The Tories move to a 6 point lead with ICM

December 17th, 2011

LAB drop to just 34%

A new ICM poll for the Sunday Telegraph has the Tories opening up a gap of six points over LAB with the LDs standing still at 14%.

The is the first survey by the pollster since Cameron’s Brussels veto and it’s the best Tory position in any survey since the first coalition budget in June 2010.

Many regard ICM as “the gold standard” and in May got the AV referendum right to within a stunning 0.1%. It was joint equal for accuracy at the 2010 election and is taken most seriously by all the parties.

It operates differently in several ways from other firms. What’s probably made a difference here is that ICM discounts by a half the views of all those surveyed who did not vote at the last election.

The poll had 43% of women saying they would vote CON compared with 39% of the men.

Since the veto just nine days ago there has been a pretty consistent picture coming from the polling firms that have reported. None, however, has anything like a margin as large as this.

For Labour this could spark off a lot of soul searching and possibly put the leadership under pressure.

ICM Research interviewed a random sample of 1,008 adults aged 18+ by telephone on 14-15 December 2011.

Mike Smithson @MikeSmithsonOGH

http://edmundintokyo.wordpress.com Edmund in Tokyo

You can argue that Huhne won’t cut CO2 or that he’ll make old people cold, but not both.
Anonymous

”
It may well be that life-expectancy in this country has to fall back somewhat, in order for life-expectancy to rise in other parts of the world.

Easy to say, but when it’s your loved ones at risk it’s hard to accept.”
I am really not sure what to make of your post there Ma’am. Do you want to perhaps post some explanation/clarification?
Anonymous

If the Millipede was a steam engine? I was about to suggest he was like Bullied’s other masterpiece, the Q1, unattractive and quite awkward looking. The similarity ends in that the Q1 was actually quite efficient and was good for its purpose.

Would David C. be like the LNER A4 – fast, sleek, efficient and iconic, and the locomotive which took the “fastest steam locomotive (Mallard)” title from the Germans?
http://edmundintokyo.wordpress.com Edmund in Tokyo

If Gabriel Oak is around, that was quite an impressive performance calling the trend. I certainly didn’t expect that much of a lead.

My bitcoin address is:
1LLPKiLDpGMFJxTB2Whdc5hx3DHTevz31v
http://www.youtube.com/ajs41#p/p Andy JS

UKPR polling average has been updated:

Con 39%
Lab 38%
LD 11%

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/
The Screaming Eagles

The Independent on Sunday has some stuff on the Ed, and done credit ratings for the three leaders

Ed Miliband

Credit worthiness rating: CCC

Currently vulnerable, and is dependent on favourable political conditions in his parliamentary party and his ability to cut through to voters on the economy. Negative outlook, at risk of a default which could lead to the completion of a distressed exchange offer with his brother.

David Cameron Credit rating: AA

Very strong capacity to meet his pledges on deficit reduction and keep coalition harmony intact. But he is susceptible to the adverse effects of his Eurosceptic backbenchers and the propensity of Lib Dems in the Cabinet to upset the coalition.

Nick Clegg Credit rating: BB

Less vulnerable in the near term but faces uncertainties, and prolonged exposure to Tory policies could lead to an inadequate capacity to meet his grassroots members’ demands.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ed-miliband-plans-party-shakeup-as-criticism-of-his-leadership-escalates-6278839.html
Chris A

Let’s try to get to the bottom of this. You pay

$0.8873 per 100,000 BTU

I pay $1.65 per 100,000 BTU ($1.57 = £1)

So I pay (Scottish Power rather than British Gas) approximately twice as much as you. We only have one rate winter or summer.
Anonymous

Energy prices – a mine of confusion. Some comparisons:

US Natural Gas (Henry Hub, Louisiana wholesale price) closed on Friday at $3.127/MMBtu (1MMBtu = 10 therms; 1 therm ~=29.3kWh) – or 31.27 cents/therm that’s about 20 p/therm.

UK Natural Gas (National Balancing point wholesale) closed at 56.61 p/therm having fallen back from autumn peaks about 10 p/therm higher on the back of the warm October and November.

BG recently signed to buy LNG FOB Sabine Pass, Louisiana from Cheniere for Henry Hub price + 15% (which covers gas used in liquefaction) + $2.25/MMBtu. Shipping to the UK and re-gasification might add substantially: LNG carriers have just hit record rates of $150,000/day. Fortunately BG has the option to sell the gas anywhere it wants (e.g. Japan).

