Can Crewe’s loss be put down to McCabe’s tactics not the PM? Even assiduous PBers with a great interest in politics will probably not recognise the man on Gordon’s left in the picture – but he is Steve McCabe – a Glaswegian trade union official turned Birmingham Labour MP who is running his party’s campaign in Crewe and Nantwich. He’s also a government whip. It is McCabe who is responsible for the “Toff” attacks on the Tory candidate that has…
More gloom for Gordon On an evening when several polls are expected the first one with hard information is just coming in. For the Sunday Times tomorrow YouGov reports the following shares with comparisons from the Sun YouGov survey taken last week. CON 45%(-4): LAB 25% (+2): LD 18% (+1) Even though this represents a substantial swingback to the government David Cameron, I’m sure, will be happy with a 20% margin. Other numbers from YouGov have Brown’s personal ratings at…
Crewe TV Iain Dale is reporting on his site that a new poll on the by election has the Conservatives with an 8% lead. Iain does not know the pollster or who commissioned it. The figures Iain reports are:- CON 45%: LAB 37%: LD 14% The only other C&N poll was by ICM last weekend which had headline figures of CON 43% Lab 39%: LD 16%. I had a whisper that there was possibly going to be another ICM poll…
How’s the Sun going to affect the voting dynamics? As we discussed on Thursday night there is a non-traditional candidate running in the Crewe and Nantwich by election who might just pick up enough votes to make a difference in the overall race. And this morning the Sun is going big this morning in its coverage of Gemma Garrett – the reigning Miss Great Britain who is standing as the “Beauties for Britain” candidate. Her basic platform that “I want…
Looking at the details of the Mayoral result? London Elects has now released ward-level data for the Mayoral and Assembly elections. It will provide hours of fun for political anoraks such as myself, and I’ve barely scratched the surface of it. I have, however, come to several conclusions. Firstly, Labour’s core vote strategy, which depended on portraying Johnson as a bigoted Hooray Henry, was successful across much of London. Overall, there was an average swing of 7.4% (on first preferences)…
Will the PM’s £2.7bn gamble pay off? In the previous thread we looked at the latest betting on Crewe and Nantwich where the best you can get is 0.21/1 on the Conservative victory. I think that is going to happen but betting at that price – not my normal way of doing things. I am coming to a view that Gordon Brown has wagered so much on next Thursday that if Labour is defeated by a significant margin then the…
…or have the punters got this one right? There were suggestions yesterday that Labour “private polling” was showing that the by election may not be the foregone conclusion that it appears. I am always suspicious of anything that party machines allow to be leaked – if they have such data then let the party publish it as was done in the London Mayoral race last February. If this is more than just spin to boost the morale of the troops…
Will the “dream ticket” happen whether Obama likes it or not? An interesting scenario on what could happen at the Democratic Convention in August over the party’s V-P choice is set out in this piece from Huffington Post. Jason Linkins puts it like this: “You imagine being on the floor in Denver. Hillary’s delegates, NEARLY HALF THE DELEGATES, are demanding she be on the ticket. These are true believers who have stuck with Clinton through thick and thin. To them,…