Miranda Grell – disqualified by the Woolas law in 2007 One of the things that has been said repeatedly about the Woolas case is that it is only the second instance in 99 years of this law being used to try to over-turn an election for a Westminster constituency. True. But there is a much more recent case involving a council election. The woman standing next to David Miliband in the picture is Miranda Grell who won a seat in…
Was it this ad that led to Tom stopping his blog? Just over two weeks ago I published the above spoof ad under the headline “Is discipline breaking down within Labour?” and posing the secondary question as to whether its creator, blogging Labour MP, Tom Harris, might be in trouble. Well EdM is about to return to work and what did we see on Tom’s site last night but an announcement that he’s giving up because in his words “blogging…
Polling comparisons from 2004 Date CON % LAB % LD% General election result 05/05/05 33.2 36.2 22.7 YouGov/Mail on Sunday 08/05/04 40 36 18 YouGov/Telegraph 29/04/04 39 35 19 MORI 19/04/04 34 36 22 ICM/Guardian 18/04/04 33 38 22 Populus/Times 04/04/04 34 34 22 YouGov/Telegraph 25/03/04 39 34 20 MORI 16/03/04 35 35 23 ICM/Guardian 11/03/04 35 37 21 Populus/Times 07/03/04 34 36 22 YouGov/Telegraph 26/02/04 39 34 21 ICM/Guardian 22/02/04 34 36 21 MORI/FT 16/02/04 35 36 21 Populus/Times…
Are any of these bets tempting? William Hills have revived a market that proved popular, and for me profitable, in the run-up to the general election – which leader will be the first to leave his job. The pricing is Cameron 9/4, Miliband 7/4, and Clegg 5/4. Interestingly Clegg was the 5/4 favourite in December 2007 when Hills last put this market up – Brown was at 9/4. Clearly with the polls as they are Clegg is the favourite though…
Was it always likely that the pledge would have to be broken? So we are here – Lib Dem betrayal time and an embarrassment for the coalition. But why on earth did Clegg’s party agree to it in the first place because there was always a pretty good chance that it was a promise that couldn’t be kept? Consider two facts. The inquiry into university funding by ex-BP boss John Browne was set up by the last Labour government with…
Populus poll All voters Public Sector Private Sector Retired voters CON 37 23 45 44 LAB 38 50 30 37 LD 15 17 15 10 Do people vote according to their current situation? The above table has been produced from data from this week’s Populus poll for the Times and shows the voting intention shares broken down in terms of respondents employment sector or whether or not they are retired. As can be seen there’s a massive gap between private…
Remember when the “Dead Parrot” struck back Next month we’ll see the twentieth anniversary of what for me was the biggest earthquake in UK politics of my life-time – the ousting of the Conservative party’s three times election winner, Margaret Thatcher. A few weeks earlier, on Friday October 12th 1990, the leader had received her biggest applause from her party conference in Bournemouth in response to a joke based on the famous Monty Python sketch which she linked to the…
Whatever the outcome could the judgement set the standards? Exactly two weeks from today the judges in the Phill Woolas case will give their judgements on the way he and Labour carried out their campaign to hold onto Oldham East and Saddleworth. This is the first case of its kind over a Westminster seat in nearly a century and the judgement is likely to set the standards for future elections. For if the verdict goes against the ex-Labour minister who…