Latest polls

First topic message reminder :

Latest YouGov results are apparently:

Con 30%
Lab 42%
LDem 6%
UKIP 10%

So the drop in Labour's lead to single-digits in a different poll earlier this week was a 'blip', seemingly - the change was within the margin of error and not significant.

Are the Israelis trying to tell us something?

this frightens me - one of the best armed countries in the world wants a warmongering, right-wing government

Redflag wrote:I would watch what you hope for Penderyn, Alec Salmond has been whispering in the Plaid Cymru leaders ear now she is hoping for Independence for Wales I have heard her say so and with you living in Wales could Wales manage if they where Independant ??     But the problem is Salmond is using PC and the Greens to get what he wants not what the Scots want and what is good for Scotland, if you take a look at what Salmond was asking for on the run-up to the 18th September 2014 you will see see he wanted from the UK his cake and to eat it too.

We couldn't be worse off than we are, that's for sure.   I don't want MPs who tug their forelocks to Murdoch ands rob me ragged - I want socialists, and I can see little point in voting for anyone else.

You need to really take a good look and listen to what Ed Miliband says, if you take a look at his parentage you will see both his mother & father where staunch socialists and I think Ed did not come through that without it rubbing off on Ed his brother David is more to the right of centre but Ed will take us to the left once he has his majority in the HOC.

The reason he has not done that earlier is he knows he will have to depend on England for his majority, because of the SNP trying to cause trouble for all parties for there own benefit ie Independence for Scotland, if you look at what he wanted off the UK gov't if Scots had voted yes.

His father was an excellent man.  Milliband is not a dictator - the problem is that the Labour Party is not a democracy and is run mainly by Blairite fixers kissing Murdoch's fundament.

You have got that one very wrong Penderyn, Murdoch hates Eds guts, that is why right wing media are giving Ed a hard time in the media and helping the Tories with there smear campaign against Ed. The Daily Fail and the LIE-A-graph are also owned by people pouring money into Tory party funds.

Ed wants to implement the Leveson inquiries suggestrion fully and the paper barons do not like that.

What Ed wants is hardly relevant - it's what the Blairites want that matters, unfortunately, until they are hoofed out.

That is the reason that some of the Labour MPs are not quite with Ed & his policies Penderyn because he is NOT carrying out the Blair policies, which the majority of Labour members & supporters do not want you must of heard people berating Tony because he went to the right of centre.

People seem to forget the good that Tony Blair did, yes he did make mistakes have you not made a mistake I have too many in my opimion we are supposed to learn from our mistakes but we never do.

Redflag wrote:People seem to forget the good that Tony Blair did, yes he did make mistakes have you not made a mistake

His big mistake was removing Party democracy. That is pretty final, alas. How do we get back to being the democratic voice of working people?

join a political party and keep on making a fuss until you are listened to?

Stephen Tims is alfeady agreeing with the Tories about welfare cuts.

The very fact that labour agree with the agenda of cuts is the problem. Where is the alternative?

I don't think you will find a party which doesn't believe that cuts are necessary. It is the nature, targets and speed which distinguish the parties.

Although I am not wholly convinced by any political party, it seems to me that the Labour Party offers the best hope for the dispossessed and those who believe in fairness. My ( unpopular ) view has been that Miliband hasn't made enough of his opportunities to hurt the Tories by highlighting the crimes they have committed - for example against those who cannot work, but who Cameron etc. paint as scroungers and workshy. This is the least Miliband needed to do to counter some of the media bias against him.

As it stands, I cannot see a Labour victory - and I am not sure they deserve one anyway. But what a hoot it would be to see the SNP poke Cameron in the eye by putting Miliband in Downing Street - notwithstanding the horrible contortions which may ensue and the long-standing damage to Labour's reputation by its liaison with what has, hitherto, been an 'enemy'.

But, to avoid the circus, I shall be in Aberdeen and Edinburgh on Polling Day, enjoying part of a week-long railway-assisted 'round Britain treat' to myself - far from home and the depressing prelude to what I fear will be another few years of Cameron...

