Tories at 41% in MORI poll

Tomorrow marks the sixth month anniversary of David Cameron's election as Tory leader.   On the eve of that anniversary a MORI survey for today's Sun gives the Tories a 10% lead over Labour.  The Conservative Party also breaks through the 40% barrier in the MORI survey - reaching 41%.  The LibDems fall back 3% to just 18%.

The Conservatives now enjoy a 6.2% lead in ConservativeHome's poll of polls.

Tory Chairman Francis Maude has welcomed the MORI finding:

"Under David Cameron's leadership people seem more willing to give us a hearing.  One poll - or even a series of polls - isn't enough, but we will draw encouragement from the findings."

Labour will be very discouraged that the announcement of the relinking of pensions and earnings has failed to boost the party's standing.  Only 26% of voters told MORI that they were "satisfied" with Tony Blair.  67% said they were dissatisfied.  Tony Blair's net satisfaction rating of -41% is his lowest ever.

10.45am addition:

I've now seen a copy of The Sun and a Trevor Kavanagh commentary will make grim reading for Gordon Brown.  This is what TK writes:

"[Gordon Brown] invented New Labour's "tough on crime" slogan but won't pay for new jails to house the ballooning prison population.

He is the Chancellor who made a hash of our pensions.

And he is the man who squandered taxpayers' cash on an unreformed NHS.

While Tony Blair is portrayed as a glory-seeking company figurehead, Mr Brown proudly accepts the applause as the policy-making chief executive.

Now the chickens are coming home to roost...

And they are dumping all over Gordon on the way home."

Comments

[Chris]

Consolidation of comments regarding MORI from the news post:

Radio 4 is reporting a MORI poll for The Sun due to be published tomorrow with the following result:

Con 41%
Lab 31%
Lib Dem 18%
Others 10%
Posted by: A H Matlock | 04 June 2006 at 23:03

It's not that people will not vote for us in the North, they still refuse to vote for Mrs Thatcher. Sadly, and I say this as a great admirer, what is percieved as her attack on Northern Britain (including Scotland) still hurts.
Posted by: Peter Hardy | 04 June 2006 at 23:05

A H Matlock, Electoral calculus presents the following analysis...
CON 344
LAB 251
LIB 20
OTHER 31
CON Overall Majority of 42

I'm sceptical of our ability to unseat that many Lib Dems though, so my personal estimate is a majority of only around 20
Posted by: Chris | 04 June 2006 at 23:34

Chris - 23.34: Yes, MORI must always be taken with a pinch of salt, but it is quite heartening regardless, is it not? :o)
Posted by: A H Matlock | 04 June 2006 at 23:37

Oh definitely, the champagne is now on ice, only downside is, we do have 3 years for the ice to melt :(

MORI certainly should be taken with a pinch of salt because of their gathering and analysing techniques, but to be honest I've always seen MORI as having quite a Labour bias, possibly greater than Populus, so a lead with them is great encouragement. Plus I hope finally everyone is willing to say that this isn;t just a post local election blip in the results which is beneficial to us at long last!
Posted by: Chris | 04 June 2006 at 23:41

[Editor]

Thank you Chris. Fancy a job helping to run this site!!!???

[Annabel Herriott]

Now will all the whingers kindly maintain a respectful silence. We are now going to keep on keeping on. Next news, folks in Barnsley will be happy to listen to us.! Thats Yorkshire Barnsley, not the down south one.

[G-MaN]

There's a Barnsley down South?

Hail King Cameron!

[Will]

Cameron is our god ! We all pray at his feet.

Nothing to do with Labour continuing to impload.

MORI did say we were ahead at the start of the last general election campaign. Sadly this didn't end up being true.

Whingers Annabel ??? - is that people with a different opinion to DC. I'm sure Tim could reduce costs, and save his and Sam's time, by just producing CCO briefings without comment facility. I don't think this would help the party.

We need to get the right policies in place to win the next general. I know where we are on chocolate oranges and pre-teen clothes, but these might alone not carry the popular vote.

[Alexander Drake]

Will I recall the MORI poll you refer to but I don't think it gave us a 10 point lead, or above 40% of the vote.

And it's right and natural that the Party has a broad range of views - that's the nature of a 'broad church'. What I think grates with some is that precious little of the criticism is framed constructively, or offers an alternative that might deliver the same results. The narrative of much of the anti-Cameron criticsm from within the Party (if this site is indicative) is:

If people want to eat chocolate oranges they should, and not saying anything about tax or the EU all the time means ideological defeatism and I helped to keep us going during the bad times and all these new people are coming in when the going is good and where's my place in the sun and why can't the approach be the same as it was the last time we won and smiling when talking to camera is un-Tory and sickeningly Blairite, we're supposed to be cruel but competent...

Which isn't really helpful. Contrast that with much of the positive, constructive (and frequently accurate) criticism on an issues basis that we see from many well-informed loyal Conservatives that also post here.

[verulamgal]

yes there is a proper Barnsley...in the Cotswolds

[Yet Another Anon]

>>>>Will I recall the MORI poll you refer to but I don't think it gave us a 10 point lead, or above 40% of the vote.<<<<
No doubt the Conservative Party will go up further and then come back down and the Liberal Democrats only way seems to be down, but Labour don't appear to have gone down further since 2003 and probably will also benefit from the collapse of the Liberal Democrats.

