Is his continued absence becoming an issue?

When Harriet Harman suggested to Cameron in the commons this afternoon that he ought to give his predecessor some credit for the work he had done with the G20 the PM had a sharp response.

“I’d be delighted to, if he could be bothered to turn up to this House”

For the continued absence of the former Prime Minister is being increasingly noticed and becoming an issue. For his own sake, surely, he ought to make a move.

Of course for someone who has had such a prominent role in both opposition and government it’s going to be mighty difficult becoming a back-bench MP again - but other former PMs have done just that.

Either he wants to continue as an MP for his Fife seat or he should step aside. For the longer he delays this decision the worse it will become.

Mike Smithson

Are incapacity benefits the new battle-ground?

While so many were, it seems, watching the football or discussing the aftermath, the chancellor was giving more details of his plan to attack the country’s massive welfare bill in order to find savings.

This has made the front pages of only three of the papers but the scale of his plans is enormous. The idea is to protect as much departmental spending as possible by trying to find big cuts in the £190bn annual welfare benefits bill. The incapacity one, which provides £11bn a year of support to 2.6m people is the first to be singled out.

Osborne is obviously feeling super confident following the polling reaction to the budget and the immense rise in his personal ratings. ICM found 53% saying he was doing a “good job” compared with 39% only a week ago.

He is also maximising the fact that Labour is leaderless and he knows as well, as seen in the Express headline, that the notion of acting against “welfare cheats” seems to resonate.

So how are the Labour Leadership Five going to approach the changes and the fact that Osborne seems to be getting so much public support? Does this present an opportunity for one or more of them to take on an issue that impacts on so many people?

The reality is, of course, that if Osborne is to find his savings then many households, particularly at the bottom of the income scale, are going to be a lot worse off.

And are the Lib Dems going to be happy with changes on this scale? They’ll certainly be pleased to move on from the VAT increases where they’ve taken such a battering.

A few months ago I feared that post-general election politics was going to be boring. It ain’t.

Mike Smithson

Gordon became Prime Minister..

Observer

Did the paper even see the full data?

The big story in the Observer, under the heading “Half of Liberal Democrat voters ready to defect after VAT rise” is based, though it is not immediately obvious, on private polling that was carried out by YouGov for the Ed Miliband campaign.

There were two questions which are being made public (because it’s a private poll YouGov does not have to reveal the rest) and the first was on the child benefit level freeze.

The introductory words were: “Below are a series of measures set out by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition in this week’s budget. For each one, please indicate if these would make you more or less likely to vote for the Liberal Democrats, or if it would make no difference?”

The question then read: “The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats plan to freeze Child Benefit for three years. For a typical family with one child, this will cost them up to £109 a year.” As can be seen below the response from Lib Dem voters was positive - 29% said they would be MORE likely to vote for the party and 25% said LESS likely.

The paper however reported only the 25% less likely ignoring the bigger proportion saying more likely.

The next question was worded like this: “During the general election campaign the Liberal Democrats specifically promised not to raise VAT, calling it a ‘tax bombshell’. In this week’s Budget the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats outlined plans to raise VAT to 20%.” That surely is somewhat leading and the preamble inaccurate.

Below is the response and once again the paper only recorded those “Less likely” and not the “more likely”.

One of the great things about the polling transparency rules is that this information is made available by the pollster even for privately commissioned surveys.

I wonder whether the Observer saw the detailed spread-sheets from the pollster or was the report based on what the Ed Miliband campaign told them?

Mike Smithson