PB Nighthawks is now open

PB Nighthawks is now open

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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’re a lurker, why not delurk tonight. The round up of recent events (click on the links below, and it will bring up the relevant link) David Cameron’s prospects for victory in 2015 can’t be guaranteed. Conservatives are beginning to worry that they are failing to benefit from Britain’s economic recovery About that Miliband wreath… Labour MPs reluctant…

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UKIP soar 4 points in this week’s Ashcroft national poll

UKIP soar 4 points in this week’s Ashcroft national poll

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Populus Green total half that of Ashcroft After a period in which UKIP has been edging down across the polls there’ll be some relief at Farage Towers that today’s Lord Ashcroft poll has them at 18% – up 4 on a week ago. The chart shows the comparisons with the Populus online poll published earlier. The bigger picture is that another month has gone by and LAB is maintaining a lead albeit a small one. Twice since the Ashcroft poll…

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Mr Rentoul might not like this but the polling shows that Ed Milband has a special appeal to 2010 LD-LAB switchers

Mr Rentoul might not like this but the polling shows that Ed Milband has a special appeal to 2010 LD-LAB switchers

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In two massive rounds of polling the numbers have barely shifted In an article last month the Indy on Sunday political editor and Blair biographer, John Rentoul, wrote: “My view, and this cannot be based on opinion polls, is that when the voters come to choose they will shy away from the prospect of Miliband as prime minister, just as they shied away from Neil Kinnock in 1992.” But John the unique polling resources that are available to us ahead…

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The battle of the GE2015 predictors: Baxter versus Fisher

The battle of the GE2015 predictors: Baxter versus Fisher

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The chart shows the main predictions for GE2015 from the two leading predictors – the long-standing Electoral Calculus from Martin Baxter and the relatively new one from Stephen Fisher. Ad can be see there is a huge gap between the two. Baxter points to a LAB majority Fisher to a hung parliament. Both are based on current polling the main difference is that Fisher makes an adjustment to deal with the way polls have historically operated. The notable element here…

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Salmond needs a convincing win in Tuesday’s big IndyRef TV debate to move the polls to YES

Salmond needs a convincing win in Tuesday’s big IndyRef TV debate to move the polls to YES

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http://t.co/lBS0VWejYf pic.twitter.com/SZosVsl3uZ Given the static #IndyRef polling the pressure's most on Salmond in Tuesday's TV debate — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) August 2, 2014 Can he pull off the Holyrood 2011 magic? One of the big moments in Alex Salmond’s career was a big TV debate of Scottish party leaders in late March 2011. At the time the SNP was trailing LAB in the Holyrood polling and it did look as though SLAB was going to return to power. In the debate…

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UKIP drops to its lowest point since February 2013 with Opinium

UKIP drops to its lowest point since February 2013 with Opinium

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For the past two years or so the fortnightly Opinium survey for the Observer has been one that has had some of the highest shares for UKIP – even, at times, into the 20s. This has happened even though Opinium doesn’t prompt for the purples and has them categorised as “some other party”. The firm’s high UKIP shares have been seen in both Westminster voting intention polls and in the Euros. Thus the final Opinium poll ahead of the May…

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The PB July Polling Average: Gravity finally catches up with UKIP

The PB July Polling Average: Gravity finally catches up with UKIP

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Con, Lab and LD all up, but so are Others So perhaps UKIP does need the oxygen of publicity after all.  After recording a record score in June, Farage’s party is the biggest loser in July; indeed, the only loser.  That June figure surprised many who thought that the absence from the papers and TV screens of what’s still in many ways a minor party would inevitably lead to a drop in vote share.  It didn’t then but two months…

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The Scottish IndyRef is set to be the biggest non-general election UK political betting event ever

The Scottish IndyRef is set to be the biggest non-general election UK political betting event ever

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Betfair chart showing build up of betting interest in the #IndyRef set to be biggest ever non GE political gamble pic.twitter.com/Cx9WKkh7Ww — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) August 1, 2014 The chart above from Betfair fits in with messages coming from the traditional bookies about the huge betting interest in the September 18th Scottish referendum. I track this daily and have been amazed that this far out there has been so much activity. Generally in election markets 90%+ of all bets are…

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