How close are Libdem and Labour candidates really?
contribution by various ippr researchers
Those who advocate a post-election ‘progressive alliance’ between Labour and the Liberal Democrats do so based on the understanding that the two parties co-habit a significant chunk of the political spectrum.
Yet what most commentators appear to be missing is that the two parliamentary parties as they stand are not the two parties that will exist on Friday morning.
Who are the new MPs we are about to send to Westminster, what are their political beliefs, and – crucially – could they work together in the event of a hung parliament?
To help us tackle these important questions the ippr conducted an online poll of 255 prospective parliamentary candidates (PPCs), excluding sitting MPs and targeted at those expecting to win safe seats or fighting marginals.
Our first finding was that if proportional representation is the ‘deal breaker’ in a hung parliament, both David Cameron and Gordon Brown will find it difficult to persuade their backbenchers to back electoral reform.
All of the Conservative PPCs polled supported first past the post, while only 10% of Labour PPCs backed proportional representation or a mixed system as used in Scotland and Wales.
Our second set of findings provides better news for those hopeful for a progressive alliance. The poll found that Labour and Lib Dem PPCs have much more in common with each other than either set of candidates do with the Conservatives, an ideological overlap which is a necessary precursor to a deal which hopes to survive more than a few months.
Most Labour and Liberal Democrat PPCs agreed that the redistribution of income from rich to poor should be a priority, whereas only 30% of our Conservative respondents agreed.
On the issue of benefits, the same battle lines emerged: 59% of Conservatives disagreed with the statement that ‘too many people’s lives would be damaged by cutting benefits’, compared to just 7% of Labour PPCs and 17% of Lib Dem candidates.
On other issues, division emerged within the prospective alliance, but not necessarily as expected. On Foreign policy and climate change, the Liberal Democrat PPCs camped to the left of Labour rather than occupying the middle ground, and the same was true on whether Britain is over-reliant on the City.
91% of Lib Dem PPCs agreed that we have been too reliant on the City for growth and should curb its role, compared to 44% of Labour PPCs.
All said, the Class of 2010 bring with them one potential deal breaker: electoral reform. On other important ideological issues, however, a hefty plot of common ground exists to give hope for those advocating an alliance.
A final finding, however, sours the tone of the election in more general terms: 75% of the new cohort were chosen by less than 200 party members and 28% by less than 100, indicative of a lingering disconnect between people and politics despite predictions of a high turn out at the ballots tomorrow.
‘Third Party’ campaign in Barking is BNP front
A recently registered ‘publishing company’ that has been distributing glossy anti-Labour pamphlets in the Barking and Dagenham and Rainhill constituencies has been exposed as a BNP ‘false flag’ operation following an investigation by Searchlight.
The 12 page ‘Barking and Dagenham Sentinal’, which is devoted entirely to personal attacks on Margaret Hodge and John Cruddas, bears the imprint of Sentinal Publications Ltd, a company registered on 1 April, this year, by Adam Walker, using a service address in Edinburgh.
Although the BNP’s website quotes Griffin as stating that:
“The BNP has long been the victim of these third party campaigns and it seems that the Labour Party is getting some of its own medicine back,”
Before going on to claim that:
“This magazine has been produced by a loose coalition of non-BNP people,”
In reality, Walker is a BNP Officer in the North East and the party’s official candidate in Bishop Auckland, in addition to being one of several BNP officers on the staff of the party’s two MEPs and, therefore, paid out of EU funds.
UDPATE
It’s just struck me that’s its worth ensuring that this doesn’t fall down the Internet memory hole, so…
Evening Standard sitting on report on Tory PPC Shaun Bailey (updated)
I can confirm today, after several days of digging around, that editors at the London Evening Standard newspaper are sitting on a story on Hammersmith Conservative PPC Shaun Bailey.
I also know the story was written up more than a week ago and involved several days of work by its deputy political editor Paul Waugh.
The story revolves around Shaun Bailey and his charity MyGeneration.
Questions were first raised in the media in a small Times story titled: Rising stars face questions on Tory community work:
Shaun Bailey, candidate in neighbouring Hammersmith, faces scrutiny from the commission after an independent examiner discovered £16,000 worth of unreceipted expenditure in the charity he runs.
