Plan B Forum

UK Opposition Leader Miliband Reaches Historic Low in Polls



Britain’s Labour Party has received a fresh blow following weeks of infighting and leadership speculation after a poll published today showed a three-point lead for the Conservatives and reveal Ed Miliband as one of the most unpopular UK party leaders of all time.

The survey of voting intentions, carried out by Ipsos Mori for the Evening Standard, places the Tories on 32% compared to Labour’s 29%, just six months away from next year’s general election.

Only 13% of those polled said that they believed that Miliband was “ready to be prime minister”, an unprecedented low in Ipsos Mori polls. Today’s result surpasses even that of September 2003, when a mere 16% of respondents agreed that Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith was ready to lead the country.[less popular than that walking corpse, Duncan Smith? My, that is embarrassing...]

Miliband’s ratings have dropped by four points since this time last year, and his personal popularity is currently lower than Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg. [Wow, that's even more embarrassing ]

Dissatisfaction with Miliband was even shared by Labour Party supporters, 53% of whom said that he was not ready to lead, with only 35% in favour. Ipsos Mori said that the result constitutes the highest level of dissatisfaction ever recorded for any party leader within their own political camp in 20 years of polling history.

Ukip’s support is changing, and with it the contours of British politics



Whatever the result, this week’s byelection in Rochester and Strood will qualify for that over-used adjective, historic. If the Conservatives win, Ukip’s bubble could burst – or, at any rate, acquire a slow puncture. If, as seems more likely, Mark Reckless holds the seat under his new colours, then the metaphor changes from bubble to bandwagon, and continues to roll.

It’s a good time, then, to explore the Ukip phenomenon. As recently as March 2012 it had just 5% support and was stuck firmly in fourth place. Now it averages 16% and has easily supplanted the Liberal Democrats as Britain’s third party.

Much has been claimed about the source of its support: at one extreme, it is said to divide the right-of-centre vote and crucify the Conservatives. At the other extreme, its leader, Nigel Farage, claims it is now taking as many votes from Labour as from the Tories.

[there's a long section here in the article that goes into detail about the polling methodology that I'm skipping, but you can check it out yourself if you're so inclined : http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... bour-party]

As many as 60% of “early” Ukip supporters voted Conservative in 2010. The figure for more recent converts is just 36%, much the same as the voting public as a whole.

The proportion of Ukip voters coming from the Labour party has trebled from 7% to 23%. Politically, “recent” Ukip converts look much more like the electorate as a whole than “early” converts.

(To take a different route to the same conclusion, since the beginning of last year, the proportion of 2010 Conservatives switching to Ukip has risen from 14% to 20%, while the figures for the other two main parties are: Labour, up from 2% to 8%; Lib Dems 6% to 12%. With all the parties, the increase since January last year has been exactly the same: six percentage points.)

The age profile of more recent switchers is also much closer to that of the wider electorate. Ukip still underperforms among the under-40s, who supply 24% of its more recent converts, compared with 37% for the electorate as a whole – but that 24% is a marked increase on the 14% it was achieving when its support first started to climb two years ago. And whereas fully 51% of its initial surge came from people over 60, that figure is down to 31% among more recent converts, which is very close to the national average of 29%.

Linked to age, there has been a shift in the pattern of Ukip support by housing tenure. Early supporters were far more likely to own their homes outright, and far less likely to rent privately. This is what one would expect when you have more than three times as many supporters over 60 than under 40. As Ukip voters have become younger, so fewer of them are outright homeowners and more of them rent privately.

On the other hand, when it comes to social class, Ukip’s support has become less representative of the electorate as a whole. These days, 43% of Britain’s voters are working class. Ukip’s initial support was already tilted that way, with 51% working class. The figure for recent converts is much higher: 61%.

All this is consistent with European, local and byelection results this year. Ukip is now building support in traditional working-class Labour areas. Initially, Ukip was a far greater threat to the Tories, for it took nine votes from the Conservatives for every vote it took from Labour. Since early last year, for every nine votes it has taken from the Tories it has taken six from Labour.

