You’re right. It’s almost certainly far worse for Jc than the polls suggest.

Those damn polls and their Labour bias eh?

😆
Not their fault tories are rude and dont answer the phone /letter/e-mail 😉

Well Paddy Ashdown thinks the polls predicting a hung parliament are what made the ‘SNP threat’ argument more compelling and lost them seats and won the Tories the election.

Makes you think anyway. 😉

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/10/28/camerons-rating-down-corbyns-down-more/

These are still early days. Corbyn has time to improve his ratings. He is not as unpopular as Ed Miliband was for much of his time as leader (though Miliband still enjoyed a net positive rating at the same early point in his leadership). But after voters have had some weeks to judge Corbyn, and at a time when the Government is in trouble, our figures should give him and his party pause for though

as dave and gideon guide us through another crash and possible brexit who knows what the polls mean?

good point about more pensioners = more tory votes too

Well Paddy Ashdown thinks the polls predicting a hung parliament are what made the ‘SNP threat’ argument more compelling and lost them seats and won the Tories the election.

I never vote but I voted this time exclusively because of the polls suggesting a Labour/SNP coalition was highly likely.

I’m not saying if my vote was to encourage or resist that.

Are the PFLP one of the good militia that Cameron wants to support or nasty jihadists or both?

I will advocate communism, equality and orgies for all if Labour denounces or take BritLand out of the formation of EUSSR federal ZM state.

I will raise the red flag and make myself available for Dear Leader nomination. I will. 😛

My income is so low now (hopefully once become elite I will be richer than most) even communists are richer than me so let’s see how communist are those communists. 😛

Down with EUSSR ZM federal state …! 😀

Arise islander BritLand!

(… while towing the screaming and kicking Scots-Picts-land of Freeddooomm behind … they have to follow or they will starve or be enslaved by EUSSR … The family of fish Leaders (your current leaders) will not feed you trust me … )

I thought Corbyn sounded more confident/ at ease at pmqs today.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jan/20/lynton-crosby-and-dead-cat-won-election-conservatives-labour-intellectually-lazy

Those Tories are absolute bastards they went out to win an election.

Thought it was an interesting and very illuminating article – in reference to the earlier talk about polls and the last election. Not really sure what point you’re trying to make. However if you’re comfortable with the levels of cynicism and fear-mongering on offer from Lynton Crosby I guess that says something.

Great article, Grum. Really interesting to see the story behind the Fallon comments. If true there’s a real lesson there about Trump – when politicians say dumb things, there might be a cunning plan behind it.

Having said that, I can’t help but wonder if an “it was all part of the plan” narrative has been attached to the campaign that didn’t exist at the time IYSWIM.

Indeed. Good find grum. (If a little depressing when read.)

Good read, and depressing too; seems like to stand a chance of winning an election you need millions of £s and an Alistair Campbell/ Lynton Crosby/ Malcolm Tucker

So if Labour were going to apply the same technique now and reinforce an existing fear about the Conservatives, it would have to be the corruption angle.
They would have to continually refer to Cabinet members links to business/banking/retirement jobs/donations/etc.
Also – pointing out lies (and directly calling them that).

there might be a cunning plan behind it.

Overly generous, perhaps?

Interesting article grum, thanks, but as they say history is written by the winners. Crosby has to argue that he is worth his £ms and the book (and the article) are probably best seen in that light.

But IMO, the Tory victory was more to do with the failure of others – Labour in Scotland and the Lib Dems (remember them, the previous new, fresh approach to UK politics) as example.

For all the attacks on Wallace he added more votes that CMD but still ended up losing and carrying the can for it!!

But hats of to the Crosby self-publicity! A master of the dirty craft, but why spend £ms when you can leave it to Dan Hodges in the Torygraph!!

The first-past-the-post parliamentary system did the job it is supposed to do — return a majority in the House of Commons for the party with the most votes. But the result nonetheless came from such a distortion of the actual underlying votes that you can argue it’s better evidence for voting law reform than for keeping the status quo.

Not sure I agree with the conclusion necessarily, but the point is valid.

as they say history is written by the winners. Crosby has to argue that he is work his £ms

This, I suspect.

“The whole thing was based on a very simple message: only two people could be prime minister. One of them is weak, the other is David Cameron. Cameron won the election because he was the more convincing prime minister.

Is a reasonable conclusion – but still ignores the reality of the voting patterns!

And dear old labour are still fighting the wrong battle – fail to learn the lessons of history and….

Alex, whatever they choose lets hope its better than the “austerity” and “privatising the NHS” clichés. Or perhaps the old ones still work – eg Labour cant be trusted. Who knows!!

I think that article is very interesting regards the focus on simple messages and swing seats.

There was this as well yesterday:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jan/20/labours-new-members-mostly-wealthy-city-dwellers-leaked-report

What was Lenins phrase? “This bourgeois labour party” 😳

Oops that might not fit the current narrative well, but hey, one only has to look at the background of the new Prince of Darkness who is running the show.

His school even has its own harder entrance exam to weed out the majority!! And a tough one, especially the Maths questions 😉

John Mann, the Labour MP for Bassetlaw and a critic of Corbyn, called last week for the party to introduce a mansion tax for Labour members living in £1m homes.

That is quite amusing !

