Tories cruising... with help from Ghana

Little more than a day and a half since the start of our poll, the Tories are storming into a huge lead.

With more than 2,500 votes cast by Times readers on who you'd vote for on Thursday's local and London mayoral elections, David Cameron's party has achieved close to 70 per cent of the total vote, with Labour, the Liberal Democrats and other parties languishing around the 10 per cent mark.

We don't, of course, claim our results are scientific, that floppy-haired Boris Johnson has by any means got it in the bag, or that Ken Livingstone's necessarily toast.

But we do say our poll's much more fun than the real thing, because you can have your say wherever in the world you live, from Georgia to Oman.  And so, using some rather funky technology provided by our polling company, here are some interesting geographical observations on where the last 500 voters have come from, and who they support.

Gordon Brown's Labour have struggled, well, pretty much everywhere. But he has gained a handful of votes in the left-leaning liberal US east coast states of Pennsylvania and New York, as well as in Europe - Ireland, France and Finland, to be precise - New South Wales in Australia, and Tel Aviv, Israel.

The Tories have votes from pretty much all over the world, including much of Europe and as far afield as Jordan, the Phillipines, Ghana and South Africa. The Lib Dems do best in Europe where - one would imagine - a larger number of people have heard of them. But they also picked up a vote in the bohemian US city of New Orleans.

Vibrant political debate has also been raging in the comment section beneath our poll. Grievances with the government over the smoking ban feature in several comments below, along with the economy, the European Union, immigration, and the prospect of voting fraud because of the postal vote system.

But it isn't all doom and gloom for Gordon Brown. Some of you say that voting Tory would be to vote to go back to the days of mass-unemployment and economic instability in the 1980s and '90s. One of you says Mr Brown is more honest than David Cameron, who is painted as an opportunist. And you also point out that Mr Cameron hasn't exactly come up with many decent policy initiatives of his own. Or, as one of you says, the Tory leader has established himself as a "polished, name-calling yob" but little else.

So join the debate below, and have your say by voting in our poll while you're at it.

And while you're here, why not take a glimpse at our map of the world showing where the last 500 voters have come from by clicking here

Opinion Polls & Market Research

Comments

[Sam Davis]

As what Europeans call a classical liberal, and Americans a libertarian, I was compelled to vote Other in this poll.

None of the established UK parties, just as neither of the two major US parties, eschews the basic tenets of statism.

Likely Cameron's Conservatives come closer than anyone else, but there's still too much government-love among them to suit me. They rather resemble McCain Republicans while Labour looks like a twin of Clinton Democrats.

As an experiment, I suggest creating a very-small-government zone somewhere in the UK with only a few basic rules against murder, theft, fraud and the like, and a very low flat tax. Let it alone for about 20 years and see if the remainder of the country then wished to join.

I'll wager they would.

[Andrew Milner]

If Boris wins, Gordon's going down. Sooner rather than later.

[Mike Lea]

The Tories deserve another spell in government. The dead wood from the previous Tory government has been sifted out and the new bunch have realised that things like the NHS etc need to be well-funded, but whereas Labour throw money recklessly at any problems, I think the Tories will address reform. They will have to. I would like to see some action taken over fuel prices. They are an absolute disgrace: I fail to see the argument that taxing people so much is going to "save" the environment. Brown's reign of just over a year has revealed him to be a man of sparse imagination and, crucially, he has a lack of nerve. The sooner him and his sorry rabble are booted out the better.

[jason]

What exactly is the point of this? The map of the last 500 votes shows that the large majority came from outside the UK. So their answer to the question "for whom do you intend to vote on Thursday?" should probably be "I don't actually have a vote". And who is surprised that polling the readership of a Conservative newspaper produces a 69% Conservative vote? Please.

Does anyone remember when the Times was a quality newspaper rather than just another arm of Murdoch propaganda?

What a pile of crap.

[true image]

Vote Christian!

