What a weekend

Christ, you got away for a weekend without having access to the internet and all hell breaks loose!!

Right, where to start…

I awoke on Saturday morning to four texts messages from both friends and journos the jist of which were “Wendy is quitting today.”

My initial thoughts were that of confusion. Why now? I mean, I know the whole suspension thing will hang over her until September but big deal she’s been through worse already in her fairly lousy 9 months as Scottish Labour. To be honest, I also thought she was too arrogant to go but alas, it seems she was not.

So I tuned into her press conference expecting a speech full of grace and humility. Who was I kidding? She blamed everyone but herself for her downfall even ignoring the fact that her campaign team sought money – illegally – for a leadership coronation. How was the money spent? Mini sausage rolls and quiche?!

One Labour source couldn’t hide his glee stating “she was never up to the job” and “it’s ‘buy one get one free’ as it finishes Jackie Baillie as a player!” whilst another source I’m not naming, when asked if it ended Baillie as a player, responded “Fuck, I hope so.” Seems the end is nigh for Wendy and her little group so I guess that includes people like Whitton as well.

SNP Tactical voting has a post here on the runners and riders but leaves out one suggestion muted to me by a Tory MSP..

Foulkes 4 Leader…. I’ll leave Kezia to respond to that…

That’s right, the Lothians Lord himself. Not content with asking parliamentary questions that reveal the SNP spend less on special advisers than Labour and the Lib Dems did or finding out that police numbers will actually go up this year, could the Baron throw his hat into the ring?

What about some of the young turks within Labour. Err….well…. there’s only really one, John Park MSP. I think he’d be a cracking deputy leader and could run a Jon Cruddas-esque campaign promising to reengage with the grass roots…just a thought.

Ultimately though, it seems that the runners and riders are Andy Kerr, Cathy Jamieson, Iain Grey..I mean Gray, and Margaret Curran.

My pick: Andy Kerr as I think he is the only one that could take the battle to Salmond.

Cameron is the mutts nuts but what sort of mutt?

While some bloggers are trying to wind me up by writing posts about Tories that I don’t even know I thought I would focus on the bread and butter issues in politics at the moment.

Namely, the types of dog people associate each of the National party leaders with. Apparently, many regard Chris Clegg as being most like a Chihuahua (I do love words that are spelt nothing like how they sound) whilst Gordon Brown is a St Bernard (same as the year before) whilst Prime Minister-elect David Cameron has gone from being compared to a Poodle a year ago to being a Labrador now.

There is more good news within the BPIX poll, which interviewed over 2000 people for the poll – more than some real polsters, as the poll suggests that people would rather sit next to David Cameron or Chris Clegg than Gordon Brown at a dinner party.

For those that don’t believe these stats to be important (how could you not?) the poll also (rather boringly) asked about voting intentions as well with 49% supporting the Conservatives, 26% supporting Labour and just 14% supporting the Liberal Democrats basically in line with most polls.

For this story, I doff my hat to the excellent Two Doctors blog. Here is the link to the story on the Beeb.

Another cracking YouGov poll

It’s been a fair few years since opinion polls have been as readily welcomed by Tories as the recent series have been and today’s in the Daily Telegraph is no different.

When asked on voting intentions, 47% responded that they would vote for the Conservatives compared to 23% who would vote for Labour and 18% for the Liberal Democrats. As well as that 54% - up 5% since April - would rather see a Conservative Government under David Cameron with only 29% would want a Labour Government under Gordon Brown which is down 2% from April.

While on economic competence the Conservative Party are up 12% on their 2005 Election performance, Labour are down a massive 27%.

Another grim grim poll performance for Labour – but of course there is only one poll that counts and we won’t be seeing that one until 2010.

Labour's worst poll rating of all time

Further grim reading for the Labour Party in today’s press. Not only were they greeted with headlines such as “No way back for Wendy” and “Losing his (Gordon Brown) grip on Scotland” but the latest YouGov poll has Labour at its lowest poll rating of all time. The new poll, conducted by YouGov for the Sun Newspaper, has Labour trailing a massive 26 points behind the Tories who are on 49%. Is it all bad news for Gordon Brown? Well, apparently not as asked if voters would back Labour under a different leader, all of the suggested alternatives have a minus net reading – still safe then Gordon!

But what does the poll mean in Scotland. Well, the poll broken down by Scottish figures has Labour on 26%, the Tories on 21%, Lib Dems on 13% and the SNP on 32%. Before going further – this is the third YouGov poll since April that has the Scottish Conservatives on more than 20%. If this was the result in Scotland the next time round Labour would lose Scotland with the SNP taking 23 seats compared to Labours 21 with the Tories taking seven seats – including Alistair Darling’s Edinburgh South West – and the Lib Dems taking 8 seats – down 3 since 2005. The big winners from this latest poll are the SNP who comfortably meet their target of 20 seats whilst at the same time making a very impressive gain of 17 seats. Labour are the big losers down a whopping 20 seats since 2005 with the Tories picking up six seats of which five are from Labour – Edinburgh South, Edinburgh South West, Dumfries and Galloway, Stirling and Renfrewshire East – and one from the Liberal Democrats – Berwickshire Roxburgh and Selkirkshire.

