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Month: August 2007

T0 answer the question: YES – Winston Churchill May 1940

T0 answer the question: YES – Winston Churchill May 1940

Does the Guardian have no sense of history? I think that the invasion and fall of France in May 1940 followed by Dunkirk, and the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force that Churchill had to face probably rank some way ahead of the flooding, Glasgow airport and foot and mouth. While not quite on that scale Harold Wilson’s first month of his 1974 government was pretty horrendous with the aftermath of the miners’ strike, the oil crisis and Northern Ireland….

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Dare Gord risk doing worse than Tony?

Dare Gord risk doing worse than Tony?

Does he still feel he’s in the shadow of his predecessor? If Labour is retaining poll leads from 3% to 9% after the summer it’s hard to make a case that Brown would not come out with a majority in an October election. Even assuming that the pollsters are still overstating Labour the margins from all five regular UK pollsters together with Britain’s electoral demographics should be enough to see Brown home. But dare he go to the country for…

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Sean Fear’s Friday slot – on Monday

Sean Fear’s Friday slot – on Monday

A London activist’s view of the Boris and Ken show Ken Livingstone said last week that Boris Johnson will provide him with the toughest challenge of his career, assuming the former is selected to run for Mayor of London, by the Conservatives. That is not quite correct. Fighting, and losing, Hampstead in 1979 must have been tougher, but there seems no doubt that he will face the hardest of his three campaigns for London Mayor. The London Mayor is elected…

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Is this the Tory that Labour fears most?

Is this the Tory that Labour fears most?

Will the Tories do disproportionately better in Ashcroft-funded seats ? This is Michael Ashcroft who in this year’s Sunday Times Rich List was placed in position 87 with an estimated wealth of £800m. He has been a major donor to the Tory party and before the 2005 general election, as was reported here, he hand-picked a group of Tory candidates in marginal constituencies and then was responsible for providing extra attention and funding to help them with their campaigns. As…

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Competition: When will Labour lose its poll lead?

Competition: When will Labour lose its poll lead?

Can you predict the date and the pollster? With Labour having established a significant margin in all the main polls since Gordon moved in can you predict when, if ever before the general election, a poll will show Brown’s party to be either level-pegging or with a deficit? In the comment thread below please state, to the day, the actual date when this will happen and as a tie-breaker can you name the pollster? If you think that this is…

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Is this Gordon’s first big test?

Is this Gordon’s first big test?

Could the outbreak close off the possibility of an October election? Six and a half years ago the last outbreak of foot and moth disease caused Tony Blair to move back the general election date as well as the local elections from the first week in May until June. There was even controversy then because the disease was not fully eradicated at the time the poll was called. For months last time the harrowing pictures of livestock being destroyed and…

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PBC breaks the 750,000 mark for the second time

PBC breaks the 750,000 mark for the second time

The by elections help us to another record breaking month July was another record breaking month on Politicalbetting. We had a total of 759,452 hits which was only the second time we have been above the three-quarters of a million mark. The last month when this happened was in May when the total finished up at more than 772,000. Looking at the daily data, parts of which are recorded here, we got a huge boost on the day of and…

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But why are more people saying they will vote Tory?

But why are more people saying they will vote Tory?

Is Labour’s margin really as big as it seems? Now here’s a funny thing – in the three Guardian ICM polls for January-March 2007 the firm was reporting leads for Cameron’s party of 6% – 10%. Yet looking at the raw data FEWER people were telling the pollster then that they planned to vote Conservative than in ICM’s three published polls in July. So for the 2007 Q1 surveys the average number of people saying they would vote Tory was…

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