Tory lead grows despite Derek Conway

After a number of surveys had shown a tightening of public opinion there is good news for the Conservative Party in today's Times.  Populus puts the Tories 9% ahead.  The party also leads on economic competence.  ICM, on Sunday, had put Labour ahead on this crucial measure.  There will be relief in CCHQ that the Derek Conway controversy does not appear to have damaged the party's standing.

Comments

[Justin Hinchcliffe]

This is good news. I suspect that, when polled, voters will view David Cameron as a strong leader who does not tolerate sleaze. It does, though, beggar belief that Labour is on 31% (Sean is this their 'core' vote?). It ought to be in the mid twenties given the way that they have run and ruined Britain. Still, on the bright side, we're ahead by 9 points and there is no Lib Dem 'bounce' - proving that it is not their leaders thawho have been their problem, rather than them being here for the sake of being here and not not offering any practical solutions for today's challenges.

[Sally Roberts]

Fantastic news!!

[Richard Shaw]

These good results just serve to illustrate that so much more needs to be done to convince voters in LibDem held constituencies like Lewes that voting LibDem is absolutely pointless if there is to be real change.

[Tapestry]

Far from damaging the Party, when we get worked up about something like grammar schools or Conway's lining his pockets, it helps us. The furore is always faithfully reported by the MSM as Tory infighting, expecting to damage us.

But the public see it for what it actually is - people caring about right and wrong, good and evil - and they like what they see.

The media commentary is being ignored these days. People are seeing through the BBC. The more we dig down, erase the dirt and the feebleness from within our ranks, and give raw expression to our true beliefs, we are winners.

The age of spin is gone. The era of raw emotion and anger is upon us.

[Simon Denis]

Some truth in what you say, Tapestry, although as one who has done his fair share of right wing brawling, I have to urge a degree of caution. We should certainly complain about genuine betrayals - viz: abandoning academic selection - but otherwise, let us fall in wherever we can behind the leadership. I well recall the horror I felt when Brown appeared to be bearing down upon us on a steamroller. It was when Kinnock started screaming from the cabin about finally finishing us off that the desperate need for unity struck me. This is not carte blanche to the modernisers. They now know two things - how far they can push us and how popular some of our traditionalist nostrums really are.

[Giles McNeill]

This poll is good news - particularly because it is a populus poll - I thought that other recent polls were more likely to be blips.

[James Maskell]

"a strong leader who does not tolerate sleaze"

You forgot to add "once the Met are called in"...

[Tony Makara]

I still believe that a Lib/Lab pact is a very real possibility if the Conservative majority isn't big enough. The Liberals are much closer to Labour on most issues and I can't see what common ground there could be between Liberals and Conservatives. The lead needs to be bigger, that means creating a radical economic policy for job creation.

[Jon Gale]

Seems to support the politicalbetting theory - When Cameron is in the news/on tv our polls go up, regardless of what he talking about.

[Northernhousewife]

I got news of this on PB last night and was desperate to share the joy but you had all gone to bed.

Mike Smithson says it proves his theory - when Dave is in the media spotlight, for good or ill, we go up. The same happened over grammar schools.
He has a less well established theory that the opposite is true of Brown.

When the public see Dave, they like what they see [gold dust when they hate politicans]. He is a huge assett to our party and we should remember that in bad times and good.

[Buckinghamshire Tory]

Good news. According to the Telegraph this would give us an overall majority of 74 MPs.

[Sally Roberts]

Yes, Tapestry - I know we don't often agree but I am totally with you on this one!

[Old Hack]

But as we all probably know, ICM is the most accurate pollster at the moment.....

[Gezmond007]

People on this site think polls in their favour are ok but polls that are closer are a blip or dodgy !

Living in cloud cuckoo land comes to mind !

[Evan Williams]

COMMENT OVERWRITTEN.

[Sean Fear]

Justin - it's hard to say. I think, in general eleciton conditions, 30% is the core Labour vote. There are so many public sector workers, benefit claimants etc. whose livelihood depends on a Labour government, plus of course, the tribal Labour voters of the North, Wales, and Scotland, who would never vote for anyone else.

In local elections, however, it can sink lower than that. Labour have been below 30% in every round of local elections since 2004.

[Sean Fear]

Evan Williams ?

[Treacle]

NURSE!

He's out of bed again....

[Suscpicous of]

This poll is rubbish. Why did it need to be "revised". Mori seems to have revised their one too from labour lead to labour being behind. What a load of rubbish. I think this is vote fraud preperation, Con the public to think the tories are doing better than they really are. Does any seriously think the tories would go up after one of their mps is found sticking cash under the carpet. What a load of BS. .

