Countdown to the primaries – My Sunday selection

Countdown to the primaries – My Sunday selection

Is Romney “stretching the truth”? With just a week and a half to go before real voters have their chance to have their say on who should be the candidates in the 2008 White House Race there’s an enormous amount of fabulous material that gives a real flavour of the race and is unlike almost anything that we experience here. So as the build up continues I plan to do a daily round-up of some of the articles and videos…

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Guest slot: Do governments always recover in the polls?

Guest slot: Do governments always recover in the polls?

Andy Cooke challenges the received wisdom One of the most widely held items of received wisdom is “The opinion polls always swing back towards the Government as the Election approaches”. That mid-term blues will always overemphasise an Opposition’s performance in the polls and these will wear off as the Parliament winds down towards the next election. Received wisdom can well be right – there is always a reason somewhere along the line that any given fact ends up as received…

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Could Clarke he be the one to whom they hand the gun?

Could Clarke he be the one to whom they hand the gun?

How big a threat would he be to Brown if things don’t improve? Within Labour Charles Clarke is the one big beast who is still active and who still has the power to wound, if not kill. There’s not a single member of Brown’s cabinet who comes anywhere near to Clarke when it comes to the ability to communicate and put forward a compelling case. He’s lucid, has good diction and has the ability to think on his feet. When…

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Did you take Roger’s advice on our 50/1 Obama tip?

Did you take Roger’s advice on our 50/1 Obama tip?

With 12 days to go to Iowa – what are Obama’s chances? Cast your mind back to May 26th 2005. Tony Blair was just completing the third week of Labour’s third term, Charles Kennedy was still Lib Dem leader and Michael Howard had announced that he was standing down with David Davis the hot favourite to succeed him. The main thread that morning was about a young black senator from Illinois who was relatively unknown on this side of the…

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Can you make sense of the GOP race?

Can you make sense of the GOP race?

As the polls converge so do the prices At the top there is a collage of some of the main figures in the race to become the Republican nominee for the 2008 White House race – a contest that at one stage looked relatively simple but is getting more complicated by the day. The chart shows the Betfair prices converted into an implied probability to reflect the changes in punter interest over the past year. The only one thing that…

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Tories lead down to 5% with ICM (revised story)

Tories lead down to 5% with ICM (revised story)

So it’s only five Grumpy Gordons There’s been a dramatic improvement in Labour’s polling position according to the Guardian’s December poll which is due to be published tomorrow. The shares are with changes on the last survey from the pollster CON 39% (-2): LAB 34% (+4) LD 18% (-1). For both the Tories and the Lib Dems under their new leader these figures will be enormously disappointing. Nick Clegg must have been hoping for some sort of boost following his…

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Sean Fear’s Friday Slot

Sean Fear’s Friday Slot

By Election Round Up Over the past three months, there have been 29 by-elections in which all three main parties took part. 19 were in seats last contested in 2007, 7 in seats last contested in 2006, (mostly in London), 2 in 2005, and 1 in 2004. In all contests, the Conservatives made a net gain of 3 seats, Labour a net loss of 1 seat, the Liberal Democrats a net gain of 1 seat, and Others a net loss…

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Boost for Lib Dems in first Clegg poll?

Boost for Lib Dems in first Clegg poll?

Is there any way that Brown can turn this round? Reproduced above is the December YouGov survey for the Daily Telegraph which took place from Monday to Wednesday when the Lib Dems were getting a lot of coverage over their leadership election. The chart shows comparisons with Daily Telegraph polls not the last published survey by the internet pollster which was in the Sunday Times five days ago. That produces the following changes CON 43% (-2): LAB 31% (-1): LD…

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