How will the Populus version of the “named leader” question come out? Amidst all the reverberations from February’s ICM poll showing the Tories 13% ahead of Labour when Cameron and Brown are named as leaders few have recalled that a similar poll just two weeks earlier had the margin at just one per cent. In fact in that survey, by Populus, Labour had a 3% deficit in the headline figures that was reduced to just one point when Brown was…
YouGov reports a large lead for the International Development Secretary The boss of YouGov, Peter Kellner, has emailed me with further information from this morning’s poll of 589 constituency members of the Labour party and 662 levy-paying union members. For as well as the issues featured in the Daily Telegraph the survey asked how respondents would vote in the deputy leadership ballot. The details will be posted on the YouGov webs-site during the day but Kellner has confirmed to me…
Brown would beat Miliband by 52% – 25% A YouGov poll of 1,115 Labour members for the Daily Telegraph this morning has found overwhelming support for a leadership contest when Tony decides to call it a day. A total of 73% said they thought a contest was better against just 11% who thought the Chancellor should get the job unopposed. In such a vote Brown would command 63% with 21% saying they would reject him. But if a strong candidate…
Won’t this encourage more switching to the Tories? Whether this is a fair report or not we will have to wait and see but BBC News is suggesting that today’s speech to the Lib Dem Harrogate conference by the leader, Ming Campbell, “sent out the strongest signal yet that he wants a power sharing deal with Labour after the next general election.” Missing from the list of items which the party would want is a electoral reform and the report…
Is Ming right about the implications of the latest developments? As expected the Sunday papers provide a lot more information about the gag that was placed on BBC news on Friday night following its plans to cover a “new development” in the cash for honours probe that has now been going on for a year. Reproduced above is the coverage from the News of the World web-site which quotes a Crown Prosecution Service source who is reported to have said:…
Is the investigation getting near to closure ? The big political news overnight has been the gagging order that the High Court granted last night to the Attorney General to stop BBC News broadcasting an item in its 10pm bulletin on the cash for honours investigation. Clearly what I can write on a blog like this is very limited. You can only conclude that the story was of such a magnitude that the authorities, at the request it appears of…
How long can the Lib Dem leader withstand the media pressure? It’s perhaps an example of the Lib Dem version of “sod’s law” that just as they gather for their spring conference in Harrogate hoping for a publicity boost that we have the latest developments in the cash for honours case and the gagging order that has been taken out against the BBC. For it’s hard enough grabbing media attention as the third party and then they get shoved down…
How the primary timetable will squeeze out all but the front-runners Anybody considering a bet on the US elections should check out this recent article by by Dick Morris, the former advisor to Bill Clinton. For the way the primaries will work next year is going to make it very tough for all but the front-runners in both the Democratic and Republican races to have an impact. Morris points out that on February 5th 2008, just three weeks after the…