Will Gord get thanked for all the bargains? If there’s one place where the recession will be most apparent in the coming months it’s going to be the High Street. Yesterday one major retail chain changed hands for just £1 and others are reported to be struggling particularly in the non-essentials sector of the market. Tomorrow I expect to be buying a new computer and my first thought was to go to a big national chain where there are some…
Are the Tories being out-classed in the spin wars? One of big decisions that Gord took during his summer holiday was to beef up Labour and the government’s whole PR operation in order to compete with the Tory threat. Result: the return of perhaps the most successful political spin team ever – Mandelson and Campbell. And over the past six weeks we have seen a transformation in the way Team Brown is getting its message across and its ability to…
click on picture to watch How would Blair have dealt with this? For Gordon Brown today’s PMQs should have been a breeze. The Governor of the Bank of England was broadly endorsing his tax cuts plan which should have provided the ammunition to embarrass Cameron. Instead we got a stinging exchange over the Haringey baby tragedy with, at one point, Brown accusing Cameron of “playing party politics” over the issue – a mistake. What struck me was how poor Brown…
Is John Curtice right about it being a myth? One of the biggest errors that many pundits make is when they compare the numbers from one pollster with another and then conclude that there is a trend. You see this all the time and it is wrong. The six pollsters that regularly carry out voting intention surveys in the UK each have their own bespoke methodology which is unique to them. The only valid comparisons are when you compare like…
A day for humble pie from punters? There’s little doubt that Labour’s successful defence overnight of Glenrothes, and by such a margin, is a sensational result that has the potential to change the political landscape. It is also one in the eye for punters who got this terribly wrong. My initial call on this, just ten days ago, was to back Labour at prices that were then about 7/4. The opinion polls in Scotland were running in the party’s favour…
What should Labour do about those who were drawn to Tony? One of the great polling developments of the past two years is that the three telephone firms that use past vote weighting are now providing data so you can see what those who said they voted for the main parties at the last general election plan to do at the next one. I’ve extracted the above numbers from the latest ComRes, ICM and Populus surveys and have sought to…
Is the environment only something we care about when we are prosperous? The chart above is from the latest Ipsos-MORI and shows responses to the firm’s unprompted “What do you thing are the main/important issues facing Britain today” which they have been asking in exactly the same way for more than two decades. As can be expected the current top topic raised by respondents was the economy. But just look at the way “green” concerns have been declining. When your…
The Independent on Sunday..“..Peter Mandelson’s last act as European Trade Commissioner was to advocate new trade rules that will directly benefit the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska..Less than a month ago, in one of his final speeches before being recalled to the Cabinet and after he accepted hospitality on the Russian’s yacht, Lord Mandelson announced a new EU trade strategy giving multinational companies freer access to raw materials, including scrap aluminium and natural minerals used in the production of the metal..Mr…