New poll for the Mail on Sunday

The Conservatives have a 1% lead in a new poll for the Mail on Sunday.

The poll was obviously taken before the party's Manchester Spring Forum.  The Spring Forum is subject to much analysis in the Sunday newspapers.  Links to this analysis can be found on the frontpage.

Comments

[Elena]

Well, at least we still have a poll lead somewhere. It won't stop to doom mongerers in the papers, however, who seem to think that anything short of 45% in the polls would have been a dismal failure... They go on about how people are still cynical to the Tories, but that's exactly what Cameron's trying to change - and he's acknowledged that it'll take a long time. I seriously hope that we don't descend into bickering again - the newspapers smell blood.

[Mark]

We should never forget that the Labour regime control the press and media - and the "Pollsters", they produce the "Polls" they are told to produce.

[Will]

"We should never forget that the Labour regime control the press and media - and the "Pollsters", they produce the "Polls" they are told to produce."

Yes, and I suppose they must control the voters too. Which keep delivering these annoying general election defeats.

The media have gone heavily attacking Labour over Blair/Brown splits etc. We are not benefiting from it because we are not offering voters anything to inspire them to come over to us. Except we have a leader who doesn't automatically provoke a negative reaction like the last three did.

The issues Cameron is leading on are not ones to swing many votes but instead alter the party's image slightly. If you care passionately about the enviroment, you are going to be slightly less hostile to the Conservative party but unlikely to change your vote from Green/Lib Dem.

[Andy Stidwill]

I'm always a little bit suspicious of these "BPIX - Mail on Sunday" polls. They usually seem to give a significantly lower share of the vote to the Lib Dems compared to all the other polling companies, and a slightly higher share to the main two parties.

Is it just a coincidence that the Mail on Sunday - possibly the most anti-liberal paper - gives results with these low shares for the Lib Dems? The Times, for example, had the Lib Dems on 21% just a few days ago.

[John Hustings]

What I find annoying is that Cameron and his team have a pre-prepared script for whatever the poll ratings are.

If the poll ratings are high, then it shows the public have responded to David Cameron and the changes he has brought about. Therefore we should continue with the changes.

If the poll ratings are low, it shows that David Cameron has not reformed the party enough. The public are still suspicious that the Tories haven't changed. Therefore we should continue with the changes.

It is an intellectual closed loop. Like a conspiracy theory, there is no way of penetrating its logic.

[Matthew Sinclair]

John,

Yes. That is because there is no short term poll number which would make Cameron wrong about the changes required to the party to make it an electoral force. For that reason if the numbers go up then that might indicate that the changes are working, if they don't then that means not enough has been done.

Look outside of the headline poll numbers if you want to debate the effectiveness of the Cameron strategy; it can't be dismissed from the results we are getting now.

[Mark]

"Yes, and I suppose they must control the voters too. Which keep delivering these annoying general election defeats".

What voters do you mean?, i presume you dont mean English voters as England voted Labour out at the last general election, but thanks to staunch Scottish and Welsh Labour loving communist and socialist voters we still have them (mis)ruling England entirely, the "British" government have NO say whatsoever over Scotland or Wales for 80% of matters, their own respective Parliament and assembly legislate for 80% (and growing) of their "own" affairs.

[eugene]

Yep! In England, even though they voted Labour out , Labour still got many many more seats than us.

The seat boundaries are still all up the creek. Can someone inform me as to why the Isle of Wight still appears to be one seat under the new boundaries but has nearly enough voters for 2 seats? Why not Wight South as one seat and Wight North with a bit of mainland Hampshire as another, for example.

I think the Party should place a legal challenge to these boundaries and if legal, try turn over the law with LibDem and Upper House support.

I heard some Labour minister justify it as OK for a Scottish island with hardly any voters to get a whole seat because it is an island! I suppose the same applies to Isle of Wight being one seat- what tosh! Britain is an island. Does that qualify it for only one seat? It is patent nonsense.

[John Coles]

You make a fundamental and important point, Eugene. By definition, Mr Cameron will not want to wrestle with such a substantive matter: far more important to him to continue enhancing his acceptability in the metropolitan dinner part circuit by droning on about unspecified change and green issues.

[Peter Harrison]

Yes, it is an important point. However, the boundaries are set by the Boundary Commission and are subject to a general review every 8 - 12 years (which doesn't prevent smaller changes happening in between). The last general review was under the Major government. To suggest, as some here seem to, that the boundaries have been gerrimandered by Labour is wide of the mark. The truth is that the Conservative party handled the last review badly and came out as net losers from a review which should have been to our benefit.

As most are aware, new boundaries should be in place before the next general election and will give us more seats.

