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Category: General Election

How does Dave compare with Maggie and Tony?

How does Dave compare with Maggie and Tony?

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Ipsos-MORI What does this say about the coming election? One of the great developments for political anoraks was the publication by Ipsos-MORI just before Christmas of historic polling data that has not been available online before. This covers MORI polls from 1977 onwards and means we have here on-line data from the last period in British politics when the Tories looked as thought they might take power. It’s a long time ago but because of the consistent way in which…

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What’s the future for the “Snow-Plot Six”?

What’s the future for the “Snow-Plot Six”?

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Is Robinson right about the extent of the mutiny? For me the big development overnight in the “Snow-Plot” was the naming of six cabinet ministers on BBC TV by the corporation’s political editor, Nick Robinson who were alleged to be linked in some way to the Hoon-Hewitt move. The group include some heavy hitters including the deputy leader, the justice, foreign, Scottish and defence secretaries as well as a man who has always been regarded as a close Brown supporter,…

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Does the plot’s failure make this more likely?

Does the plot’s failure make this more likely?

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Should they be opening the bubbly at Cameron Towers? After an exciting few hours it now appears that the plot was restricted to the two former cabinet ministers and if any follow-up had been planned it seems to have gone plop. The outcome is that Labour will be going into the election with a leader who has the second lowest approval ratings in the party’s history. Only Michael Foot rated lower. Quite why the bulk of Labour MPs are reluctant…

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How’s Brown doing against Major and Callaghan?

How’s Brown doing against Major and Callaghan?

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Ipsos-MORI How good a pointer are these numbers? A lot is talked about polling comparisons between now and the run-up to the May 1997 general election when, of course, Mr. Blair won a landslide victory. It can be challenging finding comparable data because of the considerable changes in polling over the past thirteen years. The table above, however, is one where we can make a direct comparison because it’s based on MORI questions which have been asked in the same…

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Now you can bet on which way Clegg would go?

Now you can bet on which way Clegg would go?

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Who’s got the strongest mandate? Labour or the Tories The above seat calculation is from UKPollingReport and shows what happens if you put the vote shares of C39-L33.3-LD20 into the seat calculator. The outcome, based on a uniform national swing calculation gives Labour the most commons seat on fewer than a third of the votes and well behind the Tories on 39%. So in these circumstances what should the Lib Dems do? Nick Clegg seeks to answer the whole hung…

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Does outdoor advertising make a difference?

Does outdoor advertising make a difference?

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Will Tory fundraising make victory more likely? Perhaps the key element of the first day of the campaign was the realisation that the Tories have got a lot more money to play with and are ready to invest heavily in outdoor advertising. We got the first taste yesterday with the NHS poster campaign said to be costing £400,000. What a contrast with Labour’s news in the Times this morning that it is facing potential bankruptcy and is expecting to be…

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Is there anything to learn from Jan 2005 polls?

Is there anything to learn from Jan 2005 polls?

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What does this say about current surveys? The table above shows all the published opinion polls in the January before the last election in May 2005 and compares them with what actually happened. First thing to note is the methodological changes that three of the firms have made which makes direct comparisons more difficult. YouGov introduced a new party ID weighting structure to deal with their pre-May 2005 tendency to over-state the Lib Dems at the expense of Labour. ComRes…

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Is this approach too Dave-specific?

Is this approach too Dave-specific?

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And could Cameron be creating hostages to fortune? Wow. What a busy morning. Is it going to be like this right through to the general election day whenever that is? What’s caught my eye is this Tory NHS poster and the way all the emphasis is put on Cameron – “I’ll cut the deficit. Not the NHS” Is this going to be a common element in other campaign material? Clearly this has been through the focus groups and reflects what…

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