Agreed Phil,

I think you will find Miliband will bring into focus more and more opportunities to hurt the Tories in the coming weeks.
The electorate have short memories and the ploy should be to hit them as hard as possible just before the election so as not to give the Tory blighters a chance to wriggle out of the onslought. Moreso that the electorate have it all in fresh mind for polling day.

Getting back on the subject.....

The latest YouGov poll for 'The Sunday Times', conducted since Thursday's Cameron v Miliband television show, reports:-
LABOUR 36%, TORIES 32%, UKIP 13%, LIB DEMS 8%, GREENS 6%.

Comparing those poll figures with the actual result of the 2010 election, we are possibly looking at yet another hung parliament.

http://www.ukpolitical.info/2010.htm

The Labour and Tory figures in that YouGov poll are more like the 2005 election result. If repeated on 7 May, they would have given us a decent Labour majority, had it not been for the SNP.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election%2C_2005

What I want to know Ivan is will Ed be able to give the SNP the two finger salute, and tell them where stick there support in the HOC where the sun don't shine I really hope so.

Ivan wrote:Getting back on the subject.....

The latest YouGov poll for 'The Sunday Times', conducted since Thursday's Cameron v Miliband television show, reports:-
LABOUR 36%, TORIES 32%, UKIP 13%, LIB DEMS 8%, GREENS 6%.

Cheerful. If the Labour Party believes it wants to win it can't lose, in my view. Put Miliband in the front - the tories have so overdone the character-assassination and village-idiotism that the real man can only win votes.

" Getting back on the subject....."

Which might include comment which relates to how the various parties represented in the polls may fare. Except that the board seems to have become one where careful control of what it is 'acceptable' to say is the order of the day.

It's a real pity.

Purely in the interests of manufactured outrage, however, it may be only fair to remind readers that some people believe the entire democratic process to be a facade designed to pacify the proletariate every five years, whilst those who are really in charge pursue their ambitions without hindrance.

Thus we are all free to say whatever we like - and accordingly free to take the consequences of saying it from others who may disagree.

We are all free to say whatever we like - and accordingly free to take the consequences of saying it from others who may disagree.

Exactly. It’s ‘acceptable’ to say anything on this forum as long as it doesn’t break the law and doesn’t involve insulting another member because of their race, colour, gender or sexual orientation. That’s been the rule since we started this venture in October 2011 and remains the case. A few people have been excluded from this site, not because of their political views (apart from a BNP supporter promoting racism), but because of repeated violation of the forum rules and ignoring any number of warnings.

https://cuttingedge2.forumotion.co.uk/t18-posting-rules

On a discussion forum it’s likely – and arguably desirable – that views which may be acceptable to post will get challenged by others. It’s hardly surprising if Labour supporters defend the Labour leader and the shadow work and pensions secretary against what seem like unjustified attacks. It’s also not surprising if they get irked by reading the same criticisms over and over again. But it doesn’t mean that either the criticisms or the rebuttals aren’t acceptable as posts.

We occupy this site free of charge courtesy of Forumotion.com, and we are required to conduct ourselves in a way which does not discredit the company. Therefore, when a picture inviting another member to "f*** off" is posted, it has to be removed as quickly as possible. It’s one of the reasons we have moderators. If you access the FAQs on the bar at the top of every page, you can see that the site owners tell us: “Generally moderators are there to prevent people going off-topic or posting abusive or offensive material. Administrators.……also have full moderator capabilities.”

https://cuttingedge2.forumotion.co.uk/faq

So staff members are required to try to keep threads on topic, and I happen to think that’s quite a good idea. The forum is designed to be as user-friendly as possible, with 20 distinct boards, sub-divided into over 700 different threads, so that members (and guests) can get to whatever items they want to read as quickly as possible. If anyone wishes to discuss spending cuts, welfare ‘reforms’ or Alex Salmond, there are more appropriate threads than this one on the UK politics and economics boards.

I understand that waving the rule book around as soon as one message goes off topic would hardly be conducive to creating the conditions for vibrant discussions, but that isn’t what happens. So I am somewhat surprised that a gentle nudge like “getting back on the subject…” could cause offence to anyone. No posts have been deleted, no posters admonished, but a poll was presented for discussion - on a thread about polls.

