CON 42 (+4) LAB 24 (+1) LD 18 (-4) But was it more than just the “Norwich Effect”? This clearly is a very good poll for the Tories who are back in the 40s after five consecutive surveys from the pollster that had them below the magical 40 number including one where they had slumped to just 30%. The field-work started on Friday and went through to Sunday when the party, and particularly Cameron, was getting a lot of favourable…
BedfordToday Or will the BBC give her “special treatment”? During the Norwich North campaign one of the most disgraceful acts by the media was the way that the BBC decided that Craig Murray – the former British ambassador sacked for speaking out against torture – was not a serious candidate. This was despite the fact that he’d held into his deposit standing against Jack Straw at the general election and that he’s built up a campaigning operation on human rights…
What’s an incoming Tory government going to do? Two of what used to be called the broadsheet papers are once again making Afghanistan and the problems for the government their main lead. The Independent focuses on the findings of the first part of its monthly ComRes poll which has 52% wanting troops out straight away with 43% against. By 58% to 31% those sampled believed that the Taliban cannot be defeated militarily and by 60% to 35% of those polled…
YouGov How 732 who identified with the party became 435 The above panel is from the latest YouGov poll that was in The People yesterday and shows the dramatic differences between those who told the pollster in 2005 which party they identified with and who they now say they will vote for. So in the sample there were 732 “Labour identifiers” from May 2005. By late July 2009 that number has become 435 – or just 59%. At the same…
And if he can’t fight on this then what? For the past three elections Labour core message to get its vote out was that a Tory government would make cuts that would eat into the heart of public services. This worked so brilliantly for so long long that until very recently the new Tory team, Cameron-Osborne, refused even to counter discussions about their post general election plans if this involved hacking back on Labour spending commitments on key services. That’s…
Or was today another boost for AJ4PM? So another battering at by the voters and if things run to form then there’ll be more leadership speculation followed by Brown’s September conference speech which all Labour loyalists will acclaim. We’ve been here before – the only difference now is that the election is much closer and Labour is finding it even harder to get people to vote for the party. Fourteen months ago at C&N the Tories achieved a massive swing…
Does this mean that the better organised do better? The first hard news from Norwich is that turnout was at just 45% which compares with 61% at the general election. This is lower than many were predicting and it might be recalled that at Crewe & Nantwich last year the figure was only two points short of the general election level. The general theory of low turnouts is that the campaigns which benefit most are those that are best organised….
Could Labour have really been squeezed into third place? This was the bar-chart that the Lib Dems were using in Norwich North – all designed to make voters think that they were the challengers to the Tories even though the numbers are from the nation local election count on June 4th. Lib Dem bar charts are all designed to show that they are the challenger. It’s a simple tactic which has been used many times before and, no doubt, will…