Labour Isn't Winning

A YouGov poll that showed -18% approval for the Government has sent many Labourites into rapture. Sure, it’s good that people are seemingly taking issue with the Government’s indiscriminate, ideology-inspired cuts. But we need to take this with a pinch of salt the size of which would ensure the whole of the M25 doesn’t freeze over ever again.

Read between the lines. In the same poll, YouGov showed that 40% still said they would vote Conservative, with 43% saying they’d vote Labour and 8%, apparently those living under rocks, still vouching for the LibDems. Does it really make sense that, despite a -18% Government approval rating, 40% would still vote for the main party in that Government?

Read a bit further. In an IPSOS poll this week, David Cameron received +4% approval to Nick Clegg’s -12%. Ed Miliband, Labour Party leader, received an approval of +4%; but a whopping 30% gave “Don’t Know” as an answer when asked if they were satisfied or dissatisfied with the way Ed was doing his job as leader of the party. To show how big that figure is, Cameron and Clegg received 8% and 11% "Don't Knows" respectively. ComRes showed a worse picture with Ed’s approval at a lowly -16%, very similar to aforementioned Government approval rating that Labourites have been gushing over. Even in that poll, a massive 50% said they “Don’t Know” if Ed is turning out to be a good leader of the Labour Party. Nick Clegg had a dire -23% approval rating in the ComRes poll, with the Prime Minister on just -2%.

We know that LibDem polling has plummeted. ComRes had them at 23% in the middle of June. Their drop to 8% in the latest YouGov poll shows, Keir thinks, that the Government approval rating of -18% is largely due to anti-LibDem sentiment; not anti-Tory sentiment.

Labour isn’t winning. The Tories are. Government approval may be sinking, but their polling is stable. And we also now have the reason why we do need to act fast, contrary to what many Labourites would argue. Though Keir doubts he would or could, if Uncle Vince pressed his big red nuclear button, we would not win a snap election. In all likelihood, the Tories would win a majority as Labour are yet to propose an alternative, and the leader’s ratings are not good enough to carry the party in that situation. Now Keir doesn't suddenly think Cable has developed some fortitude and would actually be able to do that, but the point here is that this Coalition is fragile and we need to be ready if they capitulate.

It's not all gloom though. The amount of “Don’t Knows” in the questions about Ed’s leadership shows there is a vacuum to exploit that would not only make that Government approval sink further, but would make Labour’s polling percentage grow at the expense of the Tories; the real enemy. Labour MPs have been doing a sterling job on certain issues. Stella Creasy's campaign against legal loan sharks is the Labour Party as it should be. Jim Murphy's excellent use of the internet and his sterling work with genuine new ideas on Defence is offering credible plans. Bob Ainsworth's call for a new way of looking at drugs policy is laudable if only for his suggestion that we have an intelligent debate. And Ed Balls and Andy Burnham continue to offer stern opposition to their two Cabinet rivals across the dispatch box. Both are expertly exposing two of the most ideologically-driven Tories in the business.

But, on the whole, people don't vote based on their impression of Shadow Cabinet members. They look to the Leader. So now, yes now, nearly 3 months after taking up the post of Leader, Ed Miliband must start converting the “Don’t Knows”.

LetUsFaceTheFuture.

Is T.I.N.A. Working?

More polling from the lovely people at IPSOS. And you know how Keir loves giving his view on what it all means.

It shows that 39% of people see the economy as the most important issue facing Britain today. And 54% gave the economy as an answer when asked to state which issues other than their chosen "most important" issue were important.

We could read this as being obvious given the times we live in.

However, Keir found the percentages of the other issues intriguing. Just 2% said the NHS was the most important issue. Also, 2% said education and 2% said housing. These are staggeringly low. Even in the second question, education only got 15%, the NHS 18% and housing 8% when people were asked to state other important issues.

What this tells Keir is that the Conservative narrative is working; T.I.N.A. is fooling the nation.

The Tory changes are going to hit education hard. The cuts and the barmy "free schools" policy are going to begin the ideological dismantling of the school system. The NHS is looking down a similar barrel.

And the cuts to housing benefit alongside changes to social housing tenure rules will, as the Tory Mayor of London put it, cause "Kosovo-style social cleansing."

So why don't these issues poll higher on the IPSOS Issues Index?

