Has Gord found the secret to PMQs – at last?

Has Gord found the secret to PMQs – at last?

Is an Iraq visit preferable to facing Dave? This maybe totally unfair – but yet again Gordon Brown was away from PMQs and we had to endure a tedious session with Harriet Harman and an off-form William Hague. The thought passed through my mind and to other astute Westminster watchers who I have spoken to this afternoon that Brown might have found a strategy to cut down his appearances at PMQs. Firstly there parliamentary year has been cut back sharply…

Read More Read More

Mori: Labour & Tories down – LDs up

Mori: Labour & Tories down – LDs up

CONSERVATIVES 39% (-2) LABOUR 35% (-1) LIB DEMS 15% (+4) The big change, clearly, is the Lib Dem total and reflects, surely, sampling issues. But the Tories won’t be please that another survey has them below 40% while Labour might be a tad concerned that, in spite of all the recent hype, they have not made any progress. Brown is surely going to be a touch more cautious that Labour’s momentum appears to have faltered a bit. As well as…

Read More Read More

Should Gord be consulting the Golden Polling Rule?

Should Gord be consulting the Golden Polling Rule?

With five polls showing the same thing should he risk it? The “Golden Rule” has operated in every single general election, EU election, London Mayoral election and in by elections where there has been polling right back to the 1980s – so clearly the wise course for Labour is to look at the worst case scenario. Tory polling figures seem more robust than Labour ones. One of the great things about Decembers is that all the polling activity is normally…

Read More Read More

Now ICM puts the Tories below 40%

Now ICM puts the Tories below 40%

Could this make it “game on” for a 2009 election The long-awaited Guardian ICM poll for December is just out and has the Tories down from 45% in November to 37% which must put more force behind the early election band-wagon But, as predicted, the Lib Dems are up to 19% and Labour’s share, whilst still up 3, is still down at 33% – which is the lowest of all the current polling. Critically these numbers put the Tories below…

Read More Read More

What’s the best bet for OAPs?

What’s the best bet for OAPs?

Would they be better off on Nick Clegg at 1/7? On a day when the over-payment of some state pensions is making the news I’ve just been asked by a retired solicitor in his mid-60s whether I could recommend a “sure-fire” political bet that would given him a better return than the miserable two and a bit percent that he now gets on his savings – but was also as risk-free ask you can get. Well I certainly wouldn’t, as…

Read More Read More

Would Gord really bet the farm on ComRes numbers?

Would Gord really bet the farm on ComRes numbers?

Let’s get real about a 2009 Q1-Q2 election Everywhere, it seems, there is election date speculation and the new possibility that is coming into the frame is February 2009. But how seriously should we take this? For one of the problems we have at the moment is that the only polls that are getting highlighted are the ones at the extreme. So YouGov’s survey for the Sunday Times showing a small increase in the Tory share and a small decrease…

Read More Read More

Will we do better predicting 2009 than we did with 2008?

Will we do better predicting 2009 than we did with 2008?

Can we redeem ourselves with the ICM predictions? Tonight I thought that we would be discussing the final ICM poll of the year from the longest running series in British politics – in the Guardian. Alas it seems that we’ll have to wait until tomorrow. This survey was singled out almost exactly a year ago for the PB Big Prediction for 2008. Just look at our New Year’s Eve 2007 thread when we we ran an online poll in which…

Read More Read More