Retail prices in the UK are starting to be influenced by the complicated cross subsidies to “greenergy” sources (although these are more evident in electricity pricing) and carbon taxation. Of course if we developed shale gas, we could almost certainly enjoy wholesale pricing on a par with the US… which makes the claims of the Climate Change Committee that high forecast energy prices are to do with gas prices seem distinctly odd.
Tim B

So the £5 gallon has arrived.

I pumped 22 gallons this morning and paid $2.96 per 3.785 liter gallon. It’s down 15 cents in the last 2 weeks. Xmas is the second largest demand time after Thanksgiving, so you would expect an increase. The trend is definitely down.

Regarding heating, remember I live in a warmer climate. Homes here are designed to be cheap to cool during the March to November summer, not cheap to heat during the short winter: 9 foot ceilings and 5.5 inch walls. In winter you need a 35 degree difference between indoors and out, on those freezing mornings.

In summer when it’s hot (and we had 75 straight days over 90 this summer) you only need at most a 20 degree differential: 80 degrees of air conditioning is very comfortable when the temperature is 100 degrees.
Anonymous

Building huge numbers of windmills (that require expensive
duplicate
standby generators when the wind fails) allows Huhne to reliably achieve both.

A rare genius..
Anonymous

I can argue both: Huhne’s policy leads to more carbon intensive energy consumption in high carbon using countries like China as our industry migrates there, while impoverishing and freezing our own old ladies.
Anonymous

“You can argue that Huhne won’t cut CO2 or that he’ll make old people cold, but not both”

Mr. Edmund you perhaps need to think globally. Huhne wants an additional 32,000 windmills to be built. Those windmills are made substantially from steel. Steel generates very large amounts of CO2 in its production and fabrication. The pay off period in terms of CO2 reduction, if it ever exists, is measured over decades. So, no cut in CO2 emissions in the foreseeable future (though thanks to the Hoon’s policy most of the jobs and wealth creation will happen overseas – making the UK poorer).

Meanwhile that investment has to be paid for up front, which the Hoon has decided means loading on charges to peoples fuel bills. So everyone will suffer. As per the posts above the people who suffer most will be the ill and the elderly.

Cameron is going to have to justify this to the electorate if he wants a majority in 2015, not Huhne.
Anonymous

Currently, people in some parts of the world have a drastically lower life expectancy than we do here. Naturally, they want to improve their standard of living which will increase their life expectancy.

This may have an adverse effect on our standard of living (e.g. if there is only so much fuel in the world to serve us all) and therefore our life expectancy.

Or fuel may simply become so expensive that we cannot afford to heat our homes as we have become accustomed to do. If that happens, the cold will kill off the vulnerable frail people amongst our population and our life expectancy will fall.

It is easy to discuss such things objectively when one is talking about populations. It is harder to be objective when one is faced with the prospect of one’s own Mum or Dad effectively dying of the cold.

I think Mr Huhne has a very compartmentalised mind, which makes it easier for him to tackle the global issues objectively without noticing the impact on individuals in his own country.
Kristin

Diesel currently circa £5.26 per US gallon. The £6 UK gallon is already with us
Tim B

So I pay (Scottish Power rather than British Gas) approximately twice as much as you. We only have one rate winter or summer.

But wholesale prices for gas change constantly – my rate changes every month. It’s like the rice of gasoline – it changes daily.

I’m intrigued by Scottish Power charging half the price of British Gas. Is there some government involvement?
Chris A

But we pay retail not wholesale prices. They all charge about the same. Where do you get this 4 times differential from?

If only the Scottish government did subsidise me (rather than the other way round) but I’m actually 200 miles south of the border.
Tim B

Diesel is very expensive here compared to gasoline – it’s about $3.40 a gallon currently compared to less than $3 for gasoline.

This is for 1 main reason – nobody uses it and it’s hard to find. (yes I know it’s cause and effect!) People here simply don’t drive diesel cars. All large trucks use diesel (think Kenworth etc), but they don’t typically refuel at common or garden gas stations. They have truck stops, which also offer interesting food items on their menus.
http://edmundintokyo.wordpress.com Edmund in Tokyo

Googling around for wind turbine EROI I’m getting numbers like 3-6 months, 1.1 years etc. Where are you getting the idea that paying back the CO2 takes decades?
http://www.youtube.com/ajs41#p/p Andy JS

