Is this the time to pounce? With Cameron continuing to have polling difficulties and the Lib Dems still shedding support could Brown be considering an immediate general election? The standard view is that he’s a notoriously cautious man and that after his long wait he’s not going to risk it by a precipitous election decision. But will there be a better time than now when he has all attraction of novelty going for him? He would have his own mandate…
Is this the agenda for Brown to make trouble for Cameron? A striking illustration of the challenge facing David Cameron comes from a Populus survey of MPs of all parties in the Times this morning on their views on key social values. A total of 128 MPs were included and were made up of 70 Labour, 39 Tories, 13 Lib Dems and six others. The sample was weighted to reflect the balance of parties within the House. These are some…
How punters reacted to PMQs on Jan 11th 2006? Just five days after Charles Kennedy resigned in January 2006 Ming Campbell took, for the first time as interim leader, his party’s leader’s slot at Prime Minister’s Questions. This was a key moment in his career and, for once, all eyes were on the prospective head of the UK’s third party when he got to his feet for the allocated two questions. Alas Ming came to what should have been a…
A new poll in the Sunday Times has the Tories at 37%, Labour at 35% and the Lib Dems down 14%. This follows a period when because of the transition Labour has squeezed the other parties out of the news. The last YouGov Poll was taken when the Tories were getting a lot of coverage because of the grammar row. It is my theory that the more Cameron is in the news, even if he is being attacked, the better…
Can Labour secure a fourth term? Along with several other pb-ers I spent yesterday at the Central Hall Westminster at the British Polling Council conference on the general election. As well as people from the site the partipants included academics, political journalists, civil servants, representatives from the parties as well as almost every leading figure in the UK polling industry. Lots of ideas and data emerged which will be featured in future posts. Today’s piece is limited by me being…
Is London Really So Good for the Conservatives? Lots of commentators have drawn attention to the comparatively strong performance of the Conservatives in London, in recent year. From winning outright control of four boroughs in 1998, the Conservatives advanced to eight in 2002, and fourteen in 2006. Over the same period, they have increased their number of councillors from 538 to 785, the largest of any party, and regained ten Parliamentary seats, a third of the gains they have made…
Was Cruddas the night’s big loser? The above prices (as at 5am) show the impact of last night’s Question Time programme on BBC 1 featuring all the candidates for Labour’s deputy leadership. By a long way the big loser on the evening was John Cruddas who has now moved out from about 7/1 with Betfair to the latest 12/1. The Ladbrokes price will almost certainly move out when their offices open this morning. The comments by Cruddas on his housing…
How’s Gordon going to deal with challenges like these? Whenever it’s suggested that the West Lothian Question or Scottish devolution could become an election issue and a problem for Brown people point to polls that show most voters don’t regard Scottish governmental arrangements as being very important to them. Certainly that’s true of the theoretical constitutional issues but what about the consequence of having different levels of public services north and south of the border? Two stories in this morning’s…