I'm somewhat sceptical about Opinion Polls, the Conservative Party are doing a bit better than Labour were doing in 1988 and Labour are certainly doing worse than the Conservative Party were in 1988 but atrocious Local Election and Euro Election results in the previous 2 parliaments didn't stop Labour from winning the General Elections following, nor did the Liberals, Alliance or Liberal Democrats neccessarily translate Local Election successes into General Election successes. Every parliament follows a different chain of events and there's really no point hanging on every single opinion poll - polls are frequently so far out anyway, just as it got to the point that people felt so guilty at saying that they were voting Conservative (in fact by the end of the 1990's it was obvious that generally the actual figures were more like 150% of the poll figure for the Conservatives and anything down to 75% of the figures given for Labour) so there could be the beginnings of the same shift with regard to Labour.

[Graham D'Amiral]

This poll is particularly encouraging if this carries on Simon Heffer will have to ammend his article and tell us if we were really tories we would be 30 points ahead.

It is dangerous to take one poll in isolation, but we are starting to see a trend where most pollsters are now pointing to a comfortable conservative lead.

[Phil Jackson]

what is percieved as her attack on Northern Britain (including Scotland) still hurts.

Is that true? In Thatcher’s last election (1987) nearly 14 million people voted Tory, whilst in Major’s last poll (1997) the party was down 4 million. Therefore:

(i) did Major irritate Northerners even more (he certainly irritated me, but I may not be representative)?; or
(ii) do the 4 million desaparecidos all live in the South?

In fact, it’s now time that we left behind those fatuous BBC clichés about ‘Thatcher’s legacy’ and the ‘North-south divide’, and recognise that it is Major’s legacy that we must emphatically reject – and be seen to reject .

1997 was the worst election result suffered by any governing party since 1832 and Cameron is surely unwise to associate himself with such catastrophic losers. Instead, Major and all his key accomplices (Clarke, Heseltine, Dorrell, Gummer) should be provoked into expressing Dismay-and-Sadness with the current leadership at every opportunity (“I do feel David has been badly advised…”). The greater the distance that Cameron puts between himself and those people the greater his chance of consolidating his lead.

[Sean Fear]

A few weeks ago, someone posted the Northern vote figures for 1983 and 1987, which actually showed us outpolling Labour across the North.

Mrs. Thatcher's government was certainly unpopular in Scotland, and in some Northern cities like Manchester and Liverpool, but not across the North as a whole.

[Henry Edward-Bancroft]

Excellent figures

[Baskerville]

Who am I to sniff at such a positive poll? But we Tories would be wise to keep the champagne in the case, never mind on ice. Mori’s run of Tory vote shares has been - 41, 36, 30, 34, 35, 40, 39, 40 since December and that 30 was only just over a month ago!
I wonder what MORI’s corporate clients think about such volatility in its ‘flagship’ political polls. Puts more margin-for-error into the mix, for sure.

[David Belchamber]

Whether Heffer and others like it or not, we are seeing leadership in action. What tory could have predicted only 6 months ago that by now (i) the Lib Dems would have changed leaders and lost so much ground, that (ii) Nulabour would have virtually imploded and that (iii) the tories would have a poll lead of 10%?
Nulabour might have shot itself in the foot without DC's influence but I doubt it; I suspect Blair would have talked his way out of it.
Now we all need to rally round that leadership as the party reshapes itself. We must continue to criticise where we feel it necessary but our criticsm must be constructive.

[sjm]

I'm not a natural Cameroon, but I've learnt to be politically pragmatic, and I find my children's generation (30-40)are offering unsolicited approval of DC. Some of them have followed that up by actually voting Tory, some are 'just' listening, but up till recently, they would not have even done that. In today's world, the brand matters most, and Cameron's getting that right, it seems.

[Chris]

I'm not a natural Cameroon, but I've learnt to be politically pragmatic, and I find my children's generation (30-40)are offering unsolicited approval of DC. Some of them have followed that up by actually voting Tory, some are 'just' listening, but up till recently, they would not have even done that. In today's world, the brand matters most, and Cameron's getting that right, it seems.

What you say is also applicable to the first time voter group (I'm 18 now, and voted for my first time in May). In 2001 I was a vocal supporter of the Tories, whilst the majority favoured Labour with a few Lib Dem supporters. In the run up to the 2005 election I found that there were now equal supporters for each of the 3 main parties. Now just 1 year later, the Labour support is all but eliminated, the Lib Dem supporters are fading out too, and my peer group is decisively Tory.

Now, in all honesty we haven't actually changed much, except for our appearance. That however, is enough for us to win the next election, pople have always liked Tory policies when they've been mentioned without the party brand next to them, or whether Labour have tried to pass them off as their own. In DC we now have a young, likeable leader, who actually gets the electorate to read our policies, rather than just blindly insulting them because they are Tory policies.

As I've said before in this thread, and in others, these opinion polls might not mean much, but what I'm seeing and hearing is definitely showing a huge shift in support towards us.

[AlexW]

Fantastic poll, although MORI are notoriously volatile and I'd rather see these figures from ICM or YouGov. It appears that Cameron's strategy is paying off.

[changetowin]

Great poll and fantastic news. Of course it is just one poll and does not constitute a General Election victory. What it does show is that after just six months the modernising project has completely transformed the fortunes of the Conservative Party. The members voted for change and the country wants it. Nobody should stand in David Cameron's way as he pushes for faster, wider and deeper change. Not just so we can win, but so we can change Britain for the better.

[malcolm]

Do you think the Labour party imploding has nothing to do with it Changetowin?

[changetowin]

Hi Malcolm,

Of course there are interactions between all these factors. The Labour Party has been in trouble - this is necessary but not sufficient for us to pull ahead. Labour actually aren't that far down on the last election - what has changed is that people now feel that there is a viable alternative to vote for. And that is because of the changes David Cameron's modernisation has brought. You should also not discount the possibility that David Cameron's reinvigorated party has heaped pressure on Labour and caused some of their present difficulty.

