“It appears that those who troop through the division lobbies, heaping law upon law or rubber-stamping Brussels initiatives further to control our national life and regulate individual behaviour, have little sense of how those same laws are enforced.”

Iain Martin

“Projecting himself as Father of the Nation, espousing a 'new' style of politics has been central to [Gordon] Brown's plan. He was not content to outpoll the Tories; he wanted to make them obsolete. That was extraordinary hubris.”

Leader, The Observer

Reports Martin Ivens in The Sunday Times,

“Brown’s men know they are on the back foot. “Gordon was always cautious about holding it [an election]. But if we went now we would win on authority,” said a cabinet minister. “But we want a positive, a bigger mandate.” As for Cameron’s triumph, he sneered: “Iain Duncan Smith was seven points ahead after his conference speech in 2003. That was a few weeks before the Tories got rid of him.”

It is always important to put matters into context, so when assessing how good or bad things might be, it is only right to look for recent historical precedents.  Thus the sneering Labour cabinet minister infers that David Cameron’s current popularity will prove as ephemeral as Iain Duncan Smith’s fast evaporating post Conservative Conference “seven-point bounce” in 2003.

You might recall that this was the Conservative Conference when Andrew Rawnsley of The Guardian described Mr Duncan Smith as the “dead man talking” and contemporary opinion polls included such questions as,

 “Would you be more likely or less likely to vote Conservative at the next election if Iain Duncan Smith were to be replaced as leader by...?”

According to the opinion polls of the time, up to 52% of the people questioned were dissatisfied with Mr Duncan Smith's performance as Leader of the Official Opposition.  The ICM opinion poll published in The Guardian pre-conference in September 2003 indicated that Labour led the Conservatives by 35% to 30% and the ICM poll for following month, post conference, showed Labour’s lead to have remained steady - support for the two main parties being 38% to 33% respectively.

Mr Duncan Smith was ousted as the leader of the Conservative party because he did not seem to be making any significant, positive impact upon the electorate.  At no time did he ever enjoy a seven point poll lead over Labour, save perhaps amongst the members of Chingford and Woodford Green Conservative Association.

Big bang – the Tory tax bomb blowing Brown apart

According to The Times today

“…Labour ministers…say that delaying the election would give Mr Brown longer to attack Tory economic plans, which they say have been hugely undermined by the pledge to eliminate inheritance tax for all but millionaires and pay for it with a £25,000 annual charge on “nondomicile” residents.”

However yesterday, reported Gabriel Rozenberg, Economics Reporter for The Times,

“The attempts of Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, to discredit the Conservatives’ tax plans were sharply undermined yesterday by his own top civil servant. Nicholas Macpherson, the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, admitted that his department’s costing of the Conservatives’ plans for a levy on nondomiciled taxpayers were based on incomplete data. Mr Darling had cited analysis by the Treasury which allegedly proved that the Conservatives could not raise £3.5 billion with their plans. He said the tax would only raise £650 million. But the detailed analysis, released yesterday by the the Treasury, revealed that this was based purely on a mathematical assumption, as the Government had no information on how much Britain’s nondomiciled taxpayers earn overseas, a figure crucial to the calculations. In a letter to George Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor, Mr Macpherson said that the assumptions used had been “clearly flagged” to his boss. Mr Osborne has called on Mr Darling to apologise.”

In the meantime, Jeff Randall of The Daily Telegraph explains why Labour’s carping on such points doesn’t add up to a convincing argument in any case.

Labour cannot tell the whoppers of old any more and get away with it.   Any spinful pronouncements and funny figures are likely to rebound with a vengeance, as in justice they should.

George Osborne and a sleight of hand by the BBC

...although The Sun would say that, wouldn't it?  I couldn't possibly say, one way or another.

It is understandable that the metropolitan elite which now dominates the upper echelons of Government and the BBC would see little purpose being served by engaging in any form of real, meaningful dialogue with the likes of us, the hoi polloi, given our well documented aversion to the use of deodorant and limited, Neanderthal grasp of the important issues.

Says The Sun,

“The BBC has virtually ignored the debate raging about the new [European] Treaty — despite uproar in all parties and on both sides of the argument.  The same self-censorship is applied to immigration — another enormous issue not to be discussed in front of the licence-payers. It is not just because many of its editors and producers are lefties — though many are. It is an arrogant, lazy assumption that they know best — and ignorant audiences should not be disturbed by matters beyond their ken.”

Indeed.  It is the sheer condescension, which is so offensive.

George Osborne and a sleight of hand by the BBC

The BBC: Soft Left, anti-American (and very pro-European Union)

The BBC and its “culture of bias”

Nobody mention the "Labour" word

Biased Beeb

In today’s Daily Telegraph Andrew Porter, the newspaper’s Political Editor, commenting upon the Conservative post-conference opinion poll surge and in particular the ICM poll in The Guardian which shows support for Labour and the Conservatives as even, says,

 “In addition, a Guardian poll by ICM - which tends to favour the Tories - is thought to have the Conservatives almost neck and neck with Labour.”

As my post here shows, manifestly this is not the case. Where ICM opinion polls can be compared with election results since 2005, Conservative support is almost always underestimated in by a small amount and Labour overestimated by a larger margin. It might be the case that ICM consistently underestimates Conservative support less than the other opinion polls but this still does not add up to its polls “favouring” the Conservatives, merely that ICM is the most accurate amongst an inaccurate bunch.

Long gone are the days in the 1980’s when Gallup used to favour the Conservatives, in the sense that its opinion polls compared very well with actual election results, time after time.

Tories renew election call after poll

BBC bias is often so subtle (or is that subliminal?) that if you blink, you miss it.

That section of the printed media which is not inherently hostile to the Conservatives was to a man upbeat about Conservative Shadow Chancellor George Osborne’s policy announcements yesterday.  It is interesting to note however, that in reporting on the BBC’s Politics webpage (the version updated at 08.40 BST on 2^nd October 2007) the links from “Other news sites” referred to less positive, “sub” reports and not the main press articles.  To take one example (and The Daily Telegraph is yet another) today's The Daily Mail contains pages of positive comment, but what did the BBC link to? Yes, you have guessed it, a small article by Benedict Brogan and James Chapman in a corner of page six of the newspaper, that largely regurgitates the hastily and as it will turn out, foolishly released HM Treasury spin  seeking to undermine the Conservative proposals.

The BBC fails to appreciate that there comes a time when listeners and viewers tire of having to constantly rebalance slanted reporting and stop listening or viewing altogether.

Osbourne relights the Tory Flame

Tories unleash attack dogs

From other news sites - The Daily Mail

Do the shadow chancellor's figures add up?