UKPollingReport Could the party of “fair votes” support the vote losers? One of the hardy annuals of Lib Dem conference week is that people start asking which way Clegg’s party would go in the event of a hung parliament and they held the balance of power. But is this totally irrelevant? For the way the electoral mathematics work means that Labour would only need Lib Dem support for a commons majority if it came behind the Tories in terms of…
BBC News Take the 9/4 that she’ll have to go William Hill have just opened a market on whether the troubled attorney-general, Baroness Scotland, will resign or be sacked before the end of the year. This is not yet available online but you can place the bet over the phone. I was allowed a maximum of £75. The Baroness, of course, is in a spot of bother after being fined £5,000 for employing a housekeeper who was not legally allowed…
In the Spectator: Are the knives out for Vince? Meanwhile Brown says that Baroness Scotland need not resign, despite being fined £5,000. William Hill quote 9/4 No, 1/3 Yes, for “Will Baroness Scotland remain in her position until the end of 2009?” Double Carpet
Why do they sound as though it’s still 1997? My apologies for the vulgar headline but it seemed the most apt phrase to describe what the Lib Dems have been doing in recent days in not directing all their fire-power on the weak declining party in British politics. For the big dynamic only months away from the general election is the collapse of Labour – which is the mirror of 1997 when it was the collapse of the Tories. Then…
Google News Search Have I just wasted £100? Yesterday evening I got a call and an email purporting to be from the UKIP press office alerting me to a poll that was just coming out showing the the NO campaign in the Irish Lisbon referendum had taken a substantial lead. It was said that before the 2008 referendum the same pollster had had a survey in the Irish Sun which had produced a prediction, within one percent, of the final…
CON 43 (+2) LAB 26 (+1) LD 19 (nc) And the “others” total drop to just 12% The September ICM poll for the Guardian is just out and shows the Tories up a couple of points with Labour up one – all within the margin of error. So the September polling is following August and we are seeing very little change. Perhaps the significant move is the decreasing share for “other” parties which has been at a high level since…
Is this result down to the question wording? A ComRes poll of Lib Dem councillors for BBC2’s Daily Politics has produced rather predictable results about attitudes of what they would like to see the party doing if there was, indeed, a hung parliament. It found that 31% would like the party to support Labour against 16% who said the Tories. rather than the Tories (16%) in the event of a hung Parliament. The question, however, left a lot to be…
The new series with the emphasis on predicting the outcome One of the frustrations of trying to predict or bet on the general election outcome is that when a poll is published we are reliant for what’s asked and how it is reported on the media organisation that has commissioned it. Quite often significant detail is not included and it can be days before we have it. For us the key numbers are the voting intention ones and we are…