The Final Debate – the first thread
In order to ease demands on the servers a new thread will come up 9.10pm and then at 9.55pm Please switch at these times. Mike Smithson
How do the old firm respond to this?
Is this going to be Clegg’s final week pitch? I’ve long taken the view that the most critical four and a half minutes in this election campaign will be the three 90 second wind-up statements by Brown, Cameron and Clegg at the end of tomorrow night’s debate. Each one will use it as a straight appeal setting out the core reasons why voters should support them and their parties. What they say will frame the final days of campaigning. So…
As postal voting is about to begin……
Top 5 postal voting seats 2005 Postal ballots issued LAB-LD swing required 2010 Newcastle North 45.4% 8.5% Stevenage 45% Rushcliffe 39.9% Newcastle Central 36.7% 11.5% Newcastle East 35.4% 10.5% National average 12.1% …is this why Cleggie headed first for Newcastle? I was very struck on Friday with the oddness of Clegg’s travel schedule on the day after the Sky News debate in Bristol. On the face of it you would have thought that he’d have headed out to some of…
Libs Dems edge back a point in the daily poll
YouGov Daily Poll – Sun Apr 23 Apr 22 CONSERVATIVES 34% 34% LIB DEMS 29% 28% LABOUR 29% 29% It’s almost no change after the second debate This evening’s YouGov daily poll for the Sun is just out and apart from the one point lift for the Lib Dems it’s no change. This is the first poll where all the fieldwork followed the debate and both the red and blue teams might feel a tad disappointed not to have seen…
So was Cameron the “Comeback Kid”?
Who won 2nd debate? ICM AR YouGov ComRes Populus Cameron 29% 32% 36% 30% 37% Clegg 33% 33% 32% 33% 36% Brown 29% 23% 29% 30% 27% UPDATED 0755 Clegg wins by three pollsters to two Clearly there will be great relief in the blue camp about the outcome last night although, as can be seen, the message from the pollsters in their instant surveys was mixed. In terms of straight wins it was Clegg 3 Cameron 2 with Brown…
What does Dave do about Nick’s referendum move?
Could this be a trap for the Tory leader? As we get closer to each of the debates all three participants have been positioning themselves on issues that might come up. Thanks to David Blackburn on the Speccie CoffeeHouse blog for highlighting this one – Nick Clegg’s offer yesterday to hold a full “in or out” referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU. This, of course, has been one of the key demands of UKIP – and could supporters of…
Will approval ratings be the best guide – again?
Ipsos-MORI Is this the trend we should be looking at? PB regulars will be aware that one of the sets of monthly data that I take seriously is the above from MORI – the leader approval ratings. These have been asked in precisely the same form since the late 1970s and have proved to be an equal if not better guide to general election outcomes than the standard voting intention findings. Given that the latest MORI poll was carried out…
Let battle commence….
Will the debate be an historic event or a damp squib? … and big jump for Lib Dems with You Gov So, just 50 years after Kennedy and Nixon, the UK finally joins the democracies that hold election debates between leaders. Internationally, a three-way debate is fairly rare (the Bush-Clinton-Perot matchup of 1992 a notable exception) – most are either the “big two” leaders (eg US, France, Germany, Australia) or more of an all-party debate (eg Canada, Austria). Having progressed…