Where does the real power now lie? In one sense, Gordon Brown was right: it was all a bit of a storm in a teacup. A couple of former ministers called for a vote on Brown’s leadership and the overwhelming majority of Labour MP’s didn’t come out to support that call. Result: Brown win. However, by the same token, neither were MP’s and ministers rushing to man the defences of the PM. If Brown is to lead Labour into…
There’s a new Angus Reid poll (not one that has been commissioned by PB) in which the following was put to respondents:- Here are some words that people may use to describe [Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Nick Clegg]. Please choose up to six words that you think describe him. The online survey had a sample of 2005 and took place on Tuesday and Wednesday. Further details can be found here. As far as I know voting intention questions were not…
Does no change at No. 10 mean back Balls? Thanks to Miranda Richardson on her Sky blog for highlighting the fairly equivocal responses by Peter Mandelson to the last couple of questions in this short interview. If this week was supposed to have produced a change of approach from Number 10 then why was the business secretary less than forthright in his closing responses. The conclusion, surely, is that Brown has won, there will be no real change in Labour’s…
BBC “On this day – July 4 1995” Surely that’s better than the current mess? In her Guardian this morning Jackie Ashley looks at the state of Labour following the failed coup and puts a lot of the blame on the cabinet. Through their actions they “could have either forced Brown out, or could have spread utter hostility to any attempted coup against him, and stopped the plotting..” Instead they did neither – not being prepared to try to bring…
Would replacing Brown be bad news for Clegg? Thanks to Ryans on a previous thread for highlighting the detailed finding in the week’s first YouGov poll on the party split when respondents were asked if they would be more or less likely to vote Labour if Brown was replaced. Normally I think we should be quite sceptical about such questions and I don’t think we should read too much into the scale of potential switching. But one thing stands out…
CON 42% (40) LAB 30% (31) LD 16% (17) According to ITV news there’s a new YouGov poll for the Sun that has the Tory leader up by three points to 12%. The changes are all within the margin of error though the Tories will be encouraged to be at their highest YouGov share since just after their party conference in October. It appears as though the survey was carried out AFTER news of the H-H plot and, given the…
This is from the blog of the excellent Iain Martin of the Wall Street Journal:- “…the crucial meeting yesterday afternoon was between the chancellor and Gordon Brown. Alistair Darling and Brown were alone together; they were the only two in the room. But extraordinary rumors are emerging about what was said. I’ve heard from two Labour sources now that the conversation was very difficult and that Darling raised the possibility of Brown going, but the PM resisted. It would be…
Ipsos-MORI What does this say about the coming election? One of the great developments for political anoraks was the publication by Ipsos-MORI just before Christmas of historic polling data that has not been available online before. This covers MORI polls from 1977 onwards and means we have here on-line data from the last period in British politics when the Tories looked as thought they might take power. It’s a long time ago but because of the consistent way in which…