A big public split with Carswell was almost inevitable The very public row that has broken out between Farage and his party’s only MP, Douglas Carswell, was one that had been widely predicted. The only issue was what would spark it off. For because of his unique MP status it is up to Carswell to decide on how the public funds that UKIP is due from what is known as Short money should be used. The Clacton MP believes passionately…
The top 5 in the betting for LAB leader pic.twitter.com/YOkCTofado — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 12, 2015 I don’t know about others but I’ve been betting on the next LAB leader for almost five years. There was a time when EdM’s fortunes looked very grim indeed and the story then was that Mr&Mrs Balls were planning a coup that would see Yvette take on the flag carrying role. Then we had the 2012 budget and LAB’s ratings soared into the…
The numbers look potentially tricky A key moment in the last parliament was in July 2012 when CON back-bench rebels voted down a timetable motion on the Lords Reform bill thus making it highly unlikely that it would get through the house. A few days later Cameron pulled the plans completely – a move that led to Mr. Clegg pulling the plug on boundary reform. So the upper house remains unreformed something that could be tricky for the government as…
Labour's private pollsters had party in much worse position than public polls. http://t.co/hRSjDD5Sof pic.twitter.com/QkoNMHccme — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 12, 2015 In this News Statesman article James Morris, from Labour’s US-based pollster GQR, explain how its approach was different and is likely to produce far fewer don’t knows which, it is argued, add to accuracy. He also notes that I was one of those interviewed. “The main difference between our polls and the newspaper polls is that we don’t ask…
Farage unresigns – http://t.co/VYN9YMdibq pic.twitter.com/J5oUsBuHca — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 11, 2015 During the campaign Farage made a big thing of him being ready to step down if he failed to win Thanet South. Well he did fail and did announce last Friday that he was resigning. This afternoon he’s back in the job after the party’s NEC “refused to accept it”. Rubbish. It just appears as though his campaign threat was a device. This doesn’t look good for UKIP…
Thanks to AndyJS for once again providing with such excellent data so quickly.
Liz Kendall tells @afneil that she's a leadership runnerhttp://t.co/OKnfA55VAe — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 11, 2015 Dan Jarvis rules himself out while Liz Kendall tells Andrew Neil that she is in Well we are off in the race to find the next LAB leader. Last night one of the most heavily tipped possible runners, ex-army Major Dan Jarvis, announced that he would not be putting his name forward. A few hours earlier the relatively unknown Liz Kendall told Andrew Neil…
Congraulations to Mortimer who wins the prize Above is the full spreadsheet from our April prediction competition. Sporting Index, which is sponsoring PB’s General Election coverage, is providing a competition prize of £200, payable into the winner’s SPIN account. If the winner does not have an account then he/she will have to open one to receive the prize. Could Mortimer send me an email so I can arrange for the prize? Email. Help keep PB going by making a donation…