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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Will the “Toff campaign” insulate Gord from blame?

Will the “Toff campaign” insulate Gord from blame?

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…

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Tory lead with YouGov now 20%

Tory lead with YouGov now 20%

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…

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“Tories have 8% poll lead in C&N” – Iain Dale

“Tories have 8% poll lead in C&N” – Iain Dale

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…

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Could Gemma eat into the Labour vote?

Could Gemma eat into the Labour vote?

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…

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Sean Fear’s Friday Slot

Sean Fear’s Friday Slot

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)…

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