David is showing signs of beating Goliath
Henry G Manson’s Friday column Perhaps the most enduring part of Ed Miliband’s conference speech 10 day ago wasn’t the energy policy he outlined, but his charge against David Cameron. The Prime Minister was “strong at standing up to the weak, but weak at standing up to the strong.†In that one sentence the Labour leader was able to neatly bundle everything anxiety about the Tories, from being too close to News International, siding with the richest earners to cut…
David Herdson looks at the US budget crisis and wonders whether Obama is about to be impeached
How far will the US budget/debt ceiling row go? At first glance, the lead question seems such an obvious Question To Which The Answer Is No that you’d be forgiven for thinking ‘why’, ‘how’ or even ‘what?!’. In a sensible world, it would be – but then in a sensible world, the US federal government wouldn’t be the best part of a week into shutdown – and political betting is as much as anything an exercise is scenario planning. US…
Local By-Election Preview : October 3rd 2013
Oakfield on Aylesbury Vale (Lib Dem Defence) Last Local Election (2011): Con 38, Lib Dem 17, Lab 2, UKIP 2 (Con overall majority of 17) Last Election in ward (2011): Emboldened denotes elected Liberal Democrats 475, 437 Conservatives 432, 419 Labour 336, 246 Independent 288 UKIP 205, 164 Candidates duly nominated: Phil Gomm (UKIP), Alison Harrison (Lib Dem), Patrick Martin (Ind), Roy McNickle (Lab), Edward Sims (Con) When you consider how strong the Conservatives are in Aylesbury constituency (Con majority…
How supporters of the main parties view ethnic minorities
LAB stays in the 40s with YouGov as conference season ends
Today’s YouGov is based on fieldwork which started on Tuesday evening and finished late after yesterday – so would have covered the Mili-Mail flare-up and Dave’s big speech yesterday. The latest shares are CON 34, LAB 40, LD 9, UKIP 10. So the two main parties had 74% between them which is a very high proportion compared with other recent polling. It looks like the LDs and Ukip have been squeezed by the parties which had their conferences at the…
Marf’s and other reaction to Cameron’s speech
I’ve been out all day and have yet to see Dave’s big speech – so I don’t have any views. The following I found interesting. Telegraph man declares EdM the winner Ed Miliband won this year's party conference season. (My @Telegraph blog on Cameron's speech.) http://t.co/fmuL5zzhil — Iain Martin (@iainmartin1) October 2, 2013 Martin writes:- “His (Cameron”s) effort today at Tory conference in Manchester this year will not be ranked as great. It was perfectly fine, with all sorts of…
A new month starts and UKIP’s support remains buoyant
The Godfrey Bloom affair hasn’t even registered Another month starts and there’s no sign that support for UKIP is on the wane in spite of the much publicised blow at the party’s annual conference 11 days ago. The chart above shows the recent UKIP shares in the YouGov daily poll for News International and it is hard to detect any impact. The ComRes phone poll for the Indy, published on Monday, had UKIP up. The only firm with it down…