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Month: August 2006

Is Labour being panicked by the BNP?

Is Labour being panicked by the BNP?

Why’s Reid using Tory 2005 campaign slogans? In an extraordinary interview on BBC 1 this morning the Home Secretary, John Reid, outlined his new policies in language that seemed to have come straight from the Tory immigration plan published three months before the 2005 General Election. This is a direct quote from Reid: “We have to enforce our borders better and…we have to get away from this daft so-called politically correct notion that anybody who wants to talks about immigration…

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The YouGov tracker: Good for Tony – Bad for Ming

The YouGov tracker: Good for Tony – Bad for Ming

The Good Week – Bad Week Index: July 28-August 3rd With the next scheduled nation voting intention opinion poll not due until the end of August and almost no council by-elections the best information we have on the public mood is from the the YouGov data from which we can compute the “Good Week – Bad Week Index”. This is the data from the pollster’s daily brand index survey which involves surveying 600 people each day about their perceptions of…

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Who’ll be up and who’ll be down?

Who’ll be up and who’ll be down?

The latest YouGov tracker poll is embargoed until midnight After making their tracker data available to PB.C exclusively last week YouGov is now issuing it to all the press and has put a midnight embargo on it. So I’ll have to wait until then before I can publish it on the site. This is the data from the pollster’s daily brand index survey which involves surveying 600 people each day about their perceptions of major brand names. Reactions to some…

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Why I’m giving up betting on politics

Why I’m giving up betting on politics

My dilemma over being a punter and writing about it On most days on the site I like to produce a, hopefully, provocative article that’s linked to a political outcome on which people can bet. The problem is that what’s written here can sometimes affect the betting prices themselves and this can lead to suggestions that I’m putting forward ideas in order to line my own pocket. Until now I have always tried to set out what I am betting…

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Sean Fear’s local election commentary

Sean Fear’s local election commentary

Has Labour’s Southern Discomfort returned? “Labour’s Southern Discomfort” was the title of an influential Blairite pamphlet in the mid 1990s. Last year’s general election results suggested that Labour was once again starting to struggle in the South, and East Anglia, and May’s local election results suggest this is an increasing problem. Across Southern England, and East Anglia, Labour holds just 1,775 council seats out of more than 10,000, 18% of the total. However, of these 684 are in London. Labour’s…

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Does John Reid have a prayer?

Does John Reid have a prayer?

The man with better poll ratings than either Brown or Cameron Of all the ministers in Tony Blair’s cabinet the one who has the best approval ratings in the polls is the Home Secretary, John Reid. Last week YouGov found that there was a 9% margin in his favour when people were asked whether they thought he was doing a job or not. This is a substantially bigger margin than Gordon Brown, Tony Blair or even David Cameron currently enjoy….

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Israel – Domestic danger or opportunity?

Israel – Domestic danger or opportunity?

How will the crisis affect Gordon & Dave’s career plans? With Tony Blair returning to London today to a Labour party where he is increasingly isolated how is the crisis going to affect domestic politics? Will it be the platform that Gordon can use to take over the job that he regards as his? And how is it going to impact on David Cameron’s General Election chances particularly after the warning from Tory funder, Stanley Kalms, about the party being…

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Harry Hayfield’s June-July local election summary

Harry Hayfield’s June-July local election summary

After a good June do July’s results spell trouble for the Tories? In June the Conservative advance in local elections continued. The Conservatives were defending 13 seats this month and ended up with 17 seats (the majority of which were gains from the Independents). Mind you, they did manage to lose Nascot in Watford to the Lib Dems but it wouldn’t be a local by-election without a Lib Dem hiccup (remember Bromley?). So what does this mean in a national…

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