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Month: October 2010

Sean Fear looks to next May’s locals

Sean Fear looks to next May’s locals

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How much potential is there for Labour progress? Regular readers of this blog will know that I regard local by-election results as being a good lead indicator of the next round of local elections. Despite having gigantic opinion poll leads from 1997-2003, the last Labour government regularly lost ground in successive rounds of local elections, during that period. Local by-elections pointed to these losses, whereas national opinion polls did not. The point should be obvious. National opinion polls are snapshots…

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Half of Labour voters support housing benefit cap

Half of Labour voters support housing benefit cap

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“Support or oppose cap on housing benefit” (YouGov) All sampled CON voters % LAB voters% LD voters % Support 72 94 52 78 Oppose 16 3 35 11 Don’t know 13 3 14 11 Should the red team and Boris re-think their strategies? After a week when domestic politics has been almost taken over by the row on housing benefit there is some polling on the issue – by YouGov for today’s Sunday Times. The findings with cross tabs on…

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Could terror test the coalition’s libertarian credentials?

Could terror test the coalition’s libertarian credentials?

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How will Cameron resolve the control orders row? The latest terror threats could not have come at a worse time for the coalition partners because, as Andrew Rawnsely reports in the Observer this morning, there’s a huge row going on about the future of control orders and extended detention without trial. There’s a report waiting to be published which says that these should continue in a slightly restricted form – something that would be totally opposed by Nick Clegg’s party….

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Is Labour losing the housing benefit argument?

Is Labour losing the housing benefit argument?

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Poll Date CON % LAB% LD % YouGov/Sunday Times 29/10/10 42 37 13 YouGov/Sunday Times 22/10/10 41 40 10 YouGov/Sunday Times 17/10/10 41 39 11 YouGov/Sunday Times 08/10/10 42 38 12 YouGov/Sunday Times 01/10/10 39 41 11 Tories and LDs up – Labour down Tonight’s YouGov poll for the Sunday Times is the first full voting intention poll since the housing benefit row erupted and the figures are good for the coalition and bad for Labour. The Lib Dem share,…

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Has Labour’s hate campaigning gone too

Has Labour’s hate campaigning gone too

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BBC Could the red team just lost some of the Ginger vote? As the father of two children who were bullied at school because of their ginger hair I am beside myself with fury at Harriet Harman’s nasty attack on Danny Alexander as being a “ginger rodent”. By all means get into an argument on the issues but to use an inherited bodily characteristic to attack someone smacks of racism – which is even more outrageous given Harriet’s record in…

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Do we need more Borises?

Do we need more Borises?

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Is outspokenness an underrated quality? Boris Johnson is probably not the most popular figure with Conservative high command just at the moment given his comments about the proposed Housing Benefit changes. Not only has he very publicly gone against the party line but he used pretty powerful language in doing so. It’s not the first time Boris has had to moderate or clarify the colourful language he’s prone to employing. In the past, he’s managed to stir up controversies with…

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Harry Hayfield’s October local election report

Harry Hayfield’s October local election report

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The red team continues to make progress Party Votes Cast % Votes Seats Won Change Labour 17714 35.69% 14 +5 Conservatives 14594 29.41% 10 -3 Liberal Democrats 10139 20.43% 6 -1 Independents 2181 4.39% 2 -1 Plaid Cymru 1297 2.61% 0 -1 Green Party 1139 2.30% 0 n/c United Kingdom Independence Party 771 1.55% 0 n/c Scottish National Party 571 1.15% 0 n/c British National Party 183 0.37% 0 n/c Other Parties 1037 2.09% 2 1 GAINS / LOSSES Conservative…

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Has the EU simply ceased to be an issue?

Has the EU simply ceased to be an issue?

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Ipsos-MORI Or will the Tories of yesteryear emerge again? Every month for more than thirty years Ipsos-MORI has asked the same two part-question question in the same standard way which, almost uniquely, is totally unprompted. The pollster asks “What do you see as the most important/other important issues face Britain today”. As you’d expect the economy, race relations and immigration, unemployment and crime figure high as you can see here. But there’s one issue that’s been sharply on the decline…

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