with his lovely bright wife and faith school-educated children. It’s the party of Dr Evan Harris.
Dr Harris believes in euthanasia – and, I mean, really believes. He was instrumental in ensuring that legalising euthanasia became Lib Dem party policy. (I remember Charles Kennedy, the hard-living and charismatic former leader, refusing to support his party’s position.)
Dr Harris also believes our present abortion laws are too strict, and the fact that an astonishing fifth of pregnancies are terminated is of no great import. No wonder he is known as “Dr Death” by his critics.
Got that?
Cleggy’s alright, but only because his wife’s a Catholic and he’s sent his kids to a religious school, but not so the rest of the Lib Dems, because some of them take the view that sentient, reasoning adults should have the right to think for themselves and make their own choices.
As I see it, Catholics are the last people who should be calling anyone ‘Dr Death’.
This is, after all, a church that expects its followers to mumble incantations in front of a large statue of a mostly-naked European bloke nailed to Roman torture implement and includes an act of ritual cannibalism in its rites…
…so who’s really obsessed with death here.
If Catholics are going slate the Lib Dems because some of their members would allow people to check out at a time, and in a pain free manner, of their own choosing then its, perhaps, well worth taking the time to review the Catholic church’s view of how people should be treated as they approach the end of life…
…with a little help, naturally, from the redoubtable Penn and Teller (video NSFW, obviously).
The prosecution rests…
Are Conservatives testing smear messages against Libdems?
There’s something not quite right with the ‘push-polling’ story that I wrote about yesterday, highlighted first by Craig Murray and then Stephen Tall.
Here is the alleged question asked in a poll:
Nick Cleggs says the other parties are to blame for the MP scandals, he has taken money from a criminal on the run, many of his MPs have been found guilty of breaking the rules and his own party issued guidance on how to fiddle the expenses system?
After this was highlighted I emailed Peter Kellner of YouGov to ask whether this was ‘push-polling’.
Peter replied by saying:
As with all agencies, we ask all kinds of questions for all kinds of clients; some public, some private. For purposes of testing theories, messages or policies we will often test statements phrased one way for some respondents and phrased differently for others.
I later pressed again to ask whether YouGov did actually ask that question in a poll.
Last night he replied:
I can tell you that no such question has been asked as any part of any poll we have conducted for the media.
We do conduct separate surveys for private clients; we never discuss or disclose the questions we ask or the results we obtain.
Fair enough, they can’t disclose client info.
But yesterday afternoon the Guardian picked up on this story:
Anthony Wells, the YouGov political analyst running the poll over the weekend, said: “We test lots of messages and ask people in different ways to see which are the most effective ways to sell an idea. I cannot say who the client is but this was not part of the work we do for News International.”
No denial there that it wasn’t a YouGov question.
In fact, last night Stephan Shakespeare, CEO of Yougov, wrote on ConHome differentiating between push-polling and testing messages.
It’s a good article and I agree that this isn’t ‘push-polling’ as such because it probably wasn’t tested on a large audience. Similarly, Peter Kellner says no such question was asked in a poll conducted for the media.
YouGov is really the wrong target here because it’s very likely a political party is in fact testing this message. That is also the implication of Stephan Shakespeare’s article.
To which Sunder Katwala helpfully asks: Will positive Dave confirm he hasn’t been testing that negative message?
Didn’t the Conservative Party reveal last month that it was becoming a new major client of YouGov during the election? It was reported that this internal polling would provide additional rapid reaction polling of polling “within the day” on major announcement “enabling them to have whole ad campaigns ready to go for the next morning”.
We know the Labour party has no money. So… over to you Dave – have you been trying to figure out the best way to smear the Libdems?
If I were Nick Clegg I’d pay attention – there is someone out there who is really desperate and wants to smear him.
Ideally, he should now go on the offensive first and ask who is testing these messages. That might even neutralise any chances of negative messages coming out later if people are prepared for them.
Study: immigration does not increase BNP support
The British National Party (BNP) and national politicians frequent suggest that the BNP attracts support because it is the only party to take into account communities’ ‘real’ experiences of immigration.
