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Category: General Election

Is Cameron onto a winner playing the English card?

Is Cameron onto a winner playing the English card?

How should Labour respond to the Rifkind plan? Reproduced above is part of the coverage that the Daily Mail is giving this morning to the plans that are emerging over what the Tories will do about Scottish devolution and the so called “West Lothian Question”. Clearly the growing disparity between public services north and south of the border, which is being skilfully exploited by Scotland’s First Minister, Alex Salmond, is not going to go away. Free prescriptions, free home care…

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Now Ipsos-Mori reports a one point Labour lead

Now Ipsos-Mori reports a one point Labour lead

Are we entering the era of Boat Race politics? The massive monthly face-to-face survey by Ipsos-Mori is out in the Observer this morning and shows that Labour, on 41% have just pipped ahead of the Tories on 40%. The actual figures with comparisons on a telephone survey from a sample of half the size from the same pollster a fortnight ago are CON 40%(-1): LAB 41%(+3): LD 13%(+2). Looking at today’s figures with the last directly comparable poll, Ipsos-Mori’s September…

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Is there money to be made from the yellow optimists?

Is there money to be made from the yellow optimists?

What’s behind the Lib Dem price rally? If you feed the latest figures from the main pollsters that have reported since the Tory conference into the Anthony Wells commons seat calculator the highest number that you get for the Lib Dems is 21 MPs from the Populus survey three weeks ago. The latest ICM poll makes it 18 seats with both YouGov and Ipsos-Mori showing a bare 11 seat total. Martin Baxter’s Electoral Calculus site is even worse with his…

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YouGov shows the Tory lead is being sustained

YouGov shows the Tory lead is being sustained

..and a boost for Huhne in his bid for the Lib Dem leadership After the longest period without a national voting intention poll since August 2006 there’s the regular survey from the YouGov panel in the Daily Telegraph this morning which shows no change on the last poll from the firm almost two weeks ago. The headline figures are CON 41% (nc): LAB 38% (nc): LD 11% (nc) What we don’t have from YouGov is any adjustment for likelihood to…

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Would Gord have benefited from a proper contest?

Would Gord have benefited from a proper contest?

Does a leadership election hone up the candidates’ campaigning skills? Just looking back at how the Lib Dem hopefuls, Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne, performed on Sunday’s Andrew Marr show it struck me what a good training ground for a general election running for the leader of your party is. The normal political dialogue outside election times does not provide the opportunities for the kind of exposure and probing that a leadership election demands and those who have been through…

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Who’ll come out of this row best?

Who’ll come out of this row best?

Will a U-turn help Gord or not? An issue on which the Lib Dems have been making the running, the plan to take away 5% of school budget surpluses, was used by David Cameron at PMQs yesterday for his first line of attack against Gordon Brown. The Tory leader said that it was “unjust, an ill-conceived idea” which undermines governors’ authority. This morning the Independent carries a report, part of which is reproduced above, that the Prime Minister is planning…

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Are the Tories set to become favourites again?

Are the Tories set to become favourites again?

The changing view of punters since May 2005 The chart shows the changing fortunes of the two main parties since last time on the main general general election market – who will win most seats. The betting prices are represented as an implied probability rather than the actual odds because it shows trends better. This is not about whether the Tories or Labour win an absolute majority but on which of them finishes up with the most seats. This is…

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Can the Tories stay above 40%?

Can the Tories stay above 40%?

Who’ll be up and who’ll be down in the next polling round? In the first 13 days of October polls there were nine separate national polls showing general election voting intentions. In the second 13 days it looks as if we will have had none and the signs are that there won’t be anything until the weekend at the earliest. Part of the problem is that many newspapers spent up their polling budgets in that intense period as all the…

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