[Peter Harrison]

And I do get fed up with the paranoid nonsense suggesting that Labour control the media (really? The Telegraph? The Mail?) and that the pollsters do Labour's bidding. The pollsters have businesses to run. Political opinion polls are a small but highly visible part of that business. A good reputation is vital for the kind of market research on which they depend for their bread and butter. Are they really going to risk their entire business by producing bogus polls?

[eugene]

I am talking about the NEW boundaries Peter-they are almost finalised and Labour still gets far more seats than they deserve....and Isle of Wight is down as one seat.

[James Hellyer]

For that reason if the numbers go up then that might indicate that the changes are working, if they don't then that means not enough has been done

Or alternatively that the leadership's strategy is wrong.

Look outside of the headline poll numbers if you want to debate the effectiveness of the Cameron strategy; it can't be dismissed from the results we are getting now.

Which are no better than Howard's "nasty" Conservatives achieved. Indeed, they are actually worse than some of his pollings.

[Mark]

"And I do get fed up with the paranoid nonsense suggesting that Labour control the media (really? The Telegraph? The Mail?) and that the pollsters do Labour's bidding. The pollsters have businesses to run. Political opinion polls are a small but highly visible part of that business. A good reputation is vital for the kind of market research on which they depend for their bread and butter. Are they really going to risk their entire business by producing bogus polls?"

The press, media and polls are blatantly biased twards labour, i defy anybody who thinks otherwise, and why would they be biased?, its all about money, power and cronyism.

[Richard]

"Which are no better than Howard's "nasty" Conservatives achieved. Indeed, they are actually worse than some of his pollings."

It is interesting that Matthew d'Ancona was claiming in the Sunday Telegraph that the Tories are polling better than they have been for years. Perhaps he ought to take a look at this:

http://www.yougov.com/archives/pdf/you020101076_39.pdf

[James Hellyer]

Matthew d'Ancona also has a very strange idea about the tactics of the last three Conservative leaders, and the grounds on which some people object to Cameron's approach. But then his articles do seem to regularly adopt a mendacious approach that allows him to bracket any opposition to Cameron as wanting a rerun of the 2001 and 2005 elections.

[eugene]

Sorry to keep going on about this and this will be my final piece...

I have just looked again at the final proposals for the new boundaries:

Isle of Wight will have 109 046 voters cramed in there.

Western Isles will have an electorate of
21 576

Both will have equal weight at Westminster.

Come on!! Let us get this sorted out.

[Will]

"What voters do you mean?, i presume you dont mean English voters as England voted Labour out at the last general election "

No, I meant all the voters in our country under the present electoral system, with changes by the electoral commission which will benefit us. I know of no proposal from Cameron for English independence, so we are better looking at the whole country. Are you saying pollsters are biased because they include Scotland and Wales ?

" its all about money, power and cronyism. "

Have you every read, Mark, little known publications like The Telegraph or The Daily Mail ? I suggest you go for a lie down. You sound like a Labour party member would have done in the eighties. We have got ourselves in this position, if we get some momentum and start to look like winners, papers like The Sun and The Times will back us.

The right way to go about things is to look where we are still going wrong and try and correct things. A few mistakes by Cameron are creeping in like the UKIP slip, we are failing to oppose a failing government on key issues like ID cards and we don't have a clear direction. ( I'm not talking about individual policies, more the overall direction )

The wrong way to go about things is just to blame the media and polls, sit on our hands, hope for the best and change nothing.

[Paul Kennedy]

"As most are aware, new boundaries should be in place before the next general election and will give us more seats".

Peter, if only that were true in Warrington South, whose northern boundary, as I understand it, is moving ever further north and into more traditional Labour territory.

[Andy Stidwill]

Euguene, we are responsible for shooting ourselves in the foot when it comes to a lot of the boundary commission decisions.

EXAMPLE - the Isle of Wight Tories actually wanted the island to continue to be just one seat, not two. Why? Because they have an instinctive reaction against any kind of change at all, even if it would could give 2 Tory MPs instead of 1.

The ironic thing is that when the Isle of Wight was being discussed by the boundary commission, it was a marginal seat with the Lib Dems very close behind us, having been a Lib Dem seat between 1997 and 2001, so the local Tories were probably worried that if the seat was split in two, at least one of the seats might then have been taken by the Lib Dems.

But at the last election there was a huge swing to us, and is now a safe Tory seat, so even if it was split there would probably be 2 Tory MPs. But, of course, by then the decision to keep the island as one single seat had already been made.

[Andrew Kennedy]

The problem with The Island, there are insufficient voters to justify two seats. If they were split, one of the two new seats would need to be "topped-up" by taking voters from the mainland.

