What’ll be the impact in the UK, France and beyond? Politics is a relative game. The good lose out to the best; the mediocre beat the poor. Whether a government is seen as doing a good job depends partly on whether people feel good about their lives and confident in their future, but more on whether they think someone else could do better internally, and whether others are doing better overseas. As such, the decision of Standard & Poors to…
A poser for PB NightHawks as they “gather” in the cafe A couple of pieces of news that suggest something might be happening – first in William Hill press release that the firm has slashed its odds against Ed Miliband not leading Labour into the next General Election from 2/1 to 8/11. They now offer evens that he WILL still be leader when the Election takes place. ‘In the space of a few minutes we received a sudden rush of…
Will devo max be on the ballot or not? Week one of the Scottish referendum skirmish has highlighted one big issue where Cameron and Salmond take a different view – should an option for so-called devo max be included on the ballot paper. London wants it to be a straight YES/NO to independence while the SNP leader would like a third option – so called devo max. Clearly both sides sense that Scotland might not be ready for the full…
Party Votes Vote % Seats Won Net +/- CON 112,208 32.29% 59 -15 LAB 106,786 30.73% 55 +22 LD 58,892 16.95% 22 -3 SNP 19,435 5.59% 9 +2 IND 19,226 5.53% 10 -6 GRN 11,402 3.28% 1 +1 UKIP 7,474 2.15% 0 – We focus a lot on polls on PB but not perhaps as much as we should do on the elections that take place up and down the country week by week filling council vacancies. Last year there…
We have YouGov early & the council by-elections Tonight’ YouGov poll has the Tories on 41% – their biggest share from the firm since December 2010. LAB are on 40% with the LDs down to 8. I just wonder whether Cameron and his party are getting a little bounce for the referendum moves. Meanwhile we are back to the regular Thursday night council by-elections – check out the rolling thread on Britain-votes.co.uk from about 10.30pm. Mike Smithson @MikeSmithsonOGH
Can Romney cope with the onslaught in S. Carolina? After his big victory in New Hampshire on Tuesday night the general view was that Mitt Romney was on his way to winning the Republican nomination. That result made it two out of two and he only had to take the next state in line, South Carolina, and he would appear invincible. In a piece on Saturday David Herdson rightly concluded that this third primary test was probably the most important….
Election outcome < New boundaries Old boundaries LAB MAJORITY LAB LEAD 4.3% LAB LEAD 3% LAB MOST SEATS CON LEAD below 2.2% CON LEAD below 4% CON MOST SEATS CON LEAD above 2.2% CON LEAD 4% CON MAJORITY CON LEAD above 7.4% CON LEAD 11% LAB can still come top with fewer votes Thanks to YouGov’s Anthony Wells at UKPR for producing a revised set of notional outcomes following the publication of the proposed new boundaries for Wales. The table...
And Ed’s best PM numbers drop to new low Tonight’s YouGov has LAB at 38% two points below CON on 40% with the LDs at 10% Perhaps even more worrying for the red team is that just 17% of the sample rated Ed as the “best PM” – his worst rating since becoming leader in September 2010. In many ways the poll is in line with all the negative press that he has been getting. So far the only polling…