If Corbyn can prove that his policies can improve the lives of those at the bottom, shouldn’t be too hard as the Tories pick apart the welfare state, then there is a hour for him in 2020.
The only problem will be that ever increasing grey vote, the Tories will be seen to be protecting their pensions and winter fuel allowances, even as they bland their huge cuts to council services on the usual right wing bogeymen

They would have to continually refer to Cabinet members links to business/banking/retirement jobs/donations/etc.

Much as I admire Corbyn’s ambition to have a more mature and honest politics, I’ve often said in the past (in fact I think I said it on the election thread), that the labour party are far too nice when campaigning and could learn a thing or two from the tories. The tories think nothing of telling bare faced, transparent lies, and they employ them in a highly effective way to construct a narrative which the electorate willingly accepts as fact. Labour could easily do the same. It’s not like they would be short of ammunition, and the corruption/privileged elite angle would be a highly effective line of attack. Of course that would require the PLP to give up their vendetta against Corbyn, and focus their energy on the real enemy, but they seem to like going for the easier target so I’m not holding my breath.

the corruption/privileged elite angle would be a highly effective line of attack

You think or would it be pointed out as a hypocrisy and also being anti-aspiration (the elite bit not the corruption)?

dazh – agreed (although they really don’t have to resort to bare faced, transparent lies)

Much as I admire Corbyn’s ambition to have a more mature and honest politics, I’ve often said in the past (in fact I think I said it on the election thread), that the labour party are far too nice when campaigning and could learn a thing or two from the tories.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jan/20/lynton-crosby-and-dead-cat-won-election-conservatives-labour-intellectually-lazy

“Labour thought that because the Conservatives did not win 2010, when they had Gordon Brown as their leader and the economy was in the toilet, the Tories would be unable to win [in 2015] and all they had to do was sit on the horse and hang on,” says Crosby. “They never said sorry for their mishaps, they never really did an honest review of their policies, they never had a story about the future for the British people. They just did not do the work. They were intellectually lazy and thought themselves intellectually superior.”

Crosby may be loathsome, but he knows how to win elections.

They just did not do the work. They were intellectually lazy and thought themselves intellectually superior.

They looked just as likely to do the same post 2015 had one of the other leadership candidates won.
That was one of the things that put many off. They thought that if they just sat in the middle and appeared neutral, they would win.

thing about the “the dead cat” approach is it needs the media to be complicit, if in the Fallon example the press still ran with Milibands crack down on nodoms for example then no one notices the dead cat.

It’s not complicity, political journos do not need to be ‘in on it’ to prefer to write about Fallon viciously insulting Milliband as opposed to Milliband making some rather dry but worthy proposals about ending a tax loophole.

Shakespearean tragedy of betrayal or midweek accountancy report involving some bloke called Ashcroft?

The thing about the dead cat is that it cannot be ignored/not noticed.

That’s the point of a dead cat though – it’s impossible to ignore – press included (in fact the press are probably the most needy – not necessarily complicit).

Edit: Beaten by 12 seconds!

Where’s the bit about “Stuffed by Salmon”? Forget the in-the-pocket visual….

Its quite extraordinary when political parties and companies appoint leaders that are obviously not correct. JC merely follows on from the likes of Milliband and IDS, Howard and Hague (at the time) on the other side and that lady from the Greens (what was here name?). Why do they do this, other than to buy time? Alternatively, at what point did JC and the rest realise that the stunt to put up a token, wider candidate might actually back-fire?

Its quite extraordinary when political parties and companies appoint leaders that are obviously not correct.

Presumably because the other options are even worse? The funniest thing about Corbyn being elected is what it says about the calibre of Burnham, Cooper, and the other one who I’ve already forgotten.

teamhurtmore – Member
Interesting article grum, thanks, but as they say history is written by the winners.

For once I actually agree with you there, the article smacks of revisionism.

in on it, just a little

Presumably because the other options are even worse?

+1

Blimey I’d forgotten Howard even was Tory leader!! That says it all really.

the labour party are far too nice when campaigning

That’s very good

the corruption/privileged elite angle would be a highly effective line of attack

Probably as effective as the NHS attack line

For once I actually agree with you there, the article smacks of revisionism.

If you read the Spectator you would know most of this was said contemporaneously, so not revisionist.

Probably as effective as the NHS attack line

Well they could easily combine the two when you do a minimal amount of digging around Jeremy Hunt’s and other tories links to private health lobby groups and providers. As an example, how hard is it for the labour party to come out with a simple message such as ‘The tories are privatising the NHS so that they and their friends can make huge amounts of money from it whilst everyone else can’t get a GP appointment’. Not exactly difficult is it? Yet this simple message gets lost amongst all the intellectual/bureaucratic claptrap about service provision, commissioning, targets, PFI, funding mechanisms etc.

Not exactly difficult is it?

Nor difficult to falsify…better options must be available surely

But all the spin in the world wont matter if the front man/woman is wrong. Get past that step first, then worry about the rest of it…

‘The tories are privatising the NHS so that they and their friends can make huge amounts of money from it whilst everyone else can’t get a GP appointment’.

Not catchy and also fairly easy to attack Labour on as the gave GPs more money for reduced hour working and increased use of PFI.

None of which is the same as trying to privatise the NHS so that your mates can profit.No one would ever claim that this is Labour policy- there is a difference between a bad policy and not supporting the entire thing.
Why not just accept a perception about your beloved party rather than try to negate it by attacking labour for something different -Ie actually engage with the point made rather than use it to attack Labour

SOmetimes this place is just so partisan we dont even pretend to discuss the actual issue.