The obvious solution would be to take Lymington out of New Forest West - but this would leave this seat short. Also very unpopular with both sets of voters. As would taking the Hythe / Waterside wards from NFE.

Under (or over) sized constituencies do have an impact but they are generally few and far between. Fewer than 3% of seats have electorates outside the Boundary Commissions terms of reference.

Personally I think it is more important to have constituency boundaries that reflect communities with shared interest than to get too stressed about abnormalities which are bound to occur under our present electoral system.

[matt wright]

We did balls up the boundary review last time. Agree with those who say we've got to stop looking for other people to balme. This is our party and all of us have to accpet that we have been beaten 3 times and need to change. This is self-evident.

Matt

[verulamgal]

Despite the growing problems in the NHS, pensions,schools and sleaze at the heart of this corrupt government, why is Cameron only one percentage point ahead in this poll? If he were leading the Her Majesty's Opposition competently, surely we should now be far further ahead than this.(Could it be that the voters can only see more of the same if 'the heir to Blair' is elected?')

Maggie Mark 2 where are you? We need someone of that calibre to take on Brown,assuming he becomes Labour leader.Sadly we haven't got it in David Cameron

[Jack Stone]

Those on this site who continualling attack Cameron whatever he says or does and try to paint him as a failure even though he as only been in office five months and leads a party in the lead in the polls or just behind Labour are doing great damage to the party and are giving life to the backstabbers, plotters and self servers and we all know who they are in Parliament and in the Shadow Cabinet to come out of the gutter where they have been these last five months and try to get rid of Cameron sooner rather than later.
My message to all these idiots is shut up if you haven`t got anything good to say about cameron and the party and give those working and fighting for the return of a Conservative governmemt a chance to fulfill that dream.

[Richard]

"My message to all these idiots is shut up if you haven`t got anything good to say about cameron and the party and give those working and fighting for the return of a Conservative governmemt a chance to fulfill that dream."

I am starting to think you are a troll. All the other pro-Cameron posters put forward reasoned arguments. You just tell people to "shut up". While I still support Cameron I don't see why I should remain silent if he is doing something I believe to be wrong.

Clearly you haven't read the link I gave above. Cameron may be doing relatively well in the polls but we have also done this well under previous leaders:

http://www.yougov.com/archives/pdf/you020101076_39.pdf

[Jack Stone]

If you want to see another Conservative government then you have got to be prepered to swallow some things you are going to disagree with.
Conservatives should be backing the leader and giving him support not using every opportunity to slag him off.
Attacking Cameron is just self indulgant and will do nothing to help the Conservative Party whatsoever. All it does is help our opponents.

[christina speight]

I have lost faith in all political parties and with Cameron I no longer care deeply about getting the Conservatives elected. We would just get a continuation of what we've got..

"England is sleepwalking into oblivion " - - - - too true and NOBODY CARES.!

The Tories tell us to pick up a piece of litter a day, get to know my neighbours better, take the bus [you can tell they live in London!] , reuse plastic bags, spend a fortune on buying energy efficient light bulbs ['OK on an MP's salary] don't overfill the kettle - Ye Gods is THIS a policy or a vision?

Then they promote useless, inefficient windfarms to combat non-existent man-made global warming. Cameron is off to watch glaciers melting [He could save a bob or two by watching the paint dry next door here] , What a Fred Karno's outfit.

Meanwhile school discipline is non-existent, the pupils are in control, exams are downgraded, and copying, cheating and plagiarisation make them meaningless anyway. And Cameron backs Blair's plans to extend this shambles.

The NHS at vast expense is falling to bits and is a nightmare to cope with when you're ill.

Our defences have been farmed out to Europe and our soldiers are put in daily peril through inadequate and faulty equipment. Morale has plummeted and, with it, recruiting.

The police force are so concerned with racism and homophobia that they've forgotten their task - to protect [not persecute] the honest citizens. Only today did we try to contact both our local stations {Acton and Chiswick} - NO REPLY!! We were trying to help.

Our Pensions 8 years ago were the best funded in Europe - Indeed the funding exceeded the rest of the then EU combined. They've collapsed because Brown has stolen the money.

The underclass is dependent on government handouts which they spend on booze and drugs. The middle-classes are taxed and taxed again to pay for this.
.
None of this was even mentioned by Cameron in his conference speech. All he can talk about is "Change". Change from what, TO what, I'd like to know. Has he no VISION ???

I think the rot is now unstoppable and we have the politicians the British people deserve. TRASH, THE LOT OF THEM. Cameron's useless - worse, he's a menace, destroying the only hope. AND he's cosying up to Blair for state-funding of parties. All the poll gains he made to start with have gone largely to the benefit of UKIP and the BNP.