He may be a Republican pollster, but Frank Luntz is doing no favours for the Conservatives in this Newsnight report on how the party leaders are viewed. “We’ve gathered floating voters,” he begins. “Left-leaning floating voters”. And aren’t they.
With Channel 4’s poll of marginal seats the other day showing the Conservatives heading for a 150 seat majority, and the Lib Dems currently polling at just 12%, Newsnight managed to find a group of floating voters who were going to vote for Clegg practically to a man.
“You’re frustrated with your prime minister, but I don’t think you’re running to the Conservatives either,” observered Luntz. Perhaps not, but practically everyone else is. “There’s no outcry for him (Gordon) to leave,” he observed. Really? But this is Beeb land, so my advice to the Lib Dems? Go back to your constituencies and prepare for Government.
I know Beebland exists, but remain unclear why I have to pay so much for some to indulge in the fantasy.
Such clear, often ‘Aunty’s own petard hoisting’ facts are hard to credit when placed together in such a way.
Latest from Beebland:
A 17 year-old, his Mum (wonder how far down a BBC researcher’s address book she is) and his shrink are interviewed live on Breakfast TV on his mobile addiction*.
ps: There is a, um, ‘reality’ show attached. Ground breaking stuff.
I can’t really see the objection here, Hugh.
Lunz is a real professional and knows what he is talking about.
I’d say he was doing Conservatives a major favour by getting us to focus on what key swing voters in the northern cities like Manchester are saying.
The big poll gains for Cameron could be a bit too concentrated in seats the party was set to take anyway.
“The big poll gains for Cameron could be a bit too concentrated in seats the party was set to take anyway.”
The channel 4 poll would suggest not.
PaulS – quite. I saw the piece. Not evidence of BBC bias.
Don’t panic, the longer the BBC and other left leaning news media help Gordon Brown to stay in his job the greater will be the final reckoning.
The Tories simply need to win back the seats they lost in 97, many of those in the SE.
What the BBC would like to see is the Lib Dems ‘bigged up’ so that people can be convinced to vote for them and not the Tories. The BBC then hopes that at the next election nu Liebour and the Libs form a Government together.
The problem for the BBC is that Clegg is a joke, so they wheel out Vince Cable at every opportunity.
Oh and anyone else notice the slip from Dimbledore on Newsnight when her referred to Charlie Kennedy as the leader of theLib Dems?
You think the BBC might have edited that bit out or re-done it?
Perhaps the BBC will simply pretend Clegg doesn’t exist?
Soryy I menat QT not Newsnight (one lfet wing pile of crap is very much like the other these days)
“Go back to your constituencies and prepare for oblivion”.
Parallel
politicalbetting.com has picked up on this story
http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2008/09/20/are-we-any-the-wiser-now/
The LibDhims are now on 12%, which is now lower than ‘others’. Would any pollster be willing to tell who those ‘others’ may be …. be …. be….BNP?
http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/view/31783/conservatives_surpass_50_mark_in_britain/
meanwhile on “any answers” we have as a first caller an idiot socialists STILL BLAMING THATCHER for the current credit crisis..
i mean – WHAT THE F**K are these people on?
Ahead of the conference there is a concentrated effort to convince the licence payers that labour and Borwn are an overwhelmingly popular and politically masterful government adn the Conswervatives are child eating universally loathed monsters.
Going to manchester and choosing a left leaning audience and concluding that the Conservatives are a beaten docket. It is akin to “have you stopped beating your wife?”
We will be getting all sorts of biased contrived nonsesne like this for weeks.
It isn’t just propaganda, it’s BBC propaganda.
Oh, and tractor production is up again.
just an observation… it is interesting that Hugh Hewitt in the states allows callers on 6 days a week, for each of his 3 hour shows. Same with Denis Prager.
And Michael Medved. And Rush.
Heck, even Air America on the Dem side does it…
meanwhile , over here on “public” BBC radio, we get “Any Answers” once a week, for half an hour.
