CONSERVATIVES 41% (+2) LABOUR 32% (-2) LIB DEMS 15% (-1) Is this a third body blow to Brown Central? The second poll of the night, the ComRes poll for tomorrow’s Indy on Sunday, has the Tories back into the low 40s and Labour down a couple of points on where they were in the last survey from the pollster before Christmas. This follows the YouGov poll reported just over an a hour ago on the previous thread that had the…
What do we make of Polly Toynbee’s explanation? An interesting take on the reasons for the Heathrow 3rd runway decision is in Polly Toynbee’s new Saturday morning slot in the Guardian which has become my Saturday “first read” – with more political analysis and less polemic than her other platforms. (And before you pooh-pooh her the person who game me the tip in June 2007 that Harriet, then 9/1, was going to win the 2007 Deputy race tells me that…
Is this the way to work out how the firm does its weightings? As regular visitors will know Anthony Wells of UKPollingReport and I have been in discussion for some time with the ComRes polling organisation trying to work out how it does its past vote weighting – a measure that all but one of the pollsters adopt in one form or another to ensure that their samples are politically representative. The process is quite simple. Respondees are asked how…
Click on panel to watch Was avoiding a commons vote a mistake? As suggested in the previous thread the person who is making the news over the Heathrow third runway decision is John McDonnell – the local MP who will see hundreds of his constituents lose their homes over the plan and who has been leading the protests. Unfortunately the pictures of him picking up the mace are not too good and the Parliamentary TV service, as is usual, was…
Will Labour gain from taking the tough decisions? So we are finally going to get a decision? Today Geoff Hoon will announce in the commons that the controversial £9bn plan to build a third runway at Heathrow is to go ahead. For those trying to predict the outcome of the general election the question now is whether this will be a plus for Labour or not. Will Brown’s party gain the benefit for having the foresight and resolve for agreeing…
Skreened What bad news be slipped out as all eyes are on Washington? For a spinner next Tuesday is a mouth-watering prospect. For at noon Washington time, (1700 GMT), the mega news story in the world will be the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States. His speech, surely, will dominate the airwaves for at least twenty-four hours. And the great thing is that the “news managers” have known about this for months and will…
How dangerous for Labour is the Harman plan? Perhaps the biggest political achievement of Tony Blair was his ability in the run up to the 1997 general election to transform his party into a political force that it was safe for the “middle classes” – epitomised by Daily Mail readers if you like – to vote for. And when on May 1st of that year the time came to vote millions who had never thought of supporting the party before…
Could Populus mark a change in the media narrative? There are two critical things about a poll – the actual voting intention numbers themselves and how it is reported in the media. It might be recalled that the final YouGov poll of 2008 showing C42-L35-LD14, numbers that are not that much different from today’s Populus poll in the Times, was barely covered by the paper that had spent a substantial sum on the survey. For at the time the media…