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Sunday 29 March 2015

Campaign Starts - Tories Panic

Don’t debate Mil The Younger directly, they said. Make sure you keep him away from allowing the viewers to make a direct comparison, they said. Bank on Kay Burley giving you the easier ride, they said. Just put your faith in Creepy Uncle Rupe’s obedient attack doggies and the inmates of Northcliffe House, they said. Now a post-Paxo YouGov poll shows Labour opening up a four point lead. That went well, then.
That looks like a favourable poll over there! Jolly good sheow!

The weekend has gone no better for The Blue Team: Young Dave, so often urged by the right-leaning part of the Fourth Estate to tell voters about all his jolly good achievement, did nothing of the sort yesterday, resorting to calling Labour a “bunch of hypocritical, holier-than-thou, hopeless, sneering socialists” and confirming “Some might say: ‘Don’t make this personal’, but when it comes to who’s prime minister, the personal is national”.

That means it’s going to continue to be about personal abuse - and the strange assertion that “Miliband’s Labour party isn’t about liberating working people; it’s about telling you what to do. The same old condescending, bossy, interfering, we-know-best attitude of the Hampstead socialist down the ages”. Miliband lives in Primrose Hill, which is not Hampstead, but hey ho. It’s cut’n’paste smear time.

Today has not improved matters, with Iain Duncan Cough being dispatched to appear before the host’s inquisition on The Andy Marr Show (tm), only to get entangled in questions about when Cameron might step down during the next Parliament. By the end of the interview, Duncan Cough had been reduced to rambling in order to bat out time. Then he got beaten up by Joan Bakewell on the sofa afterwards.

All this matters because, at the start of the campaign, Labour activists are the ones with a smile on their faces and a spring in their step. The Tories are hamstrung by their pals in the media, who are making the campaign one of personal abuse against Miliband, and the spivvery of Grant Shapps. When the Labour leader turns out not to be as useless as their papers told them, the swing voters have begun to move in his favour.

The Sun’s non-bullying political editor Tom Newton Dunn faces the prospect of failing to deliver his proprietor’s preferred outcome for the first time in forty years. The Daily Mail’s odious Quentin Letts (let’s not) faces being exposed for seriously misleading his readers on a daily basis. And the Times’ Tim Montgomerie faces being reminded that his general cluelessness hasn’t changed since he called Phonehackgate wrong.

The question has to be put: if this is the level of panic at a single poll, what happens if the numbers continue in the same vein, or even get worse? Was bringing Lynton Crosby on board wise, given the last Tory General Election campaign he masterminded was in 2005, when they lost, despite Tone being vulnerable on Iraq? If the press can’t move the polls, and Miliband’s TV appearances remain popular, what do the Tories do?

We the people decide this election. We are not fools. This may sink in. Eventually.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Yeaterday evening Steve Nolan was on 5 live with a phone in about Camerons latest good idea, 7 day NHS.

Despite it being early Saturday evening, prime TV and evening meal time there were callers and not many backed what Cameron was basing his policy on.

Some patients called in and some senior NHS staff reminding listeners there already is a 7 day NHS, the 'more people die at weekends' is a red herring as there aren't routine ops at weekends, most are emergencies and emergency often leads to death, whether it be Monday or Saturday.

The Top down reorganisation which has happened is hated by most in the NHS. When you consider how many staff they employ, if you can't get them onside winning an election isn't easy. Same goes for teaching where Gove quickly became the most hated Education secretary in decades.

IDS won't have won many votes either.

It is recognised that parties generally do well early on as their best political minds are given the prime jobs.

As time goes by the best drop away and the untested reserves are brought in, the problem with this Govt is many of the best weren't good enough to be reserves so we are now with the dregs.