Sensational figures from the Times’s pollster The February Populus Poll to be published in the Times tomorrow puts Labour on 41% – just one point less than it achieved in the 2001 General Election. The vote shares showing the variation since January are: LAB 41 (+3): CON 32 (-1): LD 18 (-2). These are staggering figures and mean that pollster has Labour up from 28% in September when Populus had them in third place. In the same period the pollster…
bbc Can Labour fight on two fronts With the Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, seeking today to neutralise the Tory moves on immigration with tough plans of his own the big question in electoral terms is how well this will go down with Labour’s Lib Dem leaning supporters who could decide the next election. The problem Labour strategists have is that they cannot risk Labour-Tory vote shifts which the polls seem to indicate could happen on immigration policy. Last month ICM…
bbc Let’s do some number-crunching The veteran political commentator, Alan Watkins, returns to the theme of a possible hung Parliament in his column in the Indpendent on Sunday this morning. He notes that he is just one of three pundits who have been prepared to contemplate such an outcome – the others being the former Times editor, William Rees-Mogg and the Strathclyde Professor of Politics, John Curtice. Given current polling numbers how far-fetched is Watkins being? The answer’s not very….
When’s the normal pre-election poll swing to the Government going to happen? The move back to the Tories on the spread-betting markets has continued with the money going on Michael Howard’s party. There are few Labour punters about at current prices. In just two weeks the IG Index “spread” on the Tories, based on what punters are prepared to bet, has moved from 183-190 seats to today’s price of 192 -199 seats. It seems that a lot of the betting…
Are things better for the Tories than they look? The Tory Chairman, Liam Fox, is reported to have set out the following analysis – some of it “borrowed” from Politicalbetting – to MPs on why he thinks things are not as bad for the party as some are predicting. Stage One: Take the current polls which put Labour on 37 per cent, with the Conservatives on 32 per cent and the Lib-Dems on 21. TRUE – and we believe that…
Will anti-Labour voters rally behind the Regiment Campaign’s chosen candidates? One critical side issue of the coming campaign will be how well Labour deals with what looks like a sophisticated campaign in Scotland as part of the effort to save the Scottish Regiments. For instead of putting up candidates in a range of seats the Save the Scottish Regiments Campaign has evolved a twin strategy to maximise their influence. It is fielding one independent in East Kilbride but has annouced…
The Tory chairman Liam Fox has suggested that Tony Blair might “cut and run” and call a snap election. One date pencilled in by Mr Fox’s team is April 21 – two weeks earlier than the widely tipped May 5 – and campaign workers have been ordered on to full alert. Fox has been quoted as saying: “I believe there are a number of reasons why Labour needs to get this election out of the way early. “They are over-borrowing…
updated 0645 After all the fuss about the alleged anti-semitic tone of Labour’s election advertising the party has now launched its main slogan for the coming election – “Britain – forward not back” And if you think that you’ve heard this line before you have – from Michael Howard! As Curtis, one of our eagle-eyed users has spotted, the phrase “…forward not back” was the same slogan used by the Tory leader when he announced his candiditure in October 2003….