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Month: January 2010

It’s no change in 10,344 sample YouGov poll

It’s no change in 10,344 sample YouGov poll

CON 42% (nc) LAB 30% (nc) LD 16% (nc) Is the Sun using polling to help undermine Brown? On Wednesday evening in the immediate aftermath of the abortive H-H coup attempt we had news of a Sun YouGov poll that had Labour just nine points behind. Almost all of the fieldwork had taken place before news of that development was being reported. Then the following evening we had another poll in the paper showing that the Tories had moved up…

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The PB 2010 Prediction Competition

The PB 2010 Prediction Competition

Will you be the Shadsy of 2010? With the new year just over a week old but with plenty of political activity already, it’s time to sharpen your punditry skills and make your predictions for what will be a big year in UK politics. For the first time, the prediction competition is being hosted by the new Election Game site. Rather like Formula One but with elections, the Game offers a full championship season, with the first deadlines being next…

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Who has got this right – SPIN or ExtraBet?

Who has got this right – SPIN or ExtraBet?

Why is there such a difference in the spreads? In the panel above are the commons seat spreads from Sporting Index and the firm that used to be called IG and now operates as ExtraBet. For punters what is marked is the the quite substantial difference between the two markets. They are within one seat of each other with Labour but look at the difference with the Tory spread and the Lib Dem one. In terms of the overall outcome…

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How will the Tories use the Watts’ claims?

How will the Tories use the Watts’ claims?

SkyNews Is the rest of the media going to pick this up? The big thing when there is a Sunday political exclusive like the Mail on Sunday’s serialisation of the Peter Watts’ book, Inside Out, is whether the story has “legs”. Will other papers and the TV news channels run with it as well and how long will it dominate the headlines? Well, as above, SkyNews is playing it big and no doubt it will be a key element in…

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Is this another “storm in a tea-cup”?

Is this another “storm in a tea-cup”?

Or will it make the election more about Brown’s personality? There’s been a lot of hype tonight about a new book, Inside Out by former Labour general secretary, Peter Watt in which he makes less than complimentary comments about Mr. Brown. The Mail on Sunday have bought the serialisation rights and their editorial looks a bit tricky for Number 10. With only about eleven weeks before the election campaign proper starts the main impact could be to put the focus…

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Tory ICM lead up just one point

Tory ICM lead up just one point

CON 40% (40) LAB 30% (31) LD 18%(18) But another margin of error poll After all the speculation that Labour could expect a big hammering in this weekend’s polls the first survey, from ICM for the Sunday Telegraph, has only one change on the last poll from the firm before Christmas – a one point decline in the Labour total. All the other numbers are the same. The standard way of comparing polls is with the last survey from the…

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What do we think of Iain’s election prediction?

What do we think of Iain’s election prediction?

Iain Dale Good on Iain Dale – he’s done something that I have been avoiding – making a prediction on the outcome of the coming general election. His seat predicted seat totals are:- Conservative 331 Labour 216 LibDem 69 Plaid Cymru 5 SNP 7 Green 1 Others 3 Northern Ireland 18 As discussion on this seems to have taken over the previous thread I thought it merited a separate examination on its own. Amongst Iain’s details:- LibDems lose 9 seats…

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