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Category: General Election

Where are the BNP votes coming from?

Where are the BNP votes coming from?

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A guest article from Peter Ould It’s commonly asserted that BNP voters are most likely to be disaffected Labour supporters. For example, Iain Dale on Saturday noted that the places that the BNP have done well are all strong Labour constituencies. Equally, some Labour commentators have blamed the rise of the BNP on the lack of an effective Conservative opposition. Which is it? To examine both these propositions I decided to look at some polling data. Taking the four polling…

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Could UKIP still save the day for Labour?

Could UKIP still save the day for Labour?

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Or is Brown’s party just clutching at straws? According to Gaby Hinsliff and Henry McDonald in the Observer this morning ” a private analysis by Labour strategists suggests that the blues could be denied up to 50 seats at the election because of UKIP supporters splitting the Tory vote. The figures in Labour’s study, if that’s not too grand a term, “..are based on 100 “supermarginal” seats where its MPs are holding on with majorities of less than 2,000.” Certainly…

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The “Brown going” debate

The “Brown going” debate

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Who’s got this right? Herdson or Peter the Punter Earlier this week, I had an e-mail exchange with Peter the Punter following a bet we made a week last Monday as to whether Gordon Brown would go within the week, where we both set out our thoughts on Brown’s chances of survival through to next May. The first e-mail is from me in response to a question that Peter asked – whether Labour would sleepwalk to a sub-200 seat total,…

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Labour falls back with YouGov

Labour falls back with YouGov

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CON 40%(-1) LAB 27%(-3) LD 19%(+2) Will this add to Labour disappointments? What a difference a week makes? Just six days ago Labour might have just felt that things were turning for them. They’d been down only ten points in the October Populus poll and then there was further goodish news in the two surveys that came out on Saturday evening. YouGov had them on the psychological 30% mark while ComRes had them only 12 behind with the Tories on…

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Shouldn’t this turn the tide for Labour?

Shouldn’t this turn the tide for Labour?

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Will officially moving out of recession be the trigger? There had been a lot of expectation that today would have seen growth in Q3 (July – September) – a point at which ministers could have declared that the country was “officially” out of recession. That didn’t happen and now Ladbrokes are offering 4/6 that this milestone will be achieved in the final quarter (October to December). Whatever the latest MORI Economic Optimism Index – out this week – has what…

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Will Gord be getting a post-card from Pete and Dave?

Will Gord be getting a post-card from Pete and Dave?

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South Shields Sanddancers Is there really plotting going on? On Wednesday we ran a thread based on a comment from our reliable north eastern Labour contributor, HenryG, suggesting possible moves over the leadership involving Peter Mandelson and South Shields MP and foreign secretary, David Miliband. Last night while all the focus was on Mr. Griffin the “Mole” in the online newspaper, The First Post, carried more speculation noting that this weekend Peter Mandelson is travelling to South Shields to give…

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Will the BNP get a Question Time polling boost?

Will the BNP get a Question Time polling boost?

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Angus Reid Strategies Is the controversy behind their 3 point polling share? The full data and weightings for the first Politicalbetting/Angus Reid Strategies poll are now available for download here and here and I reproduce part of the main voting intention table above. With future surveys it’s hoped that we’ll be able to make the detailed tables available at about the same time as the headline figures are published. As we get closer to the election I think that this…

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What’ll be the political fall-out from this?

What’ll be the political fall-out from this?

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SkyNews Will the fingers be pointed at Mandy? So it’s happening. The long-threatened postal strike starts tomorrow for an initial two-day walk-out. Quite what it is about is hard to fathom but it looks messy particularly for a government that’s due to be going to the country within the next few months. In what was a rather lacklustre performance at PMQs today Cameron made the action his sole subject for all six of his questions. He seemed to labour his…

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