The think-tank ippr has explored whether or not this is the case by looking at the roots of BNP support across 149 local authorities.
It conducted regression-based analysis to see whether or not high levels of immigration do raise communities’ support for the BNP, or if other variables – such as political disengagement – are important.
Their findings suggest that areas that have higher levels of recent immigration than others are not more likely to vote for the BNP.
In fact, the more immigration an area has experienced, the lower its support for the far right.
It seems that direct contact with migrants dissuades people from supporting the BNP.
For example, of the 10 local authorities in which the BNP gained most support in the 2009 European elections, nine had lower than average immigration (with Barking and Dagenham the only anomaly).
Rather, the evidence points to political and socio-economic exclusion as drivers of BNP support. In particular, areas with low average levels of qualifications (which can mean people struggle in today’s flexible, knowledge-based economy), low levels of social cohesion, and low levels of voter turnout (indicating political disenchantment) are the ones that show more BNP support.
ippr urge mainstream politicians to strongly resist the notion that people have been driven into the arms of the BNP by the harm immigration is causing to their communities.
Instead, they must focus on building strong communities and strong education systems, and on rebuilding trust and confidence in democratic politics, so that marginalised people do not feeling so disconnected.
This should enable them to both better serve the interests of these communities, and undercut support for the BNP.
———–
From the summary of the ippr study. Download the whole document from here.
Tory donors & NI backers rewarded with peerage
Two Tory donors who signed the recent business leaders’ letter against Labour’s planned “tax on jobs” are to get seats in the Lords.
The Times has learnt that a new list of about 30 working peers due to be released in the next few days will include the names of Conservative nominees Simon Wolfson and Sir Anthony Bamford.
…
Sir Anthony is the chairman of construction equipment maker JCB, which has given the Conservatives almost £1 million in recent years. He has also made smaller gifts of more than £80,000 in his own name. Donations in kind by JCB Research filed with the Electoral Commission include £175,000 towards the cost of private flights for members of the Shadow Cabinet.
Mr Wolfson, the chief executive of Next, has emerged as another major benefactor since David Cameron took over, giving £238,000 to the party over the past four years. Senior Tory officials have said that Mr Wolfson has become a significant influence in economic policy, co-chairing the party’s Competitiveness Group with John Redwood.
You can read articles through the front page, via Twitter or RSS feed. You can also get them by email and through our Facebook group.
» The real agenda behind Telegraph’s abortion investigation
» How Scotland Yard monitors prying bloggers and journalists
» When disabled people want to work – employers can hold the back
» Revealed: the reality behind Workfare and why it doesn’t work
» Job snob? No, I’ve got the T-shirt
» Why country-by-country reporting matters to our wellbeing
» If Unions want to become stronger, they need to modernise
» Why work “reforms” in Spain are a warning for workers across Europe
» Five things you need to know about the NHS bill
» Bigger. Fatter. Gypsier. More Racist.
» Laziness levels in Britain getting lazier, wails government
|
62 Comments 15 Comments 23 Comments 8 Comments 24 Comments 16 Comments 16 Comments 83 Comments 203 Comments 85 Comments |
|
LATEST COMMENTS » Cylux posted on The real agenda behind Telegraph's abortion investigation » pagar posted on The real agenda behind Telegraph's abortion investigation » pjt posted on The real agenda behind Telegraph's abortion investigation » nothingspecial posted on Workfare - what does the evidence show? » Chaise Guevara posted on How Scotland Yard monitors prying bloggers and journalists » Patron Press - #P2 posted on Workfare - what does the evidence show? » karl meyer posted on Workfare - what does the evidence show? » BevR posted on Workfare - what does the evidence show? » bob woods posted on Workfare - what does the evidence show? » Alex Young posted on Workfare - what does the evidence show? » malcolm posted on Workfare - what does the evidence show? » BevR posted on Workfare - what does the evidence show? » pjt posted on The real agenda behind Telegraph's abortion investigation » thesmallwhitebear posted on Workfare - what does the evidence show? » Mark Martin posted on Workfare - what does the evidence show? |
