Is the colourful old-Etonian heading for a second term? There’s a new YouGov London poll out that has Boris on 48% and Ken on 41%. What’s interesting is that amongst those saying that they’ll vote Labour at the general election 21% say they will be supporting Boris for Mayor. This compares with 4% of Tory voters going for Ken. YouGov had something of a triumph in the 2008 race with a final poll that was right to within 1%
But EdM’s personal ratings are worse than Clegg’s The first ICM political poll to be published for seven weeks is just out in the Guardian and puts the Lib Dems on just 12% – the lowest from the firm for fourteen years. The Tories are on 37% with Labour on 39%. This will come as a bitter blow the Clegg and his team because ICM is traditionally the pollster that has given them the highest ratings. It very much mirrors…
Should Labour not be doing better? The latest ComRes poll for the Indepedent on Sunday and Sunday Mirror is out, and has Labour 37% (-2), Conservative 37% (-1) and the Lib Dems on 11% again. Others are up to 15%. Ed Miliband will be worried that his personal numbers are so poor – his figures have dropped 10-points in a month, according to Politics Home. Ed Balls is little better thought of with only 10% preferring the pugilistic Shadow Chancellor…
Is the government taking on too many battles? The impending public-sector strikes announced this week add just another front to the many battles the government’s facing. Ed Miliband raised an aspect of the welfare reforms at the last PMQ’s, the proposed changes to the NHS have been mired in difficulty for months, there’ve been the academies programme and tuition fees in education, and eliminating the deficit will have implications across virtually every aspect of government activity. On top of which,…
Could his stance have wider implications? Just seven weeks after his triumphal victory in the Holyrood elections SNP leader Alex Salmond is at the centre of a row entirely of his own making which could cost him dear. He’s refusing to back down after making comments in a magazine which are said to undermine the independence of the judiciary. He also singled out a prominent Scottish lawyer. Last night’s main news programme on STV gives a real flavour of the…
But did they switch to the blues BEFORE the paper did? We all recall, I’m sure, the front page of the Sun for its edition on September 30th 2009 – the day after Gordon Brown had made his big speech in the final Labour conference before the general election. I was at the Brighton conference and well remember the fury of delegates – not just at the paper’s decision but at the fact that it was timed to cause maximum…
HenryG predicts that we’ll see the charity approach again This week Ed Miliband caught David Cameron out over the reduction of support for 7,000 cancer patients. His questions and knowledge exploited one of the Prime Minister’s few weak-spots –his haziness over detail and desire to be a caring Conservative. The fact that these figures came from the charity MacMillan was crucial. It meant that it was very difficult for the Government to challenge and discredit the source either during the…
Do the unions scent blood? One of the downsides about getting a reputation for policy U-turns is that your opponents might think that with a bit more pressure then they’ll get what they want. If you’ve changed your mind over NHS reforms and relatively minor matters such as forestry policy and school milk then you can see union leaders thinking it will only be a matter of time before pressure on, say, public sector pensions will show a return. That’s…