90% of drop in Labour support has gone to the Conservatives

Sorry to have missed this earlier but there's an ICM poll in the Sunday Express.  ICM normally gives the LibDems their highest rating and this 16% rating will cause heartache at their Cowley Street HQ.  At just 16.6% in ConHome's poll of polls, Mr Clegg has added just 0.4% to the LibDem rating since Ming was ousted.  Approximately 90% of the drop in Labour support has gone to the Conservatives.

Comments

[oberon Houston]

People want a real change.

The Liberal Democrats are fast becoming irrelevant - a national party whose only ambition is to play politics at constituency level by flirting with any available protest vote.

[Malcolm Dunn]

Most Lib Dem politicians apart from Cable have been invisible in recent months. I can't remember the last time I saw Huhne or Hughes on TV, not that I'm complaining but it is hard to attract votes when you've got nothing to say!
Having said that ,I'm starting to become a bit impatient waiting for any policy announcements from our Treasury team.

[Chad Noble]

"Approximately 90% of the drop in Labour support has gone to the Conservatives."

You only have to look at that useful poll tracker from Sky that Tim highlighted the other day to see the high inverse correlation between Tory and Labour support over a long period. You could almost stick a mirror down its midpoint, so the current switch should be not be a surprise.

[Westminster Wolf]

The poll I'd love to see is one in Tory-LD marginals. Are you reading this Mr Shakespeare?

[Tony Makara]

This fantastic switch would not have been possible if the party had continued to isolate itself on the right. Well done to David Cameron and his team for bringing the party into the middle 'catchment' ground and pulling in the support needed to build the consensus politics that our country needs.

[Mike Routhorn]

Malcolm Dunn - 'I'm starting to become a bit impatient waiting for any policy announcements from our Treasury team'.

Malcolm, given that the economic landscape is changing virtually by the day for the worse, is anyone, including George Osborne, in any position to say what they might need to do in 2010?

It would be folly of epic proportions to commit to something now that may be completely inappropriate come the next election.

[Alex Swanson]

This fantastic switch would not have been possible if the party had continued to isolate itself on the right.

As I am tired of pointing out, this is complete rubbish. The party has never "isolated itself on the right" and there is absolutely no reason to believe "David Cameron and his team" have done anything other than be in the right place at the right time as Labour has imploded.

As I say, I'm tired of this. Pointing out the truth is clearly a waste of time around here, faced with the most disastrous, unpopular and incompetent govt in living memory the reaction of all too many people is to enthusiastically endorse nothing better than an ersatz version of it and blindly and arrogantly reject any attempt to install reality.

I give up. I've got my Australian visa. Go to hell in your own ways. I'm off.

[Tony Makara]

Alex Swanson, most people in this country are non-ideological and this places them in the pragmatic centre ground. I look forward to a day when we can dispence with left and right and move into a completely non-ideological pragmatic era. I believe this century will see the end of confrontational politics as we know it. Political parties only serve to divide our nation. We need to move beyond politics. The era of political parties is drawing to a close. People now want the politics of pragmatism and consensus.

[David Sergeant]

I give up. I've got my Australian visa. Go to hell in your own ways. I'm off.

Posted by:Alex Swanson | August 03, 2008 at 15:58

Tra then. Really Alex there is nothing to back up your point about "Cameron's team" and Labour havn't imploded yet (but the're working on it) and that's why you are wasting your time.

[Conand]

There is a MOS Bpix poll too: Con 47, La 24, Li 16

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1040994/1-3-say-Brown-worst-PM---half-say-now.html

[James]

(Tony Makara @ 1616: "Political parties only serve to divide our nation. We need to move beyond politics. The era of political parties is drawing to a close. People now want the politics of pragmatism and consensus."

I couldn't disagree more.

'Consensus politics' is to me another way of saying 'no electoral choice'.

There has been a 'consensus' among mainland european governments about the direction of the EU over the past few decades, and the result is that opposition to the EU is tantamount to heresy and we the people have no real way of effecting change through the ballot box.

Party politics are simply a mechanism for people with a similar political philosophy to come together to try to make the country better in a way they believe to be right.

Other people disagree, and come together in their own political party to try to advance their own philosophy and approach.

How on earth can you do away with it and move to 'consensual' politics and maintain either dynamism or choice?

[Tony Makara]

James, the representitve system and its supporting structure of political parties leads us away from effective government. How often we see political parties refusing to do the right thing, the pragmatic course of action, because they are blinded by ideology or partisan politics.

