Across SEPTEMBER there were 37 Westminster polls released during the month at various times by all the major polling agencies. Polling average was (figure in brackets compared to last month).
Con 30.0% (-2.0)
Lab 43.7% (+3.0)
LDem 10.3% (-1.6)
Grn 5.6% (nc)
Rfm 3.0% (-0.1)
Oth 7.4% (+0.7)
Ave Lab lead over Con for September:- 13.61% (+5.56)
The Tories swung between 20-35%, Labour between 38-55% and the LDems between 7-14%. Labour managed to hit the magic 40% thirty five times during the 37 polls and on one occasion showed a 33% lead (YouGov, 28-29 Sep. Two other polls carried out at the same time although showing a high Labour lead, were nowhere near as big as this one which is almost certainly an 'outlier'). Labour led in every poll with leads of between 4%-33%.
If a General Election were conducted on these SEPTEMBER figures and using the new boundaries, it would result in a Parliament of L368, C194, SNP51, LD14, PC3, G1, NI18, Speaker 1 with Labour having a majority of 86.
A chaotic month highlighted by the installation of the new PM Liz Truss, followed almost immediately by the death and funeral of HM Queen Elizaberh II and ten days mourining resulting in the near paralysis of government. Party conference season then followed closely on the heels of that, along with the financial markets 'gaming ' the now quite marked differences in Base Rates between the USA and UK, EU and the far-East, making it highly profitable for the 'big players' to skip large funds from one country and one region to another to capitalise on short term investements (some lasting less than an hour) and 'hedging' - they are literally moving tens of billions from one country to another for a couple of hours and some times far less, affecting exchange rates, taking advantage of that fluctuation then moving them elsewhere to capitalise on that, using the US Dollar as a 'hedge' of sorts to protect their gambles. Already the EU's ECB is in the process of another 'bank bail-out' across the eurozone in the guise of 'distressed asset purchases', with Slovakia causing the EU extreme concern along with Italy's new government and the continued problems with Hungary regarding support for Putin. And lurking in the background of all this is the very real threat of limited nuclear war in occupied Ukraine and a winter of pan-European electricity and gas shortages.
Truss has severe internal party problems in that two thirds of her MPs did not support her in the recent Tory leadership campaign and in the Parliamentary Tory party by tradition, the MPs control the PM not the other way around. She won because the membership voted for her, and a significant Sunak rear-guard lead by Michael Gove, fully intend to depose her should they get the chance and are taking every opportunity to do just that (electorally suicidal thing to do but hey-ho). Bizarrely this is the same group of people in the main that brought Johnson down in an attempt to get Sunak into No 10. Should they succeed in toppling Truss, that will result in another leadership election in which if Johnson stood, he would win. Easily. He remains massively popular with the party membership. Sunak is finished - the membership will never accept him for what he did to Johnson and the sooner they grasp that the sooner the Tory party will settle.
We are in a unique and probably the most dangerously unstable economic period across Europe since WW2 - possibly since the Black Death, 'The Great Slump' of the medieval period (and that lasted 60 years, leading to the War of the Roses,) or the 'Great Credit Crisis' of 1772 (the fall out from which basically caused the American Revolutionary War and sowed the seeds for the French Revolution a decade later.). It is fair to say conventional methods of dealing with the current problems will not work and the only chance of staving off a disaster of 1920/30s proportions or worse is by trying unconventional methods. There is neither the time nor an existing strategy to do anything else and countries trying conventional means are merely slowing the decline, not reversing it. People in the UK have an absolutely pitiful understanding of even basic economic realities and vast number still even think the government has money - it doesn't. Not a single penny. It takes it from you in taxes and if that's not enough borrows it from your childrens' future (the children have got to pay back the £895bn we borrowed for QE in the wake of the 2008 banking crash - and it's getting bigger every second, of every minute, of every day due to interest. Then there is £440bn that was borrowed for Covid schemes such as furlough. That has to be paid back, in full, no later than 4 years time or a penalty higher interest rate is applied and the markets will probably default sterling - and most of europe has similar problems.) People look at GDP as though it is the Holy Grail without actually understanding what it is - merely a measure of consumer activity. You can bring 10m immigrants into this country, put them all on benefits and GDP will go up because they are buying things and bizarrely, productivty will also go up supplying those things. What actually is important is GDP 'per capita' and productivity 'per capita'- and that in the UK and most of europe, they are absolutely dire - beyond pitiful.
