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July 31, 2007

Brown Bounce Does Not Exist

Labour must be worried.  The Brown bounce which was flagged as a 9% lead by YouGov, the internet polling organisation, looks as if it might all be hot air.  The 'bounce' has been the big media narrative for July whereby all stories that undercut the narrative get ignored, and all stories which reinforce the narrative get a boost. 

It is beginning to look like it could all be imaginary.

The first evidence for this came at Sedgefield where Labour's vote right in the middle of the supposed bounce fell from 59% to 44% or maybe even 41% if the ballot box tampering allegations prove to be correct.

http://www.typepad.com/t/app/weblog/post?__mode=edit_entry&id=36954402&blog_id=555190

Then the poll from ICM which only featured those who actually voted in the 2005GE showed that Labour are losing support amongst definite voters at twice the rate they are gaining., and Cameron is gaining support at twice the rate he is losing.

http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2007/07/29/does-this-data-make-an-early-election-less-likely/

The only pollsters to report big leads for Brown during the bounce were ICM despite their having evidence that Brown's new support must be coming almost totally from previous non-voters and whose likelihood to actually vote should have been heavily discounted.

Now that Communicate Research have polled, and given Brown only a 3% lead, because they question the likelihood of many actually voting, the bounce looks as if it might have been much much smaller than the previous pollsters suggested. 

ICM Guardian were clearly involved in some dubious polling during this period and were caught out misrepresenting a poll to put Cameron under pressure.

http://www.order-order.com/2007/07/guardianicm-poll-nobody-likes-dave-and.html

The Brown Bounce is a media created story, which should have been taken with a big pinch of salt.

July 28, 2007

Cameron's Crisis

In truth it is Britain which is in crisis.  We are about to be broken up totally against our will into a group of powerless regions or newly created statelets, where democratic input is minimal.  This is still and has always been a stealth programme, now in the hands of the stealth Prime Minister.

The Constitution is merely how they hope to lock the gate and throw away the key, so the chewing up of the meal can really begin.  We are governed 80% from Brussels already even before we are broken up.  Parliament is a sham providing no proper scrutiny, but theatre where great Europeans can parade their egos in adoration by the media.

Our elections are becoming substantially rigged with postal vote fraud and ballot box tampering.

If we sit back for a few seconds and take it all on board, we are actually lost right now, and it will take a very determined programme from somewhere to put things back where they should be.

The law cannot defend private citizens from violent crime.  Educational standards are plummeting.  There is no respect for or fear of authority anywhere. The only question is who has the strength or determination to stop this process rotting us away.

David Cameron certainly has the right instincts and many polices to put Britain's broken society back together, but how will he ever achieve anything if he cannot first put power and democratic accountability back where it belongs in Parliament and away for Brussels and its latest gauleiter Gordon Brown.

He is completely compromised by the europhile rump in the Conservative Party like Ken Clarke, John Bercow and as was a few Quentin Davies' and to a lesser extent William Hague, who doesn't seem to get the urgency of the crisis..

Cameron is 100% dependent on the media to present him to the voters, which is why so much effort has gone into pretending to be Blair-like and so on.  He has succeeded in making the media like him, which is a valuable achievement but it has been at the expense of the belief of the majority of his own supporters.  This ‘positioning’ process of media engagement has to ease up now or it will bring about the end of his term as leader from within the party.  There is no choice.  The media cannot be the total priority any longer.

So where to next?

The answer is that he must open up non-media channels – increase internet use - and communicate to voters directly as small parties do.  First Cameron will have to consolidate the core range of policies which excite his own supporters and which excite other potential electors.  Then a programme of regular door to door leafleting, postering must be embarked upon nationally.  Conservative supporters must engage in a weight loss programme by forming an army to bypass the main media to ensure the message gets delivered, wearing out shoe leather.

The in-house rump of Europhiles must be shuffled off.  It is really the job of their Constituents to push out the likes of Ken Clarke.  Rushcliffe have tried deselection against him before, but he dodged it.  It won’t keep him out of the media but it will mean that Cameron doesn’t have to bother as much about his effects.

Cameron must then promote those within the Party who are serious about the issues, and not the best media image creators as advocated constantly by Iain Dale and the like.  The Tim Montgomerie seriousness should be allowed to predominate, the Cornerstone, John Hayes, John Redwood and IDS.

How long has Cameron got?