[London Tory]

Speaking to my local MP at the weekend, he thought the Parliamentary Party was very pleased at the way David Cameron handled Conway. This poll bears out why.
Dave is growing in the job week on week. When you look at him on TV now you think - 'yes, potential Prime Minister'.

A couple of other thoughts on the current state of play.

1. Nick Clegg is invisible. He has made no impact whatsover. The Liberals should have gone with Huhne- at least until we take his seat next time. Huhne's brand of cheap populism would have at least kept them visible.

2. It is clear that Brown has no vision, and will never be able to articulate one.
The honest son-of-the-manse who cannot answer a straight question. My only worry is that the thrusting, scheming bunch of geeks and policy wonks cum MPs he has put in his Cabinet wise up to this, and oust him before the electorate deliver their damning verdict.

Brown is just a machine politician, in desperate need of an oiling.

[Jake]

I feel sorry for poor Ming . He performed well as leader of the FibDems - was very effective on QT just before he finally succumbed to the ageist propaganda and was always planetarily better than Clegg ever will be .

[BS]

COMMENT OVERWRITTEN.

[Sean Fear]

BS - What are you attempting to say?

[Moral minority]

"Suspicious of" and "BS" are the same poster. Note the mispelled "preperation" and the lack of grammar in both posts. Our bullshi**ing troll is clearly a thick and uneducated prole who can p*ss off back to Labour Home.

[Votedave]

David Cameron took away the whip from Derek Conway. Nothing similar has happened in the Labour ranks.
This might go some way in explaining our rising support.

[Tory Bull shit finder]

COMMENT OVERWRITTEN.

[Swung Voter]

Labour Troll. You're a mentalist.

[Tony Makara]

This slanging match is a bit like debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. We certainly enjoy the polls which do generate a lot of passion, but unless we are weeks away from an election they don't count for all that much. On Moral minority's point about misspelling I think we are all a bit guilty of that, even though I have no doubt that we can all spell flawlessly under normal circumstances, but when that red mist descends to cloud our judgment and political passion enters our frenzied fingertips, spelling, grammar take a back seat and typo's reign supreme.

[Alex Swanson]

So TBSF, exactly what are your IQ and qualifications? And are you yourself, since you raise the subject, prepared to defer to someone with better ones?

Oh and BTW, be prepared to have to reveal your name in case your claims sound implausible. Which given your standard of English is quite likely.

[Shut up creep]

13:12 No you bullying dumb creep. I am prepared to see bull shit (such as you) when it is there. This mornonic result is suggesting the lib dems have lost votes to the tories because onm of the tory mps is found to have been corrupt. What planet do you think this. Tories must be glad to have dumb bullying creep like you in their party to shut up the truth. Listen do you seriously ecpect me to believe the tories would go up after the conway affair. The first populus result, which someone in the times accidentialy showed, showed labour up now they revised it and shows labour down, and tories up. The right wing elties are very grateful to have creeps like you around. They can do whathever they like if they have dumb brainwashed creeps like you. Listen creep the first times poll showed labour up I am not making these figures up they decied to revise them why? You little creep. I have never e ver hard of a opinion poll company publishing uncompleted fitures why would they you creep,.

[Patsy Sergeant]

Yes, Simon Denis @ 8.55 - 'traditionalist nostrums' - Blair thought at one point, that with his overwhelming majority, and what he got the impression was his far-reaching charisma/power, that he could actually bring about a republic, and it was only when an overwhelming number of people turned out to honour the Queen in the Mall,(not helped by his uncouth wife yawning with her wide open mouth, once or twice too often), that HE began to realise that (as yet) there is a back-bone of English/British traditionalist belief, throughout the country. Even Bruun, got a whiff of it and decided that dressing up a bit perhaps was a small price to pay for where he had got (and incidentally he looked almost handsome in his 'dress' clothes!!).

David Cameron is fresh and friendly, and takes an interest in people, but he is no pushover, and I think it is good that he demonstrates at the Despatch Box that he is determined as well. Unlike Brown who always has his protectors to shield him, Cameron has had to face the snide bitchiness of the media constantly since he has been leader, the fact that he has coped the way that he has, says much I think for his strength of character.

David Cameron has 'held the party together' pretty well since he has been in charge, if he can now convince the back bench MP's to be prepared to cope with change, and in some cases no doubt, to interact more with their constituents, it will help when the dirty tricks brigade start their inevitable assault, before both local and general elections.

