Not surprisingly YouGov finds that on EU people trust those they most agree with
YouGov chart showing "trust on EU matters" from latest poll pic.twitter.com/vsB8AD8fHN — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 10, 2016
Urgent question. David Cameron’s big mistake so far
As with any bureaucratic body, the EU pulses to a rhythm of regular meetings. The EU being a more complex body than most, multiple cycles of meetings are sinuously interwoven. Most prominently, at least four times a year, the Prime Ministers of the 28 member countries convene for the European Council. The most vital business of the day is dealt with at these summits. Anyone with experience of meetings knows that to control the agenda is to control the meeting….
Election verdict. Corbyn is staying but he must raise his game
Don Brind has some unlikely advice on where he should look for lessons It’s a fine sunny day in April 2005 and Tony Blair is about to make a major speech on immigration — responding to a Tory General Election campaign inspired by Lynton Crosby on his first foray into British politics. The venue is Dover and the Labour events team have spent weeks on planning and staging the event. Blair arrives by helicopter and the media pen is positioned so…
And the winner the the PB Prize Mayoral Competition is……
The prize goes to foxinsoxuk Just looking through the entries the prediction of foxinsoxuk was impressive. Very well done. I will be contacting you about the prize which is one of the nicest, if expensive, political books that I’ve ever seen. It is totally comprehensive and beautifully presented. It contains a mine of information and really is a prize worth winning. Thanks for Nojam once again for all their help Mike Smithson Follow @MSmithsonPB Tweet
A BREXIT indicator? UKIP’s National Equivalent Vote share down by nearly half in 3 years
Thursday saw UKIP winning just 2% of the first past the post seats Given that the dominant political story at the moment is the EU referendum it has been rather surprising that so little attention has been paid to UKIP – the party which very wisely concentrated its resources on the PR-based list seats in Wales rather than first past the post elections in the English locals. They certainly had success in Wales and also picked up two PR based…
Freedom for Tooting – the by-election to fill Sadiq’s seat could be tight
Picture credit: Wikimedia Commons Alastair Meeks assesses the chances Zac Goldsmith’s father once said that when a man married his mistress, that created a vacancy. In the same way, his successful opponent for the Mayor of London contest can be expected shortly to be standing down as MP for Tooting, giving rise to a fascinating by-election. Tooting has long been a Labour stronghold. It has been held by the party ever since its creation in 1974. The closest that the…
Zac Goldsmith led between 22% to 30% with the over 65s and still lost
A pointer to the EU Referendum? One of the patterns that have emerged with a lot of the EU referendum polling is that the over 65s favour Brexit by a substantial margin, which gives the Leaver side a lot of hope that they may win the referendum on June 23rd, because older voters have had a higher turnout than younger voters in past elections. But look at the charts above from the final London Mayoral polling by YouGov and Opinium,…
We mustn’t let the focus on Scotland and London over-shadow the poor CON performance in the English locals
Prof Rallings last month with the local elections projections. CON & UKIP underperformed LAB & LDs did bettet pic.twitter.com/PbNlCDxanc — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 8, 2016 This is more up date. Latest local elections tally from BBC News. The Tories had been predicted to win 150 pic.twitter.com/PIkjUiYHf5 — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 8, 2016 And the LDs are making progrsss The narrative on election night tends to be set by what happens overnight Thurs/Fri and little attention has been paid…