Word reaches me: “Milburn planning a challenge”

Word reaches me: “Milburn planning a challenge”

Could this bring the Brown’s leadship issue to a head? Word reaches me that the former Health Secretary and fervent Blairite, Alan Milburn, is planning to mount a leadership bid to topple Gordon Brown in the aftermath of Labour’s likely heavy defeat in the Crewe & Nantwich by-election. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of this but it comes from somebody I trust who has very close links within the party. Clearly something is going on out there and this…

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C&N: Which supporters are most motivated to vote?

C&N: Which supporters are most motivated to vote?

Could the pollsters be understating the Tory margin? The Independent’s pollster, ComRes, have made available overnight the full data from their Crewe & Nantwich poll which is in this morning’s paper and is showing a Conservative lead of 13%. Reproduced above is a table showing responses on the turnout question the certainty of voting rated on a scale of 1 to 10 from those interviewed. The picture is the same as we have seen in many other polls – Tory…

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ComRes reports a 13% lead in Crewe & Nantwich

ComRes reports a 13% lead in Crewe & Nantwich

Updated 2145 CreweTV By election voting shares – CON 48%: LAB 35%: LD 12% A ComRes poll taken amongst voters in Crewe and Nantwich for the Independent is showing that the Tories are heading for a 13% lead. This is substantially bigger than the 8% that ICM had in their survey at the weekend for the News of the World. The first details came from Andrew Grice’s blog . What could be critical here is the timing of this latest…

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Now ICM records a Labour deficit

Now ICM records a Labour deficit

Is there anything that Brown can do to turn things round? The May ICM national voting intention survey for the Guardian is just out and records what is the firm’s biggest Labour deficit of modern times – and is in line with the trend of other recent polls. The figures, with changes on the last ICM poll at the end of April are: CON 41% (+2): LAB (-2): LD 22% (+2). The changes reflected in the chart above are from…

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Will Labour’s final push work?

Will Labour’s final push work?

How much of this is approved by Gordon? With just over two days of the Crewe and Nantwich this is the latest from the Labour in its increasingly desperate bid to hold on to the seat. For after the controversy over the Toff campaign there is a new theme for the final period which is going to make a lot of people associated with the party feel quite uncomfortable. Its attitude to human rights and its view of how the…

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Will Thursday’s C&N disaster make the case for this man?

Will Thursday’s C&N disaster make the case for this man?

Is John Denham the person who can retain Labour’s English supporters? Because of Gordon Brown’s tendency to make most of the government’s announcements himself we rarely get a chance to see ministers like the Innovation and Universities Secretary, John Denham, in action. Doing a video search of BBC news and you realise how rarely he’s given a chance to appear on television. Yet from looking at the five minutes clip above from this year’s BBC’s local election results programme you…

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Oct 6th 2007: the moment it all went wrong

Oct 6th 2007: the moment it all went wrong

Given the dramatic changes we are seeing I thought it might be a good moment to look back to the first Saturday in October when Gordon recorded his famous interview with Andrew Marr. It was this, it will be recalled, that was Downing Street’s way of ending the speculation about an early November 2007 general election and followed a week when the Tories had begun to start their recovery in the polls. Gordon looks a bit better in the recording…

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Three polls that shake Labour to the core

Three polls that shake Labour to the core

Graphics – News of the World Can it get any worse for Gordon? Reproduced above are the graphics that appear in this morning’s News of the World showing the key numbers from its ICM survey of Crewe and Nantwich voter ahead of next Thursday’s crucial by election. Given that a week ago the same pollster was reporting a margin of 4% for the Tories it is very hard to see how any other result than an emphatic victory by Cameron’s…

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