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Month: February 2010

Is Miliband being a bit premature about the leadership?

Is Miliband being a bit premature about the leadership?

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Has he “launched” his bid too early? There’s a story running on the Daily Mail site suggesting that Miliband (D) has started a nationwide tour as part of an effort to drum up support ahead of the leadership contest that is expected after the general election. An email has gone out to party activists saying that Miliband is holding number of public meetings across the country to answer questions on a wide range of issues, including, and not just restricted…

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So will it win back Labour votes in the marginals?

So will it win back Labour votes in the marginals?

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What’ll be the impact of the Brown/Morgan programme? At this stage before the general election the only thing that matters is whether Brown’s much-hyped TV programme with Piers Morgan is going to cause any more people to vote Labour in the seats where it matters. It’s certainly blanked out the rest of the political news agenda including yesterday’s explosive row between Andy Burnham and Andrew Lansley which Labour might have gained from. On the thread overnight comments were broadly favourable….

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Time to concede defeat gracefully, Yulia?

Time to concede defeat gracefully, Yulia?

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BBC News Almost a million behind, Tymoshenko will contest results in court Five years on from the Orange Revolution of December 2004, the 2010 presidential election in Ukraine has lacked the drama of its predecessor, but in many ways that is a welcome sign of a country slowly moving towards a proper democracy, even if, as the events of the last week show, there is still plenty of ground to cover yet. The results were nothing short of a humiliation…

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Was this, in effect, the first of the TV debates?

Was this, in effect, the first of the TV debates?

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The “Death Tax War” – Burnham raises the ante If you didn’t watch today’s “Politics Show” on BBC1 then make sure you check it out when it becomes available on catch-up in an hour or so because if featured the health spokesmen for all three main parties and was very much a fore-runner for the planned TV debates The programme brought together Labour’s Andy Burnham, Andrew Lansley from the Tories, and the LDs Norman Lamb to disucss the growing row…

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Could this “official” projection make you a packet?

Could this “official” projection make you a packet?

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House of Commons Research paper Will the markets gravitate again towards a UNS view? The above is a chart that features in a recent Commons research paper based on what happens if there’s a uniform swing across all constituencies from 2005 election adjusted for the notional 2005 results because of the boundary changes. So taking last night’s ComRes poll split of 40-29-21 the rigid application of the UNS formula has the Tories still short of a majority even though the…

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Will this make Brown cautious about an early election?

Will this make Brown cautious about an early election?

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CON 40% (38) LAB 29% (31) LD 21% (19) Tory lead up four with ComRes The poll is being published in tomorrow’s Indy on Sunday and the numbers should provide a lot of relief at Cameron Towers and something of a boost to the Lib Dems. For after a period when most pollsters had both Labour and the Tories in the 30s we now revert back to what was almost the status quo – Labour in the 20s with Cameron’s…

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Is this what we should use for tonight’s polls?

Is this what we should use for tonight’s polls?

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Is the belief in the rigid UNS starting to wane? With two polls expected tonight – ComRes for the Indy on Sunday and YouGov for the Sunday Times – it will be interesting to see how much the traditional rigid UNS calculations are used to project what the latest shares mean. For in the past week we have seen Andy Cooke’s remarkable analysis here and here on PB and it’s been gratifying to see that parts of the media have…

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Could Europe blow Brown off course?

Could Europe blow Brown off course?

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Can the government avoid the Greek debt trap? After the recent EU summit, a reporter asked Gordon Brown if UK taxpayers’ money would be go towards a rescue package for Greece. He said, after a lengthy preamble that “the discussions at the moment are within the euro area”. That’s very far from a denial. The Greek government’s funding crisis could spread to Britain’s political scene rapidly in two obvious ways: if the UK forms part of a bail-out for Greece,…

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