Immigration poll boost for Conservatives

An ICM poll for the Sunday Express puts the Conservatives eight points ahead of Labour on voting intentions. Labour remain on 35% from the last ICM poll with the Conservatives gaining three points, presumably at the expense of the LibDems, to 43%. This is our best showing for fifteen years with ICM.

On the issue polling - in the wake of Brown's British Jobs for British Workers slogan and the Nigel Hastilow resignation, we are now fifteen points ahead on immigration:

• Trusted to get immigration right: Cameron 45% / Brown 30%
• Most likeable: Cameron 46% / Brown 33%
• Stronger leader: Brown 50% / Cameron 29%
• More of a conviction politician: Brown 44% / Cameron 30%
• More courageous: Brown 39% / Cameron 33%
• Better at handling economy: Brown 53% / Cameron 28%

3pm: Graphic added >

Comments

[James Maskell]

The Tories have always had a lead on immigration since its a core Tory issue. Labour havent really helped themselves much with their screwing up of the statistics (which I suspect has had a big resonance with the public, perhaps bigger than the Hastilow row).

Again Brown being less likeable but coming out top on the key indicators.

What are the changes in the numbers here, Editor? Is the stronger leader indicator up or down for example?

[Raj]

Good poll, certainly.

[Dale]

Where is cleo? Why isn't she still lecturing us about pandering to the core vote?

[michael mcgough]

The Tory lead on immigration will surely fall as people awake to the connection between our membership of the EU and our consequent inability to control our own borders.As a party committed to ever closer European union and the one that removed embarkation controls it's ability to speak authoritatively on this issue is surely negated.

[David]

I'm just watching a recording of last night's festival of remembrance; the BBC now has something new to replace the footage of John Redwood struggling with the Welsh anthem- Gordon Brown struggling with the National one.

[Ay Up]

Would be v interesting to see what people thought about Hastilow's comments. My GUESS is that they actually helped a little bit and that the party's put down hindered more than helped.

[Tony Makara]

Very surprising that Brown is seeing as being more courageous, specially after that yellow coward lost his bottle over calling an election and led the whole country in a merry dance of deceit.

As for economic competence, we are about to see Brown's smoke and mirrors economy unravel, the pound can't remain overvalued forever and then we will see the true underlying rate of inflation and interest rates will have to rise.

The conviction politician figures are interesting. Although David Cameron is most passionate about his core values, Brown scores highly because he has shown that he will grubbingly put his career above the interests of the British people, so Brown certainly is a conviction politician, but in an egocentric way.

The immigration stats reward David Cameron for having the courage to tackle a politically sensitive question in a sensible and non inflammatory way. David Cameron has extracted race from the immigration debate and allowed the country to talk about this great taboo freely for the first time in decades.

[Raj]

Dale

If you're trying to imply Cameron could have got these results 1 day after becoming leader simply by banging on about core Tory issues you're not being realistic.

The Tories had a strong lead over Labour when Blair was PM and Cameron was changing direction. What's happened is that Brown's bounce has come and gone. But Cameron still had to work hard to make the Tory brand likeable. Remember 2005 when the public loved your policies until they heard they were Tory?

[NW Supporter]

michael mcgough @ 11:52 Please, lets stop bickering about the EU within our party. We know it causes divisions, and gives the BBC and all the other nasty leftie media the chance to say we're divided etc etc. If we start like that again we'll be out of power for a generation. Getting on Cameron's back about Europe is only harming ourselves - it's just what Brown wants.

We should get behind Cameron - he's doing a great job of holding Brown to account. Public seem to think so too, given this poll.

[HF]

NW supporter, michael mcgough is a UKIP supporter.

[michael mcgough]

HF;This will come to a head after Brown's whipped ratification of the reform treaty ---whilst 3m +++++ new households are pushed into Tory back yards.

[MrB]

What I just don't get though is why Brown is still seen as stronger, more courageous and with more conviction than Cameron after this election debacle, stealing of policies and broken EU referendum promises. I really don't get it! Is it because he never smiles or something?

And this is not an opportunity for a cheap side-swipe at Dave!

[Traditional Tory]

Well of course Cameron and co did not get it right ofer Hastilow. His treatment was a thundering disgrace.

Cameron would have no more control over EU immigration than Brown has at present. It's time to come clean on the issue.

[Andrew Smith]

It may be acceptable in Conservative branch meetings and supper clubs to ignore the EU but in mature political blogs we have to recognise that the EU (which NW supporter wants to stop mentioning), accounts for a large majority of new law in this country. The EU also controls our borders so surely we should question how Cameron proposes to deliver on his new found aversion to unlimited immigration.

Incidentally, have you noticed how the Europhiles now refer to non-British people coming here as "migration" rather than "immigration" - presumably because they view cross-EU transfers the way most Brits view a house move from Lancaster to Preston.

[David Sergeant]

Handling of the economy - Brown 53%

Sorry to keep on about this but Labour will continue to score until the myths about the 18 years are addressed;-

Black Wednesday was caused by Conservative economic incomptetence. (It wasn't.)

The Conservatives vastly increaced unemployment. (They didn't.)

The Conservatives cut the public services. (They substantially increased them.)

At the back of peoples minds are these thoughts, anyone interested in politics who does not recognise this has no idea how the average elector's mind works. Until these issues are addressed the madness of Brown getting 53% for handling of the economy and 39% as more courageous will continue.

