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I am delighted to announce that Nick Sparrow, formerly the head pollster at ICM, has accepted an invitation to write some articles on polling for PB. To my mind Nick is the UK’s leading political pollster and in the mid-90s pioneered the system that we now know as “past vote weighting” to ensure political balanced samples. It was he who argued that the 1992 general election polling debacle was the result of samples based on demographic weightings alone no longer…

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Can Labour’s peers stop the bill? The marathon and unprecedented overnight sitting of the House of Lords is still going on. As I write at 6.25am, Lord Kinnock, the former Labour leader and not someone known for his brevity, has just got to his feet so one can assume that there’s a lot of life in this yet. Whenever things have been put to the vote the government has had comfortably majorities. The debate on the government’s plans for an…

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Guest slot by Chilon on the Shadow Chancellor Alan Johnson has an awful lot to be proud of. Orphaned at 12, raised by his 15 year old sister in a south London council flat, the shelf stacker and postman who rose to lead his union, Alan Johnson is from a different mould to leading Labour politicians of today. As a minister, his natural confidence and panache when roused was clear – most notably in his willingness to take on Labour’s…

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How much of the red support is from the “can’t be arsed”? One of the great things about the way Comres sets out the detailed data from its polls is that it includes a line on what those who didn’t vote at the last May say they plan to do next time. And from the latest poll we find that a move that I’ve identified before is that a significant part comes from those who didn’t vote at the general…

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Latest AV referendum polls Date YES % NO % Question wording ComRes/Indy on Sunday 14/01/11 36 30 “At present, the UK uses the first past the post system to to elect MPs to the House of Commons. Should the Alternative Vote System be used instead? “ YouGov/Sun 10/01/11 32 41 Bespoke wording – see below Angus Reid/ 07/01/11 37 20 “At present, the UK uses the first past the post system to to elect MPs to the House of Commons. Should…

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  What’s changed since May? Ed Miliband’s call to disaffected Lib Dems to join him and Labour in opposing the government is hardly surprising: if successful, it would increase his base, split one of the coalition parties and undermine the government. That said, if he had really been serious about wanting to work with the Lib Dems, why was he – a member of Labour’s team – so cold about the idea in the post-election negotiations, as both Peter Mandelson…

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Just how untouchable is the City? The explanation that the global recession was caused by a crisis in the banking industry has been oft-repeated by politicians over the last three years. It’s understandably attractive for them to do so. Not only is it a simple, plausible account of the cause of the problem but it also means that it’s neither their fault nor that of the general public. Consequently, bankers have had something of an image problem – and still…

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One of the big movies that’s just gone on general release in the UK is “127 Hours” which was produced by my brother, John Smithson. Six years ago he won the BAFTA for best British film with “Touching the Void” 127 Hours, based on a true story, has become notorious for its key scene when a man, trapped by a boulder, has to amputate his own arm to save his life. And the betting implications – it might feature in…

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