…
The independent examiner said that the charity’s accounts showed that £15,952 worth of payments were made from a budget of £201,859 “without any supporting records” .Mr Bailey told The Times yesterday that the charity had been unprepared to deal with its rapidly growing budget. “We had a little panic, we have the stuff,” he said. “What you are dealing with is a kid from the estate who had a good idea to do this and never had a wider view of accountants and lawyers. We have raised this money, spent it on the kids. We just didn’t know.”
The story was then also reported by Civil Society mag, The Third Sector magazine and the Fulham Chronicle.
Since then more questions have come to light, as noted by Political Scrapbook blog.
And so Paul Waugh at the London Evening Standard started digging into the story.
He later submitted the story – and I will make it clear I have no idea what it said – but it never saw the light of day.
I did contact Paul Waugh and he did not want to comment on the record.
But I was told by sources that no one at CCHQ leaned on the Standard to shelve it.
Several people have pointed out, quite fairly, that the newspaper has become less partisan since Alexander Lebedev bought it.
But I’m still curious as to why a story clearly of public interest has not seen the light.
Update: Paul Waugh responds:
It is frankly ludicrous to suggest there is any conspiracy in this story not appearing. It simply fell off the news list because there were other, bigger stories – not least the second TV debate – to cover in a busy general election campaign. Believe me, if I had found anything ‘explosive’, we would have reported it.
Is this why the media haven’t reported on Phillipa Stroud?
Unity earlier wrote a post linking to another blog that I cannot substantiate fully so I’ve edited it out. Let me explain what I believe is going on.
Since the original article in the Observer, thousands of people on Twitter and blogs have asked why broadcasters did not chase up the Phillipa Stroud story.
The question was also asked by Benjamin Cohen at Channel 4 and at the New Statesman.
First, I’ve heard from two sources in the media, at broadcasters, that Phillipa Stroud’s lawyers have gotten involved in the story.
But this isn’t about libel.
My understanding is that the Representation of People’s Act 1983, has been brought into the mix.
The relevant bit states that:
Section 106 makes it illegal to publish any false statement of fact in relation to the candidate’s personal character or conduct, unless he can show that he had reasonable grounds for believing that statement to be true. It is also illegal to publish a false statement of a candidate’s withdrawal from an election.
What I can’t confirm is whether Stroud’s lawyers cited that act or lawyers at broadcasters themselves have.
Either way, it puts broadcasters, who are obliged by law to be balanced, in a difficult position. The statement by Phillipa Stroud says:
Philippa makes no apology for being a committed Christian. However, it is categorically untrue that she believes homosexuality to be an illness. Indeed, Philippa was deeply offended that The Observer has suggested otherwise.
But the statement does not deny that she actually worshipped for homosexuals to be saved, as is alleged in the Observer article, or founded a church that did exactly that.
So a broadcaster would have difficulty standing up that allegation because:
1. Phillipa Stroud is not giving interviews.
2. All this allegedly happened several years ago.
3. There’s too much other stuff going on.
But it’s not that difficult because, as I understand it, the Observer has been perfectly happy to offer broadcasters information as well as contact details of people they interviewed.
My source tells me there is is another reason why broadcasters are not reporting on the issue: that is, the media are no longer scared of the New Labour media machine and are easily intimidated by the CCHQ machine.
There’s little point in blaming Ms Stroud for the lack of media coverage – she is expected to protect her own interests.
But we should however question why the media, especially the BBC, find it easier to report on the comments of a previously unknown candidate in an unwinnable seat (Manish Sood) – for more than half a day – but say little about potentially damaging revelations about a prominent Conservative candidate who is chair of a highly influential think-tank very close to Cameron.
I’ll offer you more examples of this today.
[This isn't the case, from my sources, for Channel 4 however. It seems they just missed the boat on the story and then decided it was too late to pursue given no new allegations had turned up.]
Tories definitely don’t have the economist vote sewn up
Here’s the Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman:
For sure, Gordon Brown — like the Rubinites here in America — made the great mistake of buying into the promises of high finance. But is there any doubt that a Tory government would have done the same?
