CON 42%(-2) LAB 25%(-2) LD 21%(+3) And Nick Clegg gets to just four points behind Another month goes by and Labour’s polling position remains dire with no respite in sight. For a new ICM poll for the Sunday Telegraph just being reported suggests that there’s been little change between the main parties since the last survey from the firm in the Guardian a week and a half ago. Both Labour and the Tories are down two with the Lib Dems…
Tory and Labour General election leaders 1979 – 2005 General Election Majority PaddyPower: 1/4 CON majority: 3/1 Hung parliament: 12/1 LAB Majority Ladbrokes: 1/3 CON majority: 3/1 Hung parliament: 12/1 LAB Majority William Hill: 2/7 CON majority: 11/4 Hung parliament: 14/1 LAB Majority General Election most seats PaddyPower: 1/16 CON: 7/1 LAB: 80/1 Lib Dems Ladbrokes: 1/14 CON: 7/1 LAB: 100/1 Lib Dems William Hill:1/14 CON: 13/2 LAB: 80/1 Lib Dems Victor Chandler: 1/14 CON: 13/2 LAB: 80/1 Lib Dems…
 David Herdson assesses some of the options? Nearly eight years after the Laeken Summit kickstarted the process, there’s a good chance that the final hurdles to ratification of the Lisbon Treaty could be overcome next week, leading to the treaty coming into force on December 1. In Britain, that will throw the spotlight onto the Tories, whose policy on Lisbon will expire with the completion of the ratification process. The current policy of a referendum is one which is…
Is the new series reinforcing the MacBride damage? Like many PBers, no doubt, I’ll be glued to the TV tomorrow night for the second episode of the much-hyped and much-anticipated new series of “The Thick of It” – this time getting a good Saturday night slot on BBC 2. Since the last series, of course, we’ve had the Damien MacBride scandal which put the focus on the way Brown Central deals with those who it sees as threats. Just look…
BBC Today programme Has he helped or hindered his job prospects? The foreign secretary, David Miliband, figures prominently in two current betting markets – that for next leader of the Labour party where he’s the 5/1 second favourite and for the first High Representative of the EU where he’s now been installed as the 3/1 joint favourite. Anybody interested in betting on both might be wise to spend thirteen minutes listening to this item on Radio 4’s Today programme this…
Times Are we about to have “cut-price” democracy? Oh dear! Oh dear! Can they never get this right? Given current Labour poll ratings in the mid-20s you can understand that ministers are not relishing the coming fight but this morning’s front page lead in the Times sends out all the wrong messages. There are plans to reduce the costs by slashing the number of polling stations and reducing the hours that they stay open. Guess which ones would suffer? Those…
Two polls show UK voters are lukewarm Only hours after Gordon Brown told a Brussels press conference that “there is a general view that Tony Blair is a good candidate and would be an excellent president†two new polls suggest that there is little support for the plan from British voters. For although it’s suggested that some progress might be being made with EU leaders the Labour effort isn’t resonating with voters at home. YouGov for the Daily Telegraph found…
Could he open up some of the old wounds? I wonder whether all the focus on the prospect of “President Blair” and the continued attacks by Labour on the Tory EU partners is actually overshadowing what could be the biggest UK-EU political development of them all – the rhetoric which is coming from David Cameron? This was looked at by the BBC’s Nick Robinson who today has also written a piece about it. Robinson writes: “..The new Conservative approach to…