Who are the big hitters from Labour that would lose? Other than Alistair Darling the biggest name that would lose their seat according to this poll is Des Brown. Others include Michael Connarty, Nigel Griffiths, Gavin Strang and Anne Moffat. The Liberal Democrats would also lose Danny Alexander and Shadow Shadow secretary of state for Scotland Michael Moore.

YouGov/Sunday Times Survey

I’ve just received some quite interesting results from a YouGov/Sunday Times Westminster voting intentions opinion poll which are not good news for Gordon Brown and Labour.

Some quite interesting findings, for example 47% of women are likely to vote Conservative compared to 27% who will vote Labour whilst in the male category 42% are likely to vote Conservative compared to 29% who are going to vote for Labour. When it comes to age range the results are rather positive for the Conservatives as they defeat Labour 43% to 28% in the 18-34 year olds, 39%-34% in the 35 to 54 years category whilst comfortably defeating Labour, 50% to 22%, in the over 55 category.

The region section is broken down into five areas; London, Rest of South, Midlands/Wales, North and Scotland. Of these five areas Labour only wins two – Scotland and the North but only just edge the North by 1%. As expected the Conservatives win comfortably in the South – 52% to 23%. The Party also do very well in London winning 48% to 31% whilst also crushing Labour in the Midlands/Wales area 50% to 21%. Although Labour wins the result for the sample in Scotland is quite positive for the Conservatives. This is quite consistent to recent polls which have the Conservatives between 17% and 21% in Scotland.

A rough breakdown of seats in Scotland would have Labour on around 30, the Lib Dems on ten or thereabouts, the Nats on around 15 whilst the Tories would be on 4 or so.

The poll is also quite positive regarding the performance thus far of David Cameron. Across the whole of the UK 44% of people think he is doing fairly well as Conservative leader as opposed to 26% of people who think Gordon Brown is doing fairly well as Prime Minister. Also, only 11% of people think Cameron is doing very badly compared to 28% who think Gordon Brown is doing very badly. In Scotland 43% of people think Gordon Brown is doing fairly well and 29% think he is doing fairly badly. When it comes to David Cameron 44% of Scots think he is doing fairly well with 27% thinking he is doing fairly badly with more people thinking Gordon Brown is doing very badly – 19% - than think David Cameron is doing very badly – 12%.

How stupid must Labour feel right now?

Labour’s amendment to the budget was this evening passed by 110 votes yes (SNP + Labour + the Tories) with one against (Margo) and 13 abstentions (the Fib Dems) When it came to voting on the budget as amended the Fib Dems and the Labour group abstained allowing the budget to go through with 64 yes, one against and 60 abstentions.

Yes, that’s right. Labour amended the budget but then failed to vote for it. Ridiculous!

Donategate

I was curious in the Herald to why Charlie Gordon MSP was asked for a comment on Donategate, then it became clear that he was in her campaign team, now it appears that he has been resigned from his position as Labour transport position. Big deal, it's only a spokesman role after all. Describing that as falling on his sword is a lot of nonsense.

The costliest donation?

Could a donation to a leadership election campaign when there was no opposition cost Wendy Alexander her job? That's the talk of the steamie...

Labour's week just gets worse and worse .....

1) Brown admits donations 'unlawful'

2) Harman defends Abrahams donation

3) Brown fire fighting

Can this Labour government take any more? They are in total disarray. Just as well for Brown he didn't call that election last month. His career would be over. As it stands, it doesn't have that long to go anyway.

Sunday Papers

Eddie Barnes in today's Scotland on Sunday writes that the Tories could do well to copy the SNP's tactics that ousted a tired, visionless Labour Party in Scotland.

"Most obviously, Cameron has shamelessly nicked Salmond's central message from last April's election campaign. The SNP's election campaign slogan was simple: "It's Time," their election posters declared. The Conservatives have now adopted "It's Time for a Change" in all their own campaigning literature. Both parties have understood the huge importance of pendulums in politics - that innate sense we hold that, after one party has had a lengthy period in office, there is a certain historical inevitability about a change in Government. Salmond recognised this was one of his most powerful assets: now Cameron has followed suit.

While I imagine the Tory campaign slogan has met with scorn from some, I think it is difficult to convey the message that we are trying to covey without using something simple. The point of a slogan is that it is simple and memorable.

Ming's in trouble

Not a great weekend for Ming, certainly according the Sunday Telegraph and the Independent.

It's widely expected that it will be a straight fight between Chrise Huhme and Nick Clegg for the leadership with talks of "open revolt" amongst the grass roots with MPs urging Ming to go quietely or there will be a leadership election. This comes just a matter of weeks after John Farquar Munro called for Cambpell to be replaced by Charles Kennedy and after an opinion poll released today puts the Lib Dems on only 14%, with Labour on 36% and the Tories on 43%.

Today's papers are not comfortable reading for Ming and his team.

Sun gives the Conservatives 3% lead

"The Tories have swept to a three-point lead in the wake of Gordon Brown’s disastrous week, an exclusive poll for The Sun reveals today. David Cameron has steered his party to 41 per cent support – with Labour trailing on just 38 per cent." - The Sun