[christina speight]

Nobody can dismiss these figures, although as an ex-researcher I have always taken MORI with more salt than the others. They are nevertheless good for the NuTories - if you like that kind of thing! But note the Labour figure is not collapsing. It's the libdems going down the pan. [this will not necessarily persist] With the present political situation the Labour figure should be 4 or 5 points lower and the Tories correspondingly higher. I said last week that right now the minimum lead with Labour committing hara-kiri daily should be 16 points not 6.2%

Nor do I doubt the testimony as to Cameron's personal appeal. but when it comes to "Nobody should stand in David Cameron's way as he pushes for faster, wider and deeper change. Not just so we can win, but so we can change Britain for the better." I fear reality is going out of the window. PLEASE "changetowin" tell me ONE thing the Boy King has said that points towards changing Britain for the better, or in what way he is pushing for faster, wider and deeper change. He isn't doing ANYTHING It's all smoke and mirrors, image and poorly constructed spin.

[Andrew Woodman]

Great poll (altough I'd prefer it to have been from yougov). Good to see Trevor sticking the boot in as well.

The great thing is we've reversed the embarressment factor people has when they said they were a Tory. Now people are embarressed that they vote Labour.

Wonder what Heffer will be putting in his next column?

[Wat Tyler]

Fantastic poll. Dave is really doing the biz.

We small staters can only gasp in admiration and continue to plug away outside the narrow confines of Party politics.

But let's also hope that away from Desert Island Discs (masterly), and the speeches kicking "stability" and "local schools and hospitals" into the long grass, we are actually developing some "tough choice" plans for the fiscal mess we'll inherit.

Blair inherited a golden economic scenario: we will not. Nobody wants to see the first Tory government for 13 years plunged straight into emergency spending cuts, unable to deliver the magic managerialism the electorate will be expecting, and having no real alternative.

That's what's known as the Bad Way.

[Sean Fear]

Since David Cameron is the Party Leader, he is entitled to claim credit for having a fairly significant poll lead, as he would be expected to bear the blame if we did not.

However, we mustn't lose sight of the fact that Labour's problems stem from their failures on law and order and immigration - the very issues on which people instinctively trust the Conservative Party more than they trust Labour - and the very issues which Conservative modernisers want to us to keep quiet about.

[christina speight]

Andrew - I've just written Heffer's next column for him :-)
(see above)

[Andrew Woodman]

I noticed Christina.

[changetowin]

Oh dear Christina - funny how the people who complained about disloyalty from modernisers while presiding over the collapse of our party into right-wing irrelevance are now the most disloyal of all! And when we are ahead too! If you want ONE way the Conservatives will change the country for the better, might I suggest improving our environment? Or doesn't that matter to you?

[Victoria Street]

Labour vote not collapsing, Christina? They came a poor third in the local elections and MORI had Labour 42, Tories 32, LD 19 in their November poll, which reflected most post 2005 election polls they'd carried out (see anthony wells's site for details).
Lab down 11 looks like a collapse to me.

[kingbongo]

There's a Barnsley down South?

It's a small village that's so posh it has a pub called "The Village Pub". It also has a very nice hotel that people like me can't afford but which has been rated as one of the best 10 hotels in the world.

I can't think of a place more different to the Yorkshire Barnsley but there's no reason why they shouldn't both vote tory.

[Annabel Herriott]

Oh absolutely Kingbongo, and Dickie Bird and Michael Parkinson come from Barnsley oop North. Wonder if either of them are tories??

[legal eagle]

Great news from the poll. The best bit is that Lib Dem support still slipping. Any bets on how much longer they will keep MC?

[changetowin]

'PLEASE "changetowin" tell me ONE thing the Boy King has said that points towards changing Britain for the better'

Christina - just why are you in the Conservative Party at all if you cannot even think of one way our party leader has said he will change the country for the better?

[william]

If Cameron's lead builds, he will tend to increasingly ignore mainstream Conservative opinion such as Christina's, but equally the Cornerstoners and the Better Off Outs will be more likely to try to put pressure on him.

He can ignore Conservative members if the general public rally behind him, but he can never ignore MP's.

[changetowin]

William - I mainly agree - but disagree that Christina represents mainstream Conservative opinion. I think that the mainstream of the Conservative Party are actually moderate and pragmatic. They have Conservative values and realise that the strength of our party has always been our ability to change our policies (not our values) to fit the needs of the time. That is why they voted for change so overwhelmingly in December. People like Christina (who can't think of one Conservative policy they like) may shout the loudest, but don't be fooled into thinking they represent our mainstream.

[David]

Isn't it wonderful seeing the dinosaurs and non-Conservatives on this site spluttering and coughing about this poll? All desperately trying to spin it out as bad news! Well sorry folks, it's not bad news. You were wrong and Cameron was right.

I know many of you would rather we spent the next 10 years as an exclusive right wing debating society, but we are going to win again, and the country will be all the better for it. So start getting used to the idea!

[Andrew Kennedy]

"Now will all the whingers kindly maintain a respectful silence"

Well said Annabel.

I didn't vote for Cameron and I have been one of those critics, but the fact is we are now in a stronger position than we have been in 15 years. and, more importantly, it looks sustainable.

I was "sounding off" about DC at a lunch party yesterday when one of my friends said.. "Andrew - you sound just Tony Benn in the 1980's" !!

The fact is, he is the only leader we have. It is time those of us on the Right shut up and show him the same loyalty that we expected the TRG and the "wets" to show when we were in the ascendency.

[G-MaN]

Sean, its not that we shud keep quite about it.We are so trusted on it because people know where we stand. We have been on about it for decades.
Its the other broader topics we have not talked about in the past, we do now, and that now make us a fully alternative government.

