Labour election victory in 2015 looks a distant prospect, says pollster

[dipsydoodle]

Labour has a mountain to climb to win the next election outright, and is still failing to chalk up big enough leads on image or leadership to make it likely to secure an overall majority, according to polling which will be put to a Labour conference to be addressed this weekend by Ed Miliband.

The YouGov polling, commissioned by Progress, suggests the party is still seen as "nice" but incapable of taking tough decisions. Miliband's personal ratings have hardly improved over the past year.

In an article for Progress, the New Labour pressure group, the YouGov president, Peter Kellner, describes the polling as "profoundly troubling" for Labour, saying that despite the unpopularity of the government, Labour has uncomfortably small leads and has been unable to generate wide public enthusiasm.

He writes: "The central fact is that no successful opposition in the past 50 years has gone on to regain power with such a weak image and without achieving much bigger voting-intention leads at some point in the parliament."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/may/09/labour-election-victory-2015-distant-prospect

[non sociopath skin]

1. It does feel a bit like Labour has the same strategy as Newcastle United ...

.... don't try anything new or radical, make sure your play isn't too exciting and count on your rivals doing even worse than you in order to avoid relegation.



The Skin

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. My understanding is that when

Labour returned to power in 1997, they mostly kept Thatcher's policies and added some annoyances of their own. Sort of like our Democrats in 2008.

[LeftishBrit]

5. Not quite, but they didn't move on from Thatcher as much as they should

They were much more liberal on social issues than Thatcher; and while they were far too right-wing on economic issues, they at least did not take the Thatcherite attitudes - now revived under the current government - of treating poverty as a misdeed to be punished with more poverty, and of using unemployment as a weapon to control people.

However, on the economy, public services, and foreign policy, the Blairites were in many ways to the right of many pre-Thatcher 'postwar consensus' Tories.

[T_i_B]

7. We are in a strange situation....

....where Labour is relying on people to be repulsed by what the current lot are doing in office but equally, the Tories & Lib Dems are relying on people to be repulsed by what Labour did when they were in office.

The whole concept of offering voters something positive to vote for, rather then relying on fear of the others appears to be lost to the political class.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

3. I don't buy the argument

The electoral map gives some advantages to Labour. A 7-point in 2010 Tory plurality brought a Hung Parliament but any sort of Labour lead in 2015 would bring a majority, albeit a small one.

Ed Milliband does need to get his act together with policies that play to the public and not the newspapers. If he accepts and takes it for granted that the British media are going to be predominantly hostile no matter what then he can concentrate on building the necessary coalition of people to elect a Labour government.

[LeftishBrit]

4. Agree on all points.

I think that Labour may not win the sort of majority that they should, but provided that nothing too unexpected happens, and provided that the United Kingdom does not break up before the next election(!), I would expect them to win at least narrowly.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. Yes; UK Polling Report's swing calculator gives Labour a 92 seat majority for 39-31-10

They point out it's somewhat simplistic, but it's a starting point for predicting what would happen. With the rise of UKIP more likely to take Tory votes than others, it's arguably underestimating Labour prospects. 'A distant prospect' doesn't seem right; maybe "far from a done deal" is better?

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/

[fedsron2us]

8. Miliband's ruling out another referendum on EU membership is a huge mistake in IMHO

Last edited Sun May 12, 2013, 10:28 AM - Edit history (3)

To ordinary voters it is going to look suspiciously like he is ducking the issue. This is something the Tories at least have begun to realise they can no longer do. He also needs to face the fact that there are still plenty of potential 'unmodernised' labour voters out there like those who followed Peter Shore and Tony Benn in voting 'No' in 1975 and will likely vote the same way in any future poll

If the Labour party is in favour of Britain staying in the European project it ought to be prepared to argue the case to their core voters and to the wider public. I believe there are valid arguments for both staying in the EU and quitting the European project which need to be set out clearly before people so they realise that both choices offer benefits and costs which need to be weighed carefully . I am afraid that just avoiding the debate smacks of cowardice

Unfortunately, Miliband appears increasingly to be just another 'machine politician' looking endlessly for narrow electoral advantage rather than confronting the real political issues that face this country. In fact a bit like Cameron and Clegg really, a point I made in this item posted sometime ago

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=191&topic_id=30721&mesg_id=30721