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Category: General Election

At what point will the animation stop?

At what point will the animation stop?

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Is this how the political map could change? Philip Palfrey of the University of Sheffield has produced some fascinating graphic material to illustrate how the GB political map for what I think is England could change with different swings. Just look above and watch it change. A key element here is that the map shows all constituencies as being the same geographical size. He has other interesting material that I will feature in future posts. Philip asks me to note…

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It’s no change in 10,344 sample YouGov poll

It’s no change in 10,344 sample YouGov poll

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CON 42% (nc) LAB 30% (nc) LD 16% (nc) Is the Sun using polling to help undermine Brown? On Wednesday evening in the immediate aftermath of the abortive H-H coup attempt we had news of a Sun YouGov poll that had Labour just nine points behind. Almost all of the fieldwork had taken place before news of that development was being reported. Then the following evening we had another poll in the paper showing that the Tories had moved up…

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Who has got this right – SPIN or ExtraBet?

Who has got this right – SPIN or ExtraBet?

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Why is there such a difference in the spreads? In the panel above are the commons seat spreads from Sporting Index and the firm that used to be called IG and now operates as ExtraBet. For punters what is marked is the the quite substantial difference between the two markets. They are within one seat of each other with Labour but look at the difference with the Tory spread and the Lib Dem one. In terms of the overall outcome…

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How will the Tories use the Watts’ claims?

How will the Tories use the Watts’ claims?

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SkyNews Is the rest of the media going to pick this up? The big thing when there is a Sunday political exclusive like the Mail on Sunday’s serialisation of the Peter Watts’ book, Inside Out, is whether the story has “legs”. Will other papers and the TV news channels run with it as well and how long will it dominate the headlines? Well, as above, SkyNews is playing it big and no doubt it will be a key element in…

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What do we think of Iain’s election prediction?

What do we think of Iain’s election prediction?

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Iain Dale Good on Iain Dale – he’s done something that I have been avoiding – making a prediction on the outcome of the coming general election. His seat predicted seat totals are:- Conservative 331 Labour 216 LibDem 69 Plaid Cymru 5 SNP 7 Green 1 Others 3 Northern Ireland 18 As discussion on this seems to have taken over the previous thread I thought it merited a separate examination on its own. Amongst Iain’s details:- LibDems lose 9 seats…

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Why was Mandy stuck for words?

Why was Mandy stuck for words?

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Does no change at No. 10 mean back Balls? Thanks to Miranda Richardson on her Sky blog for highlighting the fairly equivocal responses by Peter Mandelson to the last couple of questions in this short interview. If this week was supposed to have produced a change of approach from Number 10 then why was the business secretary less than forthright in his closing responses. The conclusion, surely, is that Brown has won, there will be no real change in Labour’s…

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Do the LDs gain most from the plot’s failure?

Do the LDs gain most from the plot’s failure?

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Would replacing Brown be bad news for Clegg? Thanks to Ryans on a previous thread for highlighting the detailed finding in the week’s first YouGov poll on the party split when respondents were asked if they would be more or less likely to vote Labour if Brown was replaced. Normally I think we should be quite sceptical about such questions and I don’t think we should read too much into the scale of potential switching. But one thing stands out…

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Did Darling tell Brown to quit?

Did Darling tell Brown to quit?

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This is from the blog of the excellent Iain Martin of the Wall Street Journal:- “…the crucial meeting yesterday afternoon was between the chancellor and Gordon Brown. Alistair Darling and Brown were alone together; they were the only two in the room. But extraordinary rumors are emerging about what was said. I’ve heard from two Labour sources now that the conversation was very difficult and that Darling raised the possibility of Brown going, but the PM resisted. It would be…

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