What’ll be the impact of saying Plan A was wrong? The front pages of the Daily Mail and the Times this morning are dominated by the same story – a plan by the Treasury to “print more money” to deal with the ongoing economic crisis. As the Mail puts it:“…The prospect of what is known as ‘ quantitative easing’ – printing money – emerged as Mr Darling gave a clear sign that the recession this year will be worse than…
Where’s the money going in key marginals? The big move in the 2005 general election, of course, was the switch of 5-6% of the voters from Labour to the Lib Dems at a time when the Iraq War was still a major influence. Many of the starting positions in individual seats that Nick Clegg’s party will have next time will have been underpinned by this big swing. The critical question is whether these groups will go back, stick with the…
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UKPollingReport Does this point to a Labour standstill or small decline? In the week before Christmas Anthony Wells of UK Polling Report put forward the theory that Labour’s standing in the polls was closely linked with how optimistic the public were about the economy or the level of consumer confidence. He argued that Labour’s low point in the early summer coincided with the low points on the Ipsos-MORI Economic Optimism Index and the Nationwide Building Society Consumer Confidence Index. Thus…
Is the school providing the 2009 betting movers? After the last thread on Ken Clarke’s possible return to a front-bench position it’s quite striking to note how many of the potential 2009 political betting “movers” were all educated at the same school – Nottingham High. Yesterday I put £50 on another ex-pupil, Ed Balls, at 16/1 in Ladbroke’s Chancellor on New Year’s Eve 2009 market. Clearly Darling looks set to stay the course but in the current economic storm then…
Would not appointing him now seem like a defeat? As the Daily Mail is reporting this morning David Cameron “..did not rule out an audacious move to appoint Mr Clarke to the Shadow Cabinet when asked about the possibility for the first time yesterday.” Certainly the speculation about a return of the 68 year old ex-Chancellor has been allowed to continue for more than a week and if it doesn’t happen then it could appear as though the leader has…
Would a bit more frankness help his position? It’s inevitable, I suppose, given the total cock-up in Labour’s communications ahead of the election that never was in October 2007, that Brown is going to be pressed about the date whenever he submits himself to an interview. This came up in the latest Andrew Marr interview and it will come up time and time again. So why doesn’t he make an effort to sound convincing? For perhaps the most damaging feature…
But is this good news for Labour? Almost every month for getting on for three decades MORI has asked its “most important issues facing the country” questions in exactly the same format. Two points are put, both completely unprompted. Firstly they are asked which is the “most important issue” then they are asked to name, without a limit on numbers “other important issues” A striking feature of the latest poll is that the NHS, a long-time political football and an…