[Hall]

There was a point last year when I thought there would be nothing the Labour government could do to loose popularity. It seemed that people just couldn't help themselves; they just had to vote Labour no matter what. I am even now wondering whether the Tories are truly leading in the polls. We will just have to wait for the result to see what people are up to.

[Redrumbler]

What Legacy of Blair?
He was just the figurehead whilst Brown looked after UK Ltd as chancellor. That was their agreement. Brown set the path we are on now and he might be PM now but it is he and not Blair who is responsible for this legacy.

[Paul Owen]

Of course what we actually need is a new party, one that will shake up the existing complacent monopoly and reform our system. Only in Britain do we have a government that can decide when to call an election after asking a woman who inherits her job and so has no legitimacy to say no to them. Only in Britain do we have a government that, despite evidence that postal voting is being abused, still decides to do nothing about it because it suits them electorally. Only in Britain do we have a prime minister who was not elected to his post who then reneges on a promise made by his predecessor to hold a referendum. Only in Britain do we have MPs who claim all kinds of allowances for themselves even including TV licences and then fight tooth and nail when asked to reveal their accounts. If we want true democracy we have to give the politicians and establishment a fright and shake up the status quo. Can we have a vote on that please?

[Tommy Tucker]

I wonder how much of this huge anti-Labour groundswell is a hangover of Blair's legacy? It sometimes feels as if Gordon Brown hasn't stood a chance, but I think the public are finding it hard to discern between the incredible amount of bad luck Brown has had and some now obvious mistakes. The Tories are still to come across with any convincing policies, but so long as they keep pointing out the problems with Labour they continue to look good by default. British politics hasn't been in such dire straits in decades. Heaven help us all.

[Jefe]

If we don't get JawJaw Brown out now then we need our heads examined.
His sly policies as chancellor and his bumbling premiership with the laboour scots still in westminster ascendancy and all funded by the poor and poorer taxpayer/ratepayer from England then be gone and give us back our ENGLAND and 2 fingers to Ken and his fraudulent reign.

[Eleanor Griffiths]

Mr Stephenson, the only reason we are not in a fully fledge double figure inflation scenario right now is the Labour governments cleaver handling of the figure which make up our inflation rates. All those goods you treasure coming in cheap from abroad are counted and the things people actually need...ie a roof over their heads and food...are not, and surprise those things are either rising in value or the market in them is about to collapse. Great financial planning!

[Redrumbler]

Come the May 1st elections the knives will be out for Brown and there will be a leadership election some time after. The Labour party will not take Brown into the next election and they have only one year at least to change the leader since they will want the new leader to bed in.

[Eric]

A jolt back to reality is in the pipeline for the writer who contrived the above article.......Ken will see off the out of touch toff...............The electrate will also tune in to Cameron and Osborne smug hoodwinking attempt before the General Election

[Hal]

A previous blogger said that Brown is too honest. Would this be the same Brown that lied about the EU referendum, lied when he said nobody would be worse off after the removal of the 10p rate and lied when he said the polls did not influence his decision on holding an election.
Just as well he is not dishonest then. Just an incompetent liar.

[ronald stephenson]

People.Look around,at your possessions e.g. your computers,your game consoles,your big screen televisions,your drinks cupboards,your full fridges,your gas guzzling cars,your holidays abroad and most of all your employment.Will you put these things at risk by bringing back a Tory Government? Have you forgotten mass unemployment and Inflation in double figures? I never will.

[Victoria]

Jan 28 April 19:13:27

Ban the Koran? I didn't hear that, but that would get my vote even if I hadn't already made up my mind. He should ban the burkha too. The French did it (in public places) and didn't have the Human Rights brigade forcing them to change it back.

[Geoffrey Fish]

New Labour will not win anymore elections unless they change back to old Labour. Then they will take some believing Blair and Brown have ruined new Labour.

[Cromwell]

As a witch hunted taxed to death smoker and a believer in restoring democracy as opposed to destroying it. All the current halfwit mainstream political parties can go take a running jump. I will be voting for the other party now and at the next general election. Goodbye Labour it was crap while it lasted.

