For Want of A Debate...

[stodge]

Monday December 21st 2009

The UK will witness its first ever televised election debate following agreement between broadcasters and the leaders of the three main political parties, it has been announced.

The two-hour debate, which will take place one week before Polling Day, will feature the leaders of the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties while separate debates held in Scotland and Wales will include the Scottish and Welsh Nationalist Parties repsectively.

The election debate, agreed after months of negotiation, will be shown simultaenously on the BBC, ITV and Sky News as well as BBC World as well as being offered to principal foreign news outlets such as CNN and Al-Jazeera.

In addition to the debate, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg will each be interviewed for 45 minutes with a further 45 minutes allocated to questions from an invited audience. Alex Salmond and Ieuan Wyn Jones will face similar interviews and questions though these will be shown only in Scotland and Wales respectively. The three main party leaders will be interviewed on successive nights in the week before the debate - dates of the interviews with the Scottish and Welsh Nationalist leaders are yet to be confirmed. Leaders from the Green Party, UKIP and the BNP will not be interviewed and nor will they take part in the televised debate.

The format of the debate is yet to be confirmed but sources close to the negotiations suggest each leader will be allowed a brief introduction before 20 minutes on the economy, domestic and foreign policy matters respectively and a final 30 minutes of questions on any topic from the studio audience.

It has been announced that David Dimbleby, Alastair Stewart and Adam Boulton will be the debate moderators with each leading a section of the debate. Questions will be invited in advance on-line. It has also been agreed that there will be no audience reaction during the debate. The parties agreed that excessive cheering or jeering would undermine the debate itself.

The General Election is widely expected to be held on May 5th next year.

 

[Blackadder mk 2]

For some reason I think the POD is no Cleggmania so the Tories may gain a majority?

 

[Marix]

Cleggmania happened to early, the Lib Dem's actually lost seat's at the election.

 

[The Red]

Cleggmania happened to early, the Lib Dem's actually lost seat's at the election.

Considering that the election was much closer than anyone expected and that the two horse race mentality returned for the first time since 1992 Cleggmania probbaly helped the Lib Dems lose as little seats as they did. It could have been much worse.

 

[Meadow]

Considering that the election was much closer than anyone expected and that the two horse race mentality returned for the first time since 1992 Cleggmania probbaly helped the Lib Dems lose as little seats as they did. It could have been much worse.

Possibly, but the interesting thing is the polls taken on April 6 indicated almost exactly (and I really do mean almost bang on exactly) the same result as the one we actually got on May 6. The campaign, debates or no debates, did little to change anyone's minds - it just changed what people were talking about during the campaign itself.

 

[stodge]

The Campaign Starts...

Monday April 12th 2010

The first full day of campaigning got under way this morning with David Cameron visiting Redditch, the seat of former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, and considered a live Conservative target. Cameron launched a savage attack on the Government's economic policy lambasting Gordon Brown for his involvement in the economic crisis and accusing him of driving the country to the edge of bankruptcy.

The Prime Minister was in Kirkcaldy where a large crowd cheered him as he visited a local factory.

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg was in Sutton and claimed an overnight boost in his party's poll ratings was an indication that this election was "all to play for".

Three opinion polls overnight had put the Liberal Democrats on 20%, their highest rating for several months. The Conservatives held on average a 7% lead over Labour, polling between 37-39% with Labour on 31-33%.

The dates of the set-piece interviews with the three main party leaders were confirmed today. Nick Clegg will be interviewed on Tuesday April 20th, David Cameron on Wednesday April 21st and Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Thursday April 22nd. All three interviews will be broadcast simultaenously on BBC1, ITV1 and Sky News from 8pm. Interviews with Alex Salmond and Ieuan Wyn Jones will be held on Monday April 19th and broadcast to Scotland and Wales respectively.

In a related development, the High Court threw out a challenge from Nigel Farage, leader of UKIP, claiming other parties should be represented in the main election debate on April 29th.

 

[stodge]

Campaign Update...

Sunday April 25th 2010

A campaign that has been overshadowed (quite literally) by events over Iceland has reached the start of its third full week with the main setpiece election debate scheduled for Thursday evening assuming an even greater significance than had seemed likely a fortnight ago.

