Who’ll benefit from a very low turnout? Looking at the detail from yesterday’s YouGov poll of Labour and TU members on the deputy leadership it’s clear that turnout is going to be absolutely critical. If Brown had not got his coronation there would have been a mass ballot to decide the next prime minister going on at the same time and the proportion voting would have been enormous. But that’s not happening and the election is getting very little media…
Can the actor who’s played the part of President get the nomination? The chart shows how punters on the Betfair market on the Republican nominee for next year’s White House have seen the past month. The former mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani, who made his name after September 11 is still favourite but the price has started to ease. The market has moved early front-runner who lost out to George Bush in 2000, John McCain who has now drifted…
Is the Cameron bike back on the road? Two threads this morning with the publication of two key polls – one from ICM on national voting intention and a YouGov survey of Labour and TU members ahead of the deputy leadership election. After a period of solid good media coverage for Labour and two weeks of public infighting amongst the Tories over the grammar school row the ICM poll in the Sunday Telegraph this morning shows a huge boost for…
This survey, in the Sunday Times today, clearly is a big boost for the education secretary, Alan Johnson, who will surely now move into the favourite slot. My only observation is that the poll closed on May 29th before the big Newsnight debate and is a bit old. Johnson will surely move in the betting. Mike Smithson
Has the past fortnight underlined the challenge for Brown and Cameron? The mathematics of the next general election are straightforward – there are more votes to be gained by appealing to the centre ground in British politics than anywhere else. The Tories need to be winning back the voters who moved to the Lib Dems and Labour during the 1990s. The objectives for Brown’s party, meanwhile, are to get back the 6-7% of the national vote share that moved to…
Is Labour Losing The Former Mining Areas? One friend of mine drew my attention to the fact that Labour had fared badly in local authorities across the old coalfields, on May 3rd. Coal mining bound voters to the Labour Party, being hard, dangerous, work, carried out by a completely unionised workforce, in tight-knit communities, most of whose inhabitants rented their homes from the National Coal Board. The comfortable capture of the Forest of Dean District Council, for the first time,…
Should you cover yourself on Harman/Blears? Even though the latest YouGov Labour members poll on the deputy leadership battle closed on Monday there’s no sign yet of the findings being published. In any case the survey took place before Tuesday’s key televised hustings which might have had an impact. Meanwhile I have been going back over the polling data that we do have to see if there are any further clues that might point to the winner. For, as many…
Should we be betting on a 2007 election on Betfair’s new market? Is it worth betting on a 2007 general election on the new date market that’s just been opened on Betfair? You have to select in six month bands going through to January 1st 2010. There’s little money on offer at the moment but this will build up as the market becomes known. What are the chances that the author of the new book on Courage, Gordon Brown will…