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Author: MikeSmithson

Labour’s deficit in the cuts “blame game” tracker drops to just 4 points

Labour’s deficit in the cuts “blame game” tracker drops to just 4 points

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At one stage the gap was 30% One of the non-voting trackers that I’ve been monitoring closely since the coalition was formed in May 2010 has been the above one from YouGov on who is to blame for the cuts. For nearly four years whenever this question has beens asked at least twice a months and every poll has found the last LAB government getting the blame sometimes by big margins. In the early days the proportion of those blaming…

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So far, at least, the intense Daily Mail campaign against Harriet Harman is not being reflected in the daily YouGov figures

So far, at least, the intense Daily Mail campaign against Harriet Harman is not being reflected in the daily YouGov figures

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LAB lead back up to 6 in tonight's YouGov Sun poll CON 33% LAB 39% LD 10% UKIP 11% — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) February 25, 2014 That is not to say that it won’t Today’s YouGov poll for the Sun sees LAB back at 39% the share at which it has been getting for months as the YouGov weekly average trend chart above shows. One of the dangers with all polling analysis is to confuse correlation with causation. Clearly many factors are at…

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Three months to go till the Euros and concern about UKIP’s key policy, immigration, sees a sharp drop in the Issues Index

Three months to go till the Euros and concern about UKIP’s key policy, immigration, sees a sharp drop in the Issues Index

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Sharp drop in concerns on immigration in the February @IpsosMORI Issues Index. See pic.twitter.com/eNXtuxInaP — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) February 24, 2014 @MSmithsonPB @IpsosMORI Probably because we didn't get a surge of Romanians and Bulgarians arriving as some predicted! — The Oncoming Storm (@TheOncoming) February 25, 2014 The February Ipsos-MORI Issues Index is out and the summary findings are above. As can be seen the big mover since January has been immigration which has fallen 7%. Also down is concern about…

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The Tories are planning to bet everything on getting a majority – if they don’t they won’t do a coalition deal

The Tories are planning to bet everything on getting a majority – if they don’t they won’t do a coalition deal

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Cameron’s GE2015 gamble – a CON majority or bust The big GE2015 development overnight is the Telegraph story that the Tories are planning to go into the election with a manifesto commitment not to enter a coalition deal. If the party won most seats but fell short of the threshold of 326 MPs it would seek to govern on its own as a minority. Clearly everything depends on the numbers but it’s hard to see a minority CON government winning…

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The Tories go on the offensive with a personal attack against Ed Miliband – but there are dangers with this approach

The Tories go on the offensive with a personal attack against Ed Miliband – but there are dangers with this approach

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Says it all. Let's RT… pic.twitter.com/UrGiNTsP1I — Grant Shapps MP (@grantshapps) February 24, 2014 Open season now for ad hominen attacks on @grantshapps. There's certainly plenty of material for it. — Susan (@marthasydenham) February 24, 2014 Good to see @grantshapps endorsing ad hominem personal attacks as an electioneering tool. Brave move by Michael Green. Very brave. — Simon HB (@norock) February 24, 2014 And we’ve got more than 14 months to go I’m not convinced that the Tories have got…

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Based on current polls the betting markets are understating Labour’s chances of an overall majority

Based on current polls the betting markets are understating Labour’s chances of an overall majority

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A hung parliament should not be favourite Betfair’s next general election overall majority market was set up a couple of months after May 2010 and in the early period the price on a CON majority soared to 40%+. Then it went into a decline and in the aftermath of Osborne’s March 2012 budget dropped to a 16% chance. In the summer of 2013 when all the pressure appeared to be on EdM and 3 polls reported that the parties were…

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Labour’s “Get Clegg” decapitation strategy fails to impress punters. He remains an 80pc chance to retain Hallam

Labour’s “Get Clegg” decapitation strategy fails to impress punters. He remains an 80pc chance to retain Hallam

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Not on topic, but would you like to take part in an Oxford research project on PB? A researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute currently studying the UK political blogosphere is interested in interviewing regular contributors, occasional commenters and lurkers alike for a brief interview by email about their interest in the site, politics more generally, and what they think makes the PB community unique. This is a highly informal piece of research, intended for internal assessment not publication, and…

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