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Category: General Election

Can Cameron convince public sector workers?

Can Cameron convince public sector workers?

Ipsos-MORI Are public purse voters the bedrock of Labour support? Last July Ipsos-MORI introduced a novel new weighting to try to deal with the over-representation of Labour supporters in polling samples. Unlike the other polling firms who weight by past vote or past party ID MORI now split their samples into those who are on the public pay-roll and those who are not. Just look at the chart above to see two key elements. Conventional telephone polling seems to reach…

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Is now the time to take this back off the shelf?

Is now the time to take this back off the shelf?

PoliticsHome Sept 2008 Are September’s projections still applicable? Last September the then new PoliticsHome site published an amazing poll that covered more than 34,000 separate online interviews in a total of 238 parliamentary constituencies where the big battles at the next election are going to be fought. The sample was seventeen times the current maximum for the polling of marginals and the PH team, in conjunction with YouGov, devised some interesting approaches to testing things like tactical voting. Fieldwork was…

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Is Harriet becoming Labour’s Sarah Palin?

Is Harriet becoming Labour’s Sarah Palin?

MailOnline Can the party stop its Deputy “going rogue“ Those who followed the White House race closely last autumn will recall how in the final weeks John McCain’s campaign became plagued by the antics of his ticket partner, Sarah Palin. The V-P nominee, realising that they were facing defeat, began to develop her own agenda and efforts by the offical McCain campaign to rein her were just pushed aside. Palin, it was said, became more interested in positioning herself for…

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Is Alan emerging as the “obvious” choice?

Is Alan emerging as the “obvious” choice?

Could a Johnson-led party contain more of the losses? One of the great pieces of wisdom about party leadership betting is that Labour and the Lib Dems always seem to end up with the obvious candidate while being the Conservative front-runner is the “kiss of death”. So what are we to make of the recent suggestions in several quarters about Alan Johnson’s chances? Hardly a day goes by at the moment without one pundit or another pondering over whether an…

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Tory spreads move back to the previous high

Tory spreads move back to the previous high

PB’s “The Money Says” Index : CON MAJ 56 (+2) We’ve barely mentioned the commons seat spread betting markers over the past two or three weeks because there’s been hardly any movement. But I do like to do an article every two to three weeks if only as a matter of record. The day has seen a bit of a change following since the weekend YouGov and ComRes polls. Now the Tory buy level on both main markets – from…

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Is a global role for Gord just Labour wishful thinking?

Is a global role for Gord just Labour wishful thinking?

guardian.co.uk What do we think of the Brown lifeboat rumour? One good measure of how badly things are going for a leader is when apparent loyal supporters spend their time trying to work out how their person can be got out of the way painlessly leaving them some dignity. Last summer, at the bottom of Brown Slump I, a story was going round of a possible global role for Brown in Africa funded by the Gates Foundation with Bill Clinton…

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What happens if a proportional swing is applied?

What happens if a proportional swing is applied?

Could this affect Commons seats projections? Most people with an interest in politics and election outcomes are familiar with the term – Uniform National Swing. But how many understand how the numbers are made up and that there are two very different approaches to making the calculations. I raise this because I have to admit that until not so long ago I got it all wrong. My assumption was that if Party A was up by a tenth on the…

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Is accepting some responsibility the first step to recovery?

Is accepting some responsibility the first step to recovery?

guardian.co.uk Has Kettle got it right about Mr. Brown? There’s a biting column on Mr. Brown and the economic crisis by Martin Kettle in the Guardian this morning on the reluctance of the Prime Minister to take any responsibility whatsoever for what’s gone on in Britain’s banks. Discussing first Mr. Brown’s tendency to put tactics ahead of strategy Kettle looks at what’s gone on the the past few weeks and makes the case that a reluctance by Brown to accept…

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