Brown would lead Labour to 234 majority, says poll

[Anarcho-Socialist]

Brown would lead Labour to 234 majority, says poll

By Andrew Grice, Political Editor
19 April 2005

The Labour Party would do much better at the general election with Gordon Brown as leader rather than Tony Blair, according to an opinion poll by NOP for The Independent.

If Mr Brown were leader, 48 per cent of people say they would vote Labour, some 11 percentage points more than those saying they will support the party on May 5. The survey suggests that, under Mr Blair, Labour is in course to win a majority of 122. But under Mr Brown, it could expect its majority to rise to 234.

The poll highlights Mr Blair's "trust problem" - one reason why he was so keen to persuade Mr Brown to assume a central role in Labour's effort to win a third term. While only 17 per cent of people trust the Prime Minister to keep his promises, some 30 per cent trust the Chancellor.

The findings will fuel the belief amongst Brown supporters of the Chancellor that he has rescued the Labour campaign. One Brown ally claimed yesterday: "You can track the rise in Labour's standing in the polls from the moment Gordon came to the fore."

More at: http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=630871

It's just one poll, but it does strengthen the Chancellor's hand in the next Parliament presuming Labour is victorious. Most want Brown to take over from Blair sooner rather than later.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

1. Mr Blair's "trust problem"

I prefer to think of it as an "asshole problem"

[AP]

2. This means Brown won't be a John Major when he takes over.

I read a quote where Blair said one of the hardest things about being a liberal politician is that it always ends in tears. You alwasy disappoint somehow, and people always turn to the conservatives no matter how much you've done for the people in terms of increasing their happiness, prosperity, opportunities, etc. He said this before Clinton had his problems which left Gore without being able to pad a big margin of victory over Bush.

I think, basically, FDR was the only successful liberal who was able to follow up with a president who became popular, and even Eisenhower after that succeeded partly because people thought he might have been a Democrat at one point.

It seems like what Blair has done has been to create a situation where Labour can win while also creating a palpable desire for his successor.

Between 1997-2001, the thought of Gordon Brown as PM was disheartening. The guy is dour and uncharismatic. I could not imagine him winning more than one election.

In the last two years, there has been a real sense that Brown would be a wonderful PM.

I don't know if this has been a long term strategy or if it has been simply making lemonade out of lemons, but the Labour Party seems to be setting itself up (so long as they can squeak through the May elections with a victory) for at least two subsequent Gordon Brown terms, and if they can do that, then they could realistically undo all the damage that Tories have done to that country, and they could build up enough wealth and power in the hands of people who work for a living so that that country will be relatively immune to Tory attempts to undo Labour achievements if a conservative power ever takes back government.

[D-Notice]

3. I don't think Bliar can be classed

as a "Liberal Politican" - he's as liberal as Major was.

On the plus side it shows that people won't be voting to approve of Bliar's actions in the past 4 years (despite any attempts to portray it that way by him, Alistair "Goebells" Campbell, Peter "Let the Tories in by the back door if you vote Lib Dem" Hain or Peter "Creepy" Mandelson), only on the actions of his Chancellor.

On the negative side anything over a 100 majority is effectively a dictatorship, especially as the number of MPs each party has don't correlate to the share of the vote: in the past 2 elections Labour have only had 40% of the vote, but have ended up with 2/3 of the MPs.

Hopefully, when Brown gets in charge he'll be able to undo some of the damage Bliar's done - ID cards, house arrest, indefinite detention, ending of double jeporady, allowing evidence obtained via torture to be used in court, secret trials & secret evidence, use of "intelligence" to justify his actions - although as Brown voted in favour of these, I'm not expecting things to get any better on the civil rights front.

[dsc]

5. Truman became popular only in retrospect

He, like Gore, barely won his election. The difference being that we didn't have Dewey's brother in charge of a close state. If Brown can extend Liberal hold in Britain that is all for the good. But even FDR didn't produce a popular sucessor.

[AP]

7. Yes, that's what Blair says.

As Blair says, it almost always ends in tears. It's very hard to sustain momentum, and when there's so much at stake, it's worth thinking of strategies that guarantee that your successor will be from your party.

[struggle4progress]

4. kick

[Massacure]

6. Too bad labour doesn't toss Bliar on his ass.

Here in the U.S. the republicans would have no trouble tossing Bush on his ass for an 11 point bounce.