We, as a nation, could achieve so much more if our representatives were independent of politics and expended their talents as free spirits on single-issue matters.

The ball and chain of tribal politics is very divisive and stops us achieving more as a nation. We all must work together for the common good.

Representative democracy is an idea that has outlived its usefulness. We now need a new direction and a world without political parties.

[Joe James B]

The LDs seem increasingly frustrated and angry that their unpleasant tactics dressed up as obsessive concern for all things local is not working much anymore.

People want national issues resolved, and if we can knock this spoiler party very hard, so it doesn't return in mid term, we will have done the country a great service

[Joe James B]

BTW - I think this is the worst ICM poll for the LDs since the end of Ming's leadership in early October, when both main parties ratings were briefly quite high at the same time just after the conferences.
Yes, they should be worried. Very few of Labour's crumbs seem to be going to them.

[Brook Whelan]

There is a real urge among voters to see a change of government, and the urge is now so strong that they would only ever move over to a party that can actually win a general election.

In previous elections, the urge was not that strong, so voters at that time felt as though they could vote Lib Dem and not do too much damage. No longer!

[Yet Another Anon]

We, as a nation, could achieve so much more if our representatives were independent of politics
That isn't possible, politics happens in systems with multi parties and systems with one party, different people have different ideas and naturally tend to campaign in groups with others who they feel more in common with, there are even ideological divisions within one party states.

[James]

Tony Makara

Your words sound lovely, but I believe they are no more realistic than urging world peace and an end to poverty. Meaningless without any idea of how it will be achieved.

I actually partially agree with you - I think our system suffers in many ways. If we could do away with whipped votes, for example, how much more independent our MPs would be. I've had this conversation around dinner tables for years - could we ever do away with political parties and instead have a Parliament made up entirely of independents? The answer, clearly, is no.

You have given no indication how your political utopia would work in practice. How would you stop groups of likeminded MPs coming together and agreeing to support each other's pet issues. In fact, it would be essential - without coalition building, nothing would ever get done. Yes, let those coalitions grow around single issues I hear you cry. At first, that would probably happen. But people would need more security than that. They would agree to support each other over different issues, do deals, come together with those who share their philosophy. Any group who came together with a degree of discipline, compromising personal beliefs at times to ensure that their group remained a solid voting block, would dominate. Opposing blocks would form...

Sound familiar?

And how can the electorate possible be expected to cope with elections with only independents standing? Political parties allow a sort of politcal short hand to develop. If a candidate is a Tory, I have a pretty good idea of what he stands for. Most peopel will never read twenty individual manfifestos

And how exactly does your system of independent MPs lead to 'consensus politics'? What is 'consensus politics'? How does the electorate vote for a change? Hopw is a Government formed?

I know I'm picking holes when you haven;t actually put up a proposal, but I just can't see how it is anything more than warm fuzzy words?

Do please prove me wrong...

[Tony Makara]

James, we have to dispense with the current structure and party system by breaking up the way our nation is governed so that 'blocks' don't form to represent certain vested interests. We talk so often about less government but don't do anything to cull the political parties and their stanglehold on democracy. We could make a start by taking onboard a more corporate system of government with the health service run fully by health professionals, our school systems run entirely by educators and so on.

We need to take government out of the hands of politicians and hand it over to the people who actually make this country tick. Of course there will always be a role for legislators but we need to move away from a top-down culture where ideology becomes law. The concept of smaller government should extend well beyond less interference in people's lives and actually apply to the hands on governance of our nation.

The respresentative system does not work because our nation is to big to be represented by parliament. We need to look beyond politics to find the answers. Incidently the idea of an independent central bank is a step in this direction, although of course we all know that the BOE isn't full free of statist control.

[Gloy Plopwell]

How many times do I have to tell you, we LIb Dems are still in the fight. Look, ok, the Tories are doing well but we are still above the 11% some polls showed us in October, when our leader sadly had to be decapitoted.

Once we recharge our batteries over August and the conference, the stupendous momentum will gather pace again. Nick Clegg is wonderful, and I'm brimming with confidence in him. The Government will fall into third place, and we still just have time to cross over the Tories and get that overall majority in 2010. We'll have all the seats in the South West, and be the largest party in London.

[all lower case]

thank you gloy for brightening my day!

[Yet Another Anon]

We could make a start by taking onboard a more corporate system of government with the health service run fully by health professionals, our school systems run entirely by educators and so on.
Schools and hospitals could be transferred to private charities limited by guarantee, LEAs could be abolished and funding for personal healthcare and education could be raised by charging for services with the most vulnerable groups being cross subsidised by money raised, however there is still going to be political oversight in terms of regulation even if no public money was spent.

