CON 42 (+4) LAB 24 (+1) LD 18 (-4) But was it more than just the “Norwich Effect”? This clearly is a very good poll for the Tories who are back in the 40s after five consecutive surveys from the pollster that had them below the magical 40 number including one where they had slumped to just 30%. The field-work started on Friday and went through to Sunday when the party, and particularly Cameron, was getting a lot of favourable…
What’s an incoming Tory government going to do? Two of what used to be called the broadsheet papers are once again making Afghanistan and the problems for the government their main lead. The Independent focuses on the findings of the first part of its monthly ComRes poll which has 52% wanting troops out straight away with 43% against. By 58% to 31% those sampled believed that the Taliban cannot be defeated militarily and by 60% to 35% of those polled…
Are Cameron’s guys trying to manage expectations? Well there we have it in the panel above – the PB survey of what people expect will happen in the Norwich North by election where voting closes at 10pm. This is one of those occasions where I think the PB community has got it wrong and I’m expecting a bigger margin than 4,999 votes. Betfair has a market on whether the Tory share will be in excess of 41% or not. I’ve…
Where next in the phone-hacking saga? If you had believed one or two posters here on Monday then today was the day that David Cameron was going to sack his PR chief, Andy Coulson. This was going to follow his appearance yesterday before the Commons culture, media and sport select committee which had summoned him following the allegations in the Guardian two weeks ago. Well it didn’t quite work out like that. The committee didn’t really strike a blow and…
What general election pointers should we be looking for? We’ve had quite a few by elections in this parliament but most have been largely irrelevant in what they say about the Tory-Labour battle that will determine the general election. Tomorrow at Norwich North it’s different. This is a seat that the Tories should pick up relatively easily if they want to maintain their general election expectations – but what do we mean by “relatively easily“? Interestingly the Westminster voting intention…
News of the World What do we think of the paper’s emphatic defence? There’s a furious response in the News of the World to Thursday’s story in the Guardian about the actions of NOTW journalists. The paper denies the allegations in very strong terms and then focuses its fire on the Guardian itself. “….So let us remember that it was the Guardian that knowingly, deliberately and illegally forged a cabinet minister’s signature to get an exclusive story. It was the…
Guardian Can Tory PR boss Coulson survive? The big breaking political story overnight is the Guardian splash revelations that “Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers has paid out more than £1m to settle legal cases that threatened to reveal evidence of his journalists’ repeated involvement in the use of criminal methods to get stories.” This could have big consequences for David Cameron because, as the story states, his PR chief, Andy Coulson, was deputy editor and then editor of the News…
Wikimedia Commons Is Dave’s style to pounce once others have made mistakes? It is clear that David Cameron is a successful leader of the Tory party, while in opposition. All successful leaders have a style, so identifying Cameron’s methods might give valuable insights into the betting value of certain policy announcements. Cameron has been accused of opportunism – grabbing whatever concept is currently popular and going with that. I’m not sure that covers the facts. The way in which the…