How vulnerable are Lansley, Hunt, May and Osborne? For me one of the big polling events of the month is the Populus telephone survey for the Times which came out overnight. The headline voting figures were LAB 40 (-1): CON 34 (+1): LD 12 (+3) so quite a boost for the Lib Dems after a difficult week. No separate UKIP share has been released yet. An interesting aspect in view of the impending re-shuffle, was a brutal question on which…
Does Dave need an attack dog? Following my early morning post on George Osborne I received an email from a Tory friend. He wrote:- “As I see it, the problem between Osborne and Balls is an extension of a more broad problem for George and Dave. The lack of an attack dog within the Cabinet.” Mrs T had Tebbit and Parkinson etc. Blair and Brown had Blunkett, Reid, Balls etc. etc. The PM & Chancellor have no alternative to put…
Could the blues split themselves once again over the EU? If Dave thought that his Sunday Telegraph article on an EU referendum was going to deal with the growing pressure he was wrong. All it has done is open up new lines of attack and the weekend strategy looks as though it could have been a mistake. One of his beaten opponents in the 2005 leadership contest who became the first Tory to leave the cabinet, Liam Fox, has gone…
Should you be taking the Ladbrokes 16/1? Anybody who watched BB1’s “The Week” last night will have heard Michael Portillo talk in strong terms about Michael Gove’s chances of becoming next Tory leader. Portillo described the education secretary as a “serious candidate for the future“. His great strength was that “He knows what he is about, he knows what he wants and these are things that people crave.” Certainly compared with others at the top of the betting Gove must…
Ipsos-MORI Why the big MORI difference between the parties? The monthly Ipsos-MORI issues index for June is just out and concern about the EU/€ than has edged up 2% to 8% – where it was in April. This polling has been carried out in exactly the same way for more than a third of a century and involves asking people to name a many issues that concern them without being prompted. Given how the Eurozone crisis has dominated the headlines…
Is he currently up to something? Looking right across the bookmakers and Betfair and there’s one clear favourite for the Tory leadership – someone who is not even qualified to stand. Ladbrokes and Bet365 make Boris a 4/1 shot, Hills have him at 9/2 while PaddyPower is offering 6/1. On Betfair the last price traded was 5.4/1. Yet the winner of two consecutive London mayoral elections does not meet the basic requirement of being an an MP and his second…
Over the weekend there were a few stories briefing heavily against the Chancellor. The most biting one was the one in the Mail on Sunday, where an anonymous backbench Tory MP predicted Osborne could lose his job within a year. This was the most distressing observation (if you’re George Osborne or a Tory) He just doesn’t do the work. He has got away with it until now, but the Budget mistakes have enabled people to see the reality. Previous Chancellors…
The Sunday Times are reporting that Andrew Cooper, formerly of Populus and currently David Cameron’s pollster has warned the Tories they face embarrassment in the 2014 European Parliament elections, where they could be pushed into second place or worse by UKIP, unless they make a dramatic manifesto pledge to have an in/out referendum. A source said: “Cooper’s polling is clear. There’s a real public backlash against the EU and if we don’t do something, UKIP will get the benefit. There’s a…