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How’s the increasing scepticism going to play? One of David Cameron’s early acts in detoxifying the Conservative brand was the increased focus on the environment and combating climate change. That was in a different, pre-recession world and the legacy of those policy decisions could be about to cause the Tory leadership problems. The BBC-commissioned Populus poll reports a significant shift in public attitudes on climate change, with the proportion who don’t think global warming is taking place having increased from…

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Please can we discuss this in terms of the political consequences and not get into details of the cases themselves. We are in a very different legal situation and must do nothing that could be seen as prejudicing fair trials. Mike Smithson

What if they are only from one party? There’s lots of stories buzzing round that the Crown Prosecution Service will announce tomorrow the names of parliamentarians against whom action will be taken in the expenses scandal. According to Channel 4 News hour an ago two Labour MPs are on the list. We don’t know whether that is all or, indeed, whether this is the case. But criminal proceedings are taking the whole business one step further – and this far…

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Could its mathematics be right for 2010? Ever since the Angus Reid research director, Andy Morris, sent me the first spread-sheets of the first PB/Angus Reid poll last October I have known that there would come a moment when the firm’s methodological approach would leave it isolated from the rest. As those who follow these things will know the main characteristics of AR have been its consistency from survey to survey and the fact that it is reporting a much…

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2200 – UPDATED following the lifting of the embargo CON 38% (38) LAB 31% (29) LD 19% (19) At 10pm the embargo on tonight’s ComRes poll for the Independent will be lifted and I’ll be able to fill in the gaps on the number panels above. But the paper’s Andrew Grice has already blogged that the margin is seven points – adding to a terrible series of polls for Cameron’s Tories. Since Friday night we’ve three polls from the YouGov…

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Is 30% (+MoE) the limit in the current climate? Two events in Spring 2009 gave minor parties a massive boost in the polls. One was the coverage and electoral opportunities afforded by the European elections, the other was the disillusionment with the Conservatives and Labour that resulted from the expenses scandal (the Lib Dems’ poll rating was largely unaffected). After polling around 10% throughout winter 2008-9 with all firms except Comres, who put them a couple of points higher, Others shot up…

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CON 38% (40) LAB 31% (31) LD 19%(18) What do we think of the gap going down to just 7% The third of today’s polls, from YouGov for the Daily Telegraph, has the Tories down below the 40 mark at just 38 points – only seven above Labour. If that was the margin on the day then we would certainly expect a hung parliament with the Tories as the biggest party. Of all the polls that we’ve seen in recent…

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We’re now back in hung parliament territory There’s another huge swing in the MORI poll for January that has just been published. This was carried out last weekend but is only being published tonight for tomorrow’s Daily Mirror. These are are figures for the last four MORI polls C43-L26-LD19 – October 18 2009 CON LEAD 17% C37-L31-LD17 – November 15 2009 CON LEAD 6% C43-L26-LD20 – December 13 2009 CON LEAD 17% C40-L32-LD16 – January 28 2010 CON LEAD 8%…

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