Today’s ICM poll features here mainly in respect of the possible Blair presidency of the EU. The large Tory lead in the main results only receives a perfunctory nod!
I’m amused by all the gossip about Brown and Darling’s private conversations on the train home! The place was clearly bugged!
Christina
=================================
SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 1.11.09
British voters don't want Tony Blair or David Miliband in top European jobs – poll
Large numbers of British voters do not want to see either Tony Blair or David Miliband getting top European Union jobs, according to a new ICM poll for The Sunday Telegraph.
By Patrick Hennessy, Political Editor
The survey shows 53 per cent of respondents think the former prime minister is the wrong person to be the EU's new president once the Lisbon Treaty becomes law in all 27 member states.
Some 48 per cent do not want Mr Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, to become the EU's first "foreign minister" – another post to be created once the Treaty is signed. [Which all the “gossipers” trail today as being a ‘good bet’ -cs]
The poll also provides a boost for David Cameron, with 42 per cent of voters backing the Tories if a general election was held tomorrow. The party has a 17-point lead over Labour, on 25 per cent, with the Liberal Democrats on 21 per cent in third place.
The findings – if repeated at the next election, which must be held by next June – would be enough to give the Conservatives a majority of around 111, according to an analysis by The Sunday Telegraph.
Support for the British National Party in the poll is running at just two per cent. This is around average for the BNP and a clear signal that the party has not benefited from any "bounce" following the controversial appearance of its leader, Nick Griffin, on the BBC's Question Time last month. [A leaked government/Labour party document, however, this week put their backing at as high as 18% in some key seats where they’ve been very active. They are not stupid and know they will not get MPs on a broad front so concentrate on a limiited number of seats -cs]
Mr Blair has not given up hope of becoming EU president despite evidence at last week's Brussels summit that he had fallen victim to a stitch-up orchestrated by Nicholas Sarkozy, the French president, and Angela Merkel, the German chancellor. [Those two have decided that that the EU belongs to them jointly. So what is surprising. One day they’ll fall out and then what? WWIII? -cs]
Sources close to Mr Blair said he remained "relaxed" and still hoped he could win through when EU leaders stage another summit, expected later this month, with the aim of making a final decision.
Mr Blair has yet to declare publicly that he wants the job, despite having the public support of the British government.
This weekend his close political ally Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, said of Mr Blair that "he would like to do the job" but added that it was not "matter of life or death from him".
The ICM poll showed 53 per cent not wanting Mr Blair in the post – a much higher figure than recent surveys – while 36 per backed him.
Mr Miliband, whose chances of winning his post were boosted at last week's summit, was given the thumbs down by 48 per cent while 29 per cent supported him.
Mr Blair's chances were dealt a blow after Mr Sarkzoy used his closing news conference in Brussels to make it clear he would line up alongside Mrs Merkel, who has never wanted to see the former British prime minister in the presidential post.
Over dinner before the summit they thrashed out a common position – with French and German sources throughout the following days stressing that it would be very difficult for countries outside both the euro currency zone and the Schengen free travel area inside the EU – such as Britain – to provide the successful candidate.
Mr Sarkozy was once Mr Blair's loudest champion but has been persuaded away from this view, it is understood, by Jean-David Levitte, his senior foreign policy adviser and a former French ambassador to Washington.
Mr Levitte, according to diplomatic sources, kept reminding his boss that the jointly expressed view of France and Germany, the twin architects of the EU, was the key to decision making.
Mr Levitte told a meeting in Brussels that the successful candidate would have to be "un oiseau rare" – a rare bird – who could chair routine meetings of EU leaders as well as representing the union on the world stage. This combination of duties, he implied, would not suit the former British prime minister.
Diplomatic chatter at the end of the summit was that was that the big job would have to go, for arcane reasons of political "balance", to a politician of the centre-right, while the foreign minister's post should go a left-leaning figure, boosting the chances of Mr Miliband.
Mr Miliband, whose chances of getting the job were first revealed by The Sunday Telegraph last month, would be a very popular choice among Brussels diplomats and would currently have to be seen as the favourite among a list of, admittedly, not very inspiring rivals.
However, he currently insists publicly he does not want the job and, were he to change his mind, would face explosive questions about whether he would be prepared to resign from the British cabinet. Such a move would be seen as a highly damaging blow to Gordon Brown just months ahead of a general election which Labour is strongly tipped to lose.
Mr Brown arrived at the summit in feisty mood, telling a meeting of European socialists that they should "get real" and stop listening to the views of the smaller EU nations who have been pushing the claims of less controversial figures than Mr Blair as president.
However, on the Eurostar back to London from Brussels, the Prime Minister repeatedly stressed to aides that, although Mr Blair was the best choice, there were "other candidates" in the race. [This journey - all 3 hours of it - was, according to all the eavesdroppers, very busy talking this and other EU matters as well as settling the details of the future of British Banks as dictated to them by Nellie Kroes the EU Commissioner who gave them their o0rders. -cs]
A list of their names reveals not one who possesses what Mr Miliband refers to as the former PM's "traffic stopping" qualities: Jan Peter Balkenende of the Netherlands, Herman Van Rompuy of Belgium, another Belgian, Guy Verhofstadt, Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg and Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Danish secretary general of Nato.
A veteran EU observer was last night claiming that Mr Blair's candidacy was "far from doomed" and suggested that his current odds of 2-1 made him "well worth a flutter".
The Conservatives, meanwhile, who have declared that choosing Mr Blair as president would be seen by the party as a "hostile act" by the EU, faced new claims that they were trying to scupper the Lisbon Treaty.
Mr Sarkozy, Mrs Merkel and José Luiz Rodríguez Zapatero, the Spanish prime minister, were said to have privately criticised the Tory leader after he sent a handwritten letter to the Czech president, Vaclav Klaus, who has been refusing to sign the treaty.
The letter was seen as an attempt to influence the Czech Republic, which is the only country not to have ratified the treaty
Posts
