The above extraordinary picture is on Ben Brogan’s blog at the Daily Mail and it’s hard to work out what is happening. It was taken at the Labour conference where today Miliband had one of the set-piece speeches. One thing seems pretty certain – the foreign secretary and young pretender, David Miliband, doesn’t look too comfortable. Gord, meanwhile, is beaming and appears happy. Who knows? Mike Smithson
A new poll just out by PoliticsHome with the fieldwork carried out by YouGov seeks to make a more accurate prediction of the next election by interviewing more than 34,000 people in more than 200 marginal constituencies. These have been broken down in 17 separate categories of seat and the poll has sought to discover different trends. From the data a projected majority of 146 is forecast. The project has been masterminded by Anthony Wells of UK Polling Report which…
A new poll by Com Res for the Indy on Sunday has the Tories losing ground to the Lib Dems. The figures are: CON 39%: LAB 27%: LD 21%. The link is here. more follows Mike Smithson
Is 2008 going to prove to be just a twist on 2000/2004? Using the highly-addictive site 270-to-win, I’ve recreated the political map that confronted us after Al Gore’s popular vote margin failed to give him the White House in 2000. The result in the Electoral College that year was Bush 271 v 266 Gore, one of the tightest results ever. Re-apportionment of Congressional Districts as a result of the decennial census has changed the number of Electoral College votes each…
Doesn’t the latest focus group highlight Clegg’s central dilemma? Three years ago a Frank Luntz focus group on BBC2’s Newsnight so upset a number of Lib Dems on the site and elsewhere that there were formal complaints to the BBC and even suggestions that a conspiracy had taken place. Why it was argued – Luntz was a student at Oxford at the same time as Cameron! Well I guess they won’t complaining today for Nick Clegg was the surprise “winner”…
Was it Blair, Brown, Cameron, the economy ..or just old age? A must-read piece in the latest Economist tries to work out what went wrong with “what has been one of the great election-winning forces in British political history” – New Labour. Looking forward to the election it goes on: ” On current form, the resulting defeat may be Labour’s worst since the second world war. In the aftermath of such a rout, some Labour supporters fear, the party may…
Is the biggest loser Nick Clegg? As reported in my second update on the previous thread I have just spoken to a journalist who had the embargoed Press Association story and he has corroborated the figures. Clearly these are sensational numbers and will put pressure on both Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg. At least Labour has the consolation that its vote stayed at the same level in the survey as in the last poll by the firm in August. For…
Could the “rumour” possibly be true? Anthony Wells on UK Polling Report is carrying a story that a rumour is going round that the latest Ipsos-MORI poll has C52-L24-LD12. If that is the case then it is pretty sensational. I’ve been trying to contact senior people at the firm but so far without success. I have enough respect for Anthony to know that he would have not published a rumour on his site without him having an inkling that there…