Earlier this morning a former colleague of Lynton Crosby in Australia, Simon Bush, posted a comment on an article about the Tory campaign chief that we had published two months ago. This referred to a complaint he had made to the Times. Because it was posted on such an old file we thought it a good idea to give the comment greater prominence here. I have read with interest your piece on Crosby and his legal notice to the Times…
Does “Tax and Spend” have public support? The economy and taxation are set to take centre stage in the election campaign with three national papers leading this morning that for the first time in more than a decade average household incomes are on the decline – the direct result of tax increases. This will bring to a head the central philosophical difference between the two main parties which was the main reason behind the Howard Flight sacking. The Telegraph, Times…
Should Politcalbetting be part of this voting farce? For five days now we’ve been discouraging individual Politicalbetting supporters from multi-voting in the Guardian Political Blog of the Year contest because we thought that this was wrong and that the paper would take action to stop it. Since then short-listed sites with a fraction of the user base of Politicalbetting and which attract maybe 1% of the comments that come here have seen dramatic increases in their votes and our relative…
Will there be Flight-style sackings of the 17 who’ve signed the anti- Iraq ticket? With the Tory leader, Michael Howard, under pressure for being too tough over Howard Flight’s comments on tax how is Tony Blair going to deal with dissent within his own party by a group MPs who have signed up to making the Iraq war a key “issue of trust” at the general election. According to the Independent this morning 17 of them have signed a declaration…
Has your Tory candidate passed the Ashcroft test? Is your Tory PPC one of the lucky ones who are on the “Bearwood List†– a special group of candidates who are said to have been hand-picked by the former Conservative party treasurer and Belize-based multimillionaire, Lord Ashcroft, to receive extra attention and money to fight this election The chosen ones are said to be in seats the Tories must hold or win and their campaigns have benefited by donations reported…
Confusing polls leave punters – confused If the polls continue to be all over the place we might have to wait until Chris Mullin’s declaration in Sunderland South before we get any idea at all about how this election is going. Last time this result came at a 10.43 pm – less than three-quarters an hour after the polls had closed and with so much civic pride at stake it’s hard to seem them not winning the declaration race again….
Do Communicate Research polls overstate Labour? Yesterday’s Communicate Research poll in the Independent on Sunday suggesting that Labour is doing even better than at the 2001 General Election has provoked a lot of debate on how the pollster carries out its surveys. For ever since the firm began polling for the paper we’ve raised questions about the CR methodology which we believe overstates Labour and understates the the Tories and Lib Dems. A major challenge for telephone pollsters is finding…
On the SkyBet “will there be a hung parliament” market the odds on such an outcome not happening are 1/6. Meanwhile on Betfair’s “no overall majority” market the odds against this being the result are 8.2/1. Unless my maths are completely out you can be a sure winner if you bet on both. (Thanks to one of our posters to pointing this out) Mike Smithson