Yes I agree but it's hardly surprising when even so called progressive publications print tripe like this.

What a disaster this is for the Lib Dems. Lat time 'round , when Blair was at his least popular Charlie Kennedy was unable to press home any advantage for personal reasons and this time 'round Clegg is so tied to Cameron as to have made effective opposition impossible. It is almost unbelievable that the Lib Dems have squandered the opportunity to be the main party of opposition twice in fifteen years ; that takes a real lack of talent and foresight

In these circumstances historical materialism might predict the country rounding on the man who claimed that his plan had taken Britain out of the danger zone. Instead, however, David Cameron is coming out on top.

That's because historical materialists like myself would also say you've missed out one very important factor, agency.

It's not enough for the economy to be on its knees, there also needs to be alternative ideas and organisation that can pull people away from the spin and lies the Tories have done so well to weave (i.e. the idea that the deficit is Labour's fault not the Capitalisms), as there isnt at the moment, as Labour is dead from the neck down and the anti-cuts movement is not strong enough yet, it's perfectly explainable from a Marxist point of view why the situation is as it is.

The blunt truth is that Ed Miliband has repeatedly misread the public mood - presumably in a ham-fisted bid to suck up to the people he should be actively seeking to oppose. He suffers the worst of both worlds. Cameron can denounce him as 'irresponsible , leftwing and weak' in response to his supposed stnce on public sector strikes whilst in reality Miliband has consistently faile to give effective backing to those who really are seeking to fight the Mad Axeman agenda of Gideon and his minions.

Labour under his leadership has failed to be an effective opposition because it is neither effective or apparently committed to opposing. If he believes that what the coaltion is doing is wrong, he should say so. There is nothing of worth to be achieved from trying to suck up to the Mail.

I might pop back on Boxing Day to see just how many commenters have somehow managed to blame The Guardian...

The public are not as gullible as the Marxists believe.
They see beyond the growth figures and know that we are in difficult economic territory and they blame Labour and in particularly those who were deeply involved with Labour's disasters (like Balls and Miliband) for our plight.
If the Tories did not have to compromise with the LibDems they would be streets ahead.

Where have they compromised with the LibDems?

The Labour Party can never win by embracing a neo-liberal agenda. Blair won by being Tory-lite, but that is a hopeless strategy now, when being Tory has led us into the present slump. No political party that stands for a modified status quo can beat a political party whose raison d'être is the preservation of the status quo.

The system is fucked. Without radical change the tiny minority will continue to get richer while the majority get poorer. GDP growth, even if it exists, masks the fact that the growth is concentrated in a few hands while the vast majority experience a recession. Until Miliband grasps that tinkering is futile, and that what is required is a genuine assault on privilege, corruption and greed, he won't deserve a bounce in the polls, let alone get one.

they blame Labour

Oh no the don't...

Cameron is ahead in the polls because of completely unscrupulous crafty, simplistic, populist presentation and because most of the media either acts as pro-Tory propagandists or deliberately inadequately informs the electorate of political and economic realities.

Miliband is not a cynical politician; he needs to find a common touch at least.

"The public are not as gullible as the Marxists believe." Quite how does apportioning blame help the British electorate? It is the Tories that are compounding any economic problems that they may have inherited from Labour. My impression is that the British electorate remain in large part masochistic, stuck in the muddle headed view that pain inflicted by extreme right sectarians will "set them free". By all means reject the Labour Party which has been a profound disappointment for over a century, but don't kid yourself that this Eton Rifles of a Government could care less about the views or prospects of the bulk of the working British population.

How about this for a plan ?
.
Nationalise the commanding heights of the economy and restore a full social welfare system ?

