Is the BNP really on 9%? The latest ComRes poll for the Indy on Sunday and the Sunday Mirror is, on the face of it, bad news for Labour, okay news for the Tories but sensational for the BNP. I’ve extracted the table from the detailed data and I cannot make head nor tail of it. If you add up the reported party shares of CON 37: LAB 37: LD 11: BNP 9: SNP 5: GRN 4: PC 4: UKIP…
Should Labour not be doing better? The latest ComRes poll for the Indepedent on Sunday and Sunday Mirror is out, and has Labour 37% (-2), Conservative 37% (-1) and the Lib Dems on 11% again. Others are up to 15%. Ed Miliband will be worried that his personal numbers are so poor – his figures have dropped 10-points in a month, according to Politics Home. Ed Balls is little better thought of with only 10% preferring the pugilistic Shadow Chancellor…
Is the government taking on too many battles? The impending public-sector strikes announced this week add just another front to the many battles the government’s facing. Ed Miliband raised an aspect of the welfare reforms at the last PMQ’s, the proposed changes to the NHS have been mired in difficulty for months, there’ve been the academies programme and tuition fees in education, and eliminating the deficit will have implications across virtually every aspect of government activity. On top of which,…
Ipsos-MORI What PB regulars will know is my favourite non-voting intention poll of the month – the Ipsos-MORI issues index – is just out and the big change is that concern about the economy is moved to its lowest position since February 2010 – three months before the general election. The final poll before last year’s election had the economy on 70% – now it’s just over 50%. Fieldwork for this poll operates in exactly the same manner as it…
..or does it present an opportunity for EdM? So far there hasn’t been any specific polling on the strike threats over public sector pensions though I would expect the pollsters that are out in the field this weekend, including ICM and I think MORI, will have included something on what could be the big issue in the coming months. What’s going to be critical is public opinion and whether voters buy the line that all this is inevitable because we are…
Could his stance have wider implications? Just seven weeks after his triumphal victory in the Holyrood elections SNP leader Alex Salmond is at the centre of a row entirely of his own making which could cost him dear. He’s refusing to back down after making comments in a magazine which are said to undermine the independence of the judiciary. He also singled out a prominent Scottish lawyer. Last night’s main news programme on STV gives a real flavour of the…
But did they switch to the blues BEFORE the paper did? We all recall, I’m sure, the front page of the Sun for its edition on September 30th 2009 – the day after Gordon Brown had made his big speech in the final Labour conference before the general election. I was at the Brighton conference and well remember the fury of delegates – not just at the paper’s decision but at the fact that it was timed to cause maximum…
HenryG predicts that we’ll see the charity approach again This week Ed Miliband caught David Cameron out over the reduction of support for 7,000 cancer patients. His questions and knowledge exploited one of the Prime Minister’s few weak-spots –his haziness over detail and desire to be a caring Conservative. The fact that these figures came from the charity MacMillan was crucial. It meant that it was very difficult for the Government to challenge and discredit the source either during the…