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Category: General Election

Sturgeon’s game-plan? Replace LAB with CON by replacing CON with LAB

Sturgeon’s game-plan? Replace LAB with CON by replacing CON with LAB

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Can the SNP push Labour into third in 2016? It’s been said that the creation of New Labour was indirectly Margaret Thatcher’s greatest achievement; that her government remodelled the whole political landscape so much that many of her policies were continued and developed not just by her own Conservative successor as PM but by the Labour one following him too. As with all these things, there’s an overly-deterministic element to such reasoning (had John Smith lived, his leadership would have…

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Labour should be second favourite in Thanet South not a 10-1 outsider

Labour should be second favourite in Thanet South not a 10-1 outsider

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If Farage loses it is likely to be to this man not the Tories I understand from those close to UKIP that the well-funded and well-organised Farage campaign is becoming a tad concerned about the personable Will Scobie, the former Mayor of Margate and local councillor who is standing for Labour. They think that their man is still ahead and would win if the election was today but they now think that the main threat is now coming from their…

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Less than seven weeks to go and the Labour Scottish nightmare continues

Less than seven weeks to go and the Labour Scottish nightmare continues

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No sign of any progress for LAB in Scotland. Wiki list of polls pic.twitter.com/KgYHxAFBZr — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) March 20, 2015 Because of the timing of counts the SNP could be ahead nationally at 2am on election night Overnight we had not one but two new Survation polls from Scotland. One was for Unison and the other was the regular survey for the Daily Record. The figures are in the Wiki table above and as can be seen, Labour remains…

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CON maintain their 14 seat lead on the main Commons seats spread market

CON maintain their 14 seat lead on the main Commons seats spread market

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CON still 14 seats ahead on the @SportingIndex http://t.co/ebrNykWXCd Commons seats spread market pic.twitter.com/XdqhEyLBQA — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) March 19, 2015 Meanwhile SPIN has now introduced a range of seat markets which take into account the second placed party. Basically you have a spread from 0 to 25 with the top figure for the winner and 10 for the second place. This is one of the few places where you can be bet on second places. I’ll be doing a…

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The GE2015 prospects for Clegg, Salmond, and Farage are all dependent on tactical voting either for or against

The GE2015 prospects for Clegg, Salmond, and Farage are all dependent on tactical voting either for or against

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So what combination will fail to be elected on May 7th? One of those attending the PB party on Tuesday, a long standing lurker who has never posted, told me that one of his favourite bets at the moment was the then 50/1 he’d got that Farage, Salmond and Clegg would all fail to be elected at the election. This was pleasing to me personally because the market on which combination of the three would make it was one I’d…

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The last budget of the 2010-2015 parliament

The last budget of the 2010-2015 parliament

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pic.twitter.com/69rnNCnVOX — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) March 18, 2015 YouGov (What voters think of possible #Budget2015 measures): http://t.co/WkTOS2qZcj pic.twitter.com/W80CazwfnC — NumbrCrunchrPolitics (@NCPoliticsUK) March 18, 2015 The pre-budget @SportingIndex commons seats spreads http://t.co/E76CImc6ZI. CON 12 seats ahead pic.twitter.com/mItZLFXgp6 — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) March 18, 2015

2010 LDs are nearly twice as likely to switch to LAB in the marginals as they are in Ashcroft’s national polls

2010 LDs are nearly twice as likely to switch to LAB in the marginals as they are in Ashcroft’s national polls

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This is the main driver of the bigger CON to LAB swing in the marginals I was on a train heading to London to speak at a conference when Lord Ashcroft’s latest CON-LAB battleground polling was published yesterday and have only now got round to looking at the detail. The most striking feature and a big driver of Labour’s strength in the seats polled is how well the party is doing in attracting and retaining 2010 LD to LAB switchers….

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Latest Lord Ashcroft marginals polling brings bad news for the Tories

Latest Lord Ashcroft marginals polling brings bad news for the Tories

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The latest batch of Lord Ashcroft marginals polling is out, and will bring bring great cheer to Labour and much disappointment to the Tories, who would have hoped the national polling trends would feed into the marginals. Lord Ashcroft says My findings this time suggest the better national news for the Conservatives is not spread evenly across the battleground. In only one of the seats, Worcester, has a Labour lead turned into a Tory one. In Croydon Central, the Labour…

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