Scottish Conservatives making the difference

Good wee piece on Conservativehome today regarding the release of the Scottish Conservatives 2008 Annual report in which the party lists its achievements since last May’s election.

The ConHome piece also highlights this article by Alan Cochrane in today’s Daily Telegraph.

P.s. Been blogging lite recently solely due to laziness. Back next week.

STB

Two bad polls for Gordon Brown

I feel most of the Bendy Wendy stuff will have been covered by every other blogger as well as most newspapers so I am going to enter slightly silly season on my blog looking at some of the more left field stories/polls involving Gordon Brown in the last few days.

I doff my hat to Guido Fawkes for this tip off. It seems that Gordon Brown will become the first incumbent Prime Minister to not be featured in Madame Tussauds for over 150 years after a poll of 6,333 people found that 83.8% (5308) did not want Gordon Brown featured with just 16.2% wanting the current PM immortalised in wax.

One of my Labour voting friends is also dismayed at the results of a poll carried out by Grazia, Britain’s first weekly glossy magazine (apparently). The poll showed that of the women interviewed, 18 percent voted Conservative in 2005 compared to 27% voting for Labour but if an election was to be held tomorrow the figures would be somewhat different with 33% saying they’d vote Conservative compared to just 14% voting for Labour. 37% of women also think that the Conservative party will do more for women compared to 29% who think it is the Labour party that will do more for women. When it comes down to telling the truth, 26% of respondents think David Cameron is more likely to keep his promises, ten percent higher than the amount that believe Gordon Brown will keep his.

My favourite question listed a series of words, including intelligent; approachable; honest etc, and asked the respondents what words they would most associate with both Gordon Brown and David Cameron. The top three for Gordon were: intelligent (41%), Old Fashioned (46%) and Boring (50%) with the top 3 for Cameron being: modern thinking (53%), intelligent (41% -meaning that the respondents think DC is just as intelligent as Brown) and approachable (39%).

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.

Did Brown bottle it?

ScottishToryBoy learns that Scottish Labour are briefing the press that Brown bottled it yesterday at Prime Ministers Questions as a line had been agreed.

Does Scottish Labour think Wendy stands a better chance of hanging on than Gordon?

Vision

I came across an SNP leaflet titled Vision and contains the following little survey:

Do you think?...

Scotland should…

1 Be able to decide to bring our troops home from Iraq?
2 Be like Ireland and have a voice and votes in the European Union?
3 Be given the choice over Scotland’s future in a referendum?
4 Be like New Zealand and introduce a decent pension to drive down pensioner poverty?
5 Be like Norway and invest a share of our oil revenues in a fund to benefit future generations?

If you answered YES to one or move above, perhaps you should find out more about the SNP and our ambitions for the future of Scotland.

Interesting….. I think Wendy may have answered YES to question three just the other day. No?

Wendy hung out to dry by Brown

I just watched Prime Ministers Questions for the first time in a wee while, interesting to see the next Prime Minister having Gordon Brown over a barrel. He asked Gordon Brown, who had previously said that there’s a line in Britain that pitted "those of us who are prepared to support the shared values of the union" against "those who are prepared to play fast and loose with the union and put the whole future of the union at risk" and failed to back Wendy Alexander over her referendum calls, if he backed Wendy Alexander over her referendum calls.

Brown responded by stating that Wendy hadn’t said that, when asked again by Cameron if he backed Wendy he again refused to answer the question. It’s quite clear that Wendy has been cut adrift again by Gordon Brown. Although it’s difficult to see how she can remain as leader when the person who put her there refuses to back her it is difficult to see if this really is rock bottom for Wendy’s leadership or just another day.

A further to my last post and whether or not Labour can lodge a referendum bill:

From Scottish Parliament Standing Orders (9.14). Given that the SNP have clearly stated their intent to bring forward a Bill on this subject in the lifetime of this Parliament, any such Members’ Bill would fall.

12. The member who lodged the final proposal obtains the right to introduce a Bill to give effect to it only if—

(a) no later than the end of the period referred to in paragraph 11—

(i) at least 18 other members have notified the Clerk of their support for the final proposal; and

(ii) the members supporting the final proposal include members of at least half of the political parties (or groups formed under Rule 5.2.2) represented in the Parliamentary Bureau; and


(b) the Executive has not given, by the end of the period referred to in paragraph 11 (or has waived its right to give, within that period), an indication under paragraph 13. [see below]


13. An indication under this paragraph is an indication, given in writing by a member of the Scottish Executive or junior Scottish Minister to the member who lodged the final proposal and to the Clerk (who shall arrange for the indication to be printed in the Business Bulletin)—

(a) that the Executive will initiate legislation, within the same session, to give effect to the final proposal; or

(b) that Her Majesty’s Government has initiated or will initiate legislation, during the current or next session of the UK Parliament, to give effect to the final proposal.

The right to give such an indication may be waived at any time during the period referred to in paragraph 11 by notice in writing to the member who lodged the final proposal and to the Clerk; and such a notice shall be printed in the Business Bulletin.

This referendum stuff

Am I right in thinking that the opposition can’t lodge a bill on a subject that the Government already intends on lodging a bill on? If that’s the case, does that mean that the pro independence Wendy Alexander and her beleaguered troops will have to support the SNP bill on an independence referendum? You really couldn’t make it up.

Yesterday in el Parly, Wendy hosted a press conference on her pro independence stance but is unable to answer a few simple questions.

1. Does she favour a simple yes or no question in an independence referendum or a multi question option?

2. If it’s the former, what is the point in the Calman commission?

3. When does she intend on lodging this bill? Now? 12 months? 2010?