[P. Williams]

I will not be voting for the failed Lib-Lab-CONsensus. Why? Becuase this country has been brought to edge of ruination, and who has been running things lately? The Lib-Lab-CONsensus.... My vote will be going to the BNP - again and again and again.

[Cblacksrock]

Why are all the other parties just clumped together as 'other' when they are getting alomst as many votes on this poll as the labour party.

Epand democracy beyond the one party state of Lib/lab/con; all love the EU, all love big business, all are eroding democracy with self-interested sounts in troughs.

[Joe]

For the sake of London, it has to be Boris... let's pray his doughnut campaigning strategy has worked.

And as for the council elections, if Labour doesn't lose more than 200 seats, I'll be surprised and very disappointed.

This country deserves better than Labour.

[Victoria]

Eric, 09.21 am: I believe it is that sort of peculiar, delusional & inverted class obsession that leads to rampant, tyrannical communism. Sometimes you have to realise that a government, no matter how noble its founding ideals, is just hopeless.

Anyway, why don't you go & have a stay in Russia & view for yourself the resounding success of a socialist state?!

[Edmund Burke]

Tony Blair was a Conservative Prime Minister in all but name. His outward style was admittedly left-liberal, but the reality is that "New Labour", as an active policy, was inseparable from Blair himself, and succeeded by reversing the traditional Socialist agenda of the party. Blair, however, has now gone and Brown doesn't know how to manage New Labour. The public will ditch him on Thursday.

[Dan]

Cameron is exactly like Brown , an EU stooge who takes his orders from Angela Merkel , the real boss . Enjoy this election sheeple , because it's the last one you're getting !

[John]

Question is: Are there enough angry white folks out there to oust Ken, who enjoys support from his followers in the minority communities.

[Kin]

I believe that Labour's rapid demise originates from the smoking ban. This law was enacted without mandate and marked the start of a campaign against the working class, Labour's core vote. The average man was introduced to a law that discriminated against a substantial minority. They saw the anti-smokers jeering and clapping on the sideline, with smokers being treated as second class citizens, standing on the other sideline, fuming but impotent to do anything about it. The average man in the middle, was left - mouth open, to wonder how they were deceived and to ponder the implications.
It has become quite clear what those implications are. No further explanation necessary, other than to say that as a result, other aspects of government have also come under scrutiny and they been found to be wanting.
'Spin', more than anything else, is the one thing that defines this government. As a result of the smoking ban, that 'spin' has been exposed. It has long been suspected that truth has been sacrificed for expediency and face-saving but the average man now knows that!

[Victoria]

This government lied to us about the referendum. They never had any intention of giving us one because Blair knew the outcome and did not want to risk his chances of becoming the first EU President. He, and his government, would have infuriated Brussels by allowing us a say (especially as the outcome would have been an overwhelming NO) so tried to kid us into believing that we would get one. Brown wasn't going to go against the majority of his party by holding a referendum so used the feeble excuse that it was not the same constitution.
How can anyone ever trust these people again. They have lied, lied, and lied again. If a spouse lied to that extent you would divorce them. They want to hand this country over to Brussels and lie to us about it. They rob the poor to bail out the banks and tax us till we bleed.
Come on people it's all about trust and integrity. Labour do not deserve the former and do not have any of the latter.

[figurewizard]

I fail to understand how anybody can claim that 'Brown's problem is that he is too honest.' He is still insisting on telling us all that inflation is only running at 3%.

[Eric]

The choice is simple.........On one side we have a bunch of out of touch egotistical toffs ATTEMPTING to talk themselves into power......on the other side we have a highly competant caring government with a good track record and with a genuine intent on insuring social justice

[john towers]

The election results on Thursday may be of profound interest to pundits, political party activists and psephologists. And newspaper editors will no doubt be handed great headlines, regardless of the ballot box outcome.

