Will the anti-Blair factions move back when Gordon’s in charge All the focus from this morning’s YouGov poll for the Sunday Times has been on the relationship between Labour and the Tories and what happens when the party leaders are named. One number, however, is missing from the on-line reports of the survey – and this could make grim reading for the Lib Dems. The main numbers, as reported in the previous article had CON 38, LAB 34, LD 15,…
The Lib Dems drop to 15% Reports are coming out about new YouGov poll for tomorrow’s Sunday Times that has Labour at its highest rating for 8 months – on 34%. The figures are compared with the last YouGov poll taken before and on the May 3rd elections are: CON 38% (+1): LAB 34% (+2): LD 15% (-1). According to Iain Dale’s blog Labour slips back to 32% if Brown is leader, ten points behind Cameron’s Tories who rise to…
Why you should always look at the survey dates? BBC’s Newsnight programme made a big deal last night about an “exclusive poll” that it had commissioned on perceptions of Gordon Brown and David Cameron. This was how the programme billed the survey on its website “Friday – Gordon Brown launches his leadership campaign; and Newsnight has a specially commissioned poll.” It was presented as though it was up to date information although there was a tell-tale line in very small…
Will “Gordon Brown for Britain” go down well with the voters? This is Betfair’s election outcome market and shows how punters have been fairly consistent in their view over the past year that we are heading for a hung parliament. The only change has been the move by the Tories into the second place position. The events of this week have yet to have a significant impact. What is likely to cause a change is the first batch of polls…
How Did the Parties Fare on May 3rd? The Conservatives won 5,315 English council seats on May 3rd, a net gain of 911. The Liberal Democrats won 2,171, a net loss of 246. Labour won 1,877 seats, a net loss of 505. The Conservatives made a net gain of 39 councils, leaving them with control of 206, Labour a net loss of 8, leaving them with control of 46, and the Liberal Democrats a net loss of 4, leaving them…
Is this an indication of things to come? It is an indication of how much we have become accustomed to slick presentation and attention to the fine detail of how they look on the screen from the Blairs and Camerons of this world that today’s Brown launch comes as such a shock. For the moment that Gordon has been waiting since 1994, the official launch of his leadership campaign, appears decidedly odd on TV screens because a large part of…
At what price does the risk become too great? My final bet on Brown to succeed Tony was last Sunday when I got a price of 0.08/1. This means for my £200 stake I’ll make a profit of just £16 should, as seems almost certain now, he takes over at Number 10 at the end of June. With Blair’s announcement now over with and the only possible challengers, Meacher and McDonnell, arguing amongst themselves over who should fly the flag…
..Or will the pro-Iraq war Meacher be the left’s standard bearer? The question of whether Brown will get his coronation or face a left-wing challenge is still in the air tonight after the pro-Iraq war Michael Meacher and John McDonnell, who opposed it, announced that they had delayed until Monday a decision over which one of them will run. The plan is that the candidate with the most backing will go forward to see if he can get the 45…