The problem was never with Labour,the problem was with New Labour .If this last government had stimulated andf encouraged an economy based upon long term investment in manufacturing (like Germany still does) and not applied such a "light touch "to financial markets then Britain would have been in a far healthier condition when the neo-liberal created crash occured.That said the economy was growing when Gordon Brown left power..now it is dying of starvation.
The reason for the Tory poll numbers holding up are more to do with Cameron's confident/unflabbable/ slimy presentation fooling enough foolish people ,whilst at the same time the nationalistic card which was recently played in relation to Europe has been appreciated by knuckle draggers across britain.Added to this Labour's cause is not helped by our newspaper media being 80% right wing..Where Labour are at fault is in not being bold enough to challenge the greedy few ..the story that could here be told is convincing and would strike a chord with many more people than are currently inspired by Labours sometime timidity.

Well if the media collaborates in delivering delusion, ignoring the the findiings in say ”The Law of Opposites-Illusionary profits in the financial sector” by Gordon Kerr for the Cobden Centre which demonstrates how

Recent developments in the accounting rules applied to banks, and in the broader regulatory framework for banks, have allowed bank executives to overstate their profits, feeding through into multi-million pound bonuses for themselves and short-term gains for their shareholders.

and the Anthony Sanders testimony to Congress, which demonstrated the UK's 950& GDP debt is it any wonder people consider Cameron's and Millibands arguments are winning the day? Where is the opposition Guardian - without resorting to Marxism? A clueless editorial.

My main concern with such polls is that the confidence of a leader like David Cameron will be boosted. He may well see this strong measure of support as indicating support for even stronger measures. Help!

'Yes' you agree to what?
The lack of suprise or/and the pretence of the publication being progressive or/and the printing of tripe?

Where have they compromised with the LibDems?

They let the LibDems do some of their bullying - it compromises their own fun.

Anyway, populist leader is popular. Whoopee doo. So were Dubya and Berlusconi. The former destroyed a hegemon; the latter his country's parity with Europe's big 3 (I seem to remember a few years back that Italy overtook the UK's economic performance briefly). Cameron really is from the barrel-scraping gene pool of modern politicians.

As a funny man once didn't ask of our political choices: do you have anything without spam in it?

given that the UK debt to GDP ration is over 600% (Max Keiser), it is probably only a matter of time before reality kicks in for most people , as current austerity measures will undoubtedly get worse with more people unemployed.and feeling the pinch.
It annoys me greatly that Darling had achieved growth just before labour were kicked out of power, and when the Coalition took over with their austerity measures, we reversed a gear.
Incidentally not sure if the poll covered Scotland , i think its mainly middle England again proping up Cameron

But then how does Marxism explain how well Germany is doing, despite being repeatedly forced to bail out the Eurozone? You don't get much more capitalist than Germany. However the country and its economy are extremely well run.

The whole crisis from 2008 onwards has been a failure of government, not any particular system. The failure of the US government to properly regulate the subprime mortgage market, the failure of the UK government to separate the high street banks which hold people's savings and pensions from the high risk investment banks, the failure of the EU to recognise the lunacy of shoe-horning countries like Greece and Italy into the Euro, the failure of most western governments to appreciate the simple economic principle that you can't go on indefinitely spending more than you have.

Capitalism works fine when it is not run by idiots. People make money, it's taxed at a fair level, the tax is used for the public good. Nothing wrong with that at all. To be fair, communism might work if it was run by people who weren't paranoid totalitarians who employed half the population in the military and the other half in the secret police. So arguably might fascism. It's not so much the systems that are broken than the fools that run them.

Cameron ahead in the polls?

This is, I take it, the same Cameron who seems to write a regular column in The Sun.

The same Cameron who hangs out with the Chipping Norton medja operators.

The same Cameron who's government has just handed the public health remit over to Freud Communications, who's cabinet is actuvely engaged in selling off every aspect of the public sector to their mates (who seem to own big chunks of the media) ...

Hmmm, can't think how he'd manage to do so well in those popularity polls conducted on behalf of mainstream rightwing media ...

and doesn't it stick in your gullet ,Guardian ?
are you annoyed by this poll or waht ? Ha !
you Guardianistas really take the biscuit.
Milliband is a dead duck , a dead man walking, a leader with no followers.
Meantime, Cameron bestrides the 'world politik U.K'. like a colossus.
You backed the wrong horse, Guardian - admit it and eat humble pie.