[changetowin]

Andrew,

I respect your honesty - well said.

[william]

Most Conservatives I know are not happy with Cameron's policy profile, but understand the need to play the policy field and appeal more broadly. Christina is a bit more outspoken than the average I would agree, but she expresses hotly what others feel moderately.

Cameron will tend to ignore current mainstream Conservative opinion if he can pull enough votes elsewhere. He will have an easier life that way with the media - except Conservative MP's and his Shadow cabinet will ultimately speak out if he goes too far off the Conservative map.

The progress of minor parties seems to be less from the latest poll.

[Wat Tyler]

We dinosaurs have mostly now got used to the idea that DC's got his finger on the vote-winning pulse.

But we remain concerned about how Britain will manage without some of those old fashioned Tory ideas, like the small state.

The problem is if the Tories don't offer them, who will?

[matt wright]

This is a good result. In my rounds I am seeing significant growth in support for us and thats in North Wales (which is up "North"). Nows the time to rack up even more pressure on Labour and ensure the implosion is permanent.

Matt

[SimonNewman]

Wat Tyler:
"But we remain concerned about how Britain will manage without some of those old fashioned Tory ideas..."

Hmm, the thing the Tory 'old guard' here need to bear in mind is that the new recruits like me who have joined the party since Cameron was elected, and the newly Conservative voters in the May election, _do not disagree_ with traditional Tory policies! It's the new positive image that attracted us and continues to build the Conservative poll lead, _not_ any change in actual policies.

It is really the exact opposite of what Blair did with New Labour - people thought Labour were "wrong but romantic", so Blair set out to retain the "romantic" image while changing the "wrong" policies into something that looked more attractive. People thought the Conservatives were "right but repulsive", so Cameron's challenge has been to retain the "right" policies while changing the "repulsive" image, again to something that looks more attractive. You can say it's all about appearance, but that doesn't mean it's not important. New voters and members want to feel good about the party we suport, and Cameron has enabled that.

On policies - I disagree with plenty of stuff - not bringing back Grammar schools, say - but I don't recall Thatcher or Major bringing back Grammar schools! It might not even be bad - ideally, the next Conservative government will finally create decent education for the middle 60% of the population, like they manage to do in many other countries. If they don't, they still won't be doing any worse than every other government since the '60s!

From everything Cameron has said his intentions policy-wise are well within the Conservative mainstream tradition, and when elected he will have a mandate to pursue Conservative policies, albeit with a human face. :)

[spagbob]

this is great news. and this is without us even having any policies, just think of the lead we'll get then.

[SimonNewman]

"It's the new positive image that attracted us and continues to build the Conservative poll lead, _not_ any change in actual policies."

This is why the Dave the Chameleon advert was so utterly disastrous for Labour - "He appears cuddly, but underneath he's still True Blue" is exactly what the British people _want_ in their leader! It might have shored up the Labour base, though I doubt it - "The enemy are cute and cuddly!" is not a great rallying cry to get people off the sofa and into the polling booth. Meanwhile by reassuring the centrist vote that Cameron was both (a) likeable and (b) a real Conservative, it absolutely did wonders for us. Incredible.

[AlexW]

I agree with Simon Newman's excellent analysis. Polls taken at the last election showed that many of our policies were highly thought-of, *until* it was revealed that they were Tory policies. The brand was still damaged, and Labour were able to successfully attack Michael Howard for his association with the last Tory government.

Cameron's strategy has been to alter the party's image by picking a series of issues which would excite the narrower membership without compromising our overall policy package. Although many on here disagreed with, for example, the A-list, it was not a "red line" issue, nor does it fundamentally affect what we will do in a future Tory government. The ire of Heffer, Hitchens et al. only confirms to the broader population the notion that the Conservatives have changed.

[steve]

All this is great news..
However been around long enough to know that political Parties do not win elections as much as Governments lose them!
Although we must Change to Win, lets not at any cost and who wants to be in opposition!

[Christina]

I'd like to point out that Labour are down 1% and the Lib Dems 3%, with us up 5%.

That doesn't look like our popularity is solely because of the Government's troubles. If it was just that, I would expect a rise for the Lib Dems too, not a fall.

[Chris D]

William @12:36, "If Cameron's lead builds, he will tend to increasingly ignore mainstream Conservative opinion such as Christina's,"
I don't agree that you can cherry pick one poster's views, labelling it as "mainstream stream conservative opinion".
On the issue of David Cameron being able to ignore mainstream opinion within his own party, I think that anyone who has studied conservative politics in the last 25 years would argue that the party can be quite ruthless when it feels that the leader is not doing their "job" effectively.
If we are totally honest David Cameron was given an overwhelming mandate to "change" the political fortunes of the conservative party. Rather than "ignoring" the opinions of certain sections within the party, he is very effectively showing them the results to back up his arguments for change.

[Goldie]

MORI polls are useless.

[changetowin]

Chris D - quite right! David Cameron was given an overwhelming mandate by the Conservative members. 67.6% voted for a platform of "Change to win, Win for Britain" - now they have been vindicated...

[malcolm]

You might be right Changetowin that it's all down to Cameron but if so it is simply by changing the perception of how people view the Conservative Party.The hard work when we will be announcing substantive policies is still to come.Then we will see how good he and his colleagues really are.
It is still far ,far too early to say he has been vindicated.I wish him all the best however.

