CONSERVATIVES 43% (+4) LABOUR 33% (-2) LIB DEMS 15% (-2) Has Gord stopped defying political gravity? The first telephone poll of 2009, from Populus for the Times tomorrow is out and shows a big swing back to the Tories. In recent surveys the phone pollsters have tended to be showing smaller Tory leads than YouGov – which does everything online. The Populus methodology is very similar to ICM – the survey is past vote weighted and a proportion of the…
Is there a danger of the headless chicken syndrome? Almost every working day, it seems, there’s a new government announcement, usually by Brown himself, on measures apparently designed to deal with the recession. Today it was the offer of £2,500 to employers for every person they train who has been unemployed for more than six months. Fair enough – the idea sounds promising but have they got the announcement strategy right? Among the things we had last week were the…
But are the Tory “Arthur Scargills” lining up against? From where I sit it is a statement of the blindingly obvious that Cameron’s chances of securing a majority at the general election would be greatly enhanced if his line-up of shadow ministers included the former Tory Chancellor and long-time political bruiser, Ken Clarke. Jackie Ashley has it right in her Monday Guardian column when she writes “…everyone seems to want Ken Clarke.. back. But by almost everyone I mean commentators,…
Will Labour be able to stop a Tory from being next Speaker? Last Saturday I suggested that people should consider getting on the former LIb Dem leader, Sir Ming Campbell, in the then William Hill next speaker market following reports in that morning’s Daily Mail of a possible LAB-LD agreement to support him. At the time Ming was not even listed as a runner on the Hill market but I got through on the phone, as did others, and got…
What’ll be the impact of saying Plan A was wrong? The front pages of the Daily Mail and the Times this morning are dominated by the same story – a plan by the Treasury to “print more money” to deal with the ongoing economic crisis. As the Mail puts it:“…The prospect of what is known as ‘ quantitative easing’ – printing money – emerged as Mr Darling gave a clear sign that the recession this year will be worse than…
UKPollingReport Does this point to a Labour standstill or small decline? In the week before Christmas Anthony Wells of UK Polling Report put forward the theory that Labour’s standing in the polls was closely linked with how optimistic the public were about the economy or the level of consumer confidence. He argued that Labour’s low point in the early summer coincided with the low points on the Ipsos-MORI Economic Optimism Index and the Nationwide Building Society Consumer Confidence Index. Thus…
Is the school providing the 2009 betting movers? After the last thread on Ken Clarke’s possible return to a front-bench position it’s quite striking to note how many of the potential 2009 political betting “movers” were all educated at the same school – Nottingham High. Yesterday I put £50 on another ex-pupil, Ed Balls, at 16/1 in Ladbroke’s Chancellor on New Year’s Eve 2009 market. Clearly Darling looks set to stay the course but in the current economic storm then…
Would not appointing him now seem like a defeat? As the Daily Mail is reporting this morning David Cameron “..did not rule out an audacious move to appoint Mr Clarke to the Shadow Cabinet when asked about the possibility for the first time yesterday.” Certainly the speculation about a return of the 68 year old ex-Chancellor has been allowed to continue for more than a week and if it doesn’t happen then it could appear as though the leader has…