[MrB]

Mr Troll, don't forget that Labour have had far more sleaze stories than the Tories recently (Hain, Alexander etc). David Cameron acted positively on Conway whereas Brown did nothing to his. The LibDems have made no advance becuase they're been squeezed out of the media completely by these stories. It's quite logical to me...but then again conspiracies are more fun aren't they?

[R.Baker.]

make no mistake in all this,Labour are going down with Brown.
Maybe we can adopt the chant,"Going down with Gordon Brown".
Sounds good to go to me.

[Sean Fear]

Could the Editor please block that idiot from posting here? He detracts from the thread.

[Edward Huxley]

I have just read some of this and am appalled. You should not publish comments from people who are afraid to use their names. I realise that this will reduce their number but perhaps that would be a good thing.

I sign myself as before.

[London Tory]

Contrast Cameron to Brown in recent days.

Wendy Alexander has been referred to the Procurator Fiscal in Scotland, yet Brown has typically dithered for weeks on end. Why ? Because her brother, little Duggie Alexander, is one of the 3 people in the entire world that Brown actually converses with like a normal human being (the others being the equally bug eyed Ed Balls and Ed Miliband).

Brown has a Conference Call to discuss the days strategy with little Duggie at 7am every morning. Would'nt you just love to have been a fly on the wall recently ?

"err...we are facing a bit of a hit in Scotland Prime Minister"

"And why is that little Duggie?"

"err...my sister has Done A Hain and could end up going inside..."

Big Sister Wendy's explanation this week of precisely why she would not have the decency to resign, having broken the laws she legislated for, was a classic piece of Brownite sophistry: "Because I want to carry on delivering for hard working families" she droned, in that bizarre android whine of hers.

I bet that one went in Tessa Jowell's famous Book Of Bulls*it.

[Votedave]

Edward, with respect I would have to disagree.
I wish to protect my true identity and have used the name "Votedave" on political blogs for around 18 months without getting into any trouble.
It is the content of the posts that should matter.

[Shut up creep]

13:39 What is your problem. Legitimate political debate is part of the british way of life. Move to china if you hate democracy so much, you stooge.

Labour are up in every other opinion poll apart from one which was revised. I have measured this with my bull shit metre. It is enough to drown the statue of liberty.
There is no justifcation for the tories to have gone up after the conway affair no other poll showed this this is a stich up, even the first hastily published version (ooooops) showed this. If a government department did this everyone would be suspicous of a private company does it is taken as a cock up. Watch out for the murdochs, they are devious. This is a time run one. Whio owns the times the murdochs. The most devious politcial clan in the the UK

[Sean Fear]

Shut up Creep, What makes you think I'm referring to you?

Still, if the cap fits ...............

[Shut up creep]

13:39 What is your problem. Legitimate political debate is part of the british way of life. Move to china if you hate democracy so much, you stooge.

Labour are up in every other opinion poll apart from one which was revised. I have measured this with my bull shit metre. It is enough to drown the statue of liberty.
There is no justifcation for the tories to have gone up after the conway affair no other poll showed this this is a stich up, even the first hastily published version (ooooops) showed this. If a government department did this everyone would be suspicous of a private company does it is taken as a cock up. Watch out for the murdochs, they are devious. This is a time run one. Whio owns the times the murdochs. The most devious politcial clan in the the UK

[MrB]

What's wrong with my explanation Shut Up Creep?

[Martin Coxall]

COMMENT OVERWRITTEN.

[Andrew S]

"12:51 I am educated you idiot. I am better educated than you I am certain. You may have paid for your education but I bet I have higher acdemic qualifications, and it is inlikley your IQ would be as high as my IQ. What level did you reach?
By the way education is supposed to teach you to be critical of a result. Not to take a bull shit result like this as true. This result sems to suggest labour is lower than it was in november this is after a tory mp has been found to be taking cash from the public. The excuse is people like the tory leaders face. What utter BS. People know what he looks like. I suppose someone moronic enough to vote for someone on the way he looks is likley to have a sort attention span and low IQ, and probably did forget what he looked like."

Your response reminds me of the way I would have replied when I was about 14. Very juvenile.
Your great education didn't help you with your spelling or grammar did it?

[Edward Huxley]

To Votedave.

I get your point and not all anonymous postings are disgraceful. But I hope you will not dispute that the practice enables nasty types (from whatever party) to say things they would not put their names to. Just look at some of the recent examples on this site.
This of course, why newspapers will not publish letters without names and addresses.

[Northernhousewife]

I think we should get used to the sound of the death of the Labour Government.
There is so much more of it to come.

