Why Labour should always assume the worst from the polls This is Deborah Mattinson – Labour’s polling advisor who was part of conference session at the weekend on the polls trying to make the case that Cameron has “..yet to seal the deal”. I don’t know about that but the lesson from polling history is that Labour’s default position should be that the most accurate poll is the one with the party in the least favourable position – what I…
The above extraordinary picture is on Ben Brogan’s blog at the Daily Mail and it’s hard to work out what is happening. It was taken at the Labour conference where today Miliband had one of the set-piece speeches. One thing seems pretty certain – the foreign secretary and young pretender, David Miliband, doesn’t look too comfortable. Gord, meanwhile, is beaming and appears happy. Who knows? Mike Smithson
Will Gord’s ovation be longer than IDS’s in 2003? After the speculation here on the site a week ago Ladbrokes have a market on the length of the standing ovation for Gordon Brown at the end of his speech tomorrow morning. The big question is whether Gord can outdo Iain Duncan Smith – the last main party leader who faced a conference with so many questions about his leadership. On October 9th 2003 the applause at the Tory conference went…
What is it about Labour’s women and Gordon? A striking feature of the mini-rebellion that started only a week ago last Friday was the preponderance of woman who came out in support of the move by Siobhain McDonagh – the government whip whose resignation got the ball rolling. That’s been continued with the replies today of a survey in the Independent’s of all members of the Cabinet. Apart from John Hutton, a long-standing Brown-doubter, Hazel Blears, Jacqui Smith and Ruth…
What can we learn from the betting and polls of September 2007 Exactly a year ago – on September 22nd 2007 – Labour, like today was in conference in Manchester and all the talk was about the “coming election”. There were even suggestions that Brown might announce something in his speech – like this year taking place on the Tuesday. There was lots of excitement on the betting markets and I clipped the above from the Spreadfair spread betting exchange…
Wikimedia Commons But Taro Aso is the strong favourite to be the LDP’s fourth leader this term Following Tzipi Livni’s 431-vote victory in the Kadima leadership this week, five contenders are lined up to take over the LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) in Japan tomorrow. Unlike Livni, who has her work cut out trying to put a coalition together (maybe a 50% chance at best) before she can become Israel’s PM, whoever follows Yasuo Fukuda at the LDP helm will certainly…
News of the World reports more bad news to come for Brown As the Labour Conference gets underway and the party tries to present a united front, there is more bad news for the PM today, with the News of the World reporting that four more members of the government are preparing to resign. The paper says that two of the four are mid-ranking ministers and two are ministerial assistants, although their identities have not been hinted at – they…
But will the polls be as wrong as they were in Glasgow East? A night of four polls all doing very different things has been finalised with an ICM survey in Glenrothes, scene of the upcoming by-election, which suggests that Labour is in for a hard fight. In the seat that adjoins Brown’s and where the party had a 10,600 majority at the general election ICM found that both Labour and the SNP were on 43% each. That’s fine except…