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Why we should focus much more on leader ratings and less on voting intention

9/4/2018 Mike Smithson Comments 0 Comment

If we’d done that last June the outcome would have been much less of a shock The publication of two sets of leader ratings by Deltapoll and YouGov over the weekend has put a lot of attention on these regular trackers which the records suggest are a better guide to what will happen in elections than voting intention polls. We know that the voting numbers with one exception in GE2017 joined GE2015 and GE1992 in being some way out and…

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How Labour need to stop worrying and learn to love the bomb

9/4/2018 TSE Comments 0 Comment

Picture credit: The MOD twitter feed Despite its relative lack of salience as a motivating issue for voters there is an interesting discussion to be had on how a Corbynite Labour party can use defence policy to attack the Conservatives in an area of perceived strength. The last few decades of British defence policy have been characterised by constant out-of-area and expeditionary deployments that have been hindered by massive personnel reductions and scandalously poor procurement and program management. At some…

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Despite 34% voters thinking Jeremy Corbyn personally has anti-Semitic views Boris Johnson’s approval ratings are near identical to Corbyn

8/4/2018 TSE Comments 0 Comment

Further proof that Johnson’s going to pull out of another Tory leadership contest? I’m a fan of approval ratings as they are a very good pointers to general elections, as Mrs May’s alarming collapse in the closing stages of the 2017 general election confirmed. So this morning’s debut poll by DeltaPoll caught my eye for this very reason. For many Tories Boris Johnson is the man to win the Tories a majority in 2022 against Corbyn but if his ratings…

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So who wants to be the British Emmanuel Macron? There’s £50 million worth of support waiting for you

8/4/2018 TSE Comments 0 Comment

Tomorrow’s Observer… In development for over a year. Former Tory and Labour donors involved. Plans for radical policies from left and right. But… will this plan for a #newparty get anywhere? ????? pic.twitter.com/A8qs4L1cGR — Michael Savage (@michaelsavage) April 7, 2018 I’m not sure £50 million is enough to overturn the inbuilt bias that FPTP gives the Tories and Labour nor the rules on election spending. Since the 23rd of June 2016 we regularly get stories about a new (centrist) party…

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Why one ex-LAB member has decided to rejoin the party

7/4/2018 Mike Smithson Comments 0 Comment

The UK will never get a credible, electable opposition unless the centre-left commits to the Labour party, argues Joff Wild Has there been a more depressing time to be on the centre-left of British politics than now? The Labour party’s descent into institutionalised anti-Semitism is no huge surprise to those of us who have been watching the far-left for years, but the speed with which it has happened, the extent to which has occurred and the willingness of so many…

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Into the political void opened between Brexit Tories and Corbynite Labour there came … no-one

7/4/2018 David Herdson Comments 0 Comment

What’s happened to the Others? “Go back to your constituencies and prepare for government!” David Steel’s rather premature exhortation to his activists at the 1981 Liberal Conference is remembered – to the extent that it’s remembered at all – as a classic example of over-optimism verging into hubris. It shouldn’t be. For a brief moment, there really was a genuine chance that the old Lab-Con dominance had been broken. At the last poll before the conference, the SDP-Liberal Alliance had…

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Gains for the LDs and Greens the highlights of this week’s local elections

6/4/2018 Editor Comments 0 Comment

Caol and Mallig on Highland (SNP defence) First Preferences: Con 183 (9% unchanged on last time), Lib Dem 658 (31% +22% on last time), Campbell (Ind) 98 (5%), MacKinnon (Ind) 146 (7%), SNP 574 (27%, Wood (Ind) 454 (21%) (No Lab candidate this time -6%, Total Independent vote: 698 (33% -19% on last time) Liberal Democrat lead of 84 (4%) on a swing of 20.5% from Ind to Lib Dem No candidate elected on first count, Campbell (Ind) eliminated Second…

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By 61-19 those sampled by YouGov say it should be legal to use force to kill in defence of home

6/4/2018 Mike Smithson Comments 0 Comment

Clearly the Hither Green incident has attracted an enormous amount of attention and the news about the background of the person who was killed has also reinforced thinking. The party splits on this are hardly surprising with UKIP backers the most likely to support the notion and Lib Dems voters the least. The older you are, as you might expect the more likely you were in the poll to back the idea. Whether this will actually lead to legislation I…

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