Home of the web’s best political conversation Relax, and converse into the night on the day’s events. If you’ve always been a lurker, why not take the final few Steps, and become a poster on PB, it would be a Tragedy if we missed your contributions, hopefully at least 5,6,7,8 of your lurkers will delurk, The round up of recent events (click on the links below, and it will bring up the relevant story) The TV debates ‘could take place…
According to reports, The Liberal Democrats are to attack their Conservative coalition partners in the new year by telling voters they can’t be trusted to look after the interests of normal people and are focused only protecting the very rich. A leaked script of party lines to take in the media urges MPs, candidates and councillors to say that only the Lib Dems are committed to building a fair society. It was distributed by the Lib Dem director of communications, Tim…
So, what lies ahead for politics in 2013? Pausing only to admire my willingness to have a go, given my mediocre track record in predictions, let’s get stuck in. The current state of play Where are we now? For this, I can borrow wholesale from my summary from last year. The public doesn’t approve of the Coalition. The public doesn’t much like David Cameron. The public really doesn’t like Nick Clegg. The public doesn’t rate Ed Miliband either. The…
Ipsos-Mori have published their almanac for 2012, and it makes for fascinating reading, analysing the movements of 2012, and putting them into context and the problems and opportunities facing all the parties and leaders. You can view it for free, here. They note the trigger for the Tories’ loss of support seems to have been the budget delivered by George Osborne on 21 March, or perhaps the “omnishambles†of U-turns and clarifications that followed it…… Gideon Skinner of Ipsos-Mori concludes…
It certainly has been an extra-ordinary year for Boris, from winning re-election as Mayor of London, in what is supposedly a Labour city, whilst belonging to a party, that as a government had just delivered a double dip recession. Winning allowed him to be Mayor during the Olympics, where he mocked Mitt Romney, to the adulation of many, and he was associated with the feel good factor that the Olympics brought, so much so, he upstaged The Prime Minister. This…
Ladbrokes have some markets on some events that may occur in 2013. I’m quite intrigued by the YouGov one, in 2012, they produced nearly 250 VI polls, I’d expect a similar number in 2013, we could always have a rogue poll, the last Tory lead with YouGov was the 2nd of March 2012. The Boris Johnson one also looks interesting, as he as a history of such situations, as does the reality tv one, but the wording of it…
The map above shows the 2010 General election results, and shows Labour’s lack of seats in the South, a couple of years ago, the always perceptive Antifrank made this observation, which stuck in the mind, and puts the map into context Labour did appallingly in the south of England. In the south east, south west and eastern England combined, it won 10 seats. There were 197 on offer. Holding the 32 seats it lost in these regions in 2010 would have…
According to reports yesterday the Conservative Party wants to increase its efforts to woo ethnic voters ahead of the election. This, alongside gay marriage, appears to be the second lesson George Osborne took from the recent US Presidential election. The Independent understands the initial aim seems to be to increase the number of minority parliamentary candidates. Conservatives currently have 11 MPs from an ethnic minority background compared to Labour who have 13. The Liberal Democrats, somewhat incredibly, have zero. It…