"Cameron in command: politics in the slump
Hard times are getting harder under a government that has fallen out of favour – but the public is still smiling on the man at the helm"

No - this bears no real connection with the average UK polls. Which are the only way to read what is going on.

The average polls are showing the following - and in reality Cameron and Osborne are in some trouble.

Con 38
Lab 38
Lib 11 Down from 25% in May 2010 LOL.

The truth here is that Tory vote was on 36 on the average polls for months, and Labour were in front of them, having 40%+.

Laughably, Clegg lost ALL his extra %age votes because of his decision to get in with this government of minority greed and enforced majority austerity to pay for the minority greed.

On this basis the Coalition come the next election is in some serious trouble. The Lib Dem vote will collapse, Clegg may well be thrown out as Lib Dem leader, and the Tories will see that Cameron cannot win an out and out majority.

The ONLY reason the average polls have changed in the Tory favour is because of Cameron's lunatic decision to come out of Europe - the UKIP vote have come back to the Tories, but as a u-tune is inevitable as that decision begins to badly affect the UK economy, watch how Cameron loses the UKIP vote and Labour are then back in a majority again, with about 40 - 50 seat majority.

Cameron and Osborne are the worst Tory leaders since Thatcher - feral, hypocritical, supportive of a tiny majority whilst allowing the majority to suffer. And they are failures - unable to get a majority government, even with the current average poll figures now, they would be unable to get one.

Let's hope they perish soon, eaten up by Tory paranoia that a majority is not possible - along with Clegg going too, he deserves it. A throw away politician who took power with this feral, incompetent, greed for the minority Tories, just to get a semblance of power - which has come and gone like the summer sun.

The Lib Dems are bust, and they know it. Clegg and Alexander have led their party to nowhere because they got into bed with this shockingly hypocritical government.

@ninjawarrior

"and doesn't it stick in your gullet ,Guardian ?
are you annoyed by this poll or waht ? Ha !
you Guardianistas really take the biscuit.
Milliband is a dead duck , a dead man walking, a leader with no followers."

Like the Guardian's failure to read the average polls, ninja, you are as 100% wrong as they are.

See my post. The average polls are showing Labour right up there with Cameron, and Cameron unable to win a majority, with his useless partner, Clegg, down and out and on his way out as Lib Dem leader by the next parliament.

I cant help but agree with you on that one. Capitalism needs regulation for it to work and benefit all. It has been the lack of regulation by the politicians acting on behalf of the large corps which has led us mainly where we are today.

Cameron has grasped the reality of the situation. The Labour Party are still in deficit denial.

Add to that the Euro realism and effective leadership that Cameron displayed recently then the polls are surprising.

If Cameron continues to listen to his Tory grassroots then his lead will grow.

WELL DONE THE GUARDIAN!PRAISING CAMERON TO THE HILT AND PROMOTING THE COALITION JUST LIKE THE BBD,SKY 90% OF THE PRESS! IS IT ANY WONDER CAMERON HAS GOOD POLLS.

Look deeper and you see the polling on the parties if there were a geenral election,labour have been leading on virtually all for the past year,how about headline PRAISING Ed Miliband for a change? But that wouldn't be in line with the guardian promoting Cameron and the coalition would it,while the poor,sick and disabled suffer.

given that the UK debt to GDP ration is over 600% (Max Keiser)

It is well over 600%, as reported - it is 950%, the 600% is JUST for the financial sector. These figures were obtained from Anthony B. Sanders testimony to Congress, December 15, 2011.

thanks for that agreewith .

"The average polls are showing Labour right up there with Cameron"

right , Gelion .... so in the depths of the worst quasi recession since the Romans invaded Britain, with no rosy outlook, retail sales in the doldrums and an open goal... Labour and Milliband can only be sort of level with Cameron ??
this really is not good enough for a party which aspires to recapture power in 2015.
it aint gonna happen if you can't cut the mustard now -Milliband and Labour should be double points ahead.
And they're not - so what is going wrong ?

