Please can we discuss this in terms of the political consequences and not get into details of the cases themselves. We are in a very different legal situation and must do nothing that could be seen as prejudicing fair trials. Mike Smithson
Or will they be squeezed out in the Dave-Gord encounter? The general view ahead of the June 2009 Euro elections was that the parties that would gain most from the expenses scandal, which dominated the headlines for the weeks beforehand, would be UKIP, the Greens and the BNP. And so it was. UKIP easily beat Labour for second place in the national vote, the Greens had a good election while the BNP secured two seats at the EU parliament for…
What if they are only from one party? There’s lots of stories buzzing round that the Crown Prosecution Service will announce tomorrow the names of parliamentarians against whom action will be taken in the expenses scandal. According to Channel 4 News hour an ago two Labour MPs are on the list. We don’t know whether that is all or, indeed, whether this is the case. But criminal proceedings are taking the whole business one step further – and this far…
Has a PM Dave most to fear from the Gord-Ed duo? For me the big news of the week was the report that Brown would not step aside from the leadership even if, as expected, Labour loses the election. For everything we know about Brown is that he loves power and he is not going to give up easily the job he strove after for so long – even though, after May, the chances of him remaining at Number 10…
What’s this going to do in individual key seats? So here we are – what many MPs are hoping will be the low point for them in the whole expenses saga – the publication today of the Legg Report. Until we see the actual document we won’t get the full scale of what he’s concluded but it seems that up to half of all MPs will be ordered to pay back between them about £1m and that Sir Thomas himself…
Ipsos-MORI Is it really so different in the marginals? I’m just catching up with the Ipsos-MORI aggregate data for all its 2009 polls which have been highlighted by Anthony Wells at UKPR who is suggesting it provides further evidence that opinion is moving differently in the LAB>CON marginals. For what MORI has done is not only to show the aggregate data but to identify the shares by seat category with a particular emphasis on the marginals – something that is…
Sporting Index Is it Brown that’s now looking a bit vulnerable? One of the great attractions of spread-betting is that you can close positions down and pocket any profits months or even years before the event has been resolved. Another attraction if you are really serious is that you can operate on a credit basis which means you don’t have to put up any money when you make your bet. So in the early hours of Sunday morning after seeing…
Could its mathematics be right for 2010? Ever since the Angus Reid research director, Andy Morris, sent me the first spread-sheets of the first PB/Angus Reid poll last October I have known that there would come a moment when the firm’s methodological approach would leave it isolated from the rest. As those who follow these things will know the main characteristics of AR have been its consistency from survey to survey and the fact that it is reporting a much…