So getting back on the subject again, there’s a new ComRes telephone poll for ITV and ‘The Daily Mail’, and its results are the complete opposite of the latest YouGov poll:-
TORIES 36%, LABOUR 32%, UKIP 12%, LIB DEMS 9%, GREENS 5%.

I prefer the YouGov poll (well I would say that, wouldn’t I?), because the ComRes one has been conducted entirely by phone and over the weekend, and I can’t help feeling that the outcome might just be a little tailored to suit its audience…..

The reason is YOUGOV polls are non bias Ivan, the rest of the pollsters do not want to upset Davy boy or perhaps scared of making him blow a gasket and end up crying.

A somewhat depressing statistic from that YOUGOV poll is that 44% of the people interviewed confirmed their definite intention of voting ... but haven't yet decided who they're going to vote for.

Where have they been for the past five years?

oftenwrong wrote:Where have they been for the past five years?

Reading the papers.

You could think, reading the papers and looking at the BBC news, that the Tories have done rather well

Five polls out tonight:-

ComRes/Daily Mail: TORIES 34%, LABOUR 33%, LIB DEMS 12%, UKIP 12%, GREENS 4%.
Panelbase: LABOUR 37%, TORIES 31%, UKIP 16%, LIB DEMS 8%, GREENS 4%.
Survation: LABOUR 35%, TORIES 31%, UKIP 15%, LIB DEMS 9%, GREENS 4%.
TNS: LABOUR 33%, TORIES 30%, UKIP 19%, LIB DEMS 8%, GREENS 4%.
YouGov/Sun: TORIES 35%, LABOUR 34%, UKIP 12%, LIB DEMS 8%, GREENS 4%.

So what can we learn from all that? Well, the Green Party appears to have the support of 4% of voters.....

All of those polls except YouGov have shown a swing towards Labour since their previous results, which may not be surprising in the light of the arguments over non-doms and Michael Fallon’s ad hominem attack on Ed Miliband. The average of those five polls works out at:-

LABOUR 34.4%, TORIES 32.2%, UKIP 14.8%, LIB DEMS 9%, GREENS 4%.

Of course, the elephant in the room is Scotland, where one poll tonight suggests that the 59 MPs elected will be (with changes from the last election in brackets):-

SNP 54 (+48), LABOUR 4 (-37), LIB DEMS 1 (-10), TORIES 0 (-1).

The tories are certainly getting desperate. Does the Labour Party want to win? The signs are quite good at the moment, if only someone can shut Blair up.

The polls are certainly looking positive for Labour with Ed's personal ratings even more so.
The fly in the ointment for me is the SNP issue and I admit to being slightly concerned about the next leaders' debate.

Having said that, Ed just has to stay dignified and be prepared for a bitchfest from all the other parties. This is still risky for the Tories & LibDems as they're risking Ed having a free run against them.

If he performs well, I expect the polls to reflect that.

If the SNP and Labour Parties really want to assist each other come the day 'who governs' is to be decided ( probably 8 May or by a couple of days thereafter) they had better start to allow willing voters to understand how it can work without either offending each other's supporters - and to nullify Tory claims that the nationalists will lead Labour by the nose.

Unless they do, they will hinder any prospect of preventing Cameron cobbling together some rabble to keep him in Number Ten

A stitch-up agreed in public by two of the Parties ahead of the election should certainly have an influence on voters, Phil.

On ongoing projections through all of the opinion polls to date, it still looks very unlikely that the Tories would even be able to form a coalition with anyone based on the math, even if they got support from the LD's, a a few UKIP seats and the Ulster Unionists that wouldn't take them past the winning line.

So unless there is some kind of political earthquake over the next few weeks we are looking at Labour being the biggest party where support from the SNP and other minor parties would take them quite comfortably past the winning line.

I take the point which ow is subtly making, but to display a pretence of hostility and division , only to team up cosily thereafter is hardly confidence-producing stuff either.

We quite rightly despaired when the Tories did it, so why would we treat it all differently if Ed and Nicola suddenly find mutual love? Isn't this the sort of politics 'up with which we shall not put'...?

