A guest slot on the Labour leader as he returns to PMQs Much has been made of Ed Miliband’s decision making and lack of media coverage since becoming Leader of the Labour Party. Eyebrows were raised over the roles allocated to Alan Johnson and Phil Woolas; Johnson has made it clear there are differences of opinion on policy within the opposition, while the Woolas court case raised the issue of party unity. All the while Ed has been out of…
This clip is doing the rounds tonight – the Alan Johnson REd slip, courtesy of Tim Montgomerie. Watching it doesn’t appear to be a gaffe at all. Maybe that is what he calls his party leader in private. The big political point is that the shadow chancellor seems to have a different view of the way forward than his leader. Mike Smithson
Or is Andy Coulson just going to shake it all off..again? According to Paul Waugh there’s no truth in the strong suggestion by Tom Watson MP that the former NOTW editor and now Number 10 press chief, Andy Coulson, could be out by Christmas. Watson is certainly cranking this one up but I can’t see how anything short of Coulson being charged and going on trial will spark a resignation. Whatever there is a danger that Cameron’s decision to stick…
Should the electoral calendar have been taken into account? So now we have the day for the royal wedding – and the plan is to stage it on Friday April 29 just before the May bank holiday so many people will gain the benefit of a long weekend. But what’s it going to do campaigning for the elections due to take place on May 5th? That day sees voting right across the UK with the av referendum, the four yearly…
Antifrank on Labour/the polls/Nick Clegg Since the Lib Dems threw in their lot with the Conservatives in the aftermath of the general election, Nick Clegg has come in for a lot of flak on the more left wing blogs and newspaper sites. It is often asserted that Nick Clegg is despised as a hate figure, perhaps even a figure of fun. Is that true? Well, we have had two recent polls where the public were asked to judge his performance,…
Poll/publication End date CON (%) LAB (%) LD (%) ICM/Guardian 21/11/10 36 38 14 ICM/Guardian 24/10/10 39 36 16 ICM/NOTW 22/10/10 40 36 16 ICM/Sunday Telegraph 07/10/10 38 34 18 ICM/Guardian 29/09/10 35 37 18 ICM/Guardian 15/08/10 37 37 18 ICM/Guardian 25/07/10 38 34 19 ICM/Sunday Telegraph 24/06/10 41 35 16 ICM/Guardian 20/06/10 39 31 21 ICM/Guardian 23/05/10 39 32 21 ICM/Sunday Telegraph 13/05/10 38 33 21 Labour take a two point lead with ICM Tonight’s Guardian ICM poll has…
A guest slot by ex-Labour MP, Nick Palmer First a quick word on where I’m coming from. I’ve been a Labour partisan for 40 years, but not one of the ultra-tribal kind who hates everyone else. In particular, if Labour didn’t exist, I’ve always assumed I’d vote LibDem. I’d also concede that they’ve sometimes been right in the past when we were wrong (Iraq is the obvious case) and that they’re traditionally better and more interested in some things that…
Pollster Firm Prediction Andrew Hawkins ComRes Con majority 32 Ben Page Ipsos-MORI Con 25 seats short Andrew Cooper Populus Con majority of 10+ Peter Kellner YouGov Con majority 20-30 Robert Salvoni Harris Con majority 2-10 Andy Morris Angus Reid Con majority 40-50 Martin Boon ICM Con majority 20 John Heald Opinion Research Con majority 40+ …remember these April 11th predictions? With almost all the leading figures in the polling industry getting together today for their general election post-mortem I thought…