Keir thinks it's because the Tory line is working due to there being, in Political terms, no alternative. Labour is inactive. Whenever the Tories are challenged on a cut they are making, they respond with;

a) T.I.N.A.

b) "Difficult decisions to cut the deficit"

c) Big Society bullshit

d) "We inherited the biggest deficit since Alexander marched into Egypt"

Okay so the last one isn't quite accurate. But you get the point. They are smoke-screening all of their savage policies and cuts with these lines that are scaring people into going with the narrative. That is what is leaving issues like the NHS, education and housing so low down on the list of priorities.

Until Labour finds its alternative, that smoke will only get thicker.

LetUsFaceTheFuture.

Confusing Polling

Lots of interesting stuff in the recent IPSOS poll. Many of the big topline results have been well publicised. Voting intention was the big result as Labour levelled with the Conservatives at 37%. It was hardly a surprise, although it does mean that Labour activists need to be commended for taking the fight to the new government immediately. Harriet Harman deserves credit for that too. Along with Ed Balls and Andy Burnham who, when back in their Shadow Cabinet roles, have destroyed the Tories. Balls in particular has dissected the body of economic policies and fed George Osbourne his deep blue heart.

But, as an ardent believer in the Sanders' voting behaviour theory, I found some of the other figures particularly interesting.

For those who don't have the time to explore such literature, the theory, very basically, goes that if people's economic expectations (personal and national) are positive, they will vote for the Government. If not, they seek change. He used the Thatcher post-Falklands victory to prove the theory.

However, my firm belief in this relatively simple theory is being challenged by recent events. Has Sanders expired?

I ask because in this month's poll, 48% of the people asked thought the general economic condition will get worse over the next 12 months whereas only 28% said they think it will improve.

Now, normally that would be a disastrous figure for a government to have to deal with. Sure, we are not (yet) close to an election, but that is still a high percentage of people with negative expectations. But, coupled with some of the other findings it may not be as much of a problem for the government as one may think. Because 57% still think the government's policies will benefit the country in the long-term and 57% say the spending cuts are necessary. Despite the fact that 75% said the cuts should be slower, the fact that people buy into the cuts and have negative economic expectations confuses matters. For me anyway.

There's more confusion to be found in the surveys leading up to the last General Election. In December 2009, 32% of people asked said they thought the economic situation would improve and 36% said it would get worse. Come January 2010, the positive respondents had gone up to 44% whilst the percentage saying they thought things would get worse had gone down to 24%.

February: 37% said it would improve, 31% said it would get worse.

So the declining numbers who were optimistic coupled with increased numbers who were pessimistic would lead to a weaker government party performance at the May election. But then April threw up a stonking 41% saying the economic situation would improve with only 26% saying it would get worse and 30% saying it would stay the same! Huh?! And optimism was as high as 47% in a separate Scottish survey.

I vividly remember the night these polls came in and gloating on Twitter that we had convinced people. We had economic expectations up, pessimism down and thus would win the election. I knew, Sanders knew. Hell, Gordon knew and, after we won, he would be hailed as a genius.

Au contraire.

We lost votes, seats, credibility and one of the greatest thinkers in politics as our leader.

So has the picture been changed because of the Tory ability to credibly push the T.I.N.A. message? Or is it because Labour isn't offering an alternative to challenge T.I.N.A.? Or have the people changed? Is Sanders still relevant? Are economic expectations still the best indicator?

So many questions.

LetUsFaceTheFuture.

The Long Campaign might just work in 2010

Seasoned political watchers will know that the reason for the length of the campaign in 1997 was because John Major and the bastard sons and daughters of Thatcher thought that it would show the public how flimsy new Labour was. That didn't work then but it seems it may work this time around, and it is a disaster all of Camerons making. (Or is it Osbournes, as he is the GE Coordinator?)

It was a Tory decision to begin the campaign so early in the new year: the posters, now ridiculed, the most obvious demonstration of this.

This has been followed by utter confusion over their policies on families and taxation, and things are slowly, starting to happen. A YouGov poll for the Telegraph show the gap now 7 points, CON 38%(-2), LAB 31%(nc), LDEM 19%(+1) and an IpsosMori poll shows it as 8 CON 40%(-3), LAB 32%(+6), LDEM 16%(-4).

Squeaky bum time for the Cameroons, and it's only the end of January.