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How the first time incumbency bonus can impact on the uniform national swing seat projections

How the first time incumbency bonus can impact on the uniform national swing seat projections

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The 1st time incumbency bonus that could make the Tory GE2015 challenge a bit easier. See what happened at GE2010 pic.twitter.com/q1MoHawG — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) July 27, 2013 Labour incumbents also did better at GE2010 How LAB incumbent MPs did better than their parties at GE2010 pic.twitter.com/y0I2Kw0W — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) July 27, 2013 The Tories will have many more first time incumbents The charts above are based on data from a post-2010 paper by Prof John Curtice, Dr Stephen Fisher and…

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Now is the time to tackle party funding reform

Now is the time to tackle party funding reform

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It’s not healthy for parties to be reliant on a few large supporters July 2013 may well come to be seen as the turning point in this parliament.  The economy looks to have decisively turned the corner.  We only hear talk of triple-dip recessions in the context of no longer talking about triple-dip recessions.  Employment is rising, unemployment is falling, growth is accelerating and confidence is returning.  One would expect that to feed through to the key battleground of the…

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Punters rate a CON majority a bit higher than a week ago

Punters rate a CON majority a bit higher than a week ago

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CON majority chances edge up a notch on Betfair. Was 20% last wk – now 23.3%. See table pic.twitter.com/IC5Vv8vQZZ — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) July 26, 2013 What will the weekend polling bring? @OpiniumResearch say there are some "interesting movements" in their poll for Observer tomorrow: Last time it was C27/L38/LD6/Ukp19 — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) July 26, 2013

The NHS is to the Tories what immigration is to Labour – a policy area they can’t win. Better to move on

The NHS is to the Tories what immigration is to Labour – a policy area they can’t win. Better to move on

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Can the Tories ever win on the NHS? – The YouGov best party tracker pic.twitter.com/Kim189k5BB — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) July 24, 2013 Can Labour ever win on immigration? – The YouGov best party tracker pic.twitter.com/grMqb6Esad — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) July 24, 2013 The best strategy is to steer the debate on to areas of strength A week, as Harold Wilson used to say, is a long in politics and just seven days ago the Tories felt they were on to…

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LAB lead amongst Unite members jumps 14 to 26 percent

LAB lead amongst Unite members jumps 14 to 26 percent

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The views of Unite members on key policy issues according to today's @LordAshcroft poll pic.twitter.com/caVYxPux9t — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) July 23, 2013 There’s a new Michael Ashcroft poll of Unite members covering voting intention and issues associated with union funding. Like other Ashcroft polls we don’t know the pollster but my guess is that it is YouGov which built up a reasonable size base of union members for its leadership polling in 2007 and 2010. The voting intention shares, seen…

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The Tories get to within 3 percent in tonight’s YouGov poll

The Tories get to within 3 percent in tonight’s YouGov poll

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LAB lead down to just 3% in latest YouGov/Sun poll Lab 38 Con 35 LD 11 UKIP 10. — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) July 22, 2013 Tonight's 3% LAB YouGov lead is the smallest since March 2012 – before Osborne's budget — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) July 22, 2013 Are the Tories closing in on Labour in tonight's polling? No way of knowing if your methodology arbitrarily reduces UKIP support… — Damian Lyons Lowe (@DamianSurvation) July 22, 2013 According to Electoral Calculus…

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Even if the Tories clawed back all of their 2010 voters who’ve switched to LAB the most they’d put on is less than 2pc

Even if the Tories clawed back all of their 2010 voters who’ve switched to LAB the most they’d put on is less than 2pc

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Why the potential for swingback is so limited There’s a new Populus online poll out – the third in just eight days – and all the fieldwork took place over the weekend. The figures with changes on Friday’s poll are LAB 39 (↔); CON 32 (↑1); LD 12 (↔); UKIP 9 (↓1). What’s extraordinary about GE2015 voting intention polling is how little crossover there has been between the two main parties since GE2010. Just look at the chart above showing…

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Given that Farage must be UKIP’s best prospect for GE2015 PaddyPower open betting on which seat he’ll choose

Given that Farage must be UKIP’s best prospect for GE2015 PaddyPower open betting on which seat he’ll choose

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Interesting UKIP betting market from PaddyPower – which constituency will Nigel Farage stand in at #GE2015? pic.twitter.com/z3UpJY0TZn — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) July 22, 2013 Is Eastleigh where he’ll try to get into Westminster? By far the most recognised UKIP politician is the leader, Nigel Farage, and clearly he’s the one who you’d think would have the best chance of becoming an MP at GE2015. The party’s best performance ever in a Westminster seat was at Eastleigh in February when they…

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