Is this how “a fighter” (his words) strides across the stage? The newspaper front pages (see here) are not good for the PM this morning and the most striking element is the above picture of Brown featured in the Guardian and Independent. It reminds me of the shots of Michael Foot at the Remembrance Day event in the early 80s wearing his duffel coat. It created an image that seemed to sum up his leadership. Looking back overnight the significance…
CON 40 (+4) LAB 25 (+1) LD 22 (+5) All parties see increases from BPIX/YouGov Thanks to “Me” on the ICM thread for picking up today’s BPIX/YouGov poll in the Mail on Sunday. The shares above are compared with the last poll from the firm which appeared on August 23rd and had a massive 23% share for others. It seemed out of line then but this latest poll is very much showing the same picture as the other post-Lib Dem…
UKPollingReport Could the party of “fair votes” support the vote losers? One of the hardy annuals of Lib Dem conference week is that people start asking which way Clegg’s party would go in the event of a hung parliament and they held the balance of power. But is this totally irrelevant? For the way the electoral mathematics work means that Labour would only need Lib Dem support for a commons majority if it came behind the Tories in terms of…
CON 43 (+2) LAB 26 (+1) LD 19 (nc) And the “others” total drop to just 12% The September ICM poll for the Guardian is just out and shows the Tories up a couple of points with Labour up one – all within the margin of error. So the September polling is following August and we are seeing very little change. Perhaps the significant move is the decreasing share for “other” parties which has been at a high level since…
Is this result down to the question wording? A ComRes poll of Lib Dem councillors for BBC2’s Daily Politics has produced rather predictable results about attitudes of what they would like to see the party doing if there was, indeed, a hung parliament. It found that 31% would like the party to support Labour against 16% who said the Tories. rather than the Tories (16%) in the event of a hung Parliament. The question, however, left a lot to be…
More detail from Populus adds to the gloom It was almost exactly three years ago, while Tony Blair was still Labour leader, that I did a thread – “Why can’t Gordon do the “sincerity thingâ€? – on Brown’s inability to sound convincing when it is clear that he is telling porkies. I suggested that this was his greatest weakness. That observed that for much of the time, of course, politics is about organised hypocrisy and that “a key quality in…
Woodnewton Associates Even when things are going well their supporters are less certain Just look at the chart above which takes one series of numbers from the monthly Ipsos-MORI political monitors – the proportion of those saying they will support Labour and the Conservatives at the next election who are “100% certain to vote”. The period covered is the past fifteen months and includes times when Labour has been doing badly, like at the moment, and times when they are…
How serious a contender is he? There’s lots of talk at the moment about the Labour leadership prospects of Ed Milband (younger brother of the foreign secretary) following supportive comments by Derek Simpson, of the Unite union, and his appearance at the TUC. The union boss was quoted at the weekend as saying “If I had to name one for the future I pick Ed Miliband. He has potential to be a lot more progressive”. Ed is still in his…