YouGov polls don't look too bad for the coalition

Just a quick post to highlight a few statistics from this weekend's YouGov poll. First up, we have the results of a question asking how well certain politicians are doing, which gives Cameron an approval rating of -6%, puts Miliband on -11%, and Clegg on -34%. The discrepancy with the overall voting intention is obvious: Labour are ahead on 43%, followed by the Tories on 39% and the Lib Dems on 9%. It seems that despite a steady decline since May, Cameron is still the Conservative's best electoral asset and Miliband is still failing to impress the public.

Despite Cameron's personal popularity, the Government's approval rating has fallen to -22%. But this figure won't upset the coalition too much, given that they believe that by 2013 there will be a resurgent economy and that they'll get all the credit. Based on this, the -28% rating for Miliband's ability to handle the economy, and the fact that all anyone in politics has talked about for the past two years has been recession and debt, I think the coalition will feel that if they stay committed to their deficit reduction programme they'll come out the other end in a very strong position indeed.

Oldham East and Saddleworth tells us nothing new

As exciting as by-elections are, this one didn’t really tell us anything new. Labour has been steadily climbing in the polls from around 30% at the election to around 42% now, and it was always likely that they would perform better than they did in May. That the big 17% leads suggested by opinion polls before the election never materialised was expected, but a win of 10% was exactly the kind of result that Ed Miliband needed in order to calm his Party’s nerves.

Senior figures like Miliband and Yvette Cooper have stressed that while it gives Labour some momentum, the Party has a long way to go before it is in a position to win a general election. They are right to be cautious. The polls suggest that Miliband is not regarded as a great prospect and while people are now less certain that the coalition’s economic policies are the right ones, they still don’t believe Labour would be any better.

It’s also important to note that despite Labour’s claims to the contrary, this wasn’t necessarily a vote against the coalition’s economic agenda: if you add the Conservative and Lib Dem vote share it comes to 44.7%, which is more than Labour’s 42.1%.

The Lib Dems actually gained a larger share of the vote than in May: up from 31.6% to 31.9%. This was probably because of tactical voting by some Conservatives, but their effective and determined local campaign does show that the Party is still alive. Clegg will be relatively satisfied that his Party avoided a bigger defeat, and while he’ll be afraid that May’s local elections will be unpleasant, he’ll also argue that national poll ratings that have them around 10% are likely to mean nothing at the next election.

The Conservative high command will be satisfied. They decided a long time ago that this by-election was not one that they could win and that it served the long-term health of the coalition better if the Lib Dems came through unscathed. They’ve achieved this aim. Their only worry will be that their weak campaign in Oldham will simply encourage those backbenchers who are concerned that the coalition panders to the Liberal Democrats. Baroness Warsi has, perhaps unwisely, told them to shut up and stop whining, but there is little chance of that happening.

2010 PMQs in Review

It's been a year of change for PMQs. What began with a straight fight between Brown and Cameron – occasionally deputised by Hague and Harman – was changed in May by the General Election. The coalition between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives meant that Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg wasn’t asking questions at PMQs but sitting on the Government benches – and indeed occasionally deputising himself. 

Labour’s defeat saw Brown resign, leading to the mother of all leadership contests. During this period, Labour’s deputy leader Harriet Harman was charged with facing Cameron over the dispatch box. This also gave Jack Straw the chance to step up as her deputy on occasion before, at long last, Labour held its vote and decided to give Ed Miliband the honour of leading the Party.

Phew. There can’t be many years when seven different people take to the dispatch box for PMQs. Yet in spite of the high turnover, there has been a degree of continuity. David Cameron quickly established himself as an able debater back in 2005 and the transition from Blair to Brown in 2007 meant he became more and more dominant against a Labour leader who didn’t really want to be there.

Cameron’s strong performances against Brown were the main theme of the year to May. He was in command of his brief, his jokes were better, and his party’s high poll ratings meant that he had the broad support of his backbenchers. The fallout from the recession made Brown an easy target, as it undermined his economic record. In the run-up to the election polling suggested that the public strongly favoured a reduction in state spending, which meant that Brown’s efforts to paint Cameron as ideologically committed to cuts were blunted by his own inevitable need to outline spending reductions.

Given his poor eyesight and the fact that his personality was unsuited to the quick cut-and-thrust of PMQs, Brown actually did better than I had expected. But it was only rarely enough to win PMQs.

If we needed a reminder of the limitations of PMQs it came in May, when the General Election did not produce an overall majority for any party. In the end, it seems the fact that Cameron was regularly besting Brown in the Commons only served to increase the Conservatives’ confidence, and not their share of the vote.

