Tories who want TMay out well before the general election are going to have to forcibly remove her

Tories who want TMay out well before the general election are going to have to forcibly remove her

Comments 0 Comment

First Secretary of State, Damian Green, makes clear she’ll go on I’ve been of the view since June that TMay’s objective was to try to remain in office to fight the next election which, if she succeeded, would make amends for GE17. The “she’ll step down quietly after Brexit theory” has never convinced me. This view is supported today by the minister who is closest to TMay than anyone – her old Oxford friend from decades ago, my old BBC…

Read More Read More

Be careful what you wish for

Be careful what you wish for

Comments 0 Comment

Alastair Meeks on EU politics and Brexit How they chortled.  For three months, loyal Conservative Leavers have had to endure the taunts of their opponents, sneering at the way in which Theresa May called an unnecessary election to secure a Brexit mandate and mislaid her majority.  And now their nemesis, Angela Merkel, has suffered a similar fate.  Despite many months of polls showing them cruising to a healthy win, the CDU and the CSU tallied just a third of the…

Read More Read More

PB / Polling Matters podcast: German election special & Labour conference reaction

PB / Polling Matters podcast: German election special & Labour conference reaction

Comments 0 Comment

On this week’s PB / Polling Matters podcast, Keiran is joined by Dr Roland Kappe of UCL to discuss the recent German election results and what happens next. Keiran and Roland look at the results that stood out, why the AfD did so well (and whether comparisons with UKIP are valid) plus what form of coalition Angela Merkel could form and why the German election result might be bad for Brexit negotiations. Elsewhere on the show, Keiran reviews the latest polls and…

Read More Read More

Conference and its aftermath could be BoJo’s best chance of moving against TMay & becoming PM

Conference and its aftermath could be BoJo’s best chance of moving against TMay & becoming PM

Comments 0 Comment

Could the end-game for Theresa start next week? Yesterday I heard directly the story the story that has been doing the rounds  that the Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, had already got the backing of 38 fellow CON MPs ready to send letters to the chairman of the 1922 committee calling for confidence vote on TMay’s leadership. If this is correct he needs just a few more if he is to pull the trigger to try to bring GE17 failure down….

Read More Read More

Looking at conference rhetoric – the politics of fear and the politics of hope

Looking at conference rhetoric – the politics of fear and the politics of hope

Comments 0 Comment

A guest slot by CycleFree It has become a truism that political campaigns based on fear are doomed to fail. Positive visions, hope and excitement are what we want, apparently. And there is some evidence to support this: Corbyn’s genuinely inspiring campaigning for what he has said and believed these last four (five?) decades, the increasingly desperate Remain campaign and, of course, May’s abysmal GE campaign, which wholly failed to explain why Corbyn’s choices and what they say about his…

Read More Read More

LAB takes 4% lead in new YouGov Times poll

LAB takes 4% lead in new YouGov Times poll

Comments 0 Comment

LAB takes 4% lead in new YouGov/Times pollCON 39 -2LAB 43 +1LD 7= — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) September 26, 2017 This could put even more pressure on TMay’s Manchester conference The polling that’s taken place since TMay’s much vaunted Florence speech on Brexit has not been good to the Tories although the numbers are all within the margin or error. Yesterday the Guardian ICM poll had LAB moving to a 2% lead after being level pegging. Tonight YuGov has LAB…

Read More Read More

If there was to be a new Brexit referendum then LAB voters would be overwhelmingly for REMAIN

If there was to be a new Brexit referendum then LAB voters would be overwhelmingly for REMAIN

Comments 0 Comment

Lots of talk at the LAB conference today of a second Brexit referendum. This comes amidst new GQRR polling that suggests more support for the idea including 70% of LAB voters. The chart above, based on the latest Opinium data, shows the splits by party support if such a move was to take place. Essentially the country remains totally split on the issue and no doubt this will figure strongly in Manchester next week at the Tory conference. What I…

Read More Read More

ICM finds Corbyn making ground against TMay across a range of key policy areas

ICM finds Corbyn making ground against TMay across a range of key policy areas

Comments 0 Comment

Guardian Team CON should be most worried about the economy numbers and pensioners During the election campaign in May ICM asked voters to rate May and Corbyn on a range of nine key policy areas as shown in the table above. At the time, of course, all appeared to be going well for the incumbent PM who looked set for a huge victory. In its latest Guardian poll ICM has revisited the questioning and finds that the position is nothing…

Read More Read More