How a 1% Labour lead in the economy becomes a 4% deficit Much of yesterday’s coverage of the December Populus poll in the Times focuses on the fact that Brown-Balls’ party still has a lead on the economy even if only of just one per cent Yet were we getting a proper picture in the papers because, as has been noted here before, findings like this include the views of those who have little or no intention of voting –…
CON 42%: (+1), LAB 35% (+3), LD 14% (-3) The massive face-to-face monthly survey by Ipsos-MORI involving a sample of 1859 has just been published. The changes above show the variations on the the firm’s November telephone poll where the sample was only about half the size. The firm’s latest Political Monitor shows the Conservatives with a 7-point lead and also that David Cameron has the best net satisfaction rating (+6) of any Conservative leader since John Major won the…
FT REPORT A finger on the political pulse by Ross Tieman, Financial Times – Published: Dec 07, 2007 Mike Smithson is on a roll. Britain’s foremost political spread betting aficionado is profiting from the opportunity bonanza offered by political upsets in the UK and the US presidential race. “It’s been a great autumn,” he says. “I have got a hefty wadge that has been transferred into my bank account. Since October, I have done about £6,000 [of profits].” You can’t…
What’s the political impact of extending the detention limits? Those papers that cover the government’s latest plan to extend the detention without trial period won’t make comfortable reading this morning at the Home Office and Number 10. The Home Secretary’s paper proposing a two week extension to 42 days has triggered off bitter protests and there must be a possibility that it will fail to get through the commons. According to the Guardian the plan “appeared to be foundering last…
Could this point to disproportionate Labour losses in the General Election? A main reason why my preferred Westminster general election spread bet is on the number of Labour, rather than Conservative, seats is what might happen north of the border where the party could have several more seats at risk than the conventional GB-based seat calculators are suggesting. This is reinforced by a new YouGov poll on voting intention for the Scottish parliament which suggests that there has been a…
Are the markets over-stating the chances of a Tory overall majority? It is a sobering fact that in only one of the seventeen general elections since the end of the Second World War has a party with a workable commons majority been replaced by another with a workable majority. In 1951, 1979 and 1997 the outgoing governments had ceased to have effective commons majorities. In 1964 and February 1974 the incoming governments had either minuscule majorities or were in a…
Tory ICM margin moves from 6% to 11% A new poll from ICM for the News of the World shows a Tory lead of 11% and means that four surveys from four separate polling organisation in the past week have recorded significant moves to the Conservatives. Based on what limited information is available the shares are with changes on the last ICM survey a week ago – CON 41% (+4): LAB 30% (-1): LD 19% (-2). Given Labour’s appalling week…
The Saturday columnists make grim reading for Gordon After a week in which the parliamentary highlight was Vince Cable’s joke comparing the Prime minister to Mr. Bean it’s the day for the Saturday columnists to get their teeth into the fluid political situation. By far the most devastating read for Gordon is from Matthew Parris is the Times – an article that would carry even more weight if the writer had not been so consistently hostile to Brown over many…