Will Clegg or Huhne be able to win these voters back?

Will Clegg or Huhne be able to win these voters back?

What can we learn from the “Supervoters”? The above data is from yesterday’s poll and shows how votes are churning between the main three parties from those who told the firm how they voted in 2005. In a previous post I’ve called this group the”super-voters” because those with a record of turning out at a previous general elections are, surely, much more likely to turnout at the next one? This has never been tested before. ICM only started providing this…

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Is Gord on to a winner with this?

Is Gord on to a winner with this?

Or could more flexible working just alienate the childless? Generally the most reliable guide to what the Brown political machine is up to is in The Mole column in the First Post online magazine. And yesterday while everybody was talking about how the leaders performed “The Mole” was reporting that the plans to extend flexible working for people with children was what would “grab the headlines in the morning.” Certainly the idea has caught the attention of the Times and…

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Has Gord pulled back on the Ashcroft money?

Has Gord pulled back on the Ashcroft money?

Party funding proposals “put on hold? I don’t know whether anybody at Number 10 read yesterday’s thread on the Ashcroft money but one of the big surprises in the Queen’s Speech was the absence of a plan to bring in immediate legislation on party funding. This is contrary to all the reports over the weekend that suggested the Government would include legislative plans to deal with Ashcroft’s support for Tory marginals between elections. In fact all we got was a…

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Is this smart spin – or just dumb?

Is this smart spin – or just dumb?

Why does Gord allow this sort of thing? On Queen’s Speech day and coinciding with good polling news for Labour the Times is carrying the above story on how Number 10 managed to “con” journalists up and down the country that a local school would be featured in the Prime minister’s big education speech last week. They all ran the story but then when the speech was made there was no mention of any schools by name. If I was…

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Labour lead down to 1% with Populus

Labour lead down to 1% with Populus

Big boost for the Lib Dems Populus, the only pollster which recorded solid Labour leads since June, has continued to report a Labour margin in its latest survey for the Times. The figures are with changes on a month ago – CON 36%(-2): LAB 37%(-3): LD 16%(+4) This will bring a lot of comfort to the Brown camp after the polls from ICM, ComRes and Ipsos-MORI had Tory leads of 5-7%. Of all the phone pollsters using past vote weighting…

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Flying blind on the Lib Dem race

Flying blind on the Lib Dem race

How certain is Clegg’s victory? The latest Betfair prices on the Lib Dem race have Nick Clegg at 0.36/1 and yesterday’s guest on the site, Chris Huhne at 2.85/1. I did notice that there was a slight movement to Huhne during the morning and I wondered whether his confident performance in our online hustings had given him a boost. Who knows? As far as I am aware there are unlikely to be any media-commissioned surveys of the electorate of party…

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Is this what Gord’s opening by attacking the Ashcroft cash?

Is this what Gord’s opening by attacking the Ashcroft cash?

Should Labour go through all this grief for £72,970? Three developments in the past 24 hours have convinced me that Brown is taking a mega-risk by seeking to stop Michael Ashcroft money going to support pre-election campaigning in Tory marginals while doing nothing about the general issue of political funding. Firstly it opens up again the whole issue of “cash for honours” which was seized on by Lib Dem leadership hopeful, Chris Huhne, yesterday when he said that there was…

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This morning the focus is on Chris Huhne

This morning the focus is on Chris Huhne

Take part in the live online hustings from 11am This morning the person who has become the betting outsider in the race for Lib Dem leadership, the former journalist and MEP, Chris Huhne, joins us on PBC for the first of our two live online hustings. This is your chance to put questions to the man who in six weeks might be leading Britain’s third party. Please write your questions in the comments thread below and Chris will be standing…

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