“The next CON leader will not be a white man” – Tory insider

“The next CON leader will not be a white man” – Tory insider

Comments 0 Comment

Theresa May up 4% in ConHome party members’ next leader survey The comment in the heading for this post was made to me at a recent social event by someone I regard as a leading Tory insider. It certainly has a ring of truth about it given that the two contenders currently being talked about are Theresa May and Sajid Javid, the culture Secretary. This conversation took place before the latest ConHome findings from its regular party member surveys. Theresa…

Read More Read More

PB Nighthawks is now open

PB Nighthawks is now open

Comments 0 Comment

Home of the web’s best political conversation Why not relax, and converse into the night on the day’s events in PB NightHawks. If you like political betting, welcome to PB, Nobody Does It Better than PB. If you’ve always been a lurker, why not delurk tonight, no one will think You’re So Vain for delurking. The round up of recent events (click on the links below, and it will bring up the relevant link) Why 2015 is about marginal seats…

Read More Read More

Why UKIP is set to damage Tories a lot more than LAB at GE2015

Why UKIP is set to damage Tories a lot more than LAB at GE2015

Comments 0 Comment

pic.twitter.com/7g0LyKdhLo — PolPics (@PolPics) November 28, 2014 LAB lost much of its traditional support long before the UKIP surge Today I’m off to London for a big event in Westminster to promote the GE2015 British Election Study – a huge academic imitative involving the universities of Manchester, Oxford and Nottingham that in the coming months will become an essential resource to all who follow politics closely. The rise and rise of UKIP is going to be a big focus and…

Read More Read More

Dave said to be coming under pressure to abandon the coalition now

Dave said to be coming under pressure to abandon the coalition now

Comments 0 Comment

Abandon the LDs % govern alone, CON MPs tell DC – http://t.co/Ju6VB1uzZ6 But what'd that do to post GE15 relations? pic.twitter.com/8zPzaSxh02 — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) December 8, 2014 Good idea or not? A short-term problem is that if the coalition broke down in circumstances like this then the blues would be seen as the “guilty party” and there might be a price to pay. Getting commons business through without the LD vote might be very tricky and the government could look…

Read More Read More

UKIP move up 3 to 19% in latest Lord Ashcroft phone poll

UKIP move up 3 to 19% in latest Lord Ashcroft phone poll

Comments 0 Comment

LAB 31-1: CON 30=: LD 8+1: UKIP 19+3: GRN 5%-1 UKIP the main mover in this week's @LordAshcroft phone poll LAB 31-1: CON 30=: LD 8+1: UKIP 19+3: GRN 5%-1 pic.twitter.com/bRz4vZA8YR — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) December 8, 2014 How the alternative vote would have impacted on voting How AV might have impacted on election. Interesting data from @LordAshcroft pic.twitter.com/y7JphKsn77 — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) December 8, 2014 Tories now level-pegging in England The England only-figures in today's @LordAshcroft poll see LAB &…

Read More Read More

LAB running just 3% behind SNP in Scotland according to the Populus November aggregate

LAB running just 3% behind SNP in Scotland according to the Populus November aggregate

Comments 0 Comment

But Sturgeon’s party would be one short on seats Following my post yesterday about the woeful lack of polling data from what could be the most critical area of all at GE15, Scotland, a PBer contacted me to point out that Populus has resumed its excellent practice of issuing a full monthly data analysis from the eight or nine online surveys carried out in the previous month. What’s great about this is that you have a very large sample which…

Read More Read More

If you think that GE2015 is getting hard to understand check out Martin Baxter’s battle-ground map

If you think that GE2015 is getting hard to understand check out Martin Baxter’s battle-ground map

Comments 0 Comment

Martin Baxter, the ex-Cambridge University mathematiciion who has been running Electoral Calculus for two decades, has produced the above map that sets out the various outcomes and links them, based on party shares, to what could happen. I reproduce it above. In a technical note Martin writes:- ” Map only shows movement for the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties. It assumes the votes for other parties, including UKIP and the SNP, are fixed at current support levels. UKIP are…

Read More Read More