10p and all that

It appears that today's announcement by Yvette Cooper that the government will expand the remit of an existing enquiry to include helping families without children will not be enough to satisfy rebel Labour MPs.

Unfortunately, the Chancellor does not have any money to give back to the British people. Reinstating the 10 pence tax band as it existed before would cost £7bn. Frank Field's proposals to increase the personal tax allowance (the amount of untaxed income allowed, currently £5,435 for those under 65) would cost £700m and compensate many of those who lost out in Brown's last budget.

It is a real possibility that the government may lose the vote. If they fail to make any more concessions, I have no doubt they will lose. It is difficult to see what further options there are for the Chancellor - Labour MPs want changes now but Darling simply cannot provide any without borrowing recklessly or cutting funds elsewhere. In the same way that Brown had 'no good option' last year when he failed to call a general election, his current dilemma poses a similar, but potentially much more damaging option. If he loses the vote, there will be havoc in the Labour Party - especially if it is seen as a vote of no confidence in the government. That may trigger an actual vote of no confidence, or a leadership challenge. If he wins, he may face several junior resignations.

Either way, this mess was entirely avoidable and is the definitive example of Labour's obsession with grabbing headlines whenever they can. This time, they may pay a very grave price indeed.

Gwyneth Dunwoody MP dies

Iain Dale disclosed an unconfirmed report earlier on - now the Labour Party and BBC News 24 have confirmed that Gwyneth Dunwoody MP (Crewe and Nantwich) has died.

She was a marvellous character, and a passionate and articulate parliamentarian. She was not a careerist, but a principled representative of the people of Crewe and Nantwich, and never afraid to criticize the government when she thought differently.

She will be missed.

Spelman

Caroline Spelman is being awful on Question Time. If she can't give convincing answers on the abolition of the 10p rate or Jacqui Smith's moronic terror policy then she shouldn't be Party Chairman. The quality of her voice doesn't appear to endear her to the audience in Bristol.

This is why we're not 106% ahead.

Trouble on the Way

After today's contradicting headlines that Angela Smith MP (Sheffield Hillsborough) 'intended' to resign and then decided not to after a call to Gordon, we should be able to look forward to some fractious weeks ahead for the Brown administration.

42 days' detention still looks unwinnable - we can look forward to marvellous speeches from all sides of the House; hopefully David Winnick (Walsall North) can match his articulate and passionate speech during the 90 days' detention debate a couple of years ago.

The scenarios are these: if the government loses the vote, Brown's authority and judgement will be damaged further. Jacqui Smith should have to resign - although she probably won't, otherwise a PM would be into our fifth home secretary in only 4 years. If, unlikely though it is, they win the vote, our attention may be drawn to Jack Straw's position in the cabinet. He is widely rumoured to have doubts about the proposals. His resignation would be an almighty hammerblow to the government, and the Prime Minister, whose leadership campaign he ran. It would probably be comparable to the resignation of Geoffrey Howe or Nigel Lawson. A Jacqui Smith resignation would be embarrassing, but by no means fatal.

Abolition of 10p starting rate anyone?

The hideous smugness on Gord's face when he announced he was cutting the 22p tax band to 20p belies the attitude of this government - pull a rabbit out of the hat, make a few headlines, and to hell with the affect of it. It is people like me who are single, young, and earning a lowish wage who will be affected by this proposal. It is extraordinary that Labour MPs have taken so long to work out that this was never a good idea. There is real anger on the doorstep about this. It appears that Gordon is taking from the poor to give to the middle - and tax credit bonunses are not good enough. Labour cannot bring itself to give the people the tax break they deserve. They prefer to condemn them to complicated and unneccesary bureaucracy, which, hopefully, will deter them sufficiently from getting the discounts they rightly deserve.

The local government elections on May 1st will probably not be pleasant for Labour either. The Tories need to start winning properly in the north of England - Bury is a MUST this time. It's going to be difficult to break through in Yorkshire because of the number of indepedents, but we must at least make large inroads. Hopefully there will be more Conservatives in Salford joining Iain Lindley and the team. Surely the abolition of the 10p rate will play well for us here.

The mayoral election, however, is far more important. I have always been of the opinion that, if Boris loses, it is a major blow for David Cameron - he put his faith in Boris, not only to perform competently and prove his political worth, but also to win. He has to win. It appears that Ken is staging a fightback, so Conservatives must under no circumstances become complacent. Campaigning must be vigorous and relentless. London deserves so much better than an arrogant socialist cast-off like Ken Livingstone.

As for the polls, things are looking very promising. YouGov's 16 point lead would give us a majority of about 120 (44/28/17) but this needs to be backed up by other companies. I am reluctant to treat Mori's results seriously anymore, as they've looked increasing volatile as the Conservatives have recovered, with that imfamous 10% swing in 1 month 2 years ago. Populus always give better results for Labour, but it is crucial that we sustain a rating of over 40% with them if we are to be sure of success. ICM are yielding good results at the moment, and are pretty much in line with YouGov. It is looking increasingly as if the Conservatives are more likely to not only be the largest party in a post-2010 parliament, but to have a convincing and workable overall majority.

David Cameron is not the Conservatives' Neil Kinnock. It won't be a repeat of the 1992 election.

ICM for The Guardian

From ConHome:

'Another good poll - but unfortunately it's not enough to confirm a new trend in our favour. We need to poll consistently above 40%, and Labour likewise 30% and below. Labour's ratings in this poll and the Yougov poll are very encouraging for us.