Tom Scholes-Fogg, a leading Labour blogger who volunteered on Mr Miliband’s campaign team and co-edited the book What Next for Labour?, said some grassroots members were “unhappy” and wanted a change of leader.He told The Independent on Sunday: “When Ed gave his speech to conference in 2010, I was sitting behind him on stage, and I was thinking I have backed the right person to get Labour back into Downing Street. A year on, I do regret backing him. If there was a leadership election with the same five candidates I would now back David Miliband. David is more of a statesman. He would be taking on the Government much more, and laying out his vision for the country and the Labour Party.”Ed Miliband, on the other hand, is in the middle of nowhere. He said he will fight for the centre ground, but he hasn’t identified where that centre ground is. I don’t know what he stands for, or where he wants to take the country.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ed-miliband-plans-party-shakeup-as-criticism-of-his-leadership-escalates-6278839.html
Anonymous

Thanks for answering my question, Ma’am. What you are saying is the Huhne is a total shit who couldn’t give a stuff for the elderly, frail and disabled in this country.

Well, I am not sure I could disagree. My view is that Huhne is a shit who couldn’t give a toss for anyone but himself.
Anonymous

The reason diesel is expensive is because it is in high demand elsewhere in the world, having been taxed less severely than petrol/gasoline (e.g. particularly in the EU except for the UK). The US is actually an importer of gasoline, taking advantage of the refined surplus from Europe, where petrol demand has fallen. In the UK, tax on petrol and diesel is the same per litre, so our higher diesel pump prices reflect higher pre-tax wholesale prices.
Tim B

They all charge about the same. Where do you get this 4 times differential from?

According to Colin on PB in the summer, and Hurstlama this evening. He said on this thread some 45 minutes ago -

For gas you are indeed paying less than a quarter of the UK price (which has been hiked twice this year, even though wholesale prices have been falling).

What is the price both per therm and CCF on your bill? Unfortunately I don’t have one in front of me.
Anonymous

You are ignoring the CO2 generated to construct a wind turbine and its foundations (a tennis court sized lump of concrete several metres thick).
Tim B

The US is actually an importer of gasoline

A fact which is not lost on people here, hence the ‘drill, baby drill!’ and slowly growing support among Democrats for the Keystone XL pipeline.
Anonymous

LOL. No, I’m saying Mr Huhne is intensely focussed on the job he’s been given. If he’d been given a job primarily to do with care of the elderly, frail & disabled, he’d be intensely focussed on that; and something else – e.g. costs – would be shut out from his awareness instead.

Thanks for the discussion, I’m off to bed.
Anonymous

Sorry, but I was talking about the amount of CO2 generated in producing a windmill as opposed to the eventual saving that it being in use will produce. EROI is something different.
Norm

For some reason diesel is now almost 10p a litre more expensive than petrol. It used to be about the same or even slightly cheaper. However diesel cars are quite popular in the UK. Edit I’ve just seen it doesntaddup’s post which answers why.
Anonymous

Perhaps we should give him a job of personally testing counter-IED techniques in Helmand. Then he could get really focussed.

G’night, Ma’am.
Chris A

We only have the price shown in SI units as I said earlier. The conversion is right.
Tim B

I had a Mercedes turbo diesel when I lived in the UK – I loved it.

Mercedes sedans are awfully small cars for the US, where me, my wife and daughter all drive SUVs.

If I remember something like half the cars in the UK are diesel powered – is that still true?
Tim B

the price shown in SI units

Now you’ve got me – I have no idea what an SI unit is.
Sunil Prasannan

Basically the Metric system, for god’s sake!

Typical American!
Norm

I don’t think it’s quite as high as that in the UK but France certainly has something like that percentage. Personally I’m switching back to petrol next time I change my car because you hardly save anything these days with diesel given they have to be serviced more often than petrol vehicles as well.
Tim B

Typical American!

Hey! When I lived in England (before leaving in the late 70s) they had therms and gallons and fahrenheit.

Weather forecasts in the late 90s on my temporary return were impenetrable to me – I have no idea how hot or cold 18c is.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_INN5HUCRHXJB2XWRWTS5G5EN4I Lewis Duckworth

I wonder what the gap would be if the BBC had provided a balanced treatment of Cameron’s decision to veto the treaty.
Anonymous

SI units is just a posh name for metric units. In this case kWh. There are ~29.3 kWh in a therm. So multipl the price in p/kWh by 29.3 to get p/therm, and by your chosen exchange rate to convert to cents/therm.

