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Can Brown really take much comfort from this? With all the focus over the past five or six days being on the Tory failure in last Thursday’s by elections to make any progress there has been almost no scrutiny of the Labour numbers. Reproduced above are the main party performances in the four by elections that Labour has had to defend since the general election. While not wanting to sound like William Rees-Mogg the votes from Sedgefield last Thursday were…

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Can Dave withstand the pressure? With the polls continuing to go against him William Hill has opened a market on the next Tory leader. At the weekend I suggested that Cameron should pre-empt such a move by putting his job on the line in a “back me or sack me” move. These are the prices W Hague 9/4 D Davis 5/1 G Osborne 10/1 A Lansley 10/1 L Fox 12/1 A Duncan 12/1 N Herbert 14/1 T Villiers 16/1 P…

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But no by election bounce for Gordon The July ICM survey for the Guardian is just out and shows a one point decline in the Labour lead. The figures compared with the last ICM poll a week and a half ago are CON 32% (-1): LAB 38% (-2): LD 20% (+1) The survey took place from the Friday after the by elections and finished on Sunday evening. So the headlines were mostly dominated by Labour’s success and the progress that…

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And ICM looks like another 6-7% Labour lead With the flooding story continuing to dominate the news the Guardian has postponed publication of its ICM survey for July which was carried out over the weekend in the immediate aftermath of Thursday’s by elections. So we don’t know the precise figures but Michael Crick on Newsnight last night suggested it was in the same region as the last ICM poll a week and a half ago which had Labour 7% ahead….

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How are Gord and Dave doing as the crisis continues? As was seen in the US in 2005 the way that governments respond to natural disasters such as flooding can have a significant and lasting political impact. The manner of the Bush administration’s response Hurricane Katrina was cited by many as a major reason why the Republicans did so badly in the US mid-term elections last November. Clearly what we have had in the UK in the past few weeks…

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Are their lessons from what Labour did after Black Wednesday? As we’ve discussed on the previous thread things don’t look too good for the Tory leader, David Cameron, this morning. With two new opinion polls showing Labour in the 40s and reports of Tory MPs wanting a confidence vote this is certainly going to be a period that will test him to the hilt. Much of the current crisis has been driven by Thursday’s by elections in Sedgefield and Ealing…

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