[Worby Zeco]

COMMENT OVERWRITTEN.

[Northernhousewife]

A am with Dave on this, but then I would be! Some of us have firnds or relatives who would be associated with our comments and we do what we do to protect others.

Anyone can make up a name, get an email address.

[Andrew S]

Surely being better educated and having a higher IQ than others would make you realise that you really shouldn't brag about these things.

[passing leftie]

I think the benefits of unregistered, anonymous posting outweigh the occasional negatives. The next step would be to allow people only to post if they were registered, but that would be as a last resort. Don't feed the troll.

[Andy Cooke]

I suspect that the root of this "BS" chap's belief of a lower Tory lead came from the kerfuffle on politicalbetting.com last night.

Mike Smithson noted (at about 7pm) that he had been told that the Populus poll would be available on the timesonline website from 7.45

I (and probably others) headed over there to see if it was up early. A search on the timesonline search facility provided the title of the piece and excerpts from it, but it was not yet available.

From that data, I posted the title of the piece on politicalbetting's comments; Mike Smithson made a new thread with that title.

I tried a few more search strings and got the data that Labour were on 31. At this point, I tried some more to get the Tory figure; unfortunately the excerpt that the search facility threw up turned out to be the element of the piece comparing the fortunes to the earlier ICM poll - thus the figure of 37 was presented (which I passed along).

About ten minutes later, after another poster, doing the same thing, had found the 40% figure with a different search string, I looked again and found an excerpt with yet another search string that included both "... Conservatives at 40%..." and "... the 37% Conservative figure ..." - or something similar (working from memory).

Within another 10 minutes or so, the piece was fully available and showed the source of the ambiguity - Riddell had compared the 40% Populus figure with the 37% ICM figure from a few days ago.

Sorry about that - but I also wasn't expecting some strange chappy to pop up here ranting about it, either. Who is, apparently, extremely highly educated and possessed of an unusually high IQ, according to - well - himself, although not a dictionary, spleechecker, or grammatical knowledge ...

[Andy Cooke]

"not a dictionary, spleechecker, or grammatical knowledge ..."

Oops. :-). First law of spelling flames: "Any post that criticises spelling or grammar must itself contain at least one spelling or grammatical error ..."

Inevitable, really.
:-)

[Northernhousewife]

THE Peter Riddell has been on to UK Polling and explained pretty much the same thing.
If he will not convince him, I am afraid you won't.
Anyway, who cares.

[London Tory]

On a related theme, if things continue this way with the opinion polls it can only be a matter of time before The Thunderer comes over to us. My God, I am going to enjoy seeing those Blairite lap dogs- Peter Riddell , Tom Baldwin, Philip Webster, Alice Miles etc grovel and eat humble pie by the spoonful !

[Malcolm Dunn]

Don't think that Peter Riddell or Alice Miles qualify as Blairite lap dogs London Tory although you're right about Baldwin. His career has fallen off a cliff since Campbell retired or maybe his love of dear Charlie got the better of him.

[Shut up toady]

COMMENT OVERWRITTEN.

[Malcolm Dunn]

Passing Leftie is right people. Don't feed the troll.

[Professor Worby Zetox]

COMMENT OVERWRITTEN.

[Tapestry]

If Britain's brothel-owners think it's time to vote Conservative, Professor, it's also time that you took us more seriously. There never was a more sure economic indicator that Tory time has come, and that Labour's taxes are hitting takings.

[Professor Worby Zetox]

COMMENT OVERWRITTEN.

[Editor]

Sorry: I've been away from the computer but have now overwritten most of the nonsense written by Wordy Zetox, Shut up Toady, BS etc - all the same person looking at the IP address.

[Deputy Editor]

We rarely have idiots posting comments like that, but when they do please email us so we can overwrite them swiftly.

[Tony Makara]

Does anyone get the feeling that Labour activists have been told to go into ConHome to throw a few hand grenades? There has been a marked increase in negative pro-Labour tabloid style posting of late. I like it when intelligent Labour and Liberal supporters want to argue policy with Conservatives, but seeing some of the posts on here leave me feeling that debate has been debased.

[Comstock]

I think the Conservatives have 'got away with' the Conway thing because of the general public view 'they are all the same'.....so the winner is likely to be the none-of-the-above party rather than Labour

[Patsy Sergeant]

merble,merble,merble,merble, zetox,botox, and all; you'r pathetic you can't even take responsibility for your own bullying, you have to blame it on the Tories - 15.56!

[Sean Fear]

Does anyone get the feeling that Labour activists have been told to go into ConHome to throw a few hand grenades?"