Defence and policing couldn't really be seperated from political oversight, notions of politics without lobby groups and without for example business moguls being able to use money and maybe control of the media to have a big say in what happens just isn't going to happen - human beings are flawed and this is an imperfect world, there are always some in charge and some who through having less in the way of resources or less in the way of aptitude have little control over their own life, it's just the way things are, it's why Anarchism doesn't work.

[David Persinger]

Tony Makara has clearly sniffed too much glue. His line of thinking best fits a one-party state. Political parties really are so very troublesome and divisive, aren't they?

[Tony Makara]

There are sections of society that, apart from funding, can function independently of the state and we should allow for that. Does it help the problem of homelessness in our country that we have a non-entity like Caroline Flint in charge of housing? When what we really need are experts in the field to make the key decisions. People may claim that a corporate system of government becomes a one-party state, but I disagree, corporate government becomes a no-party state and is truly democratic, unlike the two-party state that we have today.

The problem we face is government itself and the way that government holds back the rest of society. David Cameron has made some very interesting moves in promising to allow a free hand to voluntary groups, bringing in the people on the ground who are best equipped to solve the problems at hand. Of course there has to be accountability and a degree of regulation, but where the state can step back it should.

The state as such will always have to exist, but why should the state be limited to politicians alone? If we really want to roll back the state then we need to roll back the suffocating influence of parliament and ministerial control. Such thinking may be pure poison for people who pursue a career in politics but it is the only way we can truly role back the frontiers of the state.

If as Yet Another Anon suggests we can make more sections of society responsible for their own governance, including their own funding, we will make great strides and empower people at the ground level.

Top-down government is by its very nature government by overkill. The one-size-fits-all philosophy often overshoots the mark and fails to address social issues. Certainly defence and security of the realm will always have to be centralized but apart from those areas is there any reason why we couldn't have a more federal and corporate system of governance?

[Chad Noble]

Tony,

Cameron was the first to propose the extension to state funding of political parties to insulate the political class even further.

We want Labour kicked out, but let's not kid ourselves that Cameron will take us any closer to your unobtainable utopia.

[James]

Tony - I'm not a fan of top down, centralised politics. But what I don't see in your model is any form of democratic accountability?

Most localist proponents include an element of local democratic decision making. Yours appears to be a model for a dictatorship by the 'professional elite'.

I believe in trusting doctors and teachers - but they have to operate within a framework of democratic accountability. Who decides whether we use a model of academic selection or comprehensive education? Who decides the structures of our health care models? Do you really think we just say 'leave it all up to the teachers/doctors and be damned'?

[Tony Makara]

Chad, David Cameron has come up with some very positive proposals for extending choice and taking decision making away from government. Let's support him and push for even more let-loose from government.

James, I agree that accountability is important but do we really get accountability with ministers? How often we see failing ministers coasting along in the comfort zone. Professional bodies could elect from within their own ranks and have their own systems of redress.

I prefer a corporate system of government where it can realistically be apllied. We need to take power and decision making away from politicians if we are serious about rolling back the state. Modern Britain is to big to be run by Westminster, we need to devolve and not delegate.

[DWL]

Obviously Tony is back from his holidays and feeling sprightly and reinvigorated, and is just rearing to introduce us to his Meisterwerk on the proposed People's Democratic Republic of Albion! (PDPA) (btw, Hope you didn't take more than your fair share of Capital out of the country on holiday, Tony, we know what havoc that would cause with the balance of payments ;P).

Addressing the topic; well i'm a minarchist so I really don't like the idea of a huge, 'benevolent' corporation making our lives better for us.

[Jake]

"As I am tired of pointing out, this is complete rubbish. The party has never "isolated itself on the right" and there is absolutely no reason to believe "David Cameron and his team" have done anything other than be in the right place at the right time as Labour has imploded." Alex Swanson.

More or less correct Alex. It will take time for the children to get it though. What the great majority of the population want is, above all, to get shot of Labour and the Tories seem to be a reasonable alternative.

The liklihood that an incoming Tory government will be hit by a storm of constitutional upheaval, for which they are entirely unprepared because they show no appreciation of the history of or the injustice of the United Kingdom particularly as regards England, is something that neither the population of England nor the Conservative party care to dwell upon. At present.

Forget about Australia though, other than as a holiday. Just the same old rather sterile two party politics out there too.

