By-elections.co.uk CON 20,539 votes (14,162) LAB 12,679 votes (21,240) LD 6,040 votes (8,083) The contest, held on 22 May 2008, was the first seat gained by the Tories in a by election since June 1982. The turnout was just 1.8% down on what it had been at the general election. Mike Smithson
Could Brown’s toff-bashing quip turn-off middle England? John Rentoul makes a good point about one aspect of Brown’s PMQ’s performance on his Independent blog:- “…..there was one line that was too good to use. Brown invoked the name of Zac Goldsmith, the dormantly non-dom Conservative candidate, and said that David Cameron’s inheritance tax cut seemed like something “dreamt up on the playing fields of Eton”. .Having a go at Cameron’s school, chosen for him by his parents: Not Going to…
But is there a danger when’s he’s over-confident? Anybody watching PMQs today would have seen an emboldened and confident Gordon Brown dealing with a slightly down-beat David Cameron. Probably Brown was the winner though his continued evasiveness and what turned out to be a wrong assertion on Spain’s G20 membership might just take the gloss off it. He of all people should have known that simple fact and it came over as though he was over-egging the truth to deal…
How dangerous is the issue for the Tories? Only days before the Copenhagen climate summit Andrew Grice in the Independent is reporting what’s said to be growing split between many parts of the Tory party and its leadership on the issue. It will be recalled that just four years ago one of Cameron’s first acts as leader was to take a lead on climate change as part of his effort to try to modernise his party and there was that…
Could he become Labour’s William Hague? One of the problems of Mr. Brown’s style of government is that he makes most of the big announcements and his top team get very little public exposure. So if there’s something big to say about health then it’s not the Secretary of State responsible who gets the lime-light. Not only does this mean that outside three or four figures there’s relatively little public awareness of the second string of party figures – but…
Now you can bet on the most accurate final poll? Aside from the party HQs the most tense places to be on election night will be at the six polling firms which carry out monthly surveys of political opinion in Britain. How close were they with their final poll? For they all know only too well that this will be the one set of numbers that will be flung back at them for years to come. And within the industry…
But will it be the same in the marginals? Just looking at the detailed data for the latest ComRes poll and we see the dynamic that is causing the Tory totals to fall and is putting into question what seemed to be the forgone conclusion of a Tory majority. For helpfully the firm is the only one of the pollsters where it’s possible to see the switching to the minor parties from what respondents said they did at the general…
CON 37%(39) LAB 27%(25) LD 20%(17) OTHERS 16% (19) But have the seat calculators got it right? There’s a new poll out tonight from ComRes for tomorrow’s Independent which has the Tory lead down to ten points but with the Lib Dem continuing to do well. For the Tories another poll having them below the 40 mark might add to the jitters as we enter the run in period to the election. Only ICM of the six firms that regularly…