Liberal Vision

The final leaders debate…where does leave it us?

After all the controversy that has emerged about these “leaders debates polls” and whether – after the Sky debate – at least one polling company ran its polling BEFORE Nick made his closing remarks …I sit wondering what the “who won the debate” polls actually tell us.

One has sympathy for the polling companies – it’s a new format – the polls are under pressure to deliver and deliver fast – so I can see that they may struggle to do it perfectly in order to do it quickly. Then again maybe they have all done it perfectly ..(in which case at least one of them needs a better PR company)..Ah well it will all come out in the wash I am sure…

And of course each party has spun itself silly trying to persuade the nation why their guy “won”.  And the newspapers will slavishly follow their political masters….  The Sun will gun for Clegg, The Telegraph will call it for Cameron etc etc.

For the first time tonight I watched the debate with an audience – with about 50 or 60 Liberals to be precise. It is infinitely more difficult to draw sound conclusions when surrounded by partisan Liberals cheering on Nick’s every word (though it is a thoroughly enjoyable experience).

So I am not attempting to “call it” tonight.

I have two observations however…

1. I think this debate will have half the impact of last week’s debate – which in turn had half the impact of the first one. Most will already have made up their mind prior to this evenings debate and barring a total cock up tonight (which there wasn’t- that was demonstrably yesterday’s story) I doubt there was anything there to change people’s minds.

2. Politicians and papers still seem not to have woken up to the fact that the people of this country are sick to death of  the old-school confrontational, attack-style politics. I noticed tonight that when Cameron attempted to have a go at Nick about the Liberals immigration policy, Camerons line (the “worm”) went into the negative. When Nick talked about getting all three parties chancellors together to agree the size of the debt and a plan to sort out this economic mess – Clegg’s line shot up.

People want consensus..they want the politicians heads knocking together to sort this mess out …. they are tired of cheap political point scoring… and bored with negative attacks from the Parties pet newspapers on their rivals. 

So whilst I find it hard to call who won the debate tonight – as Iwatched amongst eager, upbeat Liberals – I think it is clear, however much David Cameron (and tonight Gordon Brown) might object, that people WANT a hung parliament…they WANT consensus politics….they WANT a different way of doing politics in this country. I think they will get it. And I think that was determined within 24 hours of the first TV debate.    

(Oh and lest there be any doubt about this,  my view on the Liberals policy on limiting bankers bonus’ is that it is populist nonsense).

Tags: BBC, Leaders Debate

Gordo the Saviour! Dave the Cowering! And more…

I have some sympathy for Nick Robinson (bear with me now…)  He does, on some occasions, have to form his analysis of political events extremely quickly, and then promptly figure out how to articulate it in a snappy way to an audience with the collective attention span of a hairdresser’s goldfish.  I reckon I’d fail miserably at such a task, so just as well that I have the luxury of getting my points across on a blog, several days after the event.

Nonetheless, I am going to add another knife to those already inserted in his back, following his incorrect verdict that last week’s TV debate was encapsulated by “I disagree with Nick”. Statistics from the show, you see, reveal that Call Me Dave was, in fact, the most attacked leader (not Nick). Interestingly, Call Me Dave was also the meekest, perhaps in nervous, cowering mode, given the sudden possibility of him entering future history books and DVDs as the failed Tory leader who was forced into electoral reform.

The graph below shows how belligerent each of the leaders were:

Some more interesting findings come from examining the number of words uttered by each leader.  Clearly looking to appeal to the more nationalist element of the electorate, Gordo and Call Me Dave both had “country” in their top two words, with “Britain” being Gordo’s fifth most used word.  Notably, “country” only just scraped into Nick’s top 10 words, and neither he nor Call Me Dave had “Britain” in their top 10.

Gordo’s reputation as a self-styled wannabe global saviour is further enhanced by the analysis.  Out of the three leaders, he used the most language relating to international affairs, with the following words all appearing in his top 10: “Britain”, “country”, “world”, “Europe”, “European”.

