Will it be a good guide of the race to Westminster? Further details of PB’s first poll from Angus Reid Strategies are now available for down-load here. The fieldwork took place online on October 15th and 16th. It’s planned that with future surveys that there will be a much shorter period between the fieldwork ending and the results being published here. There are some key points to note;- Clearly the firm has no track record in UK election polling although…
Politics Home Mega Marginals poll Will the LDs do better than the seat calculators? Reflecting on last week’s Bedford election, which was bigger in terms of votes cast than all but two of the by elections in this parliament, the readiness of many Labour voters to ditch their allegiance and vote for the party best placed to beat the Tories was a key factor. This is a reminder of how potent this is likely to be at the general election…
SportingIndex Brown’s party move up six notches in ten days In the immediate aftermath of the Tory conference a week and a half ago the commons seat spreads from SportingIndex moved to their lowest ever level of 197 – 202 seats. Following there polls in the past week having Labour in the 28 – 30% range there has been something of a re-evaluation and the numbers have moved upwards. The other main spread market that makes intermittent appearances, Extrabet, has…
How far will Sarah be pushed into the campaign? Politicians with public relations difficulties have a tendency to play the family card and Gordon Brown has proven no exception to that rule. From her first notable ‘solo’ appearance in the Glenrothes by-election to her warm-up act at two party conferences, Sarah Brown’s profile in party activities has increased while her husband’s ratings have languished. That raises the questions of what role she’ll play when the election’s called and what impact…
CON 40%(nc) LAB 28%(nc) LD 19%(nc) But voters would “think better of Brown if he stood down“ The first of what are likely to be two polls tonight is just out – ComRes for the Independent on Sunday – has just been published and shpws no change whatsoever compared with the firm’s last survey just a fortnight ago. That was taken between the Labour and Tory conferences. I’m not convinced by the John Rentoul’s suggestion that this is a post…
Will the chair of the Bedford primary win his own? As many of you will know, this afternoon the Tories in Bracknell will select a candidate to replace Andrew MacKay, and given the majority exceeded 12,000 votes in 2005 I think it is fair to say they are probably choosing the next MP. This is one of five such contests taking place this weekend using what’s described as An Open Primary (strictly speaking a caucus) whereby people who live in…
Could the expansion programme be put on the back-burner? One of the big announcements at last week’s Manchester conference was a plan by an incoming Tory government to drastically increase the number of directly elected mayors with wide executive powers. Currently there are just twelve on them and the majority of referenda on having them have produced no votes. I wonder whether one consequence of today’s Bedford result might be to put the expansion programme on hold – certainly not…
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