The first week of the campaign, all sides agree, was shrouded in the fog of volcanic ash and dust which erupted (quite literally) from Iceland on April 14th. Silent skies and news footage of stranded British tourists abroad and foreign nationals packing closed British airports dominated the news to the exclusion of the election campaign.

There were even calls for the election to be postponed and for postal voting deadlines to be extended. The Government's response, initially disorganised and chaotic, began to become more coherent with time but it was hard to blame Gordon Brown for an ash cloud and Governments across the Northern Hemisphere have struggled to deal with the situation.

In the end, it has been the airlines themselves which have established, through test flights, the relative safety of the ash cloud and while fears of a second larger eruption of another Iceland volcano remain, the immediate crisis has eased, the planes are flying and people slowly getting to where they needed to go.

Last week saw the set piece interviews for the three main party leaders. Nick Clegg was confident and affable though critics pointed to policy inconsistencies and lack of coherence. Mr Clegg was particularly good at dealing with audience questions though accusations of being sanctimonious and smug from both Labour and Conservative officials suggest an angle of attack is being devised.

David Cameron was less assured in his set piece interview and ran into trouble trying to explain the detail behind the "Big Society" theme. However, in the audience question and answer session, he proved surprisingly adept at identifying with the problems of ordinary people.

Gordon Brown is Cameron and Clegg in reverse - the set piece interview, especially on the economy, is his forte and he performed robustly but the audience session uncovered his natural reticence and lack of confidence when dealing with the less structured session.

None of the three leaders made a serious gaffe and all had clearly been well coached and prepared. The polls indicate Nick Clegg has made a small gain from the week's but not an advance of significance.

It is also clear that this Thursday's debate will be critical - 68% of those questionned in an IPSOS/MORI poll claimed they would be watching it and a staggering 41% claimed they would decide how they would vote on the basis of the debate.

Although the polling numbers have changed little in the past fortnight, all polling organisations are reporting unusually high levels of uncertainty and volatility this close to an election when usually 80% of voters have decided how they will vote by now.

Today's polls show little change from the midweek numbers - ICM in The Observer puts the Conservatives on 36%, Labour on 30% and the Liberal Democrats on 22% while ComRes in The Independent have the Tories on 35%, Labour on 32% and the Liberal Democrats on 22%. YouGov is again the best pollster for the Conservatives showing them on 38% with Labour on 30% and the Liberal Democrats on 20%.

 

[Talkie Toaster]

So instead of three seperate debates on different issues, one big debate shown on all channels a week before Polling day? This will have a massive impact. I'm guessing higher Lib Dem support will be the most important. Assuming a similar performance and that the phenomenon of Cleggmania still occurs, the election would be held at its height.

 

[stodge]

Well Done...

Yep, that's where I'm going with this, TT. One debate one week before the election rather than three and the former was an option considered by the parties and broadcasters.

 

[Meadow]

I see... I hope this doesn't turn into a Cleggwank though. As the chaps over at UK Polling Report (I think it was) worked out, polls during election campaigns rarely mean anything other than 'who do you think is doing well from this campaign'. In other words Cleggmania never really existed, nor was going to translate into real votes. See: what actually happened.

Very excited to see how this changes (if at all) the electoral map.

 

[stodge]

Results...

So that's 450 seats for the Lib Dems, 120 for Labour and 50 for the Conservatives......

What do you mean, that's a Cleggwank ?

Surely not, entirely realistic and plausible outcome

To be honest, a slightly improved result from OTL is going to cause Nick Clegg MORE problems, not fewer, as the upcoming updates will demonstrate.

 

[abc123]

Sunday April 25th 2010

A campaign that has been overshadowed (quite literally) by events over Iceland has reached the start of its third full week with the main setpiece election debate scheduled for Thursday evening assuming an even greater significance than had seemed likely a fortnight ago.

The first week of the campaign, all sides agree, was shrouded in the fog of volcanic ash and dust which erupted (quite literally) from Iceland on April 14th. Silent skies and news footage of stranded British tourists abroad and foreign nationals packing closed British airports dominated the news to the exclusion of the election campaign.

There were even calls for the election to be postponed and for postal voting deadlines to be extended. The Government's response, initially disorganised and chaotic, began to become more coherent with time but it was hard to blame Gordon Brown for an ash cloud and Governments across the Northern Hemisphere have struggled to deal with the situation.