Natural gas (actually as processed by gas trains) varies very slightly in composition. It is mostly methane, but slightly different amounts of other light gases – ethane, propane and butane – and other impurities including the mercaptan stenching agent that gives it its smell lead to some variation in calorific content. Typical calorific values are just over 1,000 Btu per cubic foot.
Sunil Prasannan

See my post earlier at 11.31pm (UK time):

0 degrees Celsius = 32 Fahrenheit
10 degrees Celsius = 50 Fahrenheit
20 degrees Celsius = 68 Fahrenheit

1 degree difference in Celsius = 1.8 degrees difference in Fahrenheit (so 10 degrees difference = 18 degrees difference).
http://aconservatives.blogspot.com/ Benedict White

Don’t be a pratt Sean. There’s a good chap.
http://edmundintokyo.wordpress.com Edmund in Tokyo

Hard to see the CO2 payback time being wildly different from the energy payback time.

But either way, where are you getting this stuff?
Anonymous

Lockerbie is well aware of the consequences of Americans shooting down Iranian passenger planes!

Since I’m not long back from NC, I appreciate your “can get 4 syllables out of ‘sh*t’. Have you also lost the ability to pronounce more than a couple of vowels?
Anonymous

Ex-Regio revenue , of course, subsidises both of us. That its revenues primarily come from the waters around the Scottish coast will no doubt have escaped you, as the UK Government intended that it should.
Disraeli

Touchdown Cowboys.
Tim B

Gas for January rose as much as 1.45 pence to 60.45 pence a therm and traded at that level at 4:34 p.m. in London, according to broker prices compiled by Bloomberg. That’s equal to $9.46 per million Btu. A therm is 100,000 Btu

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-09/oil-climbs-as-consumer-confidence-gains-commodities-at-close.html

This of course is the wholesale price. It is already much more than I pay retail, and you can be sure that the gas companies will add a hefty premium.

Compare that to the price in New York.

Gas futures for January delivery fell as low as $3.084 a million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange, before recovering to trade up 2.1 cents $3.148. Natural-gas futures are now trading at their lowest level since Sept. 14, 2009

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204553904577102321792004772.html

Given that wholesale difference, UK prices being 4 times the US price doesn’t seem so far out of whack.
Tim B

No.

Oddly enough a friend got a new puppy, and named her Mattie. We still haven’t worked out if it’s Maddie or Mattie, as an American pronounces both the same, as do I at this point, y’all.
Tim B

I know

- we’ll take it
Disraeli

I’m just following the play-by-play in the background on SI gameflash. (I don’t have a subscription to SKY TV)
Tim B

Is this revenue from that well known Irishman, Reggie O’Perrin?
Anonymous

Not unless Reggie O’Perrin is paying £6bn into the UK Treasury from the oil and gas fields in Scottish waters!
Tim B

Not unless Reggie O’Perrin is paying £6bn into the UK Treasury from the oil and gas fields in Scottish waters!

He didn’t get were he is today by paying £6bn into the UK Treasury from the oil and gas fields in Scottish waters!
RodCrosby

“sacked… after attending stag party where guests dressed as Nazis”

What is it about the Nazis that gives people the spooks?
Tim B

- and another one.

It’s on NFL Network
Disraeli

Touchdown Dallas! 14-0.
At this rate the Cowboys are going to have to work real hard to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory this week.
Sunil Prasannan

Hi Tim B, have you read this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flapping
Tim B

Trust me – I don’t care about the first 3 quarters, it’s a lead at the start of the 4th quarter that worries me.

ESPN has discovered Rudyard Kipling’s ‘IF’ and has NBC’s Dick Enberg reading it to video footage of Tim Tebow.

aaaarrrrggggghhhhh!!!!
Disraeli

Good point Rod. There is a sprinkling of something akin to Political Correctness there – but on steroids.
People can open say, a bar with a Soviet theme, and people just treat it as a gimmick (I believe there is at least one in London) – without any mention of the horrors of the gulags etc.
Maybe its another lefty thing where vicious humour is “post-modern ironic” if it is from a left wing commedian, but offensive if it from someone like Clarkson.
Tim B

Yes, I’ve now read it, but don’t pretend to understand it…

Sheeee-eeee-yyyy-eeee-ttttt – see: 4 syllables
Sunil Prasannan

Who in their right mind would want to dress up as the people who blitzed London and Liverpool during the War?
Sunil Prasannan

That was an article about Maddie/Mattie sounding alike!
Tim B

Because they killed over 6 million people in konzentrationlagers in addition to the soldiers who died fighting them and defending them?
Anonymous

And only one and a half vowesl! You are worse than the Carolinians!
RodCrosby

People with a sense a humour?

