I'm already bored with the election. At 11pm last night the scrolling BREAKING NEWS feed from Sky had, as it's one and only story " Gordon Brown calls election for May 6th"
That was hardly breaking, it had been broken some 12 hours earlier.
The only potential joy I can see is the bloggers, mobile phone cameras and mobile phone recorders catching politicians unaware and skewering phoniness, as has been pointed out elsewhere.
I'm off to London and Romania for the next few weeks, so will at least miss the first half.
I may have to remove myself somewhere else for the rest....
Showing posts with label General Election 2010. Show all posts
Showing posts with label General Election 2010. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
That Change - thingy
Sorry chaps and chapesses, but I just felt I had to comment on this.
On the GFK market research for TV pages, they have quick polls for odd things, but every now and again they have a serious one.
So yesterday the question was: How likely are you to vote in the coming General Election?
75% say they are very likely to do so, with only 11% saying they are unlikely.
Now it can be argued that this is hardly scientific polling - the voters aren't selected, triaged, weighted or anything else - but it does represent quite a large number of people ( I'm told over 10,000 but don't hold me to it).
The last time anything like this number would have been prepared to vote was 1997 - and before that 1979, both years of sea-change with voters thinking " It's time for a change"
So as a purely personal view, it seems this is another such year.
I would, however, direct you to Sarah Palin's recent gem:"You know, I keep asking people, how did that change-thingy work for you?"
On the GFK market research for TV pages, they have quick polls for odd things, but every now and again they have a serious one.
So yesterday the question was: How likely are you to vote in the coming General Election?
75% say they are very likely to do so, with only 11% saying they are unlikely.
Now it can be argued that this is hardly scientific polling - the voters aren't selected, triaged, weighted or anything else - but it does represent quite a large number of people ( I'm told over 10,000 but don't hold me to it).
The last time anything like this number would have been prepared to vote was 1997 - and before that 1979, both years of sea-change with voters thinking " It's time for a change"
So as a purely personal view, it seems this is another such year.
I would, however, direct you to Sarah Palin's recent gem:"You know, I keep asking people, how did that change-thingy work for you?"
Saturday, January 09, 2010
Victory and austerity.
I know my reader doesn't like it when I get political, but a comment on Iain Dale's blog today led me to this . ( see bald figures below)
I have long held this is the sort of territory we will be in, in particular that the LibDems will be well down from where they are. I think ID is entirely wrong about them.
Even in Scotland Labour will only be voted for by the tied client estate they have created. In the same way that Heath Conservatives were neither one thing nor the other, Blair NuLabourites were neither fish nor fowl.
I don't in any way take from the magnificent chicanery and political nous which won Blair 3 elections - that's what politics is about, unfortunately. But we are seeing a return to core values by Labour in a desperate attempt to stave off defeat. The Tories tried the same thing in 1997 and 2001 and learnt a very harsh lesson.
You need a broad church to govern any country nowadays - even Iran, which looks to be going to go pop in the not too distant future.
But, as the American cousins say, here's the thing.
People want a quiet life with better things for themselves and their children. Blair promised it and made huge numbers think he could give them " the third way". That's bollocks. Actually, there's only one way.Whenever parties move from that agenda, and start thinking they should tell us what to do,they get eventually get thwacked.
It's a pity we had to have Brown destroying UK Plc to prove it.
PS
Whilst in Ireland recently, a roving Church of Ireland priest asked me if I thought the Tories would win. I replied that I was sure they would.
" What a pity" he said. " Thousands will be worse off."
" That hasn't happened in Ireland, when you returned to common sense in your recent budget?"
" Er... yes."
In Ireland, of course, it was all the EU money that made the "Celtic Tiger", and that money is now going to Eastern Europe.
The EU made promises to the Irish Electorate to get them to change their vote about Lisbon, but it will make no difference. Ireland, as my friends there insist, is bust for a generation.
And Labour has stolen our rights, our money, our pensions, our freedom and will pay the price.
PPS
David Blackburn in the Speccie reports James Purnell like this :
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. The third way learned the lessons of Labour's mistakes in the 70s and 80s. But it elevated avoiding mistakes to an ideology. It wasn't confident enough where it was right, or sceptical enough where it was wrong.’
Conservatives
431
+217
Labour
152
-192
Liberal Democrats
30
-33
Scottish National Party
11
+5
Plaid Cymru
5
+3
Others
3
I have long held this is the sort of territory we will be in, in particular that the LibDems will be well down from where they are. I think ID is entirely wrong about them.
Even in Scotland Labour will only be voted for by the tied client estate they have created. In the same way that Heath Conservatives were neither one thing nor the other, Blair NuLabourites were neither fish nor fowl.
I don't in any way take from the magnificent chicanery and political nous which won Blair 3 elections - that's what politics is about, unfortunately. But we are seeing a return to core values by Labour in a desperate attempt to stave off defeat. The Tories tried the same thing in 1997 and 2001 and learnt a very harsh lesson.
You need a broad church to govern any country nowadays - even Iran, which looks to be going to go pop in the not too distant future.
But, as the American cousins say, here's the thing.
People want a quiet life with better things for themselves and their children. Blair promised it and made huge numbers think he could give them " the third way". That's bollocks. Actually, there's only one way.Whenever parties move from that agenda, and start thinking they should tell us what to do,they get eventually get thwacked.
It's a pity we had to have Brown destroying UK Plc to prove it.
PS
Whilst in Ireland recently, a roving Church of Ireland priest asked me if I thought the Tories would win. I replied that I was sure they would.
" What a pity" he said. " Thousands will be worse off."
" That hasn't happened in Ireland, when you returned to common sense in your recent budget?"
" Er... yes."
In Ireland, of course, it was all the EU money that made the "Celtic Tiger", and that money is now going to Eastern Europe.
The EU made promises to the Irish Electorate to get them to change their vote about Lisbon, but it will make no difference. Ireland, as my friends there insist, is bust for a generation.
And Labour has stolen our rights, our money, our pensions, our freedom and will pay the price.
PPS
David Blackburn in the Speccie reports James Purnell like this :
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. The third way learned the lessons of Labour's mistakes in the 70s and 80s. But it elevated avoiding mistakes to an ideology. It wasn't confident enough where it was right, or sceptical enough where it was wrong.’
Conservatives
431
+217
Labour
152
-192
Liberal Democrats
30
-33
Scottish National Party
11
+5
Plaid Cymru
5
+3
Others
3
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