Dave should remember this polling before he decides to withdraw from the debates
http://www7.politicalbetting.com/ind...m-the-debates/
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Originally Posted by Political Betting
There’s a report in the Independent this morning which says
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Amid increasing signs that the Conservatives would pull the plug on televised leaders’ debates if Mr Farage was included, the UKIP leader said he would be prepared to challenge efforts to stop him taking part in the courts.
From January this year, there was polling on the debates that should make the Conservatives wary of pulling the plug on the debates.
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There’s a new poll out tonight by ComRes for the Daily Express highlighting the dangers for Dave of appearing to be reluctant about taking part in election TV debates. The 67%-12% split saying he would appear a coward if not there is quite emphatic.
What appears to behind the Tory reticence is
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Focus groups conducted by the Tories are understood to have re-enforced the arguments of those in Downing Street who say they could give Ed Miliband an electoral advantage.
Party strategists showed short clips of Mr Miliband taken from news programmes and asked voters to rate the Labour leader. The groups were then shown longer videos of his speeches and question-and-answer sessions and asked whether it had changed their views.
Sources said that voters in the focus groups had an overwhelmingly more positive view of Mr Miliband when shown the longer films.
A Downing Street insider said: “If you only watch Miliband for a couple of minutes the first thing you think is that he looks a bit odd and sounds a bit odd and you don’t really listen to what he says.
“But when you see him for longer you start listening properly and he tends to have a more positive response.”
David Cameron should also remember, in 2009, the broadcasters threatened to empty chair Gordon Brown, if he didn’t participate in the debates.
There are plans afoot for a leaders’ debate, including Farage ahead of the European elections next year, so we may get a preview of what the debates in 2015 maybe like.
John Rentoul in response to the Independent article this morning, has done a blog entry on this topic, and the headline is “TV Debates: Not Going to Happen”
I'm not even that big of a fan of TV Debates at all and wouldn't miss them if they never happened again, but this is delicious to watch unfold for the Tories. Like in the run up to the 2010 General Election (and remember, i'm no fan of the Labour Party) they tried everything to create a wave of personality hate against Gordon Brown because that's all they were capable of - and even that failed to win them a majority. Since the election of Miliband, the same has been tried hence Milibands low personal ratings in comparison to Cameron for no other reason than he's portrayed to sound a bit of a 'geek' - despite the fact his politics and policies are more or less identical to those of Cameron.
Anyway now the strategy appears to be backfiring as it's been found out (as the piece above says) that Miliband's personal ratings (although still poor like Clegg's and Cameron's) improve vastly when he's given more than a few minutes airtime - something that the debates would provide. So in effect we've had the Tories baselessly damage Miliband's personal reputation that when it comes to the actual airtime, Miliband will come out of the debates looking better than Cameron. Well done CCHQ.
As for Farage and UKIP, well it's a win-win situation for them. If Farage is included (which looks increasingly likely, and no, reports are false that he has threatened legal action against broadcasters) then he'll wipe the floor with what are essentially three identical University-to-politics boys. If he's excluded then it'll simply show the fear of the establishment and will make the coward slur applicable to all of the establishment parties.
As it's a party political post i'll post tonight's latest Opinium poll too...
LAB 37%
CON 26%
UKIP 21% (highest recorded with Opinium so far)
LDEM 6% (lowest recorded with any pollster this parliament)
GRN 5%
Full Guardian analysis on this poll can be found here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2...rt-voters-poll
Anywho, any thoughts on the leaders debates? a fan of them or not?