Brown will go to the country next May at the earliest.  He seems to be more concerned with other political threats right now as much as the Conservatives and Lib Dems, swinging away from permissiveness and towards pseudo-authoritarianism and (false) nationalism.  He is seeing canvas returns showing support for the BNP is at levels which must be concerning him, judging by his language.  Unless the Conservatives move into the slot and provide a much more hardline version of Conservatism – not as rhetoric or tone – but as policies – we will be outflanked on the right by Brown as he tries to see off the threat to his vote by the BNP.

Brown’s talking of ‘British jobs for British people’ and ‘repatriating 4000 illegal immigrants’.  He’s cancelled the casinos, is raising the stakes on cannabis and wanting to tackle antisocial behaviour.

Apart from the casino policy which is effective, the others are going to be all talk unless there is major alteration to the criminal justice system sufficient to bring fear and respect back into our society.  That won’t be possible inside the EU. 

Britain has reached a crisis point.  For the first time the EU drift is coming up against strong fast-growing resistance.  The Party that delivers the end of the EU and repairs Britain will be the one to hold power.  There is no reason why that should not be the Conservatives.  It certainly won’t be Labour or the Lib Dems. If we fail, there is little doubt that the resistance will move across and grow faster in previously minor parties. 

I think we have 6 months to reset the trend.  I have no doubt that Cameron has the seriousness of purpose. But will he be able to be more than a one trick pony?  He knows the media game.  Can he impose authority?  There are the people inside the Party who could help him, but will he turn to the right ones?  

July 27, 2007

Sedgefield Was Rigged - BNP says.

'15 of the 16 ballot boxes at Sedgefield were not correctly sealed,' it was alleged by a BNP supporter speaking from another Constituency.

'Our canvas returns and the canvas returns of other parties at Sedgefield show that we won about double the number of votes that were counted, and it is strongly supected that the boxes were tampered with.'

'Our share of the vote could have been as high as 18/20%.'  That would be about the same as the Lib Dem share at the Sedgefield byelection.

'This kind of thing is happening frequently in elections in which the BNP take part.  The boxes should be properly sealed, and only opened at the count.'

'Decisions about formal complaints have not yet been taken.  We will keep moving on to the next stage of our campaign.'

If these allegations are true, then the assumptions as to voting share by the other parties all need cutting down by about 8%.  Labour's 44.7% becomes 41.1% (44.7 X .92) from 58.9% at the GE.  Conservative share has also fallen from 14.59% to 13.42%.  It would suggest that the earlier assessment that almost no BNP votes are coming from Conservatives and Lib Dems are wrong, which makes more sense.  However the bulk are presumably coming from Labour, making it a fair estimated assumption that a Labour voter is three times more likely to vote for the BNP than a Conservative or a Lib Dem.

BNP website report.

http://www.bnp.org.uk/news_detail.php?newsId=1629

Will BNP crash out like UKIP?

I am not sure what point you are making about Hartlepool and UKIP, Alan.

I suppose you mean that because UKIP got 10% at Hartlepool in 2004 and pushed Tories into 4th place, and then disappeared that means the BNP pose little threat to labour now.

On the face of it, that’s not an unreasonable first theory.

But two things need to be thought about. 2004 was the height of the Robert Kilroy Silk optimism for UKIP which pushed in all their MEPs when they won 3,000,000 votes in the Euro elections. Hartlepool was the first and last big byelection coup for UKIP.

Once Kilroy crashed out, that was it. UKIP have been flatlining ever since.

The similarity to the BNP in Sedgefield is that the vote came at the expense of one major party far more than another. Then it was the Tories who were hurt.

The BNP vote has come mostly from one party too, this time it’s labour. But are the BNP be about to crash and flatline as UKIP did?

The word from the ground is no. UKIP were terribly badly led and suffered from continuous infighting as Kilroy found. This goes on to this day with Farage and Nattrass still at each others’ throats. The fur is still flying. They are not well financed and are pathetically badly led.

The BNP are well organised, well financed, and there is no infighting amongst the leadership. Their campaigning is professionally run, and they have a highhly motovated army of foot soldiers.

They avoid the media, just as much as the media avoids them, and they deliver their message through leaflet and local meetings. they are strongly controlled and led from the centre. At this point in time there is nothing which suggests the BNP are about to crash out.

On the contrary Gordon Brown is quite clearly starting to pitch at this market with his ‘British jobs for British people’ and the proposed repatriation of illegal immigrants. Brown is taking BNP seriously. Labour do not utter one word about them. The media is silent about them, and polls mysteriously do not seem able to enter the BNP into their sums.