The top 10 lists of words are below, with a couple of other graphics to keep you amused. This research, I must confess, was not done by myself, but rather done entirely by Millward Brown. Which is nice of ’em.

Shared Words: [sorry, can’t get this to be more visible. If you want a copy, e-mail admin *-AT-* liberal-vision.org]

All three leaders’ top words combined, by frequency:

Tags: David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Leaders Debate, Nick Clegg, tv debate

How Murdoch shafted Clegg

Its 2105 and it is clearly apparent that it was a disgrace to allow Rupert Murdochs Sky was allowed into the Leaders Live Debate club.

When I have time I will analyse in detail – but seems to me a blatant attempt to shaft Nick Clegg. Look at the way the camera goes away from Nick whenever he speaks,… to scan the audience , the shots from behind, the reactions from Cameron – anywhere but Clegg’s face…

Meanwhile Cameron gets full face when ever he utters a word. Brown got a fair edit – but he’s not the threat to Cameron is he??

Its an utter disgrace… I am calling it as Brown’s debate – with Nick second. Cameron – for all the help from his Murdoch buddies comes third.

Thought: May be Sky News are just not very good?

UPDATE 2150

Sun/YouGov gives it to Cameron36%. Clegg 32% Brown 29%

Channel 4 poll gives it to  Clegg 52% Brown 31%. Cameron 17%

Update: 2156

ITV/Comres poll give it to clegg 33%, Cameron and Brown on 30% – suck on that one Rupert…. 

01:15 Update

Just returned from the BBC where I went into to give my analysis of the debate (on News Channel) and ended up being asked about tweeting and the blogosphere. What I was going to say – and will say here instead – is that it strikes me as interesting that the instant poll results tonight are in the same ball park as the national polls pre-debate. 1.It is very difficult to see how the Liberal genie can be put back in the bottle. 2.I wonder whether the instant polls tonight reflect a certain “settling of opinion” – i..e people have made their minds up pretty much and  judged the debate tonight based on their most likely voting intention – not the actual content  of the debate. If so we have a hung parliament.

I was amused to see today’s Sun headline whilst in the studio …something like “Cam saves the day”. With out question TV has re-invented itself and is THE medium of this election. The Leaders debates are the game-changers not the bloggers or tweeters. But what I find astounding is that newspapers are looking increasingly irrelevant and, when you look at the clearly co-ordinated attack fromTory attack-dog newspapers today ..is it any wonder? The Sun used to be really good at smelling political change in the air and moving fast. They appear to have just gone to sleep – or maybe its lack of sleep as Rupert Murdoch hurls abuse at them down the phone into the wee small hours. Did no one tell him The Sun didn’t actually win it for Blair back in 97?

Tags: "murdoch shafted clegg", Leaders Debate, Murdoch, SKY

Stingray politics: Anything can happen in the next half hour…

 If a week’s a long time in politics – how about ninety minutes?

 That’s all it’s taken to turn this entire General Election on its head – boosting the LibDem vote share to 30%

 What happens next?

At a guess…

 

1. Labour plod on.

2. The Tories dog whistle (the Cameron vote share is now down at Howard/IDS levels)

3. Nick and the LibDems come under immense scrutiny (probably on personalities, not policy)

We’re way beyond hung parliament territory now. We’re into WTF territory. The LibDems are now just 14/1 to be the largest party after May 6^th.

Perhaps David Cameron should be asked what he’ll do if he holds the balance of power and whether he’d be willing to serve as junior coalition partner in a Clegg government?

Tags: general election, hung Parliament, I agree with Nick, Leaders Debate, Liberal Democrats

Vince the invincible..

Ok. In the past 24 hours (since the Leaders Debate as it happens ) we  have received dozens of emails asking us to reinstate the link to the “Vince video” . To my knowledge the link was always there….and anyway I think that Nick has proven he is “de man” but hey… here is the link again

(ps.. it is a year out of date….but you know that ….right  ??)

 

Tags: general election, I agree with Nick, Leaders Debate, Nick Clegg, Vince Cable