Today’s Marf cartoon
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Will Anthony’s thesis survive the January polls?
UKPollingReport Does this point to a Labour standstill or small decline? In the week before Christmas Anthony Wells of UK Polling Report put forward the theory that Labour’s standing in the polls was closely linked with how optimistic the public were about the economy or the level of consumer confidence. He argued that Labour’s low point in the early summer coincided with the low points on the Ipsos-MORI Economic Optimism Index and the Nationwide Building Society Consumer Confidence Index. Thus…
Will this be the year for the Nottingham High boys?
Is the school providing the 2009 betting movers? After the last thread on Ken Clarke’s possible return to a front-bench position it’s quite striking to note how many of the potential 2009 political betting “movers” were all educated at the same school – Nottingham High. Yesterday I put £50 on another ex-pupil, Ed Balls, at 16/1 in Ladbroke’s Chancellor on New Year’s Eve 2009 market. Clearly Darling looks set to stay the course but in the current economic storm then…
Has Cameron gone too far on the Clarke speculation?
Would not appointing him now seem like a defeat? As the Daily Mail is reporting this morning David Cameron “..did not rule out an audacious move to appoint Mr Clarke to the Shadow Cabinet when asked about the possibility for the first time yesterday.” Certainly the speculation about a return of the 68 year old ex-Chancellor has been allowed to continue for more than a week and if it doesn’t happen then it could appear as though the leader has…
Why doesn’t Gord sound convincing about the election?
Would a bit more frankness help his position? It’s inevitable, I suppose, given the total cock-up in Labour’s communications ahead of the election that never was in October 2007, that Brown is going to be pressed about the date whenever he submits himself to an interview. This came up in the latest Andrew Marr interview and it will come up time and time again. So why doesn’t he make an effort to sound convincing? For perhaps the most damaging feature…
Has the NHS ceased to be a political issue?
But is this good news for Labour? Almost every month for getting on for three decades MORI has asked its “most important issues facing the country” questions in exactly the same format. Two points are put, both completely unprompted. Firstly they are asked which is the “most important issue” then they are asked to name, without a limit on numbers “other important issues” A striking feature of the latest poll is that the NHS, a long-time political football and an…
So how did you do in predicting 2008?
Michael Kennedy is the 2008 PB Forecaster of the Year The final results for the 2008 prediction competition have now been number-crunched – the top 20 are shown above, while the full results are available via the link below. Congratulations to the leading forecasters, with Michael Kennedy finishing ahead of Houndtang and Ian Hunter, and thanks to everyone who took part. Just check out the questions here. PB 2008 competition results For the 2008 events section, only two players predicted…
Is Brown losing Polly’s support again?
Guardian video after about 2 minutes Are Toynbee’s comments an attack or an excuse? In a New Year video the veteran Guardian columnist, Polly Toynbee, makes some highly pointed comments about Gordon Brown’s communication capabilities which I have not seen picked up elsewhere. She says of the PM “He’s not a very good speech maker. He doesn’t have a great facility with the English language. He’s not very emotionally intelligent. He can’t reach out and touch people and make them…