[christina speight]

Simon says" It's the new positive image that attracted us and continues to build the Conservative poll lead|" Sorry but it's not. The Labour party is busily committing suicide and the LibDems have realised that Cameron's one of them. Cameron has DONE nothing, said NOTHING, so has achieved NOTHING. "As I was going up the stair, I met a man who wasn;t there. He wasn't there again today. I wish to hell he'd go away"

And Changetowin - Come on it's no answer to say that I and others like me " can't think of one Conservative policy they like" That's untrue for a start. I wouldn't have come back with Michael Howard if I hadn't liked his policies. But has Camerron wiped the slate clean or is he keeping some of them??? The plain fact, Changetowin, is that Cameron HAS no policies. That's why I asked you to to tell us all what policies YOU like. I do know what Conservative values are about. I joined in 1946 and stayed with it till Maastricht. Then in 1997 all of us betrayed over Maastricht left the party and we'll leave it again if we have to. That's a large chunk of the missing 4 m votes. Taking us for granted would be the kind of stupidity that - er - a Cameron might get up to.

Christina - That was essentially the point I was making earlier. The Labour core is holding and the LibDems are collapsing - a situation not likely to persist.

Chris D - Cameron "is very effectively showing them the results to back up his arguments for change.". He's not doing that at all he's sitting on his hands smiling beatifically and doing nothing. The Labour party is doing it all for him.

In all the stick I get here nobody ever faces the facts. Cameron has got all his "Green" spins wrong. He rejects grammar schools - the most socially improving institutions of the last century. He won't even say Brown's taxes are too high - obscenely so. In fact he will not make a single Consrevative noise. Do you wonder this life-time Tory is angry and disillusioned. What disillusions me most though is the ovine bleating of Cameron supporters who can't point to any achievement at all. On a personal level he's a straw man. He's never had a proper job - just a PR bag-carrier for ITV and a damned inefficient one at that.

[Gareth]

A really encouraging poll. But nothing more than that. Labour used regularly to knock up leads like this in the 1980's before getting a good kicking

[Gareth]

Christina,

Have you ever thought of aromatherapy or a nice massage? I understand it's frightfully relaxing.

[kingbongo]

Goldie - This is true but it nevertheless reflects the trend.

Fortunately for those of us who wish to see a Conservative government, even one not as small-state as some of us think right you're contemptible hope that the May elections would be a disaster for the party was not borne out.

Annabel - unfortunately both Parkie and Dicky Bird are staunch Labour supporters with an unquestioning allegiance to the perpetuation of poverty through state intervention.

As he sits in his million pound house I doubt if Michael Parkinson spends time thinking that poorer citizens still have two more weeks before they get to Tax Freedom Day.

[kingbongo]

'You're' above should of course be 'your' but the sentiment is clear

[christina speight]

So now it is suggested that I should like Cameron because he wants to improve the enviroinment. Well bully for him! We'd all like to be nice people BUT HOW?

Wind turbines aren't enough so is he in favour of nuclear? Does he believe the propaganda about global warming when the surface temperatures in the last 150 years have risen by - wait for it - +0.7 degrees C and in the last 3 years have fallen. Tell people the facts and they'll be ignored if they don't gel with the current spin.

In what other way is Boy Dave going to be nice to the environment?

So far I've seen nothing on this front except 3 badly askew spins to make me like the man, much less vote for him.

[malcolm]

Are you sure about Parkie and Dickie Bird Kingbongo?I know Parkinson is as rich as Creosus so could afford to be a socialist but the way to make Bird cry is to ask him about his visit to the Palace to meet the Quueen for his OBE.Not usually the sort of behaviour one expects from some chippy lefty.

[Gareth]

Hurrah!

It's always so immensely satisfying when someone one disagrees with proves themselves to be beyond rationality.

Christina is a global warming flat-earther! No doubt bringing to bear her years of experience as a climatologist, she confidently asserts that it's all a pile of hokum, no doubt cooked up by some Brussels-loving liberal, probably a Frenchie to boot.

[changetowin]

Christina,

You are the past.

[John Hustings]

"Christina,

You are the past."

These modernisers are just lovely, aren't they?

[changetowin]

Sorry - it was meant as a joke!

[Andrew Cooper]

It is never a good idea to put too much weight on any single poll. Polls are best read in batches and viewed for trends; individual poll findings can be misleading if over-analysed.

The polls overall have proved to be pretty accurate in recent years - as measured by how well they do in their final pre-election poll compared with the actual result.

The main differerence between MORI and the other companies that publish polls is that MORI don't (for perfectly honourable reasons) apply any weights to try and ensure that their poll samples are politically as well as demographically representative of the adult population as a whole. This has tended to result in MORI polls being more volatile than those of YouGov, ICM and Populus. And, furthermore, because MORI don't apply such weights it is literally impossible to know how much of any change from their previous poll is sample error and how much is actual switching.

Chris commented above that he felt MORI has had a Labour bias - 'possibly greater than Populus'. This is actually quite a serious accusation to lob around at a pollster. Firstly, MORI doesn't have a particular Labour bias (though it remains the case that in as much as the polls erred systematically at the last election they did so by slightly understating Conservative support) - it is just more prone to produce larger swings one way or another. Secondly, Populus does not have a Labour bias. Our last Times poll found an 8% Conservative lead, bigger than any lead in an ICM or YouGov poll in this Parliament. There are some fairly marginal variations in the way that Populus, YouGov and ICM weight their data but if all three were to conduct a poll of about the same sample size at exactly the same time you would find the results to be virtually identical. The final Populus poll at the last election - conducted for Lord Ashcroft - got the Labour vote exactly right, at 36% (though we underestimated Conservative support by 1%), whereas, as it happens, both ICM and YouGov slightly overstated the Labour share in their final pre-election polls, though all came well within the margin of error.

There is no 'bias'. There is (as there always will be) occasional sample error. And there is (as the laws of statistics mandate) margin of error, which too many people ignore when looking at polls.