In the end, it has been the airlines themselves which have established, through test flights, the relative safety of the ash cloud and while fears of a second larger eruption of another Iceland volcano remain, the immediate crisis has eased, the planes are flying and people slowly getting to where they needed to go.

Last week saw the set piece interviews for the three main party leaders. Nick Clegg was confident and affable though critics pointed to policy inconsistencies and lack of coherence. Mr Clegg was particularly good at dealing with audience questions though accusations of being sanctimonious and smug from both Labour and Conservative officials suggest an angle of attack is being devised.

David Cameron was less assured in his set piece interview and ran into trouble trying to explain the detail behind the "Big Society" theme. However, in the audience question and answer session, he proved surprisingly adept at identifying with the problems of ordinary people.

Gordon Brown is Cameron and Clegg in reverse - the set piece interview, especially on the economy, is his forte and he performed robustly but the audience session uncovered his natural reticence and lack of confidence when dealing with the less structured session.

None of the three leaders made a serious gaffe and all had clearly been well coached and prepared. The polls indicate Nick Clegg has made a small gain from the week's but not an advance of significance.

It is also clear that this Thursday's debate will be critical - 68% of those questionned in an IPSOS/MORI poll claimed they would be watching it and a staggering 41% claimed they would decide how they would vote on the basis of the debate.

Although the polling numbers have changed little in the past fortnight, all polling organisations are reporting unusually high levels of uncertainty and volatility this close to an election when usually 80% of voters have decided how they will vote by now.

Today's polls show little change from the midweek numbers - ICM in The Observer puts the Conservatives on 36%, Labour on 30% and the Liberal Democrats on 22% while ComRes in The Independent have the Tories on 35%, Labour on 32% and the Liberal Democrats on 22%. YouGov is again the best pollster for the Conservatives showing them on 38% with Labour on 30% and the Liberal Democrats on 20%.

I'm not a expert in british contemporary politics, so can someone explain to me what is/was LIB DEM election agenda in last elections?
Or, why shoud I, as a awerage voter, should vote for them and not for Conservatives or Labour?

 

[Meadow]

I'm not a expert in british contemporary politics, so can someone explain to me what is/was LIB DEM election agenda in last elections?
Or, why shoud I, as a awerage voter, should vote for them and not for Conservatives or Labour?

They were not the Conservatives (the pricks no-one likes and will make the rich richer while the poor get poorer) or Labour (the pricks who got us into this economic mess, as well as the war in Iraq).

That's what the average voter felt when they cast their ballot for the Lib Dems - there were many more rational reasons - voting for their policy to scrap tuition fees, Trident, stop a rise in VAT etc - but these, much like the main core of their platform - 'we are not the Tories or Labour' - have been demolished by the Coalition (which sent a message to the average voter of 'we are the Tories').

@stodge - a very valid point, but all I meant by 'Cleggwank' is that I'm really not sure how plausible it is for Clegg to get many more seats than they did in OTL at all - but you have a whole election campaign to write about, fair enough, I'm sure you'll make it seem realistic I'd be very intrigued if you had a Lib-Lab pact thanks to the Lib Dems snatching a few key seats from the Tory gains column - Clegg's condition that Brown resigns goes through, do we end up with David Miliband in Number 10 after an emergency 2-week leadership contest, with Nick as DPM as usual? I don't think Labour would be comfortable with that at all, though of course if it was a one candidate affair (the entire PLP rallies behind him a la Brown), David Miliband could end up as PM without the necessity for a drawn-out contest. A long Labour leadership contest to decide the next Prime Minister after a chaotic hung parliament election would not be particularly popular - dare I say it, would Clegg suggest himself as PM because of it? God knows if that's what he secretly wanted when he said Brown had to go if a Lib-Lab Coalition was going to work.

 

[stodge]

Responses...

Thanks for the comments, Meadow. I think a lot depends on WHERE the extra LD seats come from. There are certainly two or three dozen seats which they weren't far off winning or were stopped winning by a rising Conservative performance so it's a mixed bag.

I'm less interested in the positive implications for the LDs then the negative implications for the Conservative and Labour parties. We know for instance the Conservative campaign had a huge internal crisis after the first debate. Imagine that on the weekend before the election and you begin to see where I might be going...

I might put up the next update in a couple of hours.