The proof to me is that Brown is worried.

Yesterday Nick Griffin was elected leader by 91% of the votes cast by the membership.  They launched a national petition for a referendum on the EU Constitution today.

Cameron Will Survive Floodgate

Brown's policy declarations such as British jobs for British people, deport illegal immigrants etc demonstrate that he is more than aware of how much his vote is threatened by the BNP.  If he had any doubts before, he will now be certain after Sedgefield that the BNP will take 5% from him, and could possibly take 10% by the time of an election.  The BNP are operating in 500 Constituencies now.

The Guardian today say that Brown's earliest date for a GE will be May 2008.  By then the new BNP branches will be in their second years and bedding in.

The polls don't take the BNP into account all putting 'others' at around 9-11%.  For some reason they have decided to ignore the BNP factor.  It is impossible to get any comment on the BNP from any Labour commentator.  They simply don't exist except at the ballot box.  It is extraordinary that polling organisations are going along with the policy id denying the vote size of the BNP.

The primary purpose of the polls being 'adjusted' recently seem to be to reinforce the assassination attempt on david cameron, which is coming across all media - BBC, Murdoch, even the Mail.  It seems to be a coordinated attempt to get Cameron, matching the one launched against IDS in 2003.  Betysygate then is Floodgate now.  Both poppycock but effective, except cameron looks like he'll survive with ease, unlike IDS. 

The price of standing up against the EU is, it appears a coordinated assault from all media.

It is extraordinary how well Cameron's support is holding up at 32% given what's coming at him right now. 

He'll make it.  But he should communicate about the EU to voters through door to door leaflet and not through the main media, which has lost all ability to see events in a calm balanced manner, and will focus on remorsely attacking Cameron for being xenophobic etc if he tries to stop the EU Constitution.

July 26, 2007

ICM Guardian 'Yes We Lied Big To Hurt Cameron While He Was Down'

Froma PB Blog - 'There are some corrections to their reporting in today’s Guardian:

“A chart showing David Cameron’s personal rating in a Guardian/ICM poll (front page, yesterday) contained several mistakes. It did not include those voters who said they liked both David Cameron and the Conservative party, and muddled some other figures. The correct figures are: likes Cameron, but not the party, 18%; likes Cameron and the party, 25%; doesn’t like Cameron, but does like the party, 26%; don’t know, 26%. Five per cent refused to answer. Voters were not asked if they did not like both Cameron and the party. We did not make clear that the chart showed figures for all voters, not just Conservative voters.”

Some fairly major errors there, but at least they have clarified them, including the main issue identified above - that there was no possible answer for those who did not like both the leader and the party.'

The lesson is clear.  You cannot trust ICM Guardian. 

So far they are the only poll to give Labour a substantial poll lead.

No I'm Not A Girl

I found folk on PB (politicalbetting.com) discussing my sex.  Yes I am male.  My blogname tapestry is female sounding, I admit.

I used to blog on ft.com in the 1990's.  A bloke called Stephen Saines who lived in Canada awarded the regular contributors to the 'euro' threads names, based on the pieces on a monopoly board.  As I was the eurosceptic pro-UK pound contributor, he called me 'top hat'.  Up til then I'd used my real name 'henry'.

I found that often my posts would not get through.  When I changed my name they suddenly would get through again so I started inventing names that would be recognised by my fellow correspondents ( I don't think we called ourselves bloggers in those days).

'Top Hat' became 'topper' then'tapper' then 'tapestry' then 'teapastry' then 'tapestory' and so on.  So when I started blogging in 2006 due to illhealth and having to stop work, I went back and used one of my old ID's.

Some people say that you should blog in your own name.  One reason I don't do that, is that when I go on search engines to track things I've written on non-political topics in publications, there can be too many 'whacks' of my name from political blogs, making search awfully hard work.  I keep my real name for my business and other non-political writing.

To complete the story, others often replied to me as 'tap' rather than tapestry.  When I started my blog on google, I could use the-tap.blogspot and it sounded OK.  I had a lot of strange events on my google blog after writing against well-known and well-resourced individuals and started a second blog here using Tapestrytalks inspired by Dizzythinks.  By copying around a few, it is harder for any blockers or hackers to make trouble.

