How are you going to do in our annual competition? On January 1st 2007 we opened our annual competition for the Political Forecaster of the Year. The questions that were asked then are set out below. With Nick Clegg safely ensconced as Lib Dem leader nearly all the issues have been resolved – the only thing that could still spring a surprise could be final Guardian ICM survey of 2007. To view the entries please click here – which takes…
Will Clegg’s statement be a vote winner or a vote loser? If Nick Clegg had been running for the president of the US then his comments today about not believing in God could have been the defining moment of the campaign. Just a fortnight ago in one of the Republican debates a questioner pushed forward a copy of the bible and asked whether each of the contenders believed it to be the truth. All of them, including the thrice-married Giuliani,…
Why is a “senior member of the party” reluctant to pay? Followers of the Lib Dem leadership threads over the past couple of months will have become familiar with contributions by “The Observer” who has been a passionate, and at times aggressive, backer of Nick Clegg. He is also, apparently a “senior member of the party”. In a post on November 5th at 8.38pm he asserted that Huhne’s vote share would not be as big as 2006 and issued a…
Who’ll be most relieved that it’s Nick? Wow – what a close margin? Who could have predicted that? Only five weeks ago I entered into a wager with Observer for £500 at even money that Huhne would get more than the 42% that he achieved in 2006. Well that bet is won. (Observer – I do appreciate that we need to find a way for you to pay me without you revealing your identity). Even when I entered into that…
But how will either cope with the Vince Cable comparison ? With the result of the Lib Dem leadership contest due to be announced at 2.30 pm the average entry in our PB competition gave it to the party’s home affairs spokesman with 53.71% of the vote. This is quite close to the 56% predicted by the only media-sponsored party membership poll of the campaign – that by YouGov for SkyNews. One figure that might be interesting is the number…
Did the controversial “named leader” question get it right all along? The above table is reproduced from UK Polling Report’s record of the controversial “named leader” questions that several pollsters asked during the period between David Cameron’s election as Tory leader in December 2005 and Gordon’s arrival in June 2007. These findings proved to be highly controversial and every time I featured them on the site they came under fierce attack. For what was being presented was dynamite. For on…
Are we witnessing a dramatic change of fortunes for Clinton? There’s little doubt that one of the most spectacular changes of fortune ever in UK politics was the dramatic move against Gordon Brown in the first week in October. From a situation where a big general election victory looked certain Brown suddenly started to look like a loser and since then it has got progressively worse. The question for those betting on the 2008 White House Race is whether the…
Should the LDs now work with the 45% Tories to fight Brown? On the day of the best Tory poll figures for 15 years and only two days before the Lib Dems get their new leader there’s an audacious move by Cameron which could prove problematic for Nick Clegg or Chris Huhne. For in an initiative calculated to put the new leader on the spot immediately Cameron has offered to join forces with the third party to forge a “new…