Is this another “storm in a tea-cup”?

Is this another “storm in a tea-cup”?

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Or will it make the election more about Brown’s personality? There’s been a lot of hype tonight about a new book, Inside Out by former Labour general secretary, Peter Watt in which he makes less than complimentary comments about Mr. Brown. The Mail on Sunday have bought the serialisation rights and their editorial looks a bit tricky for Number 10. With only about eleven weeks before the election campaign proper starts the main impact could be to put the focus…

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Tory ICM lead up just one point

Tory ICM lead up just one point

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CON 40% (40) LAB 30% (31) LD 18%(18) But another margin of error poll After all the speculation that Labour could expect a big hammering in this weekend’s polls the first survey, from ICM for the Sunday Telegraph, has only one change on the last poll from the firm before Christmas – a one point decline in the Labour total. All the other numbers are the same. The standard way of comparing polls is with the last survey from the…

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What do we think of Iain’s election prediction?

What do we think of Iain’s election prediction?

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Iain Dale Good on Iain Dale – he’s done something that I have been avoiding – making a prediction on the outcome of the coming general election. His seat predicted seat totals are:- Conservative 331 Labour 216 LibDem 69 Plaid Cymru 5 SNP 7 Green 1 Others 3 Northern Ireland 18 As discussion on this seems to have taken over the previous thread I thought it merited a separate examination on its own. Amongst Iain’s details:- LibDems lose 9 seats…

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Can we look forward to a slimmed-down Brown?

Can we look forward to a slimmed-down Brown?

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  Where does the real power now lie? In one sense, Gordon Brown was right: it was all a bit of a storm in a teacup. A couple of former ministers called for a vote on Brown’s leadership and the overwhelming majority of Labour MP’s didn’t come out to support that call. Result: Brown win. However, by the same token, neither were MP’s and ministers rushing to man the defences of the PM. If Brown is to lead Labour into…

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What voters think of the three main leaders

What voters think of the three main leaders

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There’s a new Angus Reid poll (not one that has been commissioned by PB) in which the following was put to respondents:- Here are some words that people may use to describe [Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Nick Clegg]. Please choose up to six words that you think describe him. The online survey had a sample of 2005 and took place on Tuesday and Wednesday. Further details can be found here. As far as I know voting intention questions were not…

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Why was Mandy stuck for words?

Why was Mandy stuck for words?

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Does no change at No. 10 mean back Balls? Thanks to Miranda Richardson on her Sky blog for highlighting the fairly equivocal responses by Peter Mandelson to the last couple of questions in this short interview. If this week was supposed to have produced a change of approach from Number 10 then why was the business secretary less than forthright in his closing responses. The conclusion, surely, is that Brown has won, there will be no real change in Labour’s…

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Why doesn’t Brown “do a Major”?

Why doesn’t Brown “do a Major”?

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BBC “On this day – July 4 1995” Surely that’s better than the current mess? In her Guardian this morning Jackie Ashley looks at the state of Labour following the failed coup and puts a lot of the blame on the cabinet. Through their actions they “could have either forced Brown out, or could have spread utter hostility to any attempted coup against him, and stopped the plotting..” Instead they did neither – not being prepared to try to bring…

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Do the LDs gain most from the plot’s failure?

Do the LDs gain most from the plot’s failure?

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Would replacing Brown be bad news for Clegg? Thanks to Ryans on a previous thread for highlighting the detailed finding in the week’s first YouGov poll on the party split when respondents were asked if they would be more or less likely to vote Labour if Brown was replaced. Normally I think we should be quite sceptical about such questions and I don’t think we should read too much into the scale of potential switching. But one thing stands out…

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