[G-MaN]

Christina - u seem to think this wont last because we seem to be picking up Lib dem votes, but thats only as well as Labour votes. Surely that a good thing, i cant see your beef?
You also say the Labour vote isnt collapsing, well i'd say it is. You for one, im sure, would be saying "our vote is collapsing" if Dave was on 31% in the polls, "less then we got at the last GE"... ohh I can see it now!
Anti-Cameroons will always pick, pick and pick some more. Im glad Dave has chosen to ignore those not happy with our direction, because quite simply its the right course and you are wrong.

[SimonNewman]

Christina Speight:

"Simon says" It's the new positive image that attracted us and continues to build the Conservative poll lead|" Sorry but it's not."

Well I think I know my own mind, Christina. :) I joined the party well before the Labour collapse, right after Cameron was elected, and it wasn't because I was disgusted with Labour and the Lib Dems - I've been disgusted with them for years. But the Tory leadership election - loads of good candidates - and David Cameron - offered something new. They offered hope. Then three young Tory candidates canvassed my house in seemingly hard-Labour Tooting Ward, where no Tories had been since 1968. I joined the party, I campaigned for them, and we won two seats in what had been amongst Labour's safest territory. This kind of thing is happening all over.

[kingbongo]

Not usually the sort of behaviour one expects from some chippy lefty.

malcolm, I think Dickie Bird is a traditional salt-of-the-Earth patriotic Labour voter, who can be very traditional about things like the Monarchy. They tend to believe in the Labour party as being for the working man despite the decades of evidence to the contrary.

If I'm wrong and Dickie Bird is a lifelong working class tory then Hurrah!

[Chris]

Chris commented above that he felt MORI has had a Labour bias - 'possibly greater than Populus'. This is actually quite a serious accusation to lob around at a pollster. Firstly, MORI doesn't have a particular Labour bias (though it remains the case that in as much as the polls erred systematically at the last election they did so by slightly understating Conservative support) - it is just more prone to produce larger swings one way or another. Secondly, Populus does not have a Labour bias. Our last Times poll found an 8% Conservative lead, bigger than any lead in an ICM or YouGov poll in this Parliament. There are some fairly marginal variations in the way that Populus, YouGov and ICM weight their data but if all three were to conduct a poll of about the same sample size at exactly the same time you would find the results to be virtually identical. The final Populus poll at the last election - conducted for Lord Ashcroft - got the Labour vote exactly right, at 36% (though we underestimated Conservative support by 1%), whereas, as it happens, both ICM and YouGov slightly overstated the Labour share in their final pre-election polls, though all came well within the margin of error.

Andrew, I never meant that Populus as an organisation had a labour bias, I was merely pointing out that historically due to the polling methods employed Populus polls can produce an inflated Labour figure. This is also the case for MORI. I was not intending to imply that either company had an intentional bias towards any party, and if I came across that way I apologise.

[Annabel Herriott]

What a trueism!! Parky can AFFORD to be a socialist! Now doesnt that say it all.

Re Christina. Joined the party in 1946. I was 11 in 1946, and I am 71 now, so I feel we should just all be very gentle with her.

[SimonNewman]

Looking at the figures 41-18-31 - and assuming for now they're accurate:

People say we need to be more than 10% ahead to be sure of forming a Conservative government. However, at 31% Labour are already not far off their core base support, probably around 28% at a GE (the Tory base is similar size, maybe slightly smaller, but aso even more certain to vote). I don't think it's likely that we can take more than another 2-3% off Labour, tops. _However_ the Lib-Dem vote is another story; their reliable core base is only about 10-11%, and their floating voters are even wobblier than New Labour's, most having very little in common with the party they vote for. What that means is that we can realistically aim to take another big chunk off the Lib-Dems for as much effort as would get only a small chunk off NuLab. If we take it that a 'perfect storm' situation is unlikely, I still think that on our present course we can look for 5-6% off the Lib Dems and 1-2% off Labour, giving us around 47% or so, enough for a solid majority.

[Andrew]

Obviously all the scientists are just making it up, and the sudden spike in temperature exactly matching the point of mass industrialisation is just a coincidence:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png

Even the completely incompetent head-in-the-sand Bush administration has finally admitted this has a human cause - although only after years of allowing oil industry lobbyists to fiddle their official reports on global warming.

[Andrew Cooper]

Chris

Thank you very much for your gracious clarification. I wasn't meaning to suggest that your comment was malign - I just don't think it is actually factually right.

You say that 'due to the polling methods employed Populus polls can produce an inflated Labour figure'. In fact our methods are very similar to those of ICM and YouGov and we are no more likely than they are to produce an inflated Labour figure.

Any polling organisation can and will produce a 'rogue poll' from time to time; indeed probability theory says that at least one poll in twenty will be rogue to a degree (that is one reason why it is a mistake to read too much into any single poll); Populus has certainly produced its fair share of them. But it is not right to suggest that there is a systemic tendency for this to happen in Populus polls.

Over the 6 months of David Cameron's leadership Populus polls have the Conservatives averaging 36% and Labour averaging 35%. Over the same period ICM have exactly the same averages for the two main parties and YouGov have Labour on the same average, but Conservatives (because of rounding) 1% higher.

Equally I don't think it is right to say that MORI's methods consistently produce 'an inflated Labour figure'; their methodology makes them prone to find large swings from one poll to the next, not to err particularly towards one party or another.

The polling companies that do apply political weights to their polls (Populus, YouGov, NOP and ICM) were all very accurate at the last election and have all refined their methodologies slightly since to try and respond to lessons learned last time. We constantly review our methods. If Populus saw any evidence at all of consistent over or understatement of any party we would address it - as I am sure the other companies would.