There are many reasons why polls go up or down for any particular
political party, but the mainly rightwing media/press are silent on many
issues that the tories are up to, and fail to put the case to the public.

There is a conspiracy of silence.

The Guardian wasted enough time on supporting Clegg and the libdems,
and their coalition scam.
The BBC are silent in any negativity associated with the tories,
and the rightwing rags just gag and suck up to Cameron,
and how he is destroying our democracy.

So what's new?

The only opinion poll that counts is a General Election,
and what about testing this poll in the New Year?

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Yes I agree but it's hardly surprising when even so called progressive publications print tripe like this.

They are saying he is doing well in the same way as you might say a football manager is doing well.

They are not saying "Vote Tory".

Its no good burying your head in the sand and denying your opponents are doing well if they are.

@ninjawarrior,labour had 13 years in power,you could look at it the other way and say a new govt with a leader who has all the support of the media, a year and a half in, and they still would'nt win a majority if a general election were held tommorrow

Scotland just isn't that significant, it only accounts for about 8% of the UK population. Add that to the low number of Tory-voting Scots, and you'll see that there isn't much of a difference Scotland has to make to conservative polling figures.

Yes I agree but it's hardly surprising when even so called progressive publications print tripe like this.

They are reporting the results of an opinion poll: what the people think. Since this is not Pravda, they can't take the easy way out and just rewrite the results.

I don't have a huge amount of time for Cameron, but when you consider the alternatives on offer, it's a no-brainer.

The two-Eds-are-better-than-one strategy is manifestly a crock of shit, and is convincing no-one other than the most fanatical diehard party loyalists.

But why did Labour get kicked-out? Because, in large part, they kept Brown as PM who refused to accept that any cuts were needed when everyone could see they were.

Remember, oppositions do not win elections, the Government looses them. Why did Labour loose?

Very good analysis.
This is precisely what I have said @languageandgenes 10.38pm.

And they're not - so what is going wrong ?

In part, I suspect, it's because people expect that the cards in their hand are nothing but a busted flush, they have little clue, like the Tories, of how to reform the current incarnation of capitalism and its accountability within an electoral cycle, or indeed a generation. New Labour (or whatever thy are calling themselves these days) might be able to mitigate the worst effects of the crisis, for some, but not for all, an certainly not for most of those actively engaged in politics. Perhaps the Daily Mail like 'hope', what little there is, is that the most blatantly pro-capitalist party, the Tories might know what they are doing and in six years time we might be out of this predicament. Of course, that's a false hope, but it's currently the best hope on offer. If an opposition party was to tell the truth, it would unlikely ever be elected.

Nice one.
Hands up which paper told you to vote Clegg?

The problem for other parties is that Cameron is just a likeable guy. Even I like him (though there are occasions when I despise him too, like over this religious crap he's been promoting recently, another was with his handling of the riots). He's a good statesman whether people like his politics or not or the decisions he makes. It's hard to see who can seriously pose a realistic challenge to him in the short term.

The poll results, which this leader chose not to link to, are dire for Labour, showing the Tories just ahead of Labour overall at a time in the Parliamentary cycle when Labour should be creaming them.

Cameron enjoys a plus-5% popularity rating, compared to Miliband's minus-17%.

And on the question of which party would you trust to manage the economy, for every person responding Labour, two people are saying Tory.

In traditional manner, Labour won't ditch a leader until he's lost them an election - so they're toast in 2015, and quite possibly for a generation thereafter (what with boundary changes etc).

Because the rightwing media/press went on a savage hate Brown campaign,
and the Blair supporters in the Labour party were undermining the Labour Government,
and helping the tories.

The tories did not win the General Election,
they failed to get the 326 seats.
The libdems actually lost two seats.

Cameron lost the General Election when you consider the millions spent
in marginal seats with Ashford at the helms,
and a deeply divided Labour Party that was cronically criticised by the rightwing press.

