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Author: David Herdson

Marf for the evening and David Herdson with the half-time PB Poll Average score

Marf for the evening and David Herdson with the half-time PB Poll Average score

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But it’s still very much in knife-edge territory The profusion of election-period polls means that it’s now possible to produce a PB poll average figure for shorter periods than before. Consequently, I’ve split the period from April 1 to May 6 into two parts and am using these instead, the first of which is for the scores for up to April 21: Con 34.5 (n/c) Lab 33.7 (-0.4) UKIP 11.4 (-0.8) LD 8.5 (+0.6) Grn 5.8 (+0.1) Oth 6.1 (+0.4)…

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David Herdson on why it suits all that a debate on the economy is effectively closed down

David Herdson on why it suits all that a debate on the economy is effectively closed down

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Contradictory nuances make it hard for both CON or LAB You might think that the extremely positive employment figures released yesterday would be cause for a great deal of campaigning from the Conservatives, both positively on their record and negatively against Labour. After all, the repeated criticisms and past predictions of doom from the Eds Balls and Miliband can now be set against the facts of the UK having one of the fastest-growing economies in the developed world, record employment,…

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Con+LD=320 is the magic equation for Dave

Con+LD=320 is the magic equation for Dave

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15+ net Con losses and it’s opposition for the Tories For a country which according to Disraeli does not love coalitions, Britain seems to be doing its best to force its politicians into another one. That may well not happen, though not because anyone will gain a majority. None of the four likely largest parties post-election sounds keen on a formal pact where more than one of them has seats around the cabinet table. But whoever ends up on top…

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David Herdson says Ed won the debate because Clegg and Bennett didn’t

David Herdson says Ed won the debate because Clegg and Bennett didn’t

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NIGHTMARE! Ed Miliband as PM, propped up by Alex Salmond ‘calling the tune’ if Labour gets into Downing Street pic.twitter.com/uNFHs5deTo — Grant Shapps (@grantshapps) March 9, 2015 Why for Dave the strong Sturgeon performance was a sideshow Earlier this campaign, the Conservatives unveiled the above poster showing Ed Miliband in Alex Salmond’s pocket; the inference being that in a hung parliament it would be the SNP pulling Labour’s strings. Nicola Sturgeon’s very capable handling of Thursday’s debate did nothing to…

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David Herdson: The March PB Polling Average: it’s still neck-and-neck and Harry Hayfield’s by election preview

David Herdson: The March PB Polling Average: it’s still neck-and-neck and Harry Hayfield’s by election preview

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The squeeze is on the smaller players That cloud looks like a tree. Or a bird. Or a flower. It’s human nature to see patterns in chaos and further, to try to rationalise and explain those patterns. Hence earthquakes are still archaically ‘acts of God’. Hence also the interpretation of the four point Labour lead in the YouGov poll published after the Cameron-Miliband interviews and Q&A as a Miliband ‘win’. Given that YouGov routinely publish over 20 polls a month,…

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By accident or design, the election’s got a debate series that could work

By accident or design, the election’s got a debate series that could work

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Multiple structures will probe the parties & leaders In a little over nine months’ time, the US presidential hopefuls will be campaigning hard in the then snow-bound small rural state of Iowa, the first in a long process of state-wide elections that will ultimately determine the two parties’ nominations. That process has evolved over the years, partly organically, partly by design but the main reason there’s been little wholesale reform in the schedule, despite offerings to that end being put…

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Sturgeon’s game-plan? Replace LAB with CON by replacing CON with LAB

Sturgeon’s game-plan? Replace LAB with CON by replacing CON with LAB

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Can the SNP push Labour into third in 2016? It’s been said that the creation of New Labour was indirectly Margaret Thatcher’s greatest achievement; that her government remodelled the whole political landscape so much that many of her policies were continued and developed not just by her own Conservative successor as PM but by the Labour one following him too. As with all these things, there’s an overly-deterministic element to such reasoning (had John Smith lived, his leadership would have…

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David Herdson looks at what might shift the polls in the 53 days that remain

David Herdson looks at what might shift the polls in the 53 days that remain

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How can we best predict the big campaign issues? Polls are snapshots, not predictions. It’s a common and accurate assertion and is one part in the explanation as to why the betting markets don’t match up with current polling. At the moment, the Conservatives are generally around 1/2 to win most seats at the election, while Labour are best priced at 15/8, despite current polling being neck-and-neck, which would translate to a comfortable Labour lead in seats were it to…

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