Are Cameron’s guys trying to manage expectations? Well there we have it in the panel above – the PB survey of what people expect will happen in the Norwich North by election where voting closes at 10pm. This is one of those occasions where I think the PB community has got it wrong and I’m expecting a bigger margin than 4,999 votes. Betfair has a market on whether the Tory share will be in excess of 41% or not. I’ve…
Where next in the phone-hacking saga? If you had believed one or two posters here on Monday then today was the day that David Cameron was going to sack his PR chief, Andy Coulson. This was going to follow his appearance yesterday before the Commons culture, media and sport select committee which had summoned him following the allegations in the Guardian two weeks ago. Well it didn’t quite work out like that. The committee didn’t really strike a blow and…
What general election pointers should we be looking for? We’ve had quite a few by elections in this parliament but most have been largely irrelevant in what they say about the Tory-Labour battle that will determine the general election. Tomorrow at Norwich North it’s different. This is a seat that the Tories should pick up relatively easily if they want to maintain their general election expectations – but what do we mean by “relatively easily“? Interestingly the Westminster voting intention…
Has the Observer columnist fallen into the 1990s polling trap? As PB regulars will know one thing that makes me absolutely furious is when pundits seek to compare the polls of the 1990s with modern day numbers. For back in the run-up to the 1997 election almost all the pollsters were in their unreformed mode and there was a systemic over-statement of Labour – something that we do not see any more. The pollsters from that era have either moved…
If they can’t do well in Norwich – then where? To understand the importance of next week’s Norwich North by election to the Green Party you only need look at the following which appeared in the letters section of the Guardian earlier in the week. “The byelection in Norwich North next week could be a watershed moment in British politics…. For the first time ever, a byelection is being held in an area of Green party strength. The Greens are…
ICM Guardian – July 6 1996 CON 30 LAB 45 LD 21 General Election Result May 1 1997 CON 31.4 LAB 44.4 LD 17.2 ICM Guardian – July 15 2000 CON 35 LAB 42 LD 17 General Election result June 7 2001 CON 32.7 LAB 42 LD 18.8 ICM Guardian – July 18 2004 CON 30 LAB 35 LD 25 General Election result May 5 2005 CON 33.2 LAB 36.2 LD 22.6 Comparing the July pre-election polls with what happened?…
He toughed that one out – can he do the same this time? The apparently audacious Cameron’s response to the Andy Coulson affair that he “believes in giving people second chances” brings back a painful betting memory for me – the time in October 2005 I underestimated the then Tory leadership challenger’s resolve and lost £470. I’d got a spread bet on before the Blackpool conference that he’d win the leadership but then cashed it in for a small profit…
Guardian Can Tory PR boss Coulson survive? The big breaking political story overnight is the Guardian splash revelations that “Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers has paid out more than £1m to settle legal cases that threatened to reveal evidence of his journalists’ repeated involvement in the use of criminal methods to get stories.” This could have big consequences for David Cameron because, as the story states, his PR chief, Andy Coulson, was deputy editor and then editor of the News…