Doesn’t the latest focus group highlight Clegg’s central dilemma? Three years ago a Frank Luntz focus group on BBC2’s Newsnight so upset a number of Lib Dems on the site and elsewhere that there were formal complaints to the BBC and even suggestions that a conspiracy had taken place. Why it was argued – Luntz was a student at Oxford at the same time as Cameron! Well I guess they won’t complaining today for Nick Clegg was the surprise “winner”…
Was “public sector weighting” behind MORI’s Tory 52%? One of the biggest polling changes that we’ve seen in years was introduced by Ipsos-MORI in the summer following a review after the London Mayoral elections. For in trying to work out why its surveys seemed to be over-stating Labour the firm discovered that people working in the public sector were being over-sampled. So a new calculation has been created and this has been one of the reasons why the firm is…
Was it Blair, Brown, Cameron, the economy ..or just old age? A must-read piece in the latest Economist tries to work out what went wrong with “what has been one of the great election-winning forces in British political history” – New Labour. Looking forward to the election it goes on: ” On current form, the resulting defeat may be Labour’s worst since the second world war. In the aftermath of such a rout, some Labour supporters fear, the party may…
Would the outcome be the same today? If you’ve got a quarter of an hour to spare check out this Frank Luntz focus group that was produced for Newnight in September 2006 – nine months before Blair stepped down. The picture shows the response of the group when they were asked if Gordon Brown should lead Labour into the next election. Just one person responded. Click the panel to watch the programme. At the time it was so controversial that…
Why oh why is this man not the Lib Dem leader? The screen shot is of Vince Cable smiling during yesterday’s leader’s speech by Nick Clegg at the end of the Lib Dem conference in Bournemouth. He got a great ovation from the audience when Clegg singled him out for special praise. But shouldn’t it have been the party’s shadow chancellor who was on the stage not the young ex-MEP who screwed up his whole conference by suggesting that the…
Can McCain-Palin win back the initiative again? The latest polls in the White House race show that there’s been a sharp swing-back to Obama and he now has leads in almost all of them for the first time since McCain turned the election on its head with his choice of V-P. Within the past hour the CBC/New York Times poll had McCain’s 43% to Obama’s 49%. Earlier we had:- Gallup: Obama 47%, McCain 45% Diageo/Hotline: Obama 45%, McCain 42% Research…
Livni 47-49, Mofaz 37, Dichter 7, Sheetrit 7 – but could she form a government? The polls closed in the Kadima leadership primary at 8.30 UK time, with turnout reportedly above 50% and voting extended by 30 minutes. Exit polls released by Channels 1, 2, and 10 in Israel gave the Foreign Minister at least a 10-point lead over Shaul Mofaz. However, the BBC correspondent in Tel Aviv has urged caution as Israel’s exit polls have not got a strong…
Is the biggest loser Nick Clegg? As reported in my second update on the previous thread I have just spoken to a journalist who had the embargoed Press Association story and he has corroborated the figures. Clearly these are sensational numbers and will put pressure on both Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg. At least Labour has the consolation that its vote stayed at the same level in the survey as in the last poll by the firm in August. For…