Britain's Fifth Column Falsify Information To Attack Cameron

The attacks on Cameron were initiated by Rupert Murdoch according to Stephan Sheakespeare who was told three weeks or so ago by a Murdoch editor that Murdoch had decided to be rid of Cameron and replace him with Hague.  This coincided with the Brown takeover and with Cameron strongly resisting the EU Constitution.

The only polling organisation to provide hopeful polls to Brown after the by-elections was ICM Guardian.  The first poll was a survey which did not ask about voting intention.  The questions were 1. which party did you vote for at the election and 2. which party do you feel warmest to now?  From these answers, voting intention was deduced.

The results look odd as 'others' has been awarded 9%.  Most other polls find others on around 15%.  At Sedgefiled, others were on 20%. At Southall where the voting mix is not as typical, others were on 10%.

Judging by the obvious bias in the most recent poll focused entirely on Cameron, not even asking anyone if they liked Cameron and the Conservative Party, it would not be unreasonable to deduce that ICM Guardian's recent polling has become blinded by the need to ramp up the pressure on Cameron.

The BBC has clearly been running the narrative about Cameron's trip to Rwanda being a wrong move.  His time spent in his Constituency beforehand visiting flood-affected people - two days - was not even reported.  The media bias in this country and the blatant attempt to unseat yet another Conservative leader by providing effective lies to suit, is downright pathetic.

If there 2 letters written to the 1922, one would be Bercow who is usually to the fore in these media coordinated games.  The other could be Ken Clarke, or another Europhile.  If the pro-European conspiracy cannot unseat Cameron this time, they will probably try again in a few months time.  If I was a Conservative eurosceptic doubting Cameron's strength of will to fight on my behalf, I would be feeling most encouraged by Cameron.  Not from what he's telling me himself so much, but from what the stealth enemies of Britain and our democracy are trying to do to Cameron.

July 25, 2007

ICM Guardian Polls Lack Credibility

Two by-elections which are a survey of 100,000 people showed Conservative support up a little since the GE last week, and yet one polling organisation ICM Guardian interviewing only 1000 people, and which drops Conservative support 10%, is given more prominence.

ICM have 'others' only on 10% up from 9% last week. Sedgefield had others on 20%. Other polls show consistently 15%. ICM lack credibility

Gordon Brown's Dull As Ditch Water

Many Cameron critics on Conservative Home want Conservatives out there attacking Gordon Brown every day.  Huntsman wants a full scale assault.

In the same way that it helps Cameron when people attack him, it gives Brown oxygen, energy, something to fight against. The one thing you need if you want to look like the man of the moment is someone to attack you. It makes you look powerful and significant to be attacked.

Brown loves a fight. It gives him a focus. Without a fight, he's rudderless. His 'moral compass' starts spinning all over the place.

If you allow him a clean slate, to show what he truly is, it is actually quite shocking. He is objectively even duller to listen to than anyone believed. Huntsman would help Brown by giving him a verbal war. Don't oblige him. He'll prove his overwhelming dullness much better all by himself.  All the time he was Chancellor, he was energised by his hatred of Blair.  Now he has no one to hate.  His cabinet meetings demonstrate the 100% sycophancy of his team, and their knowledge that it doesn't pay to displease the Gord.  He rules supreme.  He has everything he ever wanted, and God it's dull.

His programmes too are starting to match his personal dullness.  No stylish gambling surrounded by high class hookers.  It's cloth cap down the bookies and the national lottery only.  Drinking to be curtailed.  Parking to be made a nightmare.  His one claim to the voters' confidence is that he will be competent.  But we already know he's a one trick pony.  Money.  Billions of it.  From the taxpayer, which all gets wasted before it can do anything.  In ten years he doubled the size of the state, and halved the amount people get from it. 

We don't need to provide him with cover by attacking too hard.  Let Gordon Brown have the airwaves all to himself.  The public will soon be so bored they'll be crying out for someone with some life in them.  Even Ming Campbell has started to look interesting.  That's the measure of Brown's dullness.  The phrase 'dull as ditch water' sums him up.  Dullness is his primary defensive tactic.  This week, for example, if he can only make floods seem boring, then people will think about something else, and not the fact that it was him personally, Gordon Brown that cut the spending on flood defences despite all the warnings, and no one else.

Don't forget the quote - my enemy is my helper. It was never truer than for Gordon Brown. He cannot generate energy without an enemy to provide it. Deny him, Huntsman. Don't feed.  He'll drown is his own dullness much quicker if he we go quiet.  Cameron's playing him just right.