One of the ways that French election law operates differently from other countries is that opinion polls are banned for the final two days of the campaign. So the polls that will be published tomorrow will be the final ones and be those which will determine how well each pollster has done. You can see the logic behind the French approach but I doubt whether such a measure would get support in the UK. Arguably the way elections are operated…
Not good figures for such a controversial move Given how controversial Johnson’s plan for Channel 4 is then this latest polling is hardly going to help his move. This is especially the case because of the reported level of opposition from Tory MPs and the need to get the bill through the House of Lords. It is not helped that the minister responsible, Nadine Dorries, was not certain about C4s ownership when she appeared before a Commons committee. This is…
Now at lowest level since becoming Chancellor The figures from Ipsos-MORI are really quite dramatic. These are Favourable: 26% (-10 from March) Unfavourable: 44% (+11) Net: -18. Undoubtedly he has had a very bad couple of weeks since his Spring Statement and it is hard to see how he recovers. His position is not helped by his billionaire wife’s Russian links. Quite whether the once superstar of Tory politics is going to recover from this is hard to say. Could…
The big UK political betting story in recent weeks has been the decline of Sunak In the next prime minister market. Starmer now has a clear lead and the gap is getting wider. Above though is a chart showing the next CON leader betting which has an even greater fall-off in betting support for the Chancellor who is coming under fire at the moment for his wife’s Russian links. My guess is that there won’t be a change in CON…
Macron still the red-hot favourite For all the poll movements and questions over Macron he is still leading in all the surveys and UK punters still rate him very highly. But the 93%+ betting chances of a month ago have passed and he is now an 81% punt. No doubt someone will correct me if I am wrong but in previous French elections it has been illegal to publish opinion poll details in the final phase of the campaign, Last…
One of the things about the French presidential election system is that polling can have a big impact on what actually happens. On Sunday12 contenders for the presidency are whittled down to the final two in the second round two Sundays later. All the signs are that the 2022 race will be the same as the 2017 one with the final two being Emmanuel Macron and Marie Le Pen. The big difference compared with last time is that Macron is…
Today is the second anniversary of Keir Starmer’s election to the LAB leadership and the polls have him with negative approval ratings and his party a small but robust voting intention lead over the Tories. A worrying feature from the numbers perspective is the very high level of don’t knows that pollsters get when they ask samples for their view on Starmer. In many ways the jury is still out. On the Smarkets exchange, the former DPP is rated as…
How can it be done without risking a nuclear war? The sheer awfulness of what has been going on in Ukraine over the past few days suggests, surely, that measures beyond the existing sanctions and sending military aid are going to be needed to stop Putin. My guess is that the Russian tyrant had factored in the current sanctions regime and arms support for Ukraine when deciding on the invasion. Something more needs to be done. Of course the danger…