So, if Andy Coulson is such a good Communications Director, how come this whole conference has communicated terribly?

[LadyBlaBlah]

Davey was out defending Coulson yesterday saying that obviously Andy knew nowt about that phone hacking debacle (obviously) and indeed Andy has been a brilliant Communications Director since he has been in Downing Street

Now, I beg to differ. Indeed I would go so far as to say that going on this week's communications at conference (the fact that noone in the party knew about the CB cuts followed swiftly by the tax allowance for married couples), he is actually quite shit.

I completely agree. Where's Mr Campbell when you need him?

Yup. It's one thing when you're in opposition and broadly everyone hates the incumbent government. Quite another when the worm starts to turn.

There are obvious flaws in the child benefit cut plan - but plenty of time to deal with them.

However, the actual politics is very very clever. At a stroke Osborne has destroyed the concept of universality in the welfare state - hitherto one of the totemic articles of faith for the left. And 83% of people support the principle!

The days of universal benefits have now passed for good - and passing with it, any serious political will for large-scale expansion of the welfare state.

Not to mention - just think how the sight of middle-class BBC presenters and Guardian journalists whining looks to the working-class. They have really amplified the message that the rich will take a big share of the pain to come.

I do agree that the briefing about the marriage tax break was very bad - it showed nervousness. They should have anticipated the media backlash over the obvious anomalies. The tactics weren't perfect - but strategically, this week has seen a huge win for the right over the left!

absolutely disagree Longfingernails. far more, the realsisation that 'all in this together' - means us versus them in power and the beginning of immense fightback.

"hitherto one of the totemic articles of faith for the left. And 83% of people support the principle!" People (including oin the left, and those who would lose out) have been questioning the necessity of non-means tested CB for over a decade. It would have been an easy 'win' for them had they not blundered ahead with a proposal that an A level student could have picked holes in. They shouldn't need time to put such things right, it would have taken 10 mins to get it right on the first place.

And what an idiot to let DC make such a (hammy) theatrical oment over the supposed quote of Ed Balls that 'winners' in an education system was a bad thing. It took Newsnight 5 mins to find the footage (on Newsnight) of the quote and demonstrate how dishonestly they had used it.

And you might think that with DC having been on MN in the campaign a comeptent counications director might check the zeitgeist over proposals: even on MN, where you would expect a high poportion of married woen in favour of the marriage tax break was, in a huge majority, scathing of it, and raised all the obvious pitfalls.

That 83% figure was from a Sky poll.

Funnily enough it is reported as gospel in the Times and the Sun.

Andy Coulson was a former News International employee.

Spin, much?

News International was just the client.

Yougov was the pollster. They are very reputable and the head is Peter Kellner (a very prominent Labour supporter).

It's easy to knock pollsters when you don't like what they are saying. I am sure I do it too.

Of course pollsters sometimes use leading questions at the client's request - but the wording and order of the questions in this particular poll looks very reasonable to me:

today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/YG-Archives-Pol-Sun-ChildBenefit-051010.pdf

I tend to agree with longfingernails that it has been a strategic win - however, far from there being a groundswell of support (we all know that polls don't ask the right questions, they are totally skewed) you only have to spend 2 minutes talking to people/even reading threads on here to know that there's no point in having a win if you are not going to be reelected. All that tentative support that DC had is waning away. The LibDems won't get voted for at all next time round.

Unprune MN is very unrepresentative of the population at large.

Nevertheless, I don't think those on the left have grasped how big a victory this really is.

From now on, until the foreseeable future, there will be NO major extension of the welfare state. Sure, politicians might tinker with it - but basically, by destroying the concept of universality, it has become politically impossible to expand welfare.

Another big strategic victory: the return of the distinction between the deserving and the undeserving poor. No-one minds welfare going to the disabled, temporarily to those who want to work hard but have lost their job, etc. People generally do mind it going to children of EU workers not living in Britain, or to non-EU immigrants who haven't been here long. They don't like it when long-term unemployed people on housing benefit live in better houses, in better areas, than people who have worked and toiled and strived all their lives. They especially don't like paying benefits to people like this:

www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/3166938/Breadline-mum-got-60-inch-telly-on-benefits.html

The whole way we think about non-disability welfare is finally being reshaped - from its current status as a handout, to a genuine hand-up.

Don't forget that I also live in the population at large

Handout/hand-up - meh, weasel words. For it to be a hand UP there has to be somewhere UP to get to (eg a job, higher education, have we given up entirely on apprenticeships?) and those are looking a bit thin on the ground right now.

On the contrary:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11491404

Manufacturing and production are both growing reasonably fast.

That is cold comfort to those who suffered because of Gordon Brown's misregulation of financial services and Labour's massive structural deficit - and to all of us who will have to tighten our belts to pay for it. But the private sector is recovering.