The West beat the USSR/Warsaw Pact in the Cold War with wealth - they broke the Bloc by forcing it to try and keep up, forcing them to spend money they didn't have. The far-East/China is now crucifying us in the economic war exactly the same way - forcing us to spend money in an addiction to cheap consumer goods. We now live in an age where the long-term wealth of the west is disappearing to the far-East in ever-increasing volumes (as Obama said, we are entering an age where our children will be poorer than us) and far too many people have adopted the 'ostrich position' and don't want to face the position we are in and what has to be done. The USA knows and understands it and is reacting accordingly - and that includes exploiting the rest of the west in order to 'firewall' itself. Ourselves, the EU and the rest of Europe however, have populations who are ignoring the economic reality of the position and whose only thoughts are 'something must be done' but opposes and won't accept the reality of what 'something' actually is. And the markets do not wait while politicians afford themselves the luxury of dithering and doing things at their own pace, nor do they wait while they bury a Queen. The reality is that unless the rich are getting richer, they do not invest - they remove their wealth to where they can get richer. And if they don't invest, the poor get even poorer and slowly but surely public services decline. Hobson's choice - and whether ordinary people like that is of utterly no relevance at all. It is the reality of Globalisation - the same globalisation that brought you cheap flat screen TV's, affordable mobile phones and cheap food - and you cannot have the ups without the downs. Never thought about how Chliean blueberries, picked by children in dire poverty, end up in UK supermarkets at a price people on benefits here can afford?. Where globalisation is concerned, as a country you are either 'all in' or you will end up cast aside to perish. There is no nice and cushy middle ground. Every country is expendable. There is no cavalry coming over the hill to the rescue. There isn't even a hill.
Frankly, I'm beginning to be glad I am old.
Con lead over Lab 2021: 5.1%
There was one Westminster poll released during the month (figure in brackets compared to last polling in June).
Lab: 46% (+5), Con 23% (-3), PC: 15% (-1), LDem 5% (-2), Grn 3% (-1), Rfm 5% (+1), Oth 3% (+1).
There were no Senedd opinion polls released during the month.
NORTHERN IRELAND
There were no Westmister polls released during Sep.
There were no Assembly polls released during Sep..
SF 22.8%, DUP 30.6%, NIAP 16.8%, UUP 11.7%, SDLP 14.9%, Oth 3.2%)
SF 29.0%, DUP 21.3%, NIAP 13.5%, UUP 11.2%, SDLP 9.1%, TUV 7.6%, PBP 1.2%, Oth 71.%)
I include the Republic because they are the only foreign country with a common land border with the UK and also share a common heritage. In addition, what goes on in Dublin also has an effect in Belfast and in London and vice-versa all round.
There was one poll during the month (comparison to last month in brackets):-During Sep there were 19 polls. Polling figures were:-
REPUBLICAN - 44.0%
DEMOCRAT - 44.8%
Bidens's Democrats were deeply unpopular just a few months back - the most unpopular President fronting the most unpopular government in US history, however Putin's invasion of Ukraine along with Biden & the Democrats shift to a markedly more economically right wing position has improved the Democrats position substantially. Meanwhile, in the Republican Party, virtually all the candidates are 'Trumpist' (over 97%).
On these figures, the Republicans will probably take control of both Houses - Senate & Representatives, as well as many individual states rendering Biden's government a 'lame duck' for the next two years, with the Democrats unable to pass legislation unless the Reublicans support it and the Republicans in turn being in a position where they can alter anything they want to and introduce and pass their own legislation. Imagine a situation where we had a PM and government from one party, but another party held a majority in Commons & Lords.
(2020 US Presidential election:-
Republican - 41.9%
Democrat - 51.3% )
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