On this day exactly two years ago YouGov had CON in the lead on 40pc

On this day exactly two years ago YouGov had CON in the lead on 40pc

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How it looked for the blues before the rise of UKIP & Osborne’s March 2012 budget At the end of February 2012 the Tories were still getting the benefit from the after-glow of what became known as the “Veto-gasm” – the polling boost that followed from David Cameron’s famous Brussels veto. The positive mood was seen in the betting. In mid-January 2012 the Betfair price on a CON overall majority tightened to a 41% chance while Labour was rated at…

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Let’s kill this myth once again. Cameron never had the chance of a minority government in May 2010

Let’s kill this myth once again. Cameron never had the chance of a minority government in May 2010

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May 11 2010 The Tories hadn’t won & there was need for Brown to step aside I’ve made this point before but Gord had all the cards in his hand on May 7th 2010. The Tories had failed to win a majority and there was no obligation on him to go to the palace and recommend to the Queen that Cameron should be invited to form a government. It is this central constitional fact that the “Dave should have gone…

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Local By-Election Preview: February 27th 2014

Local By-Election Preview: February 27th 2014

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  Scotter on West Lindsey (Con Defence) Result of last election (2011): Con 21, Lib Dem 11, Ind 3, Lab 2 (Conservative overall majority of 5) Result of ward at last election (2011): Emboldened denotes elected Conservatives 1,164, 934 Independent 623 Liberal Democrats 332 Result of by-election held on December 19th 2013: Non Party Independent 529 (51%), Conservative 219 (21%), Liberal Democrats 148 (14%), United Kingdom Independence Party 138 (13%) (Non Party Independent GAIN from Conservative) Candidates duly nominated: Pat…

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UKIP no longer odds-on betting favourite to secure most votes in May Euros. LAB now in top slot

UKIP no longer odds-on betting favourite to secure most votes in May Euros. LAB now in top slot

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LAB now clear betting favourite to secure most votes in May Euros Last year UKIP were odds-on pic.twitter.com/yV4aLhn43w — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) February 27, 2014 The Wythenshawe outcome seems to be depressing expectations One thing that I’ve missed in recent weeks has been the growing sentiment on the betting markets that Labour will win most votes and that the task facing UKIP is going to be harder than many predicted. At the start of the year Ladbokes made the purples a…

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Newly published Ipsos-MORI polling finds fewer voters hostile to LAB than the other main parties

Newly published Ipsos-MORI polling finds fewer voters hostile to LAB than the other main parties

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And there’s a whiff of good news for the LDs at the Euros What I’ve found to be a fascinating piece of polling for the British Future think tank has just been published by Ipsos-MORI. Rather than the conventional voting intention questions interviewees were asked for views of the four main national parties and whether they’d consider voting for them in both general elections and the Euros, general elections only, the Euros only, or whether they’d never consider voting for…

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Nighthawks is now open

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’s the Night, you should delurk. The round up of recent events (click on the links below, and it will bring up the relevant link) Sorry Len, Labour shouldn’t rule out a coalition with the Lib Dems Miliband rhetoric worries Labour’s business backers Britain’s main opposition party, Labour, is allegedly looking…

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Labour’s deficit in the cuts “blame game” tracker drops to just 4 points

Labour’s deficit in the cuts “blame game” tracker drops to just 4 points

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At one stage the gap was 30% One of the non-voting trackers that I’ve been monitoring closely since the coalition was formed in May 2010 has been the above one from YouGov on who is to blame for the cuts. For nearly four years whenever this question has beens asked at least twice a months and every poll has found the last LAB government getting the blame sometimes by big margins. In the early days the proportion of those blaming…

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So far, at least, the intense Daily Mail campaign against Harriet Harman is not being reflected in the daily YouGov figures

So far, at least, the intense Daily Mail campaign against Harriet Harman is not being reflected in the daily YouGov figures

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LAB lead back up to 6 in tonight's YouGov Sun poll CON 33% LAB 39% LD 10% UKIP 11% — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) February 25, 2014 That is not to say that it won’t Today’s YouGov poll for the Sun sees LAB back at 39% the share at which it has been getting for months as the YouGov weekly average trend chart above shows. One of the dangers with all polling analysis is to confuse correlation with causation. Clearly many factors are at…

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