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Category: Campaigning

How much can we read into this?

How much can we read into this?

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British Election Study But could Labour activists now be more motivated? In the next few weeks we’ll be seeing a lot of data about difference aspects of the campaign from the British Election Study – a big academic programme involving a number of universities and quite a lot of polling. In this posting Professor Paul Whiteley writes: “The survey shows that about a quarter of the electorate have been contacted since July 2009, and the chart shows the percentages contacted…

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Does Labour always win the final week?

Does Labour always win the final week?

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Did Brown’s party recover 30+ seats? In its post mortem of the 1992 election Labour identified a key weakness which it sought to address in all the following four elections – the critical importance of the final week. For its only then that many voters start to focus on what they’ll do and when a focused get out the vote message can be most effective. For the 1997 election the party created a special final week team. Whether they did…

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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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Is Brown really the Tories’ biggest asset?

Is Brown really the Tories’ biggest asset?

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Are all parties underestimating the opposing leaders? James Forsyth had a post on the Spectator CoffeeHouse blog last night setting out a view that’s often expressed on PB threads:- “We just need to ram Gordon Brown down the electorate’s throat’ one Tory staffer said to me today when talking about how the party could get back on the front foot.” The unspoken thought was that the prospect of five more years of Gordon Brown would be enough to send voters…

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Could the pledge card work again for Labour?

Could the pledge card work again for Labour?

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How will 1997 tactics go down in 2010? One of the simple but effective campaign tools that Labour has used in its last three elections has been the pledge card – and given the results in 1997, 2001, and 2005 who can blame them for looking at the idea again. When it first appeared it was symbolic of the new professional communication approach that Tony Blair’s New Labour seemed to embody. It comes over as positive politics and puts the…

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Does outdoor advertising make a difference?

Does outdoor advertising make a difference?

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Will Tory fundraising make victory more likely? Perhaps the key element of the first day of the campaign was the realisation that the Tories have got a lot more money to play with and are ready to invest heavily in outdoor advertising. We got the first taste yesterday with the NHS poster campaign said to be costing £400,000. What a contrast with Labour’s news in the Times this morning that it is facing potential bankruptcy and is expecting to be…

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Should Mr. Brown look back over the C&N numbers?

Should Mr. Brown look back over the C&N numbers?

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By-elections.co.uk CON 20,539 votes (14,162) LAB 12,679 votes (21,240) LD 6,040 votes (8,083) The contest, held on 22 May 2008, was the first seat gained by the Tories in a by election since June 1982. The turnout was just 1.8% down on what it had been at the general election. Mike Smithson

What sort of message does this send out?

What sort of message does this send out?

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Times Are we about to have “cut-price” democracy? Oh dear! Oh dear! Can they never get this right? Given current Labour poll ratings in the mid-20s you can understand that ministers are not relishing the coming fight but this morning’s front page lead in the Times sends out all the wrong messages. There are plans to reduce the costs by slashing the number of polling stations and reducing the hours that they stay open. Guess which ones would suffer? Those…

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