Danny

Meanwhile, Labour's saviour-in-waiting speaks: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politic...icle4346633.ece

Sheffield Hallam polls in the last week have given Labour leads over Clegg of 10% and 3% respectively.

New Scottish constituency polls confirm Labour currently set for a slaughter. Some of Labour's safest seats in Scotland (even the whole of the UK) set to go, with the only likely survivor being Glasgow North East where they're currently projected to have a 7% majority (down from 54% last time). Meanwhile, Danny Alexander also looks gone: poll for his seat puts the SNP on 50% and the Lib Dems on 21%. Ironically, one of the SNP's more mediocre results in this set of polling is in Gordon where Alex Salmond is standing, where he "only" has a 16% lead. http://lordashcroftpolls.com/2015/02/scott...ound/#more-7456

I don't think Labour should echo UKIP on immigration, or echo some of the Greens' more crackpot ideas about purposely killing off economic growth (not least because I don't actually think a lot of people who are voting UKIP/Green are really doing so for those reasons). But my argument is that there's no alternative to Labour trying to win over those voters, even if the way to win them is open to debate -- would you agree that there are practically no votes left to be won from the Tories since they're literally bumping along the bottom?

So who are these "centrist" people who you'd expect to be coming over to Labour if they weren't worried about 'overspending' then? Bearing in mind that the Tories are down at core vote levels and made up mostly of people who never even voted for Blair. As an aside, I love how so many Progress Tendency people (not just you) have always been the ones who always claim that Labour can't "write off" certain types of voters, yet are now writing off whole swathes of the electorate as impossible for Labour to gain and undesirable even if they were possible. There's no point pandering to Green voters because they're too flighty and unwilling to "engage with the real world". UKIP voters are too racist and too far gone with their hatred of the establishment to ever vote for them. SNP voters are too bitter and too unwilling to listen to reason. That's a whole quarter of the voting public between them -- where exactly are the votes supposed to come from to boost Labour from their current pitiful standing if a quarter of voters are being declared off-limits?

So you think people are flocking from Labour to Green, UKIP and SNP because they're worried about Labour overspending?

No it doesn't - the complaint of how they wouldn't make things different/any better is on 61% in that very poll!

:lol: Well that one poll certainly overrides the countless other polls showing the majority of people oppose further spending cuts!

Yes, imo that ties in with what I think is the best argument the pro-EU side have at their disposal: that if Europe all joins together, it will have the collective weight to force global action on bringing the banks and big businesses (and tax dodgers) into line, whereas if we're all small individual countries we will never have the collective punch to make the US agree with such things.

One of the leading Tory commentators Matthew Parris thinks Labour would be much better off going anti-austerity: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/colu...icle4340177.ece

But she's constantly making idiotic comments about "reform" and about how there's a "role for the private sector" in the NHS. Like most other people who spout that nonsense, I'm guessing she's someone who has never actually needed to rely on the NHS and doesn't appreciate how important it is for people to feel reassured that their doctor is acting in the best interests of the patient, rather than trying to maximise their profits. ** YouGov polling based on all current Labour voters and people considering voting for them: We would like you to think about the Labour party and the sort of policies and direction the party takes. Below are three pairs of statements, in each case please say which one you would prefer. Public spending Commit to spending more on NHS and public services: 43% Commit to tackling deficit through cuts and tax rises: 19% Neither: 26% Don't know: 12% Businesses Labour should stand up to big business: 49% Labour should be positive about big business: 23% Neither: 15% Don't know: 13% http://www.thetimes.co.uk/redbox/topic/you...uld-help-labour

Liz Kendall has been saying similar things.

Meanwhile, the Progress Tendency are busy showing how "in touch" they are with the public again by claiming Labour should be more willing to privatise the NHS(!!), despite Labour's current position being one of their few stances which is regarded remotely positively by the public: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/j...supporters-warn

They don't exactly need a spectacular performance when Labour are heading for their worst voteshare since World War 1. Tories getting about 34/35% could get them a majority.

Again, I really don't understand how it's so unreasonable/"radical" to simply ask that Labour just don't make things any worse than they already are. Not even make things drastically better - just don't make things worse than the already poor state public services / the safety net for the poor is already in. Yet they're not prepared to go even that far.

:lol: The New Statesman have been even bigger relentless spinners of the "party line" than Labourlist of late. Ed Miliband being willing to declare himself a "socialist" or "radical" from time to time does not exactly mean much to anything, when his actual economic policies are more right-wing than Blair's / more right-wing than 60% of the public. How exactly is his occasional speech about "responsible capitalism" supposed to offset the fact that Labour plan to further shrink the state and further heap misery on poor people?

But I meant his approval rating is similar to what Miliband's was in late 2010 when he was just a month in to his leadership (in the UK as a whole, I don't know about Scotland specifically). Typically most leaders poll well at first because people give them the benefit of the doubt, then it's all downhill from there...

Apparently his approval ratings are barely any better than Ed Miliband's were when he was a month into his leadership!!

The Tories now favourites to get most seats with the bookmakers.

So you're still somehow managing to avoid all of the 60% of the public who tell the opinion-pollsters they're against further spending cuts, huh?

The Greens definitely surging: up to 10% in tonight's YouGov, after an 11% in another poll yesterday. Labour people on Twitter already throwing their toys out of the pram and complaining about selfish voters, apparently oblivious to the fact that their own party deserves most of the blame for putting forward a policy on spending cuts which is more right-wing than 60% of the public.

Lots of hype about the Greens' chances there.

Greens on 11% with the latest Lord Ashcroft poll. But more importantly, which animal do people think each leader is most like? http://lordashcroftpolls.com/2015/01/ashcr...ip-15-green-11/

But until now you've been dismissing anyone who doesn't think the deficit is an issue / that spending should be kept the same as a "TUSCite"! And have been rejecting any claims that Labour's stance on spending is significantly to the right of public opinion. Also, I genuinely don't think the Tories will be saying "Labour will spend more and tax more" specifically for too much longer. What they WILL be doing is general vague warnings about "Miliband will crash the economy and cause chaos", and that will work because in the public mind, the deficit/spending question and Miliband's competence are two completely separate things -- people think Ed will create a mess just because of his fundamental abilities (or lack thereof), not because of what policies he'd be trying to implement. In other words, to use the rather cruel way I've heard more than one person say it, "I wouldn't trust Miliband to even run a bath". Which is why it's so crazy for Labour to match the Tories on all the big issues, as it shrinks the battleground between the two main parties entirely down to personality and fundamental competence, which Miliband was always going to get slaughtered on.

The "centrist voters" who, according to that poll, are overwhelmingly against more cuts. Even when the implications on debt are explicitly pointed out (before you use the "pony polling" thing).