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Category: General Election

Has Cameron de-contaminated Brand Conservative?

Has Cameron de-contaminated Brand Conservative?

How does Labour attack a party that is no longer hated? Reading Carole Cadwalladr’s enjoyable feature in the Observer Review yesterday “So we are all Tories now? the thought struck me that something very profound has happened to British politics – the Tories are no longer hated. And this simple fact could have a dramatic effect on the next general election because it takes away the core proposition that Labour have deployed so successfully for a decade and a half…

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Will ICM add to the jitters within the Lib Dems?

Will ICM add to the jitters within the Lib Dems?

The firm’s 16% is the lowest since Clegg became leader The most significant news in a new ICM poll in the Sunday Express is that the Lib Dems have slumped to their lowest ratings from the firm since well before Nick Clegg became leader last December. The shares with changes on the last survey from the pollster nearly a fortnight ago are: CON 45% (+2): LAB 29% (+1): LD 16% (-3) This is a particular blow for the party because…

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Who should be most pleased that Labour sacked Tony?

Who should be most pleased that Labour sacked Tony?

The cross-party movements when the counter-factual was put We’ve now got the detailed data from this morning’s YouGov poll in the Daily Telegraph which had these latest party shares: CON 47%: LAB 25%: LD 16% The main interest has been on how having David Miliband as leader would make almost no difference whatsoever and the tantalising information on what people say they would do if Tony could come back. This is clearly a fantasy world but the Blair as leader…

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PB Election Countdown: Our new monthly tracker survey

PB Election Countdown: Our new monthly tracker survey

After our Glasgow East success what about the General Election? On the first Friday of every month I’m planning a new tracker survey of the PB community. What are our thoughts about the coming general election? What do we think the outcome is likely to be? Last week, of course, a similar prediction survey for the Glasgow East by-election had it 50:50 between Labour and the SNP with the latter being just a few votes ahead. This compared with the…

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Electoral Commission blow for the anti-Ashcroft plan

Electoral Commission blow for the anti-Ashcroft plan

Will this mean that the Tories will win even more marginals? While the political world has been focussed on Labour’s by-election defeat in Glasgow and the possibility of a challenge to Brown’s leadership there’s another development this morning that has the potential to have an even bigger impact on the outcome of the next general election. For the body that oversees elections – the Electoral Commission – is, according to the main lead on Guardian On-line overnight, suggesting that the…

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Is Harriet the danger for Tory landslide punters?

Is Harriet the danger for Tory landslide punters?

Could a “game-changing” Gord replacement upset the media narrative? There’s been quite a bit of activity on the Tory landslide markets where punters have driven the price down from 4/1 at the end of June to 6/4 with William Hill at the moment. Ladbrokes have also got a market. Yesterday the price on the Tories getting a majority of 100 or more was 3/1 and looked quite an attractive bet. Today that’s down to 9/4. Given the overwhelming polling evidence…

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Labour get a little closer with YouGov

Labour get a little closer with YouGov

..but yet another poll points to a Cameron-landslide What is probably the final poll of July, from YouGov in the Daily Telegraph, is out this morning and the numbers show a minor improvement for Labour compared with the latest survey from the firm earlier in the month. Note that my comparisons are with that poll, not June’s Telegraph survey. The shares with changes on the last poll from the pollster are CON 45 (-2): LAB 26% (+1): LD 17% (+1)….

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PB Election Countdown: Representing results better

PB Election Countdown: Representing results better

Blair Freebairn helping us to understand more the battles ahead “The curse of dimensionality” is a term used by statisticians to describe the exponential increase in complexity as you add variables (aka dimensions) to a problem. So, in the interests of simplicity, political commentators rarely venture beyond one dimension; this is most limiting in the traditional reporting of swing, changes in vote share are reported using a single number. However one of the defining themes of post-war elections has been…

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