Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

Munch and chew on this Hays............... from your Tory freinds.........

If an election were held tomorrow, Ed Miliband would win by a landslide
By Matthew Holehouse Politics .

We have a new toy on Telegraph Politics: our Vote 2015 results forecaster.

We have teamed up with Electoral Calculus, the brilliant analysis site run by Martin Baxter, to produce a daily snapshot of how Parliament will look on the morning of May 8, 2015.

It works by taking the results of the latest polling – we use YouGov’s daily tracker poll – and applying the swing against the results of the last election to see which seats are likely to fall.

In May 2010, the Tories won 36.9 per cent of the vote, Labour 29.7 per cent, the Liberal Democrats 23.5 per cent, and Ukip 3 per cent. It left the Tories 19 seats short of a majority.

Today’s tracker has Labour on 40 per cent, the Tories on 30, the Lib Dems on 10 and Ukip on 14.

Our model suggests that if we went to the polls today, Ed Miliband would gain 120 seats and become prime minister with a powerful majority of 106. (By comparison, Blair had a majority of 167 in 2001, cut to 67 in 2005.)

The Tories would lose 98 seats, down to 223, and the Lib Dems would lose more than half, down from 57 to 23.

Among the victims of the 10-point Labour surge, according to the forecast, would be Danny Alexander, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, majority 8,765); Chloe Smith, the Cabinet Office minister (Norwich North, majority 3,901); and Anna Soubry, the Health Minister (Broxtowe, majority 389).

Other losers would include Jeremy Browne, the Home Office minister; Simon Hughes, the Lib Dem deputy leader; Edward Timpson, the Children’s minister; and Robert Halfon, the Harlow MP who has successfully campaigned for lower fuel duty. And all of the Tories’ gains would come from the Liberal Democrats.

All the same, some health warnings: it is merely as a snapshot of what the polls show today, not in two years' time. The Tories hope a growing economy and scrutiny on Miliband will narrow the gap rapidly.

And it is based on a universal national swing, with parties losing votes by the same amount in each seat. That makes predicting individual results more tricky. In reality, some hardworking MPs will hang on to wafer-thin majorities, while some – due to personal failings or a tough opposition – will lose what could have been holdable seats. But at a national level, these local factors balance out, as Martin's correct forecast of the 2010 results testifies

Predicting Scotland and Wales is tricky, due to a lack of regular local polling. (YouGov polls Ukip separately but treats Nationalist and other minority parties as "other".)

Then there is Ukip. Nigel Farage’s party polled around 23 per cent of the vote in May elections. YouGov puts its support on 14 per cent. But under our forecast – which accounts for its share of the vote changing at the expense of other parties equally – it would fail to win a single seat.

Under Martin’s modelling, if support was evenly concentrated Ukip would not start to win seats until their national support goes above 23 per cent, winning five seats at 24 per cent and 79 at 28 per cent.

Two caveats though. What the model does not show is if Ukip’s support is coming disproportionately from one party – such as the Tories – which could change a significant number of races, potentially to Labour’s advantage.

And the party leadership is confident there are constituencies where support is concentrated enough to win, regardless of the national share of the vote. We shall see.

Read more by Matthew Holehouse

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/matthewholehouse/100220387/if-an-election-were-held-tomorrow-ed-miliband-would-win-by-a-landslide/

You have a very selective memory Fred.
2517

Labour lead down to 5%

Latest YouGov / The Sun results 10th July - Con 32%, Lab 37%, LD 11%, UKIP 12%

The public is waking up to the corrupt Labour/Union relationship.

Not only is the Labour/Union relationship potentially corrupt, but it might be an idea for Wallace Millipede to wake up and smell the coffee. Without the unions' money, the Labour party would be in serious danger of going t!ts up. Damned if he does, damned if he don't!

Unless, of course, fishfinger redirects his £120k grand annual sub...

Latest poll of Polls Labour Majority of 90 seats..........