[James]

Tony

I still agree with you in some ways. I'd rather see the Royal Colleges regulate doctors, for example, than the Government.

But the bottom line is we need a way for the people to vote for change when they're not happy with the way things are being run - our system does still have that (one reason I'm opposed to PR - it would be much harder to get rid of an endless coalition).

That doesn't necessarily mean being run from Westminster. Local accountability could be beefed up. Directly elected police commissioners, mayors with real power...

But that said, we used to run half the world with fewer civil servants than we have today!

[Tony Makara]

James, the politicans must find a way to disolve themselves and empower other sections of society. Of course we need a lew-making body, but does that body have to have its fingers in every aspect of national life? A smaller state must mean taking political, and thereby ideological imput out of everyday life.

DWL, unfortunately I had to take a break after having crocked my right hand, glad to see your concern for currency flight!

[Yet Another Anon]

James, the politicans must find a way to disolve themselves and empower other sections of society.
There needs to be a reduction in the size of government, government focusing on a core range of services through private charities limited by guarantee and executive agencies or trusts limiting their oversight to areas such as defence, transport, national security, policing, energy & water\sewerage infrastructure, communications, social services and R&D and leaving almost all the rest to the unrestricted free market or co-operatives, there should be far fewer civil servants and far fewer politicians - however there will still be elected politicians and political parties, short of there being some kind of absolute monarch.

Ideology exists outside party politics, people who have no interest in party politics are still in some cases ideological, corporate multinationals and co-operatives can be dominated by ideology and office politics in just the same way as political parties have ideologues and partisan politicians - there's no escaping it, power devolved more locally means fewer people involved in the decision making and it being made more by those affected by the decisions, but it will never stop it entirely - different people, different ideas even in small organisations, people grouping together in offices.

[James]

out of interest - how are you all defining 'ideology'?

How can you remove certain ways of thinking?

[Tony Makara]

"how are you all defining 'ideology'?"

The opposite of pragmatism.

[James]

So, would you describe having a political philosophy as an ideology?

Aren't your own views about changing the political make up of the UK, which you have propounded over several messages above, simply your own political ideology?

[Tony Makara]

James, Beelzebub cannot cast out Beelzebub, in the same way the representative system cannot heal itself. It has become a rotten system in which politicians represent parties and not people, the represent ideologies and not constituencies. Currently it is the only system we have, so we have to make it work in the best way that we can, but it is a decaying form of government and needs replacing.

The 21st century has to become the era when we move beyond politics to solve our problems. The fact is society can function perfectly well without centralized political control. Can we even say that parliament represents the will of the people? At the last election only 22% of those who could vote chose to vote Labour, 78% did not want Labour, yet they became the government, how could this happen? In some areas there is as little as 12% to 15% turnout.

People have turned their backs on the politics. Reform won't change things, I have lived under PR and know it only creates party-hopping and even issue-hopping, PR is just another system that empowers the existing political structures. We need to look beyond politics, we don't need politics, and politics only serves to disenfranchise us. We need to look beyond the tired old culture of Westminster.

[Gezmond007]

Labour coming up on the rails ! 22% 24% 25% 26% 28% now 29%

My prediction that the Tories and Labour to be near enough level by December, is on course !!

Your all counting your chickens before they're hatched !

[James]

Tony

I think we've reached an impasse.

I do understand what you mean, partially, but I still think that to say "We need to look beyond politics, we don't need politics, and politics only serves to disenfranchise us. We need to look beyond the tired old culture of Westminster" is meaningless without a clear idea of what you would replace it with, and I don't think you've yet managed to do that.

I think it was Churchill who said something along the lines of "Democracy is a lousy form of government, but it's better than all the other forms we've tried from time to time over the years" (a probably badly mangled paraphrase - haven't got time to look up the quote. No doubt someone else will).

The bottom line is, your proposal appears to be a dictatorship of the elite. You appear to have no way for people to influence how the country is organised and run at all. I don't even know how a bright young thing with a blinding idea could get a platform or a voice under your system?

[Tony Makara]

James, we could still have parliament, but one in which MPs represent constituencies and not political parties. The party system is a large part of the problem. Certainly to begin with we should let sectors like education run themselves without ministerial diktat, allot them a set budget and them give them a free hand to run their own profession.

On the question of MPs we should allow state funded non-political candidates to stand, of course such candidates would have to apply for a grant to stand and fit set criteria, ie not be racist or a crank and have lived locally for say five years. In most cases such local candidates would easily retain their deposit and these local/independents would really turn the heat on political candidates. This would make the parties less likely to parachute opportunists into a constituency unknown to them. Fundamentally we need to break up the political party system and give democracy back to our people.

