Doctor Soup Flickr Are your end year bets as bad as mine? December 31st is generally an important day for political punters because so many bets are linked to the end of the year. And for me, New Year’s Eve 2009 looks set to be one of the worst ever. In fact I don’t have a winner but I have a lot of losers. It’s generally quite instructive to look through your losing bets to pick up ideas that might…
Angus Reid There were some interesting non-voting question in the PB/Angus Reid pre-Christmas poll which have just been published – one of which is featured above. Interestingly men respondents placed Iraq at number one while the women in the survey went for the July 2005 London bombings. It’s a good question and I wonder what PBers would have answered? I’ve got little doubt and that was the Labour government’s Tony’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003 alongside the Americans. Mike…
Latest Ipsos-MORI issues index Is Sunny Hundal misreading the data? There’s a fascinating debate going on amongst Labour/left bloggers over whether the party’s apparent “class war” strategy is the right way to go. The Scottish Labour MP, Tom Harris, is very much against arguing that “.the only strategy Labour should even consider is one which aims to see us re-elected with a working overall majority in the Commons. Setting our sights anywhere lower than that would be a betrayal of…
Why I’m still not betting on the general election outcome? Another morning and the speculation over Brown’s leadership continues in the papers. So how will those “leading cabinet ministers” who are said to want Brown out view this polling data? For after yesterday morning’s examination of the long-term leader approval rating trends today I’m looking further at the Ipsos-MORI leader approval data but from another angle – what those who told the pollster they are voting Labour think of Mr….
Leicester Mercury Will Labour want to avoid the by election? My apologies for immediately thinking of the political implications of the death yesterday of Leicester NW, MP, David Taylor, but that is the way politics is especially during a febrile period like that we are going through at the moment. Fo the last thing that Labour needs just now is a by election in a marginal where the Tories are the main challengers – and this could become a consideration…
Ipsos-MORI Is survival from this position nigh on impossible? One of my best Christmas presents was a personal copy of the invaluable reference source – David Butler’s Twentieth-century British Political Facts, 1900-2000. This contains polling data going back every month to February 1945 – and until now I’ve had to go to the library to look this up. As well as the outcomes of voting intention question the book also lists the PM and opposition leaders’ approval ratings which have…
Voting is open to all PBers whether they post or not The PB Poster of the Year – The Final Five. Please vote for one only. Richard Nabavi David Herdson Yellow Submarine Easterross Peter the Punter And don’t forget the PB Tipster of the Year In the first round of voting Richard Nabavi came top just ahead of David Herdson and Yellow Submarine. There were only going to be four places but when I checked at the appointed time…
Is it more ammunition for the class war strategy? According to ConHome, at the time of July’s Norwich North by election the above was an official Labour flyer used in the failed defence of that seat. The approach was also used in the Eddisbury by election in 1999 when the climate was much more clement for NuLab. Well according to the Indy this morning there are, indeed, Labour plans to make an apparent commitment by David Cameron to repeal the…