But the poll suggests that Labour still heading for disaster The October Ipsos-MORI monitor is out this morning and shows a big reduction in the Tory lead from the very exceptional figures of September when the party was a massive 28% ahead. That survey had taken place before the conference season began when Gordon Brown’s problems were at their height. Everybody was expecting a big drop in the October numbers and so it has been. One unique factor that drives…
From a fundraising perspective this story does not add up For twenty years before switching to work full-time on PB my day job was as professional fundraiser running the operations at Oxford, Cambridge, LSE and York universities as well, in an earlier guise advising on a professional basis organisations such as the Liberal Democrats. And from where I sit the Osborne story as it is being related at the moment simply does not add up. The fundamental flaw is the…
How many electoral college votes will he take? With the actual outcome of next month’s US Presidential election now almost a forgone conclusion the big question for punters is where they should bet next – and there’s now better way of testing your skills than trying to guess how many electoral college votes the contenders will win. There are lots of different markets including this one from Ladbrokes where you have to choose which segment Obama or McCain will fall…
How good are current ratings as a pointer to the general election? The fact that there’s been absolutely no change in the CON-LAB shares in today’s Guardian ICM brings to mind the success this series of polls has had in the run-ups to the last three general elections – even from this far out. Just look at the table above showing all the ICM polls for the paper from October 2003 to May 2005 – about the same distance we…
To help you plan your party – Harry Hayfield guides us hour by hour A fortnight tonight the whole world will be watching the American nation and throughout the UK election night parties are being planned. But what about the timings and when we will know the result? To guide you Mike has suggested that I produce this run-down – hour-by-hour. 11.00pm GMT November 4th 2008 (IN, KY) Now, in any ordinary election, the states of Indiana and Kentucky would…
But for Labour and the Tories it’s no change The Guardian‘s October survey from ICM is now out and for Labour and the Tories there is no change on the last poll from the firm just after the Conservative conference. The big winner is Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems who have been battered in recent surveys from other pollsters but not from ICM. The 21% share is not much down on the general election and is the best from…
What will ICM be saying tonight? As site regulars will know I have theory, based on nearly three years of records, that the single most important driver in the CON-LAB poll numbers is the amount of media coverage that Cameron gets. If he’s been making the headlines or leading the bulletins then his party’s ratings go up – if he’s been blanked out of the news agenda then there will be a decline. This is about the quantity of coverage…
UPDATED Were spread punters premature in switching to the Tories? After reporting that the spread markets had moved sharply back to the Tories I have now picked up on the YouGov poll in the Daily Mirror which shows a narrowing of the Tory lead to 8% – although Cameron’s party share is still comfortably in the 40s. In the panel above I reproduce a seat projection from the UK Polling Report calculator which suggests that what appeared a certainty until…