What is not consistent about the two polls is the support for the Lib Dems - 5% is a considerable discrepancy. In truth, we need the Lib Dems to poll closer to 16% to maximize our chances of winning. But with Labour polling under 30% anyway, 41% would actually be enough to win a general election, even with the Lib Dems at 2005 levels. But with so long to go until a GE (2010 surely), Labour cannot be written off and could quite easily regain support IF economic conditions have improved by then.'

The poll figures are:

Con 42
Lab 29
LD 21

UKE projections:

Con 352
Lab 223
LD 43

Con Maj 56

Two polls: one more excellent than the other

Some fabulous news for the Party today - a Yougov poll for the Sunday Times has the Conservatives 16% ahead of Labour. The figures are:

Con 43
Lab 27
LD 16

The other poll is for ICM:

Con 40
Lab 31
LD 20

Both polls are going in the right direction - it's a 4.5% swing with Yougov (Con +3, Lab -6) and 3% with ICM (Con +3, Lab -3, LD -1).

Such an enormous lead is quite out of the blue, what with Labour seeming to have closed the gap in recent weeks. It is, of course, entirely possible that the results of this poll might prove to be anomolous, but nevertheless - we might as well celebrate whilst we can!

The 16% story appears here on Times Online.

My ConHome post reads:

'The Yougov lead is astonishing, especially given Labour appear to have been making some sort of recovery over the last few weeks. 43/27/16 yields a majority of 118, according to UK Elect. I suspect that Labour's six-point shift may prove to be an exaggeration, but nevertheless, this is great news.

This sort of lead is reminiscent of leads shown in some Cameron/Brown polls taken before Tony Blair's departure. Maybe they weren't so fanciful after all...'

The point about the old Cameron/Brown polls is an important one - if Cameron can successfully show (subliminally) that Blair was a better PM than Brown is, the Tories might be on to a winner.

Latest Yougov Poll

Normally I wouldn't post on polls which I don't consider to be of great significance - and this Yougov poll is fairly unremarkable:

Con 40
Lab 33
LD 16

Forced choice (now):

Con 44
Lab 36

Forced choice (2005 election):

Lab 52
Con 35

The 'forced choice' figures are very encouraging, and show what enormous progress the Party has made since David became leader.

The telegraph's headline is 'Tories fail to profit from Brown misery'. This frustrates me. For 8 years we recorded poll ratings between the high twenties and low thirties. We failed to prove that we could change as a Party. David Cameron has been ahead for most of the time since December 2005 - and yes, consistent election-winning margins are not yet in the bag, but we must be patient.

I remember, during the IDS years, scouring the details of a poll to salvage anything remotely positive. Even a two-point defecit inspired a small nugget of hope: but realistically, the Party was going nowhere and was not going to even come close to winning.

Brown has, of course, had immense difficulties over the last few months. Northern Rock, lost data, PMQs performances, tax change flip-flops and the Peter Hain saga have all contributed to making this government look weak, inert and incompetent. The trouble is, to a large extent, politicians are now all tarred with the same brush. 'They're all incompetent' or 'they're all liars' are common complaints made by the general public with references to all politicians. Hence, the incompetence of the government does not necessarily lead to renewed faith in the Conservatives to show that they are a more capable alternative. It merely entrenches the feeling of doom in the current climate, and problems like party funding turn voters off even more. Indeed, New Labour is probably to blame for most of this disenchantment, but I don't believe the Tories can inspire people to vote on policies alone.

Cameron has recently sought to side with the public on the issue of confidence in the political system. At PMQs on Wednesday, he surprised Gordon Brown by asking him about televised debates, and public trust in the government on the issue of the Lisbon Treaty. Many commentators were puzzled by this line of questioning, but Guido's excellent blog on the subject may have hit the nail on the head. Read for yourself.

People should stop grumbling about the fact that we're not far enough ahead. I KNOW a margin of 7% won't win us the election but it WILL remove Labour's majority and it WOULD make us the largest single party in a hung parliament. I make no secret of the fact that I am in favour of a coalition with the Lib Dems if it ensures our return to power. Vince Cable, David Laws, Ed Davey and Clegg himself could all prove worthy proponents of Liberal Conservatism, which, after all, is Cameron's (and indeed my) brand of choice.

As for the electoral maths, the Tories have to be 9-10% ahead to be sure of an overall majority. According to UK Elect, the Conservatives would be 16 seats short of an overall majority with today's Yougov figures:

Con 308
Lab 282
LD 29
Oth 31

From the 'others' we should be able to count on the support of the DUP and the UUP, but that's only 11. The most significant remainders are Sinn Fein (5), SNP (5), and Plaid Cymru (4). We would have a majority of 8 with figures of 42/33/29 - WE ARE NOT FAR AWAY.

So I say to the Cameron doubters in the Telegraph: grow up! These polls must be put in context. To charge ahead with radical proposals now would be folly - it would simply be drowned out by the public's despair in the political system, and, moreover, the public's despair of the political classes. I am in favour of cutting tax, controls on immigration, tough policing and all the rest of it but the public will not accept our message until Westminster gets its act together on procedure, funding, declarations, and Mr. Speaker himself.

No single particular Party is out of touch: they all are, and it is their duty to show that MPs represent the entire electorate by becoming relevant to them.