Or can he win an election in his own right? Gordon Brown’s arrival at Number Ten without winning a General Election recalls the other Prime Ministers since World War Two who likewise didn’t enter Downing Street via the ballot box. Their record is mixed, and Brown will be hoping that he doesn’t join the list of “fag-end†PMs who merely finished a term that someone else had won, and when their own turn came to face the voters, ended up…
Where Do the Liberal Democrats Go From Here? Despite what some Conservatives believe, the Liberal Democrats are not about to disappear. They have almost 4,500 local council seats, and regularly obtain 25-30% of the projected national vote share in local elections. In addition, regardless of their national poll ratings, there are at least 40 Parliamentary seats that are, in my opinion, unloseable for them, because of the large personal votes which their incumbent MPs enjoy. Nevertheless, if they don’t face…
Polling analysis: How the votes are churning At the end of last year ICM started a new feature in its tables – special sub-sets linking the answers to each question to what those interviewed told the pollster that they did at the last general election. This is usually made available in the detailed data tables that are posted on the pollster’s website a few days after the main findings are published. Communicate Research now includes a similar information and we…
Which way will the market go next? After moving to its highest level for more than a year following the Labour’s solid poll progress there’s been a move back since yesterday’s events in the Commons. The Spreadfair Commons seat spreads are now CON 271.1-274.9: LAB 287-291: LDs 48.1-53.6. Earlier in the week Labour reached 291-294 seats. With this form of betting punters buy and sell the number of seats they think the parties will get at the election. You make…
The assembled ranks of parliamentary sketch writers had a field day with Gordon’s first PMQs and, it has to be said, the reviews won’t make comfortable reading inside Number 10. Reproduced above is the start of Ann Treneman’s description in the Times of yesterday’s first PMQs for Gordon. She went on: “The event was a slow crash involving one vehicle only. This was no Tony Blair-style Formula One racing duel of burning tyres and screeching corners. Instead we watched as…
Would he have a chance of beating Ken? While everybody has been focussed on Gordon’s first PMQs the other political story that’s developing is a suggestion that Boris Johnson could be the Tory candidate for Mayor of London. According to BBC Online the suggestion follows the abortive attempt to engage the ex-BBC Director General Greg Dyke. Clearly who ever it is has to be a big character if the Tories are to have any chance of ending Ken Livingstyone’s eight…
Everyone says PMQs don’t matter…..but? Just two days short of nineteen months after he became leader of the Tory party David Cameron faces Gordon Brown in the Commons at noon for their first PMQs. The sense of occasion is slightly less because of the exchanges yesterday on the constitutional changes. This is probably much more important for Cameron rather than Brown for, inevitably, governments can to a large extent set the news agenda. With the opinion polls taking a bit…
Could the issues all link together over Ming Campbell’s future? The Betfair betting exchange has opened five new political markets as part of its desire to increase the range of options available to punters. That there should be betting on the two by elections is no surprise but it’s good that the firm has wasted little time in setting them up. Even though Labour starts from extraordinarily strong positions in both seats, as the general election figures show, by elections…