And I understand the sense that Labour has been in office too long. If I were British, I might well consider voting Lib Dem.
But its not just him who are confused that anyone would support the Tories, the endorsement for the Tories from the Financial Times and The Economist have brought some other big guns of the American Blogosphere out in shock. Brad DeLong succinctly titles his post “The Financial Times and the London Economist Lose Their Minds.”
DeLong quotes Matthew Yglesias who explains why so many across the pond are confused that the Tories are being widely supported by our press.
[The] FT, in the course of endorsing David Cameron, concedes that “As a crisis manager, Gordon Brown has been a better premier than his critics claim” and simply doesn’t say anything about the substance of the Tories’ opposition to stimulus, a policy that had it been adopted would have sank the economy.
The Economist does take this issue head-on and concludes that the Tories “were wrong to oppose the economic stimulus after the banking crash” but endorses them anyway….
Britain confronted a giant economic challenge and the center-right party responded with such bad policies that even center-right business-focused newspapers think they were wrong, but… [urge] voters are urged to vote Tory anyway…
I’m no Brown fan, but the Tories have managed to get pretty much every important call of this financial crisis and recession wrong.
These papers both once supported Labour and have been relatively impressed with Labour’s performance throughout this recession but they are breaking ranks now. But what strikes me is that they are really unenthusiastically breaking ranks.
The only convincing explanation is that they’re doing this because they’re rats and the Labour Party appears to be sinking. The Tories are not doing dreadfully and are certainly in the ascendant even as their poll lead wobbles.
This makes sense for these papers, they have their circulation to think about and that will partially rely on the access they can get to the next Government and they are betting on a Tory win. This seems a sensible policy even if the Lib Dems do well, they are not going to begrudge a non-endorsement from papers they were not expecting to back them anyway.
However, the support from across the pond for the anyone but the Tories vote illustrates just how foolish their economic pronouncements have been at times. These American bloggers don’t have particular axes to grind against the Tory party, they’ve just looked at the policies and personalities and decided they are a really unsafe pair of hands.
Can’t say I blame them really. I’m glad that David Rendel now has the nobel laureate vote sewn up.
———-
Cross-posted from Left Outside
Did Tories lean on BBC & C4 to stop Stroud story?
Update at 12:45pm by editor, Sunny:
Following legal advice I’ve had to cut this piece out. I’ve posted an update to the story here.
Tory coup a direct ‘challenge to monarchy’
A leading constitutional expert has warned that plans for a ‘Tory coup’ – in which David Cameron declares himself Prime Minister – would bring the Conservative party into direct conflict with Buckingham Palace.
Professor Stephen Haseler, professor of government at London Metropolitan University and director of the Global Policy Institute, said:
This plan is a direct to challenge to the role of the Queen. It will put the Tory party on a collision course with the monarchy.
The monarch, under our constitution, must wait until the outgoing Prime Minister has advised her to appoint his successor. This convention is designed to avoid the Queen being maneouvred by politicians.
Cameron’s coup would not only embarass the Queen and draw her into political controversy, it would also raise serious questions about the future of the monarchy.
Republic spokesperson Graham Smith added:
If Cameron does declare himself Prime Minister, he may well find favour with a large section of the public and with the Tory press. That would immediately raise the question of how the PM is chosen, by what rules Brown can stay on and who has the power to sack Brown and install Cameron. That would pitch the Tory party and the public against the Queen.”
If any lessons can be learnt from a possible hung parliament that leaves Cameron out in the cold it’s that we need clear rules, a written constitution and a head of state with a mandate to act and an agreed role to play.
From a press release
BNP Webmaster quits over ‘Marmite video’ dispute
Yesterday, only two days before Britain goes to the polls, the BNP’s website disappeared for a while and was replaced by this message from its now ex-webmaster, Simon Bennett:
The services to this website have been suspended.
It is with regret that I have been forced to pull this website due to several attempts of theft today with regards to design work and content owned by myself.