The question should be why did Cameron lose the General Election?

This is a lucid and accurate editorial, and the situation it outlines is far from being unique to Britain unfortunately. It's more or less exactly the same in France as well as all over Europe and further afield. This is very worrying, because if the left doesn't reform its philosophical and policy foundations it will become irrelevant, and a power void will inevitably follow. To be honest, I don't think many people understand just how serious this is.....

Thus is it any wonder that Scotland has had enough? Right now, it's thanking its lucky stars that it has a plausible excuse in which to break free from the Thatcherite south. What the North wouldn't do to have an equally effective ruse.

Seconded. Can anyone here explain to me that, despite everything that David Cameron had in his favour, he was still unable to land a majority?

ninjawarrior

25 December 2011 10:16PM

Meantime, Cameron bestrides the 'world politik U.K'. like a colossus.
You backed the wrong horse, Guardian - admit it and eat humble pie.

Oh, absolutely.
The exquisite colours of his gown, the fine quality of the stitching, the perfect cut.
Why only an utter fool would say that he is not the best dressed emperor in all the world.

What a disaster this is for the Lib Dems. Lat time 'round , when Blair was at his least popular Charlie Kennedy was unable to press home any advantage for personal reasons and this time 'round Clegg is so tied to Cameron as to have made effective opposition impossible. It is almost unbelievable that the Lib Dems have squandered the opportunity to be the main party of opposition twice in fifteen years ; that takes a real lack of talent and foresight

As much as I agree it would be good if the Lib Dems were the main party of opposition. The country requires stability and it would not be in the UKs best interest for the Lib Dems to break the coalition, regardless of what it means for the party politically. The Lib Dems need to see it through.

I can't agree that the Lib Dems position means that effective opposition is impossible. That's false for two reasons. The best opposition to the Tories, on some issues, has so far been by the Lib Dems as Labour has been peripheral to the debate by choice or they have (amazingly) ended up backing the Tories own plan of action. The riots was one perfect example of were Labour could have cashed in. The Lib Dems were railing against Cameron and the courts treatment of offenders, but Labour, the civil liberty bashers that love punitive rule, decided they wanted to stay "tough on crime" in the eyes of the public and gave the Tories an easy ride. They also should have defended the human rights act, since the Lib Dems have been running a solo show to defend it and Labour are again obsessed with not being seen as the party that supports human rights to right wing voters. There have been numerous opportunities for Labour, where Lib Dems have laid the platform for an all out assault, but Labour being the right wingers that they are refuse to fight them.

If Labour needs the Lib Dems support (50 odd MPs is all they have) in order to make a decent fist of opposition then chuck them out at the next election for being useless. If Labour are failing it's because Labour are failing, it has nothing to do with the Lib Dems as much as everyone wants to blame them for everything these days.

Cameron must look across the despatch box at PMQs and feel like rubbing his eyes in joyous disbelief at the pair of jokers that the political gods have bestowed to challenge he and Osborne. Tory MPs are said to call Ed, "the gift that just keeps on giving" already.

Balls's ever the happy chappy, upbeat personality is ill-suited to austere times. He has all the Chancellorship credibility of Eddie Izzard - nice bloke ,clever enough too, but we just can't take him seriously in such times, seems to be the message from polling . He's compounding Ed's own, deeply problematic disconnect with voters too. Reshuffling Balls looks as though it'll be essential.

And the truth is, Ed can never be too angry about privilege. At least, not without sounding absurdly hypocritical himself, due to his own background and his , PPE /research wonk/ parachuted MP route into frontline politics. Blair's destruction of old Labour has left us with a political class that's never been more out of touch.

It's amazing how popular idiots can become.

How far rightwing can the tories go?

This stupid cover up of this extreme rightwing tory regime will collapse
at the General Election.

The BBC will be able to show some guts and begin to expose the tories
for what they are, a bunch of rightwing sh*ts.

The population will tear this vail of deceit apart,
and vote the tories out.

Like Schrodinger's cat the tories will be found half dead.