Is ICM a further indication of a “sea-change” in opinion? It is a sign of the times that when news of the latest ICM poll started to emerge last night the terms used were simply that the Conservatives had “a healthy lead”. I assumed that meant a margin of perhaps 12-13% ahead and just a little bit better for Gord than the previous ICM low – a 14% Labour deficit – that we saw in the May Guardian poll. The…
According to the Telegraph blog there’s a new ICM poll in the paper tomorrow that shows a “healthy” Tory lead. No figures are available. This is the first survey from the pollster since Crewe and Nantwich and it will be interesting to see if the figures are much different from the last survey by the pollster two and a half weeks ago that had C41-L27-LD22. More follows when the detail is available. Mike Smithson (still on holiday in southern Spain)…
The Democratic Party battle comes to a close Click on the panel for the AP story. On a personal note I feel a little sad. Latest betting on the Presidency itself is here. Mike Smithson
Will the upcoming polling round make us any the wiser? In the two weeks and two days since the Crewe and Nantwich by-election we have had just two national voting intention opinion polls and the fieldwork for both took place during school holiday periods which have, in the past, led to results being skewed. So the upcoming polling round, which hopefully should start with surveys for at least one of the Sunday papers and will certainly see the monthly Populus…
How a Defeat Can Turn into a Rout One feature of the 2005 election was how well-distributed the Labour vote was, in terms of maximising the number of seats won by the Party. A 3% lead produced an overall majority of 66 (or 46, on the new boundaries). One feature of this was that around a quarter of Labour MPs had majorities in the 10-20% range, over the Conservatives, compared to fewer than a fifth who had majorities of less…
How should the Lib Dems handle the Henley campaign? Reproduced above is what happened when my email software, Thunderbird, opened a Henley campaign email sent yesterday from Nick Clegg to thousands of party members, including myself. I’ve included this partly as a bit of fun and to help illustrate a broader question about the by election which has now been set for a fortnight next Thursday – how does Clegg’s party fight in Tory held seats? For in the two…
Are short primary seasons a thing of the past? From the Iowa Caucuses on 3rd January to the South Dakota and Montana primaries on June 3rd, the five months of official campaigning in the Democratic primaries constituted the final act of choosing a nominee for President of the United States. Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton had announced their candidacies a year or so before Iowa, and their exploratory committees had been laying the groundwork as far back as Autumn…
A guest article from Tim Dodds There’s much talk about Labour dumping Gordon Brown before the next general election. Here are some considerations, from my perspective, that may count in Labour’s deliberations: One thing is certain; the game is on for a new leader. The final plays in the game may not be this year, next year, or even before the next general election. But make no mistake Gordon Brown is in an unrecoverable position. The horizon ahead of him…