Probably not. I think it's just one individual who is "special."

He's posted on Political Betting and UK Polling Report as well.

[asquith]

COMMENT OVERWRITTEN.

[Londoner]

The above thread is a bit of a disgrace. Have not seen such a pathetic one on here for many a long month.

[Chad Noble]

"so the winner is likely to be the none-of-the-above party rather than Labour

I think the winner will be the Conservatives Comstock, as although I expect little different from Cameron, it really is time to kick out this incompetent shambles of a Government.

And I say that as not exactly a fan of Mr C!

[David Sergeant]

I suspect the Conway affair helped the Tory vote. People have no respect for Brown and his dithering but "stuff happens" and "events, dear boy, events" so when Cameron was on the spot he did the job, unlike Brown. The delay of 24 hours probably helped, that Cameron, hugely disappointed by one of his mates, gave some thought before putting in the boot would go down well with ordinary folk. I note some right wing headbangers called the 24 hours delay "dithering", rubbish of course, I suspect most people realise now they are just frustrated nonentities.

[Matt Wright]

Signs of Labour panic with their bogus posts.

[Annabel Herriott]

Now why does a theoretically sensible thread about the latest poll, showing us well ahead, arouse such adolescent ire from so many of our male posters? Note that the contributions from the ladies are all sensible! Must be why DC wants so many more women into Parliament!!!!

[Philip]

Good news - we need more polls with wide leads like this and at least at 40% to show if this is a trend. Yes still need to watch the LibDems, but I agree that Calamity seems to be having little impact. I also wonder if the decisive but not rash way David Cameron handled the Conway affair meant it did us little damage.

[Joe James Broughton]

I strongly suspect those posts are from the same person, as has been suggested.

Perhaps Conway followed close on from Hain so there was little net effect. It's unfortunate that happened - but all one can do is deal with it swiftly, and it was.

[Yet Another Anon]

The lead needs to be bigger, that means creating a radical economic policy for job creation.
Job creation schemes as described by governments are expensive and pointless, employers whether private or public create jobs where there is work to be done and they are happy with the people available to recruit. The best way to create jobs is to create a strong economy and slash regulation and taxes - employers will then have more money to expand. A good start might be to stop crediting people on benefits with National Insurance contributions, this removes a huge disincentive against people working, and will save money in pensions in the future as well as the contributions themselves. Cutting rates of benefit for single people aged 25 or over and switching many benefits not at fixed rates for low interest loans repayable in a similar way to Student Loans, abandoning the concensus on ever upward spending on the NHS and Education.

There is support for stringent measures on the War on Terror and against anti-social elements - bring back Capital Punishment, the Riot Act, Internment and have a national ID biometric database of everyone in the UK; Double spending on the Police, Military and Security Forces.

Things called job creation schemes may get blips of support, but ultimately they fail it is far better creating the conditions for job creation and then leaving society to sort itself out on that one.

I strongly suspect those posts are from the same person, as has been suggested.
Maybe the police should be monitoring the internet and should track people down who troll and lock them up, either that or smash their hands with hammers and see how they post then.

[Bexie]

Tony M, I have held the view since the left of the liberal party joined the social drinking party that the reality of the lib dem voter these days is that they are socialists without the intellectual honesty to vote labour.

As many libertarians point out, they are as statist and interventionist as any of the mainstream socialist parties in Europe, and should be exposed as such.

Gladstone would be rolling in his grave.

[Hardcore Conservative]

Mr Huxley

I think that we need to remember that we do not have freedom of speech anymore in this country – we delude ourselves if we think that we do.

While the law sometimes gets involved where one makes non PC utterances, those of us that work in the public sector (and many of us actually support conservative policies contrary to the beliefs of many who post on this site) are now expected to follow the government mantra. If we decide to put our heads above the parapet and express views publicly that are contrary to Labour Party doctrine it could cost us our jobs, or at least the equivalent of career suicide.

Freedom of speech is suppressed in more ways than one in this country. Some of us need to post anonymously.

[Joe James Broughton]

"Maybe the police should be monitoring the internet and should track people down who troll and lock them up, either that or smash their hands with hammers and see how they post then.

Posted by: Yet Another Anon | February 06, 2008 at 03:23"

Steady on....not funny.

[Yet Another Anon]

Tony M, I have held the view since the left of the liberal party joined the social drinking party that the reality of the lib dem voter these days is that they are socialists without the intellectual honesty to vote labour.
Liberal Democrats just like protesting, if the Liberal Democrats ever were able to form a government then their supporters would have to go off and setup another party.