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Month: September 2008

Is the issue now “Downing Street Dysfunctionality”?

Is the issue now “Downing Street Dysfunctionality”?

How dangerous is such a widespread media perception? Two days the Labour conference in Manchester and time for more reflection and analysis of what is right and what is wrong with the party as its leader he seeks to hold onto office. There’s one term that features in much of the coverage which is highly damaging to Brown – “Downing Street Dysfunctionality”. This is said to have embodied in the farcical circumstances surrounding the 3am press conference in a hotel…

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Could the financial crisis solve McCain’s picture problem?

Could the financial crisis solve McCain’s picture problem?

Is he planning to reject the President’s bail-out plan? Ever since this picture was taken at a rally six months ago it has proved to be a major embarrassment to the McCain campaign which has been desperate to detach itself from the man who has become the most unpopular president in American polling history, George Bush. But a striking image is worth so much more than even the most power set of words and the picture has been used time…

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Welcome to our new look

Welcome to our new look

The possibility that Gordon Brown could be leaving the Labour leader’s job has spurred our efforts to get a new masthead which is in a very different style to the old ones. In the four and a half years since we were established we’ve stuck with incorporating pictures of politicians in one form or another on the masthead. This was good at first but it required constant updating when new figures came in and old figures went out. It also…

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YouGov polls and Guardian readers

YouGov polls and Guardian readers

Why are they always the first to respond? The “quickie” YouGov poll for this morning’s Sun has raised an interesting question from the previous thread from Nick Palmer MP. He wonders “whether YouGov is confident that the subgroup of their panel who reply to surveys within 24 hours are representative? No idea what sort of bias it might introduce, but worth a thought.” I agree and maybe someone from the firm might respond. What I do know is that the…

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Does Labour always get a short-lived 7% conference boost?

Does Labour always get a short-lived 7% conference boost?

Is it time for punters to cash in on the annual polling quirk? On the face of it today’s YouGov poll is great for Labour, a warning to the Tories and bad news for the Lib Dems who have seen all their gains of last week just wiped out. In fact polls bang in the middle of conference season are usually totally misleading and merely reflect that whoever was on most recently was getting an extra publicity boost. This is…

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Big poll boost for Labour… McCain calls for debate delay

Big poll boost for Labour… McCain calls for debate delay

YouGov: Con 41 (-3) Lab 31 (+7) Lib Dems 16 (-4) Two big stories from the UK and US tonight. At home, results from the YouGov poll for the Sun have given Labour a seven-point poll bounce in the wake of Brown’s speech to Conference. In the USA, McCain has called for the first debate, scheduled for Friday night in Oxford, Mississippi, to be postponed. He said he is suspending his campaign and returning to Washington to help deal with…

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Good conference – bad conference?

Good conference – bad conference?

What’s the leadership fallout from Manchester? Gordon Brown – better conference than might have been expected. Speech OK with party activists and might expect a poll boost. Looks like he’ll survive at least until the 2009 local and Euro elections. Good conference. Harriet Harman – will have upset Tory supporters with the personal nature of her attacks on Cameron but went down well with the delegates. She’s still there and she owes her position a contested election of the whole…

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Would Labour dare risk a by-election in Geoff Hoon’s seat?

Would Labour dare risk a by-election in Geoff Hoon’s seat?

Remember what happened here in the run up to the 1979 election? With suggestions going the rounds that that Geoff Hoon might replace Peter Mandelson as Britain’s EU commissioner in Brussels should we be preparing ourselves for a by election in his constituency at Ashfield in Nottinghamshire some time next year? The 2005 result is reproduced above and certainly with current polling and by election performances the Tories would fancy their chances. In fact a failure to win here would…

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