Home of the web’s best political conversation If you’re going to be up, All Night Long, why not relax, and converse into the night on the day’s events in PB NightHawks. If you’re a lurker, Hello,  why not delurk tonight, if you do delurk, I’m sure you’ll be Dancing on the Ceiling in excitement. The round up of recent events (click on the links below, and it will bring up the relevant story) Boris Johnson will not stand for…
Look how the industry has declined How the circulations of national newspapers have declined since GE2010 See table pic.twitter.com/4FTguIS1Ld — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) July 31, 2013 The ground war is going to matter much more than the air war We spend a lot of time on PB trying to assess the impact of specific developments or stories on voting behaviour. One factor that we should bear in mind is that the national media is in a sharp decline. For every five…
The immigration poster at the heart of the CON-LD row. The Tories want it – the LDs are opposed pic.twitter.com/WRIvgDEdWi — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) July 30, 2013 How the two key swing groups reacted to the campaign As we keep on saying two big things have happened to voters since GE2010: The switch to Labour by 2010 LD voters following their party’s coalition deal with the Tories and the shrinkage of the CON vote as a result of the UKIP…
The Tories surge as the UKIP decline continues The latest ComRes phone poll for the Independent is out and is in line with the trends we’ve been seeing over the past weeks: the Ukip decline and the Tory recovery. The figures and changes on last month are in the chart above. A 4% increase is outside the margin of error which suggests that real movement had taken place. The poll is not that far off the 36-36 ICM survey a…
Putting those “best PM” ratings into context Polling day came a few days later May 3rd 1979. The Tories won an emphatic victory with an 8% lead on votes and an overall majority of 44 seats and went on to secure overall majorities in the next three general elections. They stayed in power for eighteen years. Mrs Thatcher, however, continued to trail in the MORI “best PM” ratings for another year until Jim Callaghan stepped down. Mike Smithson For the…
LAB YouGov lead as best party on NHS remains at 12% pic.twitter.com/wzwuLsixfe — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) July 30, 2013 One of the big apparent “wins” for the Tories before they broke up for the summer recess was their response on the Keogh report on hospital failings which had happened on Labour’s watch. This it was hoped would help the party eat into the traditional LAB lead that they have on the NHS. The CON attack was high octane and certainly…
Overall majority CON majority slips back & no overall majority gets tighter on Betfair GE2015 outcome market pic.twitter.com/XDdtvQMYDj — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) July 29, 2013
Meanwhile nearly 2 in 3 CON members believe that Dave can hang on Remember that July 5 years ago when the betting was on a CON landslide At this precise point ahead of GE2015 in Jul 2008 William Hills made it a 40% chance that CON would win a 100+ majority The bet was a loser — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) July 29, 2013