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Making comments during times of peak demand

Making comments during times of peak demand

As regulars will know we’ve made some significant changes to our discussion forums during the past couple of days. The “look” of the comments has been adapted, the contributor’s name is put at the top rather than the bottom, and we’ve introduced pagination to limit the numbers of comments being shown on a single page in very long threads that are down-loaded time and time again as people follow discussions. Our standard maximum level of comments “per page” has been…

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How are the Lib Dem “anti-Tories” going to view this?

How are the Lib Dem “anti-Tories” going to view this?

PoliticsHome 76% of Lib Dem voters want more collaboration with Tories The panel above summarises findings from the latest PoliticsHome poll on attitudes by supporters of the main parties to the collaboration that we saw on Wednesday between the Lib Dems and the Conservatives over the Ghurka issue. The precise question that was “Yesterday the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives voted together to defeat the government in a House of Commons vote on whether Gurkhas should be allowed to settle…

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Should we be re-assessing Labour leadership betting?

Should we be re-assessing Labour leadership betting?

Best Labour leadership odds Are Johnson and the two Eds the big losers? Until last Thursday my “picks” as Brown’s replacement were Alan Johnson if there was a contest before the general election and Ed Balls if it took place afterwards. My view was that the former’s more conciliatory style and background might make him an ideal choice to face Cameron while Ed Balls had, the formidable Damien McBride on his team. Other bets placed in the past five months,…

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Has Hannan put down his marker for next Tory leader?

Has Hannan put down his marker for next Tory leader?

How good is a 100/1 long-shot bet? At 10 pm last night, after an evening in which the right-wing blogsphere had been buzzing over a speech directly to Gordon Brown in the European Parliament yesterday by the Tory MEP, Daniel Hannan, our friend Shadsy, the political market maker for Ladbrokes, popped up with a great bet. He had a simple posting here: “If anyone does want to take a flyer on Hannan as next Tory leader, you can have 200/1…

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Five years in pursuit of a conversation

Five years in pursuit of a conversation

Thanks to everybody for making the site what it is It’s exactly five years ago today that PB started and this evening there’s a celebration party in London. Thanks to Ladbrokes for their generous sponsorship of the wine. I’m off to the station shortly and am looking forward to meeting many of the PBers who regularly take part in our discussions. From the guest list we have a good mix of long-standing regulars, newer participants and those who, as they…

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Will we see a Brown Bounce III before the election?

Will we see a Brown Bounce III before the election?

SkyNews Poll Tracker In which month do you think that at least two of the pollsters – MORI, ICM, YouGov, Populus and ComRes – will report Labour closer than 9%? April 2009 May 2009 June 2009 July 2009 August 2009 September 2009 October 2009 November 2009 December 2009 January 2010 February 2010 March 2010 April 2010 May 2010 or beyond    Give PB your assessment in this online survey We’ve had lots of debate recently about whether there could be…

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Is the Tory vote becoming less committed?

Is the Tory vote becoming less committed?

Ipsos-MORI Is it because Cameron has been out of the news? When the MORI poll came out this morning my initial reaction was that what had driven the decline in the Tory share and increase in the Labour one was a big increase in the number of the latter’s supporters saying they were “100% certain to vote”. We have now just got the detailed data and I was wrong. The level of overall Tory support in the poll was not…

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Should this kill off the Labour “swingback” fantasy?

Should this kill off the Labour “swingback” fantasy?

ICM Is the idea that “governments always recover” a myth? We are hearing it all the time at the moment from journalists, politicos and pundits who should at least have the basic ability to check some simple facts before publishing wild statements – the idea that governments “always” recover in the polls as we get close to the general election. One of the problems, as discussed on the previous thread, is that many recall the unreformed polls of the 1990s…

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