[Yet Another Anon]

allot them a set budget and them give them a free hand to run their own profession.
Organisations can't be given a free hand with public money, there has to be accountability as to how the money is spent, the money after all mostly comes from taxpayers and if there is no monitoring of how it is being spent then it would be better if the money was simply not raised in the first place.

Organisations also can't have a free hand because they could use the situation to carry out political indoctrination, especially where children are involved certain elements have to be kept out such as sex offenders, terrorists and political extremists.

of course such candidates would have to apply for a grant to stand and fit set criteria, ie not be racist or a crank and have lived locally for say five years.
What is a crank? And why should people get grants to stand when there are people prepared to put up the money for them to stand themselves? What are these MPs going to be doing, if it's taking decisions then inevitably their own political ideologies come into it - there can be political vetting of candidates, but inevitably such vetting is against certain ideologies and in favour of others.

Politics is driven by philosophy, there has to be some kind of government and a budget for that government and a set of monetary, military, criminal justice policies. Things such as energy policy and transport policy also require strategic oversight.

[Tony Makara]

Yet Another Anon, of course there would have to be accountability, both financial and in other ways. My argument is that professions such as health, education and so on should be allowed to operate free of political imput and given the freedom to run themselves. You mention political indoctrination, this is more likely to come through political control than from the teaching profession. Safeguards can be built in to ensure that people are fully accountable.

On the subject of non-poiltical candidates, what I have in mind is local people of standing within the community stepping forward to represent that community. These people would have their own views of course, but they would have to be elected just like politicians today. Such a system would break the stranglehold on democracy that the party political machines exercize. Currently it is close to impossible for an independent to run for parliament, unless of course he or she is extremely well off and can fund a campaign against the political candidates. The representative system has become a monopoly on power exercized by political parties. The domination of ideology over pragmatism, the very antithesis of open democratic thought.

The system needs to be changed because the people feel disenfranchised, the low turnouts are proof of that. The cynical belief that 'all parties are the same' and 'only in it for themselves' ought to be ringing alarm bells. If the system isn't reformed a disenchanted public, in a time of crisis, may well turn to political extremism as a reaction against the self-serving political elite.

We need to think how this will develop for future generations, there is great discontent and a tangible hatred for politicians and political parties. The people are telling us that they want to move away from the political era, we must pay rapt attention to their mood.

[James]

Tony:

"...political indoctrination, this is more likely to come through political control than from the teaching profession".

Only someone who has never observed an NUT conference could possibly have made that remark.

"Such a system would break the stranglehold on democracy that the party political machines exercize. Currently it is close to impossible for an independent to run for parliament, unless of course he or she is extremely well off and can fund a campaign against the political candidates. The representative system has become a monopoly on power exercized by political parties."

If new politcal parties could not develop and break through in our current system, you might have more of a point.

But witness the growth of the SNP in Scotland - from a marginal fringe party to the party of government.

Witness the growth (and current stalling granted) of UKIP.

Witness the (disturbing for many of us, but they wouldn't be where they are without people voting for them) growth of the BNP from an irrelevent fringe to a major concern for the so-called mainstream parties in some councils.

And in fact we had two independent MPs elected in 2005 (three of you count George Galloway), and a consistently rising vote share for the 'other' parties.

I am always sceptical when someone declares that the system which has given us stable government (probably the most historically stable in the world) for centuries is broken, and an academic analysis by some jolly clever people (by which they usually mean themselves) can come up with a better system.

[Tony Makara]

James, I am very worried by the very low turnouts at local and national level. This I believe is down to the grubbing nature of career-politics and the way that issues become used a means of scoring points, welfare reform for example. We all know that James Purnell stole Chris Graylings ideas, not because he believed in them, but because he wanted to neutralize Mr Grayling. Its this sort of tit-for-tat that disgusts the public. For this reason I should like to see more independents in parliament as a way of making the political parties purify themselves and purge the careerist elements.

I think we can agree that the state should be rolled back and that political imput should be reduced. I support the idea of a corporate style of government, with less centralization and more autonomy for areas such as education. There are politically motivated teachers and sadly they tend to dominate the NUT just as the extreme elements tend to hijack trades unions and use them as an ideological trojan horse, we need to take the politics out of both.

There are some politicians in all parties that I can like and respect, but they are far outnumbered by the grubbing careerists who can change like chameleons if it affords them an opportunity to forward their career, these are the people undermining our democratic process.