The forming of the coalition meant that Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg was now a member of the Government, and that he was no longer entitled to ask two questions at PMQs. This shifted the focus more heavily onto the battle between and Government and the opposition. It also meant that there was an even more obvious change from the leaders’ questions to those from backbenchers.

The resignation of Gordon Brown meant that Labour began its lengthy procedures to select a new leader. The result of this was that Cameron spent the first five months of his leadership facing Labour’s deputy leader, Harriet Harman. I must say that I found Harman impressively combative. Cameron was moving his Government towards the CSR and the SDSR and was regularly put on the spot by the Labour stand-in.

Harman is my 2010 PMQs overachiever for this and one other reason: her annihilation of Nick Clegg in November. Deputising for Ed Miliband, she relentlessly pressed the Deputy PM on his party’s hostage to fortune: its election pledge to scrap tuition fees. It was truly masterful.

But apparently all good things have to come to an end. And so, on September 25, Ed Miliband was elected as the new leader of the Labour Party. His first performance at PMQs was awful.

Being successful at PMQs isn’t just about actually winning an argument or making a good point, it’s also about managing expectations. I truly believe watching Ed Miliband’s first outing against Cameron must have been one of the most worrying and demoralising moments of the year for Labour MPs (and it wasn’t a great year). He was predictable, slow, unoriginal, wooden, and appeared out of his depth. It was a huge let-down, and makes him the worst-performing PMQs competitor of 2010.

His performances have since improved. He is better than Brown. But he should be a lot better than Brown. He is now competing with Cameron, but he only wins when Cameron himself performs badly. Thankfully he has the potential to be better, but he will have to totally re-evaluate his approach in 2011 if he is to make the most political capital possible from what should be a very hard year for the Government. Miliband’s also still facing a Conservative leader who isn’t quite sure how to play him.

In contrast, David Cameron has had a relatively successful year at the dispatch box. His strengths are obvious: he’s quick-witted, smart, in command of his brief, and has a human demeanour. He was naturally more gifted than Brown and had learnt how to defeat him. He is better than Harman and despite her plucky performances he still regularly delivered coherent political and economic arguments.

It’s against Miliband that he’s been least impressive. Ed is not yet performing well and yet Cameron has almost let him get the better of him on a couple of occasions. He’s my top performer of 2010 but he will need to pick things up this year.

Top Performer: David Cameron
Overachiever: Harriet Harman
Underachiever: Ed Miliband
Biggest Victory: Harman absolutely destroying Clegg on tuition fees, 10 Nov.
Best Quote: Harriet Harman, 10 Nov: "We all know what it’s like: you are at freshers’ week, you meet up with a dodgy bloke and you do things that you regret. Isn’t it true he has been led astray by the Tories?"

Wilful provocation or political naivety? Both.

Two comments have caused much consternation this weekend. The first was from Enterprise Tsar Lord Young on Thursday evening, and led to his resignation on Friday afternoon. The second was from Vince Cable on Sunday morning. Both showed a combination of political naivety and wilful provocation.

It has been pointed out by many (see here and here for starters) that Lord Young's comments that people have 'never had it so good' during this 'so-called recession' contained an element of truth. Low interest rates are good news if you've got a mortgage and still have your job. But that doesn't mean he was right to say it.

Lord Young was probably fed up with generalised comments about the recession and how it was affecting people. So he sought to tell it as he saw it. But in doing so he made a sweeping, generalised comment of his own which undermined the government's narrative that its deficit reduction plan - and the job losses that will accompany it - is the only responsible way to deal with the effects of the recession. They also play in to people's ill-founded yet genuine concerns that the Tory party is the party of the rich, and that it doesn't care - or won't even notice - if they suffer. Any comment that undermines the government, however economically accurate it may be, is a foolish comment to make. It is right that he has resigned.

Vince Cable has also made comments that are totally accurate and completely foolish. Speaking to the BBC's Politics Show, he said that, on tuition fees, the Lib Dems 'didn't break a promise. We made a commitment in our manifesto, we didn't win the election. We then entered into a coalition agreement, and it's the coalition agreement that's binding upon us and which I'm trying to honour.' Spot on; but what on earth is he thinking?

The Lib Dems need the debate about tuition fees to go away. As quickly as possible. It is turning voters against them. So why would one of the most senior Lib Dems come out and deliberately provoke their (very noisy) opponents on this issue? Last week the CCHQ building was trashed by part of a 50,000 strong demonstration against this legislation. All he's done is start another round of media interest in the subject. NUS President Aaron Porter is back on the airwaves, calling the comments 'insulting'. Cable gains nothing from this. Neither does his party - in fact it just highlights the same 'broken promises' that Clegg talked about (see below) before the election. Sometimes, even if you know you're right about something, you should just bite your tongue and shut up about it. 