 

[Meadow]

Ooh, that's very exciting. I also like the title: 'For Want Of A Debate...' harks back, deliberately I'm sure, to 'For want of a nail, the battle was lost' etc - but what was lost here? And by whom? I'd be willing to wager that dear David Cameron, so in favour of the debates, might be cursing himself and saying this under his breath in Parliament's bar for years to come:

'For want of a debate, the election was lost...'

 

[stodge]

Debating Days...

Extract From "Fall of the Blue House - the Conservative Campaign of 2010" by Lee Pritchard Published London September 2010

The debate was of course a nightmare. We could see how bad it was going from CCHQ and frantic messages were being texted to David's people at the BBC Studio but what could THEY do ?

I will go to my grave not knowing why David was so flat that evening - perhaps the campaign had tired him more than he knew. He was professional enough to blame himself. We had prepared - God knows, we had, ever since Christmas 2009 when the details had been hammered out. One debate, a sparkling performance - knock out Brown and nullify Clegg. We had rehearsed, prepared, but to see it all unravel before our eyes...

Clegg was his usual sanctimonious, smug self and said little or nothing but the audience lapped it up. We found it later he had watched Slick Willy's debates and decided that looking straight at the camera, moving off the lectern would work. We could see the Luntz ratings spike from the first sentence he said and all we wanted from David was a slapdown, a rebuttal, but there was nothing. He looked like a rabbit caught in the sodding headlights.

Brown was well, just Brown. He probably couldn't believe what was happening any more than we could. I bet he hadn't worked out how the "Clegg Effect" as the papers would call it, would wreck his vote either.

The hours after the debate were pretty awful - the post-debate polls giving it hook, line and sinker to Clegg were bad enough as was the post-debate analysis. The bloody Beeb were lapping it up - Paxman and Crick took turns to stick the knife in and eulogise Clegg but the man had said nothing, nothing !!

The next day was when the brown and smelly stuff really hit the fan. Andy Coulson and George Osborne had the most enormous bust-up in front of the senior staffers and everyone from Michael Heseltine to Norman Bloody Tebbitt wanted in on the action.

In the evening, one of our contacts at the Mail twittered the BPIX poll numbers - we could hardly believe it. Then, two hours later, YouGov told us their figures - absolutely dire. The lights burned all night as we tried to figure a way to stop or even slow down the Lib Dem bandwagon.

Saturday was when we should have been preparing for the final push - now it seemed all our anti-Brown, anti-Labour posters, leaflets and press stuff was useless. We cobbled together a line attacking the Libs on immigration and Europe but even the friendly press were ringing up and asking us in desperation what we could do.

The polls for the Sunday newspapers were as bad as we thought and the tweets during the day had confirmed. The blogsphere was on fire and by Sunday evening we wonks were wandering round Millbank Tower just as the passengers on the Titanic must have done when they realised what had happened

 

[Meadow]

Looks like the Lib Dems will make real gains off the Tories, and a Lib-Lab pact is going to kick in. I think that's going to be almost as big a moral nightmare for Clegg as the current state of affairs is - but potentially an even bigger practical nightmare.

David Miliband for PM? Or will Clegg really push for himself to take Number 10 over 'just while it's all worked out'? Megalomaniac that he is, I wouldn't be surprised.

 

[stodge]

The Telegraph

Monday May 2nd 2010

It's Not Too Late to Win This Election, Mr Cameron

It has been a torrid 72 hours for the Conservative Party and its leader, Mr David Cameron. As even his staunchest allies would admit privately, Mr Cameron was disappointing in last Thursday's debate. He was lacklustre and got into unnecessary problems when trying to outline and define the "Big Society", a goal which has eluded many even among Mr Cameron's friends.

Mr Nick Clegg, Leader of the Liberal Democrats, has universally been hailed as the "winner" of the debate but this paper struggles to see on what policy basis that should be so. Mr Clegg was affable, charming and personable as he has shown in the past but wholly insubstantial. It was regrettable that while Mr Clegg was allowed to sound authoritative and populist on issues such as electoral reform (which we oppose) and taking the poorest out of income tax (which we support), he was not questionned on policies such as immigration and Europe on which the Liberal Democrats are clearly on the wrong side of public opinion.

