So what will be at stake in next May’s elections? Next year, there will be local elections in 345 local authorities in England and Scotland. In total, around 12,000 council seats, more than half the total, are being fought. Year two of a Parliament usually produces worse local election results for the governing party than year one. In both 1999, and 2003, the Labour vote share was 2-3% lower than in the preceding year. If that is again the case…
Why is it being unfriendly to the Chancellor? One of the problems of reading the newspapers online is that although the words might be the same the overall impact can be very different in the print edition. Yesterday’s reporting of the Guardian ICM poll was a classic example. Taking up almost the entire front page running across five columns the headline ran “Brown feels the Cameron effect”. The main numbers were featured nearly half an inch big and were overlaid…
Could there ever be a Liberal Democrat Prime Minister? Ming Campbell talked bravely this week about taking the Lib Dems from a party of opposition to a party of government. A few rare Lib Dem loyalists aside, no-one seriously believes that the party might win the next general election. At Betfair, you can get odds of 75-1 against the Lib Dems being the largest party or winning an overall majority in the next election – and only £2000 has been…
But 70% of voters say it’s “time for change” With the Labour Conference due to start in Manchester on Sunday the first of several polls this weekend, ICM for the Guardian, shows little change on the last survey by the pollster last weekend. The party shares are: CON 36%(-1), LAB 32%(-1), LD 22%(+1). The finding that should really worry Labour is that 70% of those in the survey said they thought is was “time for change”, if there were a…
Can someone stop Roger reaching a milestone point for the THIRD time? Within the next two-three days the number of posts that have been submitted to PBC since we started in March 2004 will top the 300,000 mark. This is a major milestone and thanks to all of you for making the site what it – the UK’s leading political discussion forum. We got through the six figure mark on October 25th 2005 when Roger managed to make the 100,000th…
How female writers are leading the way for the Education Secretary In June 2005 one of first indications that David Cameron was going to get a huge media boost came when women writers began producing extraordinarily favourable columns and profiles about the then relatively unknown 39 year old. Just read again what Vicki Woods wrote in the Spectator after reading a piece on Cameron’s leadership campaign on PBC. The Woods “Cameron love-in” continued and reached its peak with a Telegraph…
Harry Hayfield reports on the historical precedents Following Tony Blair’s statement two weeks ago now seems an opportune moment to look at past prime ministerial resignations whilst in office and the effect it has on all the parties. Since the war, only four prime ministers have resigned whilst in office. So let’s start with the first of those resignations back in 1957. Eden had won a sizable majority in the 1955 general election and the polls reflected this, however Eden…
The betting markets move to a later departure date With Tony Blair preparing for his final Labour conference as party leader there was a nugget of good news for him in the detailed data, now available, from the latest ICM poll. For when asked “Who do you think will make a better Prime Minister, Gordon Brown or Tony Blair?” the poll came out 40-30% for Tony. But even more significantly the declared Labour supporters in the sample went 61% for…