Why would Vince give up his cabinet job? Channel 4 news is making a splash tonight over comments made on a train by Ed Miliband in which the Labour leader appealed to Cable and other LDs to join Labour. The fact that this appeal has been made publicly means that there’s nothing in it. Genuine defections come about after secret talks and the first thing you hear is that the move has been made. In any case what’s in it…
Or could it still have some of its potency? The above, I’m sure, is typical of leaflets going out from the yellows to those identified as non-Tories in hundreds of CON-LD encounters throughout England. It’s worked in the past and has helped Clegg’s party build its local government base. So how’s it going to resonate this time? Will the fact of the coalition mean that anti-Tory supporters will be much less likely to vote Lid Dem? Notice the branding above…
Do by-elections point to a less bad night on May 5th? One of the most surprising sets of data presented by Professors Rallings and Thrasher at the Political Studies Association seminar on the May 5th local elections is featured above. For a decade and more the two political scientists have produced a national equivalent vote share projection based on each set of local election results. In 2007, when most of the seats being contested this year were last up, the…
Click to watch interview Is the Lamb threat pointing to greater LD assertiveness? I’ve been out all day and am only just catching up with the Norman Lamb interview on today’s Politics Show in which he threatened to resign over the NHS changes. Although he is not that well-known Lamb is a key figure within the party and as well as being an assistant whip is also a close advisor to Nick Clegg. I cannot believe that he would have…
Which party’s the most to fear from AV? The chart was prepared from polling data gathered by Professor John Curtice and presented to last week’s session on the alternative vote organised by the Political Studies Association. For each election those who had voted were asked who their second preference would be if they had had a choice. What’s striking about the historical line is that 2010 was the only one of the general elections where the LD split was not…
Is Clegg about to jump onto the Lansley Lifeboat? The main story in the Indy on Sunday is a report, described as an exclusive, by Matt Chorley and Nina Lakhani that David Cameron will announce this week that the brakes are to be put on Andrew Lansley’s controversial NHS reforms. The report states: “… Mr Cameron will publicly admit to mistakes in the plan by the Secretary of State, Andrew Lansley, to hand £80bn of health spending to family doctors,…
The Sun Are the locals set to underpin the Labour leader? Yesterday morning I was accused of seeking “to manage expectation” when I speculated that Labour could be heading for a gain of 1000 or more seats in the local elections in England on May 5th. The poster, who clearly has close links with the party, said that “the last time he looked Labour was expecting gains of about 200”. Well if that is the case then Labour has a…
Meeting the Boojum The YouGov Budget poll provides an opportunity to investigate where the Lib Dems from 2010 have gone. Regardless of the fact that different pollsters have found different levels of support for cuts/Coalition economic competence/blame levels, when we look internally in a poll which provides breakdowns by 2010 vote and current preference, we should (hopefully) be able to track some of the net churn. So, in the YouGov poll, the first thing we see is that either the…