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/

Only bent Torys could say Labours ralationship with the Unions is not politicaly correct/ currupt.

Figures due to be released soon that show just 20 individuals are responsible for over 80% of Tory funding.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When this hits the news labours problems will seem like a storm in a teacup.

The Conservative funders cannot choose candidates, cannot choose the party leader, do not directly pay for individual MPs, do not fix the constituency ballots. These are all things that the unions do.

gf
The ukpollingreport above only goes up to July 5. The Conservatives are closing in.

Rubbish........ at those dinners and events they can get anything they require. Stop talking bunkum.

Does fishfinger not realise that he and Old Bollock Chops are about the only two people on the planet who give a toss about how the Conservatives are funded. 99% of normal people have got a life and just accept it for what it is and always has been - they certainly don't bleat on about it day after day, week after week.

For those who are interested in politics of the here, now and past they may be interested in
Reflections Programme (Part of a series) on Radio 4 Shirley Williams by Peter Hennessy.

Listened to it at 9.00 am but to be repeated a 9.30pm.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b036y7ws/episodes/guide

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b036y7ws/episodes/guide

gf
Don't you think Labour had dinners for people who might donate to the party. There are lots of individual donors who contribute large sums to the Labour party. Lord Sainsbury was one of Labour's main funders for years.

Ed Miliband is an "average" politician, Lord Sainsbury, a former major Labour donor, has said.

The founder of the supermarket chain, who stopped giving to Labour in 2010, said Mr Miliband is not "top bracket" like Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair.

In an interview with The Times, he said all three leaders of the major political parties are not very inspiring.

In terms of political skills, I think he's average. Average in the sense that I think Nick Clegg and David Cameron are pretty average.

I don't want to imply that they're no good, but I can't say that I get wildly excited by the visions they have.

Lord Sainsbury, who backed Ed Miliband's brother David in the 2010 leadership contest, gave more than £10 million to Labour in the previous decade.

Saintsbury gave a total of £18.5m to Labour as an individual donor.

Denis MacShane to face false accounting charge in relation to parliamentary expenses claims - CPS News Brief

The BBC link - Ex-Labour MP Denis MacShane charged over expenses

Hillary,

Change your knickers; they seem to be getting in a twist again?

The majority of the public do have more than a fleeting interest in politics and only those with a seemingly amoral view of the world would accept that because “it was corrupt” that it should remain so.

They also see that politics is also distorted by the corrupting influences of large donations and the distortions of some of the media.
(It is blatantly obvious, that many of the providers of the donations are trying to buy policies for their own immediate personal advantage and not for the benefit of the country as a whole.)

Mind other believers in the “free market” who consider the price of everything to be their driving force, are entitled to their own opinions.

I think Cameron’s attempt to smear the labour party over its links between the unions will backfire.

Are there problems in relationship and influence of the unions in politics? Probably, yes.

Should they be addressed? Yes.

But the unions represent a large number of people who are non vocal, or inarticulate who are entitled to be represented in policy formation as members of the CBI or similar bodies.

Again, unless the UK is prepared to go down the route leading to party financing as in the USA then there probably should be a review of the funding of all political parties. (Including, Green, UKIP, BNP and other fringe parties.)

(Also, think that eventually there will be a move to proportional representation within the next 20-30years)
==============

Hilary, look at the title of this thread.

If you don’t like the content, ignore it.

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Sainsbury's donation.

Over what period and was it open and honest.

He is now funding a party within a party.

http://www.leftfutures.org/2011/03/welcome-to-the-blairite-party-within-a-party/

Denis MacShane was a Labour MP. Surely not a Labour MP accused and charged with false accounting! I am shocked

Just wait until we get Camerons close freinds in the dock , yes Rebbeca and co.

This is small news compared to what will happen when them crooks get convicted.

Whatever Rebbeca did has no bearing on Cameron. It will soon be forgotten. None of it was very serious and the public don't really care about it.