Populus shows big Lib Dem surge Our best betting price chart shows the changes since January in the best odds that are available on the SNP and Labour in next month’s election for the Scottish Parliament. A new Populus poll in the Times this morning has the following shares for Scotland compared with a similar survey last month. Constituencies SNP 34 (-4): LAB 30 (+2): LD 18 (+3): CON 13 (-1). List vote SNP 34 (-1): LAB 27 (-3): LD…
Are both Labour and the Tories be doing better than the surveys suggest? With the Scottish elections less than three weeks away and almost all the polls pointing to the SNP finishing up as top party in the Scottish Parliament it is perhaps worth looking at the record of polling in Scotland. For as the above table on how the pollsters fared in 2003 illustrates there is a strong tendency for all the firms to over-state the SNP vote. Could…
Does David Cameron’s appeal stop at Offa’s Dyke? Lots of excitement seems to have been generated over last night’s NOP poll on the Welsh Assembly elections – just under four weeks away. For the figures suggesting that the Tories could end in second place and become the main opposition party within the Assembly is being seen in some quarters as big news. But is this such a major development? Just looking at the numbers and comparisons with what happened four…
Tory CR lead slashed as Populus predicts a Scottish Labour collapse The first two of three polls which are expected today have produced good and bad news for Labour. Communicate Research for the Independent has the following shares with comparisons on a month ago CON 35% (-5): LAB 31% (+2): LD 20% (+3). Populus for the Times on May’s Scottish election has SNP 38%: LAB 28%: LD 15%: CON 14% in the constituency section. On the regional list it is…
Are there similarities between Brown’s “inevitable” success and Hillary’s? Our chart this morning shows the changing betting price on Brown for the Labour leadership over the past month and illustrates how market sentiment has moved against the “near certainty” of the 0.19/1 best price that was available before the Guardian’s ICM February poll. The mood began moving back to the Chancellor but then in the past three days we have seen the price ease again. Is it now time to…
What a finale for the final days of Tony Blair? On the day after the historic decision by the Commons to back a 100% elected House of Lords there’s news this morning that the Welsh and Scottish elections as well as the English local council elections on May 3rd could be scrutinised for vote tampering and fraud by a European Human Rights watchdog. If this happens the UK would be the first western democracy to have its electoral processes scrutinised…
Blair planning to quit as an MP as soon as he steps down – report According to what is billed as an “exclusive” by the News of the World this morning Tony Blair is planning to step down as MP immediately after leaving Downing Street this summer. The paper says “He has told members of his local Labour Party in the north-east he does not want to “get in the way on the back benches..He had privately agreed to stay…
Peter Stands in for Sean Fear The by-elections held this week covered very different parts of the UK. Flintshire is in North Wales, but home to many commuters to Chester, Manchester and Liverpool. Burnley – where two of the by-elections fought this week took place is a former mill town, of the type where the BNP have their biggest following. Huntingdonshire is (rather confusingly) a beautiful part of Cambridgeshire, where John Major would see spinsters cycing to church through the…