Was it this rather than “scum” that will seal his fate? This is how, as of 4pm, the Labour MP for Telford, David Wright, was dealing on his website with the row that has erupted about him. In the betting there did not appear to be a betting market on whether Telford MP will manage to hold on to his position as a government whip but we could see one this evening. For an object lesson in how not to…
Wikimedia Can we identify what’s driving the votes? Over the past week or so we’ve been putting a lot of focus on the marginals – the seats where the fates of Mr. Brown and Mr. Cameron will be decided. For there has been a fair bit of polling evidence, still far from conclusive, that there have been sharper moves to the Tories in these places than in the country as a whole. A key part of the Andy Cooke thesis,…
(The above is a revised seat model by long-standing PBers and statistician, Andy Cooke – the first version of which was published here and here after two closely argued papers that questioned the standard orthodoxy about the UNS – the uniform national swing which is the traditional, if not always accurate of projecting the seat totals in the house of commons. Since then there have been no serious defences of the UNS except that this is how it has always…
Has he “launched” his bid too early? There’s a story running on the Daily Mail site suggesting that Miliband (D) has started a nationwide tour as part of an effort to drum up support ahead of the leadership contest that is expected after the general election. An email has gone out to party activists saying that Miliband is holding number of public meetings across the country to answer questions on a wide range of issues, including, and not just restricted…
What’ll be the impact of the Brown/Morgan programme? At this stage before the general election the only thing that matters is whether Brown’s much-hyped TV programme with Piers Morgan is going to cause any more people to vote Labour in the seats where it matters. It’s certainly blanked out the rest of the political news agenda including yesterday’s explosive row between Andy Burnham and Andrew Lansley which Labour might have gained from. On the thread overnight comments were broadly favourable….
BBC News Almost a million behind, Tymoshenko will contest results in court Five years on from the Orange Revolution of December 2004, the 2010 presidential election in Ukraine has lacked the drama of its predecessor, but in many ways that is a welcome sign of a country slowly moving towards a proper democracy, even if, as the events of the last week show, there is still plenty of ground to cover yet. The results were nothing short of a humiliation…
The “Death Tax War” – Burnham raises the ante If you didn’t watch today’s “Politics Show” on BBC1 then make sure you check it out when it becomes available on catch-up in an hour or so because if featured the health spokesmen for all three main parties and was very much a fore-runner for the planned TV debates The programme brought together Labour’s Andy Burnham, Andrew Lansley from the Tories, and the LDs Norman Lamb to disucss the growing row…
House of Commons Research paper Will the markets gravitate again towards a UNS view? The above is a chart that features in a recent Commons research paper based on what happens if there’s a uniform swing across all constituencies from 2005 election adjusted for the notional 2005 results because of the boundary changes. So taking last night’s ComRes poll split of 40-29-21 the rigid application of the UNS formula has the Tories still short of a majority even though the…