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PANIC OVER POLLS IS JUST NOT NECESSARY

Panic over polls is just not necessary

Friday March 5,2010

Comment Speech Bubble Have your say(6)

IT can have escaped none of us that with a bad wobble in the poll support for a Tory win on May 6 some of my confreres in the media have been permitting themselves the luxury of a spot of hysteria.

Personally I do not believe the fuss is grounded. Having disagreed with the entire pundit profession, permit me to explain why.

First, the polls cover the entire electorate. All their percentages add up to 100. But 100 per cent of voters will not vote. About 60 will. The other 40 cannot be bothered but would never dare say so to a pollster.

Second, polls try to predict votes to be cast. But our elections are not won or lost by votes cast but by constituencies won, retained or lost. Thus Party A may win 50 seats by a tiny margin of 100 votes in each. Party B may win one seat by a comfortable margin of 5,000. Same number of votes for each but Party A gets 50 MPs and Party B gets one MP. Who wins in the Commons?

Third, there are other factors the polls cannot perceive and one is age. The grey-haired vote is three times more likely to turn up and vote than the youngest group aged 18-24. The mature tend to be more conservative (small “c”) than youngsters because we remember when things were so much better.

Last, there are the voting fortresses and marginals. The UK has four voting zones. The smallest is Ulster, which for the Tories (in actual seats to be won) is about 50/50. So cost/benefit neutral. The nightmare is the second-largest zone, the Celtic Fringe. There are 99 seats in Wales and Scotland combined and the Tories have only four. Both countries are massively subsidised by the public purse and religiously vote Labour, SNP or Lib-Dem to keep it that way.

The Metropolitan Zone, Greater London, is not much better: 74 seats but only 20 now Tory-held. So the Conservatives go into the biggest zone, Provincial England, with a starting deficit of almost 150 seats.

Yet it is in the 480 (approx) seats of Provincial England that this election (and all others except in a “landslide year”, which 2010 will not be) will be won and lost. Even then they are not all up for grabs. Figures show that about two thirds of seats are “traditional”, ie strongholds, for Labour, the Tories or even the Lib-Dems. So it is really in the 160 marginals of England that the Tories always have to win back their 150-seat handicap from London, Scotland and Wales and then take another score to win an election.

For Tory Headshed the good news is that in these 164 marginals they are far further ahead of Labour than national polls report. The other factor crucial to election-winning is recognition of the unspoken mood and response to it. Margaret Thatcher was brilliant at it. The ruinous successors – the triumvirate of Major, Heseltine and Clarke – lost 224 Tory seats in 77 months and the party is still trying to recover from those disastrous months between 1990-1997.

The unspoken mood is simply: “This does not feel like my country any more.” No, I am not speaking racially. I mean we have all been helpless witnesses to the biggest transfer of power in my lifetime: from the people to the bureaucracy which now treats us like helpless serfs. We are ordered about like servants with no-appeal punishments if we do not obey – and sharpish.

A Tory Party prepared to tell us (and mean it) “vote for me and I will give your country back to you” would return to Downing Street. But will it have the nerve? Maybe the latest poll shock will finally teach it which side of the sky the sun rises. The people are angry. Wake up, Headshed.

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CAMERONS WORDS

09.03.10, 8:16am

DavidCameron lied to me (us) when he promiised a referendum on the EU Treaty. He couldn't wait to retreat on that promise when the Lisbon Treaty was signed by Adolf Brown.
To promse us that no new diktats from the EU Reich will not be accpted is an empty promise.
We are no longer able to decide what we want to do.
He, like Ted Heath, et al before him, lied on the most important and relevant issue of my lifetime i.e, the sovereignty of my country. His words, like so many other so called prospective representatives mean absolutely nothing to e, and are tearted with the comtempt that they treat me. BNP, UKIP. here I come.

• Posted by: Patriot • Report Comment

I WOULD LOVE TO BE ABLE TO TRUST

07.03.10, 10:54pm

David Cameron to turn this Country around and give it back to the people.But nothing he has said so far,or done , instils me with the confidence I would need to be able to vote for them. He constantly allows Brown to dictate to him the issues he attacks from the opposition Benches, for instance the Bullying rate of the Labour hierarchy, Browns on off relationship with his darling Chancellor. I want to hear Border Controls, Immigration decrease or preferably stop, tightening up of Welfare handouts to non contributors. If he does not convince me on these issues my political alliance is firmly with The UKIP

• Posted by: dunnit • Report Comment

ITS ABOUT TO GET MUCH WORSE, WITH A TAX LEGISLATOR..

07.03.10, 3:27pm

Panic is about to get worse has the full realisation of the EU's full intentions come to pass, they want total control over all revenues of all member states. A legislator is already in place so their intentions are real. This will mean they have control over all our revenues, and will totally run this country, so, will be need MP's? Why pay twice for the same thing? There again are we just going to allow this to happen, will David Cameron accept this without a fight, he may have gone off the idea of a vote on the EU, which was his biggest mistake, but this has bigger implications for our country. None have been honest and spoken about it, may be Mr Forsyth could tell us a bit more? Cameron shot himself and his party in the foot by denying us that vote, by now he would be 15% in front, and honesty might be the best mantra for his party to engage in too, for we are fed up with lies and deciet, and still they never learn. The fact is if they don't, and don't accept what the people want they will be thrown to the side, and people will vote for the new, and rightly so, for our very survival might depend on them. Cameron needs to learn, and fast, words are not enough, we need promises that are kept and meant with sincererity. At the moment we don't have that.

• Posted by: Barbara3 • Report Comment

PANIC OVER POLLS IS NOT NECESSARY

06.03.10, 8:47am

It isn't the Polls that are causing me to panic, it is the boy David himself. He is nought but a plastic conservative trying to be a "clone of Tone" the arch warmonger, traitor and liar.
It is beyond my understanding why the likes of David Davies and William Hague have not had him "behind the bike shed" and given him a "good talking to".
The last thing this Nation needs is another Bliar, be it a good or bad copy. We need a leader who can read a map and take us where WE want to go. It isn't that the boy David can't read a map; he simply doesn't own one.

• Posted by: cyclops • Report Comment

POLLS

05.03.10, 8:53pm

I dont suggest for one moment you should ignore the polls but its far too early to try and make any sense of them,In six weeks time when the sh////t has been thrown around we will have a better view of the situation,,When the lab/lib con.have run out of silly Ideas and promises they will focus their attention on UKIP and BNP..I wouldnt say it was hysteria I would say its fun

• Posted by: wigwam • Report Comment

POLL PANIC?

05.03.10, 7:15am

Good article Mr Forsyth. Mr Cameron has been dancing around the fringes of politics for a while to stop Labour robbing him of his real policies. When the time is ripe we will see the real Cameron and his real policies. It will shake Brown and his followers into another dither as before. After all we have not heard any real policies from Brown as yet. Is is because he is at odds with the Chancellor he intends to sack if he wins the General Election. Mrs Darling will not be very happy with that and she is quite good at voicing her opinion in strong words. I have a good bet on it.

• Posted by: albert9rn • Report Comment