But as far as the next general election is concerned, the same results will tell us very little at all. For whilst there may well be a massive swing in voting percentages on Thursday, it is clear that this will be, essentially, a protest vote against the government, rather than a positive vote for an alternative administration. Indeed, it is precisely because many people in Britain today cannot see any difference between the policies of the three main parties, not least because neither Cameron nor Clegg see fit to present a coherent account of what they would do differently, that voter apathy is at such a high level. So by all means let us murmur over swings here and councils lost there but, as we do so, we should also look with trepidation at the high number of Britons who no longer bother to engage in the electoral process at all.

[Thomas Phillips]

Verbal, it's the job of the opposition to hold the government to account. Cameron perhaps comes accross as a ridiculer because what you SAY in opposition is very important. When you're in government it's different, what you actually DO provides a measure of your success.Every time the Conservative's have a high profile policy, Gordon Brown steals it.

[E Nuff]

These are not happless unfortunates suffering from mid term blues. Remove evil personified from our midst, vote anything but Noo Labour.

[Curtis]

I agree with Joseph. For me, elections are not about political parties anymore, they are about the likelyhood that they will actually follow through with their standards they set for themselves during elections. It's very easy to promise to do things, but it is much harder to actually follow through.

[Phil de Buquet]

In a few years time when the Republic of European Nations makes all the decisions there will be no need for any of the MP's who are given exhorbitant salaries and expenses because they will not be making any decisions. But they will still be required as a pretence of democracy and to keep the great unwashed, ill educated masses in control by the self styled new Socialist Aristocracy. Napoleon,Hitler,and Stalin would have been proud of this new Europe

[Jan]

Beware postal voting fraud.The London Mayoral votes are going to be questionable.I hear Ken has been promising Latinos jobs when he wins again.How many Latinos can vote?They are not EU or Commonwealth members so why is he courting them?He has also been telling lies about Boris saying Boris will ban the Koran.Livingstone has always been a dirty fighter.It's going to get worse this week.We have allowed third world people to come here and they have imported some of their culture - including voter fraud.

[a pilson]

gordon brown is being vilified by virtue of the fact he is an honest politicion, something this country has not had as prime minister for many decades- thatcher decimated the british workforce-and blair decimated another country{iraq} all based on lies and inflated ego's.

cameron and his ilk will probably decimate the national health service.

[seb french]

I choose BNP for the 1st May!

[Joseph Howard]

Once elected, political parties seem to have a tendency to forget the mandate on which they were elected. Result is a disconnection between the people and the politicians. I will vote Conservative and hope they will display integrity if elected. I would much rather there was a mechanism to punish politicians while in office when they do not deliver.

[Ken Hall]

The Tories need to win the next general election. Only with the memory of the disaster of Labour and the comparative disaster of a Tory Government giving away even more power to the EU can the people in the UK be made to see that we need a Pro UK/Britain/England party to save us from the EU oligarchy. People will see that Labour/Tory/Libdem parties will finally become utterly irrelevant as these parties will have rendered themselves utterly and totally powerless in the UK by 2014/2015.

The ONLY way that we can have any slight semblance of democracy, let alone self determination, in this country is to stop voting for the same old parties altogether.

Once the vast majority of people, who are inclined to not vote or who vote only reluctantly for one of the big three, realise that they really ARE the majority view in this country, and a sizeable majority, with ALL the voting power that such a majority represents, then and only then will we see real and meaningful change.

[Verbal]

Camrone is nothing more than a polished name calling yob and any one who thinks he might actually do better than Brown is grosly mistaken. Look at his debates they have not much substance accept redicule.
Wake up people, you say you want a straight up no spin politician one stralls along and you bash him for it. Browns mistake is he's too honest.

[wendy]

only hope the outcome of this interactive poll is repeated for real on thursday. whoever voted for this government 3 times should be hanging their heads in shame [or even once or twice for that matter]. good luck boris - although i cant help with your vote.

[peter ellis]

i have the distinct feeling that brown will recover from this and learn his lesson. I did not feel that before but people like someone who remains steadfast in adversity no matter he is the architect of his own misfortunes and i feel that overtime that the public will warm to him. He will have to beef up his act but i feel he will.