Has Britain’s membership ceased to be an issue? Last week my post on the public not really “caring a monkey’s” about the EU caused a little bit of a stir in some places. My argument was simple – we’ve been in the EU for 37 years and Britain’s membership has ceased to be an issue for all but a very small minority on voters. I quoted the latest MORI issues index where those naming the Europe/EU as the “most important…
UPDATED Could Labour MP,Tom Harris, himself be in trouble? The above spoof ad has been published by Labour blogger Tom Harris MP under the heading “I do hope the NEC will approve…” to illustrate what the party’s London mayoral candidate, Ken Livingstone, did during the recent campaign for the mayoralty of Tower Hamlets. It will be recalled that the party replaced the controversial Muslim leader, Lutfur Rahman, as the official Labour candidate two months before polling but this did not…
How much potential is there for Labour progress? Regular readers of this blog will know that I regard local by-election results as being a good lead indicator of the next round of local elections. Despite having gigantic opinion poll leads from 1997-2003, the last Labour government regularly lost ground in successive rounds of local elections, during that period. Local by-elections pointed to these losses, whereas national opinion polls did not. The point should be obvious. National opinion polls are snapshots…
“Support or oppose cap on housing benefit†(YouGov) All sampled CON voters % LAB voters% LD voters % Support 72 94 52 78 Oppose 16 3 35 11 Don’t know 13 3 14 11 Should the red team and Boris re-think their strategies? After a week when domestic politics has been almost taken over by the row on housing benefit there is some polling on the issue – by YouGov for today’s Sunday Times. The findings with cross tabs on…
How will Cameron resolve the control orders row? The latest terror threats could not have come at a worse time for the coalition partners because, as Andrew Rawnsely reports in the Observer this morning, there’s a huge row going on about the future of control orders and extended detention without trial. There’s a report waiting to be published which says that these should continue in a slightly restricted form – something that would be totally opposed by Nick Clegg’s party….
Poll Date CON % LAB% LD % YouGov/Sunday Times 29/10/10 42 37 13 YouGov/Sunday Times 22/10/10 41 40 10 YouGov/Sunday Times 17/10/10 41 39 11 YouGov/Sunday Times 08/10/10 42 38 12 YouGov/Sunday Times 01/10/10 39 41 11 Tories and LDs up – Labour down Tonight’s YouGov poll for the Sunday Times is the first full voting intention poll since the housing benefit row erupted and the figures are good for the coalition and bad for Labour. The Lib Dem share,…
BBC Could the red team just lost some of the Ginger vote? As the father of two children who were bullied at school because of their ginger hair I am beside myself with fury at Harriet Harman’s nasty attack on Danny Alexander as being a “ginger rodent”. By all means get into an argument on the issues but to use an inherited bodily characteristic to attack someone smacks of racism – which is even more outrageous given Harriet’s record in…
Is outspokenness an underrated quality? Boris Johnson is probably not the most popular figure with Conservative high command just at the moment given his comments about the proposed Housing Benefit changes. Not only has he very publicly gone against the party line but he used pretty powerful language in doing so. It’s not the first time Boris has had to moderate or clarify the colourful language he’s prone to employing. In the past, he’s managed to stir up controversies with…