But then, this is all probably why I have never really found a political home...

But what are we to do it the Party formed to defend working people turns right?   We need to pull it back, and, without something to its left, how are we to do that?

I think Ed has to put the message out there that he is confident of a clear Labour win - and that will mean opposing the SNP and anyone else who is opposing Labour.

When I place my vote on 7th May, I will certainly be hoping for a clear Labour majority, which would enable immediate action on the various policy pledges.
If there isn't a clear majority then will be the time to look at alliances and then may be the time to seek a rapprochement with SNP and the Greens etc.

Phil Hornby. When the Tories and Lib Dems paired up in 2010, it involved two parties from opposite sides of the political spectrum, as the Lib Dems had campaigned on a manifesto to the left of Labour. An SNP/Labour arrangement would be one between two pro-EU, social democratic parties of Tory haters with one essential difference – whether Scotland remains in the UK. This quote from Nicola Sturgeon makes me think that the two parties are quite compatible:-

“For me the fact of nationhood or Scottish identity is not the motive force for independence. Nor do I believe that independence, however desirable, is essential for the preservation of our distinctive Scottish identity. And I don't agree at all that feeling British – with all of the shared social, family and cultural heritage that makes up such an identity – is in any way inconsistent with a pragmatic, utilitarian support for political independence. My conviction that Scotland should be independent stems from the principles, not of identity or nationality, but of democracy and social justice.

Labour's argument is that Scotland should bear the storms of UK membership when the Tories are in office because, in the event of a Labour government, things will improve more than they ever could with independence. To me, that argument is deeply flawed. First, I simply do not believe that Scotland should have to put up with long periods of UK government led by a party we did not vote for. It is - surely - democratically indefensible that although the Tories have never won a majority of votes or seats in Scotland in my entire lifetime – or even come anywhere close – they have nevertheless governed Scotland for more than half of my lifetime. Second, it is clear from its record that for Labour to be elected across the UK, it must become something different to what Scotland wants.”

Labour, SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party are essentially chasing the same left and centre-left votes, so they are bound to emphasise their differences to make themselves distinct. I do agree that the ‘hostility’ shouldn’t be overdone, and it was a mistake for Labour to join in when an attempt was made to smear Nicola Sturgeon over remarks allegedly made to a French diplomat. This article also agrees with your point of view:-

If Labour fight the SNP too hard, they risk harming themselves

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/04/if-labour-fight-snp-too-hard-they-risk-harming-themselves

In the likely event of the election giving us a hung parliament, I envisage that there could be an 'invisible coalition' led by Labour. No formal or even informal arrangement, just a tacit understanding that the SNP would never, as Nicola Sturgeon has said, help the Tories to bring down a Labour government. All Labour would have to do is ensure that at least some MPs from other parties are prepared to support them on specific issues, as the Tories clearly would if they go ahead with a wasteful and largely redundant replacement for Trident – but that’s another story.

Phillip J H wrote: ....unlikely that the Tories would even be able to form a coalition with anyone based on the math....

A Labour+Conservative coalition would meet the math ........

oftenwrong wrote:A Labour+Conservative coalition would meet the math ........

 Sorry but i just got a bit of sick in my mouth at that thought.

If that ever happened I would need a bucket, and never vote again.

That would be tantamount to a one-party state and there's no way it could ever happen in peacetime. I accept that the coalition between the supposedly left-wing Lib Dems and the right-wing Tories stretched credulity to its limits, and I know there is a CDU/SPD coalition in Germany (although Merkel's party is no further to the right than the Blairites).

However, Labour and the Tories are now further apart than they've been for decades, and enough people in the Labour Party know that any arrangement with the Tories would be political suicide. I've spent a couple of hours today delivering leaflets, and I'd never do that again if the Labour Party ever soiled itself with Tory scum. Don't lose any sleep over that preposterous idea.

I won't Ivan as it would only happen in a nuclear war I believe.

oftenwrong wrote:A Labour+Conservative coalition would meet the math ........

Wash your mouth out OW with CARBOLIC SOAP

did something make you mad Redflag?