Will the IMF loan give George another headache?

Will the IMF loan give George another headache?

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Are there more government PR problem in the offing? It’s no coincidence that none of the additional $400bn the IMF is raising from its members has come from the USA. There are elections there this year and neither members of Congressmen nor the president would be likely to be thanked by the electors for being seen to send scarce resources overseas to rescue spendthrift governments. The decision of George Osborne to authorise British funding of £10bn loan to the IMF…

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Just two days to go before France votes..

Just two days to go before France votes..

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What are the best bets? The first round of voting in the French Presidential election takes place on Sunday with the second round scheduled for a fortnight later. The system is that the top two this weekend go forward to the final round provided no candidate has got more than 50% of the vote. At the PB party last night the consensus was that the Socialist contender, Francois Hollande, would win both the first and second rounds of voting –…

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As postal voting starts for the May 3rd elections….

As postal voting starts for the May 3rd elections….

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..is a CON majority becoming an impossible dream? The chart shows the latest LAB leads in the eight pollsters featured and the top six present a very glum picture for the Tories. The chart shows that last night’s YouGov 32/45/8 is not out of line – certainly in terms of the LAB lead over CON. The exceptions, ICM and Ipsos-MORI, with just 1% LAB leads, are the oldest in the list and are from March. Fieldwork for their April surveys…

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The big move to UKIP seems to confined to online polls

The big move to UKIP seems to confined to online polls

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Why the difference with the telephone pollsters? The big polling story this wekk, apart from the London mayoral race, has been the very high UKIP shares that have been reported. To track it I put have together the above chart showing the latest UKIP shares across the range of pollsters. The difference is very clear – the online firms appear to have much bigger numbers. As can been seen the latest surveys from all the telephone polls have UKIP at…

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May 3rd set to be a bloody night be for the coalition partners

May 3rd set to be a bloody night be for the coalition partners

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Who’ll survive with fewer losses – the blues or the yellows? The above charts are from the presentation by Professor Colin Rallings at the briefing on the May 3rd local elections organised by the Political Studies Association. Each year Rallings, together with his academic partner at the University of Plymouth, Michael Thrasher, compute a national equivalent vote share based on the local election results. The top chart shows the trend since 1997 which illustrates vividly why the 2012 elections hold…

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