Do they still hate the Tories more than Gordon? Just reading and watching what coverage there has been of the weekend’s Lib Dem conference it’s been hard to identify a discernible strategy for dealing with what could be the toughest general election for the party for thirty years. Maybe much more was said that didn’t make the public prints but what are we to make of comments like these quoted in the Times: “We remain a centre-left party” and “Many…
YouGov Is anything other than equidistance wrong for the LDs? If other polls follow YouGov and we get near to hung parliament territory again there will be more focus on what other parties, notably the SNP and the Lib Dems, would do. Here the views of party supporters might be important. The best regular guide of how Lib Dem voters view things comes in the monthly Telegraph poll with the detailed splits on their forced choice “Brown or Cameron” question….
UK Polling Report Is the outcome much closer than it appears? There will be 650 members of the next house of commons and if David Cameron’s Conservatives are going to win a majority then they will need a total of 325 seats or more. And if you input the numbers from today’s Guardian ICM poll into the UKPollingReport you get a projected total of 353 seats – or 28 above the magic number. This gives a comfortable overall majority of…
Could a Johnson-led party contain more of the losses? One of the great pieces of wisdom about party leadership betting is that Labour and the Lib Dems always seem to end up with the obvious candidate while being the Conservative front-runner is the “kiss of death”. So what are we to make of the recent suggestions in several quarters about Alan Johnson’s chances? Hardly a day goes by at the moment without one pundit or another pondering over whether an…
CONSERVATIVES 42% (-1) LABOUR 28% (-5) LIB DEMS 18% (+3) ..and the LDs get a 3 point boost The Populus survey for tomorrow’s Times will be published officially in a few minutes but I’ve just been given the tip off about the numbers from a normally reliable source. [The figures have now been confirmed – see the Times story here] So Populus becomes the third pollster to be showing Labour back in the 20s – further evidence that the Brown…
Wikipedia Are they underestimating the challenge of LD incumbents? If you are thinking of betting on the Tories to get a reasonable-sized majority at the next election then can I suggest that you make two clicks. Firstly you should go to UKPollingReport’s list of Tory targets with the swing required and count up how many Lib Dem incumbents have to be toppled for Cameron to get into working majority territory. You’ll find that twenty-eight of the party’s top 128 targets…
How do you calculate a ‘moral victory’? Hat Tip to James Forsyth over at the Spectator Coffee House for drawing our attention to an interview with Vince Cable in today’s Times. The key passage that is attracting all the attention is: Although he started his political career in the Labour Party, once working as a special adviser to John Smith, Dr Cable emphasises that the Liberal Democrats would be happy to prop up the Conservatives if they won a “moral…
Could one of the three main leaders be out in 2009? In the panel are the prices in the Ladbrokes leader markets for 2009. The question is whether there is any value in any of them? Is Brown going to survive and if so is the 4/11 you can get a good bet? I’m not wholly sure because if the polls went sharply against him then would the party be so forgiving again? Could there be a forceful challenge or…