With 10 weeks to go to the Holyrood election new Scottish poll has the SNP down to lowest point since GE2019

With 10 weeks to go to the Holyrood election new Scottish poll has the SNP down to lowest point since GE2019

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Chart Wikipedia Could the Salmond-Sturgeon row impact on May’s elections? Probably the biggest elections taking place in the UK on the first Thursday of May are for the Scottish Parliament where a majority for the SNP could be important plank in its effort to have another referendum on the country being independent. If the latest poll by Survation for the Daily Record then opinion might just be moving away a touch from Nicola Sturgeon’s party. It has not been a…

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Starmer’s still got an approval ratings edge but not in places where it matters

Starmer’s still got an approval ratings edge but not in places where it matters

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One of the things that is rarely done in polling analysis is to look at geographical breakdowns breakdown like in the chart above based on the latest Opinium poll. In this case it is really important to take notice of this because of the huge gulf that it portrays between how Johnson and Starmer are perceived in London compared with views a hundred or so miles up the motorway in the Midlands and then the North. The clear pattern is…

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Break open your cage and VOOM: New policies for the Lib Dems

Break open your cage and VOOM: New policies for the Lib Dems

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Margaret Thatcher’s only good joke – maybe her *only* joke – was likening the Liberal Democrats to Monty Python’s dead parrot. Today, the joke rings truer than ever. The Lib Dems have only 11 MPs left. Remainerism, the party’s great cause of the last five years, has joined the choir invisible. Sir Ed Davey was elected leader and nobody has noticed. It is possible he is “just resting”. But Britain needs the Ed and his party to step up, now…

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Polling Klaxon: Why you shouldn’t read too much into a small subsample, see this Scottish subsample as the perfect example

Polling Klaxon: Why you shouldn’t read too much into a small subsample, see this Scottish subsample as the perfect example

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Earlier on this week there was much excitement about that tweet from UK Briefing that the SNP had shed nearly a quarter of their vote which would fit a certain narrative given the recent extraordinary contretemps between Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond, and the original tweet was retweeted with wild abandon. However astute poll watchers like Anthony Wells and Britain Elects plus myself pointed out that the figures quoted by UK Briefing was a subsample of 154 which is nowhere…

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Trump might have his base but for most Americans he’s electorally toxic

Trump might have his base but for most Americans he’s electorally toxic

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The above poll finding from the well-regarded Pew Research sets out simply the challenge Republican leaders have as they meet for their annual gathering CPAC gathering in Orlando this weekend. For tomorrow Donald Trump will be the main speaker and he has already made it clear that he will use the power of his base to make himself the de facto leader. This is Trump’s party and he wants to ensure that those loyal to him will get selected for…

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Labour dis-United?

Labour dis-United?

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Does Liverpool risk triggering a breach between Labour and its biggest affiliate? Of all the elections being contested on May 6, one of the easiest to call should have been the Liverpool mayoral race. On both previous occasions, Labour won on first preferences with a lead of at least 30%. Labour holds all four parliamentary seats with majorities of at least 27,000 or 60%. It is not quite one-party territory – a fifth of the council seats are held by…

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The polling finds Brits top the world rankings when it comes to willingness to be vaccinated

The polling finds Brits top the world rankings when it comes to willingness to be vaccinated

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I find the above polling quite extraordinary and hadn’t fully appreciated how attitudes to COVID vaccination vary so much between nations. The table above is from a Tweet by the Times and shows attitude to vaccinations in a range of countries where polling has been carried out. Maybe the British view has been shaped by the fact that COVID has hit the nation very hard and in per ca-pita the nation has been one with very high rates of morality….

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Let’s start to think about a post-pandemic PB gathering

Let’s start to think about a post-pandemic PB gathering

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I have been reminded that it is now more than four years since we had a PB gathering. In recent years these had taken place in pubs in central London where Fat Steve had arranged for a specific area to be allocated to us. He did a sterling job making the arrangements but stopped doing this when he went to work overseas. Has anybody got any ideas for a future event and is there someone who is based in London…

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