Is it smart to bring all the bad news together? The sheer scale of what we are seeing this week is quite incredible. I can’t recall a period as intensive as this when so many announcements of such a magnitude were compressed into such a short period. The strategy, taking a five year time-span, is to get all the bad news out early so that by the time the coalition partners are going to the country then this will seem…
What’s the meaning of the Mulholland Tweet? Thanks to Gary Barford on the previous thread for picking up this one – for it could have a major impact on how the next general election is fought. The Lib Dem MP, Greg Mulholland, reports simply – Have had my amendments accepted for the Parliamentary Voting System etc Bill – to postpone boundary changes till after the next election. Unless I’m reading this wrong it looks as though the coalition might be…
But encouraging leader approval numbers for EdM The monthly Ipsos-MORI monitor for Reuters is just out and has encouraging news for both the Tories and Ed Miliband – as the charts above show. As seems to be the pattern now the non-YouGov polls are showing the Tories and Labour on lower levels than we see daily in the News International surveys by YouGov. The MORI methodology is different from all the other pollsters. There is no weighting to try to…
Rod Crosby on the impact of Brown’s decision to take part After working hard in the run-up to the election I took a break for a while, and have really only just begun the post-mortem on my predictions and the actual result. One thing that caught my eye is this graph. For those who don’t recall, I promoted the Kalman Filter as the best way of “averaging” the polls, and as far as the critical Tory lead was concerned it…
YouGov London ALL voters CON GE LAB GE LD GE General election CON 38 100 0 0 General election LAB 42 0 100 0 General election LD 13 0 0 100 1st choice BORIS 46 85 12 38 1st choice KEN 44 10 78 38 1st choice LD 4 2 2 23 BORIS forced choice 46 84 17 42 KEN forced choice 41 12 76 45 Could Ken close the gap? May 2012 seems an awful long time off but…
Could Osborne’s plans be too much for one or more to stomach? The coalition has been in office for five months and seven days and the only ministerial resignation, the one by David Laws, had nothing to do with the policies that the partners were pursuing. But could all that change on Wednesday – the day when George Osborne presents his statement to the commons? Could this be right time for the faint-hearts, if there are any of them, to…
Guardian Is the coalition being judged on its existence – not its actions? As we start this critical week a Monday morning column that stands is the one by the Guardian’s Julian Glover is which he tries to answer the question of why many on the left seem to hate the Lib Dems so much. He writes: “..The big boys ran the country. The Lib Dems were supposed to yelp admonitions from the sidelines. Labour commissioned the Browne review on…
As we get closer Tim T looks at the prospects These mid-terms started with the 109th Congress. By 2006, deficits and scandals meant libertarians and socially liberal fiscal conservatives had little reason left to vote Republican. The GOP deserved to lose the House and Senate – and they did. By 2008, both the Bush and GOP brands were toxic. Even so, McCain nearly won – in early September, he led in the polls. 3 gaffes cost him dearly: admitting his…