CON 39%(40) LAB 25%(27) LD 17%(18) OTHERS 19% (15) [LAB/CON 64.1% (67.5)] Another week goes by and two more polls come out which will add to the discomfort at Number 10. The first from Comres is above has the Tories slipping a point to below 40, Labour slipping two points to 25 with “others” seeing a massive boost to 19% – which is the biggest proportion in any survey since the EU election effect had worked its way out of…
Tory pressman Henry Macrory has just Twittered to say “Two polls tonight will give Conservatives a 14pt lead”. I assume that these are YouGov and ComRes. So it’s no change with the lead from YouGov but a one point increase from ComRes. Mike Smithson
A Guest slot by Jack W (PBers in their quiet, contemplative moments will no doubt worry how a PB Titan spends his reflective moments after having polished his betting halo, plotting the next Jacobite Rising and single handedly erasing the balance of payments deficit by stint of fine pie exports alone. You need concern yourself no more. For having been prevailed upon to lift the literary status of PB to Nobel literary standards it is clear that my every spare…
Why won’t the pre-1997 polls comparison die? Michael Thrasher gave an interview for Sky News yesterday afternoon in which he built upon the article written for their website, inferring that the election is heading towards a hung parliament. In it, he made various claims and inferences that really shouldn’t be allowed to stand and which I find quite astonishing from such a senior expert in the subject. To summarise: He claimed that the Tories are struggling to break through 40%. In fact,…
Are people reading too much into this? I suppose we will see many more alerts like this but there’s a bit of a flurry tonight over this job ad from Chris Bryant – the Rhonda MP and Europe minister. Why does this job end on March 31s? Is this a clue to the election date? A member of the Tory PR team twittered it and one or two people have sent me emails. With all due respect to Chris Bryant…
How many losses do we expect them to suffer? At the General Election on May 5th 2005 Labour won 40 of the 59 seats north of the border on just 38.9% of the vote. No wonder that Blair “forgot” about his 1997 manifesto commitment on electoral reform. Since the election they lost Dunfermline to the Lib Dems in 2006 and Glasgow East to the SNP in 2008. This was partly balanced by the “gain” overnight of the Speaker’s seat. So…
What do we think of Labour’s new ad? The Daily Mirror is reporting that the above is the latest from the Labour campaign team designed to impede the Tories. If you get a sense that you’ve seen something like this before then you have. Take something current from the world of show-biz and then create parodies based on leading opposition figures. Thus compare the idea with this campaign poster from 2001:- If worked, of course, the election before last but…
Does the stunning victory have a national significance? As expected Labour have cruised to a victory in the by election caused by the resignation of Michael Martin. Technically this is a gain for the party because previously the seat was held by the Speaker. It’s the numbers themselves that are quite dramatic and will give real heart to the party as it plans the general election campaign. These were:- Labour – 12,231 votes (59.39%) SNP – 4,120 votes (20%) Tory…