MORI: Economic optimism rises to John Major levels

MORI: Economic optimism rises to John Major levels

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Article Updated 1855 Ipsos-Mori But remember what happened on May 1 1997? The above chart from MORI shows the changing to responses since 1997 to its economic optimism question which has been asked in the same manner for several decades. As can be seen there’s been a sharp rise in recent months and now the numbers are showing a net positive. Twelve years ago, just after the election, the trend continued and it touched +28 points – last month it…

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“Labour doing better on a low turnout” – surely not?

“Labour doing better on a low turnout” – surely not?

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A new electoral dynamic or an error? One of the frustrations of yesterday’s public holiday in most of the UK was that the Ipsos-MORI offices were not open and we have yet to see the detail and the analysis of the August political monitor which featured in Sunday’s Observer. For there was an intriguing line in Gaby Hinsliff’s report that went against all the received opinion on voting behaviour – that Labour do better with higher turnouts. Her comment that…

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Could Gord pull off another conference coup?

Could Gord pull off another conference coup?

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Why I’m not risking any cash at the moment? Over the past four months I have studiously avoided the spread betting markets on the number of seats each of the parties will get at the next election – something that’s felt very strange because for years this has been my main betting arena. My Labour sell and Lib Dem buy contracts have been closed down at reasonable profits as I have waited to see how things look in for the…

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Labour back to the mid-20s with YouGov

Labour back to the mid-20s with YouGov

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CON 42 (nc) LAB 26 (-2) LD 18 (nc) So all the August polls are in the same territory Whether or not there’s a big effort at the Daily Telegraph to get us to buy printed copies of their paper I do not know but their August YouGov poll is now out and is not online. The figures are as above with the changes on the Sunday Times YouGov poll – the last from the pollster – in mid-August. Then…

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Could Jack Straw himself be behind these stories?

Could Jack Straw himself be behind these stories?

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Times How close will the Megrahi case get to Mr. Brown?? This is the key extract from this morning’s main lead in the Times that follows on from the leaked letter in yesterday’s Sunday Times. “Gordon Brown was dragged into the centre of the row over the early release of the Lockerbie bomber last night after it emerged that a key decision that could have paved the way for the terrorist to serve his sentence in Libya was approved by…

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LDP out in Japan’s political earthquake

LDP out in Japan’s political earthquake

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Asahi.com Hatoyama will be next PM, DPJ has majority on its own The results from Japan’s general election are not quite complete, but what is clear is that the voters have delivered an earthquake to the ruling LDP, which has governed the country for almost all of the last 50 years. The DPJ has confirmed that it will lead a coalition including the Social Democrats and the People’s New Party, despite the fact that it will have about 70 more…

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Would Cameron have done a similar Gaddafi deal?

Would Cameron have done a similar Gaddafi deal?

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Aren’t dirty deals sometimes necessary? The Tories, quite rightly in political terms, are trying to squeeze as much as possible from the latest revelations suggesting that the Lockerbie bomber’s release was one of the prices that the Labour government seems to have been prepared to pay as part of an oil deal with the Libyans. But what would a Cameron government have done in such a situation? Would it, in the interests of ensuring energy supplies, have followed exactly the…

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Has Gord won the Afghan visit battle?

Has Gord won the Afghan visit battle?

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Mail But will he lose the post-visit PR war? There’s an interesting angle on Brown’s surprise trip to Afghanistan in the Mail on Sunday this morning which has all the potential to blow up into a big incident. According to the paper the Tory leader was forced to call off a trip to the country after discovering that the PM had beaten him to it. The report goes on: “The Tory leader scrapped his own visit – which has been…

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