The Greens might need to stop being seen as a single issue party if they want to have more than one MP. YouGov have carried out some polling into the Greens which can be found here. The above tweets are a small section of the findings, the entire Twitter thread is worth a read. We learn things like the voters currently have a more favourable opinion of the Greens than the other main parties which might explain why the Greens…
Donald Rumsfeld, who died in June, will always be remembered for his statement about ‘known unknowns’ with reference to Iraq. The term was apparently already in use at NASA for risks that one is aware of, which is where Rumsfeld came across it. So casting our minds to the approaching next General Election what might the ‘known unknowns’ be here in UK for the 2023/24 campaign? The NHS. Obviously a perennial election regular, but this time it could be absolutely…
Public concern about climate change, the environment, and pollution doubles to a near record level Given recent events but (going back further) I’m not surprised to see pollution/environment/climate change so high on the issues index. What I love about the Ipsos MORI issues index is that is based on the unprompted responses of the respondents. With the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 26) taking place in Glasgow between the 1st and 12th of November I suspect concern about climate…
Some posters to this site have argued that leader or government approval ratings can be a better guide to general election results than the voting intention question, if not immediately before the vote, then early in the Parliament or in mid-term. I have been meaning for some time to put this to the test. I have used the IPSOS-MORI opinion poll and approval ratings data, which goes back to 1977, covering 11 general elections. Conclusions I have found: three years…
And EVERY LAB winner of a general election majority winner went to Oxford One of my little obsessions over the years has been the very narrow base from which political leaders come from in the UK. The table above shows the educational backgrounds of every Tory PM since Churchill stood aside in 1955 and as can be seen all but one of them went to Oxford – the exception being John Major who did not go to university. Labour doesn’t…
Like Mike Smithson I love the play This House, I saw This House at the theatre back in 2012 and when it was repeated in the cinemas in 2013, so I utterly delighted a wider audience will be able to see this. I was born in the late 70s but I’ve always been fascinated by these crucial votes in Parliament, particularly the 1979 vote of no confidence, something which is a pivot moment in the history of this country. It’s…
PMs without majorities shouldn’t be able to call elections The Fixed-term Parliament Act was the most lasting constitutional change to come out of the 2010 to 2015 Conservative Liberal Democrat coalition. It was always said that it was unnecessary because the main opposition party would always vote for an election if that was offered as we saw in April 2017. That thinking has changed this past month with Corbyn’s LAB not taking the bait. He knows that the new parliamentary…
This rather narrows the target audience This polling Tracker from YouGov has been asked at least twice a month since the 2016 referendum and the big trend is that there has been a shift from those thinking Brexit was right to those thinking that brexit was wrong. This matters, I would suggest, if there is to be an election which is presented as being about the People vs the Politicians as is being suggested by many commentators this morning. For…