Will B&C be the first Tory by-election hold of the 21st Century? For a party whose performance at by-elections can best be described as pitiful the Tories have had a remarkably good new millennium. For the only seat they have had to defend was Romsey in 2000 – a seat made vacant by the tragic fire in which Michael Colvin died. They lost it to the Lib Dems. The party went through the whole of the 2001-2005 Parliament without the…
THE TORIES REGAIN METROLAND Few parts of the Country were traditionally more solid for the Conservatives than John Betjeman’s Metroland, the leafy suburbs that sprung up in the Twenties and Thirties in West, and North West London, as the Underground pushed out beyond London into the Countryside and connected towns and villages like Harrow, Hendon, Finchley and Wembley to the Metropolis. Most seats in this region delivered five figure Tory majorities at general elections with monotonous regularity, and delivered scores…
How important is a good PMQ performance? Amidst all the big political stories at the moment there’s a special focus on Ming Campbell who, if you read some columnists, is on the critical list. After going through the trauma of ousting Charles Kennedy Ming finds himself under the media microscope every Wednesday when, as Lib Dem leader, he is allowed a maximum of two questions at Prime Minister’s Questions. The scrutiny has been going on since his lacklustre performance at…
Will new polls confirm whether the turmoil is still causing damage? When the May Populus survey showing a Labour deficit of 8% came out last week I urged caution because the survey had been taken against a backcloth of heated speculation and talk of a Labour civil war. Often surveys that take place in such a charged atmosphere, I noted, produce extraordinary results. We should get a better measure of the current state of public opinion over the next eight…
Has the Chancellor blown it through his natural prudence? In years to come will Gordon Brown look back on the second Wednesday of May 2006 as the time when he blew his best ever chance to become Labour leader and Prime Minister? Will he recall May 10th – just a week ago today when all the eyes were on him – as the moment he should have moved and sought to oust Blair? Will he remember the stony silence of…
Why I’m betting again that Blair will survive Yet another week goes by and Tony Blair is still there doing what he’s always been brilliant at when things get rough – changing the media agenda. After the carefully concerted Gordon Brown barrage in the immediate aftermath of the local election results, a brace of poor opinion polls and probably the toughest PMQs of his nine year tenure Lucky Tony is just ploughing on finding other things to dominate the headlines….
Is it all down to how the question is asked? With a Labour leadership contesting looking more imminent there’s a lot more attention being put on polls showing how people would vote if the leading contender, Gordon Brown, was up against David Cameron. Surpisingly there’s a big difference between the main pollsters. Taking all the surveys when this was asked since the new Tory leader took office these are the average changes in the CON-LAB margin comparing Cameron-Brown against the…
New poll finds anti-Scottish bias south of the border With two of the possible contenders or the coming Labour leadership battle being Scottish – Gordon Brown and John Reid – there are some worrying findings for the party in an an ICM poll carried out for today’s “Politics Show” on BBC1. When asked if they thought it “wrong†that in the era of the Scottish parliament a Scot should become Prime Minister of the whole of the UK 52% said…