Does having Ed Balls as Shadow Chancellor help or hinder Ed Miliband? It helps It hinders It makes no difference either way Mike Smithson returns from his holiday in Andalusia this Thursday Recent Threads
Take part in this special PB “poll” Will the re-shuffle of Ed Miliband’s shadow team make his early exit as Labour leader more or less likely? More likely Less likely It will have no impact either way Mike Smithson is still on holiday and won’t be back until the end of next week. Recent Threads
Surely the party of the Two Eds should be miles ahead? Something curious is happening in British politics. The economy is weak, unemployment is running at 2.5m, and significant, and unpopular, cuts in public spending are being pushed through. In such a situation, one would expect the Opposition to have opened up a big lead in opinion polls, and to make sweeping gains in local elections. In the run up to the last election, plenty of commentators expected the new…
Henry G runs the rule over a possible Labour frontbench shake-up With rumours of an imminent Labour Shadow Cabinet reshuffle it’s worth examining the opportunities and risks for Labour. Ed Miliband is in a stronger position to dispense patronage than previous Labour leaders in Opposition now he has the ability to appoint who he wishes from the full ranks of the Parliamentary Labour Party. With this freedom comes added risks and the likelihood of net disappointment for many MPs. Reshuffles…
CON/Dave take 6% lead in YouGov’s forced choice question One polling finding which doesn’t usually attract much attention is the fortnightly forced choice question which is put by YouGov. Here respondents are asked: “If you had to choose, which would you prefer to see after the next election, a Conservative government led by David Cameron or a Labour government led by Ed Miliband?” You’d expect there to be close correlation between responses here and voting intention. Not always so. In…
YouGov Or is the party still going to be held responsible? Probably the biggest challenge facing the Two Eds is dealing with the perception set out in the polling featured above – who is responsible for the cuts? The good news is that compared with a year ago there’s been a drop from 44% to 40% in those blaming Labour. The coalition, meanwhile has seen its proportion up from 20% to 22%. The bad news for the red team is…
So what’s the verdict? How did EdM do? For me the most striking feature of this afternoon’s speech was the outbreak of booing in parts of the audience when Miliband mentioned Tony Blair. Maybe they’d forgotten that the target of their hostility was one of only three Labour leaders ever to lead their party to overall majorities in general elections – something that Blair did a record three times. Miliband declares that he’s not Tony Blair yet the speech did…
Discuss EdM’s here on PB It is due to start at 2.15pm