[Tony Makara]

Although, we are legally bound to permit the free movement of EU labour, we could get around this by passing legislation which states that the minimum wage only applies to British citizens. We could also pass legislation to insist that foreign workers are paid in their own currency, which they would then have to exchange for pound sterling. This would completely deter those workers whose sole objective is to exploit the differential between sterling and their own currency. How many Poles would be making a bee-line for Britain if they exempt from the minimum wage and received their salary in Zloty and then had to convert that into pounds?

[Patsy Sergeant]

So what are you actually trying to say 'TT', that as - in your estimation DC could not be any more effective than Brown on immigration- that we should do nothing?
You can't prove that DC could not alter immigration until he has been in office for a short time at least, all you are being now is a 'Jonah'.

[Votedave]

LibDem support has fallen by 3% despite the publicity they have had since the resignation of Sir Ming!
This is encouraging, interesting and significant.
I suspect this is a sign that whoever becomes LibDem leader may well receive a bounce around the New Year but they will find it difficult to keep up the momentum. Or perhaps the public have realised that Clegg and Huhne aren't all that they're cracked up to be by their friends in the media.

[Rod Sellers]

"michael mcgough @ 11:52 Please, lets stop bickering about the EU within our party. We know it causes divisions, and gives the BBC and all the other nasty leftie media the chance to say we're divided etc etc."(posted by NW Supporter)

How pathetic ! So as long as we do not rock the boat and keep quiet on the most fundemental issue of all - all will be well.

Munich Madness all over again. Check out the uknda.com website to really 'feel' what is at stake

[Mr Angry]

Ah well I gfuess it is too much to expect that the win at any price brigade still won't accept that it is when we demonstrate
conviction on matters that concern the electorate that we do well. Also rather amusing to see that the same old tosh about not talking about europe and quietly subsuming our nation to a Euro Superstate is coming from the same souces as tried to tell us that talking about immigration was a vote loser. They were wrong on both counts and remain wrong.

[Malcolm Dunn]

Very good poll by any standards. A leader of the opposition is always likely to trail a sitting PM on things like courage and strength because of the job itself more than the personality involved.

[Traditional Tory]

So what are you actually trying to say 'TT', that as - in your estimation DC could not be any more effective than Brown on immigration- that we should do nothing?

We will need to withdraw from the EU first, and as far as I am aware that's not on Cameron's agenda.

[NW Supporter]

michael mcgough - don't get me wrong, I actually think that we would be 'better off out' and that we should join the North Atlantic Free Trade Association instead. EU is bad for Britain and I do think Cameron should settle the in/out issue in a referendum once we're elected.

But the thing is, branch meetings and supper clubs are exactly the sort of places where we should be debating the EU: not in public, where the BBC look for any opportunity they can to say we're fighting amongst ourselves. I'm not a Europhile.

[Patsy Sergeant]

Thats a cop out TT.

[Yet Another Anon]

Although, we are legally bound to permit the free movement of EU labour, we could get around this by passing legislation which states that the minimum wage only applies to British citizens
Not possible, the only way to restrict the minimum wage so that it wouldn't apply to people from other parts of the EU would be to scrap it, it's the way the EU works - just as museums for example have had to abandon special entry rates for people living locally because the EU ruled it was unfair on people in other parts of the EU including other parts of the UK, and the Winter Fuel Payments ended up being paid to people living in Ibiza - the only options are to scrap whatever benefit or concession it is, or right, or to leave the EU.

So far as having the Minimum Wage for British Citizens only, this surely at most merely minimises bureacracy, indeed it puts the onus on employers to know whether someone is a British citizen or not - scrapping the Minimum Wage, moving towards lower level simpler benefits and tax structure with fewer benefits and taxes, leaving the EU, scrapping most of the organisations monitoring labour activity in the private sector and deregulating scrapping restrictions on hours of trade, conditions of employment and hours of employment. Have a virtual free market in the private sector while focusing entirely on matters of strategic interest to the nation such as National Security, Transport, Telecommunications, Water, Sewerage, Energy, Natural Resources, Weights & Measures, Disease Control, Criminal Justice, Armed Forces and Policing. Leave everything else to the Free Market.

[Dale]

'Dale

If you're trying to imply Cameron could have got these results 1 day after becoming leader simply by banging on about core Tory issues you're not being realistic.

The Tories had a strong lead over Labour when Blair was PM and Cameron was changing direction. What's happened is that Brown's bounce has come and gone. But Cameron still had to work hard to make the Tory brand likeable. Remember 2005 when the public loved your policies until they heard they were Tory?'

Dont put words in my mouth, if you had read anything I have written previously you would know that I supported modernisation, but I said that now we were 'clean' we could start talking about crime , immigration, tax and europe and Cleo was saying it would be pandering to our core vote. She was saying this about 2 weeks ago.

Please do not try and make me look like one of the fruitcakes that were saying the casmeroons will be the end of us all.

[Jim McConalogue]

45%. Wow! Can Cameron be trusted to get immigration right? When he has talked of population change and immigration, he does not dare to reassess the real voter problems related to the EU dimension of immigration, and has actually remained very abstract. When someone on the candidates list began talking concretely about it within the Party and the impact it would have on voters, Cameron sought to cut ties.

In the interests of Conservatism, the leadership’s support for a straightforward Powellite defence of immigration might be a good idea (see my article ‘Immigration: Heaping Up the Funeral Pyre’ at http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/1248) for Cameron since it confronts the real and practical issues of how immigration policy affects our everyday lives. Since Cameron has not actually confronted immigration or the need for renegotiation with the EU (or their relationship) head on, I cannot understand why Cameron can be trusted any more than Gordon Brown on this issue.