Populus: Brown still 6 points behind Cameron

Populus: Brown still 6 points behind Cameron

But Labour and Tories level pegging on main voting intention The March Populus Poll in the Times has the following top-line voting intention with comparisons on a month ago: CON 35%(-2): LAB 35%(-1): LD 20%(+2). So in terms of lead the Tories and Labour are back to an even position after the Tories were briefly ahead last month. In recent months Populus has been showing Labour doing better against the Tories than the other pollsters with regular monthly slots in…

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PB.C Flashback and other site news

PB.C Flashback and other site news

Introducing PB.C Flashback At the site party in January Mike Killingworth (Innocent Abroad) suggested that the archives should be kept because they give an interesting snapshot of what people were thinking at a particular time. As a result I have taken the thread of May 5-6th last year, General Election night, and produced an edited version of the interaction on the site from 9.30 pm to 1am the following morning. It makes a great read and I’ve put it as…

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BPIX: A Brown-led Labour now level with the Tories

BPIX: A Brown-led Labour now level with the Tories

Polling boost for Chancellor’s wider role The first voting intention poll on how Brown would do against Cameron for two months is out today and shows that Labour and the Tories would be level-pegging on 38% each with the Lib Dems on 13% Unlike last week’s ICM survey in the News of the World and the Sunday Times YouGov poll three weeks ago today’s poll asked a specific voting intention question taking account of the Lib Dems and other parties….

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What about the person alleged to have paid the bribe?

What about the person alleged to have paid the bribe?

Is Blair’s holiday host set to lose his job? While all the UK focus has been on whether Tessa Jowell will survive and what impact her departure would have on the Blair premiership the affair is hardly getting any coverage in Italy itself even though the core allegation is that the Prime Minster paid a bribe to Jowell’s now estranged husband, David Mills. For the big issue in Italy is whether the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi will hold onto…

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Will the next by-election be decided on Betfair?

Will the next by-election be decided on Betfair?

Could a “favourite” be artificially created on the betting markets? The strange goings-on with the Huhne betting price during the final weeks of the Lib Dem race raise the question of whether party supporters with deep pockets could influence the course of a Westminster by-election. For in these contests a party has to establish itself as the undisputed challenger – an area of activity where the Lib Dems reign supreme. Any information, however tenuous, is used to get over that…

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PB.C entrants beat the betting markets and the Guardian

PB.C entrants beat the betting markets and the Guardian

How did the predictors do? In our Lib Dem prediction competition, pregethwr has narrowly won from bigbucksbetty to take the coveted PB.C Lib Dem leadership competition trophy for 2006. The top five places went to:- 1. pregethwr (post 86) 1.75 points 2. bigbucksbetty (134) 1.93 3. Vino (114) 2.17 4. Dan (170) 2.57 5. Baskerville (53) 2.67 The winning entry was Campbell to be the leader getting 44.9% of the first preferences and 56.3% of the votes after the Hughes…

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The man who beat the internet pollster

The man who beat the internet pollster

So what happened to YouGov? After weeks of arguing and analysis the big loser this afternoon must be YouGov. After the extraordinary successes in in getting the Tory leadership battles of 2001 and 2005 right today’s victory by a 14% margin by Ming Campbell must put a big question mark over membership polls. The 56.9 to 43.1 vote split compared with the Huhne 52% to Campbell 48% share that YouGov was predicting. With the favourite slot changing hands five times…

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Will today’s winner decide the General Election aftermath?

Will today’s winner decide the General Election aftermath?

It’s 1.08/1 on a Hung Parliament With the next Lib Dem leader due to be announced this afternoon a new Betfair market has opened on whether the next General Election will result in a hung Parliament. After pressure from several PB.C regulars the betting exchange has created a market that looks set to be the busiest in the run-up to the next election. The options are LAB Majority (2.25/1) CON Majority (3.1/1) HUNG parliament (1.08/1). At this stage just after…

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