Populus put Labour in double-digit deficit for the first time

The Sunday Mirror has a Populus poll, conducted on Wednesday and Thursday, that puts Labour a full ten points behind the Conservatives for the first time.

From The Sunday Mirror: "Just 29 per cent believe Mr Brown is the best man to steer us through the crisis, compared with 31 per cent for Mr Cameron."

Comments

[Josh]

I see you're with Mike Smithson in interpretting this as a Labour deficit rather than a Tory lead.

You're probably both right. Cambo has been a bit invisible lately.

[Paul Norton]

If anyone saw Mrs Balls (Yvette Cooper) with her rendition of "I'm alright mate" on the news today, they saw most of the reason for this. I agree it is a more a Labour deficit, but it will have the same effect - motivating Tory voters for May, whilst depressing Labour voters to stay at home.

Yvette and Ed seem designed to annoy voters, encouraging this view that Labour consider themselves more enlightened than the electorate - the "who cares" syndrome.

Lots for the Conservatives to build on.

[Boris the Turk]

Good news; or is it? Nu Conservatives are now trying to out PC Nu Labour at every turn. Without knowing it the electorate could well replace one liberal ruling class with another and the only thing that will have changed is the colour of the rosette.

[eugene]

''so what''

LOL

:)

[Boris the Turk]

Eugene its a good point, the "so what" being is that when ruling elites become detatched from the electorate it ultimately lead to significant strife, often violence and the rise of extremism. Someting to be avoided I would say.

[eugene]

I was repeating Ed Balls 'so what' comment in the House in response to David Cameron's statement that taxes on ordinary people are higher than ever...it underlines your point that NuLabour are detached from the rest of us.

[asquith]

Lib Dems are actually on course to improve on their (our) 2005 result, if this is a mid-term poll.

[Buckinghamshire Tory]

Asquith, I very much doubt it. The Lib Dems would be lucky just to repeat their result from 2005, which now seems like a daunting task.
You don't have as competent a leader as you had in the 2005-elections, and you can't trade on the Iraq war either.
Another problem (for the Lib Dems) is that the Tory Party is far more popular now than it was in 2005. That is bad news for your marginals in the South.
You might draw som disillusioned voters from the Labour left, but you will still loose 20-30 seats.

[Conand on the Soapbox (apologies)]

Boris the Turk I refer you to the writings and speeches of Sean Bailey and Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones on the mixed blessings of Labour's liberalism on it's recipients.
Of course we are a 'small L' liberal party, being derived from the 'Independent Whig' faction. The party of Pitt the Younger who resigned over Catholic Emancipation and who supported his friend Wilberforce's drive for abolition.
What benefit is there in casting ourselves as intolerent? Or allowing others to cast us as such.
The challenge is to be a truly liberal party unlike the LibDems or Labour. Who are both parties for the ever increasing size and scope of the state. These Trojan Horse parties both betray their innate distrust of individual citizens.
Our desire for cohesion and a truly civil society do not spring from a hatred of 'middle class values' or a distrust of the working class, both of which are evident in the thinking of the 'New Labour Project' elite.
We must be the party that trusts people, as our belief in 'Economic Liberalism' dictates. We must be the party of true tolerence.

[Votedave]

An excellent result from one of the polling organisations which tends to give Labour better results.
My favourite is YouGov, although even they overestimated the Labour and LibDem share by 2% each at the last general election - although our share was spot on. That means the actual state of the parties as of the last YouGov is probably C 44, Lab 26, LD 15?

[Joe James Broughton]

I don't think so Dave.
Several times you have referred to these 1983 style figures with Labour in the 20s - it seriously isn't going to happen.

But the Conservatives are doing well, and with a disciplined campaign in the marginals, we can do it.

[Yet Another Anon]

You don't have as competent a leader as you had in the 2005-elections, and you can't trade on the Iraq war either.
Charles Kennedy definitely was not competent, he may have been popular in a trendy sort of way, but this was in no way due any deliberate tactical manouevres on his part, but rather sheer luck on his part - the Liberal Democrats took a pacifist flower power type line and then sat back and rode the wave, they have no such issue to so campaign on, their current leader appears no more competent than Charles Kennedy was and indeed a good bit less competent than Menzies Campbell was, and through this constant ditching of leaders this lowered the public's view of them as the "nice party" rather than the shameless opportunists that they are.

[Christina Speight]

The Tories aren't doing well. they're invisible to most voters. Cameron just parrots everything NuLabour says adding 'but we can do it better'.

Labour however is imploding and that's what the polls show!

Incidentally I tried to find this Populus poll in the Sunday Mirror but couldn't! ??? Anyone spot it?

[Editor]

The link is in the post above Christina. Just press 'Sunday Mirror'.

[dirtyeuropeansocialist]

Confusing results. ICM had labout 5 behind. Shows the 10p issue affected them then.