Formerly a large of the British DNA…
Tim B

Jump back Loretta – that dawg just ain’t gonna hunt
Tim B

I never know on which side to put my dipthong
Tim B

vowesl

What are you drinking?
Sunil Prasannan

Willing to defend the Nazi bombing of Liverpool, Rod?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_Blitz
Tim B

Willing to defend the Nazi bombing of Liverpool, Rod?

From an aesthetic perspective, it’s hard not to

Please note this is an attempt at humor!!
RodCrosby

It’s notable that the tweet didn’t even say the individual in question dressed as a Nazi – but merely attended a party where guests did…
RodCrosby

‘Willing to defend the Nazi bombing of Liverpool, Rod?’

Considering I wrote large parts of that article, No.

But I will say this – the town planners did more damage to Liverpool than Hitler ever did….
Sunil Prasannan

Not according to the Revision History (unless you used an IP address).
Tim B

the town planners did more damage to Liverpool than Hitler ever did….

Hear hear!!!
Tim B

Dallas now 3 touchdowns ahead – but we’re not in the 4th quarter yet
Disraeli

Didn’t Hitler’s brother live in Liverpool?
EDIT : Or some relative or other.
Sunil Prasannan

It’s in the article I linked to below

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_Blitz

The last German air raid on Liverpool took place on 10 January 1942, destroying several houses on Upper Stanhope Street. By a quirk of fate one of the houses destroyed was number 102, which had been the home of Alois Hitler Jr.,
half brother of Adolf Hitler and the birthplace of Hitler’s nephew, William Patrick Hitler.[6] The house was never
rebuilt and the whole site was eventually cleared of housing and grassed over.
Disraeli

They seem to have magically found a running game from somewhere. Didn’t expect that after Murray getting injured.
Sunil Prasannan

OMG it’s 2.30! Mr HurstLlama would be appalled!

Good night all!
Tim B

Didn’t he – allegedly – live in a flat in Toxteth with his married half brother shortly before WW1?
RodCrosby

That was one of the interesting sections I inserted.

The last bombs on Liverpool destroyed Paddy Hitler’s house…

You gorra, gorra laugh…
Disraeli

Hmm. A scouse Hitler. Don’t like the sound of that. I’ll bet he supported Everton rather than Liverpool!
Tim B

Man U….
Disraeli

Laughed out loud. Touched my funny bone that did! Still chuckling as I type this.
Tim B

I’m chuckling too – Dallas now 4 touchdowns ahead: surely they can’t lose this one.

- didn’t mean to call you Shirley..
RodCrosby

If his in-laws had been more welcoming, he might have stayed in Liverpool and eventually got a job reading gas-meters in Childwall…
Tim B

But he couldn’t have supported Hamilton Academical – where would he have found a scarf long enough?
Disraeli

On that note, I am off to bed. Goodnight all!
Tim B

but with a scouse accent, he wouldn’t have been able to say ‘plenipotentiary’
Anonymous

“voweslWhat are you drinking? ”

Vokda
Tim B

me, Scotch.

I hope you’re proud!
RodCrosby

God, how the Tory party has changed….

1983: Neil Hamilton admits giving a Nazi salute in Berlin: PROMOTED

2011: Tory accused of attending a party with Nazi-garbed guest: SACKED
Tim B

-and Basil says “Don’t mention the war.”

- 1979?
Tim B

goodnight all
Anonymous

Me to. Coalition govt is not a ‘normal’ situation in which to reallocate 50% of don’t knows to the party that was voted for at the last GE. I tend to believe the real votes which have consistently shown Lab up 8 to 10 points on the last GE. For what it’s worth I still believe we are firmly in hung parliament territory. Morale is much higher in the blue camp though.
Anonymous

“Morale is much higher in the blue camp though.”

While morals are lamentably low in both UK camps!

Nytol.
Anonymous

TGOHF – The claimant count in Feltham and Heston is 3.9%, lpeer than the London average.

Your explanation doesn’t seem viable; it’s unlikely the Tories are merely putting on votes in their safe seats.
George Anderton

And it is the economy that is most greatly and negatively affected by our membership of the EU. This is what I and a growing number of the electorate believe.

politicalbetting.com

The Tories move to a 6 point lead with ICM

LAB drop to just 34%

Mike Smithson @MikeSmithsonOGH