[Chris D]

Christina Speight @15:40 "Do you wonder this life-time Tory is angry and disillusioned. What disillusions me most though is the ovine bleating of Cameron supporters who can't point to any achievement at all"
Your anger and disillusionment with David Cameron shines through in your posts Christina, but it does not make your arguments or opinions any stronger or more valid than other's who post here. As a Scottish tory it has been compulsary for me to have a thick skin, buckets of optimism and a sense of humour.
David Cameron's biggest achievement has been the fact that despite Labour and the libdems best efforts, he has managed to get rid of the "nasty party" label which has resulted in 3 election defeats and less than 200 MP's in Parliment.

[christina speight]

Fareth and Changetowin have no answer to facts and a rational argument but to be personally rude. I've challenged Chamgetowin to say somethng positive - anything factual will do but NO - slogans are better.

And G-Man I did not say that the labour vote was not collapsing - I said the Labour CORE vote was not - a very different thing!

I am NOT a "Global warming flat earther - I have the figures and they go way way back - beyond the dinosaurs! And Global warming stopped in 1998 and most NON-GOVERNMENTAL scientists agree. It is in the interests of the Global Warming lobby to pooh-pooh this but facts are facts but you'll never get a government to admit it. The "spike" exists but the same spike exists in frequent occasions in the past Most scientists now suggest that it is sunspot activity that is the cause.

[Patsy Sergeant]

I think that David Cameron has done amazingly well in only six months, of course he has been helped along by the chaotic shower that we are saddled with at the moment, but I think that his policy of not having any particularly firm plans - apparently - at the moment is very much the right one. What seems extremely important now, may not be of first rate importance by the time of the next election. People generally are beginning to say that the economy is in a mess and likely to be worse by the next election, and that is a VERY nice thing to look forward to, for Mr. Cameron, since this shower or Brown in particular, had an economy in really good order to mess around with, when he came to power.

Another thing I approve of is that part of his total change of image, seems to be to 'put himself about a bit more', socially I mean, I know some people who post don't approve of that. I can't see anything wrong in that approach, it might help him to meet more people outside parliament. The present PM does something similar, but with many minders and much preparation beforehand; he does it for the photo opportunity, maybe Mr. Cameron does it partly for that but also for getting better known. Thats cool!!

[changetowin]

Christina,

I responded to your points hours ago. I'm afraid that the more you post the more you make my case for me... And for the second time I will apologise if you thought me rude - it was meant as an amusing play on DC's words to Gordon Brown - but point taken.

[comstock]

All meaningless until Tony Blair retires.....if you are 10 points ahead after the 'Brown bounce' then I'll start losing sleep. Remember 1992?

[Graeme Archer]

Christina Speight: "most" scientists don't agree with your sunspot theory. The science of climate change is vast and difficult. The problem is that, on the one hand, it's difficult to establish evidence for any particular hypothesis in the "standard" scientific fashion - experiments aren't possible - it's much more like geographic epidemiology, if I can coin a phrase. Carrying the analogy further: the epidemiology linking smoking to lung cancer was established long before the mechanistic pathways were established. On the other hand, the risk of doing nothing is obviously huge, *if* the human causes of warming are eventually established, which is much the situation we're in now with respect to climate change. So the probable sensible course is to strike a balance between Dad's Army style "we're all doomed" mongering - whereby any temperature readings are deformed to fit a global hypothesis (it gets warmer: =>global warming; it gets cooler: => global warming) & a lofty "it's happened before, somehow humans are inviolable when it comes to living on the planet" approach.

On the poll, it's a great fillip, but if the between-month figures quoted right at the start of the thread are correct, it suggests a within-poll standard deviation of 3.8 points in the Tory score. Larger than most. Hence don't get overly excited by this month's result because a quite different score could result by the same sampling methodology next month. That won't "prove" a corresponding collapse in Tory support! The trend is clearly upwards across all the polls, which is the significant finding.

Andrew Cooper: I'm not sure it's strictly correct to say that opinion polls are "unbiased" in the technical sense. I think they are all biased by the fact that none of them (so far as I know) are conducted using simple random sampling, so all of the estimators are systematically biased to some extent (so that if n is the number of people in the sample then the estimate of Tory support would not tend to the actual population level of support as n -> N where N is the size of the UK population) (which is why I get worried about lumping all the biased estimators together into the "poll of polls").

[Graeme Archer]

@comstock: I remain convinced that the "Brown Bounce" will be negative for Labour. I think the polling thus far agrees? Actually I feel that based on the antibodies I get whenever he starts speaking so hardly a scientific piece of evidence. But would be interested to know how a non-Tory supporter thinks that Brown would impact on the general public consciousness.

[Margaret on the Guillotine]

Christina,

You are the past.

Posted by: changetowin | June 05, 2006 at 16:16
---
Without wanting to sound rude to Christina, I think Changetowin's onto something. Clearly her political viewpoint isn't the past: the Party has to be a broad church and be influenced by the right and left, and the right is proving itself vocal here and elsewhere.

But her style of attacking the leadership or individual MPs because their politics don't exactly match hers seems to be something which, thankfully, is dying away. I'm finding in ym Association that people may disagree with Cameron on issues, but they're not growling that he must go, whereas five years ago they were calling the leadership traitors and socialists for not promising out of the EU, closing the borders completely and all the rest of it.

There's a refreshing sense that, even though we may differ a little politically, the common enemy is Labour, not one another, and long may that continue, and the benefit of being united will be reaped as the poll shows.

[John Moss]

Oh absolutely Kingbongo, and Dickie Bird and Michael Parkinson come from Barnsley oop North. Wonder if either of them are tories??

Nah lad! Bird were vociferously pro-scargill and Parkie kept his trap shut all through the 80s abaht owt political - mind ye, he'd buggered off to soft southerner territory be then.

