Three in four Conservative voters back Ken Clarke

Three in four Conservative voters back Ken Clarke

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Will this stop the Speccie’s team getting too excitable? Ever since Ken made his unfortunate remarks on 5Live last Wednesday there’s been an air of excitability and expectation in some of the postings on the Speccie’s CoffeeHouse blog. Several posts gave the impression that now, at least, Cameron would have to get rid of the justice secretary whose views on the EU, the Iraq war and a less than authoritarian stance on crime have not endeared him to sections of…

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How many more Sundays can Huhne take?

How many more Sundays can Huhne take?

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For the 3rd week running he dominates the political news If it’s Sunday then it must be the latest instalment in the Chris Huhne speeding points affair with the pressure continuing to mount on the resilient Lib Dem energy secretary. The Sunday Times front page featured above doesn’t look good while inside the paper there is a graphic showing the alleged locations and times of Mr and Mrs Huhne and where the speeding offence happened, with multiple witnesses allegedly backing…

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Can equality be “hard-wired” into society?

Can equality be “hard-wired” into society?

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Does he need more than cliches if Labour is to retain its lead? In what’s been billed as a big speech setting out how Labour will move forward the party leader, Ed Miliband, has talked about a “national mission” to regain the trust of the voters. He talked about the need to set out a clear and positive vision for the future which touched the concerns of voters. He also touched on a theme that he’s raised before – that…

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How does the Coalition square its NHS circle?

How does the Coalition square its NHS circle?

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Can both sides emerge with neither a loser? Sometimes the big story of the moment overshadows the more important story of the moment. This week has been one such time, with Ken Clarke’s policy, or consultation, or whatever it is, about reform of the rape sentencing rules overshadowing the deepening disagreement within the coalition twabout NHS reform. There are two main areas of policy that the Conservatives absolutely cannot afford to be seen to fail on if they are to…

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How supporters of three main parties rate the big issues?

How supporters of three main parties rate the big issues?

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The above chart has been prepared from data in the May Ipsos-MORI issues index and seeks to break-down the responses by party support. Interviewees are asked without any prompting to name the most important issue they believe is facing the country and also to name as many other issues as they would like. As can be seen Tories and Lib Dems are giving equal prominence to the economy while Labour voters are are bit behind. A split, however, occurs with…

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Will Anna Soubry be the first 2010er to get a big job?

Will Anna Soubry be the first 2010er to get a big job?

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Click picture to see Newsnight discussion Is she the “winner” of the Ken Clarke business? After being out of action away from TV and the internet for the past couple of days I’m only now catching up with the extraordinary Ken Clarke affair and clearly I missed a cracker of a political day on Wednesday. Looking back over the coverage one person stands out – the new Tory MP for Broxtowe in Nottingham, Anna Soubry, who took the seat from…

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Concern about the NHS moves to a three year high

Concern about the NHS moves to a three year high

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Ipsos-MORI Can the blue team ease the worries? Every month for nearly a third of a century Ipsos-MORI has asked the same two part-question question in the same standard way which, almost uniquely, is totally unprompted. The pollster asks “What do you see as the most important/other important issues face Britain today”. Unlike the firm’s voting intention polls which are carried out by phone fieldwork for the issues index is done face to face. Given the unprompted nature of the…

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So are you backing Gordon….?

So are you backing Gordon….?

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DSK has now resigned as IMF head, and Hills have released their next IMF leader prices which are: Kemal Dervis, Turkey 5/2 Montek Singh Ahluwalia, India 5/1 Axel Weber, Germany 7/1 Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Singapore 8/1 Gordon Brown, UK 8/1 John Lipsky, USA 10/1 Mark Carney, Canada 10/1 Philipp Hildebrand, Switzerland 12/1 Peer Steinbruck, Germany 12/1 Stanley Fischer, Israel 16/1 Changyong Rhee, South Korea 16/1 Hyun Song Shin, South Korea 16/1 Trevor Manuel, South Africa 20/1 Christine Lagarde, France 20/1 Mohamed…

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