Politicalbetting.com – Thursday evening after the 2008 budget Will the first polls be as wrong as they were a year ago? The above is from the post published here about a Populus poll for the Times on the Thursday evening after Darling’s first budget in March 2008. The small sample survey was broadly supportive yet within only a few days Labour started its dramatic polling decline that went on until the banking bail-out in the autumn. Tonight we have a…
Will the initial reaction be the one that sticks? One thing we have learned since 1997 is that the reaction on the day of the budgets themselves is usually a lot more positive than how it’s viewed by the weekend. I thought Darling delivered it well and Cameron’s spirited response was effective. Clegg was OK too. But the government needed this to be a game-changer and I’m not sure that it is. The 50% tax rate will certainly put the…
Picture credit:Steve Black Will the budget set new dividing lines? As we look forward to the budget there’s an interesting post by Ben Brogan – who’s just moved from the Mail to the Daily Telegraph. He writes: “My bones tell me that the Budget is going to lay out some epic dividing lines on the taxation of wealth and aspiration that will make 45p look tame. Maybe this talk of Lloyd George has spooked me, but I fear we are…
The above charts are from an interesting presentation I was at this morning by Ipsos-MORI which has been carrying out political polls in the UK for longer than any other firm and has a wealth of historical data. The two charts above seek to track the net approval ratings of Brown and Cameron and to put them in a historical context. The top one shows, month by month, how Brown compares with John Major while the bottom one has Cameron…
CONSERVATIVES 41% (-1) LABOUR 28% (-4) LIB DEMS 22% (+8) Are Labour voters shifting towards Clegg over Smeargate? Further to the update on the previous thread, the Ipsos MORI Political Monitor for April gives the Conservatives a 13-point lead over Labour, but it is the closing of the gap between Labour and the Lib Dems (from 18-points to just 6) that is the dramatic headline of this poll. Nick Clegg hasn’t had the best of months if you listen to…
Will Labour aim to gain the initiative by steering for Clear Red Water? Amid the carnage of dreadful Sunday newspapers, two opinion polls giving the Conservatives leads sufficient to produce a landslide if reproduced at a general election (see previous threads), the continued rumblings of smeargate dragging Ed Balls and Labour General Secretary Ray Collins into the scandal, and the criticisms of former MP Alice Mahon, one would imagine that some thought must be being given in Downing Street to…
Times online As well as the Telegraph poll reported on the previous thread there’s another poll tonight – from the unregistered BPIX in the Mail on Sunday This has the Tories on 45% to Labour’s 26% with no figure for the LDs reported. I don’t usually have much time for BPIX because it’s not part of the British Polling Council and doesn’t make its detailed data available. Away from the polling are two further potentially explosive stories for Labour in…
CON 43 (-1) LAB 26 (-5) LD 21 (+3) Will the Sunday Telegraph survey give Cameron a boost A new survey by an ICM associated company for the Sunday Telegraph reports a sharp reverse for Labour after its terrible week. I’ve assumed that the methodology has followed the standard ICM format and my comparisons above are with the last poll from the firm. This is the second lowest Labour share ever from the polling group and the only consolation for…