UK General Discussion

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Resignation under collective responsibility?

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And that's why the Nick Clegg is irrelevent.

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I wish that Clegg and Cameron would create a new Liberal-Conservative party, and the super-right-wing-crazies would leave the Tories, and the clearly-socialist-left-wingers would leave the LibDems, and thus create a new right of centre party.

What socialist left wingers?

And David Cameron is fairly moderate compared to his party? What is this, 2007?

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I'd say the LDs are actually the most divided party and have been for some time now. The pro-coalitionista-Orange Book-Cleggites and the lefty-SDP-Kennedy-Mingites. Bound to fall to peices once the coalition ceases to be and the LDs have about 20ish seats.

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Am I the only one who is more than just a little pissed that Clegg did not use the Huhne situation to bring Laws back into cabinet?

Yes, you are. We don't need more Orange Bookers.

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2097329/Labour-MP-forced-apologise-aide-tweets-Queen-benefit-scrounger.html#ixzz1ldzB2dTV

lol

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2095549/Right-wingers-intelligent-left-wingers-says-controversial-study--conservative-politics-lead-people-racist.html

Read this. Then the comments section.

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Dorries saying it's Gideon who wants Lansley "taken out and shot", apparently. Pinch of salt and all that, considering the source.

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And Moody's puts our AAA on a negative outlook. Great...

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http://politicalscrapbook.net/2012/02/drop-the-bill-petition/

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After the NHS on Tuesday and the 50p rate yesterday, some reasonably nice supplementaries for Ed.

http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/yp5s1ymci9/YG-Archives-Pol-Sun-results-220312.pdf

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Az66ADlJxD0

Noor clappin' in't cham'bur

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Apparently prominent Conservative donor Lord Ashcroft's released some polling, testing the effect of NHS candidates:

Lab 41% (+11%)
Con 36% (-1%)
Lib  9% (-14%)
changes are from the 2010 general election

Con 33% (-3%)
Lab 30% (-11%)
NHS 19% (+19%)
Lib 7% (-2%)
changes are from the above VI figures.

Let's take into account that they wouldn't field candidates across the country, and they'd fall drastically before the general election anyway (think SDP), they'd only be a potential coalition partner for Labour, surely. There's also so many problems with asking poll respondents if they'd choose "an NHS candidate", it's unbelievable. If there was a Tory majority under those numbers, i'd hope it'd finally break FPTP once and for all.

It'd be interesting to see if they'd actually gain seats anywhere. They've said they're standing against "high profile coalition members", which could cause massive embarrassement on Election Night. I could imagine Labour standing aside in seats like South Cambridgeshire and other safe cabinet member's seats, like Tatton 97 or Wyre Forest.

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

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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.

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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.

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

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

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

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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.

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

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Just made these, if anyone's interested:

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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.

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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)

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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).