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April 17, 2005
Strange Polls
Conflicting messages from the polls. As usual they go mad for them on Sundays. The Sunday Times reported that the TBCs had 'closed the gap to just one point. Now the dirty digger is proud of having won the last election the Tories ever won (It woz the Sun wot won it, 1992), but doesn't support them now so this pro-tory poll is not what he'd want to publicise.
By contrast The Sunday Telegraph had ZNL 10 points ahead and was predicting a landslide with a majority of over 150. Again not what the proprietors of a Tory rag would like to see on their front pages.
These polsters (YouGov for the times, ICM for the Telegraph) are on a hiding to nothing. Elections are the best free advertising polsters will ever get, but with forecast results so widely different it's hard to convince their bread and butter customers that the surveys they do have much validity. The whole excersise is pretty pointless anyway since the current constituency boundaries are so out of whack. General estimates have it that even if both majors get an equal share of the vote, ZNL would win by 30 seats. This is due for review, but, crucially, not till after the election.
Now for a little arithmetic. BMW gave Rover around a half billion pound loan, and left them around point 3 billion in stock; say point eight billion to start. Today's papers say Rover now has debts of over one billion, so they've burned of 1.8 billion. Maybe they still have some cars to sell so let's say they've tossed out 1.5 billion. But they've also sold around a quarter billion worth of assets, (the longbridge land, the component business, and the engine rights) So let's stick with that 1.8 billion number for the amount gone.
We'rd told they're currently running around a 20 million per month loss (say a quarter billion annually). This is obviously worse now than it was when Phoenix took over since they're selling half the cars now than they were then, so over 5 years they'd have lost less than a billion. In other words there's close to a billion missing that shouldn't be.
And of course, we KNOW it can't have gone to Towers since he said: -
"My annual salary has been £200,000 and the pension I will get is £105,000, not £16 million as reported.
"If you look at the salaries of other company chairmen within the same industry, you will see that this is significantly below the average.
"Other bosses are paid a lot more than I was and are given larger pensions."
Would YOU buy a used car from this man?
And another thing. Now they're gone we're told 5000 workers will be redundant. To pay those people for one week cost £6,500,000. Average annual salary? Around £65,000. I'm in the wrong business.
Spotted on 'Tony Blair's campaign diary', headlined 'I saw him off'
Fifteen Minutes of Fame
Kaleem Saeed, labour party candidate for Henley. 2001 results were:-
Candidate Party Votes Share Change
Boris Johnson Con 20,466 46.1% -0.3%
Catherine Bearder LDem 12,008 27.0% +2.3%
Janet Matthews Lab 9,367 21.1% -1.6%
Philip Collings UKIP 1,413 3.2%
Oliver Tickell Green 1,147 2.6% +1.6%
Turnout 44,401 64.3% -13.3%
Majority 8,458 19.0%
Pledge:-
‘The people of Henley want an MP who can represent them full-time and deal with the core issues which concern Henley. Choose an MP who will do just that. If I was elected as your MP then I would offer you a full commitment, responsibility and be accountable to the people of Henley.’
Picture: -
Good luck Kaleem.
Political betting Projected Election Outcome LAB majority 72 seats
Posted by Flo Ting Voe Tah at April 17, 2005 03:40 PM