Oh, and tractor production is up again.
nrg | 20.09.08 – 2:15 pm
JK Rowling writes for children
Rowling gives money to Labour because she likes what they are doing for kids.
ergo – Labour is good for children.
therefore Tories like to eat children and are nasty child hating monsters.
gotta hand it to the Labour PR machine – they pulled a corker there. finally…
the Tories really do need to wake up a bit – Labour isnt going down with a fight. they should take some hints from the Repubs across the pond – which is “attack, attack, attack”…
How sad that the Prime Minister of Great Britain feels compelled to acknowledge a celebrity endorsement. How sad that enough bosses at the National Broadcaster are so blinded by their own emotions that they don’t even realize they’re giving far more air time for a political donation than is appropriate. It’s news because it’s a celebrity, but it’s big news because it’s a celebrity endorsing their beloved Labour, which must be saved at all costs.
if some celeb gave £1 million to the conservative party, would that get even half the coverage?
nah. thought not.
What a waste of money. JK is evidently not the philanthropist I thought she was. Would not starving children in Africa or somewhere benefit far more from this donation than a poxy political party?
archduke:
if some celeb gave £1 million to the conservative party, would that get even half the coverage?
nah. thought not.
——————–
Au contraire – it would get massive coverage, and all of it negative. To be followed by all sorts of spun stories about the nefarious means by which the donor got the money in the first place. Recall the hoohah surrounding Lord ashcroft’s donations to the Tories a few years ago.
How long before they can decently announce LADY J K Rowling do you think?
I don’t know to what extent there was ‘bias’ – but have a vote after a clip showing Cameron saying not very much and one of Clegg lying about how the Fibs would cut taxes and then say ‘who would you vote for?’ and it’s kind of obvious people are going to vote for the tax-cutter.
FWIW fiddled audience or otherwise – ‘we’re going to cut taxes’ is the message people want to hear.
They could not give a stuff about putting up taxes for ‘better services’ nor ‘sharing the proceeds of growth’ – they want taxes down.
Full stop.
its saying something, when Al Jazeera’s reporting becomes more fair and balanced than the BBCs
compare and contrast these reports on the recent suicide attack on the Marriot Hotel in Islamabad:
bbc:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7627135.stm
al jazeera:
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2008/09/200892014179932320.html
sky news are now showing the latest Gordon Brown PR spin – theres Gordon with lots of children – which feeds into the JK Rowling stuff.
so blatant. so desparate.
on other news – the pakistani police are saying that the Mariott Hotel may well collapse because of the bombing.
Pakistan’s 9/11?
bear in mind that the 40 dead reported , were *outside* of the hotel. they have no idea how many are inside.
Nailster:
In answer to your question about Ms Rowling, the usual period between a donation and an honour for a wealthy author appears to be around two to three years.
When billionaire Christopher Ondaatje joined the Labour Party in 2001, he gave them two million pounds and was knighted in 2003.
Coincidence? Of course.
Probably a shorter time than waiting for a hip operation on the NHS.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/1100905.stm
http://www.ondaatje.com/
“meanwhile , over here on “public” BBC radio, we get “Any Answers” once a week, for half an hour.
archduke | 20.09.08 – 2:28 pm | #”
They should rename it Inane Answers.
Re; The Pakistani Bombing. Has the BBC mentioned that a Fundamentalist Christian sect may be responsible, based in training camps in the inaccessible mountainous Alps, funded by the Vatican?
That’s always my first thought whenever a mindless bomb kills Muslims.
a bit of background reading on credit crisis – useful for next time you hear some brain dead socialist saying that its the “end of capitalism”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act
PaulS, whitewineliberal, joe bonanno: I don’t really understand why you have trouble seeing that this report was impossibly slanted against Cameron. Fair enough to do a focus group with floating voters; and fair enough, I suppose, to pick Manchester – a tough one for the Conservatives. But why only left-leaning floating voters? By definition floating voters aren’t staunch conservatives, after all, and need to be persuaded. And why then further add to the challenge by ensuring of those left-leaning voters there is a specific section (and we weren’t told how large) of the audience who profess to remain Labour suporters? Cameron has to – and is according to the Channel 4 poll and others – convince many who haven’t voted Conservative since 92, but he’s not going to persuade everyone. Wigan’s been Labour for more than 30 years – he can win a stonking majority without it. The audience here seemed to be picked almost entirely from those Cameron has no hope of persuading. The result is that while Cameron’s personal approval ratings have recently been at record highs among floating voters, we get a programme that suggest he’s making barely any headway. And does anyone believe that if there was an election tomorrow Clegg would pick up three quarters of the floating voters? If this panel (which indeed “was no scientific”) bears absolutely no relation to the population at large or even floating voters in general, what was the point?
Jack, it was a Jewish conspiracy.