UK General Discussion

[Andrea]

Sir John Stanley MP has announced his retirement. I forgot he was still there!

[You kip if you want to...]

What is it with Cameron telling people to go out and stock up on petrol? Isn't storing petrol illegal?

[Leftbehind]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17542020

[Insula Dei]

Wow, what a horrible week for the Tories! I wonder what the LibDem leadership is making of all this.

[You kip if you want to...]

Wow, what a horrible week for the Tories! I wonder what the LibDem leadership is making of all this.

They've got a by-election tonight which the Tories'll probably finish 3rd in (and the Liberals 4th) as well, to top it off.

[Bacon King]

So with the Coalition apparently being so embattled lately, what would it take for the government to actually fall? It would require the Lib Dem MPs to all commit political suicide together, right?

[ModerateCoward]

What is the NHS poll? Is NHS a one-issue party, or is it just left of labour?

[Sibboleth]

What is the NHS poll? Is NHS a one-issue party, or is it just left of labour?

There is no such party, it's just Ashcroft trolling.

[Sibboleth]

Francis Maude is in deep sh!t.

[Vasall des Midas]

I don't see the issue. All gardening companies do that anyways.

(Oh, and a "jerrycan" is literally a German Army (WW I) style canister".

[You kip if you want to...]

I don't see the issue. All gardening companies do that anyways.

(Oh, and a "jerrycan" is literally a German Army (WW I) style canister".

It's because a woman set herself on fire today after accidentally igniting her jerry can in her kitchen after stoking up on petrol.

[You kip if you want to...]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxBMT0rH9hU

[You kip if you want to...]

Dave's approval from 42/54 to 34/61 in a week!

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/6r8i0ygkzi/ST_Results_120331.pdf

[dialectical fetishist]

Seriously wondering who approves of Shinyhead at this point.

[London Man]

Dave's approval from 42/54 to 34/61 in a week!

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/6r8i0ygkzi/ST_Results_120331.pdf

Ouch!

Al, can you explain why Ed's personal numbers are so poor, yet Labour have a nine point lead.

[You kip if you want to...]

That's a -27 net. Gordon Brown had a -19 when he lost the election.

Oh and irrelevent Nick's got a lovely 19% approval rating.

[Sibboleth]

Because most people don't care about Miliband.

[You kip if you want to...]

Miliband just has to make sure he doesn't get Kinnock'd.

[You kip if you want to...]

Just made these, if anyone's interested:

[True Federalist]

Judging by those graphs, Cameron is sort of like democracy now: he's the worst possible choice for PM except for all the others.  Labour needs to ditch Milliband.

[You kip if you want to...]

Judging by those graphs, Cameron is sort of like democracy now: he's the worst possible choice for PM except for all the others.  Labour needs to ditch Milliband.

Yeah, the danger for Cameron comes if Miliband can edge his ratings (consistently) to around the 35% mark. Call it complacency, but on the raw numbers alone, Labour don't need to do much to be in swinging distance of number 10 come 2015. History's stacked against Dave on that one. But then again, Ed's very open to getting "Kinnock'd" if it looks like he could actually become PM.

The silver lining (if you want to call it that) to Miliband's numbers is that no modern opposition leader's ever had two parties to loathe him mightily. Liberal voters have traditionally been unthreatening to Labour leaders (see Tony Blair 1997/2001). Obviously, that's different now. There are, of course, a good few better options for Labour than Ed. Personally though, he's been growing on me for the past 2 or 3 months. Either way, Labour's procedure for a leadership ballot's way too complex and difficult for anyone to risk it (we're not the Tories) - the only way Labour's changing leader is if he quits.

Funny how Dave's flounce bounce/"It's not like we're brothers or anything" had a worse effect on his ratings than anything else so far though:


And a chart for Mr. Hero-to-Zero himself:

Funny to think that his approvals were up in the 80%s at one point.

[You kip if you want to...]

The Sun're reporting numbers from this fortnight's PPM, the first following Dave's fortnight from hell:

David Cameron - 30% (-8) (His lowest 26th April 2010 against Gordon Brown (who was at 27%) and Nick Clegg (who was at 23%))
Ed Miliband - 19% (+1)
Nick Clegg - 5% (-1)
DK - 46% (+8)

And the daily poll:

Labour 42
Conservative 32 (their lowest since 18th April 2010. Outside of the Cleggasm, their lowest since 28th September 2007 (the first Brown bounce))
Liberal 9
UKIP 8 (their highest yet, I suspect)

[Leftbehind]

Seeing as though this thread's turned into the polling one temporarily;

Statgeek over at UKPR posted a series of graphs on the latest thread of Yougovs trends, the best being:

[bore]

It seems that everyone's approval rating has dropped over the last few months, but in terms of actual voting intention its only really hit the tories. Does this show that Cameron is, for some bizarre reason, the tories main asset, and that most people think that the Conservatives are the party of the rich, but personally like Call me Dave? If so that could be worrying for them come 2015 as I can only see Cameron being hammered even more.

[You kip if you want to...]

It seems that everyone's approval rating has dropped over the last few months, but in terms of actual voting intention its only really hit the tories. Does this show that Cameron is, for some bizarre reason, the tories main asset, and that most people think that the Conservatives are the party of the rich, but personally like Call me Dave? If so that could be worrying for them come 2015 as I can only see Cameron being hammered even more.

Cameron isn't so much a positive for the Tories as he is just more popular than the party at large (which has been perpetually unpopular since Black Wednesday).