Tories now open up a 7 point gap A big boost for David Cameron’s Tory party and some better news for Gordon Brown are the main features of the first poll of 2007 – from Populus – in the Times this morning. As the extract reproduced from the Times website shows, the shares and changes on the same poll in December are CON 39% (+5): LAB 32% (-1): LD 18% (-1). Putting these shares in the Anthony Wells seat calculator…
Cameron’s party back at 40% as he demands a post-Blair election With the Tory leader, David Cameron ratcheting up the pressure on Gordon Brown to call an immediate General Election when he becomes leader there’s some good news for his party in the latest poll. ICM’s monthly survey for the Guardian – by far the longest polling series in the UK – puts the Tories back at the 40% level that they were last at in August. The shares, with…
Why does Cameron’s name lift his party so much? The headline figures in today Populus poll in the Times have the Tories at their lowest point since April and only two points ahead of Labour. The headline figures are with changes on last month: CON 34% (-2): LAB 33% (nc): LD 19% (-1). These will be very disappointing figures for the Tories who only a week ago saw the party with an 8% lead with ICM. One of the factors…
Is Gordon’s long chase nearly over? For the whole of the year that David Cameron has been Tory leader there has been one consistent opinion poll finding that has produced a similar outcome whenever it has been asked. To the question of how would you vote if it was Brown’s Labour against Cameron’s Tories and Ming’s Lib Dems the outcome from whichever pollster has asked the question has always been a better position for the Conservatives. Populus for the monthly…
Is the Labour chair in danger of “crying wolf”? Clearly, and perhaps we should say thankfully, not everybody studies electoral mathematics with the same intensity as visitors to PBC. But you would have thought that Hazel Blears, chair of the Labour party, would have a broad view of the situation when, as she has done this weekend, she sends out a letter to party members. Of course it is her duty to keep the party at large in a state…
Is this the woman who could help determine the date? This is Deborah Mattinson, joint chief executive of Opinion Leader Research, a pollster for the Labour party for the past two two decades and someone who is likely to play a key role in advising Brown on whether to go for an early general election. In recent months she has been a big critic of one or two surveys that have not been favourable to the Chancellor. Brown will need…
What questions give the best measure of views on Cameron and Brown? A few days ago two pollsters that I have a lot of time for, YouGov and ICM reported increased Tory leads in opinion polls they were carrying out at exactly the same time. Yet when the two firms got to asking respondents to rate Brown and Cameron against each other for Prime Minister their findings seemed contradictory. The YouGov sample split 43-34 in favour of the Tories on…
But Brown rated “Best PM” by 29-25% A new ICM poll for today’s News of the World shows a sharp increase in the Tory lead over the past survey by the pollster twelve days ago. The shares are with changes on the last survey CON 39% (+2): LAB 30% (-2): LD 20% (-2). In slightly contrasting figures Gordon Brown was rated at 29-25% over David Cameron when those in the survey were asked who they thought would be the “best…