PMQs - 10th November 2010

Following the disunity displayed by the PLP on Monday this could have been a very difficult outing for Harriet Harman but her relentless focus on tuition fees left Nick Clegg struggling.

Harman's prepared jokes were excellent and she was on the front foot throughout. She began with a simple question to Clegg, asking if he could update the House on how his plans to abolish tuition fees were going. This brought howls of laughter from the Labour benches. Nick fought back with those tired lines about the deficit and the legacy of the previous government.

She pushed again with a Clegg quote from the election campaign in which he called the prospect of £7,000 fees a 'disaster'. Clegg started to warm up and retorted that the system was fairer than anything under Labour and that it would help part-time students 'shamefully treated' by the opposition.

Labour's Deputy Leader then landed the best line of the exchange about Clegg meeting some 'dodgy bloke' at freshers' week and doing something he'd regret. The backbenches on both sides were laughing now - even William Hague couldn't hide his smirk (see above).

Clegg hit back by arguing that Labour was far from the party of students, pointing out that Labour had introduced tuition fees after opposing them in 1997 and introduced top-up fees after opposing them in 2001. They also set up the Browne Review and now disown its findings. He then asked Harman if she'd be going outside to explain to demonstrating students what her party's policy was.

Then Harman got to the real meat of the debate, and hammered home what should be a central part of their attacks on the coalition. Fee increases for students are not to increase funding for universities, but to cover the money that the government is cutting from universities. 'What is the cut to the university teaching grant?' she demanded.

Nick lost his bearings. He'd been defensive but generally assured until this point but here he started mumbling about the Labour party's plans to make massive cuts, which he couldn't be specific about because Labour don't even know what they are.

Harman came straight back at him, asking if he'd been taking lessons from the PM on how not to answer questions. She said the cuts to the university teaching grant were a 'staggering 80 per cent' and that the government had 'pulled the plug' on university funding. By now Clegg's responses were incoherent, as he said something generic about being progressive and fair.

Labour's Deputy Leader finished by mocking the Lib Dems' pre-election pledges. Clegg then tried to cram in a joke about the PLP's Mutiny Monday, but it was way too late and totally off topic. He looked completely lost, complaining that before the election he didn't know how bad things would be in government after Labour.

It was a big surprise to see Clegg so weak in debate, given that it's supposed to be one of his strong points. He didn't really land a single attack on Labour, and his Mutiny Monday joke was deployed out of desperation. Harman, on the other hand, was assured and relentless in her attack on the Lib Dems leader. In truth she has an easier time attacking the Lib Dems than Miliband has with Cameron, because they are so vulnerable on the compromises the are making. Even so, she defeated Clegg with some panache yesterday, matching excellent prepared jokes and quotes with points of real substance.

Solid Harman win. 

PMQs - 27th October 2010

We're beginning to see a pattern at PMQs, and it's one that doesn't bode well for Ed Miliband. Aside from one joke about him asking the questions in his first outing two weeks ago, Ed has not really managed to land a powerful blow on the Tory leader. Cameron is a highly able debater, which makes it all the more difficult for Ed to land good blows. Which means that it is all the more important that Labour have a credible economic strategy to beat the Tories around the head with. While they don't, Ed will struggle. 

There wasn't really a lot of substance to this week's outing. Miliband kept pushing on housing benefit but it wasn't very clear where he was going. If he was trying to exploit potential differences between the PM and IDS, as well as others like Simon Hughes, it quickly became apparent that Cameron was going to unequivocally support the changes. And as Cameron was happy to defend it, Ed was left to make (another) attack on the cuts causing unemployment, which was easily deflected by the positive economic news from yesterday. 

The problem Miliband has is that £20,000 per year as a limit is a fair figure, it's a figure that Cameron is sticking with, and one that can be easily defended. As he said, when the government is willing to give people 20,000 per year for housing benefit no-one should go without a home. 

Cameron made excellent use of the Labour PMQs strategy document leaked to the Times today, which encouraged Ed Miliband to use 'mocking humour', develop 'cheer lines' for his backbenchers and the media headline writers, and to go for the 'big prize' of making Cameron look arrogant and patronising by asking simple, straightforward questions. It made the Labour leader look like a novice. 

Ed's best line was a quip about Nick Clegg looking glum and understanding why he's gone back on the fags, after Clegg said he'd have a stash of cigarettes as a luxury on Desert Island Discs. It was funny, but it was purely political and totally irrelevant. He really has to restrain himself from simply going after the Lib Dems when he can't score points against the Conservatives. 

As Cameron said: 'he's got a plan for PMQs but not for the economy.' Until he does he'll struggle. 

Cameron win.