What should the Lib Dems do when the Tories are advancing? The latest Lib Dem approach to taxation and public spending is very different from what we are used to from the party – remember the penny extra in the pound for education and them being the only party at previous elections prepared to increase rates for the well off? This is going to cause fierce debates within Clegg’s party but I wonder whether the new young leader is sensing…
And why more abysmal election coverage by the BBC? So David Davis got his expected big victory in the early hours and the BBC showed once again with their minimal coverage of the count and lack of analysis that they have abandoned their case to be funded by a tax enforced by all the apparatus of the criminal law. Covering the electoral process at work should be the first priority for a public service broadcaster and they failed miserably. Sky,…
How much goodwill is squandered when you over-egg the pudding? A week before the Henley by election I reproduced the above mass email sent to Lub Dem activists because I believed it was behind sharp moves in the betting prices and that all that text highlighted in red suggested that the party had some game-changing information that was about to be revealed. Well what came out the following day did not match the billing and I think that this raises…
What have the Lib Dems got up their sleeves? Anybody who has been following the Henley betting during the day will know that there was a big move to the Lib Dems from mid-afternoon. As I write the best back price on Betfair is 5/1. It looks as though the changes are linked to the above email which went out to Lib Dem members asking for their help for a special constituency-wide delivery tomorrow. I have no idea what’s in…
Have punters got this one right? The latest buy spread level for Lib Dem general election seats is 48 – that’s 15 short of what they have at the moment. Does this represent a betting opportunity and if so which way? The detailed data from the latest ICM polls shows that Labour was just three percent ahead of the LDs before the application of of the so-called “spiral of silence adjustment” – the calculation whereby a proportion of the vote…
Would Clegg’s approach to Labour be the campaign issue? The suggestions that Mark Oaten might quit his Winchester seat before the general election and create a by election creates big challenges for both Nick Clegg and David Cameron. For the newly-energised Tories, flushed with confidence following Crewe and Nantwich, would fancy their chances in a seat that was lost to the Lib Dems by just two votes at the 1997 general election. Then the result was contested in the courts,…
Are Labour’s chances as bad as the media is suggesting? This weekend hundreds and maybe thousands of activists from the main parties will be heading to Crewe and Nantwich for a big couple of days of campaigning ahead of the critical by election a week on Thursday. The weather’s good, the constituency’s road and rail links are excellent and, most of all, Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems have each got something to prove in this key test of…
Was this behind the worst ICM ratings for three months? This morning’s ICM poll in the Sunday Telegraph is good news for the Conservatives, good news for Labour but bad news for the Lib Dems. These are the shares with comparisons on the last ICM survey just a fortnight ago – CON 43%(+1): LAB 32%(+3): LD 18%(-3). The comparisons in the previous post were with the last ICM survey in the paper in early January. The pollster’s methodology is usually…