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Category: General

Should private firms like this be running our elections?

Should private firms like this be running our elections?

Opt2Vote Has postal voting made contracting out inevitable? Anybody who has an interest in the way elections are managed and operated should check out the website of Opt2Vote – a firm based in Londonderry in Northern Ireland which seems to have built up a thriving business on the back of Labour’s changes in the election system since 1997 – particularly with the big extension in postal voting. The scale of the firm’s role in UK elections is reflected in its…

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Will Cameron be able to hold the line on the 45p tax?

Will Cameron be able to hold the line on the 45p tax?

Observer Is Boris going to be a thorn in Dave’s side in the years ahead? What might be good economics is not necessarily always good politics, as the Conservative leadership are discovering over the issue of whether or not to implement Labour’s planned 2011 income tax rise of 45p for the top rate. Lord Tebbit, who prefers spending cuts to tax rises, may be a repeat offender on speaking out against party policy in recent years, but then he does…

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The Tory ComRes lead narrows

The Tory ComRes lead narrows

CON 41(-3) LD 17(nc) LAB 30(+2) But is it because of a weightings change? The latest ComRes poll for the Indy on Sunday is just out and reports a sharp change from the last survey from the firm nearly three weeks ago but brings ComRes into broad alignment with the other pollsters. So all the five polling organisations that cover UK political opinion have the Tories on 41 or 42% and Labour on between 30-32%. The only divergence comes with…

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Can Cameron keep C&N blue?

Can Cameron keep C&N blue?

Is the by election seat the best guide to the election? Simply to get a majority, based on the new constituencies boundaries it’s estimated that the Tories need to gain 114 seats. Check out the list on UKPollingReport here. In strict numerical order these include 29 seats where the incumbent or notional incumbent is not Labour and where conventional swing analysis might not apply on quite the same scale. They include Tory targets in Scotland, including some held by the…

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Will this 30 year old ad have the same potency?

Will this 30 year old ad have the same potency?

Is reminding voters of Thatcher really a good idea? The poster above from Maggie Thatcher’s successful campaign in 1979 is, according to the Spectator Coffee House, being re-worked to form the central party theme of the coming general election. The concept seems dead simple and how smart, you can see them thinking, to link it to the iconic campaign of thirty years ago. This was the last time, it should be said, that the Tories came back to power after…

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The Tories maintain their ICM lead

The Tories maintain their ICM lead

CON 42(nc) LAB 30(nc) LD 20(+2) Will this ease the Tory jitters? After a couple of quite disappointing polls for the Tories there’s the monthly Guardian survey by ICM and the only change is a two point jump in the Lib Dem share. This latest survey means that every single poll during 2009 has had the Tories in 40s and the fact that ICM, regarded by many in the Labour party as the “gold standard”, is not showing any movement…

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Labour close the gap with Ipsos-MORI

Labour close the gap with Ipsos-MORI

CONSERVATIVES 42% (-6) LABOUR 32% (+4) LIB DEMS 14% (-3) How close are we to a hung parliament? After the YouGov poll at the weekend reported a Conservative lead of just ten points the Ipsos-MORI Political Monitor for March, just out, has numbers in almost exactly the same region. This comes after a period when the spotlight has been off the Tory leader, David Cameron, following his bereavement leave. It should be said that MORI only include in their headline…

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Could Cameron’s successor not even be on this list?

Could Cameron’s successor not even be on this list?

Betting odds link David Herdson’s slant on the Tory leadership (This is a comment that David posted a few days ago which I thought was worthy of greater prominence – MS) The next Tory leader is one market I wouldn’t be going near at the moment. For one thing, Tory leaders are rarely the obvious candidates. For another, goodness knows when the next election will be. If Cameron loses the next general election, he may stand down straight away in…

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