Ed Miliband has sacked a Labour front-bencher after she was accused of holding working-class voters in "contempt" by appearing to mock a family's terrace home draped in England flags.




Labour was plunged into crisis on the day of a by-election in Rochester and Strood after Emily Thornberry, the shadow attorney general, tweeted an image of the home accompanied by the caption “image from #Rochester”.

Mrs Thornberry, who lives in a £3 million home in Islington, North London, told The Telegraph said that she thought that the image was “remarkable” because she had never seen a house “completely covered in flags before”.

Mr Miliband, who was reportedly "angrier than he has ever been", held two conversations with Mrs Thornberry before sacking her.

Mrs Thornberry comments were hugely damaging for Labour on a day which the party had hoped would draw attention to the woes of the Conservative Party at the hands of Ukip.

Labour was expected to win less than 10 per cent of the vote in Rochester and Strood, a seat it held as recently as 2010 before boundaries were changed.

Mrs Thornberry's tweet led to an immediate backlash from the public and even members of her own party, who accused her of being "derogatory and dismissive of people".

Her attempts to explain her comments only exacerbated the situation.

She told The Telegraph: “My point is that it’s a remarkable image of a house completely covered in flags. I grew up on a council estate and I have never seen a house completely covered in flags before. There’s three of them.”

She subsequently fuelled the anger by claiming that she had been the victim of a "prejudice" against people from Islington, where she is an MP.

Three hours later she issued an apology after a first conversation with Mr Miliband, urging people to "fly the flag for England".

Her apology, however, was not enough, and she was sacked after a second conversation with Mr Miliband.

"Ed and Emily had a second conversation," a Labour source said. "She thought it was the right thing to resign. Ed agreed."

In a statement released by the party, Mrs Thornberry said: “Earlier today I sent a tweet which has caused offence to some people.

“That was never my intention and I have apologised. However I will not let anything distract from Labour’s chance to win the coming general election. I have therefore tonight told Ed Miliband I will resign from the shadow cabinet.”

There was little sympathy for Mrs Thornberry from her own party. Chris Bryant, the Labour MP managing the party's Rochester campaign, told Sky News: "If someone came to my constituency and did that I would be absolutely spitting with fury."

The owner of the Strood house, Dave Ware, 36, a father of four who works in the motor trade, said the flags had been on his house since the World Cup.

Asked about how he felt about Mrs Thornberry’s tweet, he said: “She is a snob – what has she got, a three storey town house in Islington?”

Mr Ware who has lived in Rochester for 15 years said he was upset that his van’s licence plate had been put on the internet. He said he did not know there was a by-election, and would keep flying the flags.

A Labour spokesman initially said that he did not see the problem with the picture. Later she said: “I apologise for any offence caused by the three flag picture. People should fly the England flag with pride.”

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. ~ T.R.

bigskygal wrote:It didn't seem to me that she handed his ass to him, she just criticized but I didn't hear her offer any substantive suggestions for policy other than not liking his positions.

Myleene Angela Klass (born 6 April 1978) is an English singer, pianist, media personality and model, best known as a member of the now defunct pop band Hear'Say who released two studio albums and four singles, the first two of which reached number one on the UK singles chart. Klass, herself, released two solo classical crossover albums in 2003 and 2007.

Klass is now better known for being a presenter; she fronted the shows Popstar to Operastar between 2010 and 2011 on ITV and The One Show in 2007 on BBC One. In April 2012 her net worth was estimated at £11 million

Gob wrote:

Ed Miliband has sacked a Labour front-bencher after she was accused of holding working-class voters in "contempt" by appearing to mock a family's terrace home draped in England flags.

MajGenl.Meade wrote: Let's see - if a Republican candidate tweeted a picture of a home decorated with 3 Mexican flags would you perhaps think the motive was not entirely pure? Would you believe the explanation that he'd just "never seen a house covered in Mexican flags before" and thought it was just a great thing for other republican voters to share?

Crackpot wrote:How about a house covered in "Don't Tread On Me" or Confederate flags (or both)?