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Category: General Election

OCT ‘07 FLASHBACK: The end of the media honeymoon

OCT ‘07 FLASHBACK: The end of the media honeymoon

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Did Gord’s honeymoon end with his visit to Iraq? My third extract to help us understand that defining first week in October 2007 is a Newsnight interview between Jeremy Paxman and Bob Ainsworth which took place in the aftermath of Brown’s trip to Iraq and the statement on British troop reductions but before Brown’s famous interview with Andrew Marr. Paxman’s normal manner is aggressive but the core of his case was that there had been some fiddling of the figures…

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How dangerous is this sort of talk?

How dangerous is this sort of talk?

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Spectator Coffee House Is Gordon reconciled to going down with the ship? The Coffee House blog has picked up a fascinating quote from the FT about a Number 10 source which could change the whole dynamic of the next ten months – Brown thinks he’s going to be defeated. It reports: “One Downing Street insider said the prime minister was more relaxed because he now realised that he was certain to lose the next election and was powerless to defy…

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How difficult is it campaigning on your record?

How difficult is it campaigning on your record?

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Is this why going negative is more effective? The YouTube from Labour’s unsuccessful 1970 re-election campaign is pretty feeble by modern standards but highlights a challenge faced by all governments when they seek re-election – how to campaign on their record? For in every general election people are looking forward and reeling off numbers about the past often does to resonate. It can sound tedious and boring and in any case who cares? What voters want to know is that…

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How much could Iran impact on the British election?

How much could Iran impact on the British election?

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Foreign events have changed things before – could it happen again? In the immediate aftermath of the Iraq War, a senior Bush official was reported as saying “Real men don’t go to Baghdad, they go to Tehran.” If the neo-Cons who were pushing that agenda were as influential now as they were then, then the Iranian government’s current actions would be making their trigger fingers decidedly twitchy. Of course, not only are the neo-Cons of the Bush administration not in…

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OCT ’07 FLASHBACK: Another great TV clash

OCT ’07 FLASHBACK: Another great TV clash

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Did Balls think the election was still on? While we are going though a very quiet period with almost no political betting going on I thought it worth concentrating further on that first week of October 2007 which we might look back upon as the period that defined Labour’s third term. The clash in the clip was of a discussion before the non-election announcement. What I find striking is how pumped up Ed Balls was – even more so than…

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What should I say to Labour delegates?

What should I say to Labour delegates?

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Is it all doom and gloom? I’ve just accepted an invitation to give my thoughts on the general election outcome at a fringe event at the Labour conference in Brighton. This will be the first time I’ve been and I like the idea that it’s at somebody else’s expense. There’s a similar session at the Tory conference the following week. What I’ve been pondering is what on earth can I say in Brighton that is not going to go down…

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Is Brown set for an invisibility boost?

Is Brown set for an invisibility boost?

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Was this the secret of his popularity as chancellor? With a bit of luck there might be a weekend poll and if there is it could help us to answer one of the questions that is often posed – does seeing Gordon Brown or not seeing him on our screens everyday have an impact on Labour’s opinion poll ratings? For both he and David Cameron have been away for getting on for a fortnight so any new survey would have…

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The New Election Model – Part II

The New Election Model – Part II

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Two weeks ago, I introduced a new election forecasting model. This generated much heat, and a little light in the numerous comments. Many were scepticical, arguing that it used proportional swing, others asked how a model that produced such different results to Unified National Swing could be taken seriously. Many of the criticisms came from a lack of understanding of how the model – which we’ve nicknamed Voter Intention Prediction Analysis, or VIPA – works. This post explains why VIPA…

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