Harry Hayfield’s May 2006 local election summary

Harry Hayfield’s May 2006 local election summary

“They’ll be dancing in the streets of Witney tonight!” Phew! Everyone calmed down now after the local elections at the start of the month? That’s a relief because boy has this month been a real rollercoaster for all concerned (and to think it all started with a set of local elections that were quite frankly unpredictable). When the dust had settled and the councils all declared it was clear that was just one winner and that was David Cameron’s Conservatives….

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Does demonising the Tories work any more?

Does demonising the Tories work any more?

The week when Labour stopped being General Election favourite A hugely significant betting moment during the week when, almost certainly for the first time since 1992, the Tories became favourite to win the following General Election. The Betfair “Labour winning most sears” price is 1.02/1 compared with 0.98/1 for the Toires. What’s interesting is that this change has taken such a long time coming. Throughout the past few months of cash for peerages, Tessa Jowell, and the foreign prisoners affair…

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PBC Guest slot: Introducing “Red Sky” – a “shy” Labour MP

PBC Guest slot: Introducing “Red Sky” – a “shy” Labour MP

Who’ll succeed John Prescott as Deputy Leader? You’ve heard of shy Tory voters. Well, I’m a shy Labour MP who’s been reading the site for a while. While Nick Palmer and to some extent Stewart Jackson seem willing to post under their own names with reckless abandon, most MPs are reticent about accumulating a trail of comments that can be dug up years later. And I don’t have the time for the running battles that most of you seem to…

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Sean Fear’s local election commentary

Sean Fear’s local election commentary

HOW BADLY ARE LABOUR DOING AT LOCAL LEVEL? My initial reaction to the local election results was that while they were bad for Labour, they weren’t terrible. Having thought more about this, I think the results were indeed terrible for Labour. Labour now has almost as few councillors (in percentage terms) as it had in 1978, and far fewer than it had in the 1980s. Labour’s local government base has eroded far more rapidly than that of the Conservatives in…

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Lib Dems at lowest YouGov level since February

Lib Dems at lowest YouGov level since February

Could new poll put further pressure on Ming? The May YouGov poll in the Telegraph has the following shares with comparisons on the last survey by the pollster two weeks ago CON 38 (+1): LAB 32 (+1): LD 16 (-1). So all the main pollsters with the regular monthly newspapers slots – YouGov, Populus and ICM – put Cameron’s Conservatives on the same level of support – 38% – and this is starting to look fairly robust. But a 38%…

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How MORI’s web-site is confusing polling history

How MORI’s web-site is confusing polling history

The pit-falls of using the pollster’s historical all-firms table With the first major shift in party popularity since 1992 a lot of people on the site are looking back at the data from the final years of the John Major government to find comparisons with what we are seeing at the moment. Many are asking how the Tories are doing now compared with how Labour was performing in the polls in the first year or so after the 1992 election….

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ICM has yet more poll gloom for Gordon

ICM has yet more poll gloom for Gordon

Poll shows the Tory lead more than doubling with him as leader Today’s monthly ICM poll in the Guardian has with changes on last month CON 38%(+4): LAB 34%(+2): LD20%(-4). This is in line with the trend of other recent polls showing the Tories moving forward although Labour has a better showing than the recent Populus or YouGov surveys. When the voting intention question was asked with Brown named as leader against Cameron’s Conservatives and Campbell’s Lib Dems the shares…

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Have the Tories got their northern strategy right?

Have the Tories got their northern strategy right?

Why Cameron can afford to ignore Manchester, Liverpool etc? The above coats of arms are from Liverpool, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield – all great commercial centres, the homes of major universities and with proud industrial heritages. One or two of them, I’m told, have, or have had, modestly good soccer teams. Yet none of them has a Tory MP and some commentators are saying that the party can never return to power unless this can be reversed. Indeed –…

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