It is no secret that I have been in dispute with some elements of the management of the party for sometime now, but had hoped to resolve these issues amicably and AFTER the elections.
However, due to several attempts to steal my work today and combined with the recent deliberate copyright infringement I feel I have been left with no alternative to this action and feel wholly justified in doing so.
The background of my dispute with the party can be read here: (link to Bennett’s personal website)
According to Lancaster Unity, who have the full details of this latest outbreak of infighting in the BNP’s ranks, Bennett briefly pulled the plug on the BNP’s website as a result of a serious dispute with Nick Griffin and Jim Dowson – profiled here by Searchlight – that stemmed from the party’s recent, unauthorised use of Unilever’s Marmire logo in the web version of its general election broadcast.
To cut a very long story short, Bennett claims that he was left to face the music when this publicity stunt blew up in the party’s face, after Unilever sent in its lawyers to obtain an injunction against the BNP for copyright infringement, despite having been opposed to the use of the logo from the outset.
As in invariably the case when infighting in the BNP hits the public domain, Bennett’s account of his falling out with Griffin and Dowson alleges that he was threatened with violence after pulling the plug on the BNP’s website, which he claims to have reinstated only after receiving requests from ordinary party members, who he describes as ‘decent people’.
Bennett’s account also alludes to alleged inregularities in the party’s finances, another common feature of any public falling out with Griffin, although one that may gain rather more traction on this occasion as the party in currently being being investigated by the Electoral Commission after its own auditors indicated that they could not certify the accuracy of its more recent set of published accounts.
Cameron backs Stroud; doesn’t deny allegations
David Cameron has today evening defended the PPC Phillipa Stroud, but pointedly did not refute the allegations made in the original Observer article.
In an email reply to a constituent, passed on to Liberal Conspiracy, Cameron’s office released this statement:
Philippa makes no apology for being a committed Christian. However, it is categorically untrue that she believes homosexuality to be an illness. Indeed, Philippa was deeply offended that The Observer has suggested otherwise.
Since David Cameron became Leader of the Conservative Party in 2005, he has made clear the Party’s commitment to sexual equality and gay rights – from his first conference speech, in which he proudly confirmed our support for Civil Partnerships, to his apology for our former stance on Section 28. We have supported tackling homophobic bullying and measures to tackle incitement to gay hatred, and we have opened up Conservative candidate selection to people from all backgrounds.
Philippa Stroud has spent more than 20 years working with disturbed people who society have turned their back on and who are often not helped by state agencies. Drug addicts, alcoholics, the mentally ill and the homeless are just some of the people that Philippa and her friends in the charitable sector have tried to help over the years. The idea that she is prejudiced against gay people is false.
The same statement was made to the BBC Asian Network today.
But Cameron’s statement does not refute the central allegation: that Stroud set up an evangelical Church that prayed for homosexuals to be saved.
All the charity work in the world doesn’t hide that fact, and neither has any statement by Stroud or Cameron’s office refuted that central point.
As Pink News points out:
When PinkNews.co.uk pointed out to her spokesman that he Observer’s prime claim was not that she believed homosexuality to be an illness and instead that she appeared to believe it could be overcome through prayer and removing “demons”, he said: “We will not be adding to or subtracting to [sic] the statement.”
The controversy around Stroud cannot go away so easily. And yet the media pointedly refuses to raise the issue.
Right-wing bloggers use Nazi smear against Balls
An attack ad against Ed Balls MP is being circulated by the ‘Sunlight Centre for Open Politics’, it has been uncovered today (by the Jewish Chronicle).
The ad repeatedly uses a picture that it claims was Ed Balls wearing a Nazi uniform at a party at university.
It also attacks Balls for his “privileged background”, in the style of class politics that right-wing bloggers have been criticising Labour for recently.
The Sunlight Centre is an operation set up and promoted by the Tory cheerleading blogger Paul Staines, aka Guido Fawkes.
Harry Cole, aka Tory Bear, is another Tory blogger who works with the Sunlight Centre.
We wrote about this false-flag operation here earlier.
A few years ago Harry Cole had to apologise for trying to use an anonymous online campaign to discredit the Edinburgh University Students Association.
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