In addition, while it was encouraging to hear Mr Clegg's trenchant criticism of the Government under Mr Gordon Brown, there is little doubt many in his party, such as Mr Simon Hughes, would be much more willing to support or prop up a minority Labour Government than a minority Conservative administration and for all his emphasis on supporting the party with the larger vote share in the event of a Hung Parliament, there remains more than a nagging doubt that his party, as a whole, would be far happier with a Labour Prime Minister than a Conservative one.

It is this message along with challenging questionning of Liberal Democrat policies that provide Mr Cameron with his last opportunity to achieve an election victory and a working majority. It seems evident that despite the weekend surge in support for the Liberal Democrats (which has come as much from Labour supporters as it has from Conservatives) there is considerbale volatility and indecision in the electorater which needs to be harnassed.

Rumours of internal dissent within the Conservative election campaign have been unhelpful at best - the Party needs urgently to unite and attack the Liberal Democrats. This paper believes the Liberal Democrat support can be arrested and turned in favour of the Conservatives even at this late stage.

If it cannot, few in the Party will understand how and why, after thirteen years of a Labour Government and in the midst of recession, the Conservative Party was not able to win a thumping majority .

From "The Daily Telegraph" Opinion Column

 

[Meadow]

Hung Parliament, Lib-Lab Coalition. There, I've called it. The only question now is... DM4PM?

Very well written update, you capture the feel of the Telegraph very well.

 

[stodge]

Elect and Perspire - Part 1

(OOC: With apologies to Protect & Survive)

Friday May 6th 12.05am - somewhere in England

The Activist looked around the throng of bustling, animated faces. She was tired beyond words having been awake at 5.30am that day - sorry, the previous day - and just wanted it to be over, to get back home, to her husband, children and the enormous pile of washing.

Her husband had voted - he had said hello as he walked into the Polling Station where she had been doing her third stint of telling. It had been steady in the afternoon but had picked up appreciably with the evening and people coming home from work. Though she had finished at 9pm, her friend Emily had said there had been queues right up to 10pm at one station and some in the crowd had got angry when the station had been closed.

The Activist had no sympathy - they'd had 13 hours to vote and of course could have voted by post - why did they leave it to the last minute ? They probably weren't ours, anyway, she smiled.

She looked over and saw Geoff and Mary - Mary waved but Geoff stood impassive. This worried the Activist - Geoff and Mary were councillors and had won in the 2008 landslide when they had taken control of the District Council - that was a night, her first real sense of what it was like to be on the winning side. Geoff had been all smiles and gave her a kiss but it was Mary, who had got her into the party, when she said she was going to stand and asked for her help. She hadn't been an Activist then but revelled in helping her friend to victory and others too.

Geoff still looked well, anxious. Mary had once told her that Geoff had barely said a word on the night of the 2005 election and for the first time, the Activist began to wonder....

No, it had gone well on the doorstep and out delivering and even today speaking to people at the Polling Station. Everyone was friendly and polite and had wished the Candidate well but, as Geoff had once told her, the British are adept at being charming when sticking a knife into your guts.

In the distance, she saw the Candidate with Mr Foster, his Agent from party HQ. Mr Foster had spoken to all the Activists in March - a kind of pep talk if you like about election law and irregularities to spot and things like that. He rarely strayed far from the Candidate. They were pointing at the bundles growing at the far table - what could they see ?

The Activist wondered - there had been rumours, the exit poll had been bad though perhaps not as bad as some of the polls on Monday or Tuesday had been expecting. In any case, they didn't need a big swing to take the seat - the District and Borough seats had been won on a 20% swing, Geoff had told her, more than enough to take the seat.

And yet, as she had looked at the counters, there seemed a lot that hadn't voted for the Candidate. Some had voted for the sitting MP - a waste of space if there ever was one - but some had voted for the tall willowy lady who she could see in the corner opposite the Candidate. Mary had said that after last Thursday's debate, she had been told the willowy lady was getting 100 calls a day from new volunteers. The Activist recalled seeing a couple of leaflets but no one with any sense was going for vote for an unknown though she had to admit Nick Clegg had looked good and talked well without saying anything last Thursday.

The Activist moved surreptiously across the sports hall, past the Counting Agents and the Returning Office staff, nearer the bundles. She became aware of Geoff standing next to her:

"Not looking good, is it ?" he said quietly.....