(do yer think reverting to me natural regional accent could assist in gaining place on 't A list?)

[Graeme Archer]

@ John Moss: no, it wouldn't.

JOKING!

[Annabel Herriott]

Yes, I should do John. West Riding, were you? That was hilarious!

[christina speight]

Graeme - I agree with many of the technical points you make on the polls. The only opinion poll whose ABSOLUTE figures one should treat seriously is the last one before polling day [the one that's least use!] The rest are fine for trends and that's it.

I attack Cameron not because of my age [I was in full time employment and making a lot of export money till 3 years ago and after that I ran the most successful precursor of "blogs" right up till the end of 2005. I'm not out of touch] I attack Cameron because he's a siren voice of vapidity with no spine, no policy and no principles who might, because of Blair, win the next election but will be found wanting when a real man - or a real woman - is needed. That'll be the end of the Party for good.

[Andrew Woodman]

I agree with Graeme here about the Brown bounce. In 92, Major was a relative newcomer. Brown has been besides Blair the whole time. Plus, I can't see The Sun doing to Cameron what they did to Kinnock.

Interesting point about Parky. Perhaps he's apolitical. Dicky Bird is obviously better judging LBW then politicans.

[Patsy Sergeant]

Christina - I will precis what I prepared before and then lost!

You appear to believe in the 'school' of thought that Global Warming is not happening, and that changes such as those that are being noted are cyclical, and therefore similar have probably happened before.

This may well be true, but there is another aspect, that as far as I know has not happened before. At the moment we have in our world an enormous rapidly expanding population, that there is already a problem with feeding adequately. The natural resources of OUR WORLD are finite. At the same time we have an extremely selfish and self-indulgent developed world population. These three factors are NOT compatible.

Surely if Mr. Cameron decides that it is a worthwhile ethical issue to involve himself in we should encourage him. Since he has brought this subject more into the limelight, people in general have taken more notice, and now the two major TV networks BBC and ITV, have got more involved right down to the local level, and belatedly this government are beginning to realise that had better do so as well.

Yes Brown has waffled on about poverty in Africa, like Bono and others before him, but Mugabe is still there razing people's dwellings, and all the flowery speeches from Brown will be so much hot air until the greedy dictators are got rid of.

So I think Cameron has approached the whole issue quite efficiently!!

[EML]

Just out of interest, what's the baseline for the Poll of Polls?

[EML]

Er, I mean which poll and when ...

[lucy74]

"Cameron HAS no policies" - Christina Speight

Christina - I fail to see your point. David Cameron has set up policy groups in the various policy areas to look in depth into the problems the country faces. Can't you just have the patience to wait until they report instead of ranting incessantly about DC having no policies. Would you prefer us to announce policies that we haven't researched, that we don't know will work, or if they will benefit the country?

Labour has spent the last ten years formulating policy to make headlines - with disastrous results. Do you really think we should emulate them?

[David]

Christina, you really need to calm down. David Cameron and most party members have now worked out that sounding angry does nothing to persuade people; in fact it has the opposite effect. You sound like the party as a whole sounded over the last 15 years - and that just lost us 3 elections.

[comstock]

[i]comstock: I remain convinced that the "Brown Bounce" will be negative for Labour. I think the polling thus far agrees? Actually I feel that based on the antibodies I get whenever he starts speaking so hardly a scientific piece of evidence. But would be interested to know how a non-Tory supporter thinks that Brown would impact on the general public consciousness.[/i]

I think a lot of the current poll gains for the Conservatives are in fact anti-Blair, or at least 'sick-of-Blair'. When Blair goes, I think Labour will improve. In any event, I believe the pollsters ask 'if there is a general election tomorrow which way would you vote'? We all know there isn't going to be a general election tommorow, nor for at least three years.....

OK money where mouth is time. I've got twenty quid to the charity of the winners choice (I nominate Oxfam) on a 4th Tory defeat in 2009/10 if anyone cares to take up the bet.

[lucy74]

Cornstock - By 4th Tory defeat do you mean a Labour government or hung parliament? Or of course a LibDem government...!!

[comstock]

good point. I'll stick my neck out and go for a Labour majority. (yes I could see a hung parliament if things go badly for GB, but I gotta give you guys a chance ;)

Any takers?

[lucy74]

Whilst I have the greatest confidence that Tories will whip Labour in the elections, I think I'll save my cash and bet on the horses - at least I know something about bloodlines and racing. ;)

[briank]

Re the polls - only so far so good. There's a long way to go - or, possibly a short way - it is still feasible that Brown will be leader earlier than we think and then calls an early election. He will then benefit from the now very unfair boundaries and - marginally - a still very flawed voting system. The tory and liberal parties should really be campaigning very hard to get both these grossly unfair labour biases rectified quickly.

[malcolm]

Yes I'll take your bet Comstock.Email me and we'll sort it out.

[christina speight]

Lucy74 - If he stuck to the line that policies were for later it wouldn't be so bad but he doesn't. He keeps making vague policy demarches ALL of which are in direct opposition to what has hitherto been policy. He's trying to have his cake and eat it.

Patsy - You may be right about the world's finite resources but the way all the lefties in the Beeb and Cameron approach is flawed and - much worse - ill-researched and simplistic. It's all huggy-luvvy stuff.

[Ted]

Populus in the Times tomorrow - Cons 37%, Lab 34%, LDs 18%.

[comstock]

I would think those numbers were nearer reality Ted-but then obviously I would say that!!
Anyway that gives you

Con 270 Lab 317 Lib 27

Comstock 7 seats short of keeping hold of his money ;)-but Cameron still *well* short of forming a government.

Result-Lib/Lab pact or a fresh election.