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Sean Fear’s Friday slot

A couple of weeks ago, I examined the impact of parties to the Right of the Conservatives. This week, I do the same with parties to the Left of Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

Back in the 1980s, quite large numbers of people supported Labour’s policies of nationalisation, unilateral nuclear disarmament, restoration of the right to secondary picketing and the closed shop, and ending the sale of council houses. In fact, I can remember intelligent people at university arguing at the time that East Germany’s economy was outperforming our own, and that the United States was a greater threat to this country than the Soviet Union. Most of the people who held such views must still be alive today.

Although the current Labour government has been more left wing than its rhetoric suggests, it must still be a disappointment to people who hold such opinions. It is puzzling therefore, that no significant party of the Far Left has emerged over the past 10-15 years. In Labour’s heartlands, the potential for such a party must exist.

Arthur Scargill’s Socialist Labour Party occasionally saves a deposit, but never really developed any momentum,. Tommy Sheridan’s Socialist Labour Party enjoyed some success in the Scottish Parliamentary elections of 2003, before collapsing in the embarrassment of a libel trial that saw most of Sheridan’s close colleagues giving evidence against him. Militant Tendency changed its name, and has won the odd council seat here or there, but has nothing like the support it had 20 years ago.

Respect has built up a following in the East End, and a few other parts of the country. They won Bethnal Green and Stepney in 2005, and came a very good second in Birmingham Sparkbrook. Unfortunately, for them, the latter constituency has been abolished in the latest round of boundary changes. In the long run, they may challenge Labour in East and West Ham, but outside of a few constituencies, Labour doesn’t need to worry about them. Their support is almost completely confined to Muslim voters, and even then, most Muslims don’t vote for them.

The Green Party would probably deny that they are a party of the far Left. Their policies however, place them well to the Left of any of the main parties. They have over 100 elected councillors (no mean achievement under first past the post). They also have a chance of winning a seat off Labour in Brighton, at the next election. However, they probably do more damage to the Liberal Democrats than they do to Labour. In 2006, a strong Green performance certainly cost the Liberal Democrats overall control of Islington Council, and may well have cost them control of Haringey as well. In inner urban areas, the Greens and Liberal Democrats are often chasing after the same type of voter, young, secular, environmentally concerned, and professional.

All in all, Labour must count themselves fortunate that no party of the Far Left has emerged that can do significant damage to them.

There were three by-elections last night:-

Loughton BC, Alderton. BNP 393, Resident 367, Lib Dem 172, Conservative 163 Labour 98 ,UKIP 28. BNP hold. This is the first BNP by-election win for 4 years, and their first ever hold in a by-election. It points to firm BNP support in the old London County Council overspill estates. Until quite recently, this was a safe Labour ward.

Isle of Wight UA, Newport North. Conservative 207, Lib Dem 189, Labour 137, UKIP, 25, Independent 23, Independent 2. Conservative hold. The Liberal Democrats leap-frogged Labour to take second place.

Stroud DC, Nailsworth: Conservative 857, Green 810, Labour 261. Conservative hold. This is a most unusual example of a Conservative/Green marginal seat. For several elections in a row, the Conservatives have held on by very narrow margins here.

Sean Fear is a London Conservative activist and a regular contributor to pb.com

Voting for the poster of the year will close today at 6.30 pm - you can cast your vote here.

Anthony Wells of UKPolling Report emails me to tell me that he has asked Populus to disclose the poll referred to by Benedict Brogan in his blog.

He wrote” “Tories say privately their internal Populus poll paints a completely different picture - the parties are level pegging and Mr Cameron’s approval rating is climbing”.

Anthony’s view is that there is a requirement to disclose under the British Polling Council’s transparency rules.

Normally leaks of “private polls” don’t name the pollster. I’m writing this on my phone in a Eurotunnel train and am not in a position to support Anthony.

It will be interesting to see what transpires.

Mike Smithson

Is the Lib Dem share of 14% down to the firm’s methodology?

In the first of four major polling surveys that we will see in the next few days the internet pollster, YouGov, for the Daily Telegraph has the following shares with the changes on its last poll almost three weeks ago CON 33% (+1): LAB 41% (-1): LD 14% (nc).

So the Tories will be a touch relieved that like ICM on Monday YouGov is showing a reduction in the Labour lead. Even so an 8% margin is a massive gap and would suggest a near landslide Labour victory if this was to be repeated in a general election.

If YouGov continues to be reporting figures which are out of line with the rest of the industry there’ll be much more focus on its methodology - which is totally different from everybody else.

As we have noted before YouGov does not make any adjustment for the likelihood to vote - a factor that with other pollsters sharply cuts back Labour shares. Its samples are restricted to members of its polling panel on whom it has got a lot of data and who can get surveyed time and time again.

The firm seeks politically balanced samples by using a weighting system based on “party identification”. This was gathered from 44,000 respondents at the time of the general election. Excluding those who said don’t know this splits CON 34.2%: LAB 45.2%: LD 15%. In the general election, of course, Labour came out with 36.2%, the Tories had 33.2% while the LDs got 22.7% of the GB vote. This might explain the poor shares for the Lib Dems that YouGov usually comes up with.

The last time that YouGov was out of line was after Michael Howard became Tory leader unopposed in late 2003. For six consecutive months from December 2003 to May 2004 the firm had the Tories on 39% or 40% - numbers which caused a lot of discussion at the time about its methodology. This helped create its reputation as a pollster that favoured the Tories. Well things have changed dramatically since.

We’ll be able to compare YouGov with Ipsos-Mori, Populus and Communicate Research which are all due to be publishing polls within 4-5 days. If these are pointing to 8% Labour leads then it would surely increase the pressure on Brown to call an early election.

But one thing’s for sure - Gordon needs more than YouGov to make such a momentous decision.

According to Ben Brogan’s Daily Mail blog “Tories say privately their internal Populus poll paints a completely different picture - the parties are level pegging and Mr Cameron’s approval rating is climbing.” That would seem to be a very risky thing for the Tories to be saying to journalists like Brogan if it is not the case.

My betting. Having taken my profits on Labour in the commons spread markets earlier in the month I will continue to stand aside. My main position is on how long it will be to the general election where I’ve bet against Gordon going early. That remains.

My holiday. This is my last article before my holiday in the old fishing port of St. Jean de Luz in the Basque country about 12km from the Spanish border. Doing a full-time job as well as running this blog is very exhausting and I very much need the break. I’ll be back on September 17th.

Paul Maggs takes over as guest editor and is looking for guest articles. He can be contacted here.

Mike Smithson

And now the final round of voting - for the Overall PBC Poster of the Year

As it turned out the voting in three of the four categories was pretty clear-cut. Sean Fear, who starting posting on PBC in the summer of 2004, has built up a loyal following from people of all allegiances and his overwhelming victory in the Tory section was probably quite predictable. Well done also to David Herdson who came second and joins Sean in the final.

Another very long-standing poster who first came here in 2004, Nick Palmer MP, had an overwhelming victory in the Labour section - a tribute to the contributions he has made over the years and the manner in which he enters into debate. There’s been a closer contest for second place with HenryG, who has provided good betting information on Labour, just pipping another long-standing poster, Roger, into the second place slot.

The Lib Dem race has been the most exciting with Mark Senior securing the victory but not by that big a margin over Stodge. Both go into the final round.

And in the specialist section it had to be Andrea from Milan who has an extraordinary knowledge of British politics and can answer almost anything that’s flung at him in seconds. In second place was a relative newcomer, Peter the Punter, whose good solid advice on betting matters and the generally civility he displays have made him a key member of the PBC community. I very much value the way Peter calms things down when discussions get out of hand.

So now the final. I go on my holidays tomorrow morning and voting will continue for at least twenty four hours (1830 BST Friday) until I can get to a computer with internet access. That could be